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diff --git a/old/7174-0.zip b/old/7174-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7df6291 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7174-0.zip diff --git a/old/7174-h.htm b/old/7174-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9febc9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7174-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,20262 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<title>THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.</title> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Marquis of Lossie, by George MacDonald +#27 in our series by George MacDonald + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Marquis of Lossie + +Author: George MacDonald + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7174] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 22, 2003] +Last Updated: August 7, 2016 + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE *** + + + + +This etext was produced by Martin Robb [MartinRobb@ieee.org] + + + + +</pre> + +<pre> +THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE. +by George MacDonald +</pre> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I: THE STABLE YARD</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II: THE LIBRARY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III: MISS HORN</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV: KELPIE'S AIRING</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V: LIZZY FINDLAY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI: MR CRATHIE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII: BLUE PETER</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII: VOYAGE TO +LONDON</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX: LONDON STREETS</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X: THE TEMPEST</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI: DEMON AND THE +PIPES</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII: A NEW LIVERY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII: TWO +CONVERSATIONS</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV: FLORIMEL</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV: PORTLOSSIE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI: ST JAMES THE +APOSTLE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII: A DIFFERENCE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII: LORD LIFTORE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX: KELPIE IN LONDON</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX: BLUE PETER</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI: MR GRAHAM</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII: RICHMOND PARK</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII: PAINTER AND +GROOM</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV: A LADY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV: THE PSYCHE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI: THE +SCHOOLMASTER</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII: THE PREACHER</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII: THE +PORTRAIT</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX: AN EVIL OMEN</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX: A QUARREL</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI: THE TWO +DAIMONS</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII: A +CHASTISEMENT</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII: LIES</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV: AN OLD ENEMY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV: THE EVIL +GENIUS</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI: CONJUNCTIONS</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII: AN INNOCENT +PLOT</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII: THE +JOURNEY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX: DISCIPLINE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL: MOONLIGHT</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI_">CHAPTER XLI: THE SWIFT</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII: ST RONAN'S +WELL</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII: A PERPLEXITY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV: THE MIND OF THE +AUTHOR</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV: THE RIDE HOME</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI: PORTLAND PLACE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII: PORTLOSSIE AND +SCAURNOSE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII: TORTURE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">CHAPTER XLIX: THE PHILTRE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_L">CHAPTER L: THE DEMONESS AT BAY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LI">CHAPTER LI: THE PSYCHE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LII">CHAPTER LII: HOPE CHAPEL</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LIII">CHAPTER LIII: A NEW PUPIL</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LIV">CHAPTER LIV: THE FEY FACTOR</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LV">CHAPTER LV: THE WANDERER</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LVI">CHAPTER LVI: MID OCEAN</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LVII">CHAPTER LVII: THE SHORE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LVIII">CHAPTER LVIII: THE TRENCH</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LIX">CHAPTER LIX: THE PEACEMAKER</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LX">CHAPTER LX: AN OFFERING</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXI">CHAPTER LXI: THOUGHTS</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXII">CHAPTER LXII: THE DUNE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXIII">CHAPTER LXIII: CONFESSION OF +SIN</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXIV">CHAPTER LXIV: A VISITATION</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXV">CHAPTER LXV: THE EVE OF THE +CRISIS</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXVI">CHAPTER LXVI: SEA</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXVII">CHAPTER LXVII: SHORE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXVIII">CHAPTER LXVIII: THE CREW OF THE +BONNIE ANNIE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXIX">CHAPTER LXIX: LIZZY'S BABY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXX">CHAPTER LXX: THE DISCLOSURE</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXXI">CHAPTER LXXI: THE ASSEMBLY</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LXXII">CHAPTER LXXII: KNOTTED +STRANDS</a></h3> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I: THE STABLE +YARD</h1> + +<p>It was one of those exquisite days that come in every winter, +in which it seems no longer the dead body, but the lovely ghost +of summer. Such a day bears to its sister of the happier time +something of the relation the marble statue bears to the living +form; the sense it awakes of beauty is more abstract, more +ethereal; it lifts the soul into a higher region than will summer +day of lordliest splendour. It is like the love that loss has +purified.</p> + +<p>Such, however, were not the thoughts that at the moment +occupied the mind of Malcolm Colonsay. Indeed, the loveliness of +the morning was but partially visible from the spot where he +stood -- the stable yard of Lossie House, ancient and roughly +paved. It was a hundred years since the stones had been last +relaid and levelled: none of the horses of the late Marquis +minded it but one -- her whom the young man in Highland dress was +now grooming -- and she would have fidgeted had it been an oak +floor. The yard was a long and wide space, with two storied +buildings on all sides of it. In the centre of one of them rose +the clock, and the morning sun shone red on its tarnished gold. +It was an ancient clock, but still capable of keeping good time +-- good enough, at least, for all the requirements of the house, +even when the family was at home, seeing it never stopped, and +the church clock was always ordered by it.</p> + +<p>It not only set the time, but seemed also to set the fashion +of the place, for the whole aspect of it was one of wholesome, +weather beaten, time worn existence. One of the good things that +accompany good blood is that its possessor does not much mind a +shabby coat. Tarnish and lichens and water wearing, a wavy house +ridge, and a few families of worms in the wainscot do not annoy +the marquis as they do the city man who has just bought a little +place in the country. When an old family ceases to go lovingly +with nature, I see no reason why it should go any longer. An old +tree is venerable, and an old picture precious to the soul, but +an old house, on which has been laid none but loving and +respectful hands, is dear to the very heart. Even an old barn +door, with the carved initials of hinds and maidens of vanished +centuries, has a place of honour in the cabinet of the poet's +brain. It was centuries since Lossie House had begun to grow +shabby -- and beautiful; and he to whom it now belonged was not +one to discard the reverend for the neat, or let the vanity of +possession interfere with the grandeur of inheritance.</p> + +<p>Beneath the tarnished gold of the clock, flushed with the red +winter sun, he was at this moment grooming the coat of a powerful +black mare. That he had not been brought up a groom was pretty +evident from the fact that he was not hissing; but that he was +Marquis of Lossie there was nothing about him to show. The mare +looked dangerous. Every now and then she cast back a white glance +of the one visible eye. But the youth was on his guard, and as +wary as fearless in his handling of her. When at length he had +finished the toilet which her restlessness -- for her four feet +were never all still at once upon the stones -- had considerably +protracted, he took from his pocket a lump of sugar, and held it +for her to bite at with her angry looking teeth.</p> + +<p>It was a keen frost, but in the sun the icicles had begun to +drop. The roofs in the shadow were covered with hoar frost; +wherever there was shadow there was whiteness. But for all the +cold, there was keen life in the air, and yet keener life in the +two animals, biped and quadruped.</p> + +<p>As they thus stood, the one trying to sweeten the other's +relation to himself, if he could not hope much for her general +temper, a man, who looked half farmer, half lawyer, appeared on +the opposite side of the court in the shadow.</p> + +<p>"You are spoiling that mare, MacPhail," he cried.</p> + +<p>"I canna weel du that, sir; she canna be muckle waur," said +the youth.</p> + +<p>"It's whip and spur she wants, not sugar."</p> + +<p>"She has had, and sail have baith, time aboot (in turn); and I +houp they'll du something for her in time, sir."</p> + +<p>"Her time shall be short here, anyhow. She's not worth the +sugar you give her."</p> + +<p>"Eh, sir! luik at her," said Malcolm, in a tone of +expostulation, as he stepped back a few paces and regarded her +with admiring eyes. "Saw ye ever sic legs? an' sic a neck? an' +sic a heid? an' sic fore an' hin' quarters? She's a' bonny but +the temper o' her, an' that she canna help like the likes o' you +an me."</p> + +<p>"She'll be the death o' somebody some day. The sooner we get +rid of her the better. Just look at that," he added, as the mare +laid back her ears and made a vicious snap at nothing in +particular.</p> + +<p>"She was a favourite o' my -- maister, the marquis," returned +the youth, "an' I wad ill like to pairt wi' her."</p> + +<p>"I'll take any offer in reason for her," said the factor. +"You'll just ride her to Forres market next week, and see what +you can get for her. I do think she's quieter since you took her +in hand."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure she is -- but it winna laist a day. The moment I +lea' her, she'll be as ill's ever," said the youth. "She has a +kin' a likin' to me, 'cause I gi'e her sugar, an' she canna cast +me; but she's no a bit better i' the hert o' her yet. She's an +oonsanctifeed brute. I cudna think o' sellin' her like this."</p> + +<p>"Lat them 'at buys tak' tent (beware)," said the factor.</p> + +<p>"Ow ay! lat them; I dinna objec'; gien only they ken what +she's like afore they buy her," rejoined Malcolm.</p> + +<p>The factor burst out laughing. To his judgment the youth had +spoken like an idiot.</p> + +<p>"We'll not send you to sell," he said. "Stoat shall go with +you, and you shall have nothing to do but hold the mare and your +own tongue."</p> + +<p>"Sir," said Malcolm, seriously, "ye dinna mean what ye say? Ye +said yersel' she wad be the deith o' somebody, an' to sell her +ohn tell't what she's like wad be to caw the saxt comman'ment +clean to shivers."</p> + +<p>"That may be good doctrine i' the kirk, my lad, but it's pure +heresy i' the horse market. No, no! You buy a horse as you take a +wife -- for better for worse, as the case may be. A woman's not +bound to tell her faults when a man wants to marry her. If she +keeps off the worst of them afterwards, it's all he has a right +to look for."</p> + +<p>"Hoot, sir! there's no a pair o' parallel lines in a' the +compairison," returned Malcolm. "Mistress Kelpie here 's e'en +ower ready to confess her fauts, an' that by giein' a taste o' +them; she winna bide to be speired; but for haudin' aff o' them +efter the bargain's made -- ye ken she's no even responsible for +the bargain. An' gien ye expec' me to haud my tongue aboot them +-- faith, Maister Crathie, I wad as sune think o' sellin' a +rotten boat to Blue Peter. Gien the man 'at has her to see tilt +dinna ken to luik oot for a storm o' iron shune or lang teeth ony +moment, his wife may be a widow that same market nicht: An' +forbye, it's again' the aucht comman'ment as weel's the saxt. +There's nae exception there in regaird o' horse flesh. We maun be +honest i' that as weel's i' corn or herrin', or onything ither +'at 's coft an' sell't atween man an' his neibor."</p> + +<p>"There's one commandment, my lad," said Mr Crathie, with the +dignity of intended rebuke, "you seem to find hard to learn, and +that is, to mind your own business."</p> + +<p>"Gien ye mean catchin' the herrin', maybe ye're richt," said +the youth. "I ken muir aboot that nor the horse coupin', and it's +full cleaner."</p> + +<p>"None of your impudence!" returned the factor. "The marquis is +not here to uphold you in your follies. That they amused him is +no reason why I should put up with them. So keep your tongue +between your teeth, or you'll find it the worse for you."</p> + +<p>The youth smiled a little oddly, and held his peace.</p> + +<p>"You're here to do what I tell you, and make no remarks," +added the factor.</p> + +<p>"I'm awaur o' that, sir -- within certain leemits," returned +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"I mean within the leemits o' duin' by yer neibor as ye wad +ha'e yer neibor du by you -- that's what I mean, sir."</p> + +<p>"I've told you already that doesn't apply in horse dealing. +Every man has to take care of himself in the horse market: that's +understood. If you had been brought up amongst horses instead of +herring, you would have known that as well as any other man."</p> + +<p>"I doobt I'll ha'e to gang back to the herrin' than, sir, for +they're like to pruv' the honester o' the twa; But there's nae +hypocrisy in Kelpie, an' she maun ha'e her day's denner, come o' +the morn's what may."</p> + +<p>At the word hypocrisy, Mr Crathie's face grew red as the sun +in a fog. He was an elder of the kirk, and had family worship +every night as regularly as his toddy. So the word was as +offensive and insolent as it was foolish and inapplicable. He +would have turned Malcolm adrift on the spot, but that he +remembered -- not the favour of the late marquis for the lad -- +that was nothing to the factor now: his lord under the mould was +to him as if he had never been above it -- but the favour of the +present marchioness, for all in the house knew that she was +interested in him. Choking down therefore his rage and +indignation, he said sternly;</p> + +<p>"Malcolm, you have two enemies -- a long tongue, and a strong +conceit. You have little enough to be proud of, my man, and the +less said the better. I advise you to mind what you're about, and +show suitable respect to your superiors, or as sure as judgment +you'll go back to fish guts."</p> + +<p>While he spoke, Malcolm had been smoothing Kelpie all over +with his palms; the moment the factor ceased talking, he ceased +stroking, and with one arm thrown over the mare's back, looked +him full in the face.</p> + +<p>"Gien ye imaigine, Maister Crathie," he said, "'at I coont it +ony rise i' the warl' 'at brings me un'er the orders o' a man +less honest than he micht be, ye're mista'en. I dinna think it's +pride this time; I wad ile Blue Peter's lang butes till him, but +I winna lee for ony factor atween this an' Davy Jones."</p> + +<p>It was too much. Mr Crathie's feelings overcame him, and he +was a wrathful man to see, as he strode up to the youth with +clenched fist.</p> + +<p>"Haud frae the mere, for God's sake, Maister Crathie," cried +Malcolm. But even as he spoke, two reversed Moorish arches of +gleaming iron opened on the terror quickened imagination of the +factor a threatened descent from which his most potent instinct, +that of self preservation, shrank in horror. He started back +white with dismay, having by a bare inch of space and a bare +moment of time, escaped what he called Eternity. Dazed with fear +he turned and had staggered halfway across the yard, as if going +home, before he recovered himself. Then he turned again, and with +what dignity he could scrape together said -- "MacPhail, you go +about your business."</p> + +<p>In his foolish heart he believed Malcolm had made the brute +strike out.</p> + +<p>"I canna weel gang till Stoat comes hame," answered +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"If I see you about the place after sunset, I'll horsewhip +you," said the factor, and walked away, showing the crown of his +hat.</p> + +<p>Malcolm again smiled oddly, but made no reply. He undid the +mare's halter, and took her into the stable. There he fed her, +standing by her all the time she ate, and not once taking his +eyes off her. His father, the late marquis, had bought her at the +sale of the stud of a neighbouring laird, whose whole being had +been devoted to horses, till the pale one came to fetch himself: +the men about the stable had drugged her, and, taken with the +splendid lines of the animal, nor seeing cause to doubt her +temper as she quietly obeyed the halter, he had bid for her, and, +as he thought, had her a great bargain. The accident that finally +caused his death followed immediately after, and while he was ill +no one cared to vex him by saying what she had turned out. But +Malcolm had even then taken her in hand in the hope of taming her +a little before his master, who often spoke of his latest +purchase, should see her again. In this he had very partially +succeeded; but if only for the sake of him whom he now knew for +his father, nothing would have made him part with the animal. +Besides, he had been compelled to use her with so much severity +at times that he had grown attached to her from the reaction of +pity as well as from admiration of her physical qualities, and +the habitude of ministering to her wants and comforts. The +factor, who knew Malcolm only as a servant, had afterwards +allowed her to remain in his charge, merely in the hope, through +his treatment, of by and by selling her, as she had been bought, +for a faultless animal, but at a far better price.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II: THE +LIBRARY</h1> + +<p>When she had finished her oats, Malcolm left her busy with her +hay, for she was a huge eater, and went into the house, passing +through the kitchen and ascending a spiral stone stair to the +library -- the only room not now dismantled. As he went along the +narrow passage on the second floor leading to it from the head of +the stair, the housekeeper, Mrs Courthope, peeped after him from +one of the many bedrooms opening upon it, and watched him as he +went, nodding her head two or three times with decision: he +reminded her so strongly -- not of his father, the last marquis, +but the brother who had preceded him, that she felt all but +certain, whoever might be his mother, he had as much of the +Colonsay blood in his veins as any marquis of them all. It was in +consideration of this likeness that Mr Crathie had permitted the +youth, when his services were not required, to read in the +library.</p> + +<p>Malcolm went straight to a certain corner, and from amongst a +dingy set of old classics took down a small Greek book, in large +type. It was the manual of that slave among slaves, that noble +among the free, Epictetus. He was no great Greek scholar, but, +with the help of the Latin translation, and the gloss of his own +rath experience, he could lay hold of the mind of that slave of a +slave, whose very slavery was his slave to carry him to the +heights of freedom. It was not Greek he cared for, but Epictetus. +It was but little he read, however, for the occurrence of the +morning demanded, compelled thought. Mr Crathie's behaviour +caused him neither anger nor uneasiness, but it rendered +necessary some decision with regard to the ordering of his +future.</p> + +<p>I can hardly say he recalled how, on his deathbed, the late +marquis, about three months before, having, with all needful +observances, acknowledged him his son, had committed to his trust +the welfare of his sister; for the memory of this charge was +never absent from his feeling even when not immediately present +to his thought. But although a charge which he would have taken +upon him all the same had his father not committed it to him, it +was none the less a source of perplexity upon which as yet all +his thinking had let in but little light. For to appear as +Marquis of Lossie was not merely to take from his sister the +title she supposed her own, but to declare her illegitimate, +seeing that, unknown to the marquis, the youth's mother, his +first wife, was still alive when Florimel was born. How to act so +that as little evil as possible might befall the favourite of his +father, and one whom he had himself loved with the devotion +almost of a dog, before he knew she was his sister, was the main +problem.</p> + +<p>For himself, he had had a rough education, and had enjoyed it: +his thoughts were not troubled about his own prospects. +Mysteriously committed to the care of a poor blind Highland +piper, a stranger from inland regions, settled amongst a fishing +people, he had, as he grew up, naturally fallen into their ways +of life and labour, and but lately abandoned the calling of a +fisherman to take charge of the marquis's yacht, whence, by +degrees, he had, in his helpfulness, grown indispensable to him +and his daughter, and had come to live in the house of Lossie as +a privileged servant. His book education, which he owed mainly to +the friendship of the parish schoolmaster, although nothing +marvellous, or in Scotland very peculiar, had opened for him in +all directions doors of thought and inquiry, but the desire of +knowledge was in his case, again through the influences of Mr +Graham, subservient to an almost restless yearning after the +truth of things, a passion so rare that the ordinary mind can +hardly master even the fact of its existence.</p> + +<p>The Marchioness of Lossie, as she was now called, for the +family was one of the two or three in Scotland in which the title +descends to an heiress, had left Lossie House almost immediately +upon her father's death, under the guardianship of a certain +dowager countess. Lady Bellair had taken her first to Edinburgh, +and then to London. Tidings of her Malcolm occasionally received +through Mr Soutar of Duff Harbour, the lawyer the marquis had +employed to draw up the papers substantiating the youth's claim. +The last amounted to this, that, as rapidly as the proprieties of +mourning would permit, she was circling the vortex of the London +season; and Malcolm was now almost in despair of ever being of +the least service to her as a brother to whom as a servant he had +seemed at one time of daily necessity. If he might but once be +her skipper, her groom, her attendant, he might then at least +learn how to discover to her the bond between them, without +breaking it in the very act, and so ruining the hope of service +to follow.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III: MISS +HORN</h1> + +<p>The door opened, and in walked a tall, gaunt, hard featured +woman, in a huge bonnet, trimmed with black ribbons, and a long +black net veil, worked over with sprigs, coming down almost to +her waist. She looked stern, determined, almost fierce, shook +hands with a sort of loose dissatisfaction, and dropped into one +of the easy chairs in which the library abounded. With the act +the question seemed shot from her -- "Duv ye ca' yersel' an +honest man, noo, Ma'colm?"</p> + +<p>"I ca' myself naething," answered the youth; "but I wad fain +be what ye say, Miss Horn."</p> + +<p>"Ow! I dinna doobt ye wadna steal, nor yet tell lees aboot a +horse: I ha'e jist come frae a sair waggin' o' tongues about ye. +Mistress Crathie tells me her man's in a sair vex 'at ye winna +tell a wordless lee aboot the black mere: that's what I ca't -- +no her. But lee it wad be, an' dinna ye aither wag or haud a +leein' tongue. A gentleman maunna lee, no even by sayin' naething +-- na, no gien 't war to win intill the kingdom. But, Guid be +thankit, that's whaur leears never come. Maybe ye're thinkin' I +ha'e sma' occasion to say sic like to yersel'. An' yet what's yer +life but a lee, Ma'colm? You 'at's the honest Marquis o' Lossie +to waur yer time an' the stren'th o' yer boady an' the micht o' +yer sowl tyauvin' (wrestling) wi' a deevil o' a she horse, whan +there's that half sister o' yer' ain gauin' to the verra deevil +o' perdition himsel' amang the godless gentry o' Lon'on!"</p> + +<p>"What wad ye ha'e me un'erstan' by that, Miss Horn?" returned +Malcolm. "I hear no ill o' her. I daursay she's no jist a sa'nt +yet, but that's no to be luiked for in ane o' the breed: they +maun a' try the warl' first ony gait. There's a heap o' fowk -- +an' no aye the warst, maybe," continued Malcolm, thinking of his +father, "'at wull ha'e their bite o' the aipple afore they spite +it oot. But for my leddy sister, she's owre prood ever to +disgrace hersel'."</p> + +<p>"Weel, maybe, gien she bena misguidit by them she's wi'. But +I'm no sae muckle concernt aboot her. Only it's plain 'at ye ha'e +no richt to lead her intill temptation."</p> + +<p>"Hoo am I temptin' at her, mem?"</p> + +<p>"That's plain to half an e'e. Ir ye no lattin' her live +believin' a lee? Ir ye no allooin' her to gang on as gien she was +somebody mair nor mortal, when ye ken she's nae mair Marchioness +o' Lossie nor ye're the son o' auld Duncan MacPhail? Faith, ye +ha'e lost trowth gien ye ha'e gaint the warl' i' the cheenge o' +forbeirs!"</p> + +<p>"Mint at naething again the deid, mem. My father's gane till's +accoont; an it's weel for him he has his father an' no his sister +to pronoonce upo' him."</p> + +<p>"'Deed ye're right there, laddie," said Miss Horn, in a +subdued tone.</p> + +<p>"He's made it up wi' my mither afore noo, I'm thinkin'; an' +ony gait he confesst her his wife an' me her son afore he dee'd, +an' what mair had he time to du?"</p> + +<p>"It's fac'," returned Miss Horn. "An' noo luik at yersel': +what yer father confesst wi' the verra deid thraw o' a labourin' +speerit, to the whilk naething cud ha'e broucht him but the deid +thraws (death struggles) o' the bodily natur' an' the fear o' +hell, that same confession ye row up again i' the cloot o' +secrecy, in place o' dightin' wi' 't the blot frae the memory o' +ane wha I believe I lo'ed mair as my third cousin nor ye du as +yer ain mither!"</p> + +<p>"There's no blot upo' her memory, mem," returned the youth, +"or I wad be markis the morn. There's never a sowl kens she was +mither but kens she was wife -- ay, an' whase wife, tu."</p> + +<p>Miss Horn had neither wish nor power to reply, and changed her +front.</p> + +<p>"An' sae, Ma'colm Colonsay," she said, "ye ha'e no less nor +made up yer min' to pass yer days in yer ain stable, neither +better nor waur than an ostler at the Lossie Airms, an' that +efter a' 'at I ha'e borne an' dune to mak a gentleman o' ye, +bairdin' yer father here like a verra lion in 's den, an' garrin' +him confess the thing again' ilka hair upon the stiff neck o' +'im? Losh, laddie! it was a pictur' to see him stan'in wi' 's +back to the door like a camstairy (obstinate) bullock!"</p> + +<p>"Haud yer tongue, mem, gien ye please. I canna bide to hear my +father spoken o' like that. For ye see I lo'ed him afore I kent +he was ony drap 's blude to me."</p> + +<p>"Weel, that's verra weel; but father an' mither's man and +wife, an' ye camna o' a father alane."</p> + +<p>"That's true, mem, an' it canna be I sud ever forget yon face +ye shawed me i' the coffin, the bonniest, sairest sicht I ever +saw," returned Malcolm, with a quaver in his voice.</p> + +<p>"But what for cairry yer thouchts to the deid face o' her? Ye +kent the leevin' ane weel," objected Miss Horn.</p> + +<p>"That's true, mem; but the deid face maist blottit the leevin' +oot o' my brain."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry for that. -- Eh, laddie, but she was bonny to +see!"</p> + +<p>"I aye thoucht her the bonniest leddy I ever set e'e upo'. An' +dinna think, mem, I'm gaein to forget the deid, 'cause I'm mair +concemt aboot the leevin'. I tell ye I jist dinna ken what to du. +What wi' my father's deein' words committin' her to my chairge, +an' the more than regaird I ha'e to Leddy Florimel hersel', I'm +jist whiles driven to ane mair. Hoo can I tak the verra sunsheen +oot o' her life 'at I lo'ed afore I kent she was my ain sister, +an' jist thoucht lang to win near eneuch till to du her ony guid +turn worth duin? An' here I am, her ane half brither, wi' +naething i' my pooer but to scaud the hert o' her, or else lee! +Supposin' she was weel merried first, hoo wad she stan' wi' her +man whan he cam to ken 'at she was nae marchioness -- hed no +lawfu' richt to ony name but her mither's? An' afore that, what +richt cud I ha'e to alloo ony man to merry her ohn kent the +trowth aboot her? Faith, it wad be a fine chance though for the +fin'in' oot whether or no the man was worthy o' her! But, ye see +that micht be to make a playock o' her hert. Puir thing, she +luiks doon upo' me frae the tap o' her bonny neck, as frae a +h'avenly heicht; but I s' lat her ken yet, gien only I can win at +the gait o' 't, that I ha'ena come nigh her for naething."</p> + +<p>He gave a sigh with the words, and a pause followed.</p> + +<p>"The trowth's the trowth," resumed Miss Horn, "neither mair +nor less."</p> + +<p>"Ay," responded Malcolm; "but there's a richt an' a wrang time +for the telling' o' 't. It's no as gien I had had han' or tongue +in ony foregane lee. It was naething o' my duin', as ye ken, mem. +To mysel', I was never onything but a fisherman born. I confess +'at whiles, when we wad be lyin' i' the lee o' the nets, tethered +to them like, wi' the win' blawin' strong 'an steady, I ha'e +thocht wi' mysel' 'at I kent naething aboot my father, an' what +gien it sud turn oot 'at I was the son o' somebody -- what wad I +du wi' my siller?"</p> + +<p>"An' what thoucht ye ye wad du, laddie?" asked Miss Horn +gently.</p> + +<p>"What but bigg a harbour at Scaurnose for the puir fisher fowk +'at was like my ain flesh and blude!"</p> + +<p>"Weel," rejoined Miss Horn eagerly, "div ye no look upo' that +as a voo to the Almichty -- a voo 'at ye're bun' to pay, noo 'at +ye ha'e yer wuss? An' it's no merely 'at ye ha'e the means, but +there's no anither that has the richt; for they're yer ain fowk, +'at ye gaither rent frae, an 'at's been for mony a generation +sattlet upo' yer lan' -- though for the maitter o' the lan', they +ha'e had little mair o' that than the birds o' the rock ha'e ohn +feued -- an' them honest fowks wi' wives an' sowls o' their ain! +Hoo upo' airth are ye to du yer duty by them, an' render yer +accoont at the last, gien ye dinna tak till ye yer pooer an' +reign? Ilk man 'at 's in ony sense a king o' men is bun' to reign +ower them in that sense. I ken little aboot things mysel', an' I +ha'e no feelin's to guide me, but I ha'e a wheen cowmon sense, +an' that maun jist stan' for the lave."</p> + +<p>A silence followed.</p> + +<p>"What for speak na ye, Ma'colm?" said Miss Horn, at +length.</p> + +<p>"I was jist tryin'," he answered, "to min' upon a twa lines +'at I cam' upo' the ither day in a buik 'at Maister Graham gied +me afore he gaed awa -- 'cause I reckon he kent them a' by hert. +They say jist sic like's ye been sayin', mem -- gien I cud but +min' upo' them. They're aboot a man 'at aye does the richt gait +-- made by ane they ca' Wordsworth."</p> + +<p>"I ken naething aboot him," said Miss Horn, with emphasized +indifference.</p> + +<p>"An' I ken but little: I s' ken mair or lang though. This is +hoo the piece begins:</p> + +<pre> + +Who is the happy warrior? Who is he +That every Man in arms should wish to be? -- +It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought +Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought +Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought. +</pre> + +<p>-- There! that's what ye wad hae o' me, mem!"</p> + +<p>"Hear till him!" cried Miss Horn. "The man's i' the richt, +though naebody never h'ard o' 'im. Haud ye by that, Ma'colm, an' +dinna ye rist till ye ha'e biggit a harbour to the men an' women +o' Scaurnose. Wha kens hoo mony may gang to the boddom afore it +be dune, jist for the want o' 't?"</p> + +<p>"The fundation maun be laid in richteousness, though, mem, +else -- what gien 't war to save lives better lost?"</p> + +<p>"That belangs to the Michty," said Miss Horn.</p> + +<p>"Ay, but the layin' o' the fundation belangs to me. An' I'll +no du't till I can du't ohn ruint my sister."</p> + +<p>"Weel, there's ae thing clear: ye'll never ken what to do sae +lang's ye hing on aboot a stable, fu' o' fower fittet animals +wantin' sense -- an' some twa fittet 'at has less."</p> + +<p>"I doobt ye're richt there, mem; and gien I cud but tak puir +Kelpie awa' wi' me --"</p> + +<p>"Hoots! I'm affrontit wi ye. Kelpie -- quo he! Preserve's a'! +The laad 'ill lat his ain sister gang, an' bide at hame wi' a +mere!"</p> + +<p>Malcolm held his peace.</p> + +<p>"Ay, I'm thinkin' I maun gang," he said at length.</p> + +<p>"Whaur till, than?" asked Miss Horn.</p> + +<p>"Ow! to Lon'on -- whaur ither?"</p> + +<p>"And what'll yer lordship du there?"</p> + +<p>"Dinna say lordship to me, mem, or I'll think ye're jeerin' at +me. What wad the caterpillar say," he added, with a laugh, "gien +ye ca'd her my leddie Psyche?"</p> + +<p>Malcolm of course pronounced the Greek word in Scotch +fashion.</p> + +<p>"I ken naething aboot yer Seechies or yer Sukies," rejoined +Miss Horn. "I ken 'at ye're bun' to be a lord and no a stableman, +an' I s' no lat ye rist till ye up an' say what neist?"</p> + +<p>"It's what I ha'e been sayin' for the last three month," said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Ay, I daursay; but ye ha'e been sayin' 't upo' the braid o' +yer back, and I wad ha'e ye up an' sayin' 't."</p> + +<p>"Gien I but kent what to du!" said Malcolm, for the thousandth +time.</p> + +<p>"Ye can at least gang whaur ye ha'e a chance o' learnin'," +returned his friend. -- "Come an' tak yer supper wi' me the nicht +-- a rizzart haddie an' an egg, an' I'll tell ye mair aboot yer +mither."</p> + +<p>But Malcolm avoided a promise, lest it should interfere with +what he might find best to do.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV: KELPIE'S +AIRING</h1> + +<p>When Miss Horn left him -- with a farewell kindlier than her +greeting -- rendered yet more restless by her talk, he went back +to the stable, saddled Kelpie, and took her out for an +airing.</p> + +<p>As he passed the factor's house, Mrs Crathie saw him from the +window. Her colour rose. She arose herself also, and looked after +him from the door -- a proud and peevish woman, jealous of her +husband's dignity, still more jealous of her own.</p> + +<p>"The verra image o' the auld markis!" she said to herself; for +in the recesses of her bosom she spoke the Scotch she scorned to +utter aloud; "and sits jist like himsel', wi' a wee stoop i' the +saiddle, and ilka noo an' than a swing o' his haill boady back, +as gien some thoucht had set him straught. -- Gien the fractious +brute wad but brak a bane or twa o' him!" she went on in growing +anger. "The impidence o' the fallow! He has his leave: what for +disna he tak' it an' gang? But oot o' this gang he sail. To ca' a +man like mine a heepocreet 'cause he wadna procleem till a haul +market ilka secret fau't o' the horse he had to sell! Haith, he +cam' upo' the wrang side o' the sheet to play the lord and +maister here! and that I can tell him!"</p> + +<p>The mare was fresh, and the roads through the policy hard both +by nature and by frost, so that he could not let her go, and had +enough to do with her. He turned, therefore, towards the sea +gate, and soon reached the shore. There, westward of the Seaton, +where the fisher folk lived, the sand lay smooth, flat, and wet +along the edge of the receding tide: he gave Kelpie the rein, and +she sprang into a wild gallop, every now and then flinging her +heels as high as her rider's head. But finding, as they +approached the stony part from which rose the great rock called +the Bored Craig, that he could not pull her up in time, he turned +her head towards the long dune of sand which, a little beyond the +tide, ran parallel with the shore. It was dry and loose, and the +ascent steep. Kelpie's hoofs sank at every step, and when she +reached the top, with wide spread struggling haunches, and +"nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim," he had her in +hand. She stood panting, yet pawing and dancing, and making the +sand fly in all directions.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a woman with a child in her arms rose, as it seemed +to Malcolm, under Kelpie's very head. She wheeled and reared, +and, in wrath or in terror, strained every nerve to unseat her +rider, while, whether from faith or despair, the woman stood +still as a statue, staring at the struggle.</p> + +<p>"Haud awa' a bit, Lizzy," cried Malcolm. "She's a mad brute, +an' I mayna be able to haud her. Ye ha'e the bairnie, ye +see!"</p> + +<p>She was a young woman, with a sad white face. To what Malcolm +said she paid no heed, but stood with her child in her arms and +gazed at Kelpie as she went on plunging and kicking about on the +top of the dune.</p> + +<p>"I reckon ye wadna care though the she deevil knockit oot yer +harns; but ye ha'e the bairn, woman! Ha'e mercy on the bairn, an' +rin to the boddom."</p> + +<p>"I want to speak to ye, Ma'colm MacPhail," she said, in a tone +whose very stillness revealed a depth of trouble.</p> + +<p>"I doobt I canna hearken to ye richt the noo," said Malcolm. +"But bide a wee." He swung himself from Kelpie's back, and, +hanging hard on the bit with one hand, searched with the other in +the pocket of his coat, saying, as he did so -- "Sugar, Kelpie! +sugar!"</p> + +<p>The animal gave an eager snort, settled on her feet, and began +snuffing about him. He made haste, for, if her eagerness should +turn to impatience, she would do her endeavour to bite him. After +crunching three or four lumps, she stood pretty quiet, and +Malcolm must make the best of what time she would give him.</p> + +<p>"Noo, Lizzy!" he said hurriedly. "Speyk while ye can."</p> + +<p>"Ma'colm," said the girl, and looked him full in the face for +a moment, for agony had overcome shame; then her gaze sought the +far horizon, which to seafaring people is as the hills whence +cometh their aid to the people who dwell among mountains; "-- +Ma'colm, he's gaein' to merry Leddy Florimel."</p> + +<p>Malcolm started. Could the girl have learned more concerning +his sister than had yet reached himself? A fine watching over her +was his, truly! But who was this he?</p> + +<p>Lizzy had never uttered the name of the father of her child, +and all her people knew was that he could not be a fisherman, for +then he would have married her before the child was born. But +Malcolm had had a suspicion from the first, and now her words all +but confirmed it. -- And was that fellow going to marry his +sister? He turned white with dismay -- then red with anger, and +stood speechless.</p> + +<p>But he was quickly brought to himself by a sharp pinch under +the shoulder blade from Kelpie's long teeth: he had forgotten +her, and she had taken the advantage.</p> + +<p>"Wha tellt ye that, Lizzy?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I'm no at leeberty to say, Ma'colm, but I'm sure it's true, +an' my hert's like to brak."</p> + +<p>"Puir lassie!" said Malcolm, whose own trouble had never at +any time rendered him insensible to that of others. "But is't +onybody 'at kens what he says?" he pursued.</p> + +<p>"Weel, I dinna jist richtly ken gien she kens, but I think she +maun ha'e gude rizzon, or she wadna say as she says. Oh me! me! +my bairnie 'ill be scornin' me sair whan he comes to ken. +Ma'colm, ye're the only ane 'at disna luik doon upo' me, an whan +ye cam' ower the tap o' the Boar's Tail, it was like an angel in +a fire flaucht, an' something inside me said -- Tell 'im; tell +'im; an' sae I bude to tell ye."</p> + +<p>Malcolm was even too simple to feel flattered by the girl's +confidence, though to be trusted is a greater compliment than to +be loved.</p> + +<p>"Hearken, Lizzy!" he said. "I canna e'en think, wi' this brute +ready ilka meenute to ate me up. I maun tak' her hame. Efter +that, gien ye wad like to tell me onything, I s' be at yer +service. Bide aboot here -- or, luik ye: here's the key o' yon +door; come throu' that intil the park -- throu' aneth the toll +ro'd, ye ken. There ye'll get into the lythe (lee) wi' the +bairnie; an' I'll be wi' ye in a quarter o' an hoor. It'll tak' +me but twa meenutes to gang hame. Stoat 'ill put up the mere, and +I'll be back -- I can du't in ten meenutes."</p> + +<p>"Eh! dinna hurry for me, Ma'colm: I'm no worth it," said +Lizzy.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm was already at full speed along the top of the +dune.</p> + +<p>"Lord preserve 's!" cried Lizzy, when she saw him clear the +brass swivel. "Sic a laad as that is! Eh, he maun ha'e a richt +lass to lo'e him some day! It's a' ane to him, boat or beast. He +wadna turn frae the deil himsel'. An syne he's jist as saft's a +deuk's neck when he speyks till a wuman or a bairn -- ay, or an +auld man aither!"</p> + +<p>And full of trouble as it was about another, Lizzy's heart yet +ached at the thought that she should be so unworthy of one like +him.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V: LIZZY +FINDLAY</h1> + +<p>From the sands she saw him gain the turnpike road with a bound +and a scramble. Crossing it he entered the park by the sea gate; +she had to enter it by the tunnel that passed under the same +road. She approached the grated door, unlocked it, and looked in +with a shudder. It was dark, the other end of it being obscured +by trees, and the roots of the hill on whose top stood the temple +of the winds. Through the tunnel blew what seemed quite another +wind -- one of death, from regions beneath. She drew her shawl, +one end of which was rolled about her baby, closer around them +both ere she entered. Never before had she set foot within the +place, and a strange horror of it filled her: she did not know +that by that passage, on a certain lovely summer night, Lord +Meikleham had issued to meet her on the sands under the moon. The +sea was not terrible to her; she knew all its ways nearly as well +as Malcolm knew the moods of Kelpie; but the earth and its ways +were less known to her, and to turn her face towards it and enter +by a little door into its bosom was like a visit to her grave. +But she gathered her strength, entered with a shudder, passed in +growing hope and final safety through it, and at the other end +came out again into the light, only the cold of its death seemed +to cling to her still. But the day had grown colder; the clouds +that, seen or unseen, ever haunt the winter sun, had at length +caught and shrouded him, and through the gathering vapours he +looked ghastly. The wind blew from the sea. The tide was going +down. There was snow in the air. The thin leafless trees were all +bending away from the shore, and the wind went sighing, hissing, +and almost wailing through their bare boughs and budless twigs. +There would be a storm, she thought, ere the morning, but none of +their people were out.</p> + +<p>Had there been -- well, she had almost ceased to care about +anything, and her own life was so little to her now, that she had +become less able to value that of other people. To this had the +ignis fatuus of a false love brought her! She had dreamed +heedlessly, to awake sorrowfully. But not until she heard he was +going to be married, had she come right awake, and now she could +dream no more. Alas! alas! what claim had she upon him? How could +she tell, since such he was, what poor girl like herself she +might not have robbed of her part in him?</p> + +<p>Yet even in the midst of her misery and despair, it was some +consolation to think that Malcolm was her friend.</p> + +<p>Not knowing that he had already suffered from the blame of her +fault, or the risk at which he met her, she would have gone +towards the house to meet him the sooner, had not this been a +part of the grounds where she knew Mr Crathie tolerated no one +without express leave given. The fisher folk in particular must +keep to the road by the other side of the burn, to which the sea +gate admitted them. Lizzy therefore lingered near the tunnel, +afraid of being seen.</p> + +<p>Mr Crathie was a man who did well under authority, but upon +the top of it was consequential, overbearing, and far more +exacting than the marquis. Full of his employer's importance when +he was present, and of his own when he was absent, he was yet in +the latter circumstances so doubtful of its adequate recognition +by those under him, that he had grown very imperious, and +resented with indignation the slightest breach of his orders. +Hence he was in no great favour with the fishers.</p> + +<p>Now all the day he had been fuming over Malcolm's behaviour to +him in the morning, and when he went home and learned that his +wife had seen him upon Kelpie, as if nothing had happened, he +became furious, and, in this possession of the devil, was at the +present moment wandering about the grounds, brooding on the words +Malcolm had spoken. He could not get rid of them. They caused an +acrid burning in his bosom, for they had in them truth, like +which no poison stings.</p> + +<p>Malcolm, having crossed by the great bridge at the house, +hurried down the western side of the burn to find Lizzy, and soon +came upon her, walking up and down.</p> + +<p>"Eh, lassie, ye maun be cauld!" he said.</p> + +<p>"No that cauld," she answered, and with the words burst into +tears: "But naebody says a kin' word to me noo," she said in +excuse, "an' I canna weel bide the soun' o' ane when it comes; +I'm no used till 't."</p> + +<p>"Naebody?" exclaimed Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Na, naebody," she answered. "My mither winna, my father +daurna, an' the bairnie canna, an I gang near naebody +forbye."</p> + +<p>"Weel, we maunna stan' oot here i' the cauld: come this gait," +said Malcolm. "The bairnie 'll get its deid."</p> + +<p>"There wadna be mony to greit at that," returned Lizzy, and +pressed the child closer to her bosom.</p> + +<p>Malcolm led the way to the little chamber contrived under the +temple in the heart of the hill, and unlocking the door made her +enter. There he seated her in a comfortable chair, and wrapped +her in the plaid he had brought for the purpose. It was all he +could do to keep from taking her in his arms for very pity, for, +both body and soul, she seemed too frozen to shiver. He shut the +door, sat down on the table near her, and said:</p> + +<p>"There's naebody to disturb 's here, Lizzy: what wad ye say to +me noo?"</p> + +<p>The sun was nearly down, and its light already almost +smothered in clouds, so that the little chamber, whose door and +window were in the deep shadow of the hill, was nearly dark.</p> + +<p>"I wadna hae ye tell me onything ye promised no to tell," +resumed Malcolm, finding she did not reply, "but I wad like to +hear as muckle as ye can say."</p> + +<p>"I hae naething to tell ye, Ma'colm, but jist 'at my leddy +Florimel's gauin' to be merried upo' Lord Meikleham -- Lord +Liftore, they ca' him noo. Hech me!"</p> + +<p>"God forbid she sud be merried upon ony sic a bla'guard!" +cried Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Dinna ca' 'im ill names, Ma'colm. I canna bide it, though I +hae no richt to tak up the stick for him."</p> + +<p>"I wadna say a word 'at micht fa' sair on a sair hert," he +returned; "but gien ye kent a', ye wad ken I hed a gey sized craw +to pluck wi' 's lordship mysel'."</p> + +<p>The girl gave a low cry.</p> + +<p>"Ye wadna hurt 'im, Ma'colm?" she said, in terror at the +thought of the elegant youth in the clutches of an angry +fisherman, even if he were the generous Malcolm MacPhail +himself.</p> + +<p>"I wad raither not," he replied, "but we maun see hoo he +cairries himsel'."</p> + +<p>"Du naething till 'im for my sake, Ma'colm. Ye can hae +naething again' him yersel'."</p> + +<p>It was too dark for Malcolm to see the keen look of wistful +regret with which Lizzy tried to pierce the gloom and read his +face: for a moment the poor girl thought he meant he had loved +her himself. But far other thoughts were in Malcolm's mind: one +was that her whom, as a scarce approachable goddess, he had loved +before he knew her of his own blood, he would rather see married +to an honest fisherman in the Seaton of Portlossie, than to such +a lord as Meikleham. He had seen enough of him at Lossie House to +know what he was, and puritanical fish catching Malcolm had ideas +above those of most marquises of his day: the thought of the +alliance was horrible to him. It was possibly not inevitable, +however; only what could he do, and at the same time avoid +grievous hurt?</p> + +<p>"I dinna think he'll ever merry my leddy," he said.</p> + +<p>"What gars ye say that, Ma'colm?" returned Lizzy, with +eagerness.</p> + +<p>"I canna tell ye jist i' the noo; but ye ken a body canna weel +be aye aboot a place ohn seein things. I'll tell ye something o' +mair consequence hooever," he continued. . "Some fowk say there's +a God, an' some say there's nane, an' I ha'e no richt to preach +to ye, Lizzy; but I maun jist tell ye this -- 'at gien God dinna +help them 'at cry till 'im i' the warst o' tribles, they micht +jist as weel ha'e nae God at a'. For my ain pairt I ha'e been +helpit, an' I think it was him intil 't. Wi' his help, a man may +warstle throu' onything. I say I think it was himsel' tuik me +throu' 't, an' here I stan' afore ye, ready for the neist trible, +an' the help 'at 'll come wi' 't. What it may be, God only +knows!"</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI: MR +CRATHIE</h1> + +<p>He was interrupted by the sudden opening of the door, and the +voice of the factor in exultant wrath.</p> + +<p>"MacPhail!" it cried. "Come out with you. Don't think to sneak +there. I know you. What right have you to be on the premises? +Didn't I send you about your business this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, sir, but ye didna pay me my wages," said Malcolm, who had +sprung to the door and now stood holding it half shut, while Mr +Crathie pushed it half open.</p> + +<p>"No matter. You're nothing better than a housebreaker if you +enter any building about the place."</p> + +<p>"I brak nae lock," returned Malcolm. "I ha'e the key my lord +gae me to ilka place 'ithin the wa's excep' the strong room."</p> + +<p>"Give it me directly. I'm master here now."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, I s' du nae sic thing, sir. What he gae me I'll +keep."</p> + +<p>"Give up that key, or I'll go at once and get a warrant +against you for theft."</p> + +<p>"Weel, we s' refar't to Maister Soutar."</p> + +<p>"Damn your impudence -- 'at I sud say't! -- what has he to do +with my affairs? Come out of that directly."</p> + +<p>"Huly, huly, sir!" returned Malcolm, in terror lest he should +discover who was with him.</p> + +<p>"You low bred rascal! Who have you there with you?"</p> + +<p>As he spoke Mr Crathie would have forced his way into the +dusky chamber, where he could just perceive a motionless +undefined form. But stiff as a statue Malcolm kept his stand, and +the door was immovable. Mr Crathie gave a second and angrier +push, but the youth's corporeal as well as his mental equilibrium +was hard to upset, and his enemy drew back in mounting fury.</p> + +<p>"Get out of there," he cried, "or I'll horsewhip you for a +damned blackguard."</p> + +<p>"Whup awa'," said Malcolm, "but in here ye s' no come the +nicht."</p> + +<p>The factor rushed at him, his heavy whip upheaved -- and the +same moment found himself, not in the room, but lying on the +flower bed in front of it. Malcolm instantly stepped out, locked +the door, put the key in his pocket, and turned to assist him. +But he was up already, and busy with words unbefitting the mouth +of an elder of the kirk.</p> + +<p>"Didna I say 'at ye sudna come in, sir? What for wull fowk no +tak' a tellin'?" expostulated Malcolm.</p> + +<p>But the factor was far beyond force of logic or illumination +of reason. He raved and swore.</p> + +<p>"Get oot o' my sicht," he cried, "or I'll shot ye like a +tyke."</p> + +<p>"Gang an' fess yer gun," said Malcolm, "an' gien ye fin' me +waitin' for ye, ye can lat at me."</p> + +<p>The factor uttered a horrible imprecation on himself if he did +not make him pay dearly for his behaviour.</p> + +<p>"Hoots, sir! Be asham't o' yersel'. Gang hame to the mistress, +an' I s' be up the morn's mornin' for my wages."</p> + +<p>"If ye set foot on the grounds again, I'll set every dog in +the place upon you."</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed.</p> + +<p>"Gien I was to turn the order the ither gait, wad they min' +you or me, div ye think, Maister Crathie?"</p> + +<p>"Give me that key, and go about your business."</p> + +<p>"Na, na, sir! What my lord gae me I s' keep -- for a' the +factors atween this an' the Land's En'," returned Malcolm. "An' +for lea'in' the place, gien I be na in your service, Maister +Crathie, I'm nae un'er your orders. I'll gang whan it shuits me. +An' mair yet, ye s' gang oot o' this first, or I s' gar ye, an +that ye'll see:'</p> + +<p>It was a violent proceeding, but for a matter of manners he +was not going to risk what of her good name poor Lizzy had left: +like the books of the Sibyl, that grew in value. He made, +however, but one threatful stride towards the factor, for the +great man turned and fled.</p> + +<p>The moment he was out of sight, Malcolm unlocked the door, led +Lizzy out, and brought her through the tunnel to the sands. There +he left her, and set out for Scaurnose.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII: BLUE +PETER</h1> + +<p>The door of Blue Peter's cottage was opened by his sister. Not +much at home in the summer, when she carried fish to the country, +she was very little absent in the winter, and as there was but +one room for all uses, except the closet bedroom and the garret +at the top of the ladder, Malcolm, instead of going in, called to +his friend, whom he saw by the fire with his little Phemy upon +his knee, to come out and speak to him.</p> + +<p>Blue Peter at once obeyed the summons.</p> + +<p>"There's naething wrang, I houp, Ma'colm?" he said, as he +closed the door behind him.</p> + +<p>"Maister Graham wad say," returned Malcolm, "naething ever was +wrang but what ye did wrang yersel', or wadna pit richt whan ye +had a chance. I ha'e him nae mair to gang till, Joseph, an' sae +I'm come to you. Come doon by, an' i' the scoug o' a rock, I'll +tell ye a' aboot it."</p> + +<p>"Ye wadna ha'e the mistress no ken o' 't?" said his friend. "I +dinna jist like haein' secrets frae her."</p> + +<p>"Ye sall jeedge for yersel', man, an' tell her or no just as +ye like. Only she maun haud her tongue, or the black dog 'll ha'e +a' the butter."</p> + +<p>"She can haud her tongue like the tae stane o' a grave," said +Peter.</p> + +<p>As they spoke they reached the cliff that hung over the +shattered shore. It was a clear, cold night. Snow, the remnants +of the last storm, which frost had preserved in every shadowy +spot, lay all about them. The sky was clear, and full of stars, +for the wind that blew cold from the northwest had dispelled the +snowy clouds. The waves rushed into countless gulfs and crannies +and straits on the ruggedest of shores, and the sounds of waves +and wind kept calling like voices from the unseen. By a path, +seemingly fitter for goats than men, they descended halfway to +the beach, and under a great projection of rock stood sheltered +from the wind. Then Malcolm turned to Joseph Mair, commonly +called Blue Peter, because he had been a man of war's man, and +laying his hand on his arm said:</p> + +<p>"Blue Peter, did ever I tell ye a lee?"</p> + +<p>"No, never," answered Peter. "What gars ye speir sic a +thing?"</p> + +<p>"Cause I want ye to believe me noo, an' it winna be easy."</p> + +<p>"I'll believe onything ye tell me -- 'at can be believed."</p> + +<p>"Weel, I ha'e come to the knowledge 'at my name's no MacPhail: +it's Colonsay. Man, I'm the Markis o' Lossie."</p> + +<p>Without a moment's hesitation, without a single stare of +unbelief or even astonishment, Blue Peter pulled off his bonnet, +and stood bareheaded before the companion of his toils.</p> + +<p>"Peter!" cried Malcolm, "dinna brak my hert: put on yer +bonnet."</p> + +<p>"The Lord o' lords be thankit, my lord!" said Blue Peter: "the +puir man has a freen' this day."</p> + +<p>Then replacing his bonnet he said -- "An' what'll be yer +lordship's wull?"</p> + +<p>"First and foremost, Peter, that my best freen', efter my auld +daddy and the schulemaister, 's no to turn again' me 'cause I hed +a markis an' neither piper nor fisher to my father."</p> + +<p>"It's no like it, my lord," returned Blue Peter, "whan the +first thing I say is -- what wad ye ha'e o' me? Here I am -- no +speirin' a queston!"</p> + +<p>"Weel, I wad ha'e ye hear the story o' 't a'."</p> + +<p>"Say on, my lord," said Peter.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm was silent for a few moments.</p> + +<p>"I was thinkin', Peter," he said at last, "whether I cud bide +to hear you say my lord to me. Dootless, as it 'll ha'e to come +to that, it wad be better to grow used till 't while we're +thegither, sae 'at whan it maun be, it mayna ha'e the luik o' +cheenge until it, for cheenge is jist the thing I canna bide. I' +the meantime, hooever, we canna gi'e in till 't, 'cause it wad +set fowk jaloosin'. But I wad be obleeged till ye, Peter, gien +you wad say my lord whiles, whan we're oor lanes, for I wad fain +grow sae used till't 'at I never kent ye said it, for 'atween you +an' me I dinna like it. An' noo I s' tell ye a' 'at I ken."</p> + +<p>When he had ended the tale of what had come to his knowledge, +and how it had come, and paused:</p> + +<p>"Gie's a grup o' yer han', my lord," said Blue Peter, "an' may +God haud ye lang in life an' honour to reule ower us. Noo, gien +ye please, what are ye gauin' to du?"</p> + +<p>"Tell ye me, Peter, what ye think I oucht to du."</p> + +<p>"That wad tak a heap o' thinkin'," returned the fisherman; +"but ae thing seems aboot plain: ye ha'e no richt to lat yer +sister gang exposed to temptations ye cud haud frae her. That's +no, as ye promised, to be kin' till her. I canna believe that's +hoo yer father expeckit o' ye. I ken weel 'at fowk in his +poseetion ha'ena the preevileeges o' the like o' hiz -- they +ha'ena the win, an' the watter, an' whiles a lee shore to gar +them know they are but men, an' sen' them rattling at the wicket +of h'aven; but still I dinna think, by yer ain accoont, specially +noo 'at I houp he's forgi'en an' latten in -- God grant it! -- I +div not think he wad like my leddy Florimel to be oon'er the +influences o' sic a ane as that Leddy Bellair. Ye maun gang till +her. Ye ha'e nae ch'ice, my lord."</p> + +<p>"But what am I to do, whan I div gang?"</p> + +<p>"That's what ye hev to gang an' see."</p> + +<p>"An' that's what I ha'e been tellin' mysel', an' what Miss +Horn's been tellin' me tu. But it's a gran' thing to get yer ain +thouchts corroborat. Ye see I'm feart for wrangin' her for pride, +and bringin' her doon to set mysel' up."</p> + +<p>"My lord," said Blue Peter, solemnly, "ye ken the life o' puir +fisher fowk; ye ken hoo it micht be lichtened, sae lang as it +laists, an' mony a hole steikit 'at the cauld deith creeps in at +the noo: coont ye them naething, my lord? Coont ye the wull o' +Providence, 'at sets ye ower them, naething? What for could the +Lord ha'e gie ye sic an upbringin' as no markis' son ever hed +afore ye, or maybe ever wull ha'e efter ye, gien it bena 'at ye +sud tak them in han' to du yer pairt by them? Gien ye forsak them +noo, ye'll be forgettin' him 'at made them an' you, an' the sea, +an' the herrin' to be taen intil 't. Gien ye forget them, there's +nae houp for them, but the same deith 'ill keep on swallowin' at +them upo' sea an' shore."</p> + +<p>"Ye speyk the trowth as I ha'e spoken't till mysel', Peter. +Noo, hearken: will ye sail wi' me the nicht for Lon'on toon?" The +fisherman was silent a moment -- then answered, "I wull, my lord; +but I maun tell my wife."</p> + +<p>"Rin, an' fess her here than, for I'm fleyed at yer sister, +honest wuman, an' little Phemy. It wad blaud a' thing gien I was +hurried to du something afore I kenned what."</p> + +<p>"I s' ha'e her oot in a meenute," said Joseph, and scrambled +up the cliff.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII: +VOYAGE TO LONDON</h1> + +<p>For a few minutes Malcolm stood alone in the dim starlight of +winter, looking out on the dusky sea, dark as his own future, +into which the wind now blowing behind him would soon begin to +carry him. He anticipated its difficulties, but never thought of +perils: it was seldom anything oppressed him but the doubt of +what he ought to do. This was ever the cold mist that swallowed +the airy castles he built and peopled with all the friends and +acquaintances of his youth. But the very first step towards +action is the death warrant of doubt, and the tide of Malcolm's +being ran higher that night, as he stood thus alone under the +stars, than he had ever yet known it run. With all his common +sense, and the abundance of his philosophy, which the much +leisure belonging to certain phases of his life had combined with +the slow strength of his intellect to render somewhat long winded +in utterance, there was yet room in Malcolm's bonnet for a bee +above the ordinary size, and if it buzzed a little too +romantically for the taste of the nineteenth century, about +disguises and surprises and bounty and plots and rescues and such +like, something must be pardoned to one whose experience had +already been so greatly out of the common, and whose nature was +far too childlike and poetic, and developed in far too simple a +surrounding of labour and success, difficulty and conquest, +danger and deliverance, not to have more than the usual amount of +what is called the romantic in its composition.</p> + +<p>The buzzing of his bee was for the present interrupted by the +return of Blue Peter with his wife. She threw her arms round +Malcolm's neck, and burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"Hoots, my woman!" said her husband, "what are ye greitin' +at?"</p> + +<p>"Eh, Peter!" she answered, "I canna help it. It's jist like a +deith. He's gauin' to lea' us a', an' gang hame till 's ain, an' +I canna bide 'at he sud grow strange-like to hiz 'at ha'e kenned +him sae lang."</p> + +<p>"It'll be an ill day," returned Malcolm, "whan I grow strange +to ony freen'. I'll ha'e to gang far down the laich (low) ro'd +afore that be poassible. I mayna aye be able to du jist what ye +wad like; but lippen ye to me: I s' be fair to ye. An' noo I want +Blue Peter to gang wi' me, an' help me to what I ha'e to du -- +gien ye ha'e nae objection to lat him."</p> + +<p>"Na, nane ha'e I. I wad gang mysel' gien I cud be ony use," +answered Mrs Mair; "but women are i' the gait whiles."</p> + +<p>"Weel, I'll no even say thank ye; I'll be awin' ye that as +weel's the lave. But gien I dinna du weel, it winna be the fau't +o' ane or the ither o' you twa freen's. Noo, Peter, we maun be +aff."</p> + +<p>"No the nicht, surely?" said Mrs Mair, a little taken by +surprise.</p> + +<p>"The suner the better, lass," replied her husband. "An' we +cudna ha'e a better win'. Jist rin ye hame, an' get some +vicktooals thegither, an' come efter hiz to Portlossie."</p> + +<p>"But hoo 'ill ye get the boat to the watter ohn mair han's? +I'll need to come mysel' an' fess Jean."</p> + +<p>"Na, na; let Jean sit. There's plenty i' the Seaton to help. +We're gauin' to tak' the markis's cutter. She's a heap easier to +lainch, an' she'll sail a heap fester."</p> + +<p>"But what'll Maister Crathie say?"</p> + +<p>"We maun tak' oor chance o' that," answered her husband, with +a smile of confidence; and thereupon he and Malcolm set out for +the Seaton, while Mrs Mair went home to get ready some provisions +for the voyage, consisting chiefly of oatcakes.</p> + +<p>The prejudice against Malcolm from his imagined behaviour to +Lizzy Findlay, had by this time, partly through the assurances of +Peter, partly through the power of the youth's innocent presence, +almost died out, and when the two men reached the Seaton, they +found plenty of hands ready to help them to reach the little +sloop. Malcolm said he was going to take her to Peterhead, and +they asked no questions but such as he contrived to answer with +truth, or to leave unanswered. Once afloat, there was very little +to be done to her, for she had been laid up in perfect condition, +and as soon as Mrs Mair appeared with her basket, and they had +put that, a keg of water, some fishing lines, and a pan of +mussels for bait, on board, they were ready to sail, and wished +their friends a light goodbye, leaving them to imagine they were +gone but for a day or two, probably on some business of Mr +Crathie's.</p> + +<p>With the wind from the northwest, they soon reached Duff +Harbour, where Malcolm went on shore and saw Mr Soutar. He, with +a landsman's prejudice, made strenuous objections to such a mad +prank as sailing to London at that time of the year, but in vain. +Malcolm saw nothing mad in it, and the lawyer had to admit he +ought to know best. He brought on board with him a lad of Peter's +acquaintance, and now fully manned, they set sail again, and by +the time the sun appeared were not far from Peterhead.</p> + +<p>Malcolm's spirits kept rising as they bowled along over the +bright cold waters. He never felt so capable as when at sea. His +energies had been first called out in combat with the elements, +and hence he always felt strongest, most at home, and surest of +himself on the water. Young as he was, however, such had been his +training under Mr Graham, that a large part of this elevation of +spirit was owing to an unreasoned sense of being there more +immediately in the hands of God. Later in life, he interpreted +the mental condition thus -- that of course he was always and in +every place equally in God's hands, but that at sea he felt the +truth more keenly. Where a man has nothing firm under him, where +his life depends on winds invisible and waters unstable, where a +single movement may be death, he learns to feel what is at the +same time just as true every night he spends asleep in the bed in +which generations have slept before him, or any sunny hour he +spends walking over ancestral acres.</p> + +<p>They put in at Peterhead, purchased a few provisions, and +again set sail.</p> + +<p>And now it seemed to Malcolm that he must soon come to a +conclusion as to the steps he must take when he reached London. +But think as he would, he could plan nothing beyond finding out +where his sister lived, going to look at the house, and getting +into it if he might. Nor could his companion help him with any +suggestions, and indeed he could not talk much with him because +of the presence of Davy, a rough, round eyed, red haired young +Scot, of the dull invaluable class that can only do what they are +told, but do that to the extent of their faculty.</p> + +<p>They knew all the coast as far as the Frith of Forth; after +that they had to be more careful. They had no charts on board, +nor could have made much use of any. But the wind continued +favourable, and the weather cold, bright, and full of life. They +spoke many coasters on their way, and received many +directions.</p> + +<p>Off the Nore they had rough weather, and had to stand off and +on for a day and a night till it moderated. Then they spoke a +fishing boat, took a pilot on board, and were soon in smooth +water. More and more they wondered as the channel narrowed, and +ended their voyage at length below London Bridge, in a very +jungle of masts.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX: LONDON +STREETS</h1> + +<p>Leaving Davy to keep the sloop, the two fishermen went on +shore. Passing from the narrow precincts of the river, they found +themselves at once in the roar of London city. Stunned at first, +then excited, then bewildered, then dazed, without plan to guide +their steps, they wandered about until, unused to the hard +stones, their feet ached. It was a dull day in March. A keen wind +blew round the corners of the streets. They wished themselves at +sea again.</p> + +<p>"Sic a sicht o' fowk!" said Blue Peter.</p> + +<p>"It's hard to think," rejoined Malcolm, "what w'y the God 'at +made them can luik efter them a' in sic a tumult. But they say +even the sheep dog kens ilk sheep i' the flock 'at 's gien him in +chairge."</p> + +<p>"Ay, but ye see," said Blue Peter, "they're mair like a shoal +o' herrin' nor a flock o' sheep."</p> + +<p>"It's no the num'er o' them 'at plagues me," said Malcolm. +"The gran' diffeeculty is hoo He can lat ilk ane tak' his ain +gait an' yet luik efter them a'. But gien He does't, it stan's to +rizzon it maun be in some w'y 'at them 'at's sae luikit efter +canna by ony possibeelity un'erstan'."</p> + +<p>"That's trowth, I'm thinkin'. We maun jist gi'e up an' confess +there's things abune a' human comprehension."</p> + +<p>"Wha kens but that maybe 'cause i' their verra natur' they're +ower semple for cr'aturs like hiz 'at's made sae mixed-like, an' +see sae little intill the hert o' things?"</p> + +<p>"Ye're ayont me there," said Blue Peter, and a silence +followed.</p> + +<p>It was a conversation very unsuitable to London Streets -- but +then these were raw Scotch fisherman, who had not yet learned how +absurd it is to suppose ourselves come from anything greater than +ourselves, and had no conception of the liberty it confers on a +man to know that he is the child of a protoplasm, or something +still more beautifully small.</p> + +<p>At length a policeman directed them to a Scotch eating house, +where they fared after their country's fashions, and from the +landlady gathered directions by which to guide themselves towards +Curzon Street, a certain number in which Mr Soutar had given +Malcolm as Lady Bellair's address.</p> + +<p>The door was opened to Malcolm's knock by a slatternly +charwoman, who, unable to understand a word he said, would, but +for its fine frank expression, have shut the door in his face. +From the expression of hers, however, Malcolm suddenly remembered +that he must speak English, and having a plentiful store of the +book sort, he at once made himself intelligible in spite of tone +and accent. It was, however, only a shifting of the difficulty, +for he now found it nearly impossible to understand her. But by +repeated questioning and hard listening he learnt at last that +Lady Bellair had removed her establishment to Lady Lossie's house +in Portland Place.</p> + +<p>After many curious perplexities, odd blunders, and vain +endeavours to understand shop signs and notices in the windows; +after they had again and again imagined themselves back at a +place they had left miles away; after many a useless effort to +lay hold of directions given so rapidly that the very sense could +not gather the sounds, they at length stood -- not in Portland +Place, but in front of Westminster Abbey. Inquiring what it was, +and finding they could go in, they entered.</p> + +<p>For some moments not a word was spoken between them, but when +they had walked slowly halfway up the nave Malcolm turned and +said, "Eh, Peter! sic a blessin'!" and Peter replied, "There +canna be muckle o' this i' the warl'!"</p> + +<p>Comparing impressions afterwards, Peter said that the moment +he stepped in, he heard the rush of the tide on the rocks of +Scaurnose; and Malcolm declared he felt as if he had stepped out +of the world into the regions of eternal silence.</p> + +<p>"What a mercy it maun be," he went on, "to mony a cratur', in +sic a whummle an' a rum'le an' a remish as this Lon'on, to ken +'at there is sic a cave howkit oot o' the din, 'at he can gang +intill an' say his prayers intill! Man, Peter! I'm jist some +feared whiles 'at the verra din i' my lugs mayna 'maist drive the +thoucht o' God oot o' me."</p> + +<p>At length they found their way into Regent Street, and leaving +its mean assertion behind, reached the stately modesty of +Portland Place; and Malcolm was pleased to think the house he +sought was one of those he now saw.</p> + +<p>It was one of the largest in the Place. He would not, however, +yield to the temptation to have a good look at it, for fear of +attracting attention from its windows and being recognised. They +turned therefore aside into some of the smaller thoroughfares +lying between Portland Place and Great Portland Street, where +searching about, they came upon a decent looking public house and +inquired after lodgings. They were directed to a woman in the +neighbourhood, who kept a dingy little curiosity shop. On payment +of a week's rent in advance, she allowed them a small bedroom. +But Malcolm did not want Peter with him that night; he wished to +be perfectly free; and besides it was more than desirable that +Peter should go and look after the boat and the boy.</p> + +<p>Left alone he fell once more to his hitherto futile scheming: +How was he to get near his sister? To the whitest of lies he had +insuperable objection, and if he appeared before her with no +reason to give, would she not be far too offended with his +presumption to retain him in her service? And except he could be +near her as her servant, he did not see a chance of doing +anything for her without disclosing facts which might make all +such service as he would most gladly render her impossible, by +causing her to hate the very sight of him. Plan after plan rose +and passed from his mind rejected, and the only resolution he +could come to was to write to Mr Soutar, to whom he had committed +the protection of Kelpie, to send her up by the first smack from +Aberdeen. He did so, and wrote also to Miss Horn, telling her +where he was, then went out, and made his way back to Portland +Place.</p> + +<p>Night had closed in, and thick vapours hid the moon, but lamps +and lighted windows illuminated the wide street. Presently it +began to snow. But through the snow and the night went carriages +in all directions, with great lamps that turned the flakes into +white stars for a moment as they gleamed past. The hoofs of the +horses echoed hard from the firm road.</p> + +<p>Could that house really belong to him? It did, yet he dared +not enter it. That which was dear and precious to him was in the +house, and just because of that he could not call it his own. +There was less light in it than in any other within his range. He +walked up and down the opposite side of the street its whole +length some fifty times, but saw no sign of vitality about the +house. At length a brougham stopped at the door, and a man got +out and knocked. Malcolm instantly crossed, but could not see his +face. The door opened, and he entered. The brougham waited. After +about a quarter of an hour he came out again, accompanied by two +ladies, one of whom he judged by her figure to be Florimel. They +all got into the carriage, and Malcolm braced himself for a +terrible run. But the coachman drove carefully, the snow lay a +few inches deep, and he found no difficulty in keeping near them, +following with fleet foot and husbanded breath.</p> + +<p>They stopped at the doors of a large dark looking building in +a narrow street He thought it was a church, and wondered that so +his sister should be going there on a week night. Nor did the +aspect of the entrance hall, into which he followed them, +undeceive him. It was more showy, certainly, than the vestibule +of any church he had ever been in before, but what might not +churches be in London? They went up a great flight of stairs -- +to reach the gallery, as he thought, and still he went after +them. When he reached the top, they were just vanishing round a +curve, and his advance was checked: a man came up to him, said he +could not come there, and gruffly requested him to show his +ticket.</p> + +<p>"I haven't got one. What is this place?" said Malcolm, whom +the aspect of the man had suddenly rendered doubtful, mouthing +his English with Scotch deliberation. The man gave him a look of +contemptuous surprise, and turning to another who lounged behind +him with his hands in his pockets, said -- "Tom, here's a +gentleman as wants to know where he is: can you tell him?" The +person addressed laughed, and gave Malcolm a queer look.</p> + +<p>"Every cock crows on his own midden," said Malcolm, "but if I +were on mine, I would try to be civil."</p> + +<p>"You go down there, and pay for a pit ticket, and you'll soon +know where you are, mate," said Tom.</p> + +<p>He obeyed, and after a few inquiries, and the outlay of two +shillings, found himself in the pit of one of the largest of the +London theatres.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X: THE +TEMPEST</h1> + +<p>The play was begun, and the stage was the centre of light. +Thither Malcolm's eyes were drawn the instant he entered. He was +all but unaware of the multitude of faces about him, and his +attention was at once fascinated by the lovely show revealed in +soft radiance. But surely he had seen the vision before! One long +moment its effect upon him was as real as if he had been actually +deceived as to its nature: was it not the shore between Scaurnose +and Portlossie, betwixt the Boar's Tail and the sea? and was not +that the marquis, his father, in his dressing gown, pacing to and +fro upon the sands? He yielded himself to illusion -- abandoned +himself to the wonderful, and looked only for what would come +next.</p> + +<p>A lovely lady entered: to his excited fancy it was Florimel. A +moment more and she spoke.</p> + +<pre> +If by your art, my dearest father, you have +Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. +</pre> + +<p>Then first he understood that before him rose in wondrous +realization the play of Shakspere he knew best -- the first he +had ever read: The Tempest, hitherto a lovely phantom for the +mind's eye, now embodied to the enraptured sense. During the +whole of the first act he never thought either of Miranda or +Florimel apart. At the same time so taken was he with the +princely carriage and utterance of Ferdinand that, though with a +sigh, he consented he should have his sister.</p> + +<p>The drop scene had fallen for a minute or two before he began +to look around him. A moment more and he had commenced a thorough +search for his sister amongst the ladies in the boxes. But when +at length he found her, he dared not fix his eyes upon her lest +his gaze should make her look at him, and she should recognise +him. Alas, her eyes might have rested on him twenty times without +his face once rousing in her mind the thought of the fisher lad +of Portlossie! All that had passed between them in the days +already old was virtually forgotten.</p> + +<p>By degrees he gathered courage, and soon began to feel that +there was small chance indeed of her eyes alighting upon him for +the briefest of moments. Then he looked more closely, and felt +through rather than saw with his eyes that some sort of change +had already passed upon her. It was Florimel, yet not the very +Florimel he had known. Already something had begun to supplant +the girl freedom that had formerly in every look and motion +asserted itself. She was more beautiful, but not so lovely in his +eyes; much of what had charmed him had vanished. She was more +stately, but the stateliness had a little hardness mingled with +it: and could it be that the first of a cloud had already +gathered on her forehead? Surely she was not so happy as she had +been at Lossie House. She was dressed in black, with a white +flower in her hair.</p> + +<p>Beside her sat the bold faced countess, and behind them her +nephew, Lord Meikleham that was now Lord Liftore. A fierce +indignation seized the heart of Malcolm at the sight. Behind the +form of the earl, his mind's eye saw that of Lizzy, out in the +wind on the Boar's Tail, her old shawl wrapped about herself and +the child of the man who sat there so composed and comfortable. +His features were fine and clear cut, his shoulders broad, and +his head well set: he had much improved since Malcolm offered to +fight him with one hand in the dining room of Lossie House. Every +now and then he leaned forward between his aunt and Florimel, and +spoke to the latter. To Malcolm's eyes she seemed to listen with +some haughtiness. Now and then she cast him an indifferent +glance. Malcolm was pleased: Lord Liftore was anything but the +Ferdinand to whom he could consent to yield his Miranda. They +would make a fine couple certainly, but for any other fitness, +knowing what he did, Malcolm was glad to perceive none. The more +annoyed was he when once or twice he fancied he caught a look +between them that indicated more than acquaintanceship -- some +sort of intimacy at least. But he reflected that in the relation +in which they stood to Lady Bellair it could hardly be +otherwise.</p> + +<p>The play was tolerably well put upon the stage, and free of +the absurdities attendant upon too ambitious an endeavour to +represent to the sense things which Shakspere and the dramatists +of his period freely committed to their best and most powerful +ally, the willing imagination of the spectators. The opening of +the last scene, where Ferdinand and Miranda are discovered at +chess, was none the less effective for its simplicity, and +Malcolm was turning from a delighted gaze at its loveliness to +glance at his sister and her companions, when his eyes fell on a +face near him in the pit which had fixed an absorbed regard in +the same direction. It was that of a man a few years older than +himself, with irregular features, but a fine mouth, large chin; +and great forehead. Under the peculiarly prominent eyebrows shone +dark eyes of wondrous brilliancy and seeming penetration. Malcolm +could not but suspect that his gaze was upon his sister, but as +they were a long way from the boxes, he could not be certain. +Once he thought he saw her look at him, but of that also he could +be in no wise certain.</p> + +<p>He knew the play so well that he rose just in time to reach +the pit door ere exit should be impeded with the outcomers, and +thence with some difficulty he found his way to the foot of the +stair up which those he watched had gone. There he had stood but +a little while, when he saw in front of him, almost within reach +of an outstretched hand, the same young man waiting also. After +what seemed a long time, he saw his sister and her two companions +come slowly down the stair in the descending crowd. Her eyes +seemed searching amongst the multitude that filled the lobby. +Presently an indubitable glance of still recognition passed +between them, and by a slight movement the young man placed +himself so that she must pass next him in the crowd. Malcolm got +one place nearer in the change, and thought they grasped hands. +She turned her head slightly back, and seemed to put a question +-- with her lips only. He replied in the same manner. A light +rushed into her face and vanished. But not a feature moved and +not a word had been spoken. Neither of her companions had seen +the dumb show, and her friend stood where he was till they had +left the house. Malcolm stood also, much inclined to follow him +when he went, but, his attention having been attracted for a +moment in another direction, when he looked again he had +disappeared. He sought him where he fancied he saw the movement +of his vanishing, but was soon convinced of the uselessness of +the attempt, and walked home.</p> + +<p>Before he reached his lodging, he had resolved on making trial +of a plan which had more than once occurred to him, but had as +often been rejected as too full of the risk of repulse.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI: DEMON AND +THE PIPES</h1> + +<p>His plan was to watch the house until he saw some +entertainment going on, then present himself as if he had but +just arrived from her ladyship's country seat. At such a time no +one would acquaint her with his appearance, and he would, as if +it were but a matter of course, at once take his share in waiting +on the guests. By this means he might perhaps get her a little +accustomed to his presence before she could be at leisure to +challenge it.</p> + +<p>When he put Kelpie in her stall the last time for a season, +and ran into the house to get his plaid for Lizzy, who was +waiting him near the tunnel, he bethought himself that he had +better take with him also what other of his personal requirements +he could carry. He looked about therefore, and finding a large +carpet bag in one of the garret rooms, hurried into it some of +his clothes -- amongst them the Highland dress he had worn as +henchman to the marquis, and added the great Lossie pipes his +father had given to old Duncan as well, but which the piper had +not taken with him when he left Lossie House. The said Highland +dress he now resolved to put on, as that in which latterly +Florimel had been most used to see him: in it he would watch his +opportunity of gaining admission to the house.</p> + +<p>The next morning Blue Peter made his appearance early. They +went out together, spent the day in sightseeing, and, on +Malcolm's part chiefly, in learning the topography of London.</p> + +<p>In Hyde Park Malcolm told his friend that he had sent for +Kelpie.</p> + +<p>"She'll be the deid o' ye i' thae streets, as fu' o' wheels as +the sea o' fish: twize I've been 'maist gr'un to poother o' my +ro'd here," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Ay, but ye see, oot here amo' the gentry it's no freely sae +ill, an' the ro'ds are no a' stane; an' here, ye see, 's the +place whaur they come, leddies an' a', to ha'e their rides +thegither. What I'm fleyt for is 'at she'll be brackin' legs wi' +her deevilich kickin'."</p> + +<p>"Haud her upo' dry strae an' watter for a whilie, till her +banes begin to cry oot for something to hap them frae the cauld: +that'll quaiet her a bit," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"It's a' ye ken!" returned Malcolm. "She's aye the wau +natur'd, the less she has to ate. Na, na; she maun be weel lined. +The deevil in her maun lie warm, or she'll be neither to haud nor +bin'. There's nae doobt she's waur to haud in whan she's in guid +condeetion; but she's nane sae like to tak' a body by the sma' o' +the back, an' shak the inside oot o' 'im, as she maist did ae day +to the herd laddie at the ferm, only he had an auld girth aboot +the mids o' 'im for a belt, an' he tuik the less scaith."</p> + +<p>"Cudna we gang an' see the maister the day?" said Blue Peter, +changing the subject.</p> + +<p>He meant Mr Graham, the late schoolmaster of Portlossie, whom +the charge of heretical teaching had driven from the place.</p> + +<p>"We canna weel du that till we hear whaur he is. The last time +Miss Horn h'ard frae him, he was changin' his lodgin's, an' ye +see the kin' o' a place this Lon'on is," answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>As soon as Peter was gone, to return to the boat, Malcolm +dressed himself in his kilt and its belongings, and when it was +fairly dusk, took his pipes under his arm, and set out for +Portland Place. He had the better hope of speedy success to his +plan, that he fancied he had read on his sister's lips, in the +silent communication that passed between her and her friend in +the crowd, the words come and tomorrow. It might have been the +merest imagination, yet it was something: how often have we not +to be grateful for shadows! Up and down the street he walked a +long time, without seeing a sign of life about the house. But at +length the hall was lighted. Then the door opened, and a servant +rolled out a carpet over the wide pavement, which the snow had +left wet and miry -- a signal for the street children, ever on +the outlook for sights, to gather. Before the first carriage +arrived, there was already a little crowd of humble watchers and +waiters about the gutter and curb stone. But they were not +destined to much amusement that evening, the visitors amounting +only to a small dinner party. Still they had the pleasure of +seeing a few grand ladies issue from their carriages, cross the +stage of their Epiphany, the pavement, and vanish in the paradise +of the shining hall, with its ascent of gorgeous stairs. No +broken steps, no missing balusters there! And they have the show +all for nothing! It is one of the perquisites of street service. +What one would give to see the shapes glide over the field of +those camerae obscurae, the hearts of the street Arabs! once to +gaze on the jewelled beauties through the eyes of those shocked +haired girls! I fancy they do not often begrudge them what they +possess, except perhaps when feature or hair or motion chances to +remind them of some one of their own people, and they feel +wronged and indignant that size should flaunt in such splendour, +"when our Sally would set off grand clothes so much better!" It +is neither the wealth nor the general consequence it confers that +they envy, but, as I imagine, the power of making a show -- of +living in the eyes and knowledge of neighbours for a few radiant +moments: nothing is so pleasant to ordinary human nature as to +know itself by its reflection from others. When it turns from +these warped and broken mirrors to seek its reflection in the +divine thought, then it is redeemed; then it beholds itself in +the perfect law of liberty.</p> + +<p>Before he became himself an object of curious interest to the +crowd he was watching, Malcolm had come to the same conclusion +with many a philosopher and observer of humanity before him -- +that on the whole the rags are inhabited by the easier hearts; +and he would have arrived at the conclusion with more certainty +but for the high training that cuts off intercourse between heart +and face.</p> + +<p>When some time had elapsed, and no more carriages appeared, +Malcolm, judging the dinner must now be in full vortex, rang the +bell of the front door. It was opened by a huge footman, whose +head was so small in proportion that his body seemed to have +absorbed it. Malcolm would have stepped in at once, and told what +of his tale he chose at his leisure; but the servant, who had +never seen the dress Malcolm wore, except on street beggars, with +the instinct his class shares with watchdogs, quickly closed the +door. Ere it reached the post, however, it found Malcolm's foot +between.</p> + +<p>"Go along, Scotchy. You're not wanted here," said the man, +pushing the door hard. "Police is round the corner."</p> + +<p>Now one of the weaknesses Malcolm owed to his Celtic blood was +an utter impatience of rudeness. In his own nature entirely +courteous, he was wrathful even to absurdity at the slightest +suspicion of insult. But that, in part through the influence of +Mr Graham, the schoolmaster, he had learned to keep a firm hold +on the reins of action, this foolish feeling would not +unfrequently have hurried him into conduct undignified. On the +present occasion, I fear the main part of his answer, but for the +shield of the door, would have been a blow to fell a bigger man +than the one that now glared at him through the shoe broad +opening. As it was, his words were fierce with suppressed +wrath.</p> + +<p>"Open the door, an' lat me in," was, however, all he said.</p> + +<p>"What's your business?" asked the man, on whom his tone had +its effect.</p> + +<p>"My business is with my Lady Lossie," said Malcolm, recovering +his English, which was one step towards mastering, if not +recovering, his temper.</p> + +<p>"You can't see her. She's at dinner."</p> + +<p>"Let me in, and I'll wait. I come from Lossie House."</p> + +<p>"Take away your foot and I'll go and see," said the man.</p> + +<p>"No. You open the door," returned Malcolm.</p> + +<p>The man's answer was an attempt to kick his foot out of the +doorway. If he were to let in a tramp, what would the butler +say?</p> + +<p>But thereupon Malcolm set his port vent to his mouth, rapidly +filled his bag, while the man stared as if it were a petard with +which he was about to blow the door to shivers, and then sent +from the instrument such a shriek, as it galloped off into the +Lossie Gathering, that involuntarily his adversary pressed both +hands to his ears. With a sudden application of his knee Malcolm +sent the door wide, and entered the hall, with his pipes in full +cry. The house resounded with their yell -- but only for one +moment. For down the stair, like bolt from catapult, came Demon, +Florimel's huge Irish staghound, and springing on Malcolm, put an +instant end to his music. The footman laughed with exultation, +expecting to see him torn to pieces. But when instead he saw the +fierce animal, a foot on each of his shoulders, licking Malcolm's +face with long fiery tongue, he began to doubt.</p> + +<p>"The dog knows you," he said sulkily.</p> + +<p>"So shall you, before long," returned Malcolm. "Was it my +fault that I made the mistake of looking for civility from you? +One word to the dog, and he has you by the throat."</p> + +<p>"I'll go and fetch Wallis," said the man, and closing the +door, left the hall.</p> + +<p>Now this Wallis had been a fellow servant of Malcolm's at +Lossie House, but he did not know that he had gone with Lady +Bellair when she took Florimel away: almost everyone had left at +the same time. He was now glad indeed to learn that there was one +amongst the servants who knew him.</p> + +<p>Wallis presently made his appearance, with a dish in his +hands, on his way to the dining room, from which came the +confused noises of the feast.</p> + +<p>"You'll be come up to wait on Lady Lossie," he said. "I +haven't a moment to speak to you now, for we're at dinner, and +there's a party."</p> + +<p>"Never mind me. Give me that dish; I'll take it in: you can go +for another," said Malcolm, laying his pipes in a safe spot.</p> + +<p>"You can't go into the dining room that figure," said Wallis, +who was in the Bellair livery.</p> + +<p>"This is how I waited on my lord," returned Malcolm, "and this +is how I'll wait on my lady."</p> + +<p>Wallis hesitated. But there was that about the fisher fellow +was too much for him. As he spoke, Malcolm took the dish from his +hands, and with it walked into the dining room.</p> + +<p>There one reconnoitring glance was sufficient. The butler was +at the sideboard opening a champagne bottle. He had cut wire and +strings, and had his hand on the cork as Malcolm walked up to +him. It was a critical moment, yet he stopped in the very +article, and stared at the apparition.</p> + +<p>"I'm Lady Lossie's man from Lossie House. I'll help you to +wait," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>To the eyes of the butler he looked a savage. But there he was +in the room with the dish in his hands, and speaking at least +intelligibly; the cork of the champagne bottle was pushing hard +against his palm, and he had no time to question. He peeped into +Malcolm's dish.</p> + +<p>"Take it round, then," he said. So Malcolm settled into the +business of the hour.</p> + +<p>It was some time, after he knew where she was, before he +ventured to look at his sister: he would have her already +familiarised with his presence before their eyes met. That crisis +did not arrive during dinner.</p> + +<p>Lord Liftore was one of the company, and so, to Malcolm's +pleasure, for he felt in him an ally against the earl, was +Florimel's mysterious friend.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII: A NEW +LIVERY</h1> + +<p>Scarcely had the ladies gone to the drawing room, when +Florimel's maid, who knew Malcolm, came in quest of him. Lady +Lossie desired to see him.</p> + +<p>"What is the meaning of this, MacPhail?" she said, when he +entered the room where she sat alone. "I did not send for you. +Indeed, I thought you had been dismissed with the rest of the +servants."</p> + +<p>How differently she spoke! And she used to call him Malcolm! +The girl Florimel was gone, and there sat -- the marchioness, was +it? -- or some phase of riper womanhood only? It mattered little +to Malcolm. He was no curious student of man or woman. He loved +his kind too well to study it. But one thing seemed plain: she +had forgotten the half friendship and whole service that had had +place betwixt them, and it made him feel as if the soul of man no +less than his life were but as a vapour that appeareth for a +little and then vanisheth away.</p> + +<p>But Florimel had not so entirely forgotten the past as Malcolm +thought -- not so entirely at least but that his appearance, and +certain difficulties in which she had begun to find herself, +brought something of it again to her mind.</p> + +<p>"I thought," said Malcolm, assuming his best English, "your +ladyship might not choose to part with an old servant at the will +of a factor, and so took upon me to appeal to your ladyship to +decide the question."</p> + +<p>"But how is that? Did you not return to your fishing when the +household was broken up?"</p> + +<p>"No, my lady. Mr Crathie kept me to help Stoat, and do odd +jobs about the place."</p> + +<p>"And now he wants to discharge you?"</p> + +<p>Then Malcolm told her the whole story, in which he gave such a +description of Kelpie, that her owner, as she imagined herself, +expressed a strong wish to see her; for Florimel was almost +passionately fond of horses.</p> + +<p>"You may soon do that, my lady," said Malcolm. "Mr Soutar, not +being of the same mind as Mr Crathie, is going to send her up. It +will be but the cost of the passage from Aberdeen, and she will +fetch a better price here if your ladyship should resolve to part +with her. She won't fetch the third of her value anywhere, +though, on account of her bad temper and ugly tricks."</p> + +<p>"But as to yourself, MacPhail -- where are you going to go?" +said Florimel. "I don't like to send you away, but, if I keep +you, I don't know what to do with you. No doubt you could serve +in the house, but that would not be suitable at all to your +education and previous life."</p> + +<p>"A body wad tak' you for a granny grown!" said Malcolm to +himself. But to Florimel he replied -- "If your ladyship should +wish to keep Kelpie, you will have to keep me too, for not a +creature else will she let near her."</p> + +<p>"And pray tell me what use then can I make of such an animal," +said Florimel.</p> + +<p>"Your ladyship, I should imagine, will want a groom to attend +you when you are out on horseback, and the groom will want a +horse -- and here am I and Kelpie!" answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Florimel laughed.</p> + +<p>"I see," she said. "You contrive I shall have a horse nobody +can manage but yourself."</p> + +<p>She rather liked the idea of a groom so mounted, and had too +much well justified faith in Malcolm to anticipate dangerous +results.</p> + +<p>"My lady," said Malcolm, appealing to her knowledge of his +character to secure credit, for he was about to use his last +means of persuasion, and as he spoke, in his eagerness he +relapsed into his mother tongue, -- "My lady, did I ever tell ye +a lee?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, Malcolm, so far as I know. Indeed I am sure +you never did," answered Florimel, looking up at him in a +dominant yet kindly way.</p> + +<p>"Then," continued Malcolm, "I'll tell your ladyship something +you may find hard to believe, and yet is as true as that I loved +your ladyship's father. -- Your ladyship knows he had a kindness +for me."</p> + +<p>"I do know it," answered Florimel gently, moved by the tone of +Malcolm's voice, and the expression of his countenance.</p> + +<p>"Then I make bold to tell your ladyship that on his deathbed +your father desired me to do my best for you -- took my word that +I would be your ladyship's true servant."</p> + +<p>"Is it so, indeed, Malcolm?" returned Florimel, with a serious +wonder in her tone, and looked him in the face with an earnest +gaze. She had loved her father, and it sounded in her ears almost +like a message from the tomb.</p> + +<p>"It's as true as I stan' here, my leddy," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Florimel was silent for a moment. Then she said, "How is it +that only now you come to tell me?"</p> + +<p>"Your father never desired me to tell you, my lady -- only he +never imagined you would want to part with me, I suppose. But +when you did not care to keep me, and never said a word to me +when you went away, I could not tell how to do as I had promised +him. It wasn't that one hour I forgot his wish, but that I feared +to presume; for if I should displease your ladyship my chance was +gone. So I kept about Lossie House as long as I could, hoping to +see my way to some plan or other. But when at length Mr Crathie +turned me away, what was I to do but come to your ladyship? And +if your ladyship will let things be as before in the way of +service, I mean -- I canna doot, my leddy, but it'll be pleesant +i' the sicht o' yer father, whanever he may come to ken o' 't, my +lady."</p> + +<p>Florimel gave him a strange, half startled look. Hardly more +than once since her father's funeral had she heard him alluded +to, and now this fisher lad spoke of him as if he were still at +Lossie House.</p> + +<p>Malcolm understood the look.</p> + +<p>"Ye mean, my leddy -- I ken what ye mean," he said. "I canna +help it. For to lo'e onything is to ken't immortal. He's livin' +to me, my lady."</p> + +<p>Florimel continued staring, and still said nothing.</p> + +<p>I sometimes think that the present belief in mortality is +nothing but the almost universal although unsuspected unbelief in +immortality grown vocal and articulate.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm gathered courage and went on,</p> + +<p>"An' what for no, my leddy?" he said, floundering no more in +attempted English, but soaring on the clumsy wings of his mother +dialect. "Didna he turn his face to the licht afore he dee'd? an' +him 'at rase frae the deid said 'at whaever believed in him sud +never dee. Sae we maun believe 'at he's livin', for gien we dinna +believe what he says, what are we to believe, my leddy?"</p> + +<p>Florimel continued yet a moment looking him fixedly in the +face. The thought did arise that perhaps he had lost his reason, +but she could not look at him thus and even imagine it. She +remembered how strange he had always been, and for a moment had a +glimmering idea that in this young man's friendship she possessed +an incorruptible treasure. The calm, truthful, believing, almost +for the moment enthusiastic, expression of the young fisherman's +face wrought upon her with a strangely quieting influence. It was +as if one spoke to her out of a region of existence of which she +had never even heard, but in whose reality she was compelled to +believe because of the sound of the voice that came from it.</p> + +<p>Malcolm seldom made the mistake of stamping into the earth any +seeds of truth he might cast on it: he knew when to say no more, +and for a time neither spoke. But now for all the coolness of her +upper crust, Lady Florimel's heart glowed -- not indeed with the +power of the shining truth Malcolm had uttered, but with the +light of gladness in the possession of such a strong, devoted, +disinterested squire.</p> + +<p>"I wish you to understand," she said at length, "that I am not +at present mistress of this house, although it belongs to me. I +am but the guest of Lady Bellair who has rented it of my +guardians. I cannot therefore arrange for you to be here. But you +can find accommodation in the neighbourhood, and come to me every +day for orders. Let me know when your mare arrives: I shall not +want you till then. You will find room for her in the stables. +You had better consult the butler about your groom's livery."</p> + +<p>Malcolm was astonished at the womanly sufficiency with which +she gave her orders. He left her with the gladness of one who has +had his righteous desire, held consultation with the butler on +the matter of the livery, and went home to his lodging. There he +sat down and meditated.</p> + +<p>A strange new yearning pity rose in his heart as he thought +about his sister and the sad facts of her lonely condition. He +feared much that her stately composure was built mainly on her +imagined position in society, and was not the outcome of her +character. Would it be cruelty to destroy that false foundation, +hardly the more false as a foundation for composure that beneath +it lay a mistake? -- or was it not rather a justice which her +deeper and truer self had a right to demand of him? At present, +however, he need not attempt to answer the question. +Communication even such as a trusted groom might have with her, +and familiarity with her surroundings, would probably reveal +much. Meantime it was enough that he would now be so near her +that no important change of which others might be aware, could +well approach her without his knowledge, or anything take place +without his being able to interfere if necessary.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII: TWO +CONVERSATIONS</h1> + +<p>The next day Wallis came to see Malcolm and take him to the +tailor's. They talked about the guests of the previous +evening.</p> + +<p>"There's a great change on Lord Meikleham," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"There is that," said Wallis. "I consider him much improved. +But you see he's succeeded; he's the earl now, and Lord Liftore +-- and a menseful, broad shouldered man to the boot of the +bargain. He used to be such a windle straw!"</p> + +<p>In order to speak good English, Wallis now and then, like some +Scotch people of better education, anglicized a word +ludicrously.</p> + +<p>"Is there no news of his marriage?" asked Malcolm, adding, +"they say he has great property."</p> + +<p>"My love she's but a lassie yet," said Wallis, "-- though she +too has changed quite as much as my lord."</p> + +<p>"Who are you speaking of?" asked Malcolm, anxious to hear the +talk of the household on the matter.</p> + +<p>"Why, Lady Lossie, of course. Anybody with half an eye can see +as much as that."</p> + +<p>"Is it settled then?"</p> + +<p>"That would be hard to say. Her ladyship is too like her +father: no one can tell what may be her mind the next minute. +But, as I say, she's young, and ought to have her fling first -- +so far, that is, as we can permit it to a woman of her rank. +Still, as I say, anybody with half an eye can see the end of it +all: he's for ever hovering about her. My lady, too, has set her +mind on it, and for my part I can't see what better she can do. I +must say I approve of the match. I can see no possible objection +to it."</p> + +<p>"We used to think he drank too much," suggested Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Claret," said Wallis, in a tone that seemed to imply no one +could drink too much of that.</p> + +<p>"No, not claret only. I've seen the whisky follow the +claret."</p> + +<p>"Well, he don't now -- not whisky at least. He don't drink too +much -- not much too much -- not more than a gentleman should. He +don't look like it -- does he now? A good wife, such as my Lady +Lossie will make him, will soon set him all right. I think of +taking a similar protection myself, one of these days."</p> + +<p>"He is not worthy of her," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Well, I confess his family won't compare with hers. There's a +grandfather in it somewhere that was a banker or a brewer or a +soap boiler, or something of the sort, and she and her people +have been earls and marquises ever since they walked arm in arm +out of the ark. But, bless you! all that's been changed since I +came to town. So long as there's plenty of money and the mind to +spend it, we have learned not to be exclusive. It's selfish that. +It's not Christian. Everything lies in the mind to spend it +though. Mrs Tredger -- that's our lady's maid -- only this is a +secret -- says it's all settled -- she knows it for certain fact +-- only there's nothing to be said about it yet -- she's so +young, you know."</p> + +<p>"Who was the man that sat nearly opposite my lady, on the +other side of the table?" asked Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"I know who you mean. Didn't look as if he'd got any business +there -- not like the rest of them, did he? No, they never do. +Odd and end sort of people like he is, never do look the right +thing -- let them try ever so hard. How can they when they ain't +it? That's a fellow that's painting Lady Lossie's portrait! Why +he should be asked to dinner for that, I'm sure I can't tell. He +ain't paid for it in victuals, is he? I never saw such land +leapers let into Lossie House, I know! But London's an awful +place. There's no such a thing as respect of persons here. Here +you meet the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, any night +in my lady's drawing room. I declare to you, Mawlcolm MacPhail, +it makes me quite uncomfortable at times to think who I may have +been waiting upon without knowing it. For that painter fellow, +Lenorme they call him, I could knock him on the teeth with the +dish every time I hold it to him. And to see him stare at Lady +Lossie as he does!"</p> + +<p>"A painter must want to get a right good hold of the face he's +got to paint," said Malcolm. "Is he here often?"</p> + +<p>"He's been here five or six times already," answered Wallis, +"and how many times more I may have to fill his glass, I don't +know. I always give him second best sherry, I know. I'm sure the +time that pictur' 's been on hand! He ought to be ashamed of +himself. If she's been once to his studio, she's been twenty +times -- to give him sittings as they call it. He's making a +pretty penny of it, I'll be bound! I wonder he has the cheek to +show himself when my lady treats him so haughtily. But those sort +of people have no proper feelin's, you see: it's not to be +expected of such."</p> + +<p>Wallis liked the sound of his own sentences, and a great deal +more talk of similar character followed before they got back from +the tailor's. Malcolm was tired enough of him, and never felt the +difference between man and man more strongly than when, after +leaving him, he set out for a walk with Blue Peter, whom he found +waiting him at his lodging. On this same Blue Peter, however, +Wallis would have looked down from the height of his share of the +marquisate as one of the lower orders -- ignorant, vulgar, even +dirty.</p> + +<p>They had already gazed together upon not a few of the marvels +of London, but nothing had hitherto moved or drawn them so much +as the ordinary flow of the currents of life through the huge +city. Upon Malcolm, however, this had now begun to pall, while +Peter already found it worse than irksome, and longed for +Scaurnose. At the same time loyalty to Malcolm kept him from +uttering a whisper of his homesickness. It was yet but the fourth +day they had been in London.</p> + +<p>"Eh, my lord!" said Blue Peter, when by chance they found +themselves in the lull of a little quiet court, somewhere about +Gray's Inn, with the roar of Holborn in their ears, "it's like a +month sin' I was at the kirk. I'm feart the din's gotten into my +heid, an' I'll never get it out again. I cud maist wuss I was a +mackerel, for they tell me the fish hears naething. I ken weel +noo what ye meant, my lord, whan ye said ye dreidit the din micht +gar ye forget yer Macker."</p> + +<p>"I hae been wussin' sair mysel', this last twa days," +responded Malcolm, "'at I cud get ae sicht o' the jaws clashin' +upo' the Scaurnose, or rowin up upo' the edge o' the links. The +din o' natur' never troubles the guid thouchts in ye. I reckon +it's 'cause it's a kin' o' a harmony in 'tsel', an' a harmony's +jist, as the maister used to say, a higher kin' o' a peace. Yon +organ 'at we hearkent till ae day ootside the kirk, ye min' -- +man, it was a quaietness in 'tsel', and cam' throu' the din like +a bonny silence -- like a lull i' the win' o' this warl'! It +wasna a din at a', but a gran' repose like. But this noise +tumultuous o' human strife, this din' o' iron shune an' iron +wheels, this whurr and whuzz o' buyin' an' sellin' an' gettin' +gain -- it disna help a body to their prayers."</p> + +<p>"Eh, na, my lord! Jist think o' the preevilege -- I never saw +nor thoucht o' 't afore -- o' haein' 't i' yer pooer, ony nicht +'at ye're no efter the fish, to stap oot at yer ain door, an' be +in the mids o' the temple! Be 't licht or dark, be 't foul or +fair, the sea sleepin' or ragin', ye ha'e aye room, an' naething +atween ye an' the throne o' the Almichty, to the whilk yer +prayers ken the gait, as weel 's the herrin' to the shores o' +Scotlan': ye ha'e but to lat them flee, an' they gang straucht +there. But here ye ha'e aye to luik sae gleg efter yer boady, +'at, as ye say, my lord, yer sowl's like to come aff the waur, +gien it binna clean forgotten."</p> + +<p>"I doobt there's something no richt aboot it, Peter," returned +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"There maun be a heap no richt aboot it," answered Peter.</p> + +<p>"Ay, but I'm no meanin' 't jist as ye du. I had the haill +thing throu' my heid last nicht, an' I canna but think there's +something wrang wi' a man gien he canna hear the word o' God as +weel i' the mids o' a multitude no man can number, a' made ilk +ane i' the image o' the Father -- as weel, I say, as i' the hert +o' win' an' watter an' the lift an' the starns an' a'. Ye canna +say 'at thae things are a' made i' the image o' God, in the same +w'y, at least, 'at ye can say 't o' the body an' face o' a man, +for throu' them the God o' the whole earth revealed Himsel' in +Christ."</p> + +<p>"Ow, weel, I wad alloo what ye say, gien they war a' to be +considered Christians."</p> + +<p>"Ow, I grant we canna weel du that i' the full sense, but I +doobt, gien they bena a' Christians 'at ca's themsel's that, +there's a heap mair Christianity nor get's the credit o' its ain +name. I min' weel hoo Maister Graham said to me ance 'at hoo +there was something o' Him 'at made him luikin' oot o' the een o' +ilka man 'at he had made; an' what wad ye ca' that but a scart or +a straik o' Christianity."</p> + +<p>"Weel, I kenna; but ony gait I canna think it can be again' +the trowth o' the gospel to wuss yersel' mair alane wi' yer God +nor ye ever can be in sic an awfu' Babylon o' a place as +this."</p> + +<p>"Na, na, Peter; I'm no sayin' that. I ken weel we're to gang +intill the closet and shut to the door. I'm only afeart 'at there +be something wrang in mysel' 'at tak's 't ill to be amon' sae +mony neibors. I'm thinkin' 'at, gien a' was richt 'ithin me, gien +I lo'ed my neibor as the Lord wad hae them 'at lo'ed Him lo'e ilk +ane his brither, I micht be better able to pray amang them -- ay, +i' the verra face o' the bargainin' an' leein' a' aboot me."</p> + +<p>"An' min' ye," said Peter, pursuing the train of his own +thoughts, and heedless of Malcolm's, "'at oor Lord himsel' bude +whiles to win awa', even frae his dissiples, to be him lane wi' +the Father o' 'im."</p> + +<p>"Ay, ye're richt there, Peter," answered Malcolm, "but there's +ae p'int in 't ye maunna forget -- and that is 'at it was never +i' the day-time -- sae far's I min' -- 'at he did sae. The lee +lang day he was among 's fowk -- workin' his michty wark. Whan +the nicht cam', in which no man could wark, he gaed hame till 's +Father, as 't war. Eh me! but it's weel to ha'e a man like the +schuilmaister to put trowth intill ye. I kenna what comes o' them +'at ha'e drucken maisters, or sic as cares for naething but +coontin' an Laitin, an' the likes o' that!"</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV: +FLORIMEL</h1> + +<p>That night Florimel had her thoughts as well as Malcolm. +Already life was not what it had been to her, and the feeling of +a difference is often what sets one a-thinking first. While her +father lived, and the sureness of his love overarched her +consciousness with a heaven of safety, the physical harmony of +her nature had supplied her with a more than sufficient sense of +well being. Since his death, too, there had been times when she +even fancied an enlargement of life in the sense of freedom and +power which came with the knowledge of being a great lady, +possessed of the rare privilege of an ancient title and an +inheritance which seemed to her a yet greater wealth than it was. +But she had soon found that, as to freedom, she had less of that +than before -- less of the feeling of it within her: not much +freedom of any sort is to be had without fighting for it, and she +had yet to discover that the only freedom worth the name -- that +of heart, and soul, and mind -- is not to be gained except +through the hardest of battles. She was very lonely, too. Lady +Bellair had never assumed with her any authority, and had always +been kind even to petting, but there was nothing about her to +make a home for the girl's heart. She felt in her no superiority, +and for a spiritual home that is essential. As she learned to +know her better, this sense of loneliness went on deepening, for +she felt more and more that her guardian was not one in whom she +could place genuine confidence, while yet her power over her was +greater than she knew. The innocent nature of the girl had begun +to recoil from what she saw in the woman of the world, and yet +she had in herself worldliness enough to render her fully +susceptible of her influences. Notwithstanding her fine health +and natural spirits, Florimel had begun to know what it is to +wake suddenly of a morning between three and four, and lie for a +long weary time, sleepless. In youth bodily fatigue ensures +falling asleep, but as soon as the body is tolerably rested, if +there be unrest in the mind, that wakes it, and consciousness +returns in the shape of a dull misgiving like the far echo of the +approaching trump of the archangel. Indeed, those hours are as a +vestibule to the great hall of judgment, and to such as, without +rendering it absolute obedience, yet care to keep on some sort of +terms with their conscience, is a time of anything but comfort. +Nor does the court in those hours sitting, concern itself only +with heavy questions of right or wrong, but whoever loves and +cares himself for his appearance before the eyes of men, finds +himself accused of paltry follies, stupidities, and +indiscretions, and punished with paltry mortifications, chagrins, +and anxieties. From such arraignment no man is free but him who +walks in the perfect law of liberty -- that is, the will of the +Perfect -- which alone is peace.</p> + +<p>On the morning after she had thus taken Malcolm again into her +service, Florimel had one of these experiences -- a foretaste of +the Valley of the Shadow: she awoke in the hour when judgment +sits upon the hearts of men. Or is it not rather the hour for +which a legion of gracious spirits are on the watch -- when, +fresh raised from the death of sleep, cleansed a little from the +past and its evils by the gift of God, the heart and brain are +most capable of their influences? -- the hour when, besides, +there is no refuge of external things wherein the man may shelter +himself from the truths they would so gladly send conquering into +the citadel of his nature, -- no world of the senses to rampart +the soul from thought, when the eye and the ear are as if they +were not, and the soul lies naked before the infinite of reality. +This live hour of the morning is the most real hour of the day, +the hour of the motions of a prisoned and persecuted life, of its +effort to break through and breathe. A good man then finds his +refuge in the heart of the Purifying Fire; the bad man curses the +swarms of Beelzebub that settle upon every sore spot in his +conscious being.</p> + +<p>But it was not the general sense of unfitness in the +conditions of her life, neither was it dissatisfaction with Lady +Bellair, or the want of the pressure of authority upon her +unstable being; it was not the sense of loneliness and +unshelteredness in the sterile waste of fashionable life, neither +was it weariness with the same and its shows, or all these things +together, that could have waked the youth of Florimel and kept it +awake at this hour of the night -- for night that hour is, +however near the morning.</p> + +<p>Some few weeks agone, she had accompanied to the study of a +certain painter, a friend who was then sitting to him for her +portrait. The moment she entered, the appearance of the man and +his surroundings laid hold of her imagination. Although on the +very verge of popularity, he was young -- not more than five and +twenty. His face, far from what is called handsome, had a certain +almost grandeur in it, owed mainly to the dominant forehead, and +the regnant life in the eyes. To this the rest of the countenance +was submissive. The mouth was sweet yet strong, seeming to derive +its strength from the will that towered above and overhung it, +throned on the crags of those eyebrows. The nose was rather +short, not unpleasantly so, and had mass enough. In figure he was +scarcely above the usual height, but well formed. To a first +glance even, the careless yet graceful freedom of his movements +was remarkable, while his address was manly, and altogether +devoid of self recommendation. Confident modesty and unobtrusive +ease distinguished his demeanour. His father, Arnold Lenorme, +descended from an old Norman family, had given him the Christian +name of Raoul, which, although outlandish, tolerably fitted the +surname, notwithstanding the contiguous l's, objectionable to the +fastidious ear of their owner. The earlier and more important +part of his education, the beginnings, namely, of everything he +afterwards further followed, his mother herself gave him, partly +because she was both poor and capable, and partly because she was +more anxious than most mothers for his best welfare. The poverty +they had crept through, as those that strive after better things +always will, one way or another, with immeasurable advantage, and +before the time came when he must leave home, her influence had +armed him in adamant -- a service which alas! few mothers seem +capable of rendering the knights whom they send out into the +battlefield of the world. Most of them give their children the +best they have; but how shall a foolish woman ever be a wise +mother? The result in his case was, that reverence for her as the +type of womanhood, working along with a natural instinct for +refinement, a keen feeling of the incompatibility with art of +anything in itself low or unclean, and a healthful and successful +activity of mind, had rendered him so far upright and honourable +that he had never yet done that in one mood which in another he +had looked back upon with loathing. As yet he had withstood the +temptations belonging to his youth and his profession -- in great +measure also the temptations belonging to success; he had not yet +been tried with disappointment, or sorrow, or failure.</p> + +<p>As to the environment in which Florimel found him, it was to +her a region of confused and broken colour and form -- a kind of +chaos out of which beauty was ever ready to start. Pictures stood +on easels, leaned against chair backs, glowed from the wall -- +each contributing to the atmosphere of solved rainbow that seemed +to fill the space. Lenorme was seated -- not at his easel, but at +a grand piano, which stood away, half hidden in a corner, as if +it knew itself there on sufferance, with pictures all about the +legs of it. For they had walked straight in without giving his +servant time to announce them. A bar of a song, in a fine tenor +voice, broke as they opened the door; and the painter came to +meet them from the farther end of the study. He shook hands with +Florimel's friend, and turned with a bow to her. At the first +glance the eyes of both fell. Raised the same instant, they +encountered each other point blank, and then the eloquent blood +had its turn at betrayal. What the moment meant, Florimel did not +understand; but it seemed as if Raoul and she had met somewhere +long ago, were presumed not to know it, but could not help +remembering it, and agreeing to recognise it as a fact. A strange +pleasure filled her heart. While Mrs Barnardiston sat she flitted +about the room like a butterfly, looking at one thing after +another, and asking now the most ignorant, now the most +penetrative question, disturbing not a little the work, but +sweetening the temper of the painter, as he went on with his +study of the mask and helmet into which the Gorgon stare of the +Unideal had petrified the face and head of his sitter. He found +the situation trying nevertheless. It was as if Cupid had been +set by Jupiter to take a portrait of Io in her stall, while +evermore he heard his Psyche fluttering about among the peacocks +in the yard. For the girl had bewitched him at first sight. He +thought it was only as an artist, though to be sure a certain +throb, almost of pain, in the region of the heart, when first his +eyes fell before hers, might have warned, and perhaps did in vain +warn him otherwise. Sooner than usual he professed himself +content with the sitting, and then proceeded to show the ladies +some of his sketches and pictures. Florimel asked to see one +standing as in disgrace with its front to the wall. He put it, +half reluctantly, on an easel, and said it was meant for the +unveiling of Isis, as presented in a maehrchen of Novalis, +introduced in Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, in which the goddess of +Nature reveals to the eager and anxious gaze of the beholder the +person of his Rosenbluethchen, whom he had left behind him when +he set out to visit the temple of the divinity. But on the great +pedestal where should have sat the goddess there was no gracious +form visible. That part of the picture was a blank. The youth +stood below, gazing enraptured with parted lips and outstretched +arms, as if he had already begun' to suspect what had begun to +dawn through the slowly thinning veil -- but to the eye of the +beholder he gazed as yet only on vacancy, and the picture had not +reached an attempt at self explanation. Florimel asked why he had +left it so long unfinished, for the dust was thick on the back of +the canvas.</p> + +<p>"Because I have never seen the face or figure," the painter +answered, "either in eye of mind or of body, that claimed the +position."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, his eyes seemed to Florimel to lighten strangely, +and as if by common consent they turned away, and looked at +something else. Presently Mrs Barnardiston, who cared more for +sound than form or colour, because she could herself sing a +little, began to glance over some music on the piano, curious to +find what the young man had been singing, whereupon Lenorme said +to Florimel hurriedly, and almost in a whisper, with a sort of +hesitating assurance,</p> + +<p>"If you would give me a sitting or two -- I know I am +presumptuous, but if you would -- I -- I should send the picture +to the Academy in a week."</p> + +<p>"I will," replied Florimel, flushing like a wild poppy, and as +she said it, she looked up in his face and smiled.</p> + +<p>"It would have been selfish," she said to herself as they +drove away, "to refuse him."</p> + +<p>This first interview, and all the interviews that had +followed, now passed through her mind as she lay awake in the +darkness preceding the dawn, and she reviewed them not without +self reproach. But for some of my readers it will be hard to +believe that one of the feelings that now tormented the girl was +a sense of lowered dignity because of the relation in which she +stood to the painter -- seeing there was little or no ground for +moral compunction, and the feeling had its root merely in the +fact that he was a painter fellow, and she a marchioness. Her +rank had already grown to seem to her so identified with herself +that she was hardly any longer capable of the analysis that +should show it distinct from her being. As to any duty arising +from her position, she had never heard the word used except as +representing something owing to, not owed by rank. Social +standing in the eyes of the super excellent few of fashion was +the Satan of unrighteousness worshipped around her. And the +precepts of this worship fell upon soil prepared for it. For with +all the simplicity of her nature, there was in it an inborn sense +of rank, of elevation in the order of the universe above most +others of the children of men -- of greater intrinsic worth +therefore in herself. How could it be otherwise with the +offspring of generations of pride and falsely conscious +superiority? Hence, as things were going now with the mere human +part of her, some commotion, if not earthquake indeed, was +imminent. Nay the commotion had already begun, as manifest in her +sleeplessness and the thoughts that occupied it.</p> + +<p>Rightly to understand the sense of shame and degradation she +had not unfrequently felt of late, we must remember that in the +circle in which she moved she heard professions, arts, and trades +alluded to with the same unuttered, but the more strongly implied +contempt -- a contempt indeed regarded as so much a matter of +course, so thoroughly understood, so reasonable in its nature, so +absolute in its degree, that to utter it would have been bad +taste from very superfluity. Yet she never entered the painter's +study but with trembling heart, uncertain foot, and fluttering +breath, as of one stepping within the gates of an enchanted +paradise, whose joy is too much for the material weight of +humanity to ballast even to the steadying of the bodily step, and +the outward calm of the bodily carriage. How far things had gone +between them we shall be able to judge by and by; it will be +enough at present to add that it was this relation and the inward +strife arising from it that had not only prematurely, but over +rapidly ripened the girl into the woman.</p> + +<p>This my disclosure of her condition, however, has not yet +uncovered the sorest spot upon which the flies of Beelzebub +settled in the darkness of this torture hour of the human clock. +Although still the same lively, self operative nature she had +been in other circumstances, she was so far from being insensible +or indifferent to the opinions of others, that she had not even +strength enough to keep a foreign will off the beam of her +choice: the will of another, in no way directly brought to bear +on hers, would yet weigh to her encouragement where her wish was +doubtful, or to her restraint where impulse was strong; it would +even move her towards a line of conduct whose anticipated results +were distasteful to her. Ever and anon her pride would rise armed +against the consciousness of slavery, but its armour was too +weak either for defence or for deliverance. She knew that the +heart of Lady Bellair, what of heart she had, was set upon her +marriage with her nephew, Lord Liftore. Now she recoiled from the +idea of marriage, and dismissed it into a future of indefinite +removal; she had no special desire to please Lady Bellair from +the point of gratitude, for she was perfectly aware that her +relation to herself was far from being without advantage to that +lady's position as well as means: a whisper or two that had +reached her had been enough to enlighten her in that direction; +neither could she persuade herself that Lord Liftore was at all +the sort of man she could become proud of as a husband; and yet +she felt destined to be his wife. On the other hand she had no +dislike to him: he was handsome, well informed, capable -- a +gentleman, she thought, of good regard in the circles in which +they moved, and one who would not in any manner disgrace her, +although to be sure he was her inferior in rank, and she would +rather have married a duke. At the same time, to confess all the +truth, she was by no means indifferent to the advantages of +having for a husband a man with money enough to restore the +somewhat tarnished prestige of her own family to its pristine +brilliancy. She had never said a word to encourage the scheming +of Lady Bellair; neither, on the other hand, had she ever said a +word to discourage her hopes, or give her ground for doubting the +acceptableness of her cherished project. Hence Lady Bellair had +naturally come to regard the two as almost affianced. But +Florimel's aversion to the idea of marriage, and her horror at +the thought of the slightest whisper of what was between her and +Lenorme, increased together.</p> + +<p>There were times too when she asked herself in anxious +discomfort whether she was not possibly a transgressor against a +deeper and simpler law than that of station -- whether she was +altogether maidenly in the encouragement she had given and was +giving to the painter. It must not be imagined that she had once +visited him without a companion, though that companion was indeed +sometimes only her maid -- her real object being covered by the +true pretext of sitting for her portrait, which Lady Bellair +pleased herself with imagining would one day be presented to Lord +Liftore. But she could not, upon such occasions of morning +judgment as this, fail to doubt sorely whether the visits she +paid him, and the liberties which upon fortunate occasions she +allowed him, were such as could be justified on any ground other +than that she was prepared to give him all. All, however, she was +by no means prepared to give him: that involved consequences far +too terrible to be contemplated even as possibilities.</p> + +<p>With such causes for disquiet in her young heart and brain, it +is not then wonderful that she should sometimes be unable to slip +across this troubled region of the night in the boat of her +dreams, but should suffer shipwreck on the waking coast, and have +to encounter the staring and questioning eyes of more than one +importunate truth. Nor is it any wonder either that, to such an +inexperienced and so troubled a heart, the assurance of one +absolutely devoted friend should come with healing and hope -- +even if that friend should be but a groom, altogether incapable +of understanding her position, or perceiving the phantoms that +crowded about her, threatening to embody themselves in her ruin. +A clumsy, ridiculous fellow, she said to herself, from whose +person she could never dissociate the smell of fish, who talked a +horrible jargon called Scotch, and who could not be prevented +from uttering unpalatable truths at uncomfortable moments; yet +whose thoughts were as chivalrous as his person was powerful, and +whose countenance was pleasing if only for the triumph of honesty +therein: she actually felt stronger and safer to know he was +near, and at her beck and call.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV: +PORTLOSSIE</h1> + +<p>Mr Crathie, seeing nothing more of Malcolm, believed himself +at last well rid of him; but it was days before his wrath ceased +to flame, and then it went on smouldering. Nothing occurred to +take him to the Seaton, and no business brought any of the fisher +people to his office during that time. Hence he heard nothing of +the mode of Malcolm's departure. When at length in the course of +ordinary undulatory propagation the news reached him that Malcolm +had taken the yacht with him, he was enraged beyond measure at +the impudence of the theft, as he called it, and ran to the +Seaton in a fury. He had this consolation, however: the man who +had accused him of dishonesty and hypocrisy had proved but a +thief.</p> + +<p>He found the boathouse indeed empty, and went storming from +cottage to cottage, but came upon no one from whom his anger +could draw nourishment, not to say gain satisfaction. At length +he reached the Partan's, found him at home, and commenced, at +haphazard, abusing him as an aider and abettor of the felony. But +Meg Partan was at home also, as Mr Crathie soon learned to his +cost; for, hearing him usurp her unique privilege of falling out +upon her husband, she stole from the ben end, and having stood +for a moment silent in the doorway, listening for comprehension, +rushed out in a storm of tongue.</p> + +<p>"An' what for sudna my man," she cried, at full height of her +screeching voice, "lay tu his han' wi' ither honest fowk to du +for the boat what him 'at was weel kent for the captain o' her, +sin' ever she was a boat, wantit dune? Wad ye tak the comman' o' +the boat, sir, as weel's o' a' thing ither aboot the place?"</p> + +<p>"Hold your tongue, woman," said the factor; "I have nothing to +say to you."</p> + +<p>"Aigh, sirs! but it's a peety ye wasna foreordeent to be +markis yersel'! It maun be a sair vex to ye 'at ye're naething +but the factor."</p> + +<p>"If ye don't mind your manners, Mistress Fin'lay," said Mr +Crathie in glowing indignation, "perhaps you'll find that the +factor is as much as the marquis, when he's all there is for +one."</p> + +<p>"Lord safe 's hear till 'im !" cried the Partaness. "Wha wad +hae thoucht it o' 'im? There's fowk 'at it sets weel to tak upo' +them! His father, honest man, wad ne'er hae spoken like that to +Meg Partan; but syne he was an honest man, though he was but the +heid shepherd upo' the estate. Man, I micht hae been yer mither +-- gien I had been auld eneuch for 's first wife, for he wad fain +hae had me for 's second."</p> + +<p>"I've a great mind to take out a warrant against you, John +Fin'lay, otherwise called the Partan, as airt an' pairt in the +stealing of the Marchioness of Lossie's pleasure boat," said the +factor. "And for you, Mistress Fin'lay, I would have you please +to remember that this house, as far at least as you are +concerned, is mine, although I am but the factor, and not the +marquis; and if you don't keep that unruly tongue of yours a +little quieter in your head, I'll set you in the street the next +quarter day but one, as sure's ever you gutted a herring, and +then you may bid goodbye to Portlossie, for there's not a house, +as you very well know, in all the Seaton, that belongs to another +than her ladyship."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, Mr Crathie," returned Meg Partan, a little sobered by +the threat, "ye wad hae mair sense nor rin the risk o' an +uprisin' o' the fisher fowk. They wad ill stan' to see my auld +man an' me misused, no to say 'at her leddyship hersel' wad see +ony o' her ain fowk turned oot o' hoose an' haudin' for naething +ava."</p> + +<p>"Her ladyship wad gi'e hersel' sma' concern gien the haill +bilin' o' ye war whaur ye cam frae," returned the factor. "An' +for the toon here, the fowk kens the guid o' a quaiet caus'ay +ower weel to lament the loss o' ye."</p> + +<p>"The deil's i' the man!" cried the Partaness in high scorn. +"He wad threip upo' me 'at I was ane o' thae lang tongued limmers +'at maks themsel's h'ard frae ae toon's en' to the tither! But I +s' gar him priv 's words yet!"</p> + +<p>"Ye see, sir," interposed the mild Partan, anxious to shove +extremities aside, "we didna ken 'at there was onything intill't +by ord'nar. Gien we had but kent 'at he was oot o' your guid +graces,"</p> + +<p>"Haud yer tongue afore ye lee, man," interrupted his wife. "Ye +ken weel eneuch ye wad du what Ma'colm MacPhail wad hae ye du, +for ony factor in braid Scotlan'."</p> + +<p>"You must have known," said the factor to the Partan, +apparently heedless of this last outbreak of the generous evil +temper, and laying a cunning trap for the information he sorely +wanted, but had as yet failed in procuring -- "else why was it +that not a soul went with him? He could ill manage the boat +alone."</p> + +<p>"What put sic buff an' styte i' yer heid, sir?" rejoined Meg; +defiant of the hints her husband sought to convey to her. +"There's mony ane wad hae been ready to gang, only wha sud gang +but him 'at gaed wi' him an' 's lordship frae the first?"</p> + +<p>"And who was that?" asked Mr Crathie.</p> + +<p>"Ow! wha but Blue Peter?" answered Meg.</p> + +<p>"Hm!" said the factor, in a tone that for almost the first +time in her life made the woman regret that she had spoken, and +therewith he rose and left the cottage.</p> + +<p>"Eh, mither!" cried Lizzy, in her turn appearing from the ben +end, with her child in her arms, "ye hae wroucht ruin i' the +earth! He'll hae Peter an' Annie an' a' oot o' hoose an' ha', +come midsummer."</p> + +<p>"I daur him till't!" cried her mother, in the impotence and +self despite of a mortifying blunder; "I'll raise the toon upon +'im."</p> + +<p>"What wad that du, mither?" returned Lizzy, in distress about +her friends. "It wad but mak' ill waur."</p> + +<p>"An' wha are ye to oppen yer mou' sae wide to yer mither?" +burst forth Meg Partan, glad of an object upon which the chagrin +that consumed her might issue in flame. "Ye havena luikit to yer +ain gait sae weel 'at ye can thriep to set richt them 'at broucht +ye forth. -- Wha are ye, I say?" she repeated in rage.</p> + +<p>"Ane 'at folly's made wiser, maybe, mither," answered Lizzie +sadly, and proceeded to take her shawl from behind the door: she +would go to her friends at Scaurnose, and communicate her fears +for their warning. But her words smote the mother within the +mother, and she turned and looked at her daughter with more of +the woman and less of the Partan in her rugged countenance than +had been visible there since the first week of her married life. +She had been greatly injured by the gaining of too easy a +conquest and resultant supremacy over her husband, whence she had +ever after revelled in a rule too absolute for good to any +concerned. As she was turning away, her daughter caught a glimpse +of her softened eyes, and went out of the house with more comfort +in her heart than she had felt ever since first she had given her +conscience cause to speak daggers to her.</p> + +<p>The factor kept raging to himself all the way home, flung +himself trembling on his horse, vouchsafing his anxious wife +scarce any answer to her anxious enquiries, and galloped to Duff +Harbour to Mr Soutar.</p> + +<p>I will not occupy my tale with their interview. Suffice it to +say that the lawyer succeeded at last in convincing the demented +factor that it would be but prudent to delay measures for the +recovery of the yacht and the arrest and punishment of its +abductors, until he knew what Lady Lossie would say to the +affair. She had always had a liking for the lad, Mr Soutar said, +and he would not be in the least surprised to hear that Malcolm +had gone straight to her ladyship and put himself under her +protection. No doubt by this time the cutter was at its owner's +disposal: it would be just like the fellow! He always went the +nearest road anywhere. And to prosecute him for a thief would in +any case but bring down the ridicule of the whole coast upon the +factor, and breed him endless annoyance in the getting in of his +rents -- especially among the fishermen. The result was that Mr +Crathie went home -- not indeed a humbler or wiser man than he +had gone, but a thwarted man, and therefore the more dangerous in +the channels left open to the outrush of his angry power.</p> + +<p>When Lizzy reached Scaurnose, her account of the factor's +behaviour, to her surprise, did not take much effect upon Mrs +Mair: a queer little smile broke over her countenance, and +vanished. An enforced gravity succeeded, however, and she began +to take counsel with Lizzy as to what they could do, or where +they could go, should the worst come to the worst, and the doors, +not only of her own house, but of Scaurnose and Portlossie as +well, be shut against them. But through it all reigned a calm +regard and fearlessness of the future which, to Lizzy's roused +and apprehensive imagination, was strangely inexplicable. Annie +Mair seemed possessed of some hidden and upholding assurance that +raised her above the fear of man or what he could do to her. The +girl concluded it must be the knowledge of God, and prayed more +earnestly that night than she had prayed since the night on which +Malcolm had talked to her so earnestly before he left. I must add +this much, that she was not altogether astray: God was in +Malcolm, giving new hope to his fisher folk.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI: ST +JAMES THE APOSTLE</h1> + +<p>When Malcolm left his sister, he had a dim sense of having +lapsed into Scotch, and set about buttressing and strengthening +his determination to get rid of all unconscious and unintended +use of the northern dialect, not only that, in his attendance +upon Florimel, he might be neither offensive nor ridiculous, but +that, when the time should come in which he must appear what he +was, it might be less of an annoyance to her to yield the +marquisate to one who could speak like a gentleman and one of the +family. But not the less did he love the tongue he had spoken +from his childhood, and in which were on record so many precious +ballads and songs, old and new; and he resolved that, when he +came out as a marquis, he would at Lossie House indemnify himself +for the constraint of London. He would not have an English +servant there except Mrs Courthope: he would not have the natural +country speech corrupted with cockneyisms, and his people taught +to speak like Wallis! To his old friends the fishers and their +families, he would never utter a sentence but in the old tongue, +haunted with all the memories of relations that were never to be +obliterated or forgotten, its very tones reminding him and them +of hardships together endured, pleasures shared, and help +willingly given. At night, notwithstanding, he found that in +talking with Blue Peter, he had forgotten all about his resolve, +and it vexed him with himself not a little. He now saw that if he +could but get into the way of speaking English to him, the +victory would be gained, for with no one else would he find any +difficulty then.</p> + +<p>The next morning he went down to the stairs at London Bridge, +and took a boat to the yacht. He had to cross several vessels to +reach it. When at length he looked down from the last of them on +the deck of the little cutter, he saw Blue Peter sitting on the +coamings of the hatch, his feet hanging down within. He was lost +in the book he was reading. Curious to see, without disturbing +him, what it was that so absorbed him, Malcolm dropped quietly on +the tiller, and thence on the deck, and approaching softly peeped +over his shoulder. He was reading the epistle of James the +apostle. Malcolm fell a-thinking. From Peter's thumbed bible his +eyes went wandering through the thicket of masts, in which moved +so many busy seafarers, and then turned to the docks and wharfs +and huge warehouses lining the shores; and while they scanned the +marvellous vision, the thoughts that arose and passed through his +brain were like these: "What are ye duin' here, Jeames the Just? +Ye was naething but a fisher body upon a sma' watter i' the hert +o' the hills, 'at wasna even saut; an' what can the thochts that +gaed throu' your fish catchin' brain hae to du wi' sic a sicht 's +this? I won'er gien at this moment there be anither man in a' +Lon'on sittin' readin' that epistle o' yours but Blue Peter here? +He thinks there's naething o' mair importance, 'cep' maybe some +ither pairts o' the same buik; but syne he's but a puir fisher +body himsel', an' what kens he o' the wisdom an' riches an' pooer +o' this michty queen o' the nations, thron't aboot him? -- Is't +possible the auld body kent something 'at was jist as necessar' +to ilka man, the busiest in this croodit mairt, to ken an' gang +by, as it was to Jeames an' the lave o' the michty apostles +themsel's? For me, I dinna doobt it -- but hoo it sud ever be +onything but an auld warld story to the new warld o' Lon'on, I +think it wad bleck Maister Graham himsel' til imaigine."</p> + +<p>Before this, Blue Peter had become aware that some one was +near him, but, intent on the words of his brother fisher of the +old time, had half unconsciously put off looking up to see who +was behind him. When now he did so, and saw Malcolm, he rose and +touched his bonnet.</p> + +<p>"It was jist i' my heid, my lord," he said, without any +preamble, "sic a kin' o' a h'avenly Jacobin as this same Jacobus +was! He's sic a leveller as was feow afore 'im, I doobt, wi' his +gowd ringt man, an' his cloot cled brither! He pat me in twa +min's, my lord, whan I got up, whether I wad touch my bonnet to +yer lordship or no."</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed with hearty appreciation.</p> + +<p>"When I am king of Lossie," he said, "be it known to all whom +it may concern, that it is and shall be the right of Blue Peter, +and all his descendants, to the end of time, to stand with +bonneted heads in the presence of Lord or -- no, not Lady, Peter +-- of the house of Lossie."</p> + +<p>"Ay, but ye see, Ma'colm," said Peter, forgetting his address, +and his eye twinkling in the humour of the moment, "it's no by +your leave, or ony man's leave; it's the richt o' the thing; an' +that I maun think aboot, an' see whether I be at leeberty to ca' +ye my lord or no."</p> + +<p>"Meantime, don't do it," said Malcolm, "lest you should have +to change afterwards. You might find it difficult."</p> + +<p>"Ye're cheengt a'ready," said Blue Peter, looking up at him +sharply. "I ne'er h'ard ye speyk like that afore."</p> + +<p>"Make nothing of it," returned Malcolm. "I am only airing my +English on you; I have made up my mind to learn to speak in +London as London people do, and so, even to you, in the meantime +only, I am going to speak as good English as I can. -- It's +nothing between you and me, Peter and you must not mind it," he +added, seeing a slight cloud come over the fisherman's face.</p> + +<p>Blue Peter turned away with a sigh. The sounds of English +speech from the lips of Malcolm addressed to himself, seemed +vaguely to indicate the opening of a gulf between them, destined +ere long to widen to the whole social width between a fisherman +and a marquis, swallowing up in it not only all old memories, but +all later friendship and confidence. A shadow of bitterness +crossed the poor fellow's mind, and in it the seed of distrust +began to strike root, and all because a newer had been +substituted for an older form of the same speech and language. +Truly man's heart is a delicate piece of work, and takes gentle +handling or hurt. But that the pain was not all of innocence is +revealed in the strange fact, afterwards disclosed by the +repentant Peter himself, that, in that same moment, what had just +passed his mouth as a joke, put on an important, serious look, +and appeared to involve a matter of doubtful duty: was it really +right of one man to say my lord to another? Thus the fisherman, +and not the marquis, was the first to sin against the other +because of altered fortune. Distrust awoke pride in the heart of +Blue Pete; and he erred in the lack of the charity that thinketh +no evil.</p> + +<p>But the lack and the doubt made little show as yet. The two +men rowed in the dinghy down the river to the Aberdeen wharf to +make arrangements about Kelpie, whose arrival Malcolm expected +the following Monday, then dined together, and after that had a +long row up the river.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII: A +DIFFERENCE</h1> + +<p>Notwithstanding his keenness of judgment and sobriety in +action, Malcolm had yet a certain love for effect, a delight, +that is, in the show of concentrated results, which, as I believe +I have elsewhere remarked, belongs especially to the Celtic +nature, and is one form in which the poetic element vaguely +embodies itself. Hence arose the temptation to try on Blue Peter +the effect of a literally theatrical surprise. He knew well the +prejudices of the greater portion of the Scots people against +every possible form of artistic, most of all, dramatic +representation. He knew, therefore, also, that Peter would never +be persuaded to go with him to the theatre: to invite him would +be like asking him to call upon Beelzebub; but as this feeling +was cherished in utter ignorance of its object, he judged he +would be doing him no wrong if he made experiment how the thing +itself would affect the heart and judgment of the unsophisticated +fisherman.</p> + +<p>Finding that The Tempest was still the play represented, he +contrived, as they walked together, so to direct their course +that they should be near Drury Lane towards the hour of +commencement. He did not want to take him in much before the +time: he would not give him scope for thought, doubt, suspicion, +discovery.</p> + +<p>When they came in front of the theatre, people were crowding +in, and carriages setting down their occupants. Blue Peter gave a +glance at the building.</p> + +<p>"This'll be ane o' the Lon'on kirks, I'm thinkin'?" he said. +"It's a muckle place; an' there maun be a heap o' guid fowk in +Lon'on, for as ill's it's ca'd, to see sae mony, an' i' their +cairritches, comin' to the kirk -- on a Setterday nicht tu. It +maun be some kin' o' a prayer meetin', I'm thinkin'."</p> + +<p>Malcolm said nothing, but led the way to the pit entrance.</p> + +<p>"That's no an ill w'y o' getherin' the baubees," said Peter, +seeing how the incomers paid their money. "I hae h'ard o' the +plate bein' robbit in a muckle toon afore noo."</p> + +<p>When at length they were seated, and he had time to glance +reverently around him, he was a little staggered at sight of the +decorations; and the thought crossed his mind of the pictures and +statues he had heard of in catholic churches; but he remembered +Westminster Abbey, its windows and monuments, and returned to his +belief that he was, if in an episcopal, yet in a protestant +church. But he could not help the thought that the galleries were +a little too gaudily painted, while the high pews in them +astonished him. Peter's nature, however, was one of those calm, +slow ones which, when occupied by an idea or a belief, are by no +means ready to doubt its correctness, and are even ingenious in +reducing all apparent contradictions to theoretic harmony with it +-- whence it came that to him all this was only part of the +church furniture according to the taste and magnificence of +London. He sat quite tranquil, therefore, until the curtain rose, +revealing the ship's company in all the confusion of the wildest +of sea storms.</p> + +<p>Malcolm watched him narrowly. But Peter was first so taken by +surprise, and then so carried away with the interest of what he +saw, that thinking had ceased in him utterly, and imagination lay +passive as a mirror to the representation. Nor did the sudden +change from the first to the second scene rouse him, for before +his thinking machinery could be set in motion, the delight of the +new show had again caught him in its meshes. For to him, as it +had been to Malcolm, it was the shore at Portlossie, while the +cave that opened behind was the Bailie's Barn, where his friends +the fishers might at that moment, if it were a fine night, be +holding one of their prayer meetings. The mood lasted all through +the talk of Prospero and Miranda; but when Ariel entered there +came a snap, and the spell was broken. With a look in which doubt +wrestled with horror, Blue Peter turned to Malcolm, and whispered +with bated breath -- "I'm jaloosin' -- it canna be -- it's no a +playhoose, this?"</p> + +<p>Malcolm merely nodded, but from the nod Peter understood that +he had had no discovery to make as to the character of the place +they were in.</p> + +<p>"Eh!" he groaned, overcome with dismay. Then rising suddenly +-- "Guid nicht to ye, my lord," he said, with indignation, and +rudely forced his way from the crowded house.</p> + +<p>Malcolm followed in his wake, but said nothing till they were +in the street. Then, forgetting utterly his resolves concerning +English in the distress of having given his friend ground to +complain of his conduct towards him, he laid his hand on Blue +Peter's arm, and stopped him in the middle of the narrow +street.</p> + +<p>"I but thoucht, Peter," he said, "to get ye to see wi' yer ain +een, an' hear wi' yer ain ears, afore ye passed jeedgment; but +ye're jist like the lave."</p> + +<p>"An' what for sudna I be jist like the lave?" returned Peter, +fiercely.</p> + +<p>"'Cause it's no fair to set doon a' thing for wrang 'at ye +ha'e been i' the w'y o' hearing aboot by them 'at kens as little +aboot them as yersel'. I cam here mysel', ohn kent whaur I was +gaein', the ither nicht, for the first time i' my life; but I +wasna fleyt like you, 'cause I kent frae the buik a' 'at was +comin'. I hae h'ard in a kirk in ae ten meenutes jist a sicht o' +what maun ha'e been sair displeasin' to the hert a' the maister +a' 's a'; but that nicht I saw nae ill an' h'ard nae ill, but was +weel peyed back upo' them 'at did it an' said it afore the +business was ower, an' that's mair nor ye'll see i' the streets +o' Portlossie ilka day. The playhoose is whaur ye gang to see +what comes o' things 'at ye canna follow oot in ordinar' +life."</p> + +<p>Whether Malcolm, after a year's theatre going, would have said +precisely the same is hardly doubtful. He spoke of the ideal +theatre to which Shakspere is true, and in regard to that he +spoke rightly.</p> + +<p>"Ye decoy't me intill the hoose o' ineequity!" was Peter's +indignant reply; "an' it 's no what ye ever ga'e me cause to +expec' o' ye, sae 'at I micht ha'e ta'en tent o' ye."</p> + +<p>"I thoucht nae ill o' 't," returned Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Weel, I div," retorted Peter.</p> + +<p>"Then perhaps you are wrong," said Malcolm, "for charity +thinketh no evil. You wouldn't stay to see the thing out."</p> + +<p>"There ye are at yer English again! an' misgugglin' Scriptur' +wi' 't an' a' this upo' Setterday nicht -- maist the Sawbath day! +Weel, I ha'e aye h'ard 'at Lon'on was an awfu' place, but I +little thoucht the verra air o' 't wad sae sune turn an honest +laad like Ma'colm MacPhail intill a scoffer. But maybe it's the +markis o' 'im, an' no the muckle toon 'at's made the differ. Ony +gait, I'm thinkin' it'll be aboot time for me to be gauin' +hame."</p> + +<p>Malcolm was vexed with himself, and both disappointed and +troubled at the change which had come over his friend, and +threatened to destroy the lifelong relation between them; his +feelings therefore held him silent. Peter concluded that the +marquis was displeased, and it clenched his resolve to go.</p> + +<p>"What w'y am I to win hame, my lord?" he said, when they had +walked some distance without word spoken.</p> + +<p>"By the Aberdeen smack," returned Malcolm. "She sails on +Tuesday. I will see you on board. You must take young Davy with +you, for I wouldn't have him here after you are gone. There will +be nothing for him to do."</p> + +<p>"Ye're unco ready to pairt wi' 's noo 'at ye ha'e nae mair use +for 's," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"No sae ready as ye seem to pairt wi' yer chairity," said +Malcolm, now angry too.</p> + +<p>"Ye see Annie 'ill be thinkin' lang," said Peter, softening a +little.</p> + +<p>No more angry words passed between them, but neither did any +thoroughly cordial ones, and they parted at the stairs in mutual, +though, with such men, it could not be more than superficial +estrangement.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII: +LORD LIFTORE</h1> + +<p>The chief cause of Malcolm's anxiety had been, and perhaps +still was, Lord Liftore. In his ignorance of Mr Lenorme there +might lie equal cause with him, but he knew such evil of the +other that his whole nature revolted against the thought of his +marrying his sister. At Lossie he had made himself agreeable to +her, and now, if not actually living in the same house, he was +there at all hours of the day.</p> + +<p>It took nothing from his anxiety to see that his lordship was +greatly improved. Not only had the lanky youth passed into a well +formed man, but in countenance, whether as regarded expression, +complexion, or feature, he was not merely a handsomer but looked +in every way a healthier and better man. Whether it was from some +reviving sense of duty, or that, in his attachment to Florimel, +he had begun to cherish a desire of being worthy of her, I cannot +tell; but he looked altogether more of a man than the time that +had elapsed would have given ground to expect, even had he then +seemed on the mend, and indeed promised to become a really fine +looking fellow. His features were far more regular if less +informed than those of the painter and his carriage prouder if +less graceful and energetic. His admiration of and consequent +attachment to Florimel had been growing ever since his visit to +Lossie House the preceding summer, and if he had said nothing +quite definite, it was only because his aunt represented the +impolicy of declaring himself just yet: she was too young. She +judged thus, attributing her evident indifference to an +incapacity as yet for falling in love. Hence, beyond paying her +all sorts of attentions and what compliments he was capable of +constructing, Lord Liftore had not gone far towards making +himself understood -- at least, not until just before Malcolm's +arrival, when his behaviour had certainly grown warmer and more +confidential.</p> + +<p>All the time she had been under his aunt's care he had had +abundant opportunity for recommending himself, and he had made +use of the privilege. For one thing, credibly assured that he +looked well in the saddle, he had constantly encouraged +Florimel's love of riding and desire to become a thorough horse +woman, and they had ridden a good deal together in the +neighbourhood of Edinburgh. This practice they continued as much +as possible after they came to London early in the spring; but +the weather of late had not been favourable, and Florimel had +been very little out with him.</p> + +<p>For a long time Lady Bellair had had her mind set on a match +between the daughter of her old friend the Marquis of Lossie and +her nephew, and it was with this in view that, when invited to +Lossie House, she had begged leave to bring Lord Meikleham with +her. The young man was from the first sufficiently taken with the +beautiful girl to satisfy his aunt, and would even then have +shown greater fervour in his attentions, had he not met Lizzy +Findlay at the wedding of Joseph Mair's sister, and found her +more than pleasing. I will not say that from the first he +purposed wrong to her: he was too inexperienced in the ways of +evil for that; but even when he saw plainly enough to what their +mutual attraction was tending, he gave himself no trouble to +resist it; and through the whole unhappy affair had not had one +smallest struggle with himself for the girl's sake. To himself he +was all in all as yet, and such was his opinion of his own +precious being, that, had he thought about it, he would have +considered the honour of his attentions far more than sufficient +to make up to any girl in such a position for whatever mishap his +acquaintance might bring upon her. What were the grief and +mortification of parents to put in the balance against his +condescension? what the shame and the humiliation of the girl +herself compared with the honour of having been shone upon for a +period, however brief, by his enamoured countenance? Must not +even the sorrow attendant upon her loss be rendered more than +endurable -- be radiantly consoled by the memory that she had +held such a demigod in her arms? When he left her at last, with +many promises, not one of which he ever had the intention of +fulfilling, he did purpose sending her a present. But at that +time he was poor -- dependent, indeed, for his pocket money upon +his aunt; and, up to this hour, he had never since his departure +from Lossie House taken the least notice of her either by gift or +letter. He had taken care also that it should not be in her power +to write to him, and now he did not even know that he was a +father. Once or twice the possibility of such being the case +occurred to him, and he thought within himself that if he were, +and it should come to be talked of, it might, in respect of his +present hopes, be awkward and disagreeable; for, although such a +predicament was nowise unusual, in this instance the +circumstances were. More than one of his bachelor friends had a +small family even, but then it was in the regular way of an open +and understood secret: the fox had his nest in some pleasant +nook, adroitly masked, where lay his vixen and her brood; one day +he would abandon them for ever, and, with such gathered store of +experience, set up for a respectable family man. A few tears, a +neat legal arrangement, and all would be as it had never been, +only that the blood of the Montmorencies or Cliffords would +meander unclaimed in this or that obscure channel, beautifying +the race, and rousing England to noble deeds! But in his case it +would be unpleasant -- a little -- that every one of his future +tenantry should know the relation in which he stood to a woman of +the fisher people. He did not fear any resentment -- not that he +would have cared a straw for it, on such trifling grounds, but +people in their low condition never thought anything of such +slips on the part of their women especially where a great man was +concerned. What he did fear was that the immediate relations of +the woman -- that was how he spoke of Lizzy to himself -- might +presume upon the honour he had done them. Lizzy, however, was a +good girl, and had promised to keep the matter secret until she +heard from him, whatever might be the consequences; and surely +there was fascination enough in the holding of a secret with such +as he to enable her to keep her promise. She must be perfectly +aware, however appearances might be against him, that he was not +one to fail in appreciation of her conduct, however easy and +natural all that he required of her might be. He would requite +her royally when he was Lord of Lossie. Meantime, although it was +even now in his power to make her rich amends, he would prudently +leave things as they were, and not run the risk that must lie in +opening communications.</p> + +<p>And so the young earl held his head high, looked as innocent +as may be desirable for a gentleman, had many a fair clean hand +laid in his, and many a maiden waist yielded to his arm, while +"the woman" flitted about half an alien amongst her own, with his +child wound in her old shawl of Lossie tartan; wandering not +seldom in the gloaming when her little one slept, along the top +of the dune, with the wind blowing keen upon her from the regions +of eternal ice, sometimes the snow settling softly on her hair, +sometimes the hailstones nestling in its meshes; the skies +growing blacker about her, and the sea stormier, while hope +retreated so far into the heavenly regions, that hope and heaven +both were lost to her view. Thus, alas! the things in which he +was superior to her, most of all that he was a gentleman, while +she was but a peasant girl -- the things whose witchery drew her +to his will, he made the means of casting her down from the place +of her excellency into the mire of shame and loss. The only love +worthy of the name ever and always uplifts.</p> + +<p>Of the people belonging to the upper town of Portlossie, which +raised itself high above the sea town in other respects besides +the topical, there were none who did not make poor Lizzy feel +they were aware of her disgrace, and but one man who made her +feel it by being kinder than before. That man, strange to say, +was the factor. With all his faults he had some chivalry, and he +showed it to the fisher girl. Nor did he alter his manner to her +because of the rudeness with which her mother had taken Malcolm's +part.</p> + +<p>It was a sore proof to Mr Crathie that his discharged servant +was in favour with the marchioness when the order came from Mr +Soutar to send up Kelpie. She had written to himself when she +wanted her own horse; now she sent for this brute through her +lawyer. It was plain that Malcolm had been speaking against him; +and he was the more embittered therefore against his friends.</p> + +<p>Since his departure he had been twice on the point of +poisoning the mare.</p> + +<p>It was with difficulty he found two men to take her to +Aberdeen. There they had an arduous job to get her on board and +secure her. But it had been done, and all the Monday night +Malcolm was waiting her arrival at the wharf -- alone, for after +what had passed between them, he would not ask Peter to go with +him, and besides he was no use with horses. At length, in the +grey of a gurly dawn, the smack came alongside. They had had a +rough passage, and the mare was considerably subdued by sickness, +so that there was less difficulty in getting her ashore, and she +paced for a little while in tolerable quietness. But with every +step on dry land, the evil spirit in her awoke, and soon Malcolm +had to dismount and lead her. The morning was little advanced, +and few vehicles were about, otherwise he could hardly have got +her home uninjured, notwithstanding the sugar with which he had +filled a pocket. Before he reached the mews he was very near +wishing he had never seen her. But when he led her into the +stable, he was a little encouraged as well as surprised to find +that she had not forgotten Florimel's horse. They had always been +a little friendly, and now they greeted each other with an +affectionate neigh; after which, with the help of all she could +devour, the demoness was quieter.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX: KELPIE +IN LONDON</h1> + +<p>Before noon Lord Liftore came round to the mews: his riding +horses were there. Malcolm was not at the moment in the +stable.</p> + +<p>"What animal is that?" he asked of his own groom, catching +sight of Kelpie in her loose box.</p> + +<p>"One just come up from Scotland for Lady Lossie, my lord," +answered the man.</p> + +<p>"She looks a clipper! Lead her out, and let me see her."</p> + +<p>"She's not sound in the temper, my lord, the groom that +brought her says. He told me on no account to go near her till +she got used to the sight of me."</p> + +<p>"Oh! you're afraid, are you?" said his lordship, whose +breeding had not taught him courtesy to his inferiors.</p> + +<p>At the word the man walked into her box. As he did so he +looked out for her hoofs, but his circumspection was in vain: in +a moment she had wheeled, jammed him against the wall, and taken +his shoulder in her teeth. He gave a yell of pain. His lordship +caught up a stable broom, and attacked the mare with it over the +door; but it flew from his hand to the other end of the stable, +and the partition began to go after it. But she still kept her +hold of the man. Happily, however, Malcolm was not far off and +hearing the noise, rushed in. He was just in time to save the +groom's life. Clearing the stall partition, and seizing the mare +by the nose with a mighty grasp, he inserted a forefinger behind +her tusk, for she was one of the few mares tusked like a horse, +and soon compelled her to open her mouth. The groom staggered and +would have fallen, so cruelly had she mauled him, but Malcolm's +voice roused him.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake gang oot, as lang's there twa limbs o' ye +stickin' thegither."</p> + +<p>The poor fellow just managed to open the door, and fell +senseless on the stones. Lord Liftore called for help, and they +carried him into the saddle room, while one ran for the nearest +surgeon.</p> + +<p>Meantime Malcolm was putting a muzzle on Kelpie, which he +believed she understood as a punishment, and while he was thus +occupied, his lordship came from the saddle room and approached +the box.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" he said. "I think I have seen you before."</p> + +<p>"I was servant to the late Marquis of Lossie, my lord, and now +I am groom to her ladyship."</p> + +<p>"What a fury you've brought up with you! She'll never do for +London."</p> + +<p>"I told the man not to go near her, my lord."</p> + +<p>"What's the use of her if no one can go near her?"</p> + +<p>"I can, my lord."</p> + +<p>"By Jove, she's a splendid creature to look at! but I don't +know what you can do with her here, my man. She's fit to go +double with Satan himself."</p> + +<p>"She'll do for me to ride after my lady well enough. If only I +had room to exercise her a bit!"</p> + +<p>"Take her into the park early in the morning, and gallop her +round. Only mind she don't break your neck. What can have made +Lady Lossie send for such a devil as that!"</p> + +<p>Malcolm held his peace.</p> + +<p>"I'll try her myself some morning," said his lordship, who +thought himself a better horseman than he was.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't advise you, my lord."</p> + +<p>"Who the devil asked your advice?"</p> + +<p>"Ten to one she'll kill you, my lord."</p> + +<p>"That's my look out," said Liftore, and went into the +house.</p> + +<p>As soon as he had done with Kelpie, Malcolm dressed himself in +his new livery, and went to tell his mistress of her arrival. She +sent him orders to bring the mare round in half an hour. He went +back to her, took off her muzzle, fed her, and while she ate her +corn, put on the spurs he had prepared expressly for her use -- a +spike without a rowel, rather blunt, but sharp indeed when +sharply used -- like those of the Gauchos of the Pampas. Then he +saddled her, and rode her round.</p> + +<p>Having had her fit of temper, she was, to all appearance, +going to be fairly good for the rest of the day, and looked +splendid. She was a large mare, nearly thoroughbred, but with +more bone than usual for her breeding, which she carried +triumphantly -- an animal most men would have been pleased to +possess -- and proud to ride. Florimel came to the door to see +her, accompanied by Liftore, and was so delighted with the very +sight of her that she sent at once to the stables for her own +horse, that she might ride out attended by Malcolm. His lordship +also ordered his horse.</p> + +<p>They went straight to Rotten Row for a little gallop, and +Kelpie was behaving very well for her.</p> + +<p>"What did you have two such savages, horse and groom both, up +from Scotland for, Florimel?" asked his lordship, as they +cantered gently along the Row, Kelpie coming sideways after them, +as if she would fain alter the pairing of her legs..</p> + +<p>Florimel turned and cast an admiring glance on the two.</p> + +<p>"Do you know I am rather proud of them," she said.</p> + +<p>"He's a clumsy fellow, the groom; and for the mare, she's +downright wicked," said Liftore.</p> + +<p>"At least neither is a hypocrite," returned Florimel, with +Malcolm's account of his quarrel with the factor in her mind. +"The mare is just as wicked as she looks, and the man as good. +Believe me, my lord, that man you call a savage never told a lie +in his life!"</p> + +<p>As she spoke she looked him hard in the face -- with her +father in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Liftore could not return the look with equal steadiness. It +seemed for the moment to be inquiring too curiously.</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean," he said. "You don't believe my +professions."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he edged his horse close up to hers.</p> + +<p>"But," he went on, "if I know that I speak the truth when I +swear that I love every breath of wind that has but touched your +dress as it passed, that I would die gladly for one loving touch +of your hand -- why should you not let me ease my heart by saying +so? Florimel, my life has been a different thing from the moment +I saw you first. It has grown precious to me since I saw that it +might be -- Confound the fellow! what's he about now with his +horse devil?"</p> + +<p>For at that moment his lordship's horse, a high bred but timid +animal, sprang away from the side of Florimel's, and there stood +Kelpie on her hind legs, pawing the air between him and his lady, +and Florimel, whose old confidence in Malcolm was now more than +revived, was laughing merrily at the discomfiture of his attempt +at love making. Her behaviour and his own frustration put him in +such a rage that, wheeling quickly round, he struck Kelpie, just +as she dropped on all fours, a great cut with his whip across the +haunches. She plunged and kicked violently, came within an inch +of breaking his horse's leg, and flew across the rail into the +park. Nothing could have suited Malcolm better. He did not punish +her as he would have done had she been to blame, for he was +always just to lower as well as higher animals, but he took her a +great round at racing speed, while his mistress and her companion +looked on, and everyone in the Row stopped and stared. Finally, +he hopped her over the rail again, and brought her up dripping +and foaming to his mistress. Florimel's eyes were flashing, and +Liftore looked still angry.</p> + +<p>"Dinna du that again, my lord," said Malcolm. "Ye're no my +maister; an' gien ye war, ye wad hae no richt to brak my +neck."</p> + +<p>"No fear of that! That's not how your neck will be broken, my +man," said his lordship, with an attempted laugh; for though he +was all the angrier that he was ashamed of what he had done, he +dared not further wrong the servant before his mistress.</p> + +<p>A policeman came up and laid his hand on Kelpie's bridle.</p> + +<p>"Take care what you're about," said Malcolm; "the mare's not +safe. -- There's my mistress, the Marchioness of Lossie."</p> + +<p>The man saw an ugly look in Kelpie's eye, withdrew his hand, +and turned to Florimel.</p> + +<p>"My groom is not to blame," said she. "Lord Liftore struck his +mare, and she became ungovernable."</p> + +<p>The man gave a look at Liftore, seemed to take his likeness, +touched his hat, and withdrew.</p> + +<p>"You'd better ride the jade home," said Liftore.</p> + +<p>Malcolm only looked at his mistress. She moved on, and he +followed.</p> + +<p>He was not so innocent in the affair as he had seemed. The +expression of Liftore's face as he drew nearer to Florimel, was +to him so hateful, that he interfered in a very literal fashion: +Kelpie had been doing no more than he had made her until the earl +struck her.</p> + +<p>"Let us ride to Richmond tomorrow," said Florimel, "and have a +good gallop in the park. Did you ever see a finer sight than that +animal on the grass?"</p> + +<p>"The fellow's too heavy for her," said Liftore. "I should very +much like to try her myself."</p> + +<p>Florimel pulled up, and turned to Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"MacPhail," she said, "have that mare of yours ready whenever +Lord Liftore chooses to ride her."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, my lady," returned Malcolm, "but would +your ladyship make a condition with my lord that he shall not +mount her anywhere on the stones."</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" said Liftore scornfully. "You fancy yourself the +only man that can ride!"</p> + +<p>"It's nothing to me, my lord, if you break your neck; but I am +bound to tell you I do not think your lordship will sit my mare. +Stoat can't; and I can only because I know her as well as my own +palm."</p> + +<p>The young earl made no answer and they rode on -- Malcolm +nearer than his lordship liked.</p> + +<p>"I can't think, Florimel," he said, "why you should want that +fellow about you again. He is not only very awkward, but insolent +as well."</p> + +<p>"I should call it straightforward," returned Florimel.</p> + +<p>"My dear Lady Lossie! See how close he is riding to us +now."</p> + +<p>"He is anxious, I daresay, as to your Lordship's behaviour. He +is like some dogs that are a little too careful of their +mistresses -- touchy as to how they are addressed -- not a bad +fault in dog -- or groom either. He saved my life once, and he +was a great favourite with my father: I won't hear anything +against him."</p> + +<p>"But for your own sake -- just consider: -- what will people +say if you show any preference for a man like that?" said +Liftore, who had already become jealous of the man who in his +heart he feared could ride better than himself.</p> + +<p>"My lord!" exclaimed Florimel, with a mingling of surprise and +indignation in her voice, and suddenly quickening her pace, +dropped him behind.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was after her so instantly that it brought him abreast +of Liftore.</p> + +<p>"Keep your own place," said his lordship, with stern +rebuke.</p> + +<p>"I keep my place to my mistress," returned Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Liftore looked at him as it he would strike him. But he +thought better of it apparently, and rode after Florimel.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX: BLUE +PETER</h1> + +<p>By the time he had put up Kelpie, Malcolm found that his only +chance of seeing Blue Peter before he left London, lay in going +direct to the wharf. On his road he reflected on what had just +passed, and was not altogether pleased with himself. He had +nearly lost his temper with Liftore; and if he should act in any +way unbefitting the position he had assumed, from the duties of +which he was in no degree exonerated by the fact that he had +assumed it for a purpose, it would not only be a failure in +himself, but an impediment perhaps insurmountable in the path of +his service. To attract attention was almost to insure +frustration. When he reached the wharf he found they had nearly +got her freight on board the smack. Blue Peter stood on the +forecastle. He went to him and explained how it was that he had +been unable to join him sooner.</p> + +<p>"I didna ken ye," said Blue Peter, "in sic playactor kin' o' +claes."</p> + +<p>"Nobody in London would look at me twice now. But you remember +how we were stared at when first we came," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Ow ay!" returned Peter with almost a groan; "there's a sair +cheenge past upo' you, but I'm gauin' hame to the auld w'y o' +things. The herrin' 'll be aye to the fore, I'm thinkin'; an' +gien we getna a harbour we'll get a h'aven."</p> + +<p>Judging it better to take no notice of this pretty strong +expression of distrust and disappointment, Malcolm led him aside, +and putting a few sovereigns in his hand, said,</p> + +<p>"Here, Peter, that will take you home."</p> + +<p>"It's ower muckle -- a heap ower muckle. I'll tak naething +frae ye but what'll pay my w'y."</p> + +<p>"And what is such a trifle between friends?"</p> + +<p>"There was a time, Ma'colm, whan what was mine was yours, an' +what was yours was mine, but that time's gane."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to hear that, Peter; but still I owe you as much as +that for bare wages."</p> + +<p>"There was no word o' wages when ye said, Peter, come to +Lon'on wi' me. -- Davie there -- he maun hae his wauges."</p> + +<p>"Weel," said Malcolm, thinking it better to give way, "I'm no +abune bein' obleeged to ye, Peter. I maun bide my time, I see, +for ye winna lippen till me. Eh man! your faith's sune at the +wa'."</p> + +<p>"Faith! what faith?" returned Peter, almost fiercely. "We're +tauld to put no faith in man; an' gien I bena come to that yet +freely, I'm nearer till't nor ever I was afore."</p> + +<p>"Weel, Peter, a' 'at I can say is, I ken my ain hert, an' ye +dinna ken't."</p> + +<p>"Daur ye tell me!" cried Peter. "Disna the Scriptur' itsel' +say the hert o' man is deceitfu' an' despratly wickit: who can +know it?"</p> + +<p>"Peter," said Malcolm, and he spoke very gently, for he +understood that love and not hate was at the root of his friend's +anger and injustice, "gien ye winna lippen to me, there's +naething for't but I maun lippen to you. Gang hame to yer wife, +an' gi'e her my compliments, an' tell her a' 'at's past atween +you an' me, as near, word for word, as ye can tell the same; an' +say till her, I pray her to judge atween you an' me -- an' to mak +the best o' me to ye 'at she can, for I wad ill thole to loss yer +freenship, Peter."</p> + +<p>The same moment came the command for all but passengers to go +ashore. The men grasped each other's hand, looked each other in +the eyes with something of mutual reproach, and parted -- Blue +Peter down the river to Scaurnose and Annie, Malcolm to the yacht +lying still in the Upper Pool.</p> + +<p>He saw it taken properly in charge, and arranged for having it +towed up the river and anchored in the Chelsea Reach.</p> + +<p>When Blue Peter found himself once more safe out at sea, with +twelve hundred yards of canvas spread above him in one mighty +wing betwixt boom and gaff; and the wind blowing half a gale, the +weather inside him began to change a little. He began to see that +he had not been behaving altogether as a friend ought. It was not +that he saw reason for being better satisfied with Malcolm or his +conduct, but reason for being worse satisfied with himself; and +the consequence was that he grew still angrier with Malcolm, and +the wrong he had done him seemed more and more an unpardonable +one.</p> + +<p>When he was at length seated on the top of the coach running +betwixt Aberdeen and Fochabers, which would set him down as near +Scaurnose as coach could go, he began to be doubtful how Annie, +formally retained on Malcolm's side by the message he had to give +her, would judge in the question between them; for what did she +know of theatres and such places? And the doubt strengthened as +he neared home. The consequence was that he felt in no haste to +execute Malcolm's commission; and hence, the delights of greeting +over, Annie was the first to open her bag of troubles: Mr Crathie +had given them notice to quit at Midsummer.</p> + +<p>"Jist what I micht hae expeckit!" cried Blue Peter, starting +up. "Woe be to the man 'at puts his trust in princes! I luikit +till him to save the fisher fowk, an' no to the Lord; an' the +tooer o' Siloam 's fa'en upo' my heid: -- what does he, the first +thing, but turn his ain auld freen's oot o' the sma beild they +had! That his father nor his gran'father, 'at was naither o' them +God fearin' men, wad never hae put their han' till. Eh, wuman! +but my hert's sair 'ithin me. To think o' Ma'colm MacPhail +turnin' his back upo' them 'at's been freens wi' 'im sin ever he +was a wee loonie, rinnin' aboot in coaties!"</p> + +<p>"Hoot, man! what's gotten intill yer heid?" returned his wife. +"It's no Ma'colm; it's the illwully factor. Bide ye till he comes +till 's ain, an' Maister Crathie 'll hae to lauch o' the wrang +side o' 's mou'."</p> + +<p>But thereupon Peter began his tale of how he had fared in +London, and in the excitement of keenly anticipated evil, and +with his recollection of events wrapped in the mist of a +displeasure which had deepened during his journey, he so clothed +the facts of Malcolm's conduct in the garments of his own +feelings that the mind of Annie Mair also became speedily +possessed with the fancy that their friend's good fortune had +upset his moral equilibrium, and that he had not only behaved to +her husband with pride and arrogance, breaking all the ancient +bonds of friendship between them, but had tried to seduce him +from the ways of righteousness by inveigling him into a +playhouse, where marvels of wickedness were going on at the very +time. She wept a few bitter tears of disappointment, dried them +hastily, lifted her head high, and proceeded to set her affairs +in order as if death were at the door.</p> + +<p>For indeed it was to them as a death to leave Scaurnose. True, +Annie came from inland, and was not of the fisher race, but this +part of the coast she had known from childhood, and in this +cottage all her married years had been spent, while banishment of +the sort involved banishment from every place they knew, for all +the neighbourhood was equally under the power of the factor. And +poor as their accommodation here was, they had plenty of open air +and land room; whereas if they should be compelled to go to any +of the larger ports, it would be to circumstances greatly +inferior, and a neighbourhood in all probability very undesirable +for their children.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI: MR +GRAHAM</h1> + +<p>When Malcolm at length reached his lodging, he found there a +letter from Miss Horn, containing the much desired information as +to where the schoolmaster was to be found in the London +wilderness. It was now getting rather late, and the dusk of a +spring night had begun to gather; but little more than the +breadth of the Regent's Park lay between him and his best friend +-- his only one in London -- and he set out immediately for +Camden Town.</p> + +<p>The relation between him and his late schoolmaster was indeed +of the strongest and closest. Long before Malcolm was born, and +ever since, had Alexander Graham loved Malcolm's mother; but not +until within the last few months had he learned that Malcolm was +the son of Griselda Campbell. The discovery was to the +schoolmaster like the bursting out of a known flower on an +unknown plant. He knew then, not why he had loved the boy, for he +loved every one of his pupils more or less, but why he had loved +him with such a peculiar tone of affection.</p> + +<p>It was a lovely evening. There had been rain in the afternoon +as Malcolm walked home from the Pool, but before the sun set it +had cleared up; and as he went through the park towards the dingy +suburb, the first heralds of the returning youth of the year met +him from all sides in the guise of odours -- not yet those of +flowers, but the more ethereal if less sweet, scents of buds and +grass, and ever pure earth moistened with the waters of heaven. +And to his surprise he found that his sojourn in a great city, +although as yet so brief, had already made the open earth with +its corn and grass more dear to him and wonderful. But when he +left the park, and crossed the Hampstead Road into a dreary +region of dwellings crowded and commonplace as the thoughts of a +worshipper of Mammon, houses upon houses, here and there +shepherded by a tall spire, it was hard to believe that the +spring was indeed coming slowly up this way.</p> + +<p>After not a few inquiries, he found himself at a stationer's +shop, a poor little place, and learned that Mr Graham lodged over +it, and was then at home.</p> + +<p>He was shown up into a shabby room, with an iron bedstead, a +chest of drawers daubed with sickly paint, a table with a stained +red cover, a few bookshelves in a recess over the washstand, and +two chairs seated with haircloth. On one of these, by the side of +a small fire in a neglected grate, sat the schoolmaster reading +his Plato. On the table beside him lay his Greek New Testament, +and an old edition of George Herbert. He looked up as the door +opened, and, notwithstanding his strange dress, recognising at +once his friend and pupil, rose hastily, and welcomed him with +hand and eyes, and countenance, but without word spoken. For a +few moments the two stood silent, holding each the other's hand, +and gazing each in the other's eyes, then sat down, still +speechless, one on each side of the fire.</p> + +<p>They looked at each other and smiled, and again a minute +passed. Then the schoolmaster rose, rang the bell, and when it +was answered by a rather careworn young woman, requested her to +bring tea.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I cannot give you cakes or fresh butter, my lord," +he said with a smile, and they were the first words spoken. "The +former is not to be had, and the latter is beyond my means. But +what I have will content one who is able to count that abundance +which many would count privation."</p> + +<p>He spoke in the choice word, measured phrase, and stately +speech which Wordsworth says "grave livers do in Scotland use," +but under it all rang a tone of humour, as if he knew the form of +his utterance too important for the subject matter of it, and +would gently amuse with it both his visitor and himself.</p> + +<p>He was a man of middle height, but so thin that +notwithstanding a slight stoop in the shoulders, he looked rather +tall; much on the young side of fifty, but apparently a good way +on the other, partly from the little hair he had being grey. He +had sandy coloured whiskers, and a shaven chin. Except his large +sweetly closed mouth, and rather long upper lip, there was +nothing very notable in his features. At ordinary moments, +indeed, there was nothing in his appearance other than +insignificant to the ordinary observer. His eyes were of a pale +quiet blue, but when he smiled they sparkled and throbbed with +light. He wore the same old black tailcoat he had worn last in +his school at Portlossie, but the white neckcloth he had always +been seen in there had given place to a black one: that was the +sole change in the aspect of the man.</p> + +<p>About Portlossie he had been greatly respected, +notwithstanding the rumour that he was a "stickit minister," that +is, one who had failed in the attempt to preach; and when the +presbytery dismissed him on the charge of heresy, there had been +many tears on the part of his pupils, and much childish defiance +of his unenviable successor.</p> + +<p>Few words passed between the two men until they had had their +tea, and then followed a long talk, Malcolm first explaining his +present position, and then answering many questions of the master +as to how things had gone since he left. Next followed anxious +questions on Malcolm's side as to how his friend found himself in +the prison of London.</p> + +<p>"I do miss the air, and the laverocks (skylarks), and the +gowans," he confessed; "but I have them all in my mind, and at my +age a man ought to be able to satisfy himself with the idea of a +thing in his soul. Of outer things that have contributed to his +inward growth, the memory alone may then well be enough. The +sights which, when I lie down to sleep, rise before that inward +eye Wordsworth calls the bliss of solitude, have upon me power +almost of a spiritual vision, so purely radiant are they of that +which dwells in them, the divine thought which is their +substance, their hypostasis. My boy! I doubt if you can tell what +it is to know the presence of the living God in and about +you."</p> + +<p>"I houp I hae a bit notion o' 't, sir," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"But believe me that in any case, however much a man may have +of it, he may have it endlessly more. Since I left the cottage +where I hoped to end my days under the shadow of the house of +your ancestors, since I came into this region of bricks and +smoke, and the crowded tokens too plain of want and care, I have +found a reality in the things I had been trying to teach you at +Portlossie, such as I had before imagined only in my best +moments. And more still: I am now far better able to understand +how it must have been with our Lord when he was trying to teach +the men and women of Palestine to have faith in God. Depend upon +it, we get our best use of life in learning by the facts of its +ebb and flow to understand the Son of Man. And again, when we +understand Him, then only do we understand our life and +ourselves. Never can we know the majesty of the will of God +concerning us except by understanding Jesus and the work the +Father gave Him to do. Now, nothing is of a more heavenly delight +than to enter into a dusky room in the house of your friend, and +there, with a blow of the heavenly rod, draw light from the dark +wall -- open a window, a fountain of the eternal light, and let +in the truth which is the life of the world. Joyously would a man +spend his life, right joyously even if the road led to the +gallows, in showing the grandest he sees -- the splendid purities +of the divine religion -- the mountain top up to which the voice +of God is ever calling his children. Yes, I can understand even +how a man might live, like the good hermits of old, in triumphant +meditation upon such all satisfying truths, and let the waves of +the world's time wash by him in unheeded flow until his cell +changed to his tomb, and his spirit soared free. But to spend +your time in giving little lessons when you have great ones to +give; in teaching the multiplication table the morning after you +made at midnight a grand discovery upon the very summits of the +moonlit mountain range of the mathematics; in enforcing the old +law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself when you know in +your own heart that not a soul can ever learn to keep it without +first learning to fulfil an infinitely greater one -- to love his +neighbour even as Christ hath loved him -- then indeed one may +well grow disheartened, and feel as if he were not in the place +prepared for, and at the work required of him. But it is just +then that he must go back to school himself and learn not only +the patience of God who keeps the whole dull obstinate world +alive, while generation after generation is born and vanishes, +and of the mighty multitude only one here and there rises up from +the fetters of humanity into the freedom of the sons of God -- +and yet goes on teaching the whole, and bringing every man who +will but turn his ear a little towards the voice that calls him, +nearer and nearer to the second birth -- of sonship and liberty +-- not only this divine patience must he learn, but the divine +insight as well, which in every form spies the reflex of the +truth it cannot contain, and in every lowliest lesson sees the +highest drawn nearer, and the soul growing alive unto God."</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII: +RICHMOND PARK</h1> + +<p>The next day at noon, mounted on Kelpie, Malcolm was in +attendance upon his mistress, who was eager after a gallop in +Richmond Park. Lord Liftore, who had intended to accompany her, +had not made his appearance yet, but Florimel did not seem the +less desirous of setting out at the time she had appointed +Malcolm. The fact was she had said one o'clock to Liftore, +intending twelve, that she might get away without him. Kelpie +seemed on her good behaviour, and they started quietly enough. By +the time they had got out of the park upon the Kensington Road, +however, the evil spirit had begun to wake in her. But even when +she was quietest, she was nothing to be trusted, and about London +Malcolm found he dared never let his thoughts go, or take his +attention quite off her ears. They got to Kew Bridge in safety +nevertheless, though whether they were to get safely across was +doubtful all the time they were upon it, for again and again she +seemed on the very point of clearing the stone balustrade, but +for the terrible bit and chain without which Malcolm never dared +ride her. Still, whatever her caracoles or escapades, they caused +Florimel nothing but amusement, for her confidence in Malcolm -- +that he could do whatever he believed he could -- was unbounded. +They got through Richmond -- with some trouble, but hardly were +they well into the park, when Lord Liftore, followed by his +groom, came suddenly up behind them at such a rate as quite +destroyed the small stock of equanimity Kelpie had to go upon. +She bolted.</p> + +<p>Florimel was a good rider, and knew herself quite mistress of +her horse, and if she now followed, it was at her own will, and +with a design; she wanted to make the horses behind her bolt also +if she could. His lordship came flying after her, and his groom +after him, but she kept increasing her pace until they were all +at full stretch, thundering over the grass -- upon which Malcolm +had at once turned Kelpie, giving her little rein and plenty of +spur. Gradually Florimel slackened speed, and at last pulled up +suddenly. Liftore and his groom went past her like the wind. She +turned at right angles and galloped back to the road. There, on a +gaunt thoroughbred, with a furnace of old life in him yet, sat +Lenorme, whom she had already passed and signalled to remain +thereabout. They drew alongside of each other, but they did not +shake hands; they only looked each in the other's eyes, and for a +few moments neither spoke. The three riders were now far away +over the park, and still Kelpie held on and the other horses +after her. "I little expected such a pleasure," said Lenorme.</p> + +<p>"I meant to give it you, though," said Florimel, with a merry +laugh. "Bravo, Kelpie! take them with you," she cried, looking +after the still retreating horsemen. "I have got a familiar since +I saw you last, Raoul," she went on. "See if I don't get some +good for us out of him! -- We'll move gently along the road here, +and by the time Liftore's horse is spent, we shall be ready for a +good gallop. I want to tell you all about it. I did not mean +Liftore to be here when I sent you word, but he has been too much +for me."</p> + +<p>Lenorme replied with a look of gratitude; and as they walked +their horses along, she told him all concerning Malcolm and +Kelpie.</p> + +<p>"Liftore hates him already," she said, "and I can hardly +wonder; but you must not, for you will find him useful. He is one +I can depend upon. You should have seen the look Liftore gave him +when he told him he could not sit his mare! It would have been +worth gold to you."</p> + +<p>Lenorme winced a little.</p> + +<p>"He thinks no end of his riding," Florimel continued; "but if +it were not so improper to have secrets with another gentleman, I +would tell you that he rides -- just pretty well."</p> + +<p>Lenorme's great brow gloomed over his eyes like the Eiger in a +mist, but he said nothing yet.</p> + +<p>"He wants to ride Kelpie, and I have told my groom to let him +have her. Perhaps she'll break his neck."</p> + +<p>Lenorme smiled grimly.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't mind, would you, Raoul?" added Florimel, with a +roguish look.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind telling me, Florimel, what you mean by the +impropriety of having secrets with another gentleman? Am I the +other gentleman?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course! You know Liftore imagined he has only to name +the day."</p> + +<p>"And you allow an idiot like that to cherish such a degrading +idea of you."</p> + +<p>"Why, Raoul! what does it matter what a fool like him +thinks?"</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind it, I do. I feel it an insult to me that he +should dare think of you like that."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I suppose I shall have to marry him some +day."</p> + +<p>"Lady Lossie, do you want to make me hate you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be foolish, Raoul. It won't be tomorrow -- nor the next +day. Freuet euch des Lebens!"</p> + +<p>"0 Florimel! what is to come of this? Do you want to break my +heart? -- I hate to talk rubbish. You won't kill me -- you will +only ruin my work, and possibly drive me mad."</p> + +<p>Florimel drew close to his side, laid her hand on his arm, and +looked in his face with a witching entreaty.</p> + +<p>"We have the present, Raoul," she said.</p> + +<p>"So has the butterfly," answered Lenorme; "but I had rather be +the caterpillar with a future. -- Why don't you put a stop to the +man's lovemaking? He can't love you or any woman. He does not +know what love means. It makes me ill to hear him when he thinks +he is paying you irresistible compliments. They are so silly! so +mawkish! Good heavens, Florimel! can you imagine that smile every +day and always? Like the rest of his class he seems to think +himself perfectly justified in making fools of women. I want to +help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when he +thought of you first. I want you to be my embodied vision of +life, that I may for ever worship at your feet -- live in you, +die with you: such bliss, even were there nothing beyond, would +be enough for the heart of a God to bestow."</p> + +<p>"Stop, stop, Raoul; I'm not worthy of such love," said +Florimel, again laying her hand on his arm. "I do wish for your +sake I had been born a village girl."</p> + +<p>"If you had been, then I might have wished for your sake that +I had been born a marquis. As it is I would rather be a painter +than any nobleman in Europe -- that is, with you to love me. Your +love is my patent of nobility. But I may glorify what you love -- +and tell you that I can confer something on you also -- what none +of your noble admirers can. -- God forgive me! you will make me +hate them all!"</p> + +<p>"Raoul, this won't do at all," said Florimel, with the +authority that should belong only to the one in the right. And +indeed for the moment she felt the dignity of restraining a too +impetuous passion. "You will spoil everything. I dare not come to +your studio if you are going to behave like this. It would be +very wrong of me. And if I am never to come and see you, I shall +die -- I know I shall."</p> + +<p>The girl was so full of the delight of the secret love between +them, that she cared only to live in the present as if there were +no future beyond: Lenorme wanted to make that future like but +better than the present. The word marriage put Florimel in a +rage. She thought herself superior to Lenorme, because he, in the +dread of losing her, would have her marry him at once, while she +was more than content with the bliss of seeing him now and then. +Often and often her foolish talk stung him with bitter pain -- +worst of all when it compelled him to doubt whether there was +that in her to be loved as he was capable of loving. Yet always +the conviction that there was a deep root of nobleness in her +nature again got uppermost; and, had it not been so, I fear he +would, nevertheless, have continued to prove her irresistible as +often as she chose to exercise upon him the full might of her +witcheries. At one moment she would reveal herself in such a +sudden rush of tenderness as seemed possible only to one ready to +become his altogether and for ever; the next she would start away +as if she had never meant anything, and talk as if not a thought +were in her mind beyond the cultivation of a pleasant +acquaintance doomed to pass with the season, if not with the +final touches to her portrait. Or she would fall to singing some +song he had taught her, more likely a certain one he had written +in a passionate mood of bitter tenderness, with the hope of +stinging her love to some show of deeper life; but would, while +she sang, look with merry defiance in his face, as if she adopted +in seriousness what he had written in loving and sorrowful +satire.</p> + +<p>They rode in silence for some hundred yards. At length he +spoke, replying to her last asseveration. "Then what can you +gain, child," he said --</p> + +<p>"Will you dare to call me child -- a marchioness in my own +right!" she cried, playfully threatening him with uplifted whip, +in the handle of which the little jewels sparkled.</p> + +<p>"What, then, can you gain, my lady marchioness," he resumed, +with soft seriousness, and a sad smile, "by marrying one of your +own rank? -- I should lay new honour and consideration at your +feet. I am young. I have done fairly well already. But I have +done nothing to what I could do now, if only my heart lay safe in +the port of peace: -- you know where alone that is for me my -- +lady marchioness. And you know too that the names of great +painters go down with honour from generation to generation, when +my lord this or my lord that is remembered only as a label to the +picture that makes the painter famous. I am not a great painter +yet, but I will be one if you will be good to me. And men shall +say, when they look on your portrait, in ages to come: No wonder +he was such a painter when he had such a woman to paint."</p> + +<p>He spoke the words with a certain tone of dignified +playfulness.</p> + +<p>"When shall the woman sit to you again, painter?" said +Florimel -- sole reply to his rhapsody.</p> + +<p>The painter thought a little. Then he said:</p> + +<p>"I don't like that tire woman of yours. She has two evil eyes +-- one for each of us. I have again and again caught their +expression when they were upon us, and she thought none were upon +her: I can see without lifting my head when I am painting, and my +art has made me quick at catching expressions, and, I hope, at +interpreting them."</p> + +<p>"I don't altogether like her myself," said Florimel. "Of late +I am not so sure of her as I used to be. But what can I do? I +must have somebody with me, you know. -- A thought strikes me. +Yes. I won't say now what it is lest I should disappoint my -- +painter; but -- yes -- you shall see what I will dare for you, +faithless man!"</p> + +<p>She set off at a canter, turned on to the grass, and rode to +meet Liftore, whom she saw in the distance returning, followed by +the two grooms.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Raoul," she cried, looking back; "I must account for +you. He sees I have not been alone."</p> + +<p>Lenorme joined her, and they rode along side by side.</p> + +<p>The earl and the painter knew each other: as they drew near, +the painter lifted his hat, and the earl nodded.</p> + +<p>"You owe Mr Lenorme some acknowledgment, my lord, for taking +charge of me after your sudden desertion," said Florimel. "Why +did you gallop off in such a mad fashion?"</p> + +<p>"I am sorry," began Liftore a little embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Oh! don't trouble yourself to apologise," said Florimel. "I +have always understood that great horsemen find a horse more +interesting than a lady. It is a mark of their breed, I am +told."</p> + +<p>She knew that Liftore would not be ready to confess he could +not hold his hack.</p> + +<p>"If it hadn't been for Mr Lenorme," she added, "I should have +been left without a squire, subject to any whim of my four footed +servant here."</p> + +<p>As she spoke she patted the neck of her horse. The earl, on +his side, had been looking the painter's horse up and down with a +would be humorous expression of criticism.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, marchioness," he replied; "but you pulled +up so quickly that we shot past you. I thought you were close +behind, and preferred following. -- Seen his best days, eh, +Lenorme?" he concluded, willing to change the subject.</p> + +<p>"I fancy he doesn't think so," returned the painter. "I bought +him out of a butterman's cart, three months ago. He's been coming +to himself ever since. Look at his eye, my lord."</p> + +<p>"Are you knowing in horses, then?"</p> + +<p>"I can't say I am, beyond knowing how to treat them something +like human beings."</p> + +<p>"That's no ill," said Malcolm to himself. He was just near +enough, on the pawing and foaming Kelpie, to catch what was +passing. -- "The fallow 'll du. He's worth a score o' sic yerls +as yon."</p> + +<p>"Ha! ha!" said his lordship; "I don't know about that -- He's +not the best of tempers, I can see. But look at that demon of +Lady Lossie's -- that black mare there! I wish you could teach +her some of your humanity.</p> + +<p>"-- By the way, Florimel, I think now we are upon the grass," +-- he said it loftily, as if submitting to an injustice -- "I +will presume to mount the reprobate."</p> + +<p>The gallop had communicated itself to Liftore's blood, and, +besides, he thought after such a run Kelpie would be less +extravagant in her behaviour.</p> + +<p>"She is at your service," said Florimel.</p> + +<p>He dismounted, his groom rode up, he threw him the reins, and +called Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Bring your mare here, my man," he said.</p> + +<p>Malcolm rode her up half way, and dismounted.</p> + +<p>"If your lordship is going to ride her," he said, "will you +please get on her here. I would rather not take her near the +other horses."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know her better than I do. -- You and I must ride +about the same length, I think."</p> + +<p>So saying his lordship carelessly measured the stirrup leather +against his arm, and took the reins.</p> + +<p>"Stand well forward, my lord. Don't mind turning your back to +her head: I'll look after her teeth; you mind her hind hoof," +said Malcolm, with her head in one hand and the stirrup in the +other.</p> + +<p>Kelpie stood rigid as a rock, and the earl swung himself up +cleverly enough. But hardly was he in the saddle, and Malcolm had +just let her go, when she plunged and lashed out; then, having +failed to unseat her rider, stood straight up on her hind +legs.</p> + +<p>"Give her her head, my lord," cried Malcolm.</p> + +<p>She stood swaying in the air, Liftore's now frightened face +half hid in her mane, and his spurs stuck in her flanks.</p> + +<p>"Come off her, my lord, for God's sake. Off with you!" cried +Malcolm, as he leaped at her head. "She'll be on her back in a +moment."</p> + +<p>Liftore only clung the harder. Malcolm caught her head -- just +in time: she was already falling backwards.</p> + +<p>"Let all go, my lord. Throw yourself off."</p> + +<p>He swung her towards him with all his strength, and just as +his lordship fell off behind her, she fell sideways to Malcolm, +and clear of Liftore.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was on the side away from the little group, and their +own horses were excited, those who had looked breathless on at +the struggle could not tell how he had managed it, but when they +expected to see the groom writhing under the weight of the +demoness, there he was with his knee upon her head -- while +Liftore was gathering himself up from the ground, only just +beyond the reach of her iron shod hoofs.</p> + +<p>"Thank God!" said Florimel, "there is no harm done. -- Well, +have you had enough of her yet, Liftore?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty nearly, I think," said his lordship, with an attempt +at a laugh, as he walked rather feebly and foolishly towards his +horse. He mounted with some difficulty, and looked very pale.</p> + +<p>"I hope you're not much hurt," said Florimel kindly, as she +moved alongside of him.</p> + +<p>"Not in the least -- only disgraced," he answered, almost +angrily. "The brute's a perfect Satan. You must part with her. +With such a horse and such a groom you'll get yourself talked of +all over London. I believe the fellow himself was at the bottom +of it. You really must sell her."</p> + +<p>"I would, my lord, if you were my groom," answered Florimel, +whom his accusation of Malcolm had filled with angry contempt; +and she moved away towards the still prostrate mare.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was quietly seated on her head. She had ceased +sprawling, and lay nearly motionless, but for the heaving of her +sides with her huge inhalations. She knew from experience that +struggling was useless.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, my lady," said Malcolm, "but I daren't get +up."</p> + +<p>"How long do you mean to sit there then?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"If your ladyship wouldn't mind riding home without me, I +would give her a good half hour of it. I always do when she +throws herself over like that. -- I've gat my Epictetus?" he +asked himself feeling in his coat pocket.</p> + +<p>"Do as you please," answered his mistress. "Let me see you +when you get home. I should like to know you are safe."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my lady; there's little fear of that," said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Florimel returned to the gentlemen, and they rode homewards. +On the way she said suddenly to the earl,</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me, Liftore, who Epictetus was?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know," answered his lordship. "One of the +old fellows."</p> + +<p>She turned to Lenorme. Happily the Christian heathen was not +altogether unknown to the painter.</p> + +<p>"May I inquire why your ladyship asks?" he said, when he had +told all he could at the moment recollect.</p> + +<p>"Because," she answered, "I left my groom sitting on his +horse's head reading Epictetus."</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" exclaimed Liftore. "Ha! ha! ha! In the original, I +suppose!"</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt it," said Florimel.</p> + +<p>In about two hours Malcolm reported himself. Lord Liftore had +gone home, they told him. The painter fellow, as Wallis called +him, had stayed to lunch, but was now gone also, and Lady Lossie +was alone in the drawing room.</p> + +<p>She sent for him.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see you safe, MacPhail," she said. "It is clear +your Kelpie -- don't be alarmed; I am not going to make you part +with her -- but it is clear she won't always do for you to attend +me upon. Suppose now I wanted to dismount and make a call, or go +into a shop?"</p> + +<p>"There's a sort of a friendship between your Abbot and her, my +lady; she would stand all the better if I had him to hold."</p> + +<p>"Well, but how would you put me up again?"</p> + +<p>"I never thought of that, my lady. Of course I daren't let you +come near Kelpie."</p> + +<p>"Could you trust yourself to buy another horse to ride after +me about town?"</p> + +<p>"No, my lady, not without a ten days' trial. If lies stuck +like London mud, there's many a horse would never be seen again. +But there's Mr Lenorme! If he would go with me, I fancy between +us we could do pretty well."</p> + +<p>"Ah! a good idea," returned his mistress. "But what makes you +think of him?" she added, willing enough to talk about him.</p> + +<p>"The look of the gentleman and his horse together, and what I +heard him say," answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"What did you hear him say?"</p> + +<p>"That he knew he had to treat horses something like human +beings. I've often fancied, within the last few months, that God +does with some people something like as I do with Kelpie."</p> + +<p>"I know nothing about theology."</p> + +<p>"I don't fancy you do, my lady; but this concerns biography +rather than theology. No one could tell what I meant except he +had watched his own history, and that of people he knew."</p> + +<p>"And horses too?"</p> + +<p>"It's hard to get at their insides, my lady, but I suspect it +must be so. I'll ask Mr Graham."</p> + +<p>"What Mr Graham?"</p> + +<p>"The schoolmaster of Portlossie."</p> + +<p>"Is he in London, then?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady. He believed too much to please the presbytery, +and they turned him out."</p> + +<p>"I should like to see him. He was very attentive to my father +on his death bed."</p> + +<p>"Your ladyship will never know till you are dead yourself what +Mr Graham did for my lord."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean? What could he do for him?"</p> + +<p>"He helped him through sore trouble of mind, my lady."</p> + +<p>Florimel was silent for a little, then repeated, "I should +like to see him. I ought to pay him some attention. Couldn't I +make them give him his school again?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that, my lady; but I am sure he would not +take it against the will of the presbytery."</p> + +<p>"I should like to do something for him. Ask him to call."</p> + +<p>"If your ladyship lays your commands upon me," answered +Malcolm; "otherwise I would rather not."</p> + +<p>"Why so, pray?"</p> + +<p>"Because, except he can be of any use to you, he will not +come."</p> + +<p>"But I want to be of use to him."</p> + +<p>"How, if I may ask, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"That I can't exactly say on the spur of the moment. I must +know the man first -- especially if you are right in supposing he +would not enjoy a victory over the presbytery. I should. He +wouldn't take money, I fear."</p> + +<p>"Except it came of love or work, he would put it from him as +he would brush the dust from his coat."</p> + +<p>"I could introduce him to good society. That is no small +privilege to one of his station."</p> + +<p>"He has more of that and better than your ladyship could give +him. He holds company with Socrates and St. Paul, and greater +still."</p> + +<p>"But they're not like living people."</p> + +<p>"Very like them, my lady -- only far better company in +general. But Mr Graham would leave Plato himself -- yes, or St. +Paul either, though he were sitting beside him in the flesh, to +go and help any old washerwoman that wanted him."</p> + +<p>"Then I want him."</p> + +<p>"No, my lady, you don't want him."</p> + +<p>"How dare you say so?"</p> + +<p>"If you did, you would go to him."</p> + +<p>Florimel's eyes flashed, and her pretty lip curled. She turned +to her writing table, annoyed with herself that she could not +find a fitting word wherewith to rebuke his presumption -- +rudeness, was it not? -- and a feeling of angry shame arose in +her, that she, the Marchioness of Lossie, had not dignity enough +to prevent her own groom from treating her like a child. But he +was far too valuable to quarrel with.</p> + +<p>She sat down and wrote a note.</p> + +<p>"There," she said, "take that note to Mr Lenorme. I have asked +him to help you in the choice of a horse."</p> + +<p>"What price would you be willing to go to, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"I leave that to Mr Lenorme's judgment -- and your own," she +added.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my lady," said Malcolm, and was leaving the room, +when Florimel called him back.</p> + +<p>"Next time you see Mr Graham," she said, "give him my +compliments, and ask him if I can be of any service to him."</p> + +<p>"I'll do that, my lady. I am sure he will take it very +kindly."</p> + +<p>Florimel made no answer, and Malcolm went to find the +painter.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII: +PAINTER AND GROOM</h1> + +<p>The address upon the note Malcolm had to deliver took him to a +house in Chelsea -- one of a row of beautiful old houses fronting +the Thames, with little gardens between them and the road. The +one he sought was overgrown with creepers, most of them now +covered with fresh spring buds. The afternoon had turned cloudy, +and a cold east wind came up the river, which, as the tide was +falling, raised little waves on its surface and made Malcolm +think of the herring. Somehow, as he went up to the door, a new +chapter of his life seemed about to commence.</p> + +<p>The servant who took the note, returned immediately, and +showed him up to the study, a large back room, looking over a +good sized garden, with stables on one side. There Lenorme sat at +his easel.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said, "I'm glad to see that wild animal has not quite +torn you to pieces. Take a chair. What on earth made you bring +such an incarnate fury to London?"</p> + +<p>"I see well enough now, sir, she's not exactly the one for +London use, but if you had once ridden her, you would never quite +enjoy another between your knees."</p> + +<p>"She's such an infernal brute!"</p> + +<p>"You can't say too ill of her. But I fancy a gaol chaplain +sometimes takes the most interest in the worst villain under his +charge. I should be a proud man to make her fit to live with +decent people."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid she'll be too much for you. At last you'll have to +part with her, I fear."</p> + +<p>"If she had bitten you as often as she has me, sir, you +wouldn't part with her. Besides, it would be wrong to sell her. +She would only be worse with anyone else. But, indeed, though you +will hardly believe it, she is better than she was."</p> + +<p>"Then what must she have been!"</p> + +<p>"You may well say that, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Here your mistress tells me you want my assistance in +choosing another horse."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir -- to attend upon her in London."</p> + +<p>"I don't profess to be knowing in horses: what made you think +of me?"</p> + +<p>"I saw how you sat your own horse, sir, and I heard you say +you bought him out of a butterman's cart, and treated him like a +human being: that was enough for me, sir. I've long had the +notion that the beasts, poor things, have a half sleeping, half +waking human soul in them, and it was a great pleasure to hear +you say something of the same sort. 'That gentleman,' I said to +myself, '-- he and I would understand one another.'"</p> + +<p>"I am glad you think so," said Lenorme, with entire courtesy. +-- It was not merely that the very doubtful recognition of his +profession by society had tended to keep him clear of his +prejudices, but both as a painter and a man he found the young +fellow exceedingly attractive; -- as a painter from the rare +combination of such strength with such beauty, and as a man from +a certain yet rarer clarity of nature which to the vulgar +observer seems fatuity until he has to encounter it in action, +when the contrast is like meeting a thunderbolt. Naturally the +dishonest takes the honest for a fool. Beyond his understanding, +he imagines him beneath it. But Lenorme, although so much more a +man of the world, was able in a measure to look into Malcolm and +appreciate him. His nature and his art combined in enabling him +to do this.</p> + +<p>"You see, sir," Malcolm went on, encouraged by the simplicity +of Lenorme's manner, "if they were nothing like us, how should we +be able to get on with them at all, teach them anything, or come +a hair nearer them, do what we might? For all her wickedness I +firmly believe Kelpie has a sort of regard for me -- I won't call +it affection, but perhaps it comes as near that as may be +possible in the time to one of her temper."</p> + +<p>"Now I hope you will permit me, Mr MacPhail," said Lenorme, +who had been paying more attention to Malcolm than to his words, +"to give a violent wrench to the conversation, and turn it upon +yourself. You can't be surprised, and I hope you will not be +annoyed, if I say you strike one as not altogether like your +calling. No London groom I have ever spoken to, in the least +resembles you. How is it?"</p> + +<p>"I hope you don't mean to imply, sir, that I don't know my +business," returned Malcolm, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Anything but that! It were nearer the thing to say, that for +all I know you may understand mine as well."</p> + +<p>"I wish I did, sir. Except the pictures at Lossie House and +those in Portland Place, I've never seen one in my life. About +most of them I must say I find it hard to imagine what better the +world is for them. Mr Graham says that no work that doesn't tend +to make the world better makes it richer. If he were a heathen, +he says, he would build a temple to Ses, the sister of +Psyche."</p> + +<p>"Ses? -- I don't remember her," said Lenorme.</p> + +<p>"The moth, sir; -- 'the moth and the rust,' you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes; now I know! Capital! Only more things may tend to +make the world better than some people think. -- Who is this Mr +Graham of yours? He must be no common man."</p> + +<p>"You are right there, sir; there is not another like him in +the whole world, I believe."</p> + +<p>And thereupon Malcolm set himself to give the painter an idea +of the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>When they had talked about him for a little while,</p> + +<p>"Well, all this accounts for your being a scholar," said +Lenorme; "but --"</p> + +<p>"I am little enough of that, sir," interrupted Malcolm. "Any +Scotch boy that likes to learn finds the way open to him."</p> + +<p>"I am aware of that. But were you really reading Epictetus +when we left you in the park this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir: why not?"</p> + +<p>"In the original?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; but not very readily. I am a poor Greek scholar. +But my copy has a rough Latin translation on the opposite page, +and that helps me out. It's not difficult. You would think +nothing of it if it had been Cornelius Nepos, or Cordery's +Colloquies. It's only a better, not a more difficult book."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that. It's not every one who can read +Greek that can understand Epictetus. Tell me what you have +learned from him?"</p> + +<p>"That would be hard to do. A man is very ready to forget how +he came first to think of the things he loves best. You see they +are as much a necessity of your being as they are of the man's +who thought them first. I can no more do without the truth than +Plato. It is as much my needful food and as fully mine to possess +as his. His having it, Mr Graham says, was for my sake as well as +his own. -- It's just like what Sir Thomas Browne says about the +faces of those we love -- that we cannot retain the idea of them +because they are ourselves. Those that help the world must be +served like their master and a good deal forgotten, I fancy. Of +course they don't mind it. -- I remember another passage I think +says something to the same purpose -- one in Epictetus himself," +continued Malcolm, drawing the little book from his pocket and +turning over the leaves, while Lenorme sat waiting, wondering, +and careful not to interrupt him.</p> + +<p>He turned to the forty-second chapter, and began to read from +the Greek.</p> + +<p>"I've forgotten all the Greek I ever had," said Lenorme.</p> + +<p>Then Malcolm turned to the opposite page and began to read the +Latin.</p> + +<p>"Tut! tut!" said Lenorme, "I can't follow your Scotch +pronunciation."</p> + +<p>"That's a pity," said Malcolm: "it's the right way."</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt it. You Scotch are always in the right! But +just read it off in English -- will you?"</p> + +<p>Thus adjured, Malcolm read slowly and with choice of word and +phrase</p> + +<p>"'And if any one shall say unto thee, that thou knowest +nothing, notwithstanding thou must not be vexed: then know thou +that thou hast begun thy work.' -- That is," explained Malcolm, +"when you keep silence about principles in the presence of those +that are incapable of understanding them. -- 'For the sheep also +do not manifest to the shepherds how much they have eaten, by +producing fodder; but, inwardly digesting their food, they +produce outwardly wool and milk. And thou therefore set not forth +principles before the unthinking, but the actions that result +from the digestion of them.' -- That last is not quite literal, +but I think it's about right," concluded Malcolm, putting the +book again in the breast pocket of his silver buttoned coat. "-- +That's the passage I thought of, but I see now it won't apply. He +speaks of not saying what you know; I spoke of forgetting where +you got it."</p> + +<p>"Come now," said Lenorme, growing more and more interested in +his new acquaintance, "tell me something about your life. Account +for yourself. -- If you will make a friendship of it, you must do +that."</p> + +<p>"I will, sir," said Malcolm, and with the word began to tell +him most things he could think of as bearing upon his mental +history up to and after the time also when his birth was +disclosed to him. In omitting that disclosure he believed he had +without it quite accounted for himself. Through the whole recital +he dwelt chiefly on the lessons and influences of the +schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must admit," said Lenorme when he had ended, "that +you are no longer unintelligible, not to say incredible. You have +had a splendid education, in which I hope you give the herring +and Kelpie their due share."</p> + +<p>He sat silently regarding him for a few moments. Then he +said:</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what now: if I help you to buy a horse, you +must help me to paint a picture."</p> + +<p>"I don't know how I'm to do that," said Malcolm, "but if you +do, that's enough. I shall only be too happy to do what I +can."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll tell you. -- But you're not to tell anybody: it's a +secret. -- I have discovered that there is no suitable portrait +of Lady Lossie's father. It is a great pity. His brother and his +father and grandfather are all in Portland Place, in Highland +costume, as chiefs of their clan; his place only is vacant. Lady +Lossie, however, has in her possession one or two miniatures of +him, which, although badly painted, I should think may give the +outlines of his face and head with tolerable correctness. From +the portraits of his predecessors, and from Lady Lossie herself, +I gain some knowledge of what is common to the family; and from +all together I hope to gather and paint what will be recognizable +by her as a likeness of her father -- which afterwards I hope to +better by her remarks. These remarks I hope to get first from her +feelings unadulterated by criticism, through the surprise of +coming upon the picture suddenly; afterwards from her judgment at +its leisure. Now I remember seeing you wait at table -- the first +time I saw you -- in the Highland dress: will you come to me so +dressed, and let me paint from you?"</p> + +<p>"I'll do better than that, sir," cried Malcolm, eagerly. "I'll +get up from Lossie Home my lord's very dress that he wore when he +went to court -- his jewelled dirk, and Andrew Ferrara broadsword +with the hilt of real silver. That'll greatly help your design +upon my lady, for he dressed up in them all more than once just +to please her."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Lenorme very heartily; "that will be of +immense advantage. Write at once."</p> + +<p>"I will, sir. -- Only I'm a bigger man than my -- late master, +and you must mind that."</p> + +<p>"I'll see to it. You get the clothes, and all the rest of the +accoutrements -- rich with barbaric gems and gold, and"</p> + +<p>"Neither gems nor gold, sir; -- honest Scotch cairngorms and +plain silver," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"I only quoted Milton," returned Lenorme.</p> + +<p>"Then you should have quoted correctly, sir. -- 'Showers on +her kings barbaric pearl and gold,' -- that's the line, and you +can't better it. Mr Graham always pulled me up if I didn't quote +correctly. -- By the bye, sir, some say it's kings barbaric, but +there's barbaric gold in Virgil."</p> + +<p>"I dare say you are right," said Lenorme. "But you're far too +learned for me."</p> + +<p>"Don't make game of me, sir. I know two or three books pretty +well, and when I get a chance I can't help talking about them. +It's so seldom now I can get a mouthful of Milton. There's no +cave here to go into, and roll the mimic thunder in your mouth. +If the people here heard me reading loud out, they would call me +mad. It's a mercy in this London, if a working man get loneliness +enough to say his prayers in!"</p> + +<p>"You do say your prayers then?" asked Lenorme, looking at him +curiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes; don't you, sir? You had so much sense about the beasts I +thought you must be a man that said his prayers."</p> + +<p>Lenorme was silent. He was not altogether innocent of saying +prayers; but of late years it had grown a more formal and +gradually a rarer thing. One reason of this was that it had never +come into his head that God cared about pictures, or had the +slightest interest whether he painted well or ill. If a man's +earnest calling, to which of necessity the greater part of his +thought is given, is altogether dissociated in his mind from his +religion, it is not wonderful that his prayers should by degrees +wither and die. The question is whether they ever had much +vitality. But one mighty negative was yet true of Lenorme: he had +not got in his head, still less had he ever cherished in his +heart, the thought that there was anything fine in disbelieving +in a God, or anything contemptible in imagining communication +with a being of grander essence than himself. That in which +Socrates rejoiced with exultant humility, many a youth nowadays +thinks himself a fine fellow for casting from him with ignorant +scorn.</p> + +<p>A true conception of the conversation above recorded can +hardly be had except my reader will take the trouble to imagine +the contrast between the Scotch accent and inflection, the +largeness and prolongation of vowel sounds, and, above all, the +Scotch tone of Malcolm, and the pure, clear articulation, and +decided utterance of the perfect London speech of Lenorme. It was +something like the difference between the blank verse of Young +and the prose of Burke.</p> + +<p>The silence endured so long that Malcolm began to fear he had +hurt his new friend, and thought it better to take his leave.</p> + +<p>"I'll go and write to Mrs Courthope -- that's the housekeeper, +tonight, to send up the things at once. When would it be +convenient for you to go and look at some horses with me, Mr +Lenorme?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I shall be at home all tomorrow," answered the painter, "and +ready to go with you any time you like to come for me."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he held out his hand, and they parted like old +friends.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV: A +LADY</h1> + +<p>The next morning, Malcolm took Kelpie into the park, and gave +her a good breathing. He had thought to jump the rails, and let +her have her head, but he found there were too many park keepers +and police about: he saw he could do little for her that way. He +was turning home with her again when one of her evil fits came +upon her, this time taking its first form in a sudden stiffening +of every muscle: she stood stock still with flaming eyes. I +suspect we human beings know but little of the fierceness with +which the vortices of passion rage in the more purely animal +natures. This beginning he knew well would end in a wild paroxysm +of rearing and plunging. He had more than once tried the exorcism +of patience, sitting sedate upon her back until she chose to +move; but on these occasions the tempest that followed had been +of the very worst description; so that he had concluded it better +to bring on the crisis, thereby sure at least to save time; and +after he had adopted this mode with her, attacks of the sort, if +no less violent, had certainly become fewer. The moment therefore +that symptoms of an approaching fit showed themselves, he used +his spiked heels with vigour. Upon this occasion he had a stiff +tussle with her, but as usual gained the victory, and was riding +slowly along the Row, Kelpie tossing up now her head now her +heels in indignant protest against obedience in general and +enforced obedience in particular, when a lady on horseback, who +had come galloping from the opposite direction, with her groom +behind her, pulled up, and lifted her hand with imperative grace: +she had seen something of what had been going on. Malcolm reined +in. But Kelpie, after her nature, was now as unwilling to stop as +she had been before to proceed, and the fight began again, with +some difference of movement and aspect, but the spurs once more +playing a free part.</p> + +<p>"Man! man!" cried the lady, in most musical reproof, "do you +know what you are about?"</p> + +<p>"It would be a bad job for her and me too if I did not, my +lady," said Malcolm, whom her appearance and manner impressed +with a conviction of rank, and as he spoke he smiled in the midst +of the struggle: he seldom got angry with Kelpie. But the smile +instead of taking from the apparent roughness of his speech, only +made his conduct appear in the lady's eyes more cruel.</p> + +<p>"How is it possible you can treat the poor animal so unkindly +-- and in cold blood too?" she said, and an indescribable tone of +pleading ran through the rebuke. "Why, her poor sides are +actually --" A shudder, and look of personal distress completed +the sentence.</p> + +<p>"You don't know what she is, my lady, or you would not think +it necessary to intercede for her."</p> + +<p>"But if she is naughty, is that any reason why you should be +cruel?"</p> + +<p>"No, my lady; but it is the best reason why I should try to +make her good."</p> + +<p>"You will never make her good that way."</p> + +<p>"Improvement gives ground for hope," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"But you must not treat a poor dumb animal as you would a +responsible human being."</p> + +<p>"She's not so very poor, my lady. She has all she wants, and +does nothing to earn it -- nothing to speak of; and nothing at +all with good will. For her dumbness, that's a mercy. If she +could speak she wouldn't be fit to live among decent people. But +for that matter, if some one hadn't taken her in hand, dumb as +she is, she would have been shot long ago."</p> + +<p>"Better that than live with such usage."</p> + +<p>"I don't think she would agree with you, my lady. My fear is +that, for as cruel as it looks to your ladyship, take it +altogether, she enjoys the fight. In any case, I am certain she +has more regard for me than any other being in the universe."</p> + +<p>"Who can have any regard for you," said the lady very gently, +in utter mistake of his meaning, "if you have no command of your +temper? You must learn to rule yourself first."</p> + +<p>"That's true, my lady; and so long as my mare is not able to +be a law to herself, I must be a law to her too."</p> + +<p>"But have you never heard of the law of kindness? You could do +so much more without the severity."</p> + +<p>"With some natures I grant you, my lady, but not with such as +she. Horse or man -- they never show kindness till they have +learned fear. Kelpie would have torn me to pieces before now if I +had taken your way with her. But except I can do a great deal +more with her yet she will be nothing better than a natural brute +beast made to be taken and destroyed."</p> + +<p>"The Bible again!" murmured the lady to herself. "Of how much +cruelty has not that book to bear the blame!"</p> + +<p>All this time Kelpie was trying hard to get at the lady's +horse to bite him. But she did not see that. She was much too +distressed -- and was growing more and more so.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would let my groom try her," she said, after a +pitiful pause. "He's an older and more experienced man than you. +He has children. He would show you what can be done by +gentleness."</p> + +<p>From Malcolm's words she had scarcely gathered even a false +meaning -- not a glimmer of his nature -- not even a suspicion +that he meant something. To her he was but a handsome, brutal +young groom. From the world of thought and reasoning that lay +behind his words, not an echo had reached her.</p> + +<p>"It would be a great satisfaction to my old Adam to let him +try her," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"The Bible again!" said the lady to herself.</p> + +<p>"But it would be murder," he added, "not knowing myself what +experience he has had."</p> + +<p>"I see," said the lady to herself; but loud enough for Malcolm +to hear, for her tender heartedness had made her both angry and +unjust, "his self conceit is equal to his cruelty -- just what I +might have expected!"</p> + +<p>With the words she turned her horse's head and rode away, +leaving a lump in Malcolm's throat.</p> + +<p>"I wuss fowk" -- he still spoke in Scotch in his own chamber +-- "wad du as they're tell't, an' no jeedge ane anither. I'm sure +it's Kelpie's best chance o' salvation 'at I gang on wi' her. +Stable men wad ha'e had her brocken doon a'thegither by this +time; an' life wad ha'e had little relish left."</p> + +<p>It added hugely to the bitterness of being thus rebuked, that +he had never in his life seen such a radiance of beauty's softest +light as shone from the face and form of the reproving angel. -- +"Only She canna be an angel," he said to himself; "or she wad +ha'e ken't better."</p> + +<p>She was young -- not more than twenty, tall and graceful, with +a touch of the matronly, which she must have had even in +childhood, for it belonged to her -- so staid, so stately was she +in all her grace. With her brown hair, her lily complexion, her +blue gray eyes, she was all of the moonlight and its shadows -- +even now, in the early morning, and angry. Her nose was so nearly +perfect that one never thought of it. Her mouth was rather large, +but had gained in value of shape, and in the expression of +indwelling sweetness, with every line that carried it beyond the +measure of smallness. Most little mouths are pretty, some even +lovely, but not one have I seen beautiful. Her forehead was the +sweetest of half moons. Of those who knew her best some +absolutely believed that a radiance resembling moonlight +shimmered from its precious expanse.</p> + +<p>"Be ye angry and sin not," had always been a puzzle to +Malcolm, who had, as I have said, inherited a certain Celtic +fierceness; but now, even while he knew himself the object of the +anger, he understood the word. It tried him sorely, however, that +such gentleness and beauty should be unreasonable. Could it be +that he should never have a chance of convincing her how mistaken +she was concerning his treatment of Kelpie! What a celestial rosy +red her face had glowed! and what summer lightnings had flashed +up in her eyes, as if they had been the horizons of heavenly +worlds up which flew the dreams that broke from the brain of a +young sleeping goddess, to make the worlds glad also in the night +of their slumber.</p> + +<p>Something like this Malcolm felt: whoever saw her must feel as +he had never felt before. He gazed after her long and +earnestly.</p> + +<p>"It's an awfu' thing to ha'e a wuman like that angert at ye!", +he said to himself when at length she had disappeared, "-- as +bonny as she is angry! God be praised 'at he kens a'thing, an' 's +no angert wi' ye for the luik o' a thing! But the wheel may come +roon' again -- wha kens? Ony gait I s' mak' the best o' Kelpie I +can. -- I won'er gien she kens Leddy Florimel! She's a heap mair +boontifu' like in her beauty nor her. The man micht haud 's ain +wi' an archangel 'at had a woman like that to the wife o' 'm. -- +Hoots! I'll be wussin' I had had anither upbringin', 'at I micht +ha' won a step nearer to the hem o' her garment! an' that wad be +to deny him 'at made an' ordeen't me. I wull not du that. But I +maun hae a crack wi' Maister Graham, anent things twa or three, +just to haud me straucht, for I'm jist girnin' at bein' sae +regairdit by sic a Revelation. Gien she had been an auld wife, I +wad ha'e only lauchen: what for 's that? I doobt I'm no muckle +mair rizzonable nor hersel'! The thing was this, I fancy it was +sae clear she spak frae no ill natur', only frae pure humanity. +She's a gran' ane yon, only some saft, I doobt."</p> + +<p>For the lady, she rode away sadly strengthened in her doubts +whether there could be a God in the world -- not because there +were in it such men as she took Malcolm for, but because such a +lovely animal had fallen into his hands.</p> + +<p>"It's a sair thing to be misjeedged," said Malcolm to himself +as he put the demoness in her stall; "but it's no more than the +Macker o' 's pits up wi' ilka hoor o' the day, an' says na a +word. Eh, but God's unco quaiet! Sae lang as he kens till himsel' +'at he's a' richt, he lats fowk think 'at they like -- till he +has time to lat them ken better. Lord, mak' clean my hert within +me, an' syne I'll care little for ony jeedgement but thine."</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV: THE +PSYCHE</h1> + +<p>It was a lovely day, but Florimel would not ride: Malcolm must +go at once to Mr Lenorme; she would not go out again until she +could have a choice of horses to follow her.</p> + +<p>"Your Kelpie is all very well in Richmond Park, and I wish I +were able to ride her myself, Malcolm, but she will never do in +London."</p> + +<p>His name sounded sweet on her lips, but somehow today, for the +first time since he saw her first, he felt a strange sense of +superiority in his protection of her: could it be because he had +that morning looked unto a higher orb of creation? It mattered +little to Malcolm's generous nature that the voice that issued +therefrom had been one of unjust rebuke.</p> + +<p>"Who knows, my lady," he answered his mistress, "but you may +ride her some day! Give her a bit of sugar every time you see her +-- on your hand, so that she may take it with her lips, and not +catch your fingers."</p> + +<p>"You shall show me how," said Florimel, and gave him a note +for Mr Lenorme.</p> + +<p>When he came in sight of the river, there, almost opposite the +painter's house, lay his own little yacht! He thought of Kelpie +in the stable, saw Psyche floating like a swan in the reach, made +two or three long strides, then sought to exhale the pride of +life in thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>The moment his arrival was announced to Lenorme, he came down +and went with him, and in an hour or two they had found very much +the sort of horse they wanted. Malcolm took him home for trial, +and Florimel was pleased with him. The earl's opinion was not to +be had, for he had hurt his shoulder when he fell from the +rearing Kelpie the day before, and was confined to his room in +Curzon Street.</p> + +<p>In the evening Malcolm put on his yachter's uniform, and set +out again for Chelsea. There he took a boat, and crossed the +river to the yacht, which lay near the other side, in charge of +an old salt whose acquaintance Blue Peter had made when lying +below the bridges. On board he found all tidy and shipshape. He +dived into the cabin, lighted a candle, and made some +measurements: all the little luxuries of the nest, carpets, +cushions, curtains, and other things, were at Lossie House, +having been removed when the Psyche was laid up for the winter: +he was going to replace them. And he was anxious to see whether +be could not fulfil a desire he had once heard Florimel express +to her father -- that she had a bed on board, and could sleep +there. He found it possible, and had soon contrived a berth: even +a tiny stateroom was within the limits of construction.</p> + +<p>Returning to the deck, he was consulting Travers about a +carpenter, when, to his astonishment, he saw young Davy, the boy +he had brought from Duff Harbour, and whom he understood to have +gone back with Blue Peter, gazing at him from before the +mast.</p> + +<p>"Gien ye please, Maister MacPhail," said Davy, and said no +more.</p> + +<p>"How on earth do you come to be here, you rascal?" said +Malcolm. "Peter was to take you home with him!"</p> + +<p>"I garred him think I was gauin'," answered the boy, +scratching his red poll, which glowed in the dusk.</p> + +<p>"I gave him your wages," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Ay, he tauld me that, but I loot them gang an' gae him the +slip, an' was ashore close ahint yersel', sir, jist as the smack +set sail. I cudna gang ohn hed a word wi' yersel', sir, to see +whether ye wadna lat me bide wi' ye, sir. I haena muckle wut, +they tell me, sir, but gien I michtna aye be able to du what ye +tell't me to du, I cud aye haud ohn dune what ye tell't me no +to."</p> + +<p>The words of the boy pleased Malcolm more than he judged it +wise to manifest. He looked hard at Davy. There was little to be +seen in his face except the best and only thing -- truth. It +shone from his round pale blue eyes; it conquered the self +assertion of his unhappy nose; it seemed to glow in every freckle +of his sunburnt cheeks, as earnestly he returned Malcolm's +gaze.</p> + +<p>"But," said Malcolm, almost satisfied, "how is this, Travers? +I never gave you any instructions about the boy."</p> + +<p>"There's where it is, sir," answered Travers. "I seed the boy +aboard before, and when he come aboard again, jest arter you +left, I never as much as said to myself, It's all right. I axed +him no questions, and he told me no lies."</p> + +<p>"Gien ye please, sir," struck in Davy, "Maister Trahvers gied +me my mait, an' I tuik it, 'cause I hed no sil'er to buy ony: I +houp it wasna stealin', sir. An' gien ye wad keep me, ye cud tak +it aft o' my wauges for three days."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Davy," said Malcolm, turning sharp upon him, "can +you swim?"</p> + +<p>"Ay can I, sir, -- weel that," answered Davy.</p> + +<p>"Jump overboard then, and swim ashore," said Malcolm, pointing +to the Chelsea bank.</p> + +<p>The boy made two strides to the larboard gunwale, and would +have been over the next instant, but Malcolm caught him by the +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"That'll do, Davy; I'll give you a chance, Davy," he said, +"and if I get a good account of you from Travers, I'll rig you +out like myself here."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir," said Davy. "I s' du what I can to please ye, +sir. An' gien ye wad sen' my wauges hame to my mither, sir, ye +wad ken 'at I cudna be gauin' stravaguin', and drinkin' whan yer +back was turn't."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll write to your mother, and see what she says," said +Malcolm. "Now I want to tell you, both of you, that this yacht +belongs to the Marchioness of Lossie, and I have the command of +her, and I must have everything on board shipshape, and as clean, +Travers, as if she were a seventy-four. If there's the head of a +pail visible, it must be as bright as silver. And everything must +be at the word. The least hesitation, and I have done with that +man. If Davy here had grumbled one mouthful, even on his way +overboard, I wouldn't have kept him."</p> + +<p>He then arranged that Travers was to go home that night, and +bring with him the next morning an old carpenter friend of his. +He would himself be down by seven o'clock to set him to work.</p> + +<p>The result was that, before a fortnight was over, he had the +cabin thoroughly fitted up, with all the luxuries it had formerly +possessed, and as many more as he could think of -- to compensate +for the loss of the space occupied by the daintiest little +stateroom -- a very jewel box for softness and richness and +comfort. In the cabin, amongst the rest of his additions, he had +fixed in a corner a set of tiny bookshelves, and filled them with +what books he knew his sister liked, and some that he liked for +her. It was not probable she would read in them much, he said to +himself, but they wouldn't make the boat heel, and who could tell +when a drop of celestial nepenthe might ooze from one or another +of them! So there they stood, in their lovely colours, of +morocco, russia, calf or vellum -- types of the infinite rest in +the midst of the ever restless -- the types for ever tossed, but +the rest remaining.</p> + +<p>By that time also he had arranged with Travers and Davy a code +of signals.</p> + +<p>The day after Malcolm had his new hack, he rode him behind his +mistress in the park, and nothing could be more decorous than the +behaviour of both horse and groom. It was early, and in Rotten +Row, to his delight, they met the lady of rebuke. She and +Florimel pulled up simultaneously, greeted, and had a little +talk. When they parted, and the lady came to pass Malcolm, whom +she had not suspected, sitting a civilised horse in all serenity +behind his mistress, she cast a quick second glance at him, and +her fair face flushed with the red reflex of yesterday's anger. +He expected her to turn at once and complain of him to her +mistress, but to his disappointment, she rode on.</p> + +<p>When they left the park, Florimel went down Constitution Hill, +and turning westward, rode to Chelsea. As they approached Mr +Lenorme's house, she stopped and said to Malcolm -- "I am going +to run in and thank Mr Lenorme for the trouble he has been at +about the horse. Which is the house?"</p> + +<p>She pulled up at the gate. Malcolm dismounted, but before he +could get near to assist her, she was already halfway up the walk +-- flying, and he was but in time to catch the rein of Abbot, +already moving off curious to know whether he was actually +trusted alone. In about five minutes she came again, glancing +about her all ways but behind, with a scared look, Malcolm +thought. But she walked more slowly and statelily than usual down +the path. In a moment Malcolm had her in the saddle, and she +cantered away -- past the hospital into Sloane Street, and across +the park home. He said to himself, "She knows the way."</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI: THE +SCHOOLMASTER</h1> + +<p>Alexander Graham, the schoolmaster, was the son of a grieve, +or farm overseer, in the North of Scotland. By straining every +nerve, his parents had succeeded in giving him a university +education, the narrowness of whose scope was possibly favourable +to the development of what genius, rare and shy, might lurk among +the students. He had laboured well, and had gathered a good deal +from books and lectures, but far more from the mines they guided +him to discover in his own nature. In common with so many Scotch +parents, his had cherished the most wretched as well as hopeless +of all ambitions, seeing it presumes to work in a region into +which no ambition can enter -- I mean that of seeing their son a +clergyman. In presbyter, curate, bishop, or cardinal, ambition +can fare but as that of the creeping thing to build its nest in +the topmost boughs of the cedar. Worse than that; my simile is a +poor one; for the moment a thought of ambition is cherished, that +moment the man is out of the kingdom. Their son with already a +few glimmering insights, which had not yet begun to interfere +with his acceptance of the doctrines of his church, made no +opposition to their wish, but having qualified himself to the +satisfaction of his superiors, at length ascended the pulpit to +preach his first sermon.</p> + +<p>The custom of the time as to preaching was a sort of +compromise between reading a sermon and speaking extempore, a +mode morally as well as artistically false: the preacher learned +his sermon by rote, and repeated it -- as much like the man he +therein was not, and as little like the parrot he was, as he +could. It is no wonder, in such an attempt, either that memory +should fail a shy man, or assurance an honest man. In Mr Graham's +case it was probably the former: the practice was universal, and +he could hardly yet have begun to question it, so as to have had +any conscience of evil. Blessedly, however, for his dawning truth +and well being, he failed -- failed utterly -- pitifully. His +tongue clave to the roof of his mouth; his lips moved, but shaped +no sound; a deathly dew bathed his forehead; his knees shook; and +he sank at last to the bottom of the chamber of his torture, +whence, while his mother wept below, and his father clenched +hands of despair beneath the tails of his Sunday coat, he was +half led, half dragged down the steps by the bedral, shrunken +together like one caught in a shameful deed, and with the ghastly +look of him who has but just revived from the faint supervening +on the agonies of the rack. Home they crept together, speechless +and hopeless all three, to be thenceforth the contempt and not +the envy of their fellow parishioners. For if the vulgar feeling +towards the home born prophet is superciliousness, what must the +sentence upon failure be in ungenerous natures, to which every +downfall of another is an uplifting of themselves! But Mr +Graham's worth had gained him friends in the presbytery, and he +was that same week appointed to the vacant school of another +parish.</p> + +<p>There it was not long before he made the acquaintance of +Griselda Campbell, who was governess in the great house of the +neighbourhood, and a love, not the less fine that it was hopeless +from the first, soon began to consume the chagrin of his failure, +and substitute for it a more elevating sorrow; -- for how could +an embodied failure, to offer whose miserable self would be an +insult, dare speak of love to one before whom his whole being +sank worshipping. Silence was the sole armour of his privilege. +So long as he was silent, the terrible arrow would never part +from the bow of those sweet lips; he might love on, love ever, +nor be grudged the bliss of such visions as to him, seated on its +outer steps, might come from any chance opening of the heavenly +gate. And Miss Campbell thought of him more kindly than he knew. +But before long she accepted the offered situation of governess +to Lady Annabel, the only child of the late marquis's elder +brother, at that time himself marquis, and removed to Lossie +House. There the late marquis fell in love with her, and +persuaded her to a secret marriage. There also she became, in the +absence of her husband, the mother of Malcolm. But the marquis of +the time, jealous for the succession of his daughter, and fearing +his brother might yet marry the mother of his child, contrived, +with the assistance of the midwife, to remove the infant and +persuade the mother that he was dead, and also to persuade his +brother of the death of both mother and child; after which, +imagining herself wilfully deserted by her husband, yet +determined to endure shame rather than break the promise of +secrecy she had given him, the poor lady accepted the hospitality +of her distant relative, Miss Horn, and continued with her till +she died.</p> + +<p>When he learned where she had gone, Mr Graham seized a chance +of change to Portlossie that occurred soon after, and when she +became her cousin's guest, went to see her, was kindly received, +and for twenty years lived in friendly relations with the two. It +was not until after her death that he came to know the strange +fact that the object of his calm unalterable devotion had been a +wife all those years, and was the mother of his favourite pupil. +About the same time he was dismissed from the school on the +charge of heretical teaching, founded on certain religious +conversations he had had with some of the fisher people who +sought his advice; and thereupon he had left the place, and gone +to London, knowing it would be next to impossible to find or +gather another school in Scotland after being thus branded. In +London he hoped, one way or another, to avoid dying of cold or +hunger, or in debt: that was very nearly the limit of his earthly +ambition.</p> + +<p>He had just one acquaintance in the whole mighty city, and no +more. Him he had known in the days of his sojourn at King's +College, where he had grown with him from bejan to magistrand. He +was the son of a linen draper in Aberdeen, and was a decent, good +humoured fellow, who, if he had not distinguished, had never +disgraced himself. His father, having somewhat influential +business relations, and finding in him no leanings to a +profession, bespoke the good offices of a certain large retail +house in London, and sent him thither to learn the business. The +result was that he had married a daughter of one of the partners, +and become a partner himself. His old friend wrote to him at his +shop in Oxford Street, and then went to see him at his house in +Haverstock Hill.</p> + +<p>He was shown into the library -- in which were two mahogany +cases with plate glass doors, full of books, well cared for as to +clothing and condition, and perfectly placid, as if never +disturbed from one week's end to another. In a minute Mr Marshal +entered -- so changed that he could never have recognized him -- +still, however, a kind hearted, genial man. He received his +classfellow cordially and respectfully -- referred merrily to old +times, and begged to know how he was getting on, asked whether he +had come to London with any special object, and invited him to +dine with them on Sunday. He accepted the invitation, met him, +according to agreement, at a certain chapel in Kentish Town, of +which he was a deacon, and walked home with him and his wife.</p> + +<p>They had but one of their family at home -- the youngest son, +whom his father was having educated for the dissenting ministry, +in the full conviction that he was doing not a little for the +truth, and justifying its cause before men, by devoting to its +service the son of a man of standing and worldly means, whom he +might have easily placed in a position to make money. The youth +was of simple character and good inclination -- ready to do what +he saw to be right, but slow in putting to the question anything +that interfered with his notions of laudable ambition, or +justifiable self interest. He was attending lectures at a +dissenting college in the neighbourhood, for his father feared +Oxford or Cambridge, not for his morals, but his opinions in +regard to church and state.</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster spent a few days in the house. His friend was +generally in town, and his wife, regarding him as very primitive +and hardly fit for what she counted society -- the class, namely, +that she herself represented, was patronising and condescending; +but the young fellow, finding, to his surprise, that he knew a +great deal more about his studies than he did himself, was first +somewhat attracted and then somewhat influenced by him, so that +at length an intimacy tending to friendship arose between +them.</p> + +<p>Mr Graham was not a little shocked to discover that his ideas +in respect of the preacher's calling were of a very worldly kind. +The notions of this fledgling of dissent differed from those of a +clergyman of the same stamp in this: -- the latter regards the +church as a society with accumulated property for the use of its +officers; the former regarded it as a community of communities, +each possessing a preaching house which ought to be made +commercially successful. Saving influences must emanate from it +of course -- but dissenting saving influences.</p> + +<p>His mother was a partisan to a hideous extent. To hear her +talk you would have thought she imagined the apostles the first +dissenters, and that the main duty of every Christian soul was to +battle for the victory of Congregationalism over Episcopacy, and +Voluntaryism over State Endowment. Her every mode of thinking and +acting was of a levelling commonplace. With her, love was liking, +duty something unpleasant -- generally to other people, and +kindness patronage. But she was just in money matters, and her +son too had every intention of being worthy of his hire, though +wherein lay the value of the labour with which he thought to +counterpoise that hire, it were hard to say.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII: THE +PREACHER</h1> + +<p>The sermon Mr Graham heard at the chapel that Sunday morning +in Kentish Town was not of an elevating, therefore not of a +strengthening description. The pulpit was at that time in offer +to the highest bidder -- in orthodoxy, that is, combined with +popular talent. The first object of the chapel's existence -- I +do not say in the minds of those who built it, for it was an old +place, but certainly in the minds of those who now directed its +affairs -- was not to save its present congregation, but to +gather a larger -- ultimately that they might be saved, let us +hope, but primarily that the drain upon the purses of those who +were responsible for its rent and other outlays, might be +lessened. Mr Masquar, therefore, to whom the post was a desirable +one, had been mainly anxious that morning to prove his orthodoxy, +and so commend his services. Not that in those days one heard so +much of the dangers of heterodoxy: that monster was as yet but +growling far off in the jungles of Germany; but certain whispers +had been abroad concerning the preacher which he thought +desirable to hush, especially as they were founded in truth. He +had tested the power of heterodoxy to attract attention, but +having found that the attention it did attract was not of a kind +favourable to his wishes, had so skilfully remodelled his +theories that, although to his former friends he declared them in +substance unaltered, it was impossible any longer to distinguish +them from the most uncompromising orthodoxy; and his sermon of +that morning had tended neither to the love of God, the love of +man, nor a hungering after righteousness -- its aim being to +disprove the reported heterodoxy of Jacob Masquar.</p> + +<p>As they walked home, Mrs Marshal, addressing her husband in a +tone of conjugal disapproval, said, with more force than +delicacy,</p> + +<p>"The pulpit is not the place to give a man to wash his dirty +linen in."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, my love," answered her husband in a tone of +apology, "people won't submit to be told their duty by mere +students, and just at present there seems nobody else to be had. +There's none in the market but old stagers and young colts -- eh, +Fred? But Mr Masquar is at least a man of experience."</p> + +<p>"Of more than enough, perhaps," suggested his wife. "And the +young ones must have their chance, else how are they to learn? +You should have given the principal a hint. It is a most +desirable thing that Frederick should preach a little +oftener."</p> + +<p>"They have it in turn, and it wouldn't do to favour one more +than another."</p> + +<p>"He could hand his guinea, or whatever they gave him, to the +one whose turn it ought to have been, and that would set it all +right."</p> + +<p>At this point the silk mercer, fearing that the dominie, as he +called him, was silently disapproving, and willing therefore to +change the subject, turned to him and said,</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't you give us a sermon, Graham?"</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster laughed.</p> + +<p>"Did you never hear," he said, "how I fell like Dagon on the +threshold of the church, and have lain there ever since."</p> + +<p>"What has that to do with it?" returned his friend, sorry that +his forgetfulness should have caused a painful recollection. +"That is ages ago, when you were little more than a boy. +Seriously," he added, chiefly to cover his little indiscretion, +"will you preach for us the Sunday after next?"</p> + +<p>Deacons generally ask a man to preach for them.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mr Graham.</p> + +<p>But even as he said it, a something began to move in his heart +-- a something half of jealousy for God, half of pity for poor +souls buffeted by such winds as had that morning been roaring, +chaff laden, about the church, while the grain fell all to the +bottom of the pulpit. Something burned in him: was it the word +that was as a fire in his bones, or was it a mere lust of talk? +He thought for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Have you any gatherings between Sundays?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes; every Wednesday evening," replied Mr Marshal. "And if +you won't preach on Sunday, we shall announce tonight that next +Wednesday a clergyman of the Church of Scotland will address the +prayer meeting."</p> + +<p>He was glad to get out of it so, for he was uneasy about his +friend, both as to his nerve, which might fail him, and his +Scotch oddities, which would not.</p> + +<p>"That would be hardly true," said Mr Graham, "seeing I never +got beyond a licence."</p> + +<p>"Nobody here knows the difference between a licentiate and a +placed minister; and if they did they would not care a straw. So +we'll just say clergyman."</p> + +<p>"But I won't have it announced in any terms. Leave that alone, +and I will try to speak at the prayer meeting."</p> + +<p>"It won't be in the least worth your while except we announce +it. You won't have a soul to hear you but the pew openers, the +woman that cleans the chapel, Mrs Marshal's washerwoman, and the +old greengrocer we buy our vegetables from. We must really +announce it."</p> + +<p>"Then I won't do it. Just tell me -- what would our Lord have +said to Peter or John if they had told Him that they had been to +synagogue and had been asked to speak, but had declined because +there were only the pew openers, the chapel cleaner, a +washerwoman, and a greengrocer present?"</p> + +<p>"I said it only for your sake, Graham; you needn't take me up +so sharply."</p> + +<p>"And ra-a-ther irreverently -- don't you think -- excuse me, +sir?" said Mrs Marshal very softly. But the very softness had a +kind of jellyfish sting in it.</p> + +<p>"I think," rejoined the schoolmaster, indirectly replying, "we +must be careful to show our reverence in a manner pleasing to +our Lord. Now I cannot discover that he cares for any reverences +but the shaping of our ways after his; and if you will show me a +single instance of respect of persons in our Lord, I will press +my petition no farther to be allowed to speak a word to your pew +openers, washerwoman, and greengrocer."</p> + +<p>His entertainers were silent -- the gentleman in the +consciousness of deserved rebuke, the lady in offence.</p> + +<p>Just then the latter bethought herself that their guest, +belonging to the Scotch Church, was, if no Episcopalian, yet no +dissenter, and that seemed to clear up to her the spirit of his +disapproval.</p> + +<p>"By all means, Mr Marshal," she said, "let your friend speak +on the Wednesday evening. It would not be to his advantage to +have it said that he occupied a dissenting pulpit. It will not be +nearly such an exertion either; and if he is unaccustomed to +speak to large congregations, he will find himself more +comfortable with our usual week evening one."</p> + +<p>"I have never attempted to speak in public but once," rejoined +Mr Graham, "and then I failed."</p> + +<p>"Ah! that accounts for it," said his friend's wife and the +simplicity of his confession, while it proved him a simpleton, +mollified her.</p> + +<p>Thus it came that he spent the days between Sunday and +Thursday in their house, and so made the acquaintance of young +Marshal.</p> + +<p>When his mother perceived their growing intimacy, she warned +her son that their visitor belonged to an unscriptural and +worldly community, and that notwithstanding his apparent +guilelessness -- deficiency indeed -- he might yet use cunning +arguments to draw him aside from the faith of his fathers. But +the youth replied that, although in the firmness of his own +position as a Congregationalist, he had tried to get the +Scotchman into a conversation upon church government, he had +failed; the man smiled queerly and said nothing. But when a +question of New Testament criticism arose, he came awake at once, +and his little blue eyes gleamed like glowworms.</p> + +<p>"Take care, Frederick," said his mother. "The Scriptures are +not to be treated like common books and subjected to human +criticism."</p> + +<p>"We must find out what they mean, I suppose, mother," said the +youth.</p> + +<p>"You're to take just the plain meaning that he that runneth +may read," answered his mother. -- "More than that no one has any +business with. You've got to save your own soul first, and then +the souls of your neighbours if they will let you; and for that +reason you must cultivate, not a spirit of criticism, but the +talents that attract people to the hearing of the Word. You have +got a fine voice, and it will improve with judicious use. Your +father is now on the outlook for a teacher of elocution to +instruct you how to make the best of it, and speak with power on +God's behalf"</p> + +<p>When the afternoon of Wednesday began to draw towards the +evening, there came on a mist, not a London fog, but a low wet +cloud, which kept slowly condensing into rain; and as the hour of +meeting drew nigh with the darkness, it grew worse. Mrs Marshal +had forgotten all about the meeting and the schoolmaster: her +husband was late, and she wanted her dinner. At twenty minutes +past six, she came upon her guest in the hall, kneeling on the +doormat, first on one knee, then on the other, turning up the +feet of his trousers.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr Graham," she said kindly, as he rose and proceeded to +look for his cotton umbrella, easily discernible in the stand +among the silk ones of the house, "you're never going out on a +night like this?"</p> + +<p>"I am going to the prayer meeting, ma'am," he said.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! You'll be wet to the skin before you get half +way."</p> + +<p>"I promised, you may remember, ma'am, to talk a little to +them."</p> + +<p>"You only said so to my husband. You may be very glad, seeing +it has turned out so wet, that I would not allow him to have it +announced from the pulpit. There is not the slightest occasion +for your going. Besides, you have not had your dinner."</p> + +<p>"That's not of the slightest consequence, ma'am. A bit of +bread and cheese before I go to bed is all I need to sustain +nature, and fit me for understanding my proposition in Euclid. I +have been in the habit, for the last few years, of reading one +every night before I go to bed."</p> + +<p>"We dissenters consider a chapter of the Bible the best thing +to read before going to bed," said the lady, with a sustained +voice.</p> + +<p>"I keep that for the noontide of my perceptions -- for mental +high water," said the schoolmaster, "Euclid is good enough after +supper. Not that I deny myself a small portion of the Word," he +added with a smile, as he proceeded to open the door -- "when I +feel very hungry for it."</p> + +<p>"There is no one expecting you," persisted the lady, who could +ill endure not to have her own way, even when she did not care +for the matter concerned. "Who will be the wiser or the worse if +you stay at home?"</p> + +<p>"My dear lady," returned the schoolmaster, "when I have on +good grounds made up my mind to a thing, I always feel as if I +had promised God to do it; and indeed it amounts to the same +thing very nearly. Such a resolve then is not to be unmade except +on equally good grounds with those upon which it was made. Having +resolved to try whether I could not draw a little water of +refreshment for souls which if not thirsting are but fainting the +more, shall I allow a few drops of rain to prevent me?"</p> + +<p>"Pray don't let me persuade you against your will," said his +hostess, with a stately bend of her neck over her shoulder, as +she turned into the drawing room.</p> + +<p>Her guest went out into the rain, asking himself by what +theory of the will his hostess could justify such a phrase -- +-too simple to see that she had only thrown it out, as the +cuttlefish its ink, to cover her retreat.</p> + +<p>But the weather had got a little into his brain: into his soul +it was seldom allowed to intrude. He felt depressed and feeble +and dull. But at the first corner he turned, he met a little +breath of wind. It blew the rain in his face, and revived him a +little, reminding him at the same time that he had not yet opened +his umbrella. As he put it up he laughed.</p> + +<p>"Here I am," he said to himself, "lance in hand, spurring to +meet my dragon!"</p> + +<p>Once when he used a similar expression, Malcolm had asked him +what he meant by his dragon; "I mean," replied the schoolmaster, +"that huge slug, The Commonplace. It is the wearifulest dragon to +fight in the whole miscreation. Wound it as you may, the jelly +mass of the monster closes, and the dull one is himself again -- +feeding all the time so cunningly that scarce one of the victims +whom he has swallowed suspects that he is but pabulum slowly +digesting in the belly of the monster."</p> + +<p>If the schoolmaster's dragon, spread abroad as he lies, a +vague dilution, everywhere throughout human haunts, has yet any +headquarters, where else can they be than in such places as that +to which he was now making his way to fight him? What can be +fuller of the wearisome, depressing, beauty blasting commonplace +than a dissenting chapel in London, on the night of the weekly +prayer meeting, and that night a drizzly one? The few lights fill +the lower part with a dull, yellow, steamy glare, while the vast +galleries, possessed by an ugly twilight, yawn above like the +dreary openings of a disconsolate eternity. The pulpit rises into +the dim damp air, covered with brown holland, reminding one of +desertion and charwomen, if not of a chamber of death and +spiritual undertakers, who have shrouded and coffined the truth. +Gaping, empty, unsightly, the place is the very skull of the +monster himself -- the fittest place of all wherein to encounter +the great slug, and deal him one of those death blows which every +sunrise, every repentance, every childbirth, every true love +deals him. Every hour he receives the blow that kills, but he +takes long to die, for every hour he is right carefully fed and +cherished by a whole army of purveyors, including every trade and +profession, but officered chiefly by divines and men of +science.</p> + +<p>When the dominie entered, all was still, and every light had a +nimbus of illuminated vapour. There were hardly more than three +present beyond the number Mr Marshal had given him to expect; and +their faces, some grim, some grimy, most of them troubled, and +none blissful, seemed the nervous ganglions of the monster whose +faintly gelatinous bulk filled the place. He seated himself in a +pew near the pulpit, communed with his own heart and was still. +Presently the ministering deacon, a humbler one in the worldly +sense than Mr Marshal, for he kept a small ironmongery shop in +the next street to the chapel, entered, twirling the wet from his +umbrella as he came along one of the passages intersecting the +pews. Stepping up into the desk which cowered humbly at the foot +of the pulpit, he stood erect, and cast his eyes around the small +assembly. Discovering there no one that could lead in singing, he +chose out and read one of the monster's favourite hymns, in which +never a sparkle of thought or a glow of worship gave reason +wherefore the holy words should have been carpentered together. +Then he prayed aloud, and then first the monster found tongue, +voice, articulation. If this was worship, surely it was the +monster's own worship of itself! No God were better than one to +whom such were fitting words of prayer. What passed in the man's +soul, God forbid I should judge: I speak but of the words that +reached the ears of men.</p> + +<p>And over all the vast of London lay the monster, filling it +like the night -- not in churches and chapels only -- in almost +all theatres, and most houses -- most of all in rich houses: +everywhere he had a foot, a tail, a tentacle or two -- everywhere +suckers that drew the life blood from the sickening and somnolent +soul.</p> + +<p>When the deacon, a little brown man, about five-and-thirty, +had ended his prayer, he read another hymn of the same sort -- +one of such as form the bulk of most collections, and then looked +meaningly at Mr Graham, whom he had seen in the chapel on Sunday +with his brother deacon, and therefore judged one of consequence, +who had come to the meeting with an object, and ought to be +propitiated: he had intended speaking himself. After having thus +for a moment regarded him,</p> + +<p>"Would you favour us with a word of exhortation, sir?" he +said, in a stage-like whisper.</p> + +<p>Now the monster had by this time insinuated a hair-like sucker +into the heart of the schoolmaster, and was busy. But at the +word, as the Red Cross Knight when he heard Orgoglio in the wood +staggered to meet him, he rose at once, and although his umbrella +slipped and fell with a loud discomposing clatter, calmly +approached the reading desk. To look at his outer man, this +knight of the truth might have been the very high priest of the +monster which, while he was sitting there, had been twisting his +slimy, semi-electric, benumbing tendrils around his heart. His +business was nevertheless to fight him, though to fight him in +his own heart and that of other people at one and the same +moment, he might well find hard work. And the loathly worm had +this advantage over the knight, that it was the first time he had +stood up to speak in public since his failure thirty years ago. +That hour again for a moment overshadowed his spirit. It was a +wavy harvest morning in a village of the north. A golden wind was +blowing, and little white clouds flying aloft in the sunny blue. +The church was full of well known faces, upturned, listening, +expectant, critical. The hour vanished in a slow mist of abject +misery and shame. But had he not learned to rejoice over all dead +hopes, and write Te Deums on their coffin lids? And now he stood +in dim light, in the vapour from damp garments, in dinginess and +ugliness, with a sense of spiritual squalor and destitution in +his very soul. He had tried to pray his own prayer while the +deacon prayed his; but there had come to him no reviving -- no +message for this handful of dull souls -- there were nine of them +in all -- and his own soul crouched hard and dull within his +bosom. How to give them one deeper breath? How to make them know +they were alive? Whence was his aid to come?</p> + +<p>His aid was nearer than he knew. There were no hills to which +he could lift his eyes, but help may hide in the valley as well +as come down from the mountain, and he found his under the coal +scuttle bonnet of the woman that swept out and dusted the chapel. +She was no interesting young widow. A life of labour and vanished +children lay behind as well as before her. She was sixty years of +age, seamed with the smallpox, and in every seam the dust and +smoke of London had left a stain. She had a troubled eye, and a +gaze that seemed to ask of the universe why it had given birth to +her. But it was only her face that asked the question; her mind +was too busy with the ever recurring enigma, which, answered this +week, was still an enigma for the next -- how she was to pay her +rent -- too busy to have any other question to ask. Or would she +not rather have gone to sleep altogether, under the dreary +fascination of the slug monster, had she not had a severe +landlady, who would be paid punctually, or turn her out? Anyhow, +every time and all the time she sat in the chapel, she was +brooding over ways and means, calculating pence and shillings -- +the day's charing she had promised her, and the chances of more +-- mingling faint regrets over past indulgences -- the extra half +pint of beer she drank on Saturday -- the bit of cheese she +bought on Monday. Of this face of care, revealing a spirit which +Satan had bound, the schoolmaster caught sight, -- caught from +its commonness, its grimness, its defeature, inspiration and +uplifting, for there he beheld the oppressed, down trodden, mire +fouled humanity which the man in whom he believed had loved +because it was his father's humanity divided into brothers, and +had died straining to lift back to the bosom of that Father. Oh +tale of horror and dreary monstrosity, if it be such indeed as +the bulk of its priests on the one hand, and its enemies on the +other represent it! Oh story of splendrous fate, of infinite +resurrection and uplifting, of sun and breeze, of organ blasts +and exultation, for the heart of every man and woman, whatsoever +the bitterness of its care or the weight of its care, if it be +such as the Book itself has held it from age to age!</p> + +<p>It was the mere humanity of the woman, I say, and nothing in +her individuality of what is commonly called the interesting, +that ministered to the breaking of the schoolmaster's trance. "Oh +ye of little faith!" were the first words that flew from his lips +-- he knew not whether uttered concerning himself or the +charwoman the more; and at once he fell to speaking of him who +said the words, and of the people that came to him and heard him +gladly; -- how this one, whom he described, must have felt, Oh, +if that be true! how that one, whom also he described, must have +said, Now he means me! and so laid bare the secrets of many +hearts, until he had concluded all in the misery of being without +a helper in the world, a prey to fear and selfishness and dismay. +Then he told them how the Lord pledged himself for all their +needs -- meat and drink and clothes for the body, and God and +love and truth for the soul, if only they would put them in the +right order and seek the best first.</p> + +<p>Next he spoke a parable to them -- of a house and a father and +his children. The children would not do what their father told +them, and therefore began to keep out of his sight. After a while +they began to say to each other that he must have gone out, it +was so long since they had seen him -- only they never went to +look. And again after a time some of them began to say to each +other that they did not believe they had ever had any father. But +there were some who dared not say that -- who thought they had a +father somewhere in the house, and yet crept about in misery, +sometimes hungry and often cold, fancying he was not friendly to +them, when all the time it was they who were not friendly to him, +and said to themselves he would not give them anything. They +never went to knock at his door, or call to know if he were +inside and would speak to them. And all the time there he was +sitting sorrowful, listening and listening for some little hand +to come knocking, and some little voice to come gently calling +through the keyhole; for sorely did he long to take them to his +bosom and give them everything. Only if he did that without their +coming to him, they would not care for his love or him, would +only care for the things he gave them, and soon would come to +hate their brothers and sisters, and turn their own souls into +hells, and the earth into a charnel of murder.</p> + +<p>Ere he ended he was pleading with the charwoman to seek her +father in his own room, tell him her troubles, do what he told +her, and fear nothing. And while he spoke, lo! the dragon slug +had vanished; the ugly chapel was no longer the den of the +hideous monster; it was but the dusky bottom of a glory shaft, +adown which gazed the stars of the coming resurrection.</p> + +<p>"The whole trouble is that we won't let God help us," said the +preacher, and sat down.</p> + +<p>A prayer from the greengrocer followed, in which he did seem +to be feeling after God a little; and then the ironmonger +pronounced the benediction, and all went -- among the rest, +Frederick Marshal, who had followed the schoolmaster, and now +walked back with him to his father's, where he was to spend one +night more.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII: +THE PORTRAIT</h1> + +<p>Florimel had found her daring visit to Lenorme stranger and +more fearful than she had expected: her courage was not quite so +masterful as she had thought. The next day she got Mrs +Barnardiston to meet her at the studio. - But she contrived to be +there first by some minutes, and her friend found her seated, and +the painter looking as if he had fairly begun his morning's work. +When she apologised for being late, Florimel said she supposed +her groom had brought round the horses before his time; being +ready, she had not looked at her watch. She was sharp on other +people for telling stories -- but had of late ceased to see any +great harm in telling one to protect herself. The fact however +had begun to present itself in those awful morning hours that +seem a mingling of time and eternity, and she did not like the +discovery that, since her intimacy with Lenorme, she had begun to +tell lies: what would he say if he knew?</p> + +<p>Malcolm found it dreary waiting in the street while she sat to +the painter. He would not have minded it on Kelpie, for she was +always occupation enough, but with only a couple of quiet horses +to hold, it was dreary. He took to scrutinizing the faces that +passed him, trying to understand them. To his surprise he found +that almost everyone reminded him of somebody he had known +before, though he could not always identify the likeness.</p> + +<p>It was a pleasure to see his yacht lying so near him, and Davy +on the deck, and to hear the blows of the hammer and the swish of +the plane as the carpenter went on with the alterations to which +he had set him, but he got tired of sharing in activity only with +his ears and eyes. One thing he had by it, however, and that was +-- a good lesson in quiescent waiting -- a grand thing for any +man, and most of all for those in whom the active is strong.</p> + +<p>The next day Florimel did not ride until after lunch, but took +her maid with her to the studio, and Malcolm had a long morning +with Kelpie. Once again he passed the beautiful lady in Rotten +Row, but Kelpie was behaving in a most exemplary manner, and he +could not tell whether she even saw him. I believe she thought +her lecture had done him good. The day after that Lord Liftore +was able to ride, and for some days Florimel and he rode in the +park before dinner, when, as Malcolm followed on the new horse, +he had to see his lordship make love to his sister, without being +able to find the least colourable pretext of involuntary +interference.</p> + +<p>At length the parcel he had sent for from Lossie House +arrived. He had explained to Mrs Courthope what he wanted the +things for, and she had made no difficulty of sending them to the +address he gave her. Lenorme had already begun the portrait, had +indeed been working at it very busily, and was now quite ready +for him to sit. The early morning being the only time a groom +could contrive to spare -- and that involved yet earlier +attention to his horses, they arranged that Malcolm should be at +the study every day by seven o'clock, until the painter's object +was gained. So he mounted Kelpie at half past six of a fine +breezy spring morning, rode across Hyde Park and down Grosvenor +Place, and so reached Chelsea, where he put up his mare in +Lenorme's stable -- fortunately large enough to admit of an empty +stall between her and the painter's grand screw, else a battle +frightful to relate might have fallen to my lot.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have been more to Malcolm's mind than such a +surpassing opportunity of learning with assurance what sort of +man Lenorme was; and the relation that arose between them +extended the sittings far beyond the number necessary for the +object proposed. How the first of them passed I must recount with +some detail.</p> + +<p>As soon as he arrived, he was shown into the painter's +bedroom, where lay the portmanteau he had carried thither himself +the night before: out of it, with a strange mingling of pleasure +and sadness, he now took the garments of his father's vanished +state -- the filibeg of the dark tartan of his clan, in which +green predominated; the French coat of black velvet of Genoa, +with silver buttons; the bonnet, which ought to have had an +eagle's feather, but had only an aigrette of diamonds; the black +sporran of long goat's hair, with the silver clasp; the silver +mounted dirk, with its appendages, set all with pale cairngorms +nearly as good as oriental topazes; and the claymore of the +renowned Andrew's forging, with its basket hilt of silver, and +its black, silver mounted sheath. He handled each with the +reverence of a son. Having dressed in them, he drew himself up +with not a little of the Celt's pleasure in fine clothes, and +walked into the painting room.</p> + +<p>Lenorme started with admiration of his figure, and wonder at +the dignity of his carriage, while, mingled with these feelings, +he was aware of an indescribable doubt, something to which he +could give no name. He almost sprang at his palette and brushes: +whether he succeeded with the likeness of the late marquis or +not, it would be his own fault if he did not make a good picture! +He painted eagerly, and they talked little, and only about things +indifferent.</p> + +<p>At length the painter said,</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Now walk about the room while I spread a spadeful +of paint: you must be tired standing."</p> + +<p>Malcolm did as he was told, and walked straight up to the +Temple of Isis, in which the painter had now long been at work on +the goddess. He recognised his sister at once, but a sudden pinch +of prudence checked the exclamation that had almost burst from +his lips.</p> + +<p>"What a beautiful picture!" he said. "What does it mean? -- +Surely it is Hermione coming to life, and Leontes dying of joy! +But no; that would not fit. They are both too young, and --"</p> + +<p>"You read Shakspere, I see," said Lenorme, "as well as +Epictetus."</p> + +<p>"I do -- a good deal," answered Malcolm. "But please tell me +what you painted this for."</p> + +<p>Then Lenorme told him the parable of Novalis, and Malcolm saw +what the poet meant. He stood staring at the picture, and Lenorme +sat working away, but a little anxious -- he hardly knew why: had +he bethought himself he would have put the picture out of sight +before Malcolm came.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't be offended if I made a remark, would you, Mr +Lenorme?" said Malcolm at length.</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," replied Lenorme, something afraid +nevertheless of what might be coming.</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether I can express what I mean," said +Malcolm, "but I'll try. I could do it better in Scotch, I +believe, but then you wouldn't understand me."</p> + +<p>"I think I should," said Lenorme. "I spent six months in +Edinburgh once."</p> + +<p>"Ow ay! but ye see they dinna thraw the words there jist the +same gait they du at Portlossie. Na, na! I maunna attemp' +it."</p> + +<p>"Hold, hold!" cried Lenorme. "I want to have your criticism. I +don't understand a word you are saying. You must make the best +you can of the English."</p> + +<p>"I was only telling you in Scotch that I wouldn't try the +Scotch," returned Malcolm. "Now I will try the English. -- In the +first place, then -- but really it's very presumptuous of me, Mr +Lenorme; and it may be that I am blind to something in the +picture."</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Lenorme impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think then, that one of the first things you would +look for in a goddess would be -- what shall I call it? -- an air +of mystery?"</p> + +<p>"That was so much involved in the very idea of Isis, in her +especially, that they said she was always veiled, and no man had +ever seen her face."</p> + +<p>"That would greatly interfere with my notion of mystery," said +Malcolm. "There must be revelation before mystery. I take it that +mystery is what lies behind revelation; that which as yet +revelation has not reached. You must see something -- a part of +something, before you can feel any sense of mystery about it. The +Isis for ever veiled is the absolutely Unknown, not the +Mysterious."</p> + +<p>"But, you observe, the idea of the parable is different. +According to that Isis is for ever unveiling, that is revealing +herself, in her works, chiefly in the women she creates, and then +chiefly in each of them to the man who loves her."</p> + +<p>"I see what you mean well enough; but not the less she remains +the goddess, does she not?"</p> + +<p>"Surely she does."</p> + +<p>"And can a goddess ever reveal all she is and has!"</p> + +<p>"Never."</p> + +<p>"Then ought there not to be mystery about the face and form of +your Isis on her pedestal?"</p> + +<p>"Is it not there? Is there not mystery in the face and form of +every woman that walks the earth?"</p> + +<p>"Doubtless; but you desire -- do you not? -- to show -- that +although this is the very lady the young man loved before ever he +sought the shrine of the goddess, not the less is she the goddess +Isis herself?"</p> + +<p>"I do -- or at least I ought; only -- by Jove! you have +already looked deeper into the whole thing than I!"</p> + +<p>"There may be things to account for that on both sides," said +Malcolm. "But one word more to relieve my brain: -- if you would +embody the full meaning of the parable, you must not be content +that the mystery is there; you must show in your painting that +you feel it there; you must paint the invisible veil that no hand +can lift, for there it is, and there it ever will be, though Isis +herself raise it from morning to morning."</p> + +<p>"How am I to do that?" said Lenorme, not that he did not see +what Malcolm meant, or agree with it: he wanted to make him +talk.</p> + +<p>"How can I, who never drew a stroke, or painted anything but +the gunnel of a boat, tell you that?" rejoined Malcolm. "It is +your business. You must paint that veil, that mystery in the +forehead, and in the eyes, and in the lips -- yes, in the cheeks +and the chin and the eyebrows and everywhere. You must make her +say without saying it, that she knows oh! so much, if only she +could make you understand it! -- that she is all there for you, +but the all is infinitely more than you can know. As she stands +there now,"</p> + +<p>"I must interrupt you," cried Lenorme, "just to say that the +picture is not finished yet."</p> + +<p>"And yet I will finish my sentence, if you will allow me," +returned Malcolm. "-- As she stands there -- the goddess -- she +looks only a beautiful young woman, with whom the young man +spreading out his arms to her is very absolutely in love. There +is the glow and the mystery of love in both their faces, and +nothing more."</p> + +<p>"And is not that enough?" said Lenorme.</p> + +<p>"No," answered Malcolm. "And yet it may be too much," he +added, "if you are going to hang it up where people will see +it."</p> + +<p>As he said this, he looked hard at the painter for a moment. +The dark hue of Lenorme's cheek deepened; his brows lowered a +little farther over the black wells of his eyes; and he painted +on without answer.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he said at length.</p> + +<p>"Don't swear, Mr Lenorme," said Malcolm. "-- Besides, that's +my Lord Liftore's oath. -- If you do, you will teach my lady to +swear."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?" asked Lenorme, with offence plain +enough in his tone.</p> + +<p>Thereupon Malcolm told him how on one occasion, himself being +present, the marquis her father happening to utter an +imprecation, Lady Florimel took the first possible opportunity of +using the very same words on her own account, much to the +marquis's amusement and Malcolm's astonishment. But upon +reflection he had come to see that she only wanted to cure her +father of the bad habit.</p> + +<p>The painter laughed heartily, but stopped all at once and +said, "It's enough to make any fellow swear though, to hear a -- +groom talk as you do about art."</p> + +<p>"Have I the impudence? I didn't know it," said Malcolm, with +some dismay. "I seemed to myself merely saying the obvious thing, +the common sense, about the picture, on the ground of your own +statement of your meaning in it. I am annoyed with myself if I +have been talking of things I know nothing about."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, MacPhail, you are so entirely right in what +you say, that I cannot for the life of me understand where or how +you can have got it."</p> + +<p>"Mr Graham used to talk to me about everything."</p> + +<p>"Well, but he was only a country schoolmaster."</p> + +<p>"A good deal more than that, sir," said Malcolm, solemnly. "He +is a disciple of him that knows everything. And now I think of +it, I do believe that what I've been saying about your picture, I +must have got from hearing him talk about the revelation, in +which is included Isis herself, with her brother and all their +train."</p> + +<p>Lenorme held his peace. Malcolm had taken his place again +unconsciously, and the painter was working hard, and looking very +thoughtful. Malcolm went again to the picture.</p> + +<p>"Hillo!" cried Lenorme, looking up and finding no object in +the focus of his eyes.</p> + +<p>Malcolm returned directly.</p> + +<p>"There was just one thing I wanted to see," he said, "-- +whether the youth worshipping his goddess, had come into her +presence clean."</p> + +<p>"And what is your impression of him?" half murmured Lenorme, +without lifting his head.</p> + +<p>"The one that's painted there," answered Malcolm, "does look +as if he might know that the least a goddess may claim of a +worshipper is, that he should come into her presence pure enough +to understand her purity. I came upon a fine phrase the other +evening in your English prayer book. I never looked into it +before, but I found one lying on a book stall, and it happened to +open at the marriage service. There, amongst other good things, +the bridegroom says: 'With my body I thee worship.' -- 'That's +grand,' I said to myself. 'That's as it should be. The man whose +body does not worship the woman he weds, should marry a harlot.' +God bless Mr William Shakspere! -- he knew that. I remember Mr +Graham telling me once, before I had read the play, that the +critics condemn Measure for Measure as failing in poetic justice. +I know little about the critics, and care less, for a man who has +to earn his bread and feed his soul as well, has enough to do +with the books themselves without what people say about them; and +Mr Graham would not tell me whether he thought the critics right +or wrong; he wanted me to judge for myself. But when I came to +read the play, I found, to my mind, a most absolute and splendid +justice in it. They think, I suppose, that my lord Angelo should +have been put to death. It just reveals the low breed of them; +they think death the worst thing, therefore the greatest +punishment. But Angelo prays for death, that it may hide him from +his shame: it is too good for him, and he shall not have it. He +must live to remove the shame from Mariana. And then see how +Lucio is served!"</p> + +<p>While Malcolm talked, Lenorme went on painting diligently, +listening and saying nothing. When he had thus ended, a pause of +some duration followed.</p> + +<p>"A goddess has a right to claim that one thing -- has she not, +Mr Lenorme?" said Malcolm at length, winding up a silent train of +thought aloud.</p> + +<p>"What thing?" asked Lenorme, still without lifting his +head.</p> + +<p>"Purity in the arms a man holds out to her," answered +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," replied Lenorme, with a sort of mechanical +absoluteness.</p> + +<p>"And according to your picture, every woman whom a man loves +is a goddess -- the goddess of nature?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly; -- but what are you driving at? I can't paint for +you. There you stand," he went on, half angrily, "as if you were +Socrates himself, driving some poor Athenian buck into the corner +of his deserts! I don't deserve any such insinuations, I would +have you know."</p> + +<p>"I am making none, sir. I dare never insinuate except I were +prepared to charge. But I have told you I was bred up a fisher +lad, and partly among the fishers, to begin with. I half learned, +half discovered things that tended to give me what some would +count severe notions: I count them common sense. Then, as you +know, I went into service, and in that position it is easy enough +to gather that many people hold very loose and very nasty notions +about some things; so I just wanted to see how you felt about +such. If I had a sister now, and saw a man coming to woo her, all +beclotted with puddle filth -- or if I knew that he had just left +some woman as good as she, crying eyes and heart out over his +child -- I don't know that I could keep my hands off him -- at +least if I feared she might take him. What do you think now? +Mightn't it be a righteous thing to throttle the scum and be +hanged for it?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Lenorme, "I don't know why I should justify +myself, especially where no charge is made, MacPhail; and I don't +know why to you any more than another man; but at this moment I +am weak, or egotistic, or sympathetic enough to wish you to +understand that, so far as the poor matter of one virtue goes, I +might without remorse act Sir Galahad in a play."</p> + +<p>"Now you are beyond me," said Malcolm. "I don't know what you +mean."</p> + +<p>So Lenorme had to tell him the old Armoric tale which Tennyson +has since rendered so lovelily, for, amongst artists at least, he +was one of the earlier borrowers in the British legends. And as +he told it, in a half sullen kind of way, the heart of the young +marquis glowed within him, and he vowed to himself that Lenorme +and no other should marry his sister. But, lest he should reveal +more emotion than the obvious occasion justified, he restrained +speech, and again silence fell, during which Lenorme was painting +furiously.</p> + +<p>"Confound it!" he cried at last, and sprang to his feet, but +without taking his eyes from his picture, "what have I been doing +all this time but making a portrait of you, MacPhail, and +forgetting what you were there for! And yet," he went on, +hesitating and catching up the miniature, "I have got a certain +likeness! Yes, it must be so, for I see in it also a certain look +of Lady Lossie. Well! I suppose a man can't altogether help what +he paints any more than what he dreams. That will do for this +morning, anyhow, I think, MacPhail. Make haste and put on your +own clothes, and come into the next room to breakfast. You must +be tired with standing so long.</p> + +<p>"It is about the hardest work I ever tried," answered Malcolm; +"but I doubt if I am as tired as Kelpie. I've been listening for +the last half hour to hear the stalls flying."</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX: AN +EVIL OMEN</h1> + +<p>Florimel was beginning to understand that the shield of the +portrait was not large enough to cover many more visits to the +studio. Still she must and would venture; and should anything be +said, there at least was the portrait. For some weeks it had been +all but finished, was never off its easel, and always showed a +touch of wet paint somewhere -- he kept the last of it lingering, +ready to prove itself almost yet not altogether finished. What +was to follow its absolute completion, neither of them could +tell. The worst of it was that their thoughts about it differed +discordantly. Florimel not unfrequently regarded the rupture of +their intimacy as a thing not undesirable -- this chiefly after +such a talk with Lady Bellair as had been illustrated by some +tale of misalliance or scandal between high or low, of which kind +of provision for age the bold faced countess had a large store: +her memory was little better than an ashpit of scandal. Amongst +other biographical scraps one day she produced the case of a +certain earl's daughter, who, having disgraced herself by +marrying a low fellow -- an artist, she believed -- was as a +matter of course neglected by the man whom, in accepting him, she +had taught to despise her, and, before a twelvemonth was over -- +her family finding it impossible to hold communication with her +-- was actually seen by her late maid scrubbing her own +floor.</p> + +<p>"Why couldn't she leave it dirty?" said Florimel.</p> + +<p>"Why indeed," returned Lady Bellair, "but that people sink to +their fortunes! Blue blood won't keep them out of the +gutter."</p> + +<p>The remark was true, but of more general application than she +intended, seeing she herself was in the gutter and did not know +it. She spoke only of what followed on marriage beneath one's +natal position, than which she declared there was nothing worse a +woman of rank could do.</p> + +<p>"She may get over anything but that," she would say, +believing, but not saying, that she spoke from experience.</p> + +<p>Was it part of the late marquis's purgatory to see now, as the +natural result of the sins of his youth, the daughter whose +innocence was dear to him exposed to all the undermining +influences of this good natured but low moralled woman, whose +ideas of the most mysterious relations of humanity were in no +respect higher than those of a class which must not even be +mentioned in my pages? At such tales the high born heart would +flutter in Florimel's bosom, beat itself against its bars, turn +sick at the sight of its danger, imagine it had been cherishing a +crime, and resolve -- soon -- before very long -- at length -- +finally -- to break so far at least with the painter as to limit +their intercourse to the radiation of her power across a dinner +table, the rhythmic heaving of their two hearts at a dance, or +the quiet occasional talk in a corner, when the looks of each +would reveal to the other that they knew themselves the martyrs +of a cruel and inexorable law. It must be remembered that she had +had no mother since her childhood, that she was now but a girl, +and that the passion of a girl to that of a woman is "as +moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine." Of genuine love +she had little more than enough to serve as salt to the passion; +and passion, however bewitching, yea, entrancing a condition, may +yet be of more worth than that induced by opium or hashish, and a +capacity for it may be conjoined with anything or everything +contemptible and unmanly or unwomanly. In Florimel's case, +however, there was chiefly much of the childish in it. Definitely +separated from Lenorme, she would have been merry again in a +fortnight; and yet, though she half knew this herself, and at the +same time was more than half ashamed of the whole affair, she did +not give it up -- would not -- only intended by and by to let it +go, and meantime gave -- occasionally -- pretty free flutter to +the half grown wings of her fancy.</p> + +<p>Her liking for the painter had therefore, not unnaturally, its +fits. It was subject in a measure to the nature of the +engagements she had -- that is, to the degree of pleasure she +expected from them; it was subject, as we have seen, to skilful +battery from the guns of her chaperon's entrenchment; and more +than to either was it subject to those delicate changes of +condition which in the microcosm are as frequent, and as varied +both in kind and degree, as in the macrocosm. The spirit has its +risings and settings of sun and moon, its seasons, its clouds and +stars, its solstices, its tides, its winds, its storms, its +earthquakes -- infinite vitality in endless fluctuation. To rule +these changes, Florimel had neither the power that comes of love, +nor the strength that comes of obedience. What of conscience she +had was not yet conscience toward God, which is the guide to +freedom, but conscience toward society, which is the slave of a +fool. It was no wonder then that Lenorme, believing -- hoping she +loved him, should find her hard to understand. He said hard; but +sometimes he meant impossible. He loved as a man loves who has +thought seriously, speculated, tried to understand; whose love +therefore is consistent with itself, harmonious with its nature +and history, changing only in form and growth, never in substance +and character. Hence the idea of Florimel became in his mind the +centre of perplexing thought; the unrest of her being +metamorphosed on the way, passed over into his, and troubled him +sorely. Neither was his mind altogether free of the dread of +reproach. For self reproach he could find little or no ground, +seeing that to pity her much for the loss of consideration her +marriage with him would involve, would be to undervalue the +honesty of his love and the worth of his art; and indeed her +position was so independently based that she could not lose it +even by marrying one who had not the social standing of a brewer +or a stockbroker; but his pride was uneasy under the foreseen +criticism that his selfishness had taken advantage of her youth +and inexperience to work on the mind of an ignorant girl -- a +criticism not likely to be the less indignant that those who +passed it would, without a shadow of compunction, have handed her +over, body, soul, and goods, to one of their own order, had he +belonged to the very canaille of the race.</p> + +<p>The painter was not merely in love with Florimel: he loved +her. I will not say that he was in no degree dazzled by her rank, +or that he felt no triumph, as a social nomad camping on the No +Man's Land of society, at the thought of the justification of the +human against the conventional, in his scaling of the giddy +heights of superiority, and, on one of its topmost peaks, taking +from her nest that rare bird in the earth, a landed and titled +marchioness. But such thoughts were only changing hues on the +feathers of his love, which itself was a mighty bird with great +and yet growing wings.</p> + +<p>A day or two passed before Florimel went again to the studio +accompanied, notwithstanding Lenorme's warning and her own doubt, +yet again by her maid, a woman, unhappily, of Lady Bellair's +finding. At Lossie House, Malcolm had felt a repugnance to her, +both moral and physical. When first he heard her name, one of the +servants speaking of her as Miss Caley, he took it for Scaley, +and if that was not her name, yet scaly was her nature.</p> + +<p>This time Florimel rode to Chelsea with Malcolm, having +directed Caley to meet her there; and, the one designing to be a +little early, and the other to be a little late, two results +naturally followed -- first, that the lovers had a few minutes +alone; and second, that when Caley crept in, noiseless and +unannounced as a cat, she had her desire, and saw the painter's +arm round Florimel's waist, and her head on his bosom. Still more +to her contentment, not hearing, they did not see her, and she +crept out again quietly as she had entered: it would of course be +to her advantage to let them know that she had seen, and that +they were in her power, but it might be still more to her +advantage to conceal the fact so long as there was a chance of +additional discovery in the same direction. Through the success +of her trick it came about that Malcolm, chancing to look up from +Honour's back to the room where he always breakfasted with his +new friend, saw in one of the windows, as in a picture, a face +radiant with such an expression as that of the woman headed snake +might have worn when he saw Adam take the apple from the hand of +Eve.</p> + +<p>Caley was of the common class of servants in this, that she +considered service servitude, and took her amends in selfishness; +she was unlike them in this, that while false to her employers, +she made no common cause with her fellows against them -- +regarded and sought none but her own ends. Her one thought was to +make the most of her position; for that, to gain influence with, +and, if it might be, power over her mistress; and, thereto, first +of all, to find out whether she had a secret: she had now +discovered not merely that she had one, but the secret itself! +She was clever, greedy, cunning; equally capable, according to +the faculty with which she might be matched, of duping or of +being duped. She rather liked her mistress, but watched her in +the interests of Lady Bellair. She had a fancy for the earl, a +natural dislike for Malcolm which she concealed in distant +politeness, and for all the rest of the house, indifference. As +to her person, she had a neat oval face, thin and sallow, in +expression subacid; a lithe, rather graceful figure, and hands +too long, with fingers almost too tapering -- of which hands and +fingers she was very careful, contemplating them in secret with a +regard amounting almost to reverence: they were her sole +witnesses to a descent in which she believed, but of which she +had no other shadow of proof.</p> + +<p>Caley's face, then, with its unsaintly illumination, gave +Malcolm something to think about as he sat there upon Honour, the +new horse. Clearly she had had a triumph: what could it be? The +nature of the woman was not altogether unknown to him even from +the first, and he could not for months go on meeting her +occasionally in passages and on stairs without learning to +understand his own instinctive dislike: it was plain the triumph +was not in good. It was plain too that it was in something which +had that very moment occurred, and could hardly have to do with +anyone but her mistress. Then her being in that room revealed +more. They would never have sent her out of the study, and so put +themselves in her power. She had gone into the house but a moment +before, a minute or two behind her mistress, and he knew with +what a cat-like step she went about: she had surprised them -- +-discovered how matters stood between her mistress and the +painter! He saw everything -- almost as it had taken place. She +had seen without being seen, and had retreated with her prize! +Florimel was then in the woman's power: what was he to do? He +must at least let her gather what warning she could from the tale +of what he had seen.</p> + +<p>Once arrived at a resolve, Malcolm never lost time. They had +turned but one corner on their way home, when he rode up to +her.</p> + +<p>"Please, my lady," he began.</p> + +<p>But the same instant Florimel was pulling up.</p> + +<p>"Malcolm," she said, "I have left my pocket handkerchief. I +must go back for it."</p> + +<p>As she spoke, she turned her horse's head. But Malcolm, +dreading lest Caley should yet be lingering, would not allow her +to expose herself to a greater danger than she knew.</p> + +<p>"Before you go, my lady, I must tell you something I happened +to see while I waited with the horses," he said.</p> + +<p>The earnestness of his tone struck Florimel. She looked at him +with eyes a little wider, and waited to hear.</p> + +<p>"I happened to look up at the drawing room windows, my lady, +and Caley came to one of them with such a look on her face! I +can't exactly describe it to you, my lady, but --"</p> + +<p>"Why do you tell me?" interrupted his mistress, with absolute +composure, and hard, questioning eyes.</p> + +<p>But she had drawn herself up in the saddle. Then, before he +could reply, a flash of thought seemed to cross her face with a +quick single motion of her eyebrows, and it was instantly altered +and thoughtful. She seemed to have suddenly perceived some cause +for taking a mild interest in his communication.</p> + +<p>"But it cannot be, Malcolm," she said, in quite a changed +tone. "You must have taken some one else for her. She never left +the studio all the time I was there."</p> + +<p>"It was immediately after her arrival, my lady. She went in +about two minutes after your ladyship, and could not have had +much more than time to go upstairs when I saw her come to the +window. I felt bound to tell your ladyship."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Malcolm," returned Florimel kindly. "You did right +to tell me, -- but -- it's of no consequence. Mr Lenorme's +housekeeper and she must have been talking about something."</p> + +<p>But her eyebrows were now thoughtfully contracted over her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"There had been no time for that, I think, my lady," said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Florimel turned again and rode on, saying no more about the +handkerchief. Malcolm saw that he had succeeded in warning her, +and was glad. But had he foreseen to what it would lead, he would +hardly have done it.</p> + +<p>Florimel was indeed very uneasy. She could not help strongly +suspecting that she had betrayed herself to one who, if not an +intentional spy, would yet be ready enough to make a spy's use of +anything she might have picked up. What was to be done? It was +now too late to think of getting rid of her: that would be but +her signal to disclose whatever she had seen, and so not merely +enjoy a sweet revenge, but account with clear satisfactoriness +for her dismissal. What would not Florimel now have given for +some one who could sympathise with her and yet counsel her! She +was afraid to venture another meeting with Lenorme, and besides +was not a little shy of the advantage the discovery would give +him in pressing her to marry him. And now first she began to feel +as if her sins were going to find her out.</p> + +<p>A day or two passed in alternating psychical flaws and fogs -- +with poor glints of sunshine between. She watched her maid, but +her maid knew it, and discovered no change in her manner or +behaviour. Weary of observation she was gradually settling into +her former security, when Caley began to drop hints that alarmed +her. Might it not be altogether the safest thing to take her into +confidence? It would be such a relief, she thought, to have a +woman she could talk to! The result was that she began to lift a +corner of the veil that hid her trouble; the woman encouraged +her, and at length the silly girl threw her arms round the scaly +one's neck, much to that person's satisfaction, and told her that +she loved Mr Lenorme. She knew of course, she said, that she +could not marry him. She was only waiting a fit opportunity to +free herself from a connection which, however delightful, she was +unable to justify. How the maid interpreted her confession, I do +not care to enquire very closely, but anyhow it was in a manner +that promised much to her after influence. I hasten over this +part of Florimel's history, for that confession to Caley was +perhaps the one thing in her life she had most reason to be +ashamed of, for she was therein false to the being she thought +she loved best in the world. Could Lenorme have known her capable +of unbosoming herself to such a woman, it would almost have slain +the love he bore her. The notions of that odd and end sort of +person, who made his livelihood by spreading paint, would have +been too hideously shocked by the shadow of an intimacy between +his love and such as she.</p> + +<p>Caley first comforted the weeping girl, and then began to +insinuate encouragement. She must indeed give him up -- there was +no help for that; but neither was there any necessity for doing +so all at once. Mr Lenorme was a beautiful man, and any woman +might be proud to be loved by him. She must take her time to it. +She might trust her. And so on and on -- for she was as vulgar +minded as the worst of those whom ladies endure about their +persons, handling their hair, and having access to more of their +lock fast places than they would willingly imagine.</p> + +<p>The first result was that, on the pretext of bidding him +farewell, and convincing him that he and she must meet no more, +fate and fortune, society and duty being all alike against their +happiness -- I mean on that pretext to herself, the only one to +be deceived by it -- Florimel arranged with her woman one evening +to go the next morning to the studio: she knew the painter to be +an early riser, and always at his work before eight o'clock. But +although she tried to imagine she had persuaded herself to say +farewell, certainly she had not yet brought her mind to any +ripeness of resolve in the matter.</p> + +<p>At seven o'clock in the morning, the marchioness habited like +a housemaid, they slipped out by the front door, turned the +corners of two streets, found a hackney coach waiting for them, +and arrived in due time at the painter's abode.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX: A +QUARREL</h1> + +<p>When the door opened and Florimel glided in, the painter +sprang to his feet to welcome her, and she flew softly, soundless +as a moth, into his arms; for the study being large and full of +things, she was not aware of the presence of Malcolm. From behind +a picture on an easel, he saw them meet, but shrinking from being +an open witness to their secret, and also from being discovered +in his father's clothes by the sister who knew him only as a +servant, he instantly sought escape. Nor was it hard to find, for +near where he stood was a door opening into a small intermediate +chamber, communicating with the drawing room, and by it he fled, +intending to pass through to Lenorme's bedroom, and change his +clothes. With noiseless stride he hurried away, but could not +help hearing a few passionate words that escaped his sister's +lips before Lenorme could warn her that they were not alone -- +words which, it seemed to him, could come only from a heart whose +very pulse was devotion.</p> + +<p>"How can I live without you, Raoul?" said the girl as she +clung to him.</p> + +<p>Lenorme gave an uneasy glance behind him, saw Malcolm +disappear, and answered,</p> + +<p>"I hope you will never try, my darling."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you know this can't last," she returned, with +playfully affected authority. "It must come to an end. They will +interfere."</p> + +<p>"Who can? Who will dare?" said the painter with +confidence.</p> + +<p>"People will. We had better stop it ourselves -- before it all +comes out, and we are shamed," said Florimel, now with perfect +seriousness.</p> + +<p>"Shamed!" cried Lenorme. "-- Well, if you can't help being +ashamed of me -- and perhaps, as you have been brought up, you +can't -- do you not then love me enough to encounter a little +shame for my sake? I should welcome worlds of such for +yours!"</p> + +<p>Florimel was silent. She kept her face hidden on his shoulder, +but was already halfway to a quarrel.</p> + +<p>"You don't love me, Florimel!" he said, after a pause, little +thinking how nearly true were the words.</p> + +<p>"Well, suppose I don't!" she cried, half defiantly, half +merrily; and drawing herself from him, she stepped back two +paces, and looked at him with saucy eyes, in which burned two +little flames of displeasure, that seemed to shoot up from the +red spots glowing upon her cheeks. Lenorme looked at her. He had +often seen her like this before, and knew that the shell was +charged and the fuse lighted. But within lay a mixture even more +explosive than he suspected; for not merely was there more of +shame and fear and perplexity mingled with her love than he +understood, but she was conscious of having now been false to +him, and that rendered her temper dangerous.</p> + +<p>Lenorme had already suffered severely from the fluctuations of +her moods. They had been almost too much for him. He could endure +them, he thought, to all eternity, if he had her to himself, safe +and sure; but the confidence to which he rose every now and then +that she would one day be his, just as often failed him, rudely +shaken by some new symptom of what almost seemed like cherished +inconstancy. If after all she should forsake him! It was +impossible, but she might. If even that should come, he was too +much of a man to imagine anything but a stern encounter of the +inevitable, and he knew he would survive it; but he knew also +that life could never be the same again; that for a season work +would be impossible -- the kind of work he had hitherto believed +his own rendered for ever impossible perhaps, and his art +degraded to the mere earning of a living. At best he would have +to die and be buried and rise again before existence could become +endurable under the new squalid condition of life without her. It +was no wonder then if her behaviour sometimes angered him; for +even against a Will o' the Wisp that has enticed us into a swamp, +a glow of foolish indignation will spring up. And now a black +fire in his eyes answered the blue flash in hers; and the +difference suggests the diversity of their loves: hers might +vanish in fierce explosion, his would go on burning like a coal +mine. A word of indignant expostulation rose to his lips, but a +thought came that repressed it. He took her hand, and led her -- +the wonder was that she yielded, for she had seen the glow in his +eyes, and the fuse of her own anger burned faster; but she did +yield, partly from curiosity, and followed where he pleased -- +her hand lying dead in his. It was but to the other end of the +room he led her, to the picture of her father, now all but +finished. Why he did so, he would have found it hard to say. +Perhaps the Genius that lies under the consciousness forefelt a +catastrophe, and urged him to give his gift ere giving should be +impossible.</p> + +<p>Malcolm stepped into the drawing room, where the table was +laid as usual for breakfast: there stood Caley, helping herself +to a spoonful of honey from Hymettus. At his entrance she started +violently, and her sallow face grew earthy. For some seconds she +stood motionless, unable to take her eyes off the apparition, as +it seemed to her, of the late marquis, in wrath at her +encouragement of his daughter in disgraceful courses. Malcolm, +supposing only she was ashamed of herself, took no farther notice +of her, and walked deliberately towards the other door. Ere he +reached it she knew him. Burning with the combined ires of fright +and shame, conscious also that, by the one little contemptible +act of greed in which he had surprised her, she had justified the +aversion which her woman instinct had from the first recognized +in him, she darted to the door, stood with her back against it, +and faced him flaming.</p> + +<p>"So!" she cried, "this is how my lady's kindness is abused! +The insolence! Her groom goes and sits for his portrait in her +father's court dress!"</p> + +<p>As she ceased, all the latent vulgarity of her nature broke +loose, and with a contracted pff she seized her thin nose between +her thumb and forefinger, to the indication that an evil odour of +fish interpenetrated her atmosphere, and must at the moment be +defiling the garments of the dead marquis.</p> + +<p>"My lady shall know of this," she concluded, with a vicious +clenching of her teeth, and two or three nods of her neat +head.</p> + +<p>Malcolm stood regarding her with a coolness that yet inflamed +her wrath. He could not help smiling at the reaction of shame in +indignation. Had her anger been but a passing flame, that smile +would have turned it into enduring hate. She hissed in his +face.</p> + +<p>"Go and have the first word," he said; "only leave the door +and let me pass."</p> + +<p>"Let you pass indeed! What would you pass for? -- The bastard +of old Lord James and a married woman! -- I don't care that for +you." And she snapped her fingers in his face.</p> + +<p>Malcolm turned from her and went to the window, taking a +newspaper from the breakfast table as he passed, and there sat +down to read until the way should be clear. Carried beyond +herself by his utter indifference, Caley darted from the room and +went straight into the study.</p> + +<p>Lenorme led Florimel in front of the picture. She gave a great +start, and turned and stared pallid at the painter. The effect +upon her was such as he had not foreseen, and the words she +uttered were not such as he could have hoped to hear.</p> + +<p>"What would he think of me if he knew?" she cried, clasping +her hands in agony.</p> + +<p>That moment Caley burst into the room, her eyes lamping like a +cat's.</p> + +<p>"My lady!" she shrieked, "there's MacPhail, the groom, my +lady, dressed up in your honoured father's bee-utiful clo'es as +he always wore when he went to dine with the Prince! And, please, +my lady, he's that rude I could 'ardly keep my 'ands off +him."</p> + +<p>Florimel flashed a dagger of question in Lenorme's eyes. The +painter drew himself up.</p> + +<p>"It was at my request, Lady Lossie," he said.</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" returned Florimel, in high scorn, and glanced again +at the picture.</p> + +<p>"I see!" she went on. "How could I be such an idiot! It was my +groom's, not my father's likeness you meant to surprise me +with!"</p> + +<p>Her eyes flashed as if she would annihilate him.</p> + +<p>"I have worked hard in the hope of giving you pleasure, Lady +Lossie," said the painter, with wounded dignity.</p> + +<p>"And you have failed," she adjoined cruelly.</p> + +<p>The painter took the miniature after which he had been +working, from a table near, handed it to her with a proud +obeisance, and the same moment dashed a brushful of dark paint +across the face of the picture.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir," said Florimel, and for a moment felt as if +she hated him.</p> + +<p>She turned away and walked from the study. The door of the +drawing room was open, and Caley stood by the side of it. +Florimel, too angry to consider what she was about, walked in: +there sat Malcolm in the window, in her father's clothes, and his +very attitude, reading the newspaper. He did not hear her enter. +He had been waiting till he could reach the bedroom unseen by +her, for he knew from the sound of the voices that the study door +was open. Her anger rose yet higher at the sight.</p> + +<p>"Leave the room," she said.</p> + +<p>He started to his feet, and now perceived that his sister was +in the dress of a servant. He took one step forward and stood -- +a little mazed -- gorgeous in dress and arms of price, before his +mistress in the cotton gown of a housemaid.</p> + +<p>"Take those clothes off instantly," said Florimel slowly, +replacing wrath with haughtiness as well as she might. Malcolm +turned to the door without a word. He saw that things had gone +wrong where most he would have wished them go right.</p> + +<p>"I'll see to them being well aired, my lady," said Caley, with +sibilant indignation.</p> + +<p>Malcolm went to the study. The painter sat before the picture +of the marquis, with his elbows on his knees, and his head +between his hands.</p> + +<p>"Mr Lenorme," said Malcolm, approaching him gently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, go away," said Lenorme, without raising his head. "I +can't bear the sight of you yet."</p> + +<p>Malcolm obeyed, a little smile playing about the corners of +his mouth. Caley saw it as he passed, and hated him yet worse. He +was in his own clothes, booted and belted, in two minutes. Three +sufficed to replace his father's garments in the portmanteau, and +in three more he and Kelpie went plunging past his mistress and +her maid as they drove home in their lumbering vehicle.</p> + +<p>"The insolence of the fellow!" said Caley, loud enough for her +mistress to hear notwithstanding the noise of the rattling +windows. "A pretty pass we are come to!"</p> + +<p>But already Florimel's mood had begun to change. She felt that +she had done her best to alienate men on whom she could depend, +and that she had chosen for a confidante one whom she had no +ground for trusting.</p> + +<p>She got safe and unseen to her room; and Caley believed she +had only to improve the advantage she had now gained.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI: THE +TWO DAIMONS</h1> + +<p>Things had taken a turn that was not to Malcolm's +satisfaction, and his thoughts were as busy all the way home as +Kelpie would allow. He had ardently desired that his sister +should be thoroughly in love with Lenorme, for that seemed to +open a clear path out of his worst difficulties; now they had +quarrelled; and besides were both angry with him. The main fear +was that Liftore would now make some progress with her. Things +looked dangerous. Even his warning against Caley had led to a +result the very opposite of his intent and desire. And now it +recurred to him that he had once come upon Liftore talking to +Caley, and giving her something that shone like a sovereign.</p> + +<p>Earlier on the same morning of her visit to the studio, +Florimel had awaked and found herself in the presence of the +spiritual Vehmgericht. Every member of the tribunal seemed +against her. All her thoughts were busy accusing, none of them +excusing one another. So hard were they upon her that she fancied +she had nearly come to the conclusion that, if only she could do +it pleasantly, without pain or fear, the best thing would be to +swallow something and fall asleep; for like most people she was +practically an atheist, and therefore always thought of death as +the refuge from the ills of life. But although she was often very +uncomfortable, Florimel knew nothing of such genuine downright +misery as drives some people to what can be no more to their +purpose than if a man should strip himself naked because he is +cold. When she returned from her unhappy visit, and had sent her +attendant to get her some tea, she threw herself upon her bed, +and found herself yet again in the dark chambers of the spiritual +police. But already even their company was preferable to that of +Caley, whose officiousness began to enrage her. She was yet +tossing in the Nessus tunic of her own disharmony, when Malcolm +came for orders. To get rid of herself and Caley both, she +desired him to bring the horses round at once.</p> + +<p>It was more than Malcolm had expected. He ran: he might yet +have a chance of trying to turn her in the right direction. He +knew that Liftore was neither in the house nor at the stable. +With the help of the earl's groom, he was round in ten minutes. +Florimel was all but ready: like some other ladies she could +dress quickly when she had good reason. She sprang from Malcolm's +hand to the saddle, and led as straight northward as she could +go, never looking behind her till she drew rein on the top of +Hampstead Heath. When he rode up to her "Malcolm," she said, +looking at him half ashamed, "I don't think my father would have +minded you wearing his clothes."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my lady," said Malcolm. "At least he would have +forgiven anything meant for your pleasure."</p> + +<p>"I was too hasty," she said. "But the fact was, Mr Lenorme had +irritated me, and I foolishly mixed you up with him."</p> + +<p>"When I went into the studio, after you left it, this morning, +my lady," Malcolm ventured, "he had his head between his hands +and would not even look at me."</p> + +<p>Florimel turned her face aside, and Malcolm thought she was +sorry; but she was only hiding a smile: she had not yet got +beyond the kitten stage of love, and was pleased to find she gave +pain.</p> + +<p>"If your ladyship never had another true friend, Mr Lenorme is +one," added Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"What opportunity can you have had for knowing?" said +Florimel.</p> + +<p>"I have been sitting to him every morning for a good many +days," answered Malcolm. "he is something like a man!"</p> + +<p>Florimel's face flushed with pleasure. She liked to hear him +praised, for he loved her.</p> + +<p>"You should have seen, my lady, the pains he took with that +portrait! He would stare at the little picture you lent him of my +lord for minutes, as if he were looking through it at something +behind it; then he would get up and go and gaze at your ladyship +on the pedestal, as if you were the goddess herself able to tell +him everything about your father; and then he would hurry back to +his easel, and give a touch or two to the face, looking at it all +the time as if he loved it. It must have been a cruel pain that +drove him to smear it as he did!"</p> + +<p>Florimel began to feel a little motion of shame somewhere in +the mystery of her being. But to show that to her servant, would +be to betray herself -- the more that he seemed the painter's +friend.</p> + +<p>"I will ask Lord Liftore to go and see the portrait, and if he +thinks it like, I will buy it," she said. "Mr Lenorme is +certainly very clever with his brush."</p> + +<p>Malcolm saw that she said this not to insult Lenorme, but to +blind her groom, and made no answer.</p> + +<p>"I will ride there with you tomorrow morning," she added in +conclusion, and moved on.</p> + +<p>Malcolm touched his hat, and dropped behind. But the next +moment he was by her side again.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, my lady, but would you allow me to say one +word more?"</p> + +<p>She bowed her head.</p> + +<p>"That woman Caley, I am certain, is not to be trusted. She +does not love you, my lady."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?" asked Florimel, speaking steadily, but +writhing inwardly with the knowledge that the warning was too +late.</p> + +<p>"I have tried her spirit," answered Malcolm, "and know that it +is of the devil. She loves herself too much to be true."</p> + +<p>After a little pause Florimel said,</p> + +<p>"I know you mean well, Malcolm; but it is nothing to me +whether she loves me or not. We don't look for that nowadays from +servants."</p> + +<p>"It is because I love you, my lady," said Malcolm, "that I +know Caley does not. If she should get hold of anything your +ladyship would not wish talked about, --"</p> + +<p>"That she cannot," said Florimel, but with an inward shudder. +"She may tell the whole world all she can discover."</p> + +<p>She would have cantered on as the words left her lips, but +something in Malcolm's looks held her. She turned pale; she +trembled: her father was looking at her as only once had she seen +him -- in doubt whether his child lied. The illusion was +terrible. She shook in her saddle. The next moment she was +galloping along the grassy border of the heath in wild flight +from her worst enemy, whom yet she could never by the wildest of +flights escape; for when, coming a little to herself as she +approached a sand pit, she pulled up, there was her enemy -- +neither before nor behind, neither above nor beneath nor within +her: it was the self which had just told a lie to the servant of +whom she had so lately boasted that he never told one in his +life. Then she grew angry. What had she done to be thus +tormented? She a marchioness, thus pestered by her own menials -- +pulled in opposing directions by a groom and a maid. She would +turn them both away, and have nobody about her, either to trust +or suspect.</p> + +<p>She might have called them her good and her evil demon; for +she knew, that is, she had it somewhere about her, but did not +look it out, that it was her own cowardice and concealment, her +own falseness to the traditional, never failing courage of her +house, her ignobility, and unfitness to represent the Colonsays +-- her double dealing in short, that had made the marchioness in +her own right the slave of her woman, the rebuked of her +groom!</p> + +<p>She turned and rode back, looking the other way as she passed +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>When they reached the top of the heath, riding along to meet +them came Liftore -- this time to Florimel's consolation and +comfort: she did not like riding unprotected with a good angel at +her heels. So glad was she that she did not even take the trouble +to wonder how he had discovered the road she went. She never +suspected that Caley had sent his lordship's groom to follow her +until the direction of her ride should be evident, but took his +appearance without question, as a loverlike attention, and rode +home with him, talking the whole way, and cherishing a feeling of +triumph over both Malcolm and Lenorme. Had she not a protector of +her own kind? Could she not, when they troubled her, pass from +their sphere into one beyond their ken? For the poor moment, the +weak lord who rode beside her seemed to her foolish heart a tower +of refuge. She was particularly gracious to her lover as they +rode, and fancied again and again that perhaps the best way out +of her troubles would be to encourage and at last accept him, so +getting rid of honeyed delights and rankling stings together, of +good and evil angels and low bred lover at one sweep. Quiet would +console for dulness, innocence for weariness. She would fain have +a good conscience toward Society -- that image whose feet are of +gold and its head a bag of chaff and sawdust.</p> + +<p>Malcolm followed sick at heart that she should prove herself +so shallow. Riding Honour, he had plenty of leisure to brood.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII: A +CHASTISEMENT</h1> + +<p>When she went to her room, there was Caley taking from a +portmanteau the Highland dress which had occasioned so much. A +note fell, and she handed it to her mistress. Florimel opened it, +grew pale as she read it, and asked Caley to bring her a glass of +water. No sooner had her maid left the room than she sprang to +the door and bolted it. Then the tears burst from her eyes, she +sobbed despairingly, and but for the help of her handkerchief +would have wailed aloud. When Caley returned, she answered to her +knock that she was lying down, and wanted to sleep. She was, +however, trying to force further communication from the note. In +it the painter told her that he was going to set out the next +morning for Italy, and that her portrait was at the shop of +certain carvers and gliders, being fitted with a frame for which +he had made drawings. Three times she read it, searching for some +hidden message to her heart; she held it up between her and the +light; then before the fire till it crackled like a bit of old +parchment; but all was in vain: by no device, intellectual or +physical, could she coax the shadow of a meaning out of it, +beyond what lay plain on the surface. She must, she would see him +again.</p> + +<p>That night she was merrier than usual at dinner; after it, +sang ballad after ballad to please Liftore; then went to her room +and told Caley to arrange for yet a visit, the next morning, to +Mr Lenorme's studio. She positively must, she said, secure her +father's portrait ere the ill tempered painter -- all men of +genius were hasty and unreasonable -- should have destroyed it +utterly, as he was certain to do before leaving -- and with that +she showed her Lenorme's letter. Caley was all service, only said +that this time she thought they had better go openly. She would +see Lady Bellair as soon as Lady Lossie was in bed, and explain +the thing to her.</p> + +<p>The next morning therefore they drove to Chelsea in the +carriage. When the door opened, Florimel walked straight up to +the study. There she saw no one, and her heart, which had been +fluttering strangely, sank, and was painfully still, while her +gaze went wandering about the room. It fell upon the pictured +temple of Isis: a thick dark veil had fallen and shrouded the +whole figure of the goddess, leaving only the outline; and the +form of the worshipping youth had vanished utterly: where he had +stood, the tesselated pavement, with the serpent of life twining +through it, and the sculptured walls of the temple, shone out +clear and bare, as if Hyacinth had walked out into the desert to +return no more. Again the tears gushed from the heart of +Florimel: she had sinned against her own fame -- had blotted out +a fair memorial record that might have outlasted the knight of +stone under the Norman canopy in Lossie church. Again she sobbed, +again she choked down a cry that had else become a scream.</p> + +<p>Arms were around her. Never doubting whose the embrace, she +leaned her head against his bosom, stayed her sobs with the one +word "Cruel!" and slowly opening her tearful eyes, lifted them to +the face that bent over hers. It was Liftore's. She was dumb with +disappointment and dismay. It was a hateful moment. He kissed her +forehead and eyes, and sought her mouth. She shrieked aloud. In +her very agony at the loss of one to be kissed by another! -- and +there! It was too degrading! too horrid!</p> + +<p>At the sound of her cry someone started up at the other end of +the room. An easel with a large canvas on it fell, and a man came +forward with great strides. Liftore let her go, with a muttered +curse on the intruder, and she darted from the room into the arms +of Caley, who had had her ear against the other side of the door. +The same instant Malcolm received from his lordship a well +planted blow between the eyes, which filled them with flashes and +darkness. The next, the earl was on the floor. The ancient fury +of the Celt had burst up into the nineteenth century, and +mastered a noble spirit. All Malcolm could afterwards remember +was that he came to himself dealing Liftore merciless blows, his +foot on his back, and his weapon the earl's whip. His lordship, +struggling to rise, turned up a face white with hate and impotent +fury.</p> + +<p>"You damned flunkie!" he panted. "I'll have you shot like a +mangy dog."</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile I will chastise you like an insolent nobleman," +said Malcolm, who had already almost recovered his self +possession. "You dare to touch my mistress!"</p> + +<p>And with the words he gave him one more stinging cut with the +whip.</p> + +<p>"Stand off, and let it be man to man," cried Liftore, with a +fierce oath, clenching his teeth in agony and rage.</p> + +<p>"That it cannot be, my lord; but I have had enough, and so I +hope has your lordship," said Malcolm; and as he spoke he threw +the whip to the other end of the room, and stood back. Liftore +sprang to his feet, and rushed at him. Malcolm caught him by the +wrist with a fisherman's grasp.</p> + +<p>"My lord, I don't want to kill you. Take a warning, and let +ill be, for fear of worse," he said, and threw his hand from him +with a swing that nearly dislocated his shoulder.</p> + +<p>The warning sufficed. His lordship cast him one scowl of +concentrated hate and revenge, and leaving the room hurried also +from the house.</p> + +<p>At the usual morning hour, Malcolm had ridden to Chelsea, +hoping to find his friend in a less despairing and more +companionable mood than when he left him. To his surprise and +disappointment he learned that Lenorme had sailed by the packet +to Ostend the night before. He asked leave to go into the study. +There on its easel stood the portrait of his father as he had +last seen it -- disfigured with a great smear of brown paint +across the face. He knew that the face was dry, and he saw that +the smear was wet: he would see whether he could not, with +turpentine and a soft brush, remove the insult. In this endeavour +he was so absorbed, and by the picture itself was so divided from +the rest of the room, that he neither saw nor heard anything +until Florimel cried out.</p> + +<p>Naturally, those events made him yet more dissatisfied with +his sister's position. Evil influences and dangers were on all +sides of her -- the worst possible outcome being that, loving one +man, she should marry another, and him such a man as Liftore. +Whatever he heard in the servants' hall, both tone and substance, +only confirmed the unfavourable impression he had had from the +first of the bold faced countess. The oldest of her servants had, +he found, the least respect for their mistress, although all had +a certain liking for her, which gave their disrespect the heavier +import. He must get Florimel away somehow. While all was right +between her and the painter he had been less anxious about her +immediate surroundings, trusting that Lenorme would ere long +deliver her. But now she had driven him from the very country, +and he had left no clue to follow him up by. His housekeeper +could tell nothing of his purposes. The gardener and she were +left in charge as a matter of course. He might be back in a week, +or a year; she could not even conjecture.</p> + +<p>Seeming possibilities, in varied mingling with rank +absurdities passing through Malcolm's mind, as, after Liftore's +punishment, he lifted the portrait, set it again upon its easel, +and went on trying to clean the face of it -- with no small +promise of success. But as he made progress he grew anxious -- +lest with the defilement, he should remove some of the colour as +well: the painter alone, he concluded at length could be trusted +to restore the work he had ruined.</p> + +<p>He left the house, walked across the road to the riverbank, +and gave a short sharp whistle. In an instant Davy was in the +dinghy, pulling for the shore. Malcolm went on board the yacht, +saw that all was right, gave some orders, went ashore again, and +mounted Kelpie.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII: +LIES</h1> + +<p>In pain, wrath, and mortification, Liftore rode home. What +would the men at his club say if they knew that he had been +thrashed by a scoundrel of a groom for kissing his mistress? The +fact would soon be out: he must do his best to have it taken for +what it ought to be -- namely, fiction. It was the harder upon +him that he knew himself no coward. He must punish the rascal +somehow -- he owed it to society to punish him; but at present he +did not see how, and the first thing was to have the first word +with Florimel; he must see her before she saw the ruffian. He +rode as hard as he dared to Curzon Street, sent his groom to the +stables, telling him he should want the horses again before +lunch, had a hot bath, of which he stood in dire need, and some +brandy with his breakfast, and then, all unfit for exercise as he +was, walked to Portland Place.</p> + +<p>Mistress and maid rode home together in silence. The moment +Florimel heard Malcolm's voice she had left the house. Caley +following had heard enough to know that there was a scuffle at +least going on in the study, and her eye witnessed against her +heart that Liftore could have no chance with the detested groom +if the respect of the latter gave way: would MacPhail thrash his +lordship? If he did, it would be well she should know it. In the +hoped event of his lordship's marrying her mistress, it was +desirable, not only that she should be in favour with both of +them, but that she should have some hold upon each of a more +certainly enduring nature: if she held secrets with husband and +wife separately, she would be in clover for the period of her +natural existence. As to Florimel, she was enraged at the +liberties Liftore had taken with her. But alas! was she not in +some degree in his power? He had found her there, and in tears! +How did he come to be there? If Malcolm's judgment of her was +correct, Caley might have told him. Was she already false? She +pondered within herself, and cast no look upon her maid until she +had concluded how best to carry herself towards the earl. Then +glancing at the hooded cobra beside her -- "What an awkward thing +that Lord Liftore, of all moments, should appear just then!" she +said. "How could it be?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I haven't an idea, my lady," returned Caley. "My +lord has been always kind to Mr Lenorme, and I suppose he has +been in the way of going to see him at work. Who would have +thought my lord had been such an early riser! There are not many +gentlemen like him nowadays, my lady! Did your ladyship hear the +noise in the studio after you left it?"</p> + +<p>"I heard high words," answered her mistress, "-- nothing more. +How on earth did MacPhail come to be there as well? -- From you, +Caley, I will not conceal that his lordship behaved indiscreetly; +in fact he was rude; and I can quite imagine that MacPhail +thought it his duty to defend me. It is all very awkward for me. +Who could have imagined him there, and sitting behind amongst the +pictures! It almost makes me doubt whether Mr Lenorme be really +gone."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me, my lady," returned Caley, "that the man is +always just where he ought not to be, always meddling with +something he has no business with. I beg your pardon, my lady," +she went on, "but wouldn't it be better to get some staid elderly +man for a groom, one who has been properly bred up to his duties +and taught his manners in a gentleman's stable? It is so odd to +have a groom from a rough seafaring set -- one who behaves like +the rude fisherman he is, never having had to obey orders of lord +or lady! The worst of it is, your ladyship will soon be the +town's talk if you have such a groom on such a horse after you +everywhere."</p> + +<p>Florimel's face flushed. Caley saw she was angry, and held her +peace.</p> + +<p>Breakfast was hardly over, when Liftore walked in, looking +pale, and, in spite of his faultless get up, somewhat +disreputable: for shame, secret pain, and anger do not favour a +good carriage or honest mien. Florimel threw herself back in her +chair -- an action characteristic of the bold faced countess, and +held out her left hand to him in an expansive, benevolent sort of +way.</p> + +<p>"How dare you come into my presence, looking so well pleased +with yourself, my lord, after giving me such a fright this +morning?" she said. "You might at least have made sure that there +was -- that we were --"</p> + +<p>She could not bring herself to complete the sentence.</p> + +<p>"My dearest girl!" said his lordship, not only delighted to +get off so pleasantly, but profoundly flattered by the implied +understanding, "I found you in tears, and how could I think of +anything else? It may have been stupid, but I trust you will +think it pardonable."</p> + +<p>Caley had not fully betrayed her mistress to his lordship, and +he had, entirely to his own satisfaction, explained the liking of +Florimel for the society of the painter as the mere fancy of a +girl for the admiration of one whose employment, although nothing +above the servile, yet gave him a claim something beyond that of +a milliner or hair dresser, to be considered a judge in matters +of appearance. As to anything more in the affair -- and with him +in the field -- of such a notion he was simply incapable: he +could not have wronged the lady he meant to honour with his hand, +by regarding it as within the bounds of the possible.</p> + +<p>"It was no wonder I was crying," said Florimel. "A seraph +would have cried to see the state my father's portrait was +in."</p> + +<p>"Your father's portrait!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Did you not know? Mr Lenorme has been painting one from +a miniature I lent him -- under my supervision, of course; and +just because I let fall a word that showed I was not altogether +satisfied with the likeness, what should the wretched man do but +catch up a brush full of filthy black paint, and smudge the face +all over!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lenorme will soon set it to rights again. He's not a bad +fellow though he does belong to the genus irritabile. I will go +about it this very day."</p> + +<p>"You'll not find him, I'm sorry to say. There's a note I had +from him yesterday. And the picture's quite unfit to be seen -- +utterly ruined. But I can't think how you could miss it!"</p> + +<p>"To tell you the truth, Florimel, I had a bit of a scrimmage +after you left me in the studio." Here his lordship did his best +to imitate a laugh. "Who should come rushing upon me out of the +back regions of paint and canvas but that mad groom of yours! I +don't suppose you knew he was there?"</p> + +<p>"Not I. I saw a man's feet -- that was all."</p> + +<p>"Well, there he was, for what reason the devil knows, perdu +amongst the painter's litter; and when he heard your little +startled cry -- most musical, most melancholy -- what should he +fancy but that you were frightened, and he must rush to the +rescue! And so he did with a vengeance: I don't know when I shall +quite forget the blow he gave me." And again Liftore laughed, or +thought he did.</p> + +<p>"He struck you!" exclaimed Florimel, rather astonished, but +hardly able for inward satisfaction to put enough of indignation +into her tone.</p> + +<p>"He did, the fellow! -- But don't say a word about it, for I +thrashed him so unmercifully that, to tell the truth, I had to +stop because I grew sorry for him. I am sorry now. So I hope you +will take no notice of it. In fact, I begin to like the rascal: +you know I was never favourably impressed with him. By Jove! it +is not every mistress that can have such a devoted attendant. I +only hope his over zeal in your service may never get you into +some compromising position. He is hardly, with all his virtues, +the proper servant for a young lady to have about her; he has had +no training -- no proper training at all, you see. But you must +let the villain nurse himself for a day or two anyhow. It would +be torture to make him ride, after what I gave him."</p> + +<p>His lordship spoke feelingly, with heroic endurance indeed; +and if Malcolm should dare give his account of the fracas, he +trusted to the word of a gentleman to outweigh that of a +groom.</p> + +<p>Not all to whom it may seem incredible that a nobleman should +thus lie, are themselves incapable of doing likewise. Any man may +put himself in training for a liar by doing things he would be +ashamed to have known. The art is easily learned, and to practise +it well is a great advantage to people with designs. Men of +ability, indeed, if they take care not to try hard to speak the +truth, will soon become able to lie as truthfully as any sneak +that sells grease for butter to the poverty of the New Cut.</p> + +<p>It is worth remarking to him who can from the lie factual +carry his thought deeper to the lie essential, that all the power +of a lie comes from the truth; it has none in itself. So strong +is the truth that a mere resemblance to it is the source of +strength to its opposite -- until it be found that like is not +the same.</p> + +<p>Florimel had already made considerable progress in the art, +but proficiency in lying does not always develop the power of +detecting it. She knew that her father had on one occasion struck +Malcolm, and that he had taken it with the utmost gentleness, +confessing himself in the wrong. Also she had the impression that +for a menial to lift his hand against a gentleman, even in self +defence, was a thing unheard of. The blow Malcolm had struck +Liftore was for her, not himself. Therefore, while her confidence +in Malcolm's courage and prowess remained unshaken, she was yet +able to believe that Liftore had done as he said, and supposed +that Malcolm had submitted. In her heart she pitied without +despising him.</p> + +<p>Caley herself took him the message that he would not be +wanted. As she delivered it, she smiled an evil smile and dropped +a mocking courtesy, with her gaze well fixed on his two black +eyes and the great bruise between them.</p> + +<p>When Liftore mounted to accompany Lady Lossie, it took all the +pluck that belonged to his high breed to enable him to smile and +smile, with twenty counsellors in different parts of his body +feelingly persuading him that he was at least a liar. As they +rode, Florimel asked him how he came to be at the studio that +morning. He told her that he had wanted very much to see her +portrait before the final touches were given it. He could have +made certain suggestions, he believed, that no one else could. He +had indeed, he confessed -- and felt absolutely virtuous in doing +so, because here he spoke a fact -- heard from his aunt that +Florimel was to be there that morning for the last time: it was +therefore his only chance; but he had expected to be there hours +before she was out of bed. For the rest, be hoped he had been +punished enough, seeing her rascally groom -- and once more his +lordship laughed peculiarly -- had but just failed of breaking +his arm; it was all he could do to hold the reins.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV: AN +OLD ENEMY</h1> + +<p>One Sunday evening -- it must have been just while Malcolm and +Blue Peter stood in the Strand listening to a voluntary that +filled and overflowed an otherwise empty church -- a short, +stout, elderly woman was walking lightly along the pavement of a +street of small houses, not far from a thoroughfare which, +crowded like a market the night before, had now two lively +borders only -- of holiday makers mingled with church goers. The +bells for evening prayers were ringing. The sun had vanished +behind the smoke and steam of London; indeed he might have set -- +it was hard to say without consulting the almanac: but it was not +dark yet. The lamps in the street were lighted, however, and also +in the church she passed. She carried a small bible in her hand, +folded in a pocket handkerchief and looked a decent woman from +the country. Her quest was a place where the minister said his +prayers and did not read them out of a book: she had been brought +up a Presbyterian, and had prejudices in favour of what she took +for the simpler form of worship. Nor had she gone much farther +before she came upon a chapel which seemed to promise all she +wanted. She entered, and a sad looking woman showed her to a +seat. She sat down square, fixing her eyes at once on the pulpit, +rather dimly visible over many pews, as if it were one of the +mountains that surrounded her Jerusalem. The place was but +scantily lighted, for the community at present could ill afford +to burn daylight. When the worship commenced, and the +congregation rose to sing, she got up with a jerk that showed the +duty as unwelcome as unexpected, but seemed by the way she +settled herself in her seat for the prayer, already thereby +reconciled to the differences between Scotch church customs and +English chapel customs. She went to sleep softly, and woke warily +as the prayer came to a close.</p> + +<p>While the congregation again sang, the minister who had +officiated hitherto left the pulpit, and another ascended to +preach. When he began to read the text, the woman gave a little +start, and leaning forward, peered very hard to gain a +satisfactory sight of his face between the candles on each side +of it, but without success; she soon gave up her attempted +scrutiny, and thence forward seemed to listen with marked +attention. The sermon was a simple, earnest, at times impassioned +appeal to the hearts and consciences of the congregation. There +was little attempt in it at the communication of knowledge of any +kind, but the most indifferent hearer must have been aware that +the speaker was earnestly straining after something. To those who +understood, it was as if he would force his way through every +stockade of prejudice, ditch of habit, rampart of indifference, +moat of sin, wall of stupidity, and curtain of ignorance, until +he stood face to face with the conscience of his hearer.</p> + +<p>"Rank Arminianism!" murmured the woman. "Whaur's the gospel o' +that?" But still she listened with seeming intentness, while +something of wonder mingled with the something else that set in +motion every live wrinkle in her forehead, and made her eyebrows +undulate like writhing snakes.</p> + +<p>At length the preacher rose to eloquence, an eloquence +inspired by the hunger of his soul after truth eternal, and the +love he bore to his brethren who fed on husks -- an eloquence +innocent of the tricks of elocution or the arts of rhetoric: to +have discovered himself using one of them would have sent him +home to his knees in shame and fear -- an eloquence not devoid of +discords, the strings of his instrument being now slack with +emotion, now tense with vision, yet even in those discords +shrouding the essence of all harmony. When he ceased, the silence +that followed seemed instinct with thought, with that speech of +the spirit which no longer needs the articulating voice.</p> + +<p>"It canna be the stickit minister!" said the woman to herself. +The congregation slowly dispersed, but she sat motionless until +all were gone, and the sad faced woman was putting out the +lights. Then she rose, drew near through the gloom, and asked her +the name of the gentleman who had given them such a grand sermon. +The woman told her, adding that, although he had two or three +times spoken to them at the prayer meeting -- such words of +comfort, the poor soul added, as she had never in her life heard +before -- this was the first time he had occupied the pulpit. The +woman thanked her, and went out into the street.</p> + +<p>"God bless me!" she said to herself, as she walked away; "it +is the stickit minister! Weel, won'ers 'ill never cease. The age +o' mirracles 'ill be come back, I'm thinkin'!" And she laughed an +oily contemptuous laugh in the depths of her profuse person.</p> + +<p>What caused her astonishment need cause none to the thoughtful +mind. The man was no longer burdened with any anxiety as to his +reception by his hearers; he was hampered by no necromantic agony +to raise the dead letter of the sermon buried in the tail pocket +of his coat; he had thirty years more of life, and a whole +granary filled with such truths as grow for him who is ever +breaking up the clods of his being to the spiritual sun and wind +and dew; and above all he had an absolute yet expanding +confidence in his Father in heaven, and a tender love for +everything human. The tongue of the dumb had been in training for +song. And first of all he had learned to be silent while he had +nought to reveal. He had been trained to babble about religion, +but through God's grace had failed in his babble, and that was in +itself a success. He would have made one of the swarm that year +after year cast themselves like flies on the burning sacrifice +that they may live on its flesh, with evil odours extinguishing +the fire that should have gone up in flame; but a burning coal +from off the altar had been laid on his lips, and had silenced +them in torture. For thirty years he had held his peace, until +the word of God had become as a fire in his bones: it was now +breaking forth in flashes.</p> + +<p>On the Monday, Mrs Catanach sought the shop of the deacon that +was an ironmonger, secured for herself a sitting in the chapel +for the next half year, and prepaid the sitting.</p> + +<p>"Wha kens," she said to herself "what birds may come to gether +worms an' golachs (beetles) aboot the boody craw (scarecrow), +Sanny Grame!"</p> + +<p>She was one to whom intrigue, founded on the knowledge of +private history, was as the very breath of her being: she could +not exist in composure without it. Wherever she went, therefore +-- and her changes of residence had not been few -- it was one of +her first cares to enter into connection with some religious +community, first that she might have scope for her calling -- +that of a midwife, which in London would probably be straightened +towards that of mere monthly nurse -- and next that thereby she +might have good chances for the finding of certain weeds of +occult power that spring mostly in walled gardens, and are rare +on the roadside -- poisonous things mostly, called generically +secrets.</p> + +<p>At this time she had been for some painful months in +possession of a most important one -- painful, I say, because all +those months she had discovered no possibility of making use of +it. The trial had been hard. Her one passion was to drive the +dark horses of society, and here she had been sitting week after +week on the coach box over the finest team she had ever handled, +ramping and "foming tarre," unable to give them their heads +because the demon grooms had disappeared and left the looped +traces dangling from their collars. She had followed Florimel +from Portlossie -- to Edinburgh, and then to London, but not yet +had seen how to approach her with probable advantage. In the +meantime she had renewed old relations with a certain herb doctor +in Kentish Town, at whose house she was now accommodated. There +she had already begun to entice the confidences of maid servants, +by use of what evil knowledge she had, and pretence to more, +giving herself out as a wise woman. Her faith never failed her +that, if she but kept handling the fowls of circumstance, one or +other of them must at length drop an egg of opportunity in her +lap. When she stumbled upon the schoolmaster, preaching in a +chapel near her own haunts, she felt something more like a gust +of gratitude to the dark power that sat behind and pulled the +strings of events -- for thus she saw through her own projected +phantom the heart of the universe -- than she had ever yet +experienced. If there were such things as special providences, +here, she said, was one; if not, then it was better luck than she +had looked for. The main point in it was that the dominie seemed +likely after all to turn out a popular preacher; then beyond a +doubt other Scotch people would gather to him; this or that +person might turn up, and anyone might turn out useful; one +thread might be knotted to another, until all together had made a +clue to guide her straight through the labyrinth to the centre, +to lay her hand on the collar of the demon of the house of +Lossie. It was the biggest game of her life, and had been its +game long before the opening of my narrative.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV: THE +EVIL GENIUS</h1> + +<p>When Malcolm first visited Mr Graham, the schoolmaster had +already preached two or three times in the pulpit of Hope Chapel. +His ministrations at the prayer meetings had led to this. For +every night on which he was expected to speak, there were more +people present than on the last; and when the deacons saw this, +they asked him to preach on the Sundays. After two Sundays they +came to him in a body, and besought him to become a candidate for +the vacant pulpit, assuring him of success if he did so. He gave +a decided refusal, however, nor mentioned his reasons. His friend +Marshal urged him, pledging himself for his income to an amount +which would have been riches to the dominie, but in vain. +Thereupon the silk mercer concluded that he must have money, and, +kind man as he was, grew kinder in consequence, and congratulated +him on his independence.</p> + +<p>"I depend more on the fewness of my wants than on any earthly +store for supplying them," said the dominie.</p> + +<p>Marshal's thermometer fell a little, but not his anxiety to +secure services which, he insisted, would be for the glory of God +and the everlasting good of perishing souls. The schoolmaster +only smiled queerly and held his peace.</p> + +<p>He consented, however, to preach the next Sunday, and on the +Monday, consented to preach the next again. For several weeks the +same thing occurred. But he would never promise on a Sunday, or +allow the briefest advertisement to be given concerning him. All +said he was feeling his way.</p> + +<p>Neither had he, up to this time, said a word to Malcolm about +the manner in which his Sundays were employed, while yet he +talked much about a school he had opened in a room occupied in +the evenings by a debating club, where he was teaching such +children of small shopkeepers and artisans as found their way to +him -- in part through his connection with the chapel folk. When +Malcolm had called on a Sunday, his landlady had been able to +tell him nothing more than that Mr Graham had gone out at such +and such an hour -- she presumed to church; and when he had once +or twice expressed a wish to accompany him wherever he went to +worship, Mr Graham had managed somehow to let him go without +having made any arrangement for his doing so.</p> + +<p>On the evening after his encounter with Liftore, Malcolm +visited the schoolmaster, and told him everything about the +affair. He concluded by saying that Lizzie's wrongs had loaded +the whip far more than his sister's insult; but that he was very +doubtful whether he had had any right to constitute himself the +avenger of either after such a fashion. Mr Graham replied that a +man ought never to be carried away by wrath, as he had so often +sought to impress upon him, and not without success: but that, in +the present case, as the rascal deserved it so well, he did not +think he need trouble himself much. At the same time he ought to +remind himself that the rightness or wrongness of any particular +act was of far less consequence than the rightness or wrongness +of the will whence sprang the act; and that, while no man could +be too anxious as to whether a contemplated action ought or ought +not to be done, at the same time no man could do anything +absolutely right until he was one with him whose was the only +absolute self generated purity -- that is, until God dwelt in him +and he in God.</p> + +<p>Before he left, the schoolmaster had acquainted him with all +that portion of his London history which he had hitherto kept +from him, and told him where he was preaching.</p> + +<p>When Caley returned to her mistress after giving Malcolm the +message that she did not require his services, and reported the +condition of his face, Florimel informed her of the chastisement +he had received from Liftore, and desired her to find out for her +how he was, for she was anxious about him. Somehow Florimel felt +sorrier for him than she could well understand, seeing he was but +a groom -- a great lumbering fellow, all his life used to hard +knocks, which probably never hurt him. That her mistress should +care so much about him added yet an acrid touch to Caley's spite; +but she put on her bonnet and went to the mews, to confer with +the wife of his lordship's groom, who, although an honest woman, +had not yet come within her dislike. She went to make her +inquiries, however, full of grave doubt as to his lordship's +statement to her mistress; and the result of them was a +conviction that, beyond his facial bruises, of which Mrs Merton +had heard no explanation, Malcolm had had no hurt. This confirmed +her suspicion that his lordship had received what he professed to +have given: from a window she had seen him mount his horse; and +her woman's fancy for him; while it added to her hate of Malcolm, +did not prevent her from thinking of the advantage the discovery +might bring in the prosecution of her own schemes. But now she +began to fear Malcolm a little as well as hate him. And indeed he +was rather a dangerous person to have about, where all but +himself had secrets more or less bad, and one at least had +dangerous ones -- as Caley's conscience, or what poor monkey +rudiment in her did duty for one, in private asserted. +Notwithstanding her hold upon her mistress, she would not have +felt it quite safe to let her know all her secrets. She would not +have liked to say, for instance, how often she woke suddenly with +a little feeble wail sounding in the ears that fingers cannot +stop, or to confess that it cried out against a double injustice, +that of life and that of death: she had crossed the border of the +region of horror, and went about with a worm coiled in her heart, +like a centipede in the stone of a peach.</p> + +<p>"Merton's wife knows nothing, my lady," she said on her +return. "I saw the fellow in the yard going about much as usual. +He will stand a good deal of punishing, I fancy, my lady -- like +that brute of a horse he makes such a fuss with. I can't help +wishing, for your ladyship's sake, we had never set eyes on him. +He 'll do us all a mischief yet before we get rid of him. I've +had a hinstinc' of it, my lady; from the first moment I set eyes +on him," Caley's speech was never classic. When she was excited +it was low. -- "And when I 'ave a hinstinc' of anythink, he's not +a dog as barks for nothink. Mark my words -- and I'm sure I beg +your pardon, my lady -- but that man will bring shame on the +house. He's that arrergant an' interferin' as is certain sure to +bring your ladyship into public speech an' a scandal: things will +come to be spoke, my lady, that hadn't ought to be mentioned. +Why, my lady, he must ha' struck his lordship, afore he'd ha' +give him two such black eyes as them! And him that good natured +an' condescendin'! -- I'm sure I don't know what's to come on it, +but your ladyship might cast a thought on the rest of us females +as can't take the liberties of born ladies without sufferin' for +it. Think what the world will say of us. It's hard, my lady, on +the likes of us."</p> + +<p>But Florimel was not one to be talked into doing what she did +not choose. Neither would she to her maid render her reasons for +not choosing. She had repaired her fortifications, strengthened +herself with Liftore, and was confident.</p> + +<p>"The fact is, Caley," she said, "I have fallen in love with +Kelpie, and never mean to part with her -- at least till I can +ride her -- or she kills me. So I can't do without MacPhail. And +I hope she won't kill him before he has persuaded her to let me +mount her. The man must go with the mare. Besides, he is such a +strange fellow, if I turned him away I should quite expect him to +poison her before he left."</p> + +<p>The maid's face grew darker. That her mistress had the +slightest intention of ever mounting that mare she did not find +herself fool enough to believe, but of other reasons she could +spy plenty behind. And such there truly were, though none of the +sort which Caley's imagination, swift to evil, now supplied. The +kind of confidence she reposed in her groom, Caley had no faculty +for understanding, and was the last person to whom her mistress +could impart the fact of her father's leaving her in charge to +his young henchman. To the memory of her father she clung, and so +far faithfully that, even now when Malcolm had begun to occasion +her a feeling of awe and rebuke, she did not the less confidently +regard him as her good genius that he was in danger of becoming +an unpleasant one.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI: +CONJUNCTIONS</h1> + +<p>As the days passed on, and Florimel heard nothing of Lenorme, +the uneasiness that came with the thought of him gradually +diminished, and all the associations of opposite complexion +returned. Untrammelled by fear, the path into a scaring future +seeming to be cut off, her imagination began to work in the +quarry of her late experience, shaping its dazzling material into +gorgeous castles, with foundations deep dug in the air, wherein +lorded the person and gifts and devotion of the painter. When +lost in such blissful reveries, not seldom moments arrived in +which she imagined herself -- even felt as if she were capable, +if not of marrying Lenorme in the flushed face of outraged +society, yet of fleeing with him from the judgment of the all but +all potent divinity to the friendly bosom of some blessed isle of +the southern seas, whose empty luxuriance they might change into +luxury, and there living a long harmonious idyll of wedded love, +in which old age and death should be provided against by never +taking them into account. This mere fancy, which, poor in courage +as it was in invention, she was far from capable of carrying into +effect, yet seemed to herself the outcome and sign of a whole +world of devotion in her bosom. If one of the meanest of human +conditions is conscious heroism, paltrier yet is heroism before +the fact, incapable of self realization! But even the poorest +dreaming has its influences, and the result of hers was that the +attentions of Liftore became again distasteful to her. And no +wonder, for indeed his lordship's presence in the actual world +made a poor show beside that of the painter in the ideal world of +the woman who, if she could not with truth be said to love him, +yet certainly had a powerful fancy for him: the mean phrase is +good enough, even although the phantom of Lenorme roused in her +all the twilight poetry of her nature, and the presence of +Liftore set her whole consciousness in the perpendicular +shadowless gaslight of prudence and self protection.</p> + +<p>The pleasure of her castle building was but seldom interrupted +by any thought of the shamefulness of her behaviour to him. That +did not matter much! She could so easily make up for all he had +suffered! Her selfishness closed her eyes to her own falsehood. +Had she meant it truly she would have been right both for him and +for herself. To have repented and become as noble a creature as +Lenorme was capable of imagining her -- not to say as God had +designed her, would indeed have been to make up for all he had +suffered. But the poor blandishment she contemplated as amends, +could render him blessed only while its intoxication blinded him +to the fact that it meant nothing of what it ought to mean, that +behind it was no entire, heart filled woman. Meantime, as the +past, with its delightful imprudences, its trembling joys, glided +away, swiftly widening the space between her and her false fears +and shames, and seeming to draw with it the very facts +themselves, promising to obliterate at length all traces of them, +she gathered courage; and as the feeling of exposure that had +made the covert of Liftore's attentions acceptable, began to +yield, her variableness began to re-appear, and his lordship to +find her uncertain as ever. Assuredly, as his aunt said, she was +yet but a girl incapable of knowing her own mind, and he must not +press his suit. Nor had he the spur of jealousy or fear to urge +him: society regarded her as his; and the shadowy repute of the +bold faced countess intercepted some favourable rays which would +otherwise have fallen upon the young, and beautiful marchioness +from fairer luminaries even than Liftore.</p> + +<p>But there was one good process, by herself little regarded, +going on in Florimel: notwithstanding the moral discomfort +oftener than once occasioned her by Malcolm, her confidence in +him was increasing; and now that the kind of danger threatening +her seemed altered, she leaned her mind upon him not a little -- +and more than she could well have accounted for to herself on the +only grounds she could have adduced -- namely that he was an +attendant authorized by her father, and, like herself loyal to +his memory and will; and that, faithful as a dog, he would fly at +the throat of anyone who dared touch her -- of which she had had +late proof, supplemented by his silent endurance of consequent +suffering. Demon sometimes looked angry -- when she teased him -- +had even gone so far as to bare his teeth; but Malcolm had never +shown temper. In a matter of imagined duty, he might presume -- +but that was a small thing beside the sense of safety his very +presence brought with it. She shuddered indeed at the remembrance +of one look he had given her, but that had been for no behaviour +to himself; and now that the painter was gone, she was clear of +all temptation to the sort of thing that had caused it; and +never, never more would she permit herself to be drawn into +circumstances the least equivocal -- If only Lenorme would come +back, and allow her to be his friend -- his best friend -- his +only young lady friend, leaving her at perfect liberty to do just +as she liked, then all would be well -- absolutely comfortable! +In the meantime, life was endurable without him -- and would be, +provided Liftore did not make himself disagreeable. If he did, +there were other gentlemen who might be induced to keep him in +check: she would punish him -- she knew how. She liked him +better, however, than any of those.</p> + +<p>It was out of pure kindness to Malcolm, upon Liftore's +representation of how he had punished him, that for the rest of +the week she dispensed with his attendance upon herself. But he, +unaware of the lies Liftore had told her, and knowing nothing, +therefore, of her reason for doing so, supposed she resented the +liberty he had taken in warning her against Caley, feared the +breach would go on widening, and went about, if not quite +downcast, yet less hopeful still. Everything seemed going counter +to his desires. A whole world of work lay before him: -- a +harbour to build; a numerous fisher clan to house as they ought +to be housed; justice to do on all sides; righteous servants to +appoint in place of oppressors; and, all over, to show the +heavens more just than his family had in the past allowed them to +appear; he had mortgages and other debts to pay off -- clearing +his feet from fetters and his hands from manacles, that he might +be the true lord of his people; he had Miss Horn to thank, and +the schoolmaster to restore to the souls and hearts of +Portlossie; and, next of all to his sister, he had old Duncan, +his first friend and father, to find and minister to. Not a day +passed, not a night did he lay down his head, without thinking of +him. But the old man, whatever his hardships, and even the +fishermen, with no harbour to run home to from the wild elements, +were in no dangers to compare with such as threatened his sister. +To set her free was his first business, and that business as yet +refused to be done. Hence he was hemmed in, shut up, incarcerated +in stubborn circumstance, from a long reaching range of duties, +calling aloud upon his conscience and heart to hasten with the +first, that he might reach the second. What rendered it the more +disheartening was, that, having discovered, as he hoped, how to +compass his first end, the whole possibility had by his sister's +behaviour, and the consequent disappearance of Lenorme, been +swept from him, leaving him more resourceless than ever.</p> + +<p>When Sunday evening came, he found his way to Hope Chapel, and +walking in, was shown to a seat by a grimy faced pew opener. It +was with strange feelings he sat there, thinking of the past, and +looking for the appearance of his friend on the pulpit stair. But +his feelings would have been stranger still had he seen who sat +immediately in the pew behind him, watching him like a cat +watching a mouse, or rather like a half grown kitten watching a +rat, for she was a little frightened at him, even while resolved +to have him. But how could she doubt her final success, when her +plans were already affording her so much more than she had +expected? Who would have looked for the great red stag himself to +come browsing so soon about the scarecrow! He was too large game, +however, to be stalked without due foresight.</p> + +<p>When the congregation was dismissed, after a sermon the power +of whose utterance astonished Malcolm, accustomed as he was to +the schoolmaster's best moods, he waited until the preacher was +at liberty from the unwelcome attentions and vulgar +congratulations of the richer and more forward of his hearers, +and then joined him to walk home with him. -- He was followed to +the schoolmaster's lodging, and thence, an hour after, to his +own, by a little boy far too little to excite suspicion, the +grandson of Mrs Catanach's friend, the herb doctor.</p> + +<p>Until now the woman had not known that Malcolm was in London. +When she learned that he was lodged so near Portland Place, she +concluded that he was watching his sister, and chuckled over the +idea of his being watched in turn by herself.</p> + +<p>Every day for weeks after her declaration concerning the birth +of Malcolm, had the mind of Mrs Catanach been exercised to the +utmost to invent some mode of undoing her own testimony. She +would have had no scruples, no sense of moral disgust, in eating +every one of her words; but a magistrate and a lawyer had both +been present at the uttering of them, and she feared the risk. +Malcolm's behaviour to her after his father's death had +embittered the unfriendly feelings she had cherished towards him +for many years. While she believed him base born, and was even +ignorant as to his father, she had thought to secure power over +him for the annoyance of the blind old man to whom she had +committed him, and whom she hated with the hatred of a wife with +whom for the best of reasons he had refused to live; but she had +found in the boy a rectitude over which although she had assailed +it from his childhood, she could gain no influence. Either a +blind repugnance in Malcolm's soul, or a childish instinct of and +revulsion from embodied evil, had held them apart. Even then it +had added to her vile indignation that she regarded him as owing +her gratitude for not having murdered him at the instigation of +his uncle; and when at length, to her endless chagrin, she had +herself unwittingly supplied the only lacking link in the +testimony that should raise him to rank and wealth, she imagined, +that by making affidavit to the facts she had already divulged, +she enlarged the obligation infinitely, and might henceforth hold +him in her hand a tool for further operations. When, therefore, +he banished her from Lossie House, and sought to bind her to +silence as to his rank by the conditional promise of a small +annuity, she hated him with her whole huge power of hating. And +now she must make speed, for his incognito in a great city +afforded a thousandfold facility for doing him a mischief. And +first she must draw closer a certain loose tie she had already +looped betwixt herself and the household of Lady Bellair. This +tie was the conjunction of her lying influence with the credulous +confidence of a certain very ignorant and rather wickedly +romantic scullery maid with whom, having in espial seen her come +from the house she had scraped acquaintance, and to whom, for the +securing of power over her through her imagination, she had made +the strangest and most appalling disclosures. Amongst other +secret favours, she had promised to compound for her a horrible +mixture -- some of whose disgusting ingredients, as potent as +hard to procure, she named in her awe stricken hearing -- which, +administered under certain conditions and with certain +precautions, one of which was absolute secrecy in regard to the +person who provided it, must infallibly secure for her the +affections of any man on whom she might cast a loving eye, and +whom she could either with or without his consent, contrive to +cause partake of the same. This girl she now sought, and from her +learned all she knew about Malcolm. Pursuing her enquiries into +the nature and composition of the household, however, Mrs +Catanach soon discovered a far more capable and indeed less +scrupulous associate and instrument in Caley. I will not +introduce my reader to any of their evil councils, although, for +the sake of my own credit, it might be well to be less +considerate, seeing that many, notwithstanding the superabundant +evidence of history, find it all but impossible to believe in the +existence of such moral abandonment as theirs. I will merely +state concerning them, and all the relations of the two women, +that Mrs Catanach assumed and retained the upper hand, in virtue +of her superior knowledge, invention, and experience, gathering +from Caley, as she had hoped much valuable information, full of +reactions, and tending to organic development of scheme in the +brain of the arch plotter. But their designs were so mutually +favourable as to promise from the first a final coalescence in +some common plan for their attainment.</p> + +<p>Those who knew that Miss Campbell, as Portlossie regarded her, +had been in reality Lady Lossie, and was the mother of Malcolm, +knew as well that Florimel had no legal title even to the family +cognomen; but if his mother, and therefore the time of his +mother's death, remained unknown, the legitimacy of his sister +would remain unsuspected even upon his appearance as the heir. +Now there were but three besides Mrs Catanach and Malcolm who did +know who was his mother, namely, Miss Horn, Mr Graham, and a +certain Mr Morrison, a laird and magistrate near Portlossie, an +elderly man, and of late in feeble health. The lawyers the +marquis had employed on his death bed did not know: he had, for +Florimel's sake taken care that they should not. Upon what she +knew and what she guessed of these facts regarded in all their +relations according to her own theories of human nature the +midwife would found a scheme of action.</p> + +<p>Doubtless she saw, and prepared for it, that after a certain +point should be reached the very similarity of their designs must +cause a rupture between her and Caley; neither could expect the +other to endure such a rival near her hidden throne of influence; +for the aim of both was power in a great family, with consequent +money, and consideration, and midnight councils, and the wielding +of all the weapons of hint and threat and insinuation. There was +one difference, indeed, that in Caley's eye money was the chief +thing, while power itself was the Swedenborgian hell of the +midwife's bliss.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII: +AN INNOCENT PLOT</h1> + +<p>Florimel and Lady Clementina Thornicroft, the same who in the +park rebuked Malcolm for his treatment of Kelpie, had met several +times during the spring, and had been mutually attracted -- +Florimel as to a nature larger, more developed, more self +supporting than her own, and Lady Clementina as to one who, it +was plain, stood in sore need of what countenance and +encouragement to good and free action the friendship of one more +experienced might afford her. Lady Clementina was but a few years +older than Florimel, it is true, but had shown a courage which +had already wrought her an unquestionable influence, and that +chiefly with the best. The root of this courage was compassion. +Her rare humanity of heart would, at the slightest appearance of +injustice, drive her like an angel with a flaming sword against +customs regarded, consciously or unconsciously, as the very +buttresses of social distinction. Anything but a wise woman, she +had yet so much in her of what is essential to all wisdom -- love +to her kind, that, if as yet she had done little but blunder, she +had at least blundered beautifully. On every society that had for +its declared end the setting right of wrong or the alleviation of +misery, she lavished, and mostly wasted, her money. Every misery +took to her the shape of a wrong. Hence to every mendicant that +could trump up a plausible story, she offered herself a willing +prey. Even when the barest faced imposition was brought home to +one of the race parasitical, her first care was to find all +possible excuse for his conduct: it was matter of pleasure to her +friends when she stopped there, and made no attempt at absolute +justification.</p> + +<p>Left like Florimel an orphan, but at a yet earlier age, she +had been brought up with a care that had gone over into severity, +against which her nature had revolted with an energy that +gathered strength from her own repression of its signs; and when +she came of age, and took things into her own hands, she carried +herself in its eyes so oddly, yet with such sweetness and dignity +and consistency in her oddest extravagances, that society +honoured her even when it laughed at her, loved her, listened to +her, applauded, approved -- did everything except imitate her -- +which indeed was just as well, for else confusion would have been +worse confounded. She was always rushing to defence -- with +money, with indignation, with refuge. It would look like a +caricature did I record the number of charities to which she +belonged, and the various societies which, in the exuberance of +her passionate benevolence, she had projected and of necessity +abandoned. Yet still the fire burned, for her changes were from +no changeableness: through them all the fundamental operation of +her character remained the same. The case was that, for all her +headlong passion for deliverance, she could not help discovering +now and then, through an occasional self assertion of that real +good sense which her rampant and unsubjected benevolence could +but overlay, not finally smother, that she was either doing +nothing at all, or more evil than good.</p> + +<p>The lack of discipline in her goodness came out in this, at +times amusingly, that she would always at first side with the +lower or weaker or worse. If a dog had torn a child, and was +going to be killed in consequence, she would not only intercede +for the dog, but absolutely side with him, mentioning this and +that provocation which the naughty child must have given him ere +he could have been goaded to the deed. Once when the schoolmaster +in her village was going to cane a boy for cruelty to a cripple, +she pleaded for his pardon on the ground that it was worse to be +cruel than to be a cripple, and therefore more to be pitied. +Everything painful was to her cruel, and softness and indulgence, +moral honey and sugar and nuts to all alike, was the panacea for +human ills. She could not understand that infliction might be +loving kindness. On one occasion when a boy was caught in the act +of picking her pocket, she told the policeman he was doing +nothing of the sort -- he was only searching for a lozenge for +his terrible cough; and in proof of her asserted conviction, she +carried him home with her, but lost him before morning, as well +as the spoon with which he had eaten his gruel.</p> + +<p>As to her person I have already made a poor attempt at +describing it. She might have been grand but for loveliness. When +she drew herself up in indignation, however, she would look grand +for the one moment ere the blood rose to her cheek, and the water +to her eyes. She would have taken the whole world to her infinite +heart, and in unwisdom coddled it into corruption. Praised be the +grandeur of the God who can endure to make and see his children +suffer. Thanks be to him for his north winds and his poverty, and +his bitterness that falls upon the spirit that errs: let those +who know him thus praise the Lord for his goodness. But Lady +Clementina had not yet descried the face of the Son of Man +through the mists of Mount Sinai, and she was not one to justify +the ways of God to men. Not the less was it the heart of God in +her that drew her to the young marchioness, over whom was cast +the shadow of a tree that gave but baneful shelter. She liked her +frankness, her activity, her daring, and fancied that, like +herself she was at noble feud with that infernal parody of the +kingdom of heaven, called Society. She did not well understand +her relation to Lady Bellair, concerning whom she was in doubt +whether or not she was her legal guardian, but she saw plainly +enough that the countess wanted to secure her for her nephew, and +this nephew had about him a certain air of perdition, which even +the catholic heart of Lady Clementina could not brook. She saw +too that, being a mere girl, and having no scope of choice in the +limited circle of their visitors, she was in great danger of +yielding without a struggle, and she longed to take her in charge +like a poor little persecuted kitten, for the possession of which +each of a family of children was contending. What if her father +had belonged to a rowdy set, was that any reason why his innocent +daughter should be devoured, body and soul and possessions, by +those of the same set who had not yet perished in their sins? +Lady Clementina thanked Heaven that she came herself of decent +people, who paid their debts, dared acknowledge themselves in the +wrong, and were as honest as if they had been born peasants; and +she hoped a shred of the mantle of their good name had dropped +upon her, big enough to cover also this poor little thing who had +come of no such parentage. With her passion for redemption +therefore, she seized every chance of improving her acquaintance +with Florimel, and it was her anxiety to gain such a standing in +her favour as might further her coveted ministration, that had +prevented her from bringing her charge of brutality against +Malcolm as soon as she discovered whose groom he was: when she +had secured her footing on the peak of her friendship, she would +unburden her soul, and meantime the horse must suffer for his +mistress -- a conclusion in itself a great step in advance, for +it went dead against one of her most confidently argued +principles, namely, that the pain of any animal is, in every +sense, of just as much consequence as the pain of any other, +human or inferior: pain is pain, she said; and equal pains are +equal wherever they sting; -- in which she would have been right, +I think, if pain and suffering were the same thing; but, knowing +well that the same degree and even the same kind of pain means +two very different things in the foot and in the head, I refuse +the proposition.</p> + +<p>Happily for Florimel, she had by this time made progress +enough to venture a proposal -- namely, that she should accompany +her to a small estate she had on the south coast, with a little +ancient house upon it -- a strange place altogether, she said -- +to spend a week or two in absolute quiet -- only she must come +alone -- without even a maid: she would take none herself. This +she said because, with the instinct, if not quite insight, of a +true nature, she could not endure the woman Caley.</p> + +<p>"Will you come with me there for a fortnight?" she +concluded.</p> + +<p>"I shall be delighted," returned Florimel, without a moment s +hesitation. "I am getting quite sick of London. There's no room +in it. And there's the spring all outside, and can't get in here! +I shall be only too glad to go with you, you dear creature!"</p> + +<p>"And on those hard terms -- no maid, you know?" insisted +Clementina.</p> + +<p>"The only thing wanted to make the pleasure complete! I shall +be charmed to be rid of her."</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see you so independent."</p> + +<p>"You don't imagine me such a baby as not to be able to get on +without a maid! You should have seen me in Scotland! I hated +having a woman about me then. And indeed I don't like it a bit +better now -- only everybody has one, and your clothes want +looking after," added Florimel, thinking what a weight it would +be off her if she could get rid of Caley altogether. "-- But I +should like to take my horse," she said. "I don't know what I +should do in the country without Abbot."</p> + +<p>"Of course; we must have our horses," returned Clementina. +"And -- yes -- you had better bring your groom."</p> + +<p>"Please. You will find him very useful. He can do anything and +everything- -- and is so kind and helpful!"</p> + +<p>"Except to his horse," Clementina was on the point of saying, +but thought again she would first secure the mistress, and bide +her time to attack the man.</p> + +<p>Before they parted, the two ladies had talked themselves into +ecstasies over the anticipated enjoyments of their scheme. It +must be carried out at once.</p> + +<p>"Let us tell nobody," said Lady Clementina, "and set off +tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"Enchanting!" cried Florimel, in full response.</p> + +<p>Then her brow clouded.</p> + +<p>"There is one difficulty, though," she said. "-- No man could +ride Kelpie with a led horse; and if we had to employ another, +Liftore would be sure to hear where we had gone."</p> + +<p>"That would spoil all," said Clementina. "But how much better +it would be to give that poor creature a rest, and bring the +other I see him on sometimes!"</p> + +<p>"And by the time we came back, there would not be a living +creature, horse or man, anything bigger than a rat, about the +stable. Kelpie herself would be dead of hunger, if she hadn't +been shot. No, no; where Malcolm goes Kelpie must go. Besides, +she's such fun -- you can't think!"</p> + +<p>"Then I'll tell you what!" cried Clementina, after a moment's +pause of perplexity: "we'll ride down! It's not a hundred miles, +and we can take as many days on the road as we please."</p> + +<p>"Better and better!" cried Florimel. "We'll run away with each +other. -- But what will dear old Bellair say?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind her," rejoined Clementina. "She will have nothing +to say. You can write and tell her as much as will keep her from +being really alarmed. Order your man to get everything ready, and +I will instruct mine. He is such a staid old fellow, you know, he +will be quite protection. Tomorrow morning we shall set out +together for a ride in Richmond Park -- that lying in our way. +You can leave a letter on the breakfast table, saying you are +gone with me for a little quiet. You're not in chancery -- are +you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," answered Florimel. "I suppose I'm all right. +-- Any how, whether I'm in chancery or not, here I am, and going +with you; and if chancery don't like it, chancery may come and +fetch me."</p> + +<p>"Send anything you think you may want to my house. I shall get +a box ready, and we will write from some town on our way to have +it sent there, and then we can write for it from The Gloom. We +shall find all mere necessaries there."</p> + +<p>So the thing was arranged: they would start quite early the +next morning; and that there might be no trouble in the streets, +Malcolm should go before with Kelpie, and wait them in the +park.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII: +THE JOURNEY</h1> + +<p>Malcolm was overjoyed at the prospect of an escape to the +country -- and yet more to find that his mistress wanted to have +him with her -- more still to understand, that the journey was to +be kept a secret. Perhaps now, far from both Caley and Liftore, +he might say something to open her eyes; yet how should he avoid +the appearance of a tale bearer?</p> + +<p>It was a sweet fresh morning, late in the spring -- those +loveliest of hours that unite the seasons, like the shimmering +question of green or blue in the feathers of a peacock. He had +set out an hour before the rest, and now, a little way within the +park, was coaxing Kelpie to stand, that he might taste the +morning in peace. The sun was but a few degrees above the +horizon, shining with all his heart, and the earth was taking the +shine with all hers. "I too am light," she was saying, "although +I can but receive it." The trees were covered with baby leaves, +half wrapped in their swaddling clothes, and their breath was a +warm aromatic odour in the glittering air. The air and the light +seemed one, and Malcolm felt as if his soul were breathing the +light into its very depths, while his body was drinking the soft +spicy wind. For Kelpie, she was as full of life as if she had +been meant for a winged horse, but by some accident of nature the +wing cases had never opened, and the wing life was for ever +trying to get out at her feet. The consequent restlessness, where +there was plenty of space as here, caused Malcolm no more +discomposure than, in his old fishing days, a gale with plenty of +sea room. And the song of the larks was one with the light and +the air. The budding of the trees was their way of singing; but +the larks beat them at that. "What a power of joy," thought +Malcolm, "there must be in God, to be able to keep so many larks +so full of bliss!" He was going to say -- "without getting +tired;" but he saw that it was the eternal joy itself that +bubbled from their little fountains: weariness there would be the +silence of all song, would be death, utter vanishment to the +gladness of the universe. The sun would go out like a spark upon +burnt paper, and the heart of man would forget the sound of +laughter. Then he said to himself: "The larks do not make their +own singing; do mortals make their own sighing?" And he saw that +at least they might open wider the doors of their hearts to the +Perseus Joy that comes to slay the grief monsters. Then he +thought how his life had been widening out with the years. He +could not say that it was now more pleasant than it had been; he +had Stoicism enough to doubt whether it would ever become so from +any mere change of circumstances. Dangers and sufferings that one +is able for, are not misfortunes or even hardships -- so far from +such, that youth delights in them. Indeed he sorely missed the +adventure of the herring fishing. Kelpie, however, was as good as +a stiff gale. If only all were well with his sister! Then he +would go back to Portlossie and have fishing enough. But he must +be patient and follow as he was led. At three and twenty, he +reflected, Milton was content to seem to himself but a poor +creature, and was careful only to be ready for whatever work +should hereafter be required of him: such contentment, with such +hope and resolve at the back of it, he saw to be the right and +the duty both of every man. He whose ambition is to be ready when +he is wanted, whatever the work may be, may wait not the less +watchful that he is content. His heart grew lighter, his head +clearer, and by the time the two ladies with their attendant +appeared, he felt such a masterdom over Kelpie as he had never +felt before.</p> + +<p>They rode twenty miles that day with ease, putting up at the +first town. The next day they rode about the same distance. They +next day they rode nearly thirty miles. On the fourth, with an +early start, and a good rest in the middle, they accomplished a +yet greater distance, and at night arrived at The Gloom, +Wastbeach -- after a journey of continuous delight to three at +least of the party, Florimel and Malcolm having especially +enjoyed that portion of it which led through Surrey, where +England and Scotland meet and mingle in waste, heathery moor, and +rich valley. Much talk had passed between the ladies, and +Florimel had been set thinking about many things, though +certainly about none after the wisest fashion.</p> + +<p>A young half moon was still up when, after riding miles +through pine woods, they at length drew near the house. Long +before they reached it, however, a confused noise of dogs met +them in the forest. Clementina had written to the housekeeper, +and every dog about the place, and the dogs were multitudinous, +had been expecting her all day, had heard the sound of their +horses' hoofs miles off and had at once begun to announce her +approach. Nor were the dogs the only cognisant or expectant +animals. Most of the creatures about the place understood that +something was happening, and probably associated it with their +mistress; for almost every live thing knew her -- from the +rheumatic cart horse, forty years of age, and every whit as +respectable in Clementina's eyes as her father's old butler, to +the wild cats that haunted the lofts and garrets of the old +Elizabethan hunting lodge.</p> + +<p>When they dismounted, the ladies could hardly get into the +house for dogs; those which could not reach their mistress, +turned to Florimel, and came swarming about her and leaping upon +her, until, much as she liked animal favour, she would gladly +have used her whip -- but dared not, because of the presence of +their mistress. If the theories of that mistress allowed them +anything of a moral nature, she was certainly culpable in +refusing them their right to a few cuts of the whip.</p> + +<p>Mingled with all the noises of dogs and horses, came a soft +nestling murmur that filled up the interspaces of sound which +even their tumult could not help leaving. Florimel was too tired +to hear it, but Malcolm heard it, and it filled all the +interspaces of his soul with a speechless delight. He knew it for +the still small voice of the awful sea.</p> + +<p>Florimel scarcely cast a glance around the dark old fashioned +room into which she was shown, but went at once to bed, and when +the old housekeeper carried her something from the supper table +at which she had been expected, she found her already fast +asleep. By the time Malcolm had put Kelpie to rest, he also was a +little tired, and lay awake no moment longer than his sister.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX: +DISCIPLINE</h1> + +<p>What with rats and mice, and cats and owls, and creaks and +cracks, there was no quiet about the place from night to morning; +and what with swallows and rooks, and cocks and kine, and horses +and foals, and dogs and pigeons and peacocks, and guinea fowls +and turkeys and geese, and every farm creature but pigs, which, +with all her zootrophy, Clementina did not like, no quiet from +morning to night. But if there was no quiet, there was plenty of +calm, and the sleep of neither brother nor sister was +disturbed.</p> + +<p>Florimel awoke in the sweetest concert of pigeon murmuring, +duck diplomacy, fowl foraging, foal whinnering -- the word wants +an r in it -- and all the noises of rural life. The sun was +shining into the room by a window far off at the further end, +bringing with him strange sylvan shadows, not at once to be +interpreted. He must have been shining for hours, so bright and +steady did he shine. She sprang out of bed -- with no lazy London +resurrection of the old buried, half sodden corpse, sleepy and +ashamed, but with the new birth of the new day, refreshed and +strong, like a Hercules baby. A few aching remnants of stiffness +was all that was left of the old fatigue. It was a heavenly joy +to think that no Caley would come knocking at her door. She +glided down the long room to the sunny window, drew aside the +rich old faded curtain, and peeped out. Nothing but pines and +pines -- Scotch firs all about and everywhere! They came within a +few yards of the window. She threw it open. The air was still, +the morning sun shone hot upon them, and the resinous odour +exhaled from their bark and their needles and their fresh buds, +filled the room -- sweet and clean. There was nothing, not even a +fence, between this wing of the house and the wood.</p> + +<p>All through his deep sleep, Malcolm heard the sound of the sea +-- whether of the phantom sea in his soul, or of the world sea to +whose murmurs he had listened with such soft delight as he fell +asleep, matters little the sea was with him in his dreams. But +when he awoke it was to no musical crushing of water drops, no +half articulated tones of animal speech, but to tumult and out +cry from the stables. It was but too plain that he was wanted. +Either Kelpie had waked too soon, or he had overslept himself: +she was kicking furiously. Hurriedly induing a portion of his +clothing, he rushed down and across the yard, shouting to her as +he ran, like a nurse as she runs up the stair to a screaming +child. She stopped once to give an eager whinny, and then fell to +again. Griffiths, the groom, and the few other men about the +place, were looking on appalled. He darted to the corn bin, got a +great pottleful of oats, and shot into her stall. She buried her +nose in them like the very demon of hunger, and he left her for +the few moments of peace that would follow. He must finish his +dressing as fast as he could: already, after four days of travel, +which with her meant anything but a straight forward jog trot +struggle with space, she needed a good gallop! When he returned, +he found her just finishing her oats, and beginning to grow angry +with her own nose for getting so near the bottom of the manger. +While yet there was no worse sign, however, than the fidgetting +of her hind quarters, and she was still busy, he made haste to +saddle her. But her unusually obstinate refusal of the bit, and +his difficulty in making her open her unwilling jaws, gave +unmistakable indication of coming conflict. Anxiously he asked +the bystanders after some open place where he might let her go -- +fields or tolerably smooth heath, or sandy beach. He dared not +take her through the trees, he said, while she was in such a +humour; she would dash herself to pieces. They told him there was +a road straight from the stables to the shore, and there miles of +pure sand without a pebble. Nothing could be better. He mounted +and rode away.</p> + +<p>Florimel was yet but half dressed, when the door of her room +opened suddenly, and Lady Clementina darted in -- the lovely +chaos of her night not more than half as far reduced to order as +that of Florimel's. Her moonlight hair, nearly as long as that of +the fabled Godiva, was flung wildly about her in heavy masses. +Her eyes were wild also; she looked like a holy Maenad. With a +glide like the swoop of an avenging angel, she pounced upon +Florimel, caught her by the wrist and pulled her towards the +door. Florimel was startled, but made no resistance. She half +led, half dragged her up a stair that rose from a corner of the +hall gallery to the battlements of a little square tower, whence +a few yards of the beach, through a chain of slight openings +amongst the pines, was visible. Upon that spot of beach, a +strange thing was going on -- at which afresh Clementina gazed +with indignant horror, but Florimel eagerly stared with the +forward borne eyes of a spectator of the Roman arena. She saw +Kelpie reared on end, striking out at Malcolm with her fore +hoofs, and snapping with angry teeth -- then upon those teeth +receive such a blow from his fist that she swerved, and wheeling, +flung her hind hoofs at his head. But Malcolm was too quick for +her; she spent her heels in the air, and he had her by the bit. +Again she reared, and would have struck at him, but he kept well +by her side, and with the powerful bit forced her to rear to her +full height. Just as she was falling backwards, he pushed her +head from him, and bearing her down sideways, seated himself on +it the moment it touched the ground. Then first the two women +turned to each other. An arch of victory bowed Florimel's lip; +her eyebrows were uplifted; the blood flushed her cheek, and +darkened the blue in her wide opened eyes. Lady Clementina's +forehead was gathered in vertical wrinkles over her nose, and all +about her eyes was contracted as if squeezing from them the flame +of indignation, while her teeth and lips were firmly closed. The +two made a splendid contrast. When Clementina's gaze fell on her +visitor, the fire in her eyes burned more angry still: her soul +was stirred by the presence of wrong and cruelty, and here, her +guest, and looking her straight in the eyes, was a young woman, +one word from whom would stop it all, actually enjoying the +sight!</p> + +<p>"Lady Lossie, I am ashamed of you!" she said, with severest +reproof; and turning from her, she ran down the stair.</p> + +<p>Florimel turned again towards the sea. Presently she caught +sight of Clementina glimpsing though the pines, "now in glimmer +and now in gloom," as she sped swiftly to the shore, and, after a +few short minutes of disappearance, saw her emerge upon the space +of sand where sat Malcolm on the head of the demoness. But alas! +she could only see. She could hardly even hear the sound of the +tide.</p> + +<p>"MacPhail, are you a man?" cried Clementina, startling him so +that in another instant the floundering mare would have been on +her feet. With a right noble anger in her face, and her hair +flying like a wind torn cloud, she rushed out of the wood upon +him, where he sat quietly tracing a proposition of Euclid on the +sand with his whip.</p> + +<p>"Ay, and a bold one," was on Malcolm's lips for reply, but he +bethought himself in time.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry what I am compelled to do should annoy your +ladyship," he said.</p> + +<p>What with indignation and breathless -- she had run so fast -- +Clementina had exhausted herself in that one exclamation, and +stood panting and staring. The black bulk of Kelpie lay +outstretched on the yellow sand, giving now and then a sprawling +kick or a wamble like a lumpy snake, and her soul commiserated +each movement as if it had been the last throe of dissolution, +while the grey fire of the mare's one visible fierce eye, turned +up from the shadow of Malcolm's superimposed bulk, seemed to her +tender heart a mute appeal for woman's help.</p> + +<p>As Malcolm spoke, he cautiously shifted his position, and, +half rising, knelt with one knee where he had sat before, looking +observant at Lady Clementina. The champion of oppressed animality +soon recovered speech.</p> + +<p>"Get off the poor creature's head instantly," she said, with +dignified command. "I will permit no such usage of living thing +on my ground."</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry to seem rude, my lady," answered Malcolm, +"but to obey you would perhaps be to ruin my mistress's property. +If the mare were to break away, she would dash herself to pieces +in the wood."</p> + +<p>"You have goaded her to madness."</p> + +<p>"I'm the more bound to take care of her then," said Malcolm. +"But indeed it is only temper -- such temper, however, that I +almost believe she is at times possessed of a demon."</p> + +<p>"The demon is in yourself. There is nothing in her but what +your cruelty has put there. Let her up, I command you."</p> + +<p>"I dare not, my lady. If she were to get loose she would tear +your ladyship to pieces."</p> + +<p>"I will take my chance."</p> + +<p>"But I will not my lady. I know the danger, and have to take +care of you who do not. There is no occasion to be uneasy about +the mare. She is tolerably comfortable. I am not hurting her -- +not much. Your ladyship does not reflect how strong a horse's +skull is. And you see what great powerful breaths she draws!"</p> + +<p>"She is in agony," cried Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Not in the least, my lady. She is only balked of her own way, +and does not like it."</p> + +<p>"And what right have you to balk her of her own way? Has she +no right to a mind of her own?"</p> + +<p>"She may of course have her mind, but she can't have her way. +She has got a master."</p> + +<p>"And what right have you to be her master?"</p> + +<p>"That my master, my Lord Lossie, gave me the charge of +her."</p> + +<p>"I don't mean that sort of right; that goes for nothing. What +right in the nature of things can you have to tyrannize over any +creature?"</p> + +<p>"None, my lady. But the higher nature has the right to rule +the lower in righteousness. Even you can't have your own way +always, my lady."</p> + +<p>"I certainly cannot now, so long as you keep in that position. +Pray, is it in virtue of your being the higher nature that you +keep my way from me?"</p> + +<p>"No, my lady. But it is in virtue of right. If I wanted to +take your ladyship's property, your dogs would be justified in +refusing me my way. -- I do not think I exaggerate when I say +that, if my mare here had her way, there would not be a living +creature about your house by this day week."</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina had never yet felt upon her the power of a +stronger nature than her own. She had had to yield to authority, +but never to superiority. Hence her self will had been abnormally +developed. Her very compassion was self willed. Now for the first +time, she continuing altogether unaware of it, the presence of +such a nature began to operate upon her. The calmness of +Malcolm's speech and the immovable decision of his behaviour +told.</p> + +<p>"But," she said, more calmly, "your mare has had four long +journeys, and she should have rested today."</p> + +<p>"Rest is just the one thing beyond her, my lady. There is a +volcano of life and strength in her you have no conception of. I +could not have dreamed of horse like her. She has never in her +life had enough to do. I believe that is the chief trouble with +her. What we all want, my lady, is a master -- a real right +master. I've got one myself; and"</p> + +<p>"You mean you want one yourself," said Lady Clementina. +"You've only got a mistress, and she spoils you."</p> + +<p>"That is not what I meant, my lady," returned Malcolm. "But +one thing I know, is, that Kelpie would soon come to grief +without me. I shall keep her here till her half hour is out, and +then let her take another gallop."</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina turned away. She was defeated. Malcolm knelt +there on one knee, with a hand on the mare's shoulder, so calm, +so imperturbable, so ridiculously full of argument, that there +was nothing more for her to do or say. Indignation, +expostulation, were powerless upon him as mist upon a rock. He +was the oddest, most incomprehensible of grooms.</p> + +<p>Going back to the house, she met Florimel, and turned again +with her to the scene of discipline. Ere they reached it, +Florimel's delight with all around her had done something to +restore Clementina's composure: the place was precious to her, +for there she had passed nearly the whole of her childhood. But +to anyone with a heart open to the expressions of Nature's +countenance, the place could not but have a strange as well as +peculiar charm.</p> + +<p>Florimel had lost her way. I would rather it had been in the +moonlight, but slant sunlight was next best. It shone through a +slender multitude of mast-like stems, whose shadows complicated +the wonder, while the light seemed amongst them to have gathered +to itself properties appreciable by other organs besides the +eyes, and to dwell bodily with the trees. The soil was mainly of +sand, the soil to delight the long tap roots of the fir trees, +covered above with a thick layer of slow forming mould, in the +gradual odoriferous decay of needles and cones and flakes of bark +and knots of resinous exudation. It grew looser and sandier, and +its upper coat thinner, as she approached the shore. The trees +shrunk in size, stood farther apart, and grew more individual, +sending out knarled boughs on all sides of them, and asserting +themselves as the tall slender branchless ones in the social +restraint of the thicker wood dared not do. They thinned and +thinned, and the sea and the shore came shining through, for the +ground sloped to the beach without any intervening abruption of +cliff or even bank; they thinned and thinned until all were gone, +and the bare long yellow sands lay stretched out on both sides +for miles, gleaming and sparkling in the sun, especially at one +spot where the water of a little stream wandered about over them, +as if it had at length found its home, but was too weary to enter +and lose its weariness, and must wait for the tide to come up and +take it. But when Florimel reached the strand, she could see +nothing of the group she sought: the shore took a little bend, +and a tongue of forest came in between.</p> + +<p>She was on her way back to the house when she met Clementina, +also returning discomfited. Pleased as she was with them, her +hostess soon interrupted her ecstasies by breaking out in +accusation of Malcolm, not untempered, however, with a touch of +dawning respect. At the same time her report of his words was +anything but accurate, for as no one can be just without love, so +no one can truly report without understanding. But they had not +time to discuss him now, as Clementina insisted on Florimel's +putting an immediate stop to his cruelty.</p> + +<p>When they reached the spot, there was the groom again seated +on his animal's head, with a new proposition in the sand before +him.</p> + +<p>"Malcolm," said his mistress, "let the mare get up. You must +let her off the rest of her punishment this time."</p> + +<p>Malcolm rose again to his knee.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady," he said. "But perhaps your ladyship wouldn't +mind helping me to unbuckle her girths before she gets to her +feet. I want to give her a bath -- Come to this side," he went +on, as Florimel advanced to his request, "-- round here by her +head. If your ladyship would kneel upon it, that would be best. +But you mustn't move till I tell you."</p> + +<p>"I will do anything you bid me -- exactly as you say, Malcolm," +responded Florimel.</p> + +<p>"There's the Colonsay blood! I can trust that!" cried Malcolm, +with a pardonable outbreak of pride in his family. Whether most +of his ancestors could so well have appreciated the courage of +obedience, is not very doubtful.</p> + +<p>Clementina was shocked at the insolent familiarity of her poor +little friend's groom, but Florimel saw none, and kneeled, as if +she had been in church, on the head of the mare, with the fierce +crater of her fiery brain blazing at her knee. Then Malcolm +lifted the flap of the saddle, undid the buckles of the girths, +and drawing them a little from under her, laid the saddle on the +sand, talking all the time to Florimel, lest a sudden word might +seem a direction, and she should rise before the right moment had +come.</p> + +<p>"Please, my lady Clementina, will you go to the edge of the +wood. I can't tell what she may do when she gets up. And please, +my lady Florimel, will you run there too, the moment you get off +her head."</p> + +<p>When he got her rid of the saddle, he gathered the reins +together in his bridle hand, took his whip in the other, and +softly and carefully straddled across her huge barrel without +touching her.</p> + +<p>"Now, my lady!" he said. "Run for the wood."</p> + +<p>Florimel rose and fled, heard a great scrambling behind her, +and turning at the first tree, which was only a few yards off, +saw Kelpie on her hind legs, and Malcolm, whom she had lifted +with her, sticking by his knees on her bare back. The moment her +fore feet touched the ground, he gave her the spur severely, and +after one plunging kick, off they went westward over the sands, +away from the sun; nor did they turn before they had dwindled to +such a speck that the ladies could not have told by their eyes +whether it was moving or not. At length they saw it swerve a +little; by and by it began to grow larger; and after another +moment or two they could distinguish what it was, tearing along +towards them like a whirlwind, the lumps of wet sand flying +behind like an upward storm of clods. What a picture it was only +neither of the ladies was calm enough to see it picturewise: the +still sea before, type of the infinite always, and now of its +repose; the still straight solemn wood behind, like a past world +that had gone to sleep -- out of which the sand seemed to come +flowing down, to settle in the long sand lake of the beach; that +flameless furnace of life tearing along the shore, betwixt the +sea and the land, between time and eternity, guided, but only +half controlled, by the strength of a higher will; and the two +angels that had issued -- whether out of the forest of the past +or the sea of the future, who could tell? -- and now stood, with +hand shaded eyes, gazing upon that fierce apparition of terrene +life.</p> + +<p>As he came in front of them, Malcolm suddenly wheeled Kelpie, +so suddenly and in so sharp a curve that he made her "turne close +to the ground, like a cat, when scratchingly she wheeles about +after a mouse," as Sir Philip Sidney says, and dashed her +straight into the sea. The two ladies gave a cry, Florimel of +delight, Clementina of dismay, for she knew the coast, and that +there it shelved suddenly into deep water. But that was only the +better to Malcolm: it was the deep water he sought, though he got +it with a little pitch sooner than he expected. He had often +ridden Kelpie into the sea at Portlossie, even in the cold autumn +weather when first she came into his charge, and nothing pleased +her better or quieted her more. He was a heavy weight to swim +with, but she displaced much water. She carried her head bravely, +he balanced sideways, and they swam splendidly. To the eyes of +Clementina the mare seemed to be labouring for her life.</p> + +<p>When Malcolm thought she had had enough of it, he turned her +head to the shore. But then came the difficulty. So steeply did +the shore shelve that Kelpie could not get a hold with her hind +hoofs to scramble up into the shallow water. The ladies saw the +struggle, and Clementina, understanding it, was running in an +agony right into the water, with the vain idea of helping them, +when Malcolm threw himself off, drawing the reins over Kelpie's +head as he fell, and swimming but the length of them shorewards, +felt the ground with his feet, and stood, Kelpie, relieved of his +weight, floated a little farther on to the shelf, got a better +hold with her fore feet, some hold with her hind ones, and was +beside him in a moment. The same moment Malcolm was on her back +again, and they were tearing off eastward at full stretch. So far +did the lessening point recede in the narrowing distance, that +the two ladies sat down on the sand, and fell a-talking about +Florimel's most uncategorical groom, as Clementina, herself the +most uncategorical of women, to use her own scarcely justifiable +epithet, called him. She asked if such persons abounded in +Scotland. Florimel could but answer that this was the only one +she had met with. Then she told her about Richmond Park and Lord +Liftore and Epictetus.</p> + +<p>"Ah, that accounts for him!" said Clementina. "Epictetus was a +Cynic, a very cruel man: he broke his slave's leg once, I +remember."</p> + +<p>"Mr Lenorme told me that he was the slave, and that his master +broke his leg," said Florimel.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes! I daresay. -- That was it. But it is of little +consequence: his principles were severe, and your groom has been +his too ready pupil. It is a pity he is such a savage: he might +be quite an interesting character. -- Can he read?"</p> + +<p>"I have just told you of his reading Greek over Kelpie's +head," said Florimel, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Ah! but I meant English," said Clementina, whose thoughts +were a little astray. Then laughing at herself she explained "I +mean, can he read aloud? I put the last of the Waverley novels in +the box we shall have tomorrow, or the next day at latest, I +hope: and I was wondering whether he could read the Scotch -- as +it ought to be read. I have never heard it spoken, and I don't +know how to imagine it."</p> + +<p>"We can try him," said Florimel. "It will be great fun anyhow. +He is such a character! You will be so amused with the remarks he +will make!"</p> + +<p>"But can you venture to let him talk to you?"</p> + +<p>"If you ask him to read, how will you prevent him? +Unfortunately he has thoughts, and they will out."</p> + +<p>"Is there no danger of his being rude?"</p> + +<p>"If speaking his mind about anything in the book be rudeness, +he will most likely be rude. Any other kind of rudeness is as +impossible to Malcolm as to any gentleman in the land."</p> + +<p>"How can you be so sure of him?" said Clementina, a little +anxious as to the way in which her friend regarded the young +man.</p> + +<p>"My father was -- yes, I may say so -- attached to him -- so +much so that he -- I can't quite say what -- but something like +made him promise never to leave my service. And this I know for +myself, that not once, ever since that man came to us, has he +done a selfish thing or one to be ashamed of. I could give you +proof after proof of his devotion."</p> + +<p>Florimel's warmth did not reassure Clementina; and her +uneasiness wrought to the prejudice of Malcolm. She was never +quite so generous towards human beings as towards animals. She +could not be depended on for justice except to people in trouble, +and then she was very apt to be unjust to those who troubled +them.</p> + +<p>"I would not have you place too much confidence in your +Admirable Crichton of menials, Florimel," she said. "There is +something about him I cannot get at the bottom of. Depend upon +it, a man who can be cruel would betray on the least +provocation."</p> + +<p>Florimel smiled superior -- as she had good reason to do; but +Clementina did not understand the smile, and therefore did not +like it. She feared the young fellow had already gained too much +influence over his mistress.</p> + +<p>"Florimel, my love," she said, "listen to me. Your experience +is not so ripe as mine. That man is not what you think him. One +day or other he will, I fear, make himself worse than +disagreeable. How can a cruel man be unselfish?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think him cruel at all. But then I haven't such a +soft heart for animals as you. We should think it silly in +Scotland. You wouldn't teach a dog manners at the expense of a +howl. You would let him be a nuisance rather than give him a cut +with a whip. What a nice mother of children you will make, +Clementina! That's how the children of good people are so often a +disgrace to them."</p> + +<p>"You are like all the rest of the Scotch I ever knew," said +Lady Clementina: "the Scotch are always preaching! I believe it +is in their blood. You are a nation of parsons. Thank goodness! +my morals go no farther than doing as I would be done by. I want +to see creatures happy about me. For my own sake even, I would +never cause pang to person -- it gives me such a pang +myself."</p> + +<p>"That's the way you are made, I suppose, Clementina," returned +Florimel. "For me, my clay must be coarser. I don't mind a little +pain myself, and I can't break my heart for it when I see it -- +except it be very bad -- such as I should care about myself -- +But here comes the tyrant."</p> + +<p>Malcolm was pulling up his mare some hundred yards off. Even +now she was unwilling to stop -- but it was at last only from +pure original objection to whatever was wanted of her. When she +did stand she stood stock still, breathing hard.</p> + +<p>"I have actually succeeded in taking a little out of her at +last, my lady," said Malcolm as he dismounted. "Have you got a +bit of sugar in your pocket, my lady? She would take it quite +gently now."</p> + +<p>Florimel had none, but Clementina had, for she always carried +sugar for her horse. Malcolm held the demoness very watchfully, +but she took the sugar from Florimel's palm as neatly as an +elephant, and let her stroke her nose over her wide red nostrils +without showing the least of her usual inclination to punish a +liberty with death. Then Malcolm rode her home, and she was at +peace till the evening -- when he took her out again.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL: +MOONLIGHT</h1> + +<p>And now followed a pleasant time. Wastbeach was the quietest +of all quiet neighbourhoods; it was the loveliest of spring +summer weather; and the variety of scenery on moor, in woodland, +and on coast, within easy reach of such good horsewomen, was +wonderful. The first day they rested the horses that would rest, +but the next day were in the saddle immediately after an early +breakfast. They took the forest way. In many directions were +tolerably smooth rides cut, and along them they had good gallops, +to the great delight of Florimel after the restraints of Rotten +Row, where riding had seemed like dancing a minuet with a waltz +in her heart. Malcolm, so far as human companionship went, found +it dull, for Lady Clementina's groom regarded him with the +contempt of superior age, the most contemptible contempt of all, +seeing years are not the wisdom they ought to bring, and the +first sign of that is modesty. Again and again his remarks +tempted Malcolm to incite him to ride Kelpie, but conscience, the +thought of the man's family, and the remembrance that it required +all his youthful strength, and that it would therefore be the +challenge of the strong to the weak, saved him from the sin, and +he schooled himself to the endurance of middle aged arrogance. +For the learning of the lesson he had practice enough: they rode +every day, and Griffith did not thaw; but the one thundering +gallop he had every morning along the sands with Kelpie, whom * +no ordinary day's work was enough to save from the heart burning +ferment of repressed activity, was both preparation and amends +for the annoyance.</p> + +<p>* [<i>According to the grammars, I ought to have written +which, but it will not do. I could, I think, tell why, but prefer +leaving the question to the reader</i>.]</p> + +<p>When his mistress mentioned the proposal of her friend with +regard to the new novel, he at once expressed his willingness to +attempt compliance, fearing only, he said, that his English would +prove offensive and his Scotch unintelligible. The task was +nowise alarming to him, for he had read aloud much to the +schoolmaster, who had also insisted that he should read aloud +when alone, especially verse, in order that he might get all the +good of its outside as well as inside -- its sound as well as +thought, the one being the ethereal body of the other. And he had +the best primary qualifications for the art, namely, a delight in +the sounds of human speech, a value for the true embodiment of +thought, and a good ear, mental as well as vocal, for the +assimilation of sound to sense. After these came the quite +secondary, yet valuable gift of a pleasant voice, manageable for +reflection; and with such an outfit, the peculiarities of his +country's utterance, the long drawn vowels, and the outbreak of +feeling in chant-like tones and modulations, might be forgiven, +and certainly were forgiven by Lady Clementina, who, even in his +presence, took his part against the objections of his mistress. +On the whole, they were so much pleased with his first reading, +which took place the very day the box arrived, that they +concluded to restrain the curiosity of their interest in persons +and events, for the sake of the pleasure of meeting them always +in the final fulness of local colour afforded them by his +utterance. While he read, they busied their fingers with their +embroidery; for as yet that graceful work, so lovelily described +by Cowper in his Task, had not begun to vanish before the crude +colours and mechanical vulgarity of Berlin wool, now happily in +its turn vanishing like a dry dust cloud into the limbo of the +art universe:</p> + +<pre> +The well depicted flower, +Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn +Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs, +And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed, +Follow the nimble finger of the fair; +A wreath, that cannot fade, of flowers that blow +With most success when all besides decay. * +</pre> + +<p>* [<i>"The Winter Evening."</i>]</p> + +<p>There was not much of a garden about the place, but there was +a little lawn amongst the pines, in the midst of which stood a +huge old patriarch, with red stem and grotesquely contorted +branches: beneath it was a bench, and there, after their return +from their two hours' ride, the ladies sat, while the sun was at +its warmest, on the mornings of their first and second readings: +Malcolm sat on a wheelbarrow. After lunch on the second day, +which they had agreed from the first, as ladies so often do, when +free of the more devouring sex, should be their dinner, and after +due visits paid to a multitude of animals, the desire awoke +simultaneously in them for another portion of "St. Ronan's Well." +They resolved therefore to send for their reader as soon as they +had had tea. But when they sent he was nowhere to be found, and +they concluded on a stroll.</p> + +<p>Anticipating no further requirement of his service that day, +Malcolm had gone out. Drawn by the sea, he took his way through +the dim solemn boughless wood, as if to keep a moonlight tryst +with his early love. But the sun was not yet down, and among the +dark trees, shot through by the level radiance, he wandered, his +heart swelling in his bosom with the glory and the mystery. Again +the sun was in the wood, its burning centre, the marvel of the +home which he left in the morning only to return thither at +night, and it was now a temple of red light, more gorgeous, more +dream woven than the morning. How he glowed on the red stems of +the bare pines, fit pillars for that which seemed temple and +rite, organ and anthem in one -- the worship of the earth, +uplifted to its Hyperion! It was a world of faery; anything might +happen in it. Who, in that region of marvel, would start to see +suddenly a knight on a great sober warhorse come slowly pacing +down the torrent of carmine splendour, flashing it, like the +Knight of the Sun himself in a flood from every hollow, a gleam +from every flat, and a star from every round and knob of his +armour? As the trees thinned away, and his feet sank deeper in +the looser sand, and the sea broke blue out of the infinite, +talking quietly to itself of its own solemn swell into being out +of the infinite thought unseen, Malcolm felt as if the world with +its loveliness and splendour were sinking behind him, and the +cool entrancing sweetness of the eternal dreamland of the soul, +where the dreams are more real than any sights of the world, were +opening wide before his entering feet.</p> + +<p>"Shall not death be like this?" he said, and threw himself +upon the sand, and hid his face and his eyes from it all. For +there is this strange thing about all glory embodied in the +material, that, when the passion of it rises to its height, we +hurry from its presence that its idea may perfect itself in +silent and dark and deaf delight. Of its material self we want no +more: its real self we have, and it sits at the fountain of our +tears. Malcolm hid his face from the source of his gladness, and +worshipped the source of that source.</p> + +<p>Rare as they are at any given time, there have been, I think, +such youths in all ages of the world -- youths capable of +glorying in the fountain whence issues the torrent of their +youthful might. Nor is the reality of their early worship blasted +for us by any mistral of doubt that may blow upon their spirit +from the icy region of the understanding. The cold fevers, the +vital agues that such winds breed, can but prove that not yet has +the sun of the perfect arisen upon them; that the Eternal has not +yet manifested himself in all regions of their being; that a +grander, more obedient, therefore more blissful, more absorbing +worship yet, is possible, nay, is essential to them. These chills +are but the shivers of the divine nature, unsatisfied, half +starved, banished from its home, divided from its origin, after +which it calls in groanings it knows not how to shape into sounds +articulate. They are the spirit wail of the holy infant after the +bosom of its mother. Let no man long back to the bliss of his +youth -- but forward to a bliss that shall swallow even that, and +contain it, and be more than it. Our history moves in cycles, it +is true, ever returning toward the point whence it started; but +it is in the imperfect circles of a spiral it moves; it returns +-- but ever to a point above the former: even the second +childhood, at which the fool jeers, is the better, the truer, the +fuller childhood, growing strong to cast off altogether, with the +husk of its own enveloping age, that of its family, its country, +its world as well. Age is not all decay: it is the ripening, the +swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the +husk.</p> + +<p>When Malcolm lifted his head, the sun had gone down. He rose +and wandered along the sand towards the moon -- at length +blooming out of the darkening sky, where she had hung all day +like a washed out rag of light, to revive as the sunlight faded. +He watched the banished life of her day swoon returning, until, +gathering courage, she that had been no one, shone out fair and +clear, in conscious queendom of the night. Then, in the friendly +infolding of her dreamlight and the dreamland it created, +Malcolm's soul revived as in the comfort of the lesser, the +mitigated glory, and, as the moon into radiance from the darkened +air, and the nightingale into music from the sleep stilled world +of birds, blossomed from the speechlessness of thought and +feeling into a strange kind of brooding song. If the words were +half nonsense, the feeling was not the less real. Such as they +were, they came almost of themselves, and the tune came with +them.</p> + +<pre> +Rose o' my hert, +Open yer leaves to the lampin' mune; +Into the curls lat her keek an' dert; +She'll tak' the colour but gi'e ye tune. + +Buik o' my brain, +Open yer neuks to the starry signs; +Lat the een o' the holy luik an' strain +An' glimmer an' score atween the lines. + +Cup o' my sowl, +Gowd an' diamond an' ruby cup, +Ye're noucht ava but a toom dry bowl, +Till the wine o' the kingdom fill ye up, + +Conscience glass, +Mirror the infinite all in thee; +Melt the bounded and make it pass +Into the tideless, shoreless sea. + +World of my life, +Swing thee round thy sunny track; +Fire and wind and water and strife -- +Carry them all to the glory back. +</pre> + +<p>Ever as he halted for a word, the moonlight, and the low sweet +waves on the sands, filled up the pauses to his ear; and there he +lay, looking up to the sky and the moon and the rose diamond +stars, his thoughts half dissolved in feeling, and his feeling +half crystallised to thought.</p> + +<p>Out of the dim wood came two lovely forms into the moonlight, +and softly approached him -- so softly that he knew nothing of +their nearness until Florimel spoke.</p> + +<p>"Is that MacPhail?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady," answered Malcolm, and bounded to his feet</p> + +<p>"What were you singing?"</p> + +<p>"You could hardly call it singing, my lady. We should call it +crooning in Scotland."</p> + +<p>"Croon it again then."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't, my lady. It's gone."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to pretend that you were extemporising?"</p> + +<p>"I was crooning what came -- like the birds, my lady. I +couldn't have done it if I had thought anyone was near."</p> + +<p>Then, half ashamed, and anxious to turn the talk from the +threshold of his secret chamber, he said, "Did you ever see a +lovelier night, ladies?"</p> + +<p>"Not often, certainly," answered Clementina.</p> + +<p>She was not quite pleased and not altogether offended at his +addressing them dually. A curious sense of impropriety in the +state of things bewildered her -- she and her friend talking +thus, in the moonlight, on the seashore, doing nothing, with her +friend's groom -- and such a groom, his mistress asking him to +sing again, and he addressing them both with a remark on the +beauty of the night! She had braved the world a good deal, but +she did not choose to brave it where nothing was to be had, and +she was too honest to say to herself that the world would never +know -- that there was nothing to brave: she was not one to do +that in secret to which she would not hold her face. Yet all the +time she had a doubt whether this young man, whom it would +certainly be improper to encourage by addressing from any level +but one of lofty superiority, did not belong to a higher sphere +than theirs; while certainly no man could be more unpresuming, or +less forward even when opposing his opinion to theirs. Still -- +if an angel were to come down and take charge of their horses, +would ladies be justified in treating him as other than a +servant?</p> + +<p>"This is just the sort of night," Malcolm resumed, "when I +could almost persuade myself I was not quite sure I wasn't +dreaming. It makes a kind of border land betwixt waking and +sleeping, knowing and dreaming, in our brain. In a night like +this I fancy we feel something like the colour of what God feels +when he is making the lovely chaos of a new world, a new kind of +world, such as has never been before."</p> + +<p>"I think we had better go in," said Clementina to Florimel, +and turned away.</p> + +<p>Florimel made no objection, and they walked towards the +wood.</p> + +<p>"You really must get rid of him as soon as you can," said +Clementina, when again the moonless night of the pines had +received them: "he is certainly more than half a lunatic. It is +almost full moon now," she added, looking up. "I have never seen +him so bad."</p> + +<p>Florimel's clear laugh rang through the wood.</p> + +<p>"Don't be alarmed, Clementina," she said. "He has talked like +that ever since I knew him; and if he is mad, at least he is no +worse than he has always been. It is nothing but poetry -- yeast +on the brain, my father used to say. We should have a fish poet +of him -- a new thing in the world, he said. He would never be +cured till he broke out in a book of poetry. I should be afraid +my father would break the catechism and not rest in his grave +till the resurrection, if I were to send Malcolm away."</p> + +<p>For Malcolm, he was at first not a little mazed at the utter +blankness of the wall against which his words had dashed +themselves. Then he smiled queerly to himself, and said:</p> + +<p>"I used to think ilka bonny lassie bude to be a poetess -- for +hoo sud she be bonnie but by the informin' hermony o' her bein'? +-- an' what's that but the poetry o' the Poet, the Makar, as they +ca'd a poet i' the auld Scots tongue? -- but haith! I ken better +an' waur noo! There's gane the twa bonniest I ever saw, an' I s' +lay my heid there's mair poetry in auld man faced Miss Horn nor +in a dizzin like them. Ech! but it's some sair to bide. It's sair +upon a man to see a bonny wuman 'at has nae poetry, nae inward +lichtsome hermony in her. But it's dooms sairer yet to come upo' +ane wantin' cowmon sense! Saw onybody ever sic a gran' sicht as +my Leddy Clementina! -- an' wha can say but she's weel named frae +the hert oot? -- as guid at the hert, I'll sweir, as at the een! +but eh me! to hear the blether o' nonsense 'at comes oot atween +thae twa bonny yetts o' music -- an' a' cause she winna gi'e her +hert rist an' time eneuch to grow bigger, but maun aye be settin' +at things richt afore their time, an' her ain fitness for the +job! It's sic a faithless kin' o' a w'y that! I could jist fancy +I saw her gaein' a' roon' the trees o' a simmer nicht, pittin' +hiney upo' the peers an' the peaches, 'cause she cudna lippen to +natur' to ripe them sweet eneuch -- only 'at she wad never tak +the hiney frae the bees. She's jist the pictur' o' Natur' hersel' +turnt some dementit. I cud jist fancy I saw her gaein' aboot amo' +the ripe corn, on sic a nicht as this o' the mune, happin' 't +frae the frost. An' I s' warran' no ae mesh in oor nets wad she +lea' ohn clippit open gien the twine had a herrin' by the gills. +She's e'en sae pitifu' owre the sinner 'at she winna gi'e him a +chance o' growin' better. I won'er gien she believes 'at there's +ae great thoucht abune a', an' aneth a', an' roon' a', an' in +a'thing. She cudna be in sic a mist o' benevolence and parritch +hertitness gien she cud lippen till a wiser. It's na'e won'er she +kens naething aboot poetry but the meeserable sids an' sawdist +an' leavin's the gran' leddies sing an' ca' sangs! Nae mair is 't +ony won'er she sud tak' me for dementit, gien she h'ard what I +was singin'! only I canna think she did that, for I was but +croonin' till mysel'." -- Malcolm was wrong there, for he was +singing out loud and clear. -- "That was but a kin' o' an unknown +tongue atween Him an' me an' no anither."</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XLI_"></a>CHAPTER XLI: THE +SWIFT</h1> + +<p>Florimel succeeded so far in reassuring her friend as to the +safety if not sanity of her groom, that she made no objection to +yet another reading from "St Ronan's Well" -- upon which occasion +an incident occurred that did far more to reassure her than all +the attestations of his mistress.</p> + +<p>Clementina, in consenting, had proposed, it being a warm sunny +afternoon, that they should that time go down to the lake, and +sit with their work on the bank, while Malcolm read. This lake, +like the whole place, and some of the people in it, was rather +strange -- not resembling any piece of water that Malcolm at +least had ever seen. More than a mile in length, but quite +narrow, it lay on the seashore -- a lake of deep fresh water, +with nothing between it and the sea but a bank of sand, up which +the great waves came rolling in southwesterly winds, one now and +then toppling over -- to the disconcerting no doubt of the pikey +multitude within.</p> + +<p>The head only of the mere came into Clementina's property, and +they sat on the landward side of it, on a sandy bank, among the +half exposed roots of a few ancient firs, where a little stream +that fed the lake had made a small gully, and was now trotting +over a bed of pebbles in the bottom of it. Clementina was +describing to Florimel the peculiarities of the place, how there +was no outlet to the lake, how the water went filtering through +the sand into the sea, how in some parts it was very deep, and +what large pike there were in it. Malcolm sat a little aside as +usual, with his face towards the ladies, and the book open in his +hand, waiting a sign to begin, but looking at the lake, which +here was some fifty yards broad, reedy at the edge, dark and deep +in the centre. All at once he sprang to his feet, dropping the +book, ran down to the brink of the water, undoing his buckled +belt and pulling off his coat as he ran, threw himself over the +bordering reeds into the pool, and disappeared with a great +plash.</p> + +<p>Clementina gave a scream, and started up with distraction in +her face: she made no doubt that in the sudden ripeness of his +insanity he had committed suicide. But Florimel, though startled +by her friend's cry, laughed, and crowded out assurances that +Malcolm knew well enough what he was about. It was longer, +however, than she found pleasant, before a black head appeared -- +yards away, for he had risen at a great slope, swimming towards +the other side. What could he be after? Near the middle he swam +more softly, and almost stopped. Then first they spied a small +dark object on the surface. Almost the same moment it rose into +the air. They thought Malcolm had flung it up. Instantly they +perceived that it was a bird -- a swift. Somehow it had dropped +into the water, but a lift from Malcolm's hand had restored it to +the air of its bliss.</p> + +<p>But instead of turning and swimming back, Malcolm held on, and +getting out on the farther side, ran down the beach and rushed +into the sea, rousing once more the apprehensions of Clementina. +The shore sloped rapidly, and in a moment he was in deep water. +He swam a few yards out, swam ashore again, ran round the end of +the lake, found his coat, and got from it his pocket +handkerchief. Having therewith dried his hands and face, he wrang +out the sleeves of his shirt a little, put on his coat, returned +to his place, and said, as he took up the book and sat down,</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, my ladies; but just as I heard my Lady +Clementina say pikes, I saw the little swift in the water. There +was no time to lose. Swiftie had but a poor chance."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he proceeded to find the place in the book.</p> + +<p>"You don't imagine we are going to have you read in such a +plight as that!" cried Clementina.</p> + +<p>"I will take good care, my lady. I have books of my own, and I +handle them like babies."</p> + +<p>"You foolish man! It is of you in your wet clothes, not of the +book I am thinking," said Clementina indignantly.</p> + +<p>"I'm much obliged to you, my lady, but there's no fear of me. +You saw me wash the fresh water out. Salt water never hurts."</p> + +<p>"You must go and change nevertheless," said Clementina.</p> + +<p>Malcolm looked to his mistress. She gave him a sign to obey, +and he rose. He had taken three steps towards the house when +Clementina recalled him.</p> + +<p>"One word, if you please," she said. "How is it that a man who +risks his life for that of a little bird, can be so heartless to +a great noble creature like that horse of yours? I cannot +understand it!"</p> + +<p>"My lady," returned Malcolm with a smile, "I was no more +risking my life than you would be in taking a fly out of the milk +jug. And for your question, if your ladyship will only think, you +cannot fail to see the difference. Indeed I explained my +treatment of Kelpie to your ladyship that first morning in the +park, when you so kindly rebuked me for it, but I don't think +your ladyship listened to a word I said."</p> + +<p>Clementina's face flushed, and she turned to her friend with a +"Well!" in her eyes. But Florimel kept her head bent over her +embroidery; and Malcolm, no further notice being taken of him +walked away.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII: ST +RONAN'S WELL</h1> + +<p>The next day the reading was resumed, and for several days was +regularly continued. Each day, as their interest grew, longer +time was devoted to it. They were all simple enough to accept +what the author gave them, nor, had a critic of the time been +present to instruct them that in this last he had fallen off, +would they have heeded him much: for Malcolm, it was the first +story by the Great Unknown he had seen. A question however +occurring, not of art but of morals, he was at once on the alert. +It arose when they reached that portion of the tale in which the +true heir to an earldom and its wealth offers to leave all in the +possession of the usurper, on the one condition of his ceasing to +annoy a certain lady, whom, by villainy of the worst, he had +gained the power of rendering unspeakably miserable. Naturally +enough, at this point Malcolm's personal interest was suddenly +excited: here were elements strangely correspondent with the +circumstances of his present position. Tyrrel's offer of +acquiescence in things as they were, and abandonment of his +rights, which, in the story, is so amazing to the man of the +world to whom it is first propounded, drew an exclamation of +delight from both ladies -- from Clementina because of its +unselfishness, from Florimel because of its devotion: neither of +them was at any time ready to raise a moral question, and least +of all where the heart approved. But Malcolm was interested after +a different fashion from theirs. Often during the reading he had +made remarks and given explanations -- not so much to the +annoyance of Lady Clementina as she had feared, for since his +rescue of the swift, she had been more favourably disposed +towards him, and had judged him a little more justly -- not that +she understood him, but that the gulf between them had +contracted. He paused a moment, then said:</p> + +<p>"Do you think it was right, my ladies? Ought Mr Tyrrel to have +made such an offer?"</p> + +<p>"It was most generous of him," said Clementina, not without +indignation -- and with the tone of one whose answer should +decide the question.</p> + +<p>"Splendidly generous," replied Malcolm; "-- but -- I so well +remember when Mr Graham first made me see that the question of +duty does not always lie between a good thing and a bad thing: +there would be no room for casuistry then, he said. A man has +very often to decide between one good thing and another. But +indeed I can hardly tell without more time to think, whether that +comes in here. If a man wants to be generous, it must at least be +at his own expense."</p> + +<p>"But surely," said Florimel, not in the least aware that she +was changing sides, "a man ought to hold by the rights that birth +and inheritance give him."</p> + +<p>"That is by no means so clear, my lady," returned Malcolm, "as +you seem to think. A man may be bound to hold by things that are +his rights, but certainly not because they are rights. One of the +grandest things in having rights is that, being your rights, you +may give them up -- except, of course, they involve duties with +the performance of which the abnegation would interfere."</p> + +<p>"I have been trying to think," said Lady Clementina, "what can +be the two good things here to choose between."</p> + +<p>"That is the right question, and logically put, my lady," +rejoined Malcolm, who, from his early training, could not help +sometimes putting on the schoolmaster. "The two good things are +-- let me see -- yes -- on the one hand the protection of the +lady to whom he owed all possible devotion of man to woman, and +on the other what he owed to his tenants, and perhaps to society +in general -- yes -- as the owner of wealth and position. There +is generosity on the one side and dry duty on the other."</p> + +<p>"But this was no case of mere love to the lady, I think," said +Clementina. "Did Mr Tyrrel not owe Miss Mowbray what reparation +lay in his power? Was it not his tempting of her to a secret +marriage, while yet she was nothing more than a girl, that +brought the mischief upon her?"</p> + +<p>"That is the point," said Malcolm, "that makes the one +difficulty. Still, I do not see how there can be much of a +question. He could have no right to do fresh wrong for the +mitigation of the consequences of preceding wrong -- to sacrifice +others to atone for injuries done by himself."</p> + +<p>"Where would be the wrong to others?" said Florimel, now back +to her former position. "Why could it matter to tenants or +society which of the brothers happened to be an earl?"</p> + +<p>"Only this, that, in the one case, the landlord of his +tenants, the earl in society, would be an honourable man, in the +other, a villain -- a difference which might have +consequences."</p> + +<p>"But," said Lady Clementina, "is not generosity something more +than duty -- something higher, something beyond it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Malcolm, "so long as it does not go against +duty, but keeps in the same direction, is in harmony with it. I +doubt much, though, whether, as we grow in what is good, we shall +not come soon to see that generosity is but our duty, and nothing +very grand and beyond it. But the man who chooses to be generous +at the expense of justice, even if he give up at the same time +everything of his own, is but a poor creature beside him who, for +the sake of the right, will not only consent to appear selfish in +the eyes of men, but will go against his own heart and the +comfort of those dearest to him. The man who accepts a crown may +be more noble than he who lays one down and retires to the +desert. Of the worthies who do things by faith, some are sawn +asunder, and some subdue kingdoms. The look of the thing is +nothing."</p> + +<p>Florimel made a neat little yawn over her work. Clementina's +hands rested a moment in her lap, and she looked thoughtful. But +she resumed her work, and said no more. Malcolm began to read +again. Presently Clementina interrupted him. She had not been +listening.</p> + +<p>"Why should a man want to be better than his neighbours, any +more than to be richer?" she said, as if uttering her thoughts +aloud.</p> + +<p>"Why, indeed," responded Malcolm, "except he wants to become a +hypocrite?"</p> + +<p>"Then, why do you talk for duty against generosity?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Malcolm, for a moment perplexed. He did not at once +catch the relation of her ideas. "Does a man ever do his duty," +he rejoined at length, "in order to be better than his +neighbours." If he does, he won't do it long. A man does his duty +because he must. He has no choice but do it."</p> + +<p>"If a man has no choice, how is it that so many men choose to +do wrong?" asked Clementina.</p> + +<p>"In virtue of being slaves and stealing the choice," replied +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"You are playing with words," said Clementina.</p> + +<p>"If I am, at least I am not playing with things," returned +Malcolm. "If you like it better, my lady, I will say that, in +declaring he has no choice, the man with all his soul chooses the +good, recognizing it as the very necessity of his nature."</p> + +<p>"If I know in myself that I have a choice, all you say goes +for nothing," persisted Clementina. "I am not at all sure I would +not do wrong for the sake of another. The more one preferred what +was right, the greater would be the sacrifice."</p> + +<p>"If it was for the grandeur of it, my lady, that would be for +the man's own sake, not his friend's."</p> + +<p>"Leave that out then," said Clementina.</p> + +<p>"The more a man loved another, then -- say a woman, as here in +the story -- it seems to me, the more willing would he be that +she should continue to suffer rather than cease by wrong. Think, +my lady: the essence of wrong is injustice: to help another by +wrong is to do injustice to somebody you do not know well enough +to love for the sake of one you do know well enough to love. What +honest man could think of that twice? The woman capable of +accepting such a sacrifice would be contemptible."</p> + +<p>"She need not know of it."</p> + +<p>"He would know that she needed but to know of it to despise +him."</p> + +<p>"Then might it not be noble in him to consent for her sake to +be contemptible in her eyes?"</p> + +<p>"If no others were concerned. And then there would be no +injustice, therefore nothing wrong, and nothing +contemptible."</p> + +<p>"Might not what he did be wrong in the abstract, without +having reference to any person?"</p> + +<p>"There is no wrong man can do but is a thwarting of the living +Right. Surely you believe, my lady, that there is a living Power +of right, whose justice is the soul of our justice, who will have +right done, and causes even our own souls to take up arms against +us when we do wrong."</p> + +<p>"In plain language, I suppose you mean -- Do I believe in a +God?"</p> + +<p>"That is what I mean, if by a God you mean a being who cares +about us, and loves justice -- that is, fair play -- one whom +therefore we wrong to the very heart when we do a thing that is +not just."</p> + +<p>"I would gladly believe in such a being, if things were so +that I could. As they are, I confess it seems to me the best +thing to doubt it. I do doubt it very much. How can I help +doubting it, when I see so much suffering, oppression, and +cruelty in the world? If there were such a being as you say, +would he permit the horrible things we hear of on every +hand?"</p> + +<p>"I used to find that a difficulty. Indeed it troubled me +sorely until I came to understand things better. I remember Mr +Graham saying once something like this -- I did not understand it +for months after: 'Every kind hearted person who thinks a great +deal of being comfortable, and takes prosperity to consist in +being well off must be tempted to doubt the existence of a God. +-- And perhaps it is well they should be so tempted,' he +added."</p> + +<p>"Why did he add that?"</p> + +<p>"I think because such are in danger of believing in an evil +God. And if men believed in an evil God, and had not the courage +to defy him, they must sink to the very depths of savagery. At +least that is what I ventured to suppose he meant."</p> + +<p>Clementina opened her eyes wide, but said nothing. Religious +people, she found, could think as boldly as she.</p> + +<p>"I remember all about it so well!" Malcolm added, +thoughtfully. "We had been talking about the Prometheus of +AEschylus -- how he would not give in to Jupiter."</p> + +<p>"I am trying to understand," said Clementina, and ceased -- +and a silence fell which for a few moments Malcolm could not +break. For suddenly he felt as if he had fallen under the power +of a spell. Something seemed to radiate from her silence which +invaded his consciousness. It was as if the wind which dwells in +the tree of life had waked in the twilight of heaven, and blew +upon his spirit. It was not that now first he saw that she was +beautiful; the moment his eyes fell upon her that morning in the +park, he saw her beautiful as he had never seen woman before. +Neither was it that now first he saw her good, even in that first +interview her heart had revealed itself to him as very lovely. +But the foolishness which flowed from her lips, noble and +unselfish as it was, had barred the way betwixt his feelings and +her individuality as effectually as if she had been the loveliest +of Venuses lying uncarved in the lunar marble of Carrara. There +are men to whom silliness is an absolute freezing mixture; to +whose hearts a plain, sensible woman at once appeals as a woman, +while no amount of beauty can serve as sweet oblivious antidote +to counteract the nausea produced by folly. Malcolm had found +Clementina irritating, and the more irritating that she was so +beautiful. But at the first sound from her lips that indicated +genuine and truthful thought, the atmosphere had begun to change; +and at the first troubled gleam in her eyes, revealing that she +pursued some dim seen thing of the world of reality, a nameless +potency throbbed into the spiritual space betwixt her and him, +and embraced them in an aether of entrancing relation. All that +had been needed to awake love to her was, that her soul, her self +should look out of its windows -- and now he had caught a glimpse +of it. Not all her beauty, not all her heart, not all her +courage, could draw him while she would ride only a hobby horse, +however tight its skin might be stuffed with emotions. But now +who could tell how soon she might be charging in the front line +of the Amazons of the Lord -- on as real a horse as any in the +heavenly army? For was she not thinking -- the rarest human +operation in the world?</p> + +<p>"I will try to speak a little more clearly, my lady," said +Malcolm. "If ease and comfort, and the pleasures of animal and +intellectual being, were the best things to be had, as they are +the only things most people desire, then that maker who did not +care that his creatures should possess or were deprived of such, +could not be a good God. But if the need with the lack of such +things should be the means, the only means, of their gaining +something in its very nature so much better that --"</p> + +<p>"But," interrupted Clementina, "if they don't care about +anything better -- if they are content as they are?"</p> + +<p>"Should he then who called them into existence be limited in +his further intents for the perfecting of their creation, by +their notions concerning themselves who cannot add to their life +one cubit? -- such notions being often consciously dishonest? If +he knows them worthless without something that he can give, shall +he withhold his hand because they do not care that he should +stretch it forth? Should a child not be taught to ride because he +is content to run on foot?"</p> + +<p>"But the means, according to your own theory, are so +frightful!" said Clementina.</p> + +<p>"But suppose he knows that the barest beginnings of the good +he intends them would not merely reconcile them to those means, +but cause them to choose his will at any expense of suffering! I +tell you, Lady Clementina," continued Malcolm, rising, and +approaching her a step or two, "if I had not the hope of one day +being good like God himself, if I thought there was no escape out +of the wrong and badness I feel within me and know I am not able +to rid myself of without supreme help, not all the wealth and +honours of the world could reconcile me to life."</p> + +<p>"You do not know what you are talking of," said Clementina, +coldly and softly, without lifting her head.</p> + +<p>"I do," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"You mean you would kill yourself but for your belief in +God?"</p> + +<p>"By life, I meant being, my lady. If there were no God, I +dared not kill myself, lest worse should be waiting me in the +awful voids beyond. If there be a God, living or dying is all one +-- so it be what he pleases."</p> + +<p>"I have read of saints," said Clementina, with cool +dissatisfaction in her tone, "uttering such sentiments --"</p> + +<p>"Sentiments!" said Malcolm to himself.</p> + +<p>"-- and I do not doubt such were felt or at least imagined by +them; but I fail to understand how, even supposing these things +true, a young man like yourself should, in the midst of a busy +world, and with an occupation which, to say the least, --"</p> + +<p>Here she paused. After a moment Malcolm ventured to help +her.</p> + +<p>"Is so far from an ideal one -- would you say, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"Something like that," answered Clementina, and concluded, "I +wonder how you can have arrived at such ideas."</p> + +<p>"There is nothing wonderful in it, my lady," returned Malcolm. +"Why should not a youth, a boy, a child, for as a child I thought +about what the kingdom of heaven could mean, desire with all his +might that his heart and mind should be clean, his will strong, +his thoughts just, his head clear, his soul dwelling in the place +of life? Why should I not desire that my life should be a +complete thing, and an outgoing of life to my neighbour? Some +people are content not to do mean actions: I want to become +incapable of a mean thought or feeling; and so I shall be before +all is done."</p> + +<p>"Still, how did you come to begin so much earlier than +others?"</p> + +<p>"All I know as to that, my lady, is that I had the best man in +the world to teach me."</p> + +<p>"And why did not I have such a man to teach me? I could have +learned of such a man too."</p> + +<p>"If you are able now, my lady, it does not follow that it +would have been the best thing for you sooner. Some children +learn far better for not being begun early, and will get before +others who have been at it for years. As you grow ready for it, +somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you -- in a +book, or a friend, or, best of all in your own thoughts -- the +eternal thought speaking in your thought."</p> + +<p>It flashed through her mind, "Can it be that I have found it +now -- on the lips of a groom?"</p> + +<p>Was it her own spirit or another that laughed strangely within +her?</p> + +<p>"Well, as you seem to know so much better than other people," +she said, "I want you to explain to me how the God in whom you +profess to believe can make use of such cruelties. It seems to me +more like the revelling of a demon."</p> + +<p>"My lady!" remonstrated Malcolm, "I never pretended to +explain. All I say is, that, if I had reason for hoping there was +a God, and if I found, from my own experience and the testimony +of others, that suffering led to valued good, I should think, +hope, expect to find that he caused suffering for reasons of the +highest, purest and kindest import, such as when understood must +be absolutely satisfactory to the sufferers themselves. If a man +cannot believe that, and if he thinks the pain the worst evil of +all, then of course he cannot believe there is a good God. Still, +even then, if he would lay claim to being a lover of truth, he +ought to give the idea -- the mere idea of God fair play, lest +there should be a good God after all, and he all his life doing +him the injustice of refusing him his trust and obedience."</p> + +<p>"And how are we to give the mere idea of him fair play?" +asked Clementina, rather contemptuously. But I think she was +fighting emotion, confused and troublesome.</p> + +<p>"By looking to the heart of whatever claims to be a revelation +of him."</p> + +<p>"It would take a lifetime to read the half of such."</p> + +<p>"I will correct myself, and say -- whatever of the sort has +best claims on your regard -- whatever any person you look upon +as good, believes and would have you believe -- at the same time +doing diligently what you know to be right; for, if there be a +God, that must be his will, and, if there be not, it remains our +duty."</p> + +<p>All this time, Florimel was working away at her embroidery, a +little smile of satisfaction flickering on her face. She was +pleased to hear her clever friend talking so with her strange +vassal. As to what they were saying, she had no doubt it was all +right, but to her it was not interesting. She was mildly debating +with herself whether she should tell her friend about +Lenorme.</p> + +<p>Clementina's work now lay on her lap and her hands on her +work, while her eyes at one time gazed on the grass at her feet, +at another searched Malcolm's face with a troubled look. The +light of Malcolm's candle was beginning to penetrate into her +dusky room, the power of his faith to tell upon the weakness of +her unbelief. There is no strength in unbelief. Even the unbelief +of what is false is no source of might. It is the truth shining +from behind that gives the strength to disbelieve. But into the +house where the refusal of the bad is followed by no embracing of +the good -- the house empty and swept and garnished -- the bad +will return, bringing with it seven evils that are worse.</p> + +<p>If something of that sacred mystery, holy in the heart of the +Father, which draws together the souls of man and woman, was at +work between them, let those scoff at the mingling of love and +religion who know nothing of either; but man or woman who, loving +woman or man, has never in that love lifted the heart to the +Father, and everyone whose divine love has not yet cast at least +an arm round the human love, must take heed what they think of +themselves, for they are yet but paddlers in the tide of the +eternal ocean. Love is a lifting no less than a swelling of the +heart, What changes, what metamorphoses, transformations, +purifications, glorifications, this or that love must undergo ere +it take its eternal place in the kingdom of heaven, through all +its changes yet remaining, in its one essential root, the same, +let the coming redemption reveal. The hope of all honest lovers +will lead them to the vision. Only let them remember that love +must dwell in the will as well as in the heart.</p> + +<p>But whatever the nature of Malcolm's influence upon Lady +Clementina, she resented it, thinking towards and speaking to him +repellently. Something in her did not like him. She knew he did +not approve of her, and she did not like being disapproved of. +Neither did she approve of him. He was pedantic -- and far too +good for an honest and brave youth: not that she could say she +had seen dishonesty or cowardice in him, or that she could have +told which vice she would prefer to season his goodness withal, +and bring him to the level of her ideal. And then, for all her +theories of equality, he was a groom -- therefore to a lady ought +to be repulsive -- at least when she found him intruding into the +chambers of her thoughts -- personally intruding -- yes, and met +there by some traitorous feelings whose behaviour she could not +understand. She resented it all, and felt towards Malcolm as if +he were guilty of forcing himself into the sacred presence of her +bosom's queen -- whereas it was his angel that did so, his Idea, +over which he had no control. Clementina would have turned that +Idea out, and when she found she could not, her soul started up +wrathful, in maidenly disgust with her heart, and cast resentment +upon everything in him whereon it would hang. She had not yet, +however, come to ask herself any questions; she had only begun to +fear that a woman to whom a person from the stables could be +interesting, even in the form of an unexplained riddle, must be +herself a person of low tastes; and that, for all her pride in +coming of honest people, there must be a drop of bad blood in her +somewhere.</p> + +<p>For a time her eyes had been fixed on her work, and there had +been silence in the little group.</p> + +<p>"My lady!" said Malcolm, and drew a step nearer to +Clementina.</p> + +<p>She looked up. How lovely she was with the trouble in her +eyes! Thought Malcolm, "If only she were what she might be! If +the form were but filled with the spirit! the body with +life!"</p> + +<p>"My lady!" he repeated, just a little embarrassed, "I should +like to tell you one thing that came to me only lately -- came to +me when thinking over the hard words you spoke to me that day in +the park. But it is something so awful that I dare not speak of +it except you will make your heart solemn to hear it."</p> + +<p>He stopped, with his eyes questioning hers. Clementina's first +thought once more was madness, but as she steadily returned his +look, her face grew pale, and she gently bowed her head in +consent.</p> + +<p>"I will try then," said Malcolm. "-- Everybody knows what few +think about, that once there lived a man who, in the broad face +of prejudiced respectability, truth hating hypocrisy, commonplace +religion, and dull book learning, affirmed that he knew the +secret of life, and understood the heart and history of men -- +who wept over their sorrows, yet worshipped the God of the whole +earth, saying that he had known him from eternal days. The same +said that he came to do what the Father did, and that he did +nothing but what he had learned of the Father. They killed him, +you know, my lady, in a terrible way that one is afraid even to +think of. But he insisted that he laid down his life; that he +allowed them to take it. Now I ask whether that grandest thing, +crowning his life, the yielding of it to the hand of violence, he +had not learned also from his Father. Was his death the only +thing he had not so learned? If I am right, and I do not say if +in doubt, then the suffering of those three terrible hours was a +type of the suffering of the Father himself in bringing sons and +daughters through the cleansing and glorifying fires, without +which the created cannot be made the very children of God, +partakers of the divine nature and peace. Then from the lowest, +weakest tone of suffering, up to the loftiest pitch, the divinest +acme of pain, there is not one pang to which the sensorium of the +universe does not respond; never an untuneful vibration of nerve +or spirit but thrills beyond the brain or the heart of the +sufferer to the brain, the heart of the universe; and God, in the +simplest, most literal, fullest sense, and not by sympathy alone, +suffers with his creatures."</p> + +<p>"Well, but he is able to bear it; they are not: I cannot bring +myself to see the right of it."</p> + +<p>"Nor will you, my lady, so long as you cannot bring yourself +to see the good they get by it. -- My lady, when I was trying my +best with poor Kelpie, you would not listen to me."</p> + +<p>"You are ungenerous," said Clementina, flushing.</p> + +<p>"My lady," persisted Malcolm, "you would not understand me. +You denied me a heart because of what seemed in your eyes +cruelty. I knew that I was saving her from death at the least, +probably from a life of torture: God may be good, though to you +his government may seem to deny it. There is but one way God +cares to govern -- the way of the Father King -- and that way is +at hand. -- But I have yet given you only the one half of my +theory: If God feels pain, then he puts forth his will to bear +and subject that pain; if the pain comes to him from his +creature, living in him, will the endurance of God be confined to +himself, and not, in its turn, pass beyond the bounds of his +individuality, and react upon the sufferer to his sustaining? I +do not mean that sustaining which a man feels from knowing his +will one with God's and God with him, but such sustaining as +those his creatures also may have who do not or cannot know +whence the sustaining comes. I believe that the endurance of God +goes forth to uphold, that his patience is strength to his +creatures, and that, while the whole creation may well groan, its +suffering is more bearable therefore than it seems to the +repugnance of our regard."</p> + +<p>"That is a dangerous doctrine," said Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Will it then make the cruel man more cruel to be told that +God is caring for the tortured creature from the citadel of whose +life he would force an answer to save his own from the sphinx +that must at last devour him, let him answer ever so wisely? Or +will it make the tender less pitiful to be consoled a little in +the agony of beholding what they cannot alleviate? Many hearts +are from sympathy as sorely in need of comfort as those with whom +they suffer. And to such I have one word more -- to your heart, +my lady, if it will consent to be consoled: The animals, I +believe, suffer less than we, because they scarcely think of the +past, and not at all of the future. It is the same with children, +Mr Graham says they suffer less than grown people, and for the +same reason. To get back something of this privilege of theirs, +we have to be obedient and take no thought for the morrow."</p> + +<p>Clementina took up her work. Malcolm walked away.</p> + +<p>"Malcolm," cried his mistress, "are you not going on with the +book?"</p> + +<p>"I hope your ladyship will excuse me," said Malcolm. "I would +rather not read more just at present."</p> + +<p>It may seem incredible that one so young as Malcolm should +have been able to talk thus, and indeed my report may have given +words more formal and systematic than his really were. For the +matter of them, it must be remembered that he was not young in +the effort to do and understand; and that the advantage to such a +pupil of such a teacher as Mr Graham is illimitable.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII: A +PERPLEXITY</h1> + +<p>After Malcolm's departure, Clementina attempted to find what +Florimel thought of the things her strange groom had been saying: +she found only that she neither thought at all about them, nor +had a single true notion concerning the matter of their +conversation. Seeking to interest her in it and failing, she +found however that she had greatly deepened its impression upon +herself.</p> + +<p>Florimel had not yet quite made up her mind whether or not she +should open her heart to Clementina, but she approached the door +of it in requesting her opinion upon the matter of marriage +between persons of social conditions widely parted -- +"frightfully sundered," she said. Now Clementina was a radical of +her day, a reformer, a leveller -- one who complained bitterly +that some should be so rich, and some so poor. In this she was +perfectly honest. Her own wealth, from a vague sense of +unrighteousness in the possession of it, was such a burden to +her, that she threw it away where often it made other people +stumble if not fall. She professed to regard all men as equal, +and believed that she did so. She was powerful in her contempt of +the distinctions made between certain of the classes, but had +signally failed in some bold endeavours to act as if they had no +existence except in the whims of society. As yet no man had +sought her nearer regard for whom she would deign to cherish even +friendship. As to marriage, she professed, right honestly, an +entire disinclination, even aversion to it, saying to herself +that if ever she should marry it must be, for the sake of protest +and example, one notably beneath her in social condition. He must +be a gentleman, but his claims to that rare distinction should +lie only in himself, not his position, in what he was, not what +he had. But it is one thing to have opinions, and another to be +called upon to show them beliefs; it is one thing to declare all +men equal, and another to tell the girl who looks up to you for +advice, that she ought to feel herself at perfect liberty to +marry -- say a groom; and when Florimel proposed the general +question, Clementina might well have hesitated. And indeed she +did hesitate -- but in vain she tried to persuade herself that it +was solely for the sake of her young and inexperienced friend +that she did so. As little could she honestly say that it was +from doubt of the principles she had so long advocated. Had +Florimel been open with her, and told her what sort of inferior +was in her thoughts, instead of representing the gulf between +them as big enough to swallow the city of Rome; had she told her +that he was a gentleman, a man of genius and gifts, noble and +large hearted, and indeed better bred than any other man she +knew, the fact of his profession would only have clenched Lady +Clementina's decision in his favour; and if Florimel had been +honest enough to confess the encouragement she had given him -- +nay, the absolute love passages there had been, Clementina would +at once have insisted that her friend should write an apology for +her behaviour to him, should dare the dastard world, and offer to +marry him when he would. But, Florimel putting the question as +she did, how should Clementina imagine anything other than that +it referred to Malcolm? and a strange confusion of feeling was +the consequence. Her thoughts heaved in her like the half shaped +monsters of a spiritual chaos, and amongst them was one she could +not at all identify. A direct answer she found impossible. She +found also that in presence of Florimel, so much younger than +herself, and looking up to her for advice, she dared not even let +the questions now pressing for entrance appear before her +consciousness. She therefore declined giving an answer of any +sort -- was not prepared with one, she said; much was to be +considered; no two cases were just alike.</p> + +<p>They were summoned to tea, after which she retired to her +room, shut the door, and began to think -- an operation which, +seldom easy if worth anything, was in the present case peculiarly +difficult, both because Clementina was not used to it, and the +subject object of it was herself. I suspect that self examination +is seldom the most profitable, certainly it is sometimes the most +unpleasant, and always the most difficult of moral actions -- +that is, to perform after a genuine fashion. I know that very +little of what passes for it has the remotest claim to reality; +and I will not say it has never to be done; but I am certain that +a good deal of the energy spent by some devout and upright people +on trying to understand themselves and their own motives, would +be expended to better purpose, and with far fuller attainment +even in regard to that object itself, in the endeavour to +understand God, and what he would have us to do.</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina's attempt was as honest as she dared make it. +It went something after this fashion:</p> + +<p>"How is it possible I should counsel a young creature like +that, with all her gifts and privileges, to marry a groom -- to +bring the stable into her chamber? If I did -- if she did, has +she the strength to hold her face to it? -- Yes, I know how +different he is from any other groom that ever rode behind a +lady! but does she understand him? Is she capable of such a +regard for him as could outlast a week of closer intimacy? At her +age it is impossible she should know what she was doing in daring +such a thing. It would be absolute ruin to her. And how could I +advise her to do what I could not do myself? -- But then if she's +in love with him?"</p> + +<p>She rose and paced the room -- not hurriedly -- she never did +anything hurriedly -- but yet with unleisurely steps, until, +catching sight of herself in the glass, she turned away as from +an intruding and unwelcome presence, and threw herself on her +couch, burying her face in the pillow. Presently, however, she +rose again, her face glowing, and again walked up and down the +room -- almost swiftly now. I can but indicate the course of her +thoughts.</p> + +<p>"If what he says be true! -- It opens another and higher life. +-- What a man he is! and so young! -- Has he not convicted me of +feebleness and folly, and made me ashamed of myself? -- What +better thing could man or woman do for another than lower her in +her own haughty eyes, and give her a chance of becoming such as +she had but dreamed of the shadow of? -- He is a gentleman -- +every inch! Hear him talk! -- Scotch, no doubt, -- and -- well -- +a little long winded -- a bad fault at his age! But see him ride! +-- see him swim! -- and to save a bird! -- But then he is hard -- +severe at best! All religious people are so severe! They think +they are safe themselves, and so can afford to be hard on others! +He would serve his wife the same as his mare if he thought she +required it! -- And I have known women for whom it might be the +best thing. I am a fool! a soft hearted idiot! He told me I would +give a baby a lighted candle if it cried for it -- Or didn't he? +I believe he never uttered a word of the sort; he only thought +it" -- As she said this, there came a strange light in her eyes, +and the light seemed to shine from all around them as well as +from the orbs themselves.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she stood still as a statue in the middle of the +room, and her face grew white as the marble of one. For a minute +she stood thus -- without a definite thought in her brain. The +first that came was something like this: "Then Florimel does love +him! -- and wants help to decide whether she shall marry him or +not! Poor weak little wretch! -- Then if I were in love with him, +I would marry him -- would I? -- It is well, perhaps, that I'm +not! -- But she! he is ten times too good for her! He would be +utterly thrown away on her! But I am her counsel, not his; and +what better could come to her than have such a man for a husband; +and instead of that contemptible Liftore, with his grand earldom +ways and proud nose! He has little to be proud of that must take +to his rank for it! Fancy a right man condescending to be proud +of his own rank! Pooh! But this groom is a man! all a man! grand +from the centre out, as the great God made him! -- Yes, it must +be a great God that made such a man as that! -- that is, if he is +the same he looks -- the same all through! -- Perhaps there are +more Gods than one, and one of them is the devil, and made +Liftore! But am I bound to give her advice? Surely not! I may +refuse. And rightly too! A woman that marries from advice, +instead of from a mighty love, is wrong. I need not speak. I +shall just tell her to consult her own heart -- and conscience, +and follow them. -- But, gracious me! Am I then going to fall in +love with the fellow? -- this stable man who pretends to know his +maker!</p> + +<p>Certainly not. There is nothing of the kind in my thoughts.</p> + +<p>Besides, how should I know what falling in love means? I never +was in love in my life, and don't mean to be. If I were so +foolish as imagine myself in any danger, would I be such a fool +as be caught in it? I should think not indeed! What if I do think +of this man in a way I never thought of anyone before, is there +anything odd in that? How should I help it when he is unlike +anyone I ever saw before? One must think of people as one finds +them. Does it follow that I have power over myself no longer, and +must go where any chance feeling may choose to lead me?</p> + +<p>Here came a pause. Then she started, and once more began +walking up and down the room, now hurriedly indeed.</p> + +<p>"I will not have it!" she cried aloud -- and checked herself, +dashed at the sound of her own voice. But her soul went on loud +enough for the thought universe to hear. "There can't be a God, +or he would never subject his women to what they don't choose. If +a God had made them, he would have them queens over themselves at +least -- and I will be queen, and then perhaps a God did make me. +A slave to things inside myself! -- thoughts and feelings I +refuse, and which I ought to have control over! I don't want this +in me, yet I can't drive it out! I will drive it out. It is not +me. A slave on my own ground! worst slavery of all! -- It will +not go. -- That must be because I do not will it strong enough. +And if I don't will it -- my God! -- what does that mean? -- That +I am a slave already?"</p> + +<p>Again she threw herself on her couch, but only to rise and yet +again pace the room.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! it is not love. It is merely that nobody could help +thinking about one who had been so much before her mind for so +long -- one too who had made her think. Ah! there, I do believe, +lies the real secret of it all! -- There's the main cause of my +trouble -- and nothing worse! I must not be foolhardy though, and +remain in danger, especially as, for anything I can tell, he may +be in love with that foolish child. People, they say, like people +that are not at all like themselves. Then I am sure he might like +me! -- She seems to be in love with him! I know she cannot be +half a quarter in real love with him: it's not in her."</p> + +<p>She did not rejoin Florimel that evening: it was part of the +understanding between the ladies that each should be at absolute +liberty. She slept little during the night, starting awake as +often as she began to slumber, and before the morning came was a +good deal humbled. All sorts of means are kept at work to make +the children obedient and simple and noble. Joy and sorrow are +servants in God's nursery; pain and delight, ecstasy and despair +minister in it; but amongst them there is none more marvellous in +its potency than that mingling of all pains and pleasures to +which we specially give the name of Love.</p> + +<p>When she appeared at breakfast, her countenance bore traces of +her suffering, but a headache, real enough, though little heeded +in the commotion upon whose surface it floated, gave answer to +the not very sympathetic solicitude of Florimel. Happily the day +of their return was near at hand. Some talk there had been of +protracting their stay, but to that Clementina avoided any +farther allusion. She must put an end to an intercourse which she +was compelled to admit was, at least, in danger of becoming +dangerous. This much she had with certainty discovered concerning +her own feelings, that her heart grew hot and cold at the thought +of the young man belonging more to the mistress who could not +understand him than to herself who imagined she could; and it +wanted no experience in love to see that it was therefore time to +be on her guard against herself, for to herself she was growing +perilous.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV: THE +MIND OF THE AUTHOR</h1> + +<p>The next was the last day of the reading. They must finish the +tale that morning, and on the following set out to return home, +travelling as they had come. Clementina had not the strength of +mind to deny herself that last indulgence -- a long four days' +ride in the company of this strangest of attendants. After that, +if not the deluge, yet a few miles of Sahara.</p> + +<p>"' It is the opinion of many that he has entered into a +Moravian mission, for the use of which he had previously drawn +considerable sums,'" read Malcolm, and paused, with book half +closed.</p> + +<p>"Is that all?" asked Florimel.</p> + +<p>"Not quite, my lady," he answered. "There isn't much more, but +I was just thinking whether we hadn't come upon something worth a +little reflection -- whether we haven't here a window into the +mind of the author of Waverley, whoever he may be, Mr Scott, or +another."</p> + +<p>"You mean?" said Clementina, interrogatively, and looked up +from her work, but not at the speaker.</p> + +<p>"I mean, my lady, that perhaps we here get a glimpse of the +author's own opinions, or feelings rather, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"I do not see what of the sort you can find there," returned +Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Neither should I, my lady, if Mr Graham had not taught me how +to find Shakspere in his plays. A man's own nature, he used to +say, must lie at the heart of what he does, even though not +another man should be sharp enough to find him there. Not a +hypocrite, the most consummate, he would say, but has his +hypocrisy written in every line of his countenance and motion of +his fingers. The heavenly Lavaters can read it, though the +earthly may not be able."</p> + +<p>"And you think you can find him out?" said Clementina, +dryly.</p> + +<p>"Not the hypocrite, my lady, but Mr Scott here. He is only +round a single corner. And one thing is -- he believes in a +God."</p> + +<p>"How do you make that out?"</p> + +<p>"He means this Mr Tyrrel for a fine fellow, and on the whole +approves of him -- does he not, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"Of course all that duelling is wrong. But then Mr Scott only +half disapproves of it. -- And it is almost a pity it is wrong," +remarked Malcolm with a laugh; "it is such an easy way of +settling some difficult things. Yet I hate it. It's so cowardly. +I may be a better shot than the other, and know it all the time. +He may know it too, and have twice my courage. And I may think +him in the wrong, when he knows himself in the right. -- There is +one man I have felt as if I should like to kill. When I was a boy +I killed the cats that ate my pigeons."</p> + +<p>A look of horror almost distorted Lady Clementina's +countenance.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to say next, my lady," he went on, with a +smile, "because I have no way of telling whether you looked +shocked for the cats I killed, or the pigeons they killed, or the +man I would rather see killed than have him devour more of my -- +white doves," he concluded sadly, with a little shake of the +head. -- "But, please God," he resumed, "I shall manage to keep +them from him, and let him live to be as old as Methuselah if he +can, even if he should grow in cunning and wickedness all the +time. I wonder how he will feel when he comes to see what a +sneaking cat he is. But this is not what we set out for. -- Mr +Tyrrel, then, the author's hero, joins the Moravians at +last."</p> + +<p>"What are they?" questioned Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Simple, good, practical Christians, I believe," answered +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"But he only does it when disappointed in love."</p> + +<p>"No, my lady; he is not disappointed. The lady is only +dead."</p> + +<p>Clementina stared a moment -- then dropped her head as if she +understood. Presently she raised it again and said,</p> + +<p>"But, according to what you said the other day, in doing so he +was forsaking altogether the duties of the station in which God +had called him."</p> + +<p>"That is true. It would have been a far grander thing to do +his duty where he was, than to find another place and another +duty. An earldom allotted is better than a mission +preferred."</p> + +<p>"And at least you must confess," interrupted Clementina, "that +he only took to religion because he was unhappy."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, my lady, it is the nobler thing to seek God in the +days of gladness, to look up to him in trustful bliss when the +sun is shining. But if a man be miserable, if the storm is coming +down on him, what is he to do? There is nothing mean in seeking +God then, though it would have been nobler to seek him before. -- +But to return to the matter in hand: the author of Waverley makes +his noble hearted hero, whom assuredly he had no intention of +disgracing, turn Moravian; and my conclusion from it is that, in +his judgment, nobleness leads in the direction of religion; that +he considers it natural for a noble mind to seek comfort there +for its deepest sorrows."</p> + +<p>"Well, it may be so; but what is religion without consistency +in action?" said Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Then how can you, professing to believe as you do, cherish +such feelings towards any man as you have just been +confessing?"</p> + +<p>"I don't cherish them, my lady. But I succeed in avoiding hate +better than suppressing contempt, which perhaps is the worse of +the two. There may be some respect in hate."</p> + +<p>Here he paused, for here was a chance that was not likely to +recur. He might say before two ladies what he could not say +before one. If he could but rouse Florimel's indignation! Then at +any suitable time only a word more would be needful to direct it +upon the villain. Clementina's eyes continued fixed upon him. At +length he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I will try to make two pictures in your mind, my lady, if you +will help me to paint them. In my mind they are not painted +pictures -- A long seacoast, my lady, and a stormy night; -- the +sea horses rushing in from the northeast, and the snowflakes +beginning to fall. On the margin of the sea a long dune or +sandbank, and on the top of it, her head bare, and her thin +cotton dress nearly torn from her by the wind, a young woman, +worn and white, with an old faded tartan shawl tight about her +shoulders, and the shape of a baby inside it, upon her arm."</p> + +<p>"Oh! she doesn't mind the cold," said Florimel. "When I was +there, I didn't mind it a bit."</p> + +<p>"She does not mind the cold," answered Malcolm; "she is far +too miserable for that."</p> + +<p>"But she has no business to take the baby out on such a +night," continued Florimel, carelessly critical. "You ought to +have painted her by the fireside. They have all of them firesides +to sit at. I have seen them through the windows many a time."</p> + +<p>"Shame or cruelty had driven her from it," said Malcolm, "and +there she was."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean you saw her yourself wandering about?" asked +Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Twenty times, my lady."</p> + +<p>Clementina was silent.</p> + +<p>"Well, what comes next?" said Florimel.</p> + +<p>"Next comes a young gentleman; -- but this is a picture in +another frame, although of the same night; -- a young gentleman +in evening dress, sipping his madeira, warm and comfortable, in +the bland temper that should follow the best of dinners, his face +beaming with satisfaction after some boast concerning himself, or +with silent success in the concoction of one or two compliments +to have at hand when he joins the ladies in the drawing +room."</p> + +<p>"Nobody can help such differences," said Florimel. "If there +were nobody rich, who would there be to do anything for the poor? +It's not the young gentleman's fault that he is better born and +has more money than the poor girl."</p> + +<p>"No," said Malcolm; "but what if the poor girl has the young +gentleman's child to carry about from morning to night."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well! I suppose she's paid for it," said Florimel, whose +innocence must surely have been supplemented by some stupidity, +born of her flippancy.</p> + +<p>"Do be quiet, Florimel," said Clementina. "You don't know what +you are talking about."</p> + +<p>Her face was in a glow, and one glance at it set Florimel's in +a flame. She rose without a word, but with a look of mingled +confusion and offence, and walked away. Clementina gathered her +work together. But ere she followed her, she turned to Malcolm, +looked him calmly in the face, and said,</p> + +<p>"No one can blame you for hating such a man."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, my lady, but some one would -- the only one for whose +praise or blame we ought to care more than a straw or two. He +tells us we are neither to judge nor to hate. But --"</p> + +<p>"I cannot stay and talk with you," said Clementina. "You must +pardon me if I follow your mistress."</p> + +<p>Another moment and he would have told her all, in the hope of +her warning Florimel. But she was gone.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV: THE +RIDE HOME</h1> + +<p>Florimel was offended with Malcolm: he had put her confidence +in him to shame, speaking of things to which he ought not once to +have even alluded. But Clementina was not only older than +Florimel, but in her loving endeavours for her kind, had heard +many a pitiful story, and was now saddened by the tale, not +shocked at the teller. Indeed, Malcolm's mode of acquainting her +with the grounds of the feeling she had challenged pleased both +her heart and her sense of what was becoming; while, as a +partisan of women, finding a man also of their part, she was +ready to offer him the gratitude of all womankind -- in her one +typical self.</p> + +<p>"What a rough diamond is here!" she thought.</p> + +<p>"Rough!" echoed her heart: "how is he rough? What fault could +the most fastidious find with his manners? True, he speaks as a +servant -- and where would be his manners if he did not? But +neither in tone, expression, nor way of thinking, is he in the +smallest degree servile. He is like a great pearl, clean out of +the sea -- bred, it is true, in the midst of strange +surroundings, but pure as the moonlight; and if a man, so +environed, yet has grown so grand, what might he not become with +such privileges as --"</p> + +<p>Good Clementina -- what did she mean? Did she imagine that +such mere gifts as she might give him, could do more for him than +the great sea, with the torment and conquest of its winds and +tempests? more than his own ministrations of love, and victories +over passion and pride? What the final touches of the shark skin +are to the marble that stands lord of the flaming bow, that only +can wealth and position be to the man who has yielded neither to +the judgments of the world nor the drawing of his own +inclinations, and so has submitted himself to the chisel and +mallet of his maker. Society is the barber who trims a man's +hair, often very badly too -- and pretends he made it grow. If +her owner should take her, body and soul, and make of her being a +gift to his -- ah, then, indeed! But Clementina was not yet +capable of perceiving that, while what she had in her thought to +offer might hurt him, it could do him little good. Her feeling +concerning him, however, was all the time far indeed from folly. +Not for a moment did she imagine him in love with her. Possibly +she admired him too much to attribute to him such an intolerable +and insolent presumption as that would have appeared to her own +inferior self. Still, she was far indeed from certain, were she, +as befits the woman so immeasurably beyond even the aspiration of +the man, to make him offer implicit of hand and havings, that he +would reach out his to take them. And certainly that she was not +going to do -- in which determination, whether she knew it or +not, there was as much modesty and gracious doubt of her own +worth as there was pride and maidenly recoil. In one resolve she +was confident, that her behaviour towards him should be such as +to keep him just where he was, affording him no smallest excuse +for taking one step nearer: and they would soon be in London, +where she would see nothing, or next to nothing more of him. But +should she ever cease to thank God, that was, if ever she came to +find him, that in this groom he had shown her what he could do in +the way of making a man! Heartily she wished she knew a nobleman +or two like him. In the meantime she meant to enjoy -- with +carefulness -- the ride to London, after which things should be +as before.</p> + +<p>The morning arrived; they finished breakfast; the horses came +round and stood at the door -- all but Kelpie. The ladies +mounted. Ah, what a morning to leave the country and go back to +London! The sun shone clear on the dark pine woods; the birds +were radiant in song; all under the trees the ferns were +unrolling each its mystery of ever generating life; the soul of +the summer was there whose mere idea sends the heart into the +eyes, while itself flits mocking from the cage of words. A +gracious mystery it was -- in the air, in the sun, in the earth, +in their own hearts. The lights of heaven mingled and played with +the shadows of the earth, which looked like the souls of the +trees, that had been out wandering all night, and had been +overtaken by the sun ere they could re-enter their dark cells. +Every motion of the horses under them was like a throb of the +heart of the earth, every bound like a sigh of her bliss. +Florimel shouted almost like a boy with ecstasy, and Clementina's +moonlight went very near changing into sunlight as she gazed, and +breathed, and knew that she was alive.</p> + +<p>They started without Malcolm, for he must always put his +mistress up, and then go back to the stable for Kelpie. In a +moment they were in the wood, crossing its shadows. It was like +swimming their horses through a sea of shadows. Then came a +little stream and the horses splashed it about like children from +very gamesomeness. Half a mile more and there was a sawmill, with +a mossy wheel, a pond behind, dappled with sun and shade, a dark +rush of water along a brown trough, and the air full of the sweet +smell of sawn wood. Clementina had not once looked behind, and +did not know whether Malcolm had yet joined them or not. All at +once the wild vitality of Kelpie filled the space beside her, and +the voice of Malcolm was in her ears. She turned her head. He was +looking very solemn.</p> + +<p>"Will you let me tell you, my lady, what this always makes me +think of?" he said.</p> + +<p>"What in particular do you mean?" returned Clementina +coldly.</p> + +<p>"This smell of new sawn wood that fills the air, my lady."</p> + +<p>She bowed her head.</p> + +<p>"It makes me think of Jesus in his father's workshop," said +Malcolm "-- how he must have smelled the same sweet scent of the +trees of the world broken for the uses of men, that is now so +sweet to me. Oh, my lady! it makes the earth very holy and very +lovely to think that as we are in the world, so was he in the +world. Oh, my lady I think: -- if God should be so nearly one +with us that it was nothing strange to him thus to visit his +people! that we are not the offspring of the soulless tyranny of +law that knows not even its own self, but the children of an +unfathomable wonder, of which science gathers only the foambells +on the shore -- children in the house of a living Father, so +entirely our Father that he cares even to death that we should +understand and love him!"</p> + +<p>He reined Kelpie back, and as she passed on, his eyes caught a +glimmer of emotion in Clementina's. He fell behind, and all that +day did not come near her again.</p> + +<p>Florimel asked her what he had been saying, and she compelled +herself to repeat a part of it.</p> + +<p>"He is always saying such odd out of the way things!" remarked +Florimel. "I used sometimes, like you, to fancy him a little +astray, but I soon found I was wrong. I wish you could have heard +him tell a story he once told my father and me. It was one of the +wildest you ever heard. I can't tell to this day whether he +believed it himself or not. He told it quite as if he did."</p> + +<p>"Could you not make him tell it again, as we ride along? It +would shorten the way."</p> + +<p>"Do you want the way shortened? -- I don't. But indeed it +would not do to tell it so. It ought to be heard just where I +heard it -- at the foot of the ruined castle where the dreadful +things in it took place. You must come and see me at Lossie House +in the autumn, and then he shall tell it you. Besides, it ought +to be told in Scotch, and there you will soon learn enough to +follow it: half the charm depends on that."</p> + +<p>Although Malcolm did not again approach Clementina that day, +he watched almost her every motion as she rode. Her lithe +graceful back and shoulders -- for she was a rebel against the +fashion of the day in dress as well as in morals, and, believing +in the natural stay of the muscles, had found them responsive to +her trust -- the noble poise of her head, and the motions of her +arms, easy yet decided, were ever present to him, though +sometimes he could hardly have told whether his sight or his mind +-- now in the radiance of the sun, now in the shadow of the wood, +now against the green of the meadow, now against the blue of the +sky, and now in the faint moonlight, through which he followed, +as a ghost in the realms of Hades might follow the ever flitting +phantom of his love. Day glided after day. Adventure came not +near them. Soft and lovely as a dream the morning dawned, the +noon flowed past, the evening came and the death that followed +was yet sweeter than the life that had gone before. Through it +all, daydream and nightly trance, radiant air and moony mist, +before him glode the shape of Clementina, its every motion a +charm. After that shape he could have been content, oh, how +content! to ride on and on through the ever unfolding vistas of +an eternal succession. Occasionally his mistress would call him +to her, and then he would have one glance of the day side of the +wondrous world he had been following. Somewhere within it must be +the word of the living One. Little he thought that all the time +she was thinking more of him who had spoken that word in her +hearing. That he was the object of her thoughts not a suspicion +crossed the mind of the simple youth. How could he imagine a lady +like her taking a fancy to what, for all his marquisate, he was +still in his own eyes, a raw young fisherman, only just learning +how to behave himself decently! No doubt, ever since she began to +listen to reason, the idea of her had been spreading like a sweet +odour in his heart, but not because she had listened to him. The +very fulness of his admiration had made him wrathful with the +intellectual dishonesty, for in her it could not be stupidity, +that quenched his worship, and the first dawning sign of a +reasonable soul drew him to her feet, where, like Pygmalion +before his statue, he could have poured out his heart in thanks, +that she consented to be a woman. But even the intellectual +phantom, nay, even the very phrase of being in love with her, had +never risen upon the dimmest verge of his consciousness -- and +that although her being had now become to him of all but +absorbing interest. I say all but, because Malcolm knew something +of One whose idea she was, who had uttered her from the immortal +depths of his imagination. The man to whom no window into the +treasures of the Godhead has yet been opened, may well scoff at +the notion of such a love, for he has this advantage, that, while +one like Malcolm can never cease to love, he, gifted being, can +love today and forget tomorrow -- or next year -- where is the +difference? Malcolm's main thought was -- what a grand thing it +would be to rouse a woman like Clementina to lift her head into +the regions mild of</p> + +<pre> +'calm and serene air, +Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot +Which men call Earth.' +</pre> + +<p>If anyone think that love has no right to talk religion, I +answer for Malcolm at least, asking, Whereof shall a man speak, +if not out of the abundance of his heart? That man knows little +either of love or of religion who imagines they ought to be kept +apart. Of what sort, I ask, is either, if unfit to approach the +other? Has God decreed, created a love that must separate from +himself? Is Love then divided? Or shall not love to the heart +created, lift up the heart to the Heart creating? Alas for the +love that is not treasured in heaven! for the moth and the rust +will devour it. Ah, these pitiful old moth eaten loves!</p> + +<p>All the journey then Malcolm was thinking how to urge the +beautiful lady into finding for herself whether she had a father +in heaven or not. A pupil of Mr Graham, he placed little value in +argument that ran in any groove but that of persuasion, or any +value in persuasion that had any end but action.</p> + +<p>On the second day of the journey, he rode up to his mistress, +and told her, taking care that Lady Clementina should hear, that +Mr Graham was now preaching in London, adding that for his part +he had never before heard anything fit to call preaching. +Florimel did not show much interest, but asked where, and Malcolm +fancied he could see Lady Clementina make a mental note of the +place.</p> + +<p>"If only," he thought, "she would let the power of that man's +faith have a chance of influencing her, all would be well."</p> + +<p>The ladies talked a good deal, but Florimel was not in earnest +about anything, and for Clementina to have turned the +conversation upon those possibilities, dim dawning through the +chaos of her world, which had begun to interest her, would have +been absurd -- especially since such was her confusion and +uncertainty, that she could not tell whether they were clouds or +mountains, shadows or continents. Besides, why give a child +sovereigns to play with when counters or dominoes would do as +well? Clementina's thoughts could not have passed into Florimel, +and become her thoughts. Their hearts, their natures must come +nearer first. Advise Florimel to disregard rank, and marry the +man she loved! As well counsel the child to give away the cake he +would cry for with intensified selfishness the moment he had +parted with it! Still, there was that in her feeling for Malcolm +which rendered her doubtful in Florimel's presence.</p> + +<p>Between the grooms little passed. Griffith's contempt for +Malcolm found its least offensive expression in silence, its most +offensive in the shape of his countenance. He could not make him +the simplest reply without a sneer. Malcolm was driven to keep +mostly behind. If by any chance he got in front of his fellow +groom, Griffith would instantly cross his direction and ride +between him and the ladies. His look seemed to say he had to +protect them.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI: +PORTLAND PLACE</h1> + +<p>The latter part of the journey was not so pleasant: it rained. +It was not cold, however, and the ladies did not mind it much. It +accorded with Clementina's mood; and as to Florimel, but for the +thought of meeting Caley, her fine spirits would have laughed the +weather to scorn. Malcolm was merry. His spirits always rose at +the appearance of bad weather, as indeed with every show of +misfortune a response antagonistic invariably awoke in him. On +the present occasion he had even to repress the constantly +recurring impulse to break out in song. His bosom's lord sat +lightly in his throne. Griffith was the only miserable one of the +party. He was tired, and did not relish the thought of the work +to be done before getting home. They entered London in a wet fog, +streaked with rain, and dyed with smoke. Florimel went with +Clementina for the night, and Malcolm carried a note from her to +Lady Bellair, after which, having made Kelpie comfortable, he +went to his lodgings.</p> + +<p>When he entered the curiosity shop, the woman received him +with evident surprise, and when he would have passed through to +the stair, stopped him with the unwelcome information that, +finding he did not return, and knowing nothing about himself or +his occupation, she had, as soon as the week for which he had +paid in advance was out, let the room to an old lady from the +country.</p> + +<p>"It is no great matter to me," said Malcolm, thoughtful over +the woman's want of confidence in him, for he had rather liked +her, "only I am sorry you could not trust me a little."</p> + +<p>"It's all you know, young man," she returned. "People as lives +in London must take care of theirselves -- not wait for other +people to do it. They'd soon find theirselves nowheres in +partic'lar. I've took care on your things, an' laid 'em all +together, an' the sooner you find another place for 'em the +better, for they do take up a deal o' room."</p> + +<p>His personal property was not so bulky, however, but that in +ten minutes he had it all in his carpet bag and a paper parcel, +carrying which he re-entered the shop.</p> + +<p>"Would you oblige me by allowing these to lie here till I come +for them?" he said.</p> + +<p>The woman was silent for a moment.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather see the last on 'em," she answered. "To tell the +truth, I don't like the look on 'em. You acts a part, young man. +I'm on the square myself. But you'll find plenty to take you in. +-- No, I can't do it. Take 'em with you."</p> + +<p>Malcolm turned from her, and with his bag in one hand and the +parcel under the other arm, stepped from the shop into the dreary +night. There he stood in the drizzle. It was a bystreet into +which gas had not yet penetrated, and the oil lamps shone red and +dull through the fog. He concluded to leave the things with +Merton, while he went to find a lodging.</p> + +<p>Merton was a decent sort of fellow -- not in his master's +confidence, and Malcolm found him quite as sympathetic as the +small occasion demanded.</p> + +<p>"It ain't no sort o' night," he said, "to go lookin' for a +bed. Let's go an' speak to my old woman: she's a oner at +contrivin'."</p> + +<p>He lived over the stable, and they had but to go up the stair. +Mrs Merton sat by the fire. A cradle with a baby was in front of +it. On the other side sat Caley, in suppressed exultation, for +here came what she had been waiting for -- the first fruits of +certain arrangements between her and Mrs Catanach. She greeted +Malcolm distantly, but neither disdainfully nor spitefully.</p> + +<p>"I trust you've brought me back my lady, MacPhail," she said; +then added, thawing into something like jocularity, "I shouldn't +have looked to you to go running away with her."</p> + +<p>"I left my lady at Lady Clementina Thornicroft's an hour ago" +answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course! Lady Clem's everything now."</p> + +<p>"I believe my lady's not coming home till tomorrow," said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"All the better for us," returned Caley. "Her room ain't ready +for her. -- But I didn't know you lodged with Mrs Merton, +MacPhail," she said, with a look at the luggage he had placed on +the floor.</p> + +<p>"Lawks, miss!" cried the good woman, "wherever should we put +him up, as has but the next room?"</p> + +<p>"You'll have to find that out, mother," said Merton. "Sure +you've got enough to shake down for him! With a truss of straw to +help, you'll manage it somehow -- eh, old lady? -- I'll be +bound!" And with that he told Malcolm's condition.</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose we must manage it somehow," answered his +wife, "but I'm afraid we can't make him over comfortable."</p> + +<p>"I don't see but we could take him in at the house," said +Caley, reflectively. "There is a small room empty in the garret, +I know. It ain't much more than a closet, to be sure, but if he +could put up with it for a night or two, just till he found a +better, I would run across and see what they say."</p> + +<p>Malcolm wondered at the change in her, but could not hesitate. +The least chance of getting settled in the house was a thing not +to be thrown away. He thanked her heartily. She rose and went, +and they sat and talked till her return. She had been delayed, +she said, by the housekeeper; "the cross old patch" had objected +to taking in anyone from the stables.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure," she went on, "there ain't the ghost of a reason +why you shouldn't have the room, except that it ain't good +enough. Nobody else wants it, or is likely to. But it's all right +now, and if you'll come across in about an hour, you'll find it +ready for you. One of the girls in the kitchen -- I forget her +name -- -- offered to make it tidy for you. Only take care -- I +give you warning: she's a great admirer of Mr MacPhail."</p> + +<p>Therewith she took her departure, and at the appointed time +Malcolm followed her. The door was opened to him by one of the +maids whom he knew by sight, and in her guidance he soon found +himself in that part of a house he liked best -- immediately +under the roof. The room was indeed little more than a closet in +the slope of the roof with only a skylight. But just outside the +door was a storm window, from which, over the top of a lower +range of houses, he had a glimpse of the mews yard. The place +smelt rather badly of mice, while, as the skylight was +immediately above his bed, and he had no fancy for drenching that +with an infusion of soot, he could not open it. These, however, +were the sole faults he had to find with the place. Everything +looked nice and clean, and his education had not tended to +fastidiousness. He took a book from his bag, and read a good +while; then went to bed, and fell fast asleep.</p> + +<p>In the morning he woke early, as was his habit, sprang at once +on the floor, dressed, and went quietly down. The household was +yet motionless. He had begun to descend the last stair, when all +at once he turned deadly sick, and had to sit down, grasping the +balusters. In a few minutes he recovered, and made the best speed +he could to the stable, where Kelpie was now beginning to demand +her breakfast.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm had never in his life before felt sick, and it +seemed awful to him. Something that had appeared his own, a +portion -- hardly a portion, rather an essential element of +himself; had suddenly deserted him, left him a prey to the inroad +of something that was not of himself, bringing with it faintness +of heart, fear and dismay. He found himself for the first time in +his life trembling; and it was to him a thing as appalling as +strange. While he sat on the stair he could not think; but as he +walked to the mews he said to himself:</p> + +<p>"Am I then the slave of something that is not myself -- +something to which my fancied freedom and strength are a mockery? +Was my courage, my peace, all the time dependent on something not +me, which could be separated from me, and but a moment ago was +separated from me, and left me as helplessly dismayed as the +veriest coward in creation? I wonder what Alexander would have +thought if, as he swung himself on Bucephalus, he had been taken +as I was on the stair."</p> + +<p>Afterwards, talking the thing over with Mr Graham, he +said:</p> + +<p>"I saw that I had no hand in my own courage. If I had any +courage, it was simply that I was born with it. If it left me, I +could not help it: I could neither prevent nor recall it; I could +only wait until it returned. Why, then, I asked myself, should I +feel ashamed that, for five minutes, as I sat on the stair, +Kelpie was a terror to me, and I felt as if I dared not go near +her? I had almost reached the stable before I saw into it a +little. Then I did see that if I had had nothing to do with my +own courage, it was quite time I had something to do with it. If +a man had no hand in his own nature, character, being, what could +he be better than a divine puppet -- a happy creature, possibly +-- a heavenly animal, like the grand horses and lions of the book +of the Revelation -- but not one of the gods that the sons of +God, the partakers of the divine nature, are? For this end came +the breach in my natural courage -- that I might repair it from +the will and power God had given me, that I might have a hand in +the making of my own courage, in the creating of myself. +Therefore I must see to it."</p> + +<p>Nor had he to wait for his next lesson, namely, the +opportunity of doing what he had been taught in the first. For +just as he reached the stable, where he heard Kelpie clamouring +with hoofs and teeth, after her usual manner when she judged +herself neglected, the sickness returned, and with it such a fear +of the animal he heard thundering and clashing on the other side +of the door, as amounted to nothing less than horror. She was a +man eating horse! -- a creature with bloody teeth, brain +spattered hoofs, and eyes of hate! A flesh loving devil had +possessed her and was now crying out for her groom that he might +devour him.</p> + +<p>He gathered, with agonized effort, every power within him to +an awful council, and thus he said to himself:</p> + +<p>"Better a thousand times my brain plastered the stable wall +than I should hold them in the head of a dastard. How can God +look at me with any content if I quail in the face of his four +footed creature! Does he not demand of me action according to +what I know, not what I may chance at any moment to feel? God is +my strength, and I will lay hold of that strength and use it, or +I have none, and Kelpie may take me and welcome."</p> + +<p>Therewith the sickness abated so far that he was able to open +the stable door; and, having brought them once into the presence +of their terror, his will arose and lorded it over his shrinking +quivering nerves, and like slaves they obeyed him. Surely the +Father of his spirit was most in that will when most that will +was Malcolm's own! It is when a man is most a man, that the cause +of the man, the God of his life, the very Life himself the +original life-creating Life, is closest to him, is most within +him. The individual, that his individuality may blossom, and not +soon be "massed into the common clay," must have the vital +indwelling of the primary Individuality which is its origin. The +fire that is the hidden life of the bush will not consume it.</p> + +<p>Malcolm tottered to the corn bin, staggered up to Kelpie, fell +up against her hind quarters as they dropped from a great kick, +but got into the stall beside her. She turned eagerly, darted at +her food, swallowed it greedily, and was quiet as a lamb while he +dressed her.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII: +PORTLOSSIE AND SCAURNOSE</h1> + +<p>Meantime things were going rather badly at Portlossie and +Scaurnose; and the factor was the devil of them. Those who had +known him longest said he must be fey, that is doomed, so +strangely altered was his behaviour. Others said he took more +counsel with his bottle than had been his wont, and got no good +from it. Almost all the fishers found him surly, and upon some he +broke out in violent rage, while to certain whom he regarded as +Malcolm's special friends, he carried himself with cruel +oppression. The notice to leave at midsummer clouded the destiny +of Joseph Mair and his family, and every householder in the two +villages believed that to take them in would be to call down the +like fate upon himself. But Meg Partan at least was not to be +intimidated. Her outbursts of temper were but the hurricanes of a +tropical heart -- not much the less true and good and steadfast +that it was fierce. Let the factor rage as he would, Meg was +absolute in her determination that, if the cruel sentence was +carried out, which she hardly expected, her house should be the +shelter of those who had received her daughter when her severity +had driven her from her home. That would leave her own family and +theirs three months to look out for another abode. Certain of +Blue Peter's friends ventured a visit of intercession to the +factor, and were received with composure and treated with +consideration until their object appeared, when his wrath burst +forth so wildly that they were glad to escape without having to +defend their persons: only the day before had he learned with +certainty from Miss Horn that Malcolm was still in the service of +the marchioness, and in constant attendance upon her when she +rode. It almost maddened him. He had for some time taken to +drinking more toddy after his dinner, and it was fast ruining his +temper: his wife, who had from the first excited his indignation +against Malcolm, was now reaping her reward. To complete the +troubles of the fisher folk, the harbour at Portlossie had, by a +severe equinoctial storm, been so filled with sand as to be now +inaccessible at lower than half tide, nobody as yet having made +it his business to see it attended to.</p> + +<p>But, in the midst of his anxieties about Florimel and his +interest in Clementina, Malcolm had not been forgetting them. As +soon as he was a little settled in London, he had written to Mr +Soutar, and he to architects and contractors, on the subject of a +harbour at Scaurnose. But there were difficulties, and the matter +had been making but slow progress. Malcolm, however, had +insisted, and in consequence of his determination to have the +possibilities of the thing thoroughly understood, three men +appeared one morning on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff on +the west side of the Nose. The children of the village discovered +them, and carried the news; whereupon, the men being all out in +the bay, the women left their work and went to see what the +strangers were about. The moment they were satisfied that they +could make nothing of their proceedings, they naturally became +suspicious. To whom the fancy first occurred, nobody ever knew, +but such was the unhealthiness of the moral atmosphere of the +place, caused by the injustice and severity of Mr Crathie, that, +once suggested, it was universally received that they were sent +by the factor -- and that for a purpose only too consistent with +the treatment Scaurnose, they said, had invariably received ever +since first it was the dwelling of fishers! Had not their fathers +told them how unwelcome they were to the lords of the land? And +what rents had they not to pay! and how poor was the shelter for +which they did so much -- without a foot of land to grow a potato +in! To crown all, the factor was at length about to drive them in +a body from the place -- Blue Peter first, one of the best as +well as the most considerable men among them! His notice to quit +was but the beginning of a clearance. It was easy to see what +those villains were about -- on that precious rock, their only +friend, the one that did its best to give them the sole shadow of +harbourage they had, cutting off the wind from the northeast a +little, and breaking the eddy round the point of the Nose! What +could they be about but marking the spots where to bore the holes +for the blasting powder that should scatter it to the winds, and +let death and destruction, and the wild sea howling in upon +Scaurnose, that the cormorant and the bittern might possess it, +the owl and the raven dwell in it? But it would be seen what +their husbands and fathers would say to it when they came home! +In the meantime they must themselves do what they could. What +were they men's wives for, if not to act for their husbands when +they happened to be away?</p> + +<p>The result was a shower of stones upon the unsuspecting +surveyors, who forthwith fled, and carried the report of their +reception to Mr Soutar at Duff Harbour. He wrote to Mr Crathie, +who till then had heard nothing of the business; and the news +increased both his discontent with his superiors, and his wrath +with those whom he had come to regard as his rebellious subjects. +The stiff necked people of the Bible was to him always now, as +often he heard the words, the people of Scaurnose and the Seaton +of Portlossie. And having at length committed this overt outrage, +would he not be justified by all in taking more active measures +against them?</p> + +<p>When the fishermen came home and heard how their women had +conducted themselves, they accepted their conjectures, and +approved of their defence of the settlement. It was well for the +land loupers, they said, that they had only the women to deal +with.</p> + +<p>Blue Peter did not so soon hear of the affair as the rest, for +his Annie had not been one of the assailants. But when the +hurried retreat of the surveyors was described to him in somewhat +graphic language by one of those concerned in causing it, he +struck his clenched fist in the palm of his other hand, and +cried,</p> + +<p>"Weel saired! There! that's what comes o' yer new --"</p> + +<p>He had all but broken his promise, as he had already broken +his faith to Malcolm, when his wife laid her hand on his mouth +and stopped the issuing word. He started with sudden conviction +and stood for a moment in absolute terror at sight of the +precipice down which he had been on the point of falling, then +straightway excusing himself to his conscience on the ground of +non intent, was instantly angrier with Malcolm than before. He +could not reflect that the disregarded cause of the threatened +sin was the greater sin of the two. The breach of that charity +which thinketh no evil maybe a graver fault than a hasty breach +of promise.</p> + +<p>Peter had not been improving since his return from London. He +found less satisfaction in his religious exercises; was not +unfrequently clouded in temper, occasionally even to sullenness; +referred things oftener than formerly to the vileness of the +human nature, but was far less willing than before to allow that +he might himself be wrong; while somehow the Bible had no more +the same plenitude of relation to the wants of his being, and he +rose from the reading of it unrefreshed. Men asked each other +what had come to Blue Peter, but no one could answer the +question. For himself, he attributed the change, which he could +not but recognise, although he did not understand it, to the +withdrawing of the spirit of God, in displeasure that he had not +merely allowed himself to be inveigled into a playhouse, but, far +worse, had enjoyed the wickedness he saw there. When his wife +reasoned that God knew he had gone in ignorance, trusting his +friend, he cried,</p> + +<p>"What 's that to him wha judges richteous judgment? What's a' +oor puir meeserable excuzes i' the een 'at can see throu' the +wa's o' the hert! Ignorance is no innocence."</p> + +<p>Thus he lied for God! pleading his cause on the principles of +hell. But the eye of his wife was single, and her body full of +light; therefore to her it was plain that neither the theatre nor +his conscience concerning it was the cause of the change: it had +to do with his feelings towards Malcolm. He wronged his Friend in +his heart, half knew it, but would not own it. Fearing to search +himself, he took refuge in resentment, and to support his hard +judgment, put false and cruel interpretations on whatever befell. +So that, with love and anger and wrong acknowledged, his heart +was full of bitterness.</p> + +<p>"It 's a' the drumblet (muddied, troubled) luve o' 'im!" said +Annie to herself. "Puir fallow! gien only Ma'colm wad come hame, +an' lat him ken he 's no the villain he taks him for. I'll no +believe mysel' 'at the laad I kissed like my ain mither's son +afore he gaed awa' wad turn like that upo' 's 'maist the meenute +he was oot o' sicht, an' a' for a feow words aboot a fulish play +actin'. Lord bliss us a'! markises is men.</p> + +<p>"We'll see, Peter, my man," she said, when the neighbour took +her leave, "whether the wife, though she hasna' been to the ill +place, an' that's surely Lon'on, canna tell the true frae the +Cause full better nor her man, 'at kens sae muckle mair nor she +wants to ken? Lat sit an' lat see."</p> + +<p>Blue Peter made no reply; but perhaps the deepest depth in his +fall was that he feared his wife might be right, and he have one +day to stand ashamed before both her and his friend. But there +are marvellous differences in the quality of the sins of +different men, and a noble nature like Peter's would have to sink +far indeed to be beyond redemption. Still there was one element +mingling with his wrongness whose very triviality increased the +difficulty of long delaying repentance: he had been not a little +proud at finding himself the friend of a marquis. From the first +they had been friends, when the one was a youth and the other a +child, and had been out together in many a stormy and dangerous +sea. More than once or twice, driven from the churlish ocean to +the scarce less inhospitable shore, they had lain all night in +each other's arms to keep the life awake within their frozen +garments. And now this marquis spoke English to him! It +rankled!</p> + +<p>All the time Blue Peter was careful to say nothing to injure +Malcolm in the eyes of his former comrades. His manner when his +name was mentioned, however, he could not honestly school to the +conveyance of the impression that things were as they had been +betwixt them. Folk marked the difference, and it went to swell +the general feeling that Malcolm had done ill to forsake a +seafaring life for one upon which all fishermen must look down +with contempt. Some in the Seaton went so far in their enmity as +even to hint at an explanation of his conduct in the truth of the +discarded scandal which had laid Lizzy's child at his door.</p> + +<p>But amongst them was one who, having wronged him thus, and +been convinced of her error, was now so fiercely his partisan as +to be ready to wrong the whole town in his defence: that was Meg +Partan, properly Mistress Findlay, Lizzy's mother. Although the +daughter had never confessed, the mother had yet arrived at the +right conclusion concerning the father of her child -- how, she +could hardly herself have told, for the conviction had grown by +accretion; a sign here and a sign there, impalpable save to +maternal sense, had led her to the truth; and now, if anyone had +a word to say against Malcolm, he had better not say it in the +hearing of the Partaness.</p> + +<p>One day Blue Peter was walking home from the upper town of +Portlossie, not with the lazy gait of the fisherman off work, +poised backwards, with hands in trouser pocket, but stooping care +laden with listless swinging arms. Thus Meg Partan met him -- and +of course attributed his dejection to the factor.</p> + +<p>"Deil ha'e 'im for an upsettin' rascal 'at hasna pride eneuch +to haud him ohn lickit the gentry's shune! The man maun be fey! I +houp he may, an' I wuss I saw the beerial o' 'im makin' for the +kirkyaird. It's nae ill to wuss weel to a' body 'at wad be left! +His nose is turnt twise the colour i' the last twa month. He'll +be drinkin' byous. Gien only Ma'colm MacPhail had been at hame to +haud him in order!"</p> + +<p>Peter said nothing, and his silence, to one who spake out +whatever came, seemed fuller of restraints and meanings than it +was. She challenged it at once.</p> + +<p>"Noo, what mean ye by sayin' naething, Peter? Guid kens it's +the warst thing man or woman can say o' onybody to haud their +tongue. It's a thing I never was blamed wi' mysel', an' I wadna +du't."</p> + +<p>"That's verra true," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"The mair weicht's intill't whan I lay 't to the door o' +anither," persisted Meg. "Peter, gien ye ha'e onything again' my +freen' Ma'colm MacPhail, oot wi' 't like a man, an' no playac' +the gunpoother plot ower again. Ill wull's the warst poother ye +can lay i' the boddom o' ony man's boat. But say at ye like, I s' +uphaud Ma'colm again' the haill poustie o' ye. Gien he was but +here! I say't again, honest laad!"</p> + +<p>But she could not rouse Peter to utterance, and losing what +little temper she had, she rated him soundly, and sent him home +saying with the prophet Jonah, "Do I not well to be angry?" for +that also he placed to Malcolm's account. Nor was his home any +more a harbour for his riven boat, seeing his wife only longed +for the return of him with whom his spirit chode: she regarded +him as an exiled king, one day to reappear, and justify himself +in the eyes of all, friends and enemies.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII: +TORTURE</h1> + +<p>Though unable to eat any breakfast, Malcolm persuaded himself +that he felt nearly as well as usual when he went to receive his +mistress's orders. Florimel had had enough of horseback -- for +several days to come indeed -- and would not ride. So he saddled +Kelpie, and rode to Chelsea to look after his boat. To get rid of +the mare, he rang the stable bell at Mr Lenorme's, and the +gardener let him in. As he was putting her up, the man told him +that the housekeeper had heard from his master. Malcolm went to +the house to learn what he might, and found to his surprise that, +if he had gone on the continent, he was there no longer, for the +letter, which contained only directions concerning some of his +pictures, was dated from Newcastle, and bore the Durham postmark +of a week ago. Malcolm remembered that he had heard Lenorme speak +of Durham cathedral, and in the hope that he might be spending +some time there, begged the housekeeper to allow him to go to the +study to write to her master. When he entered, however, he saw +something that made him change his plan, and, having written, +instead of sending the letter, as he had intended, inclosed to +the postmaster at Durham, he left it upon an easel. It contained +merely an earnest entreaty to be made and kept acquainted with +his movements, that he might at once let him know if anything +should occur that he ought to be informed concerning.</p> + +<p>He found all on board the yacht in shipshape, only Davy was +absent. Travers explained that he sent him on shore for a few +hours every day. He was a sharp boy, he said, and the more he +saw, the more useful he would be, and as he never gave him any +money, there was no risk of his mistaking his hours.</p> + +<p>"When do you expect him?" asked Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"At four o'clock," answered Travers.</p> + +<p>"It is four now," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>A shrill whistle came from the Chelsea shore.</p> + +<p>"And there's Davy," said Travers.</p> + +<p>Malcolm got into the dinghy and rowed ashore.</p> + +<p>"Davy," he said "I don't want you to be all day on board, but +I can't have you be longer away than an hour at a time,"</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, sir," said Davy.</p> + +<p>"Now attend to me."</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, sir."</p> + +<p>"Do you know Lady Lossie's house?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir; but I ken hersel'."</p> + +<p>"How is that?"</p> + +<p>"I ha'e seen her mair nor twa or three times, ridin' wi' +yersel', to yon hoose yon'er."</p> + +<p>"Would you know her again?"</p> + +<p>"Ay wad I -- fine that. What for no, sir."</p> + +<p>"It's a good way to see a lady across the Thames and know her +again."</p> + +<p>"Ow! but I tuik the spy glaiss till her," answered Davy, +reddening.</p> + +<p>"You are sure of her, then?"</p> + +<p>"I am that, sir."</p> + +<p>"Then come with me, and I will show you where she lives. I +will not ride faster than you can run. But mind you don't look as +if you belonged to me."</p> + +<p>"Na, na, sir. There's fowk takin' nottice."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"There's a wee laddie been efter mysel' twise or thrice."</p> + +<p>"Did you do anything?"</p> + +<p>"He wasna big eneuch to lick, sae I jist got him the last time +an' pu'd his niz, an' I dinna think he'll come efter me +again."</p> + +<p>To see what the boy could do, Malcolm let Kelpie go at a good +trot: but Davy kept up without effort, now shooting ahead, now +falling behind, now stopping to look in at a window, and now to +cast a glance at a game of pitch and toss. No mere passerby could +have suspected that the sailor boy belonged to the horseman. He +dropped him not far from Portland Place, telling him to go and +look at the number, but not stare at the house.</p> + +<p>All the time he had had no return of the sickness, but, +although thus actively occupied, had felt greatly depressed. One +main cause of this was, however, that he had not found his +religion stand him in such stead as he might have hoped. It was +not yet what it must be to prove its reality. And now his eyes +were afresh opened to see that in his nature and thoughts lay +large spaces wherein God ruled not supreme -- desert places, +where who could tell what might appear? For in such regions wild +beasts range, evil herbs flourish, and demons go about. If in +very deed he lived and moved and had his being in God, then +assuredly there ought not to be one cranny in his nature, one +realm of his consciousness, one well spring of thought, where the +will of God was a stranger. If all were as it should be, then +surely there would be no moment, looking back on which he could +not at least say,</p> + +<pre> +Yet like some sweet beguiling melody, +So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, +Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, +Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy. +</pre> + +<p>"In that agony o' sickness, as I sat upo' the stair," he said +to himself, for still in his own thoughts he spoke his native +tongue, "whaur was my God in a' my thouchts? I did cry till 'im, +I min' weel, but it was my reelin' brain an' no my trustin' hert +'at cried. Aih me! I doobt gien the Lord war to come to me noo, +he wadna fin' muckle faith i' my pairt o' the yerth. Aih! I wad +like to lat him see something like lippenin'! I wad fain trust +him till his hert's content. But I doobt it's only speeritual +ambeetion, or better wad hae come o' 't by this time. Gien that +sickness come again, I maun see, noo 'at I'm forewarned o' my ain +wakeness, what I can du. It maun be something better nor last +time, or I'll tine hert a'thegither. Weel, maybe I need to be +heumblet. The Lord help me!"</p> + +<p>In the evening he went to the schoolmaster, and gave him a +pretty full account of where he had been and what had taken place +since last he saw him, dwelling chiefly on his endeavours with +Lady Clementina.</p> + +<p>From Mr Graham's lodging to the northeastern gate of the +Regent's Park, the nearest way led through a certain passage, +which, although a thoroughfare to persons on foot, was little +known. Malcolm had early discovered it, and always used it. Part +of this short cut was the yard and back premises of a small +public house. It was between eleven and twelve as he entered it +for the second time that night. Sunk in thought and suspecting no +evil, he was struck down from behind, and lost his consciousness. +When he came to himself he was lying in the public house, with +his head bound up, and a doctor standing over him, who asked him +if he had been robbed. He searched his pockets, and found that +his old watch was gone, but his money left. One of the men +standing about said he would see him home. He half thought he had +seen him before, and did not like the look of him, but accepted +the offer, hoping to get on the track of something thereby. As +soon as they entered the comparative solitude of the park he +begged his companion, who had scarcely spoken all the way, to +give him his arm, and leaned upon it as if still suffering, but +watched him closely. About the middle of the park, where not a +creature was in sight, he felt him begin to fumble in his coat +pocket, and draw something from it. But when, unresisted, he +snatched away his other arm, Malcolm's fist followed it, and the +man fell, nor made any resistance while he took from him a short +stick, loaded with lead, and his own watch, which he found in his +waistcoat pocket. Then the fellow rose with apparent difficulty, +but the moment he was on his legs, ran like a hare, and Malcolm +let him run, for he felt unable to follow him.</p> + +<p>As soon as he reached home, he went to bed, for his head ached +severely; but he slept pretty well, and in the morning flattered +himself he felt much as usual. But it was as if all the night +that horrible sickness had been lying in wait on the stair to +spring upon him, for, the moment he reached the same spot on his +way down, he almost fainted. It was worse than before. His very +soul seemed to turn sick. But although his heart died within him, +somehow, in the confusion of thought and feeling occasioned by +intense suffering, it seemed while he clung to the balusters as +if with both hands he were clinging to the skirts of God's +garment; and through the black smoke of his fainting, his soul +seemed to be struggling up towards the light of his being. +Presently the horrible sense subsided as before, and again he +sought to descend the stair and go to Kelpie. But immediately the +sickness returned, and all he could do after a long and vain +struggle, was to crawl on hands and knees up the stairs and back +to his room. There he crept upon his bed, and was feebly +committing Kelpie to the care of her maker, when consciousness +forsook him.</p> + +<p>It returned, heralded by frightful pains all over his body, +which by and by subsiding, he sank again to the bottom of the +black Lethe.</p> + +<p>Meantime Kelpie had got so wildly uproarious that Merton +tossed her half a truss of hay, which she attacked like an enemy, +and ran to the house to get somebody to call Malcolm. After what +seemed endless delay, the door was opened by his admirer, the +scullery maid, who, as soon as she heard what was the matter, +hastened to his room.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX: THE +PHILTRE</h1> + +<p>Before he again came to himself, Malcolm had a dream, which, +although very confused, was in parts more vivid than any he had +ever had. His surroundings in it were those in which he actually +lay, and he was ill, but he thought it the one illness he had +before. His head ached, and he could rest in no position he +tried. Suddenly he heard a step he knew better than any other +approaching the door of his chamber: it opened, and his +grandfather in great agitation entered, not following his hands, +however, in the fashion usual to blindness, but carrying himself +like any sight gifted man. He went straight to the wash stand, +took up the water bottle, and with a look of mingled wrath and +horror dashed it on the floor. The same instant a cold shiver ran +through the dreamer, and his dream vanished. But instead of +waking in his bed, he found himself standing in the middle of the +floor, his feet wet, the bottle in shivers about them, and, +strangest of all, the neck of the bottle in his hand. He lay down +again, grew delirious, and tossed about in the remorseless +persecution of centuries. But at length his tormentors left him, +and when he came to himself, he knew he was in his right +mind.</p> + +<p>It was evening, and some one was sitting near his bed. By the +light of the long snuffed tallow candle, he saw the glitter of +two great black eyes watching him, and recognised the young woman +who had admitted him to the house the night of his return, and +whom he had since met once or twice as he came and went. The +moment she perceived that he was aware of her presence, she threw +herself on her knees at his bedside, hid her face, and began to +weep. The sympathy of his nature rendered yet more sensitive by +weakness and suffering, Malcolm laid his hand on her head, and +sought to comfort her.</p> + +<p>"Don't be alarmed about me," he said, "I shall soon be all +right again."</p> + +<p>"I can't bear it," she sobbed. "I can't bear to see you like +that, and all my fault."</p> + +<p>"Your fault! What can you mean?" said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"But I did go for the doctor, for all it may be the hanging of +me," she sobbed. "Miss Caley said I wasn't to, but I would and I +did. They can't say I meant it -- can they?"</p> + +<p>"I don't understand," said Malcolm, feebly.</p> + +<p>"The doctor says somebody's been an' p'isoned you," said the +girl, with a cry that sounded like a mingled sob and howl; "an' +he's been a-pokin' of all sorts of things down your poor +throat."</p> + +<p>And again she cried aloud in her agony.</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind; I'm not dead you see; and I'll take better +care of myself after this. Thank you for being so good to me; +you've saved my life."</p> + +<p>"Ah! you won't be so kind to me when you know all, Mr +MacPhail," sobbed the girl. "It was myself gave you the horrid +stuff, but God knows I didn't mean to do you no harm no more than +your own mother."</p> + +<p>"What made you do it then?" asked Malcolm:</p> + +<p>"The witch woman told me to. She said that -- that -- if I +gave it you -- you would -- you would"</p> + +<p>She buried her face in the bed, and so stifled a fresh howl of +pain and shame.</p> + +<p>"And it was all lies -- lies!" she resumed, lifting her face +again, which now flashed with rage, "for I know you'll hate me +worse than ever now."</p> + +<p>"My poor girl, I never hated you," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"No, but you did as bad: you never looked at me. And now +you'll hate me out and out. And the doctor says if you die, he'll +have it all searched into, and Miss Caley she look at me as if +she suspect me of a hand in it; and they won't let alone till +they've got me hanged for it; and it's all along of love of you; +and I tell you the truth, Mr MacPhail, and you can do anything +with me you like -- I don't care -- only you won't let them hang +me -- will you? -- Oh, please don't."</p> + +<p>She said all this with clasped hands, and the tears streaming +down her face.</p> + +<p>Malcolm's impulse was of course to draw her to him and comfort +her, but something warned him.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see I'm not going to die just yet," he said as +merrily as he could; "and if I find myself going, I shall take +care the blame falls on the right person. What was the witch +woman like? Sit down on the chair there, and tell me all about +her."</p> + +<p>She obeyed with a sigh, and gave him such a description as he +could not mistake. He asked where she lived, but the girl had +never met her anywhere but in the street, she said.</p> + +<p>Questioning her very carefully as to Caley's behaviour to her, +Malcolm was convinced that she had a hand in the affair. Indeed, +she had happily, more to do with it than even Mrs Catanach knew, +for she had traversed her treatment to the advantage of Malcolm. +The midwife had meant the potion to work slowly, but the lady's +maid had added to the pretended philtre a certain ingredient in +whose efficacy she had reason to trust; and the combination, +while it wrought more rapidly, had yet apparently set up a +counteraction favourable to the efforts of the struggling +vitality which it stung to an agonised resistance.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm's strength was now exhausted. He turned faint, and +the girl had the sense to run to the kitchen and get him some +soup. As he took it, her demeanour and regards made him anxious, +uncomfortable, embarrassed. It is to any true man a hateful thing +to repel a woman -- it is such a reflection upon her.</p> + +<p>"I've told you everything, Mr MacPhail, and it's gospel truth +I've told you," said the girl, after a long pause. -- It was a +relief when first she spoke, but the comfort vanished as she went +on, and with slow, perhaps unconscious movements approached him. +-- "I would have died for you, and here that devil of a woman has +been making me kill you! Oh, how I hate her! Now you will never +love me a bit -- -not one tiny little bit for ever and ever!"</p> + +<p>There was a tone of despairful entreaty in her words that +touched Malcolm deeply.</p> + +<p>"I am more indebted to you than I can speak or you imagine," +he said. "You have saved me from my worst enemy. Do not tell any +other what you have told me, or let anyone know that we have +talked together. The day will come when I shall be able to show +you my gratitude."</p> + +<p>Something in his tone struck her, even through the folds of +her passion. She looked at him a little amazed, and for a moment +the tide ebbed. Then came a rush that overmastered her. She flung +her hands above her head, and cried,</p> + +<p>"That means you will do anything but love me!"</p> + +<p>"I cannot love you as you mean," said Malcolm. "I promise to +be your friend, but more is out of my power."</p> + +<p>A fierce light came into the girl's eyes. But that instant a +terrible cry, such as Malcolm had never heard, but which he knew +must be Kelpie's, rang through the air, followed by the shouts of +men, the tones of fierce execration, and the clash and clang of +hoofs.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" he exclaimed, and forgetting everything else, +sprang from the bed, and ran to the window outside his door.</p> + +<p>The light of their lanterns dimly showed a confused crowd in +the yard of the mews, and amidst the hellish uproar of their +coarse voices he could hear Kelpie plunging and kicking. Again +she uttered the same ringing scream. He threw the window open and +cried to her that he was coming, but the noise was far too great +for his enfeebled voice. Hurriedly he added a garment or two to +his half dress, rushed to the stair, passing his new friend, who +watched anxiously at the head of it, without seeing her, and shot +from the house.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L: THE +DEMONESS AT BAY</h1> + +<p>When he reached the yard of the mews, the uproar had nothing +abated. But when he cried out to Kelpie, through it all came a +whinny of appeal, instantly followed by a scream. When he got up +to the lanterns, he found a group of wrathful men with stable +forks surrounding the poor animal, from whom the blood was +streaming before and behind. Fierce as she was, she dared not +move, but stood trembling, with the sweat of terror pouring from +her. Yet her eye showed that not even terror had cowed her. She +was but biding her time. Her master's first impulse was to +scatter the men right and left, but on second thoughts, of which +he was even then capable, he saw that they might have been driven +to apparent brutality in defence of their lives, and besides he +could not tell what Kelpie might do if suddenly released. So he +caught her by the broken halter, and told them to fall back. They +did so carefully -- it seemed unwillingly. But the mare had eyes +and ears only for her master. What she had never done before, she +nosed him over face and shoulders, trembling all the time. +Suddenly one of her tormentors darted forward, and gave her a +terrible prod in the off hind quarter. But he paid dearly for it. +Ere he could draw back, she lashed out, and shot him half across +the yard with his knee joint broken. The whole set of them rushed +at her.</p> + +<p>"Leave her alone," shouted Malcolm, "or I will take her part. +Between us we'll do for a dozen of you."</p> + +<p>"The devil's in her," said one of them.</p> + +<p>"You'll find more of him in that rascal groaning yonder. You +had better see to him. He'll never do such a thing again, I +fancy. Where is Merton?"</p> + +<p>They drew off and went to help their comrade, who lay +senseless.</p> + +<p>When Malcolm would have led Kelpie in, she stopped suddenly at +the stable-door, and started back shuddering, as if the memory of +what she had endured there overcame her. Every fibre of her +trembled. He saw that she must have been pitifully used before +she broke loose and got out. But she yielded to his coaxing, and +he led her to her stall without difficulty. He wished Lady +Clementina herself could have been his witness how she knew her +friend and trusted him. Had she seen how the poor bleeding thing +rejoiced over him, she could not have doubted that his treatment +had been in part at least a success.</p> + +<p>Kelpie had many enemies amongst the men of the mews. Merton +had gone out for the evening, and they had taken the opportunity +of getting into her stable and tormenting her. At length she +broke her fastenings; they fled, and she rushed out after +them.</p> + +<p>They carried the maimed man to the hospital, where his leg was +immediately amputated.</p> + +<p>Malcolm washed and dried his poor animal, handling her as +gently as possible, for she was in a sad plight. It was plain he +must not have her here any longer: worse to her at least was sure +to follow. He went up, trembling himself now, to Mrs Merton. She +told him she was just running to fetch him when he arrived: she +had no idea how ill he was. But he felt all the better for the +excitement, and after he had taken a cup of strong tea, wrote to +Mr Soutar to provide men on whom he could depend, if possible the +same who had taken her there before, to await Kelpie's arrival at +Aberdeen. There he must also find suitable housing and attention +for her at any expense until further directions, or until, more +probably, he should claim her himself. He added many instructions +to be given as to her treatment.</p> + +<p>Until Merton returned he kept watch, then went back to the +chamber of his torture, which, like Kelpie, he shuddered to +enter. The cook let him in, and gave him his candle, but hardly +had he closed his door when a tap came to it, and there stood +Rose, his preserver. He could not help feeling embarrassed when +he saw her.</p> + +<p>"I see you don't trust me," she said.</p> + +<p>"I do trust you," he answered. "Will you bring me some water. +I dare not drink anything that has been standing."</p> + +<p>She looked at him with inquiring eyes, nodded her head, and +went. When she returned, he drank the water.</p> + +<p>"There! you see I trust you," he said with a laugh. "But there +are people about who for certain reasons want to get rid of me: +will you be on my side?"</p> + +<p>"That I will," she answered eagerly.</p> + +<p>"I have not got my plans laid yet; but will you meet me +somewhere near this tomorrow night? I shall not be at home, +perhaps, all day."</p> + +<p>She stared at him with great eyes, but agreed at once, and +they appointed time and place. He then bade her good night, and +the moment she left him lay down on the bed to think. But he did +not trouble himself yet to unravel the plot against him, or +determine whether the violence he had suffered had the same +origin with the poisoning. Nor was the question merely how to +continue to serve his sister without danger to his life; for he +had just learned what rendered it absolutely imperative that she +should be removed from her present position. Mrs Merton had told +him that Lady Lossie was about to accompany Lady Bellair and Lord +Liftore to the continent. That must not be, whatever means might +be necessary to prevent it. Before he went to sleep things had +cleared themselves up considerably.</p> + +<p>He woke much better, and rose at his usual hour. Kelpie +rejoiced him by affording little other sign of the cruelty she +had suffered than the angry twitching of her skin when hand or +brush approached a wound. The worst fear was that some few white +hairs might by and by in consequence fleck her spotless black. +Having urgently committed her to Merton's care, he mounted +Honour, and rode to the Aberdeen wharf. There to his relief, time +growing precious, he learned that the same smack in which Kelpie +had come was to sail the next morning for Aberdeen. He arranged +at once for her passage, and, before he left, saw to every +contrivance he could think of for her safety and comfort. He +warned the crew concerning her temper, but at the same time +prejudiced them in her favour by the argument of a few +sovereigns. He then rode to the Chelsea Reach, where the Psyche +had now grown to be a feature of the river in the eyes of the +dwellers upon its banks.</p> + +<p>At his whistle, Davy tumbled into the dinghy like a round ball +over the gunwale, and was rowing for the shore ere his whistle +had ceased ringing in Malcolm's own ears. He left him with his +horse, went on board, and gave various directions to Travers; +then took Davy with him, and bought many things at different +shops, which he ordered to be delivered to Davy when he should +call for them. Having next instructed him to get everything on +board as soon as possible, and appointed to meet him at the same +place and hour he had arranged with Rose, he went home.</p> + +<p>A little anxious lest Florimel might have wanted him, for it +was now past the hour at which he usually waited her orders, he +learned to his relief that she was gone shopping with Lady +Bellair, upon which he set out for the hospital, whither they had +carried the man Kelpie had so terribly mauled. He went, not +merely led by sympathy, but urged by a suspicion also which he +desired to verify or remove. On the plea of identification, he +was permitted to look at him for a moment, but not to speak to +him. It was enough: he recognised him at once as the same whose +second attack he had foiled in the Regent's Park. He remembered +having seen him about the stable, but had never spoken to him. +Giving the nurse a sovereign, and Mr Soutar's address, he +requested her to let that gentleman know as soon as it was +possible to conjecture the time of his leaving. Returning, he +gave Merton a hint to keep his eye on the man, and some money to +spend for him as he judged best. He then took Kelpie for an +airing. To his surprise she fatigued him so much that when he had +put her up again he was glad to go and lie down.</p> + +<p>When it came near the time for meeting Rose and Davy, he got +his things together in the old carpetbag, which held all he cared +for, and carried it with him. As he drew near the spot, he saw +Davy already there, keeping a sharp look out on all sides. +Presently Rose appeared, but drew back when she saw Davy. Malcolm +went to her.</p> + +<p>"Rose," he said, "I am going to ask you to do me a great +favour. But you cannot except you are able to trust me."</p> + +<p>"I do trust you," she answered.</p> + +<p>"All I can tell you now is that you must go with that boy +tomorrow. Before night you shall know more. Will you do it?"</p> + +<p>"I will," answered Rose. "I dearly love a secret."</p> + +<p>"I promise to let you understand it, if you do just as I tell +you."</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>"Be at this very spot then tomorrow morning, at six o'clock. +Come here, Davy. This boy will take you where I shall tell +him."</p> + +<p>She looked from the one to the other.</p> + +<p>"I'll risk it," she said.</p> + +<p>"Put on a clean frock, and take a change of linen with you and +your dressing things. No harm shall come to you."</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid," she answered, but looked as if she would +cry.</p> + +<p>"Of course you will not tell anyone."</p> + +<p>"I will not, Mr MacPhail."</p> + +<p>"You are trusting me a great deal, Rose; but I am trusting you +too -- more than you think. -- Be off with that bag, Davy, and be +here at six tomorrow morning, to carry this young woman's for +her."</p> + +<p>Davy vanished.</p> + +<p>"Now, Rose," continued Malcolm, "you had better go and make +your preparations."</p> + +<p>"Is that all, sir?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I shall see you tomorrow. Be brave."</p> + +<p>Something in Malcolm's tone and manner seemed to work +strangely on the girl. She gazed up at him half frightened, but +submissive, and went at once, looking, however, sadly +disappointed.</p> + +<p>Malcolm had intended to go and tell Mr Graham of his plans +that same night, but he found himself too much exhausted to walk +to Camden Town. And thinking over it, he saw that it might be as +well if he took the bold measure he contemplated without +revealing it to his friend, to whom the knowledge might be the +cause of inconvenience. He therefore went home and to bed, that +he might be strong for the next day.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI: THE +PSYCHE</h1> + +<p>He rose early the next morning, and having fed and dressed +Kelpie, strapped her blanket behind her saddle, and, by all the +macadamized ways he could find, rode her to the wharf -- near +where the Thames tunnel had just been commenced. He had no great +difficulty with her on the way, though it was rather nervous work +at times. But of late her submission to her master had been +decidedly growing. When he reached the wharf he rode her straight +along the gangway on to the deck of the smack, as the easiest if +not perhaps the safest way of getting her on board. As soon as +she was properly secured, and he had satisfied himself as to the +provision they had made for her, impressed upon the captain the +necessity of being bountiful to her, and brought a loaf of sugar +on board for her use, he left her with a lighter heart than he +had had ever since first he fetched her from the same deck.</p> + +<p>It was a long way to walk home, but he felt much better, and +thought nothing of it. And all the way, to his delight, the wind +met him in the face. A steady westerly breeze was blowing. If God +makes his angels winds, as the Psalmist says, here was one sent +to wait upon him. He reached Portland Place in time to present +himself for orders at the usual hour. On these occasions, his +mistress not unfrequently saw him herself; but to make sure, he +sent up the request that she would speak with him.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to hear that you have been ill, Malcolm," she said +kindly, as he entered the room, where happily he found her +alone.</p> + +<p>"I am quite well now, thank you, my lady," he returned. "I +thought your ladyship would like to hear something I happened to +come to the knowledge of the other day."</p> + +<p>"Yes? What was that?"</p> + +<p>"I called at Mr Lenorme's to learn what news there might be of +him. The housekeeper let me go up to his painting room; and what +should I see there, my lady, but the portrait of my lord marquis +more beautiful than ever, the brown smear all gone, and the +likeness, to my mind, greater than before!"</p> + +<p>"Then Mr Lenorme is come home!" cried Florimel, scarce +attempting to conceal the pleasure his report gave her.</p> + +<p>"That I cannot say," said Malcolm. "His housekeeper had a +letter from him a few days ago from Newcastle. If he is come +back, I do not think she knows it. It seems strange, for who +would touch one of his pictures but himself? -- except, indeed, +he got some friend to set it to rights for your ladyship. Anyhow, +I thought you would like to see it again."</p> + +<p>"I will go at once," Florimel said, rising hastily. "Get the +horses, Malcolm, as fast as you can."</p> + +<p>"If my Lord Liftore should come before we start?" he +suggested.</p> + +<p>"Make haste," returned his mistress, impatiently.</p> + +<p>Malcolm did make haste, and so did Florimel. What precisely +was in her thoughts who shall say, when she could not have told +herself? But doubtless the chance of seeing Lenorme urged her +more than the desire to see her father's portrait. Within twenty +minutes they were riding down Grosvenor Place, and happily heard +no following hoofbeats. When they came near the river, Malcolm +rode up to her and said,</p> + +<p>"Would your ladyship allow me to put up the horses in Mr +Lenorme's stable? I think I could show your ladyship a point or +two that may have escaped you."</p> + +<p>Florimel thought for a moment, and concluded it would be less +awkward, would indeed tend rather to her advantage with Lenorme, +should he really be there, to have Malcolm with her.</p> + +<p>"Very well," she answered. "I see no objection. I will ride +round with you to the stable, and we can go in the back way."</p> + +<p>They did so. The gardener took the horses, and they went up to +the study. Lenorme was not there, and everything was just as when +Malcolm was last in the room. Florimel was much disappointed, but +Malcolm talked to her about the portrait, and did all he could to +bring back vivid the memory of her father. At length with a +little sigh she made a movement to go.</p> + +<p>"Has your ladyship ever seen the river from the next room?" +said Malcolm, and, as he spoke, threw open the door of +communication, near which they stood.</p> + +<p>Florimel, who was always ready to see, walked straight into +the drawing room, and went to a window.</p> + +<p>"There is that yacht lying there still!" remarked Malcolm. +"Does she not remind you of the Psyche, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"Every boat does that," answered his mistress. "I dream about +her. But I couldn't tell her from many another."</p> + +<p>"People used to boats, my lady, learn to know them like the +faces of their friends. -- What a day for a sail!"</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose that one is for hire?" said Florimel.</p> + +<p>"We can ask," replied Malcolm; and with that went to another +window, raised the sash, put his head out, and whistled. Over +tumbled Davy into the dinghy at the Psyche's stern, unloosed the +painter, and was rowing for the shore ere the minute was out.</p> + +<p>"Why, they're answering your whistle already!" said +Florimel.</p> + +<p>"A whistle goes farther, and perhaps is more imperative than +any other call," returned Malcolm evasively, "Will your ladyship +come down and hear what they say?"</p> + +<p>A wave from the slow silting lagoon of her girlhood came +washing over the sands between, and Florimel flew merrily down +the stair and across ball and garden and road to the riverbank, +where was a little wooden stage or landing place, with a few +steps, at which the dinghy was just arriving.</p> + +<p>"Will you take us on board and show us your boat?" said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, sir," answered Davy.</p> + +<p>Without a moment's hesitation, Florimel took Malcolm's offered +hand, and stepped into the boat. Malcolm took the oars, and shot +the little tub across the river. When they got alongside the +cutter, Travers reached down both his hands for hers, and Malcolm +held one of his for her foot, and Florimel sprang on deck.</p> + +<p>"Young woman on board, Davy?" whispered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, sir -- doon i' the fore," answered Davy, and Malcolm +stood by his mistress.</p> + +<p>"She is like the Psyche," said Florimel, turning to him, "only +the mast is not so tall."</p> + +<p>"Her topmast is struck, you see my lady -- to make sure of her +passing clear under the bridges."</p> + +<p>"Ask them if we couldn't go down the river a little way," said +Florimel. "I should so like to see the houses from it!"</p> + +<p>Malcolm conferred a moment with Travers and returned.</p> + +<p>"They are quite willing, my lady," he said.</p> + +<p>"What fun!" cried Florimel, her girlish spirit all at the +surface. "How I should like to run away from horrid London +altogether, and never hear of it again! -- Dear old Lossie House! +and the boats! and the fishermen!" she added meditatively.</p> + +<p>The anchor was already up, and the yacht drifting with the +falling tide. A moment more and she spread a low treble reefed +mainsail behind, a little jib before, and the western breeze +filled and swelled and made them alive, and with wind and tide +she went swiftly down the smooth stream. Florimel clapped her +hands with delight. The shores and all their houses fled up the +river. They slid past rowboats, and great heavy barges loaded to +the lip, with huge red sails and yellow, glowing and gleaming in +the hot sun. For one moment the shadow of Vauxhall Bridge gloomed +like a death cloud, chill and cavernous, over their heads; then +out again they shot into the lovely light and heat of the summer +world.</p> + +<p>"It's well we ain't got to shoot Putney or Battersea," said +Travers with a grim smile, as he stood shaping her course by +inches with his magic-like steering, in the midst of a little +covey of pleasure boats: "with this wind we might ha' brought +either on 'em about our ears like an old barn."</p> + +<p>"This is life!" cried Florimel, as the river bore them nearer +and nearer to the vortex -- deeper and deeper into the tumult of +London.</p> + +<p>How solemn the silent yet never resting highway! -- almost +majestic in the stillness of its hurrying might as it rolled +heedless past houses and wharfs that crowded its brinks. They +darted through under Westminster Bridge, and boats and barges +more and more numerous covered the stream. Waterloo Bridge, +Blackfriars' Bridge they passed. Sunlight all, and flashing +water, and gleaming oars, and gay boats, and endless motion! out +of which rose calm, solemn, reposeful, the resting yet hovering +dome of St Paul's, with its satellite spires, glittering in the +tremulous hot air that swathed in multitudinous ripples the +mighty city.</p> + +<p>Southwark Bridge -- and only London Bridge lay between them +and the open river, still widening as it flowed to the aged +ocean. Through the centre arch they shot, and lo! a world of +masts, waiting to woo with white sails the winds that should bear +them across deserts of water to lands of wealth and mystery. +Through the labyrinth led the highway of the stream, and downward +they still swept -- past the Tower, and past the wharf where that +morning Malcolm had said goodbye for a time to his four footed +subject and friend. The smack's place was empty. With her hugest +of sails, she was tearing and flashing away, out of their sight, +far down the river before them.</p> + +<p>Through dingy dreary Limehouse they sank, and coasted the +melancholy, houseless Isle of Dogs; but on all sides were ships +and ships, and when they thinned at last, Greenwich rose before +them. London and the parks looked unendurable from this more +varied life, more plentiful air, and above all more abundant +space. The very spirit of freedom seemed to wave his wings about +the yacht, fanning full her sails.</p> + +<p>Florimel breathed as if she never could have enough of the +sweet wind; each breath gave her all the boundless region whence +it blew; she gazed as if she would fill her soul with the +sparkling gray of the water, the sun melted blue of the sky, and +the incredible green of the flat shores. For minutes she would be +silent, her parted lips revealing her absorbed delight, then +break out in a volley of questions, now addressing Malcolm, now +Travers. She tried Davy too, but Davy knew nothing except his +duty here. The Thames was like an unknown eternity to the +creature of the Wan Water -- about which, however, he could have +told her a thousand things.</p> + +<p>Down and down the river they flew, and not until miles and +miles of meadows had come between her and London, not indeed +until Gravesend appeared, did it occur to Florimel that perhaps +it might be well to think by and by of returning. But she trusted +everything to Malcolm, who of course would see that everything +was as it ought to be.</p> + +<p>Her excitement began to flag a little. She was getting tired. +The bottle had been strained by the ferment of the wine. She +turned to Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Had we not better be putting about?" she said. "I should like +to go on for ever -- but we must come another day, better +provided. We shall hardly be in time for lunch."</p> + +<p>It was nearly four o'clock, but she rarely looked at her +watch, and indeed wound it up only now and then.</p> + +<p>"Will you go below and have some lunch, my lady?" said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"There can't be anything on board!" she answered.</p> + +<p>"Come and see, my lady," rejoined Malcolm, and led the way to +the companion.</p> + +<p>When she saw the little cabin, she gave a cry of delight.</p> + +<p>"Why, it is just like our own cabin in the Psyche," she said, +"only smaller! Is it not, Malcolm?"</p> + +<p>"It is smaller, my lady," returned Malcolm, "but then there is +a little state room beyond."</p> + +<p>On the table was a nice meal -- cold, but not the less +agreeable in the summer weather. Everything looked charming. +There were flowers; the linen was snowy; and the bread was the +very sort Florimel liked best.</p> + +<p>"It is a perfect fairy tale!" she cried. "And I declare here +is our crest on the forks and spoons! -- What does it all mean, +Malcolm?"</p> + +<p>But Malcolm had slipped away, and gone on deck again, leaving +her to food and conjecture, while he brought Rose up from the +fore cabin for a little air. Finding her fast asleep, however, he +left her undisturbed.</p> + +<p>Florimel finished her meal, and set about examining the cabin +more closely. The result was bewilderment. How could a yacht, +fitted with such completeness, such luxury, be lying for hire in +the Thames? As for the crest on the plate, that was a curious +coincidence: many people had the same crest. But both materials +and colours were like those of the Pysche! Then the pretty +bindings on the book shelves attracted her: every book was either +one she knew or one of which Malcolm had spoken to her! He must +have had a hand in the business! Next she opened the door of the +stateroom; but when she saw the lovely little white berth, and +the indications of every comfort belonging to a lady's chamber, +she could keep her pleasure to herself no longer. She hastened to +the companionway, and called Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"What does it all mean?" she said, her eyes and cheeks glowing +with delight.</p> + +<p>"It means, my lady, that you are on board your own yacht, the +Pysche. I brought her with me from Portlossie, and have had her +fitted up according to the wish you once expressed to my lord, +your father, that you could sleep on board. Now you might make a +voyage of many days in her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Malcolm!" was all Florimel could answer. She was too +pleased to think as yet of any of the thousand questions that +might naturally have followed.</p> + +<p>"Why, you've got the Arabian Nights, and all my favourite +books there!" she said at length. -- "How long shall we have +before we get among the ships again?"</p> + +<p>She fancied she had given orders to return, and that the boat +had been put about.</p> + +<p>"A good many hours, my lady," answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Ah, of course!" she returned; "it takes much longer against +wind and tide. -- But my time is my own," she added, rather in +the manner of one asserting a freedom she did not feel, "and I +don't see why I should trouble myself. It will make some to do, I +daresay, if I don't appear at dinner; but it won't do anybody any +harm. They wouldn't break their hearts if they never saw me +again."</p> + +<p>"Not one of them, my lady," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>She lifted her head sharply, but took no farther notice of his +remark.</p> + +<p>"I won't be plagued any more," she said, holding counsel with +herself, but intending Malcolm to hear. "I will break with them +rather. Why should I not be as free as Clementina? She comes and +goes when and where she likes, and does what she pleases."</p> + +<p>"Why, indeed?" said Malcolm; and a pause followed, during +which Florimel stood apparently thinking, but in reality growing +sleepy.</p> + +<p>"I will lie down a little," she said, "with one of those +lovely books."</p> + +<p>The excitement, the air, and the pleasure generally had +wearied her. Nothing could have suited Malcolm better. He left +her. She went to her berth, and fell fast asleep.</p> + +<p>When she awoke, it was some time before she could think where +she was. A strange ghostly light was about her, in which she +could see nothing plain; but the motion helped her to understand. +She rose, and crept to the companion ladder, and up on deck. +Wonder upon wonder! A clear full moon reigned high in the +heavens, and below there was nothing but water, gleaming with her +molten face, or rushing past the boat lead coloured, gray, and +white. Here and there a vessel -- a snow cloud of sails -- would +glide between them and the moon, and turn black from truck to +waterline.</p> + +<p>The mast of the Psyche had shot up to its full height; the +reef points of the mainsail were loose, and the gaff was crowned +with its topsail; foresail and jib were full; and she was flying +as if her soul thirsted within her after infinite spaces. Yet +what more could she want? All around her was wave rushing upon +wave, and above her blue heaven and regnant moon. Florimel gave a +great sigh of delight.</p> + +<p>But what did it -- what could it mean? What was Malcolm about? +Where was he taking her? What would London say to such an +escapade extraordinary? Lady Bellair would be the first to +believe she had run away with her groom -- she knew so many +instances of that sort of thing! and Lord Liftore would be the +next. It was too bad of Malcolm! But she did not feel very angry +with him, notwithstanding, for had he not done it to give her +pleasure? And assuredly he had not failed. He knew better than +anyone how to please her -- better even than Lenorme.</p> + +<p>She looked around her. No one was to be seen but Davie, who +was steering. The mainsail hid the men, and Rose, having been on +deck for two or three hours, was again below. She turned to Davy. +But the boy had been schooled, and only answered,</p> + +<p>"I maunna sae naething sae lang's I'm steerin', mem."</p> + +<p>She called Malcolm. He was beside her ere his name had left +her lips. The boy's reply had irritated her, and, coming upon +this sudden and utter change in her circumstances, made her feel +as one no longer lady of herself and her people, but a +prisoner.</p> + +<p>"Once more, what does this mean, Malcolm?" she said, in high +displeasure. "You have deceived me shamefully! You left me to +believe we were on our way back to London -- and here we are out +at sea! Am I no longer your mistress? Am I a child, to be taken +where you please? -- And what, pray, is to become of the horses +you left at Mr Lenorme's?"</p> + +<p>Malcolm was glad of a question he was prepared to answer.</p> + +<p>"They are in their own stalls by this time, my lady. I took +care of that."</p> + +<p>"Then it was all a trick to carry me off against my will!" she +cried, with growing indignation.</p> + +<p>"Hardly against your will, my lady," said Malcolm, embarrassed +and thoughtful, in a tone deprecating and apologetic.</p> + +<p>"Utterly against my will!" insisted Florimel. "Could I ever +have consented to go to sea with a boatful of men, and not a +woman on board? You have disgraced me, Malcolm."</p> + +<p>Between anger and annoyance she was on the point of +crying.</p> + +<p>"It's not so bad as that, my lady. -- Here, Rose!"</p> + +<p>At his word, Rose appeared.</p> + +<p>"I've brought one of Lady Bellair's maids for your service, my +lady," Malcolm went on. "She will do the best she can to wait on +you."</p> + +<p>Florimel gave her a look.</p> + +<p>"I don't remember you," she said.</p> + +<p>"No, my lady. I was in the kitchen."</p> + +<p>"Then you can't be of much use to me."</p> + +<p>"A willing heart goes a long way, my lady," said Rose, +prettily.</p> + +<p>"That is fine," returned Florimel, rather pleased. "Can you +get me some tea?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady."</p> + +<p>Florimel turned, and, much to Malcolm's content vouchsafing +him not a word more, went below.</p> + +<p>Presently a little silver lamp appeared in the roof of the +cabin, and in a few minutes Davy came, carrying the tea tray, and +followed by Rose with the teapot. As soon as they were alone, +Florimel began to question Rose; but the girl soon satisfied her +that she knew little or nothing.</p> + +<p>When Florimel pressed her how she could go she knew not where +at the desire of a fellow servant, she gave such confused and +apparently contradictory answers, that Florimel began to think +ill of both her and Malcolm, and to feel more uncomfortable and +indignant; and the more she dwelt upon Malcolm's presumption, and +speculated as to his possible design in it, she grew the +angrier.</p> + +<p>She went again on deck. By this time she was in a passion -- +little mollified by the sense of her helplessness.</p> + +<p>"MacPhail," she said, laying the restraint of dignified +utterance upon her words, "I desire you to give me a good reason +for your most unaccountable behaviour. Where are you taking +me?"</p> + +<p>"To Lossie House, my lady."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" she returned with scornful and contemptuous +surprise. "Then I order you to change your course at once and +return to London."</p> + +<p>"I cannot, my lady."</p> + +<p>"Cannot! Whose orders but mine are you under, pray?"</p> + +<p>"Your father's, my lady."</p> + +<p>"I have heard more than enough of that unfortunate -- +statement, and the measureless assumptions founded on it. I shall +heed it no longer."</p> + +<p>"I am only doing my best to take care of you, my lady, as I +promised him. You will know it one day if you will but trust +me."</p> + +<p>"I have trusted you ten times too much, and have gained +nothing in return but reasons for repenting it. Like all other +servants made too much of you have grown insolent. But I shall +put a stop to it. I cannot possibly keep you in my service after +this. Am I to pay a master where I want a servant?"</p> + +<p>Malcolm was silent.</p> + +<p>"You must have some reason for this strange conduct," she went +on. "How can your supposed duty to my father justify you in +treating me with such disrespect. Let me know your reasons. I +have a right to know them."</p> + +<p>"I will answer you, my lady," said Malcolm. "-- Davy, go +forward; I will take the helm. -- Now, my lady, if you will sit +on that cushion. -- Rose, bring my lady a fur cloak you will find +in the cabin. -- Now, my lady, if you will speak low that neither +Davy nor Rose shall hear us. -- Travers is deaf -- I will answer +you."</p> + +<p>"I ask you," said Florimel, "why you have dared to bring me +away like this. Nothing but some danger threatening me could +justify it."</p> + +<p>"There you say it, my lady."</p> + +<p>"And what is the danger, pray?"</p> + +<p>'You were going on the continent with Lady Bellair and Lord +Liftore -- and without me to do as I had promised."</p> + +<p>"You insult me!" cried Florimel. "Are my movements to be +subject to the approbation of my groom? Is it possible my father +could give his henchman such authority over his daughter? I ask +you again, where was the danger?"</p> + +<p>"In your company, my lady."</p> + +<p>"So!" exclaimed Florimel, attempting to rise in sarcasm as she +rose in wrath, lest she should fall into undignified rage. "And +what may be your objection to my companions?"</p> + +<p>"That Lady Bellair is not respected in any circle where her +history is known; and that her nephew is a scoundrel."</p> + +<p>"It but adds to the wrong you heap on me, that you compel me +to hear such wicked abuse of my father's friends," said Florimel, +struggling with tears of anger. But for regard to her dignity she +would have broken out in fierce and voluble rage.</p> + +<p>"If your father knew Lord Liftore as I do, he would be the +last man my lord marquis would see in your company."</p> + +<p>"Because he gave you a beating, you have no right to slander +him," said Florimel spitefully.</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed. He must either laugh or be angry.</p> + +<p>"May I ask how your ladyship came to hear of that?"</p> + +<p>"He told me himself," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Then, my lady, he is a liar, as well as worse. It was I who +gave him the drubbing he deserved for his insolence to my -- +mistress. I am sorry to mention the disagreeable fact, but it is +absolutely necessary you should know what sort of man he is."</p> + +<p>"And, if there be a lie, which of the two is more likely to +tell it?"</p> + +<p>"That question is for you, my lady, to answer."</p> + +<p>"I never knew a servant who would not tell a lie," said +Florimel.</p> + +<p>"I was brought up a fisherman," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"And," Florimel went on, "I have heard my father say no +gentleman ever told a lie."</p> + +<p>"Then Lord Liftore is no gentleman," said Malcolm. "But I am +not going to plead my own cause even to you, my lady. If you can +doubt me, do. I have only one thing more to say: that when I told +you and my Lady Clementina about the fisher girl and the +gentleman --"</p> + +<p>"How dare you refer to that again? Even you ought to know +there are things a lady cannot hear. It is enough you affronted +me with that before Lady Clementina -- and after foolish boasts +on my part of your good breeding! Now you bring it up again, when +I cannot escape your low talk!"</p> + +<p>"My lady, I am sorrier than you think; but which is worse -- +that you should hear such a thing spoken of, or make a friend of +the man who did it -- and that is Lord Liftore?"</p> + +<p>Florimel turned away, and gave her seeming attention to the +moonlit waters, sweeping past the swift sailing cutter.</p> + +<p>Malcolm's heart ached for her: he thought she was deeply +troubled. But she was not half so shocked as he imagined. +Infinitely worse would have been the shock to him could he have +seen how little the charge against Liftore had touched her. Alas! +evil communications had already in no small degree corrupted her +good manners. Lady Bellair had uttered no bad words in her +hearing: had softened to decency every story that required it; +had not unfrequently tacked a worldly wise moral to the end of +one; and yet, and yet, such had been the tone of her telling, +such the allotment of laughter and lamentation, such the +acceptance of things as necessary, and such the repudiation of +things as Quixotic, puritanical, impossible, that the girl's +natural notions of the lovely and the clean had got dismally +shaken and confused.</p> + +<p>Happily it was as yet more her judgment than her heart that +was perverted. But had she spoken out what was in her thoughts as +she looked over the great wallowing water, she would have merely +said that for all that Liftore was no worse than other men. They +were all the same. It was very unpleasant; but how could a lady +help it? If men would behave so, were by nature like that, women +must not make themselves miserable about it. They need ask no +questions. They were not supposed to be acquainted with the least +fragment of the facts, and they must cleave to their ignorance, +and lay what blame there might be on the women concerned. The +thing was too indecent even to think about.</p> + +<p>Ostrich-like they must hide their heads -- close their eyes +and take the vice in their arms -- to love, honour, and obey, as +if it were virtue's self, and men as pure as their demands on +their wives.</p> + +<p>There are thousands that virtually reason thus: Only ignore +the thing effectually, and for you it is not. Lie right +thoroughly to yourself, and the thing is gone. The lie destroys +the fact. So reasoned Lady Macbeth -- until conscience at last +awoke, and she could no longer keep even the smell of the blood +from her. What need Lady Lossie care about the fisher girl, or +any other concerned with his past, so long as he behaved like a +gentleman to her! Malcolm was a foolish meddling fellow, whose +interference was the more troublesome that it was honest.</p> + +<p>She stood thus gazing on the waters that heaved and swept +astern, but without knowing that she saw them, her mind full of +such nebulous matter as, condensed, would have made such thoughts +as I have set down. And still and ever the water rolled and +tossed away behind in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my lady!" said Malcolm, "what it would be to have a soul +as big and as clean as all this!"</p> + +<p>She made no reply, did not turn her head, or acknowledge that +she heard him, a few minutes more she stood, then went below in +silence, and Malcolm saw no more of her that night.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII: HOPE +CHAPEL</h1> + +<p>It was Sunday, during which Malcolm lay at the point of death +some three stories above his sister's room. There, in the +morning, while he was at the worst, she was talking with +Clementina, who had called to see whether she would not go and +hear the preacher of whom he had spoken with such fervour. +Florimel laughed.</p> + +<p>"You seem to take everything for gospel Malcolm says, +Clementina!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," returned Clementina, rather annoyed. "Gospel +nowadays is what nobody disputes and nobody heeds; but I do heed +what Malcolm says, and intend to find out, if I can, whether +there is any reality in it. I thought you had a high opinion of +your groom!"</p> + +<p>"I would take his word for anything a man's word can be taken +for," said Florimel.</p> + +<p>"But you don't set much store by his judgment?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I daresay he's right. But I don't care for the things you +like so much to talk with him about. He's a sort of poet, anyhow, +and poets must be absurd. They are always either dreaming or +talking about their dreams. They care nothing for the realities +of life. No -- if you want advice, you must go to your lawyer or +clergyman, or some man of common sense, neither groom nor +poet."</p> + +<p>"Then, Florimel, it comes to this -- that this groom of yours +is one of the truest of men, and one who possessed your father's +confidence, but you are so much his superior that you are capable +of judging him, and justified in despising his judgment."</p> + +<p>"Only in practical matters, Clementina."</p> + +<p>"And duty towards God is with you such a practical matter that +you cannot listen to anything he has got to say about it."</p> + +<p>Florimel shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"For my part, I would give all I have to know there was a God +worth believing in."</p> + +<p>"Clementina!"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Of course there is a God. It is very horrible to deny +it."</p> + +<p>"Which is worse -- to deny it, or to deny him? Now, I confess +to doubting it -- that is, the fact of a God; but you seem to me +to deny God himself, for you admit there is a God -- think it +very wicked to deny that, and yet you don't take interest enough +in him to wish to learn anything about him. You won't think, +Florimel. I don't fancy you ever really think."</p> + +<p>Florimel again laughed.</p> + +<p>"I am glad," she said, "that you don't judge me incapable of +that high art. But it is not so very long since Malcolm used to +hint something much the same about yourself, my lady!"</p> + +<p>"Then he was quite right," returned Clementina. "I am only +just beginning to think, and if I can find a teacher, here I am, +his pupil."</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose I can spare my groom quite enough to teach +you all he knows," Florimel said, with what Clementina took for a +marked absence of expression. She reddened. But she was not one +to defend herself before her principles.</p> + +<p>"If he can, why should he not?" she said. "But it was of his +friend Mr Graham I was thinking- -- not himself."</p> + +<p>"You cannot tell whether he has got anything to teach +you."</p> + +<p>"Your groom's testimony gives likelihood enough to make it my +duty to go and see. I intend to find the place this evening."</p> + +<p>"It must be some little ranting methodist conventicle. He +would not be allowed to preach in a church, you know."</p> + +<p>"Of course not! The church of England is like the apostle that +forbade the man casting out devils, and got forbid himself for it +-- with this difference that she won't be forbid. Well, she +chooses her portion with Dives and not Lazarus. She is the most +arrant respecter of persons I know, and her Christianity is worse +than a farce. It was that first of all that drove me to doubt. If +I could find a place where everything was just the opposite, the +poorer it was the better I should like it. It makes me feel quite +wicked to hear a smug parson reading the gold ring and the goodly +apparel, while the pew openers beneath are illustrating in dumb +show the very thing the apostle is pouring out the vial of his +indignation upon over their heads; -- doing it calmly and without +a suspicion, for the parson, while he reads, is rejoicing in his +heart over the increasing aristocracy of his congregation. The +farce is fit to make a devil in torment laugh."</p> + +<p>Once more, Florimel laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>"Another revolution, Clementina, and we shall have you heading +the canaille to destroy Westminster Abbey."</p> + +<p>"I would follow any leader to destroy falsehood," said +Clementina. "No canaille will take that up until it meddles with +their stomachs or their pew rents."</p> + +<p>"Really, Clementina, you are the worst Jacobin I ever heard +talk. My groom is quite an aristocrat beside you."</p> + +<p>"Not an atom more than I am. I do acknowledge an aristocracy +-- but it is one neither of birth nor of intellect nor of +wealth."</p> + +<p>"What is there besides to make one?"</p> + +<p>"Something I hope to find before long. What if there be indeed +a kingdom and an aristocracy of life and truth! -- Will you or +will you not go with me to hear this schoolmaster?"</p> + +<p>"I will go anywhere with you, if it were only to be seen with +such a beauty," said Florimel, throwing her arms round her neck +and kissing her.</p> + +<p>Clementina gently returned the embrace, and the thing was +settled.</p> + +<p>The sound of their wheels, pausing in swift revolution with +the clangor of iron hoofs on rough stones at the door of the +chapel, refreshed the diaconal heart like the sound of water in +the desert. For the first time in the memory of the oldest, the +dayspring of success seemed on the point of breaking over Hope +Chapel. The ladies were ushered in by Mr Marshal himself, to +Clementina's disgust and Florimel's amusement, with much the same +attention as his own shop walker would have shown to carriage +customers -- How could a man who taught light and truth be found +in such a mean entourage? But the setting was not the jewel. A +real stone might be found in a copper ring. So said Clementina to +herself as she sat waiting her hoped for instructor.</p> + +<p>Mrs Catanach settled her broad back into its corner, chuckling +over her own wisdom and foresight. Her seat was at the pulpit end +of the chapel, at right angles to almost all the rest of the pews +-- chosen because thence, if indeed she could not well see the +preacher, she could get a good glimpse of nearly everyone that +entered. Keen sighted both physically and intellectually, she +recognized Florimel the moment she saw her.</p> + +<p>"Twa doos mair to the boody craw!" she laughed to herself. "Ae +man thrashin', an' twa birdies pickin'!" she went on, quoting the +old nursery nonsense. Then she stooped, and let down her veil. +Florimel hated her, and therefore might know her.</p> + +<p>"It's the day o' the Lord wi' auld Sanny Grame!" she resumed +to herself, as she lifted her head. "He's stickit nae mair, but a +chosen trumpet at last! Foul fa' 'im for a wearifu' cratur for a' +that! He has nowther balm o' grace nor pith o' damnation.</p> + +<p>"Yon laad Flemin', 'at preached i' the Baillies' Barn aboot +the dowgs gaein' roon' an' roon' the wa's o' the New Jeroozlem, +gien he had but hauden thegither an' no gean to the worms sae +sune, wad hae dung a score o' 'im. But Sanny angers me to that +degree 'at but for rizons -- like yon twa -- I wad gang oot i' +the mids o' ane o' 's palahvers, an' never come back, though I +ha'e a haill quarter o' my sittin' to sit oot yet, an' it cost me +dear, an' fits the auld back o' me no that ill."</p> + +<p>When Mr Graham rose to read the psalm, great was Clementina's +disappointment: he looked altogether, as she thought, of a sort +with the place -- mean and dreary -- of the chapel very chapelly, +and she did not believe it could be the man of whom Malcolm had +spoken. By a strange coincidence however, a kind of occurrence as +frequent as strange, he read for his text that same passage about +the gold ring and the vile raiment, in which we learn how exactly +the behaviour of the early Jewish churches corresponded to that +of the later English ones, and Clementina soon began to alter her +involuntary judgment of him when she found herself listening to +an utterance beside which her most voluble indignation would have +been but as the babble of a child.</p> + +<p>Sweeping, incisive, withering, blasting denunciation, logic +and poetry combining in one torrent of genuine eloquence, poured +confusion and dismay upon head and heart of all who set +themselves up for pillars of the church without practising the +first principles of the doctrine of Christ -- men who, professing +to gather their fellows together in the name of Christ, conducted +the affairs of the church on the principles of hell -- men so +blind and dull and slow of heart, that they would never know what +the outer darkness meant until it had closed around them -- men +who paid court to the rich for their money, and to the poor for +their numbers -- men who sought gain first, safety next, and the +will of God not at all -- men whose presentation of Christianity +was enough to drive the world to a preferable infidelity.</p> + +<p>Clementina listened with her very soul. All doubt as to +whether this was Malcolm's friend, vanished within two minutes of +his commencement. If she rejoiced a little more than was humble +or healthful in finding that such a man thought as she thought, +she gained this good notwithstanding -- the presence and power of +a man who believed in righteousness the doctrine he taught. Also +she perceived that the principles of equality he held, were +founded on the infinite possibilities of the individual -- and of +the race only through the individual; and that he held these +principles with an absoluteness, an earnestness, a simplicity, +that dwarfed her loudest objurgation to the uneasy murmuring of a +sleeper. She could not but trust him, and her hope grew great +that perhaps for her he held the key of the kingdom of heaven. +She saw that if what this man said was true, then the gospel was +represented by men who knew nothing of its real nature, and by +such she bad been led into a false judgment of it.</p> + +<p>"If such a man," said the schoolmaster in conclusion, "would +but once represent to himself that the man whom he regards as +beneath him, may nevertheless be immeasurably above him -- and +that after no arbitrary judgment, but according to the absolute +facts of creation, the scale of the kingdom of God, in which +being is rank; if he could persuade himself of the possibility +that he may yet have to worship before the feet of those on whom +he looks down as on the creatures of another and meaner order of +creation, would it not sting him to rise, and, lest this should +be one of such, make offer of his chair to the poor man in the +vile raiment? Would he ever more, all his life long, dare to say, +'Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool?'"</p> + +<p>During the week that followed, Clementina reflected with +growing delight on what she had heard, and looked forward to +hearing more of a kind correspondent on the approaching Sunday. +Nor did the shock of the disappearance of Florimel with Malcolm +abate her desire to be taught by Malcolm's friend.</p> + +<p>Lady Bellair was astounded, mortified, enraged. Liftore turned +grey with passion, then livid with mortification, at the news. +Not one of all their circle, as Florimel had herself foreseen, +doubted for a moment that she had run away with that groom of +hers. Indeed, upon examination, it became evident that the scheme +had been for some time in hand: the yacht they had gone on board +had been lying there for months; and although she was her own +mistress, and might marry whom she pleased, it was no wonder she +had run away, for how could she have held her face to it, or up +after it?</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina accepted the general conclusion, but judged it +individually. She had more reason to be distressed at what seemed +to have taken place than anyone else; indeed it stung her to the +heart, wounding her worse than in its first stunning effects she +was able to know; yet she thought better rather than worse of +Florimel because of it. What she did not like in her with +reference to the affair was the depreciatory manner in which she +had always spoken of Malcolm. If genuine, it was quite +inconsistent with due regard for the man for whom she was yet +prepared to sacrifice so much; if, on the other hand, her slight +opinion of his judgment was a pretence, then she had been +disloyal to the just prerogatives of friendship.</p> + +<p>The latter part of that week was the sorest time Clementina +had ever passed. But, like a true woman, she fought her own +misery and sense of loss, as well as her annoyance and anxiety, +-- constantly saying to herself that, be the thing as it might, +she could never cease to be glad that she had known Malcolm +MacPhail.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LIII"></a>CHAPTER LIII: A NEW +PUPIL</h1> + +<p>The sermon Lady Clementina heard with such delight had +followed one levelled at the common and right worldly idea of +success harboured by each, and unquestioned by one of the chief +men of the community: together they caused a strange uncertain +sense of discomfort in the mind diaconal. Slow to perceive that +that idea, nauseous in his presentment of it, was the very same +cherished and justified by themselves; unwilling also to believe +that in his denunciation of respecters of persons they themselves +had a full share, they yet felt a little uneasy from the vague +whispers of their consciences on the side of the neglected +principles enounced, clashing with the less vague conviction that +if those whispers were encouraged and listened to, the ruin of +their hopes for their chapel, and their influence in connection +with it, must follow. They eyed each other doubtfully, and there +appeared a general tendency amongst them to close pressed lips +and single shakes of the head. But there were other forces at +work -- tending in the same direction.</p> + +<p>Whatever may have been the influence of the schoolmaster upon +the congregation gathered in Hope Chapel, there was one on whom +his converse, supplemented by his preaching, had taken genuine +hold. Frederick Marshal had begun to open his eyes to the fact +that, regarded as a profession, the ministry, as they called it +in their communion, was the meanest way of making a living in the +whole creation, one deserving the contempt of every man honest +enough to give honourable work, that is, work worth the money, +for the money paid him. Also he had a glimmering insight, on the +other hand, into the truth of what the dominie said -- that it +was the noblest of martyrdoms to the man who, sent by God, loved +the truth with his whole soul, and was never happier than when +bearing witness of it, except, indeed, in those blessed moments +when receiving it of the Father. In consequence of this opening +of his eyes the youth recoiled with dismay from the sacrilegious +mockery of which he had been guilty in meditating the presumption +of teaching holy things of which the sole sign that he knew +anything was now afforded by this same recoil. At last he was not +far from the kingdom of heaven, though whether he was to be sent +to persuade men that that kingdom was amongst them, and must be +in them, remained a question.</p> + +<p>On the morning after the latter of those two sermons, +Frederick, as they sat at breakfast, succeeded, with no small +effort, for he feared his mother, in blurting out to his father +the request that he might be taken into the counting house; and +when indignantly requested, over the top of the teapot, to +explain himself, declared that he found it impossible to give his +mind to a course of education which could only end in the +disappointment of his parents, seeing he was at length satisfied +that he had no call to the ministry. His father was not +displeased at the thought of having him at the shop; but his +mother was for some moments speechless with angry tribulation. +Recovering herself, with scornful bitterness she requested to +know to what tempter he had been giving ear -- for tempted he +must have been ere son of hers would have been guilty of +backsliding from the cause; of taking his hand from the plough +and looking behind him. The youth returned such answers as, while +they satisfied his father he was right, served only to convince +his mother, where yet conviction was hardly needed, that she had +to thank the dominie for his defection, his apostasy from the +church to the world.</p> + +<p>Incapable of perceiving that now first there was hope of a +genuine disciple in the child of her affection, she was filled +with the gall of disappointment, and with spite against the man +who had taught her son how worse than foolish it is to aspire to +teach before one has learned; nor did she fail to cast scathing +reflections on her husband, in that he had brought home a viper +in his bosom, a wolf into his fold, the wretched minion of a +worldly church to lead her son away captive at his will; and +partly no doubt from his last uncomfortable sermons, but mainly +from the play of Mrs Marshal's tongue on her husband's tympanum, +the deacons in full conclave agreed that no further renewal of +the invitation to preach "for them" should be made to the +schoolmaster -- just the end of the business Mr Graham had +expected, and for which he had provided. On Tuesday morning he +smiled to himself, and wondered whether, if he were to preach in +his own schoolroom the next Sunday evening, anyone would come to +hear him. On Saturday he received a cool letter of thanks for his +services, written by the ironmonger in the name of the deacons, +enclosing a cheque, tolerably liberal as ideas went, in +acknowledgment of them. The cheque Mr Graham returned, saying +that, as he was not a preacher by profession, he had no right to +take fees. It was a half holiday: he walked up to Hampstead +Heath, and was paid for everything, in sky and cloud, fresh air, +and a glorious sunset.</p> + +<p>When the end of her troubled week came, and the Sunday of her +expectation brought lovely weather, with a certain vague +suspicion of peace, into the regions of Mayfair and Spitalfields, +Clementina walked across the Regent's Park to Hope Chapel, and +its morning observances; but thought herself poorly repaid for +her exertions by having to listen to a dreadful sermon and worse +prayers from Mr Masquar -- one of the chief priests of +Commonplace -- a comfortable idol to serve, seeing he accepts as +homage to himself all that any man offers to his own person, +opinions, or history. But Clementina contrived to endure it, +comforting herself that she had made a mistake in supposing Mr +Graham preached in the morning.</p> + +<p>In the evening her carriage once again drew up with clang and +clatter at the door of the chapel. But her coachman was out of +temper at having to leave the bosom of his family circle -- as he +styled the table that upheld his pot of beer and jar of tobacco +-- of a Sunday, and sought relief to his feelings in giving his +horses a lesson in crawling; the result of which was fortunate +for his mistress: when she entered, the obnoxious Mr Masquar was +already reading the hymn. She turned at once and made for the +door.</p> + +<p>But her carriage was already gone. A strange sense of +loneliness and desolation seized her. The place had grown hateful +to her, and she would have fled from it. Yet she lingered in the +porch. The eyes of the man in the pulpit, with his face of false +solemnity and low importance -- she seemed to feel the look of +them on her back, yet she lingered. Now that Malcolm was gone, +how was she to learn when Mr Graham would be preaching?</p> + +<p>"If you please, ma'am," said a humble and dejected voice.</p> + +<p>She turned and saw the seamed and smoky face of the pew +opener, who had been watching her from the lobby, and had crept +out after her. She dropped a courtesy, and went on hurriedly, +with an anxious look now and then over her shoulder -- "Oh, +ma'am! we shan't see 'im no more. Our people here -- they're very +good people, but they don't like to be told the truth. It seems +to me as if they knowed it so well they thought as how there was +no need for them to mind it."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that Mr Graham has given up preaching +here?"</p> + +<p>"They've given up askin' of 'im to preach, lady. But if ever +there was a good man in that pulpit, Mr Graham he do be that +man!"</p> + +<p>"Do you know where he lives?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am; but it would be hard to direct you." Here she +looked in at the door of the chapel with a curious half +frightened glance, as if to satisfy herself that the inner door +was closed. "But," she went on, "they won't miss me now the +service is begun, and I can be back before it's over. I'll show +you where, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"I should be greatly obliged to you," said Clementina, "only I +am sorry to give you the trouble."</p> + +<p>"To tell the truth, I'm only too glad to get away," she +returned, "for the place it do look like a cementery, now he's +out of it."</p> + +<p>"Was he so kind to you?"</p> + +<p>"He never spoke word to me, as to myself like, no, nor never +gave me sixpence, like Mr Masquar do; but he give me strength in +my heart to bear up, and that's better than meat or money."</p> + +<p>It was a good half hour's walk, and during it Clementina held +what conversation she might with her companion. It was not much +the woman had to say of a general sort. She knew little beyond +her own troubles and the help that met them, but what else are +the two main forces whose composition results in upward motion? +Her world was very limited -- the houses in which she went +charing, the chapel she swept and dusted, the neighbours with +whom she gossipped, the little shops where she bought the barest +needs of her bare life; but it was at least large enough to leave +behind her; and if she was not one to take the kingdom of heaven +by force, she was yet one to creep quietly into it. The earthly +life of such as she -- immeasurably less sordid than that of the +poet who will not work for his daily bread, or that of the +speculator who, having settled money on his wife, risks that of +his neighbour -- passing away like a cloud, will hang in their +west, stained indeed, but with gold, blotted, but with roses. +Dull as it all was now, Clementina yet gained from her unfoldings +a new outlook upon life, its needs, its sorrows, its +consolations, and its hopes; nor was there any vulgar pity in the +smile of the one, or of degrading acknowledgment in the tears of +the other, when a piece of gold passed from hand to hand, as they +parted.</p> + +<p>The Sunday sealed door of the stationer's shop -- for there +was no private entrance to the house -- was opened by another sad +faced woman. What a place to seek the secret of life in! Lovelily +enfolds the husk its kernel; but what the human eye turns from as +squalid and unclean may enfold the seed that clasps, couched in +infinite withdrawment, the vital germ of all that is lovely and +graceful, harmonious and strong, all without which no poet would +sing, no martyr burn, no king rule in righteousness, no +geometrician pore over the marvellous must.</p> + +<p>The woman led her through the counter into a little dingy room +behind the shop, looking out on a yard a few feet square, with a +water butt, half a dozen flower pots, and a maimed plaster Cupid +perched on the windowsill. There sat the schoolmaster, in +conversation with a lady, whom the woman of the house, awed by +her sternness and grandeur, had, out of regard to her lodger's +feelings, shown into her parlour and not into his bedroom.</p> + +<p>Cherishing the hope that the patent consequences of his line +of action might have already taught him moderation, Mrs Marshal, +instead of going to chapel to hear Mr Masquar, had paid Mr Graham +a visit, with the object of enlisting his sympathies if she +could, at all events his services, in the combating of the +scruples he had himself aroused in the bosom of her son. What had +passed between them I do not care to record, but when Lady +Clementina -- unannounced of the landlady -- entered, there was +light enough, notwithstanding the non reflective properties of +the water butt, to reveal Mrs Marshal flushed and flashing, Mr +Graham grave and luminous, and to enable the chapel business eye +of Mrs Marshal, which saw every stranger that entered "Hope," at +once to recognise her as having made one of the congregation the +last Sunday evening.</p> + +<p>Evidently one of Mr Graham's party, she was not prejudiced in +her favour. But there was that in her manner which impressed her +-- that something ethereal and indescribable which she herself +was constantly aping, and, almost involuntarily, she took upon +herself such honours as the place, despicable in her eyes, would +admit of. She rose, made a sweeping courtesy, and addressed Lady +Clementina with such a manner as people of Mrs Marshal's +ambitions put off and on like their clothes.</p> + +<p>"Pray, take a seat, ma'am, such as it is," she said, with a +wave of her hand. "I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing +you at our place."</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina sat down: the room was too small to stand in, +and Mrs Marshal seemed to take the half of it.</p> + +<p>"I am not aware of the honour," she returned, doubtful what +the woman meant -- perhaps some shop or dressmaker's. Clementina +was not one who delighted in freezing her humbler fellow +creatures, as we know; but there was something altogether +repulsive in the would be grand but really arrogant behaviour of +her fellow visitor.</p> + +<p>"I mean," said Mrs Marshal, a little abashed, for ambition is +not strength, "at our little Bethel in Kentish Town! Not that we +live there!" she explained with a superior smile.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I think I understand. You must mean the chapel where this +gentleman was preaching."</p> + +<p>"That is my meaning," assented Mrs Marshal.</p> + +<p>"I went there tonight," said Clementina, turning with some +timidity to Mr Graham. "That I did not find you there, sir, will, +I hope, explain --" Here she paused, and turned again to Mrs +Marshal. "I see you think with me, ma'am, that a true teacher is +worth following."</p> + +<p>As she said this she turned once more to Mr Graham, who sat +listening with a queer, amused, but right courteous smile.</p> + +<p>"I hope you will pardon me," she continued, "for venturing to +call upon you, and, as I have the misfortune to find you +occupied, allow me to call another day. If you would set me a +time, I should be more obliged than I can tell you," she +concluded, her voice trembling a little.</p> + +<p>"Stay now, if you will, madam," returned the schoolmaster, +with a bow of oldest fashioned courtesy. "This lady has done +laying her commands upon me, I believe."</p> + +<p>"As you think proper to call them commands, Mr Graham, I +conclude you intend to obey them," said Mrs Marshal, with a +forced smile and an attempt at pleasantry.</p> + +<p>"Not for the world, madam," he answered. "Your son is acting +the part of a gentleman -- yes, I make bold to say, of one who is +very nigh the kingdom of heaven, if not indeed within its gate, +and before I would check him I would be burnt at the stake -- +even were your displeasure the fire, madam," he added, with a +kindly bow. "Your son is a fine fellow."</p> + +<p>"He would be, if he were left to himself. Good evening, Mr +Graham. Goodbye, rather, for I think we are not likely to meet +again."</p> + +<p>"In heaven, I hope, madam; for by that time we shall be able +to understand each other," said the schoolmaster, still +kindly.</p> + +<p>Mrs Marshal made no answer beyond a facial flash as she turned +to Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, ma'am," she said. "To pay court to the earthen +vessel because of the treasure it may happen to hold, is to be a +respecter of persons as bad as any."</p> + +<p>An answering flash broke from Clementina's blue orbs, but her +speech was more than calm as she returned,</p> + +<p>"I learned something of that lesson last Sunday evening, I +hope, ma'am. But you have left me far behind, for you seem to +have learned disrespect even to the worthiest of persons. Good +evening, ma'am."</p> + +<p>She looked the angry matron full in the face, with an icy +regard, from which, as from the Gorgon eye, she fled.</p> + +<p>The victor turned to the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, sir," she said, "for presuming to take +your part, but a gentleman is helpless with a vulgar woman."</p> + +<p>"I thank you, madam. I hope the sharpness of your rebuke -- +but indeed the poor woman can hardly help her rudeness, for she +is very worldly, and believes herself very pious. It is the old +story -- hard for the rich."</p> + +<p>Clementina was struck.</p> + +<p>"I too am rich and worldly," she said. "But I know that I am +not pious, and if you would but satisfy me that religion is +common sense, I would try to be religious with all my heart and +soul."</p> + +<p>"I willingly undertake the task. But let us know each other a +little first. And lest I should afterwards seem to have taken an +advantage of you, I hope you have no wish to be nameless to me, +for my friend Malcolm MacPhail had so described you that I +recognized your ladyship at once."</p> + +<p>Clementina said that, on the contrary, she had given her name +to the woman who opened the door.</p> + +<p>"It is because of what Malcolm said of you that I ventured to +come to you," she added.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen Malcolm lately?" he asked, his brow clouding a +little. "It is more than a week since he has been to me."</p> + +<p>Thereupon, with embarrassment, such as she would never have +felt except in the presence of pure simplicity, she told of his +disappearance with his mistress.</p> + +<p>"And you think they have run away together?" said the +schoolmaster, his face beaming with what, to Clementina's +surprise, looked almost like merriment.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so," she answered. "Why not, if they +choose?"</p> + +<p>"I will say this for my friend Malcolm," returned Mr Graham +composedly, "that whatever he did I should expect to find not +only all right in intention, but prudent and well devised also. +The present may well seem a rash, ill considered affair for both +of them, but --"</p> + +<p>"I see no necessity either for explanation or excuse," said +Clementina, too eager to mark that she interrupted Mr Graham. "In +making up her mind to marry him, Lady Lossie has shown greater +wisdom and courage than, I confess, I had given her credit +for."</p> + +<p>"And Malcolm?" rejoined the schoolmaster softly. "Should you +say of him that he showed equal wisdom?"</p> + +<p>"I decline to give an opinion upon the gentleman's part in the +business," answered Clementina, laughing, but glad there was so +little light in the room, for she was painfully conscious of the +burning of her cheeks. "Besides, I have no measure to apply to +Malcolm," she went on, a little hurriedly. "He is like no one +else I have ever talked with, and I confess there is something +about him I cannot understand. Indeed, he is beyond me +altogether."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, having known him from infancy, I might be able to +explain him," returned Mr Graham, in a tone that invited +questioning.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, then," said Clementina, "I may be permitted, in +jealousy for the teaching I have received of him, to confess my +bewilderment that one so young should be capable of dealing with +such things as he delights in. The youth of the prophet makes me +doubt his prophecy."</p> + +<p>"At least," rejoined Mr Graham, "the phenomenon coincides with +what the master of these things said of them -- that they were +revealed to babes and not to the wise and prudent. As to +Malcolm's wonderful facility in giving them form and utterance, +that depends so immediately on the clear sight of them, that, +granted a little of the gift poetic, developed through reading +and talk, we need not wonder much at it."</p> + +<p>"You consider your friend a genius?" suggested Clementina.</p> + +<p>"I consider him possessed of a kind of heavenly common sense, +equally at home in the truths of divine relation, and the facts +of the human struggle with nature and her forces. I should never +have discovered my own ignorance in certain points of the +mathematics but for the questions that boy put to me before he +was twelve years of age. A thing not understood lay in his mind +like a fretting foreign body. But there is a far more important +factor concerned than this exceptional degree of insight. +Understanding is the reward of obedience. Peter says 'the Holy +Ghost, whom God hath given them that obey him.' Obedience is the +key to every door. I am perplexed at the stupidity of the +ordinary religious being. In the most practical of all matters, +he will talk, and speculate, and try to feel, but he will not set +himself to do. It is different with Malcolm. From the first he +has been trying to obey. Nor do I see why it should be strange +that even a child should understand these things, if they are the +very elements of the region for which we were created and to +which our being holds essential relations, as a bird to the air, +or a fish to the sea. If a man may not understand the things of +God whence he came, what shall he understand?"</p> + +<p>"How, then, is it that so few do understand?"</p> + +<p>"Because where they know, so few obey. This boy, I say, did. +If you had seen, as I have, the almost superhuman struggles of +his will to master the fierce temper his ancestors gave him, you +would marvel less at what he has so early become. I have seen +him, white with passion, cast himself on his face on the shore, +and cling with his hands to the earth as if in a paroxysm of +bodily suffering; then after a few moments rise and do a service +to the man who had wronged him. Were it any wonder if the light +should have soon gone up in a soul like that? When I was a +younger man I used to go out with the fishing boats now and then, +drawn chiefly by my love for the boy, who earned his own bread +that way before he was in his teens. One night we were caught in +a terrible storm, and had to stand out to sea in the pitch dark. +He was then not fourteen. 'Can you let a boy like that steer?' I +said to the captain of the boat. 'Yes; just a boy like that,' he +answered. 'Ma'colm 'ill steer as straucht's a porpus.' When he +was relieved, he crept over the thwarts to where I sat. 'Is there +any true definition of a straight line, sir?' he said. 'I can't +take the one in my Euclid.' -- 'So you're not afraid, Malcolm?' I +returned, heedless of his question, for I wanted to see what he +would answer. 'Afraid, sir!' he rejoined with some surprise, 'I +wad ill like to hear the Lord say, 0 thou o' little faith!' -- +'But,' I persisted, 'God may mean to drown you!' -- 'An' what for +no?' he returned. 'Gien ye war to tell me 'at I micht be droon't +ohn him meant it, I wad be fleyt eneuch.' I see your ladyship +does not understand: I will interpret the dark saying: 'And why +should he not drown me? If you were to tell me I might be drowned +without his meaning it, I should be frightened enough.' Believe +me, my lady, the right way is simple to find, though only they +that seek it first can find it. But I have allowed myself," +concluded the schoolmaster, "to be carried adrift in my laudation +of Malcolm. You did not come to hear praises of him, my +lady."</p> + +<p>"I owe him much," said Clementina. "-- But tell me then, Mr +Graham, how is it that you know there is a God, and one -- one -- +fit to be trusted as you trust him?"</p> + +<p>"In no way that I can bring to bear on the reason of another +so as to produce conviction."</p> + +<p>"Then what is to become of me?"</p> + +<p>"I can do for you what is far better. I can persuade you to +look and see whether before your own door stands not a gate -- +lies not a path to walk in. Entering by that gate, walking in +that path, you shall yourself arrive at the conviction, which no +man can give you, that there is a living Love and Truth at the +heart of your being, and pervading all that surrounds you. The +man who seeks the truth in any other manner will never find it. +Listen to me a moment, my lady. I loved that boy's mother. +Naturally she did not love me -- how could she? I was very +unhappy. I sought comfort from the unknown source of my life. He +gave me to understand his Son, and so I understood himself, knew +that I came of God, and was comforted."</p> + +<p>"But how do you know that it was not all a delusion -- the +product of your own fervid imagination? Do not mistake me; I want +to find it true."</p> + +<p>"It is a right and honest question, my lady. I will tell +you.</p> + +<p>"Not to mention the conviction which a truth beheld must carry +with itself and concerning which there can be no argument either +with him who does or him who does not see it, this experience +goes far with me, and would with you if you had it, as you may -- +namely, that all my difficulties and confusions have gone on +clearing themselves up ever since I set out to walk in that way. +My consciousness of life is threefold what it was; my perception +of what is lovely around me, and my delight in it, threefold; my +power of understanding things and of ordering my way, threefold +also; the same with my hope and my courage, my love to my kind, +my power of forgiveness. In short, I cannot but believe that my +whole being and its whole world are in process of rectification +for me. Is not that something to set against the doubt born of +the eye and ear, and the questions of an intellect that can +neither grasp nor disprove? I say nothing of better things still. +To the man who receives such as I mean, they are the heart of +life; to the man who does not, they exist not. But I say -- if I +thus find my whole being enlightened and redeemed, and know that +therein I fare according to the word of the man of whom the old +story tells: if I find that his word, and the result of action +founded upon that word, correspond and agree, opening a heaven +within and beyond me, in which I see myself delivered from all +that now in myself is to myself despicable and unlovely; if I can +reasonably -- reasonably to myself not to another -- cherish +hopes of a glory of conscious being, divinely better than all my +imagination when most daring could invent -- a glory springing +from absolute unity with my creator, and therefore with my +neighbour; if the Lord of the ancient tale, I say, has thus held +word with me, am I likely to doubt much or long whether there be +such a lord or no?"</p> + +<p>"What, then, is the way that lies before my own door? Help me +to see it."</p> + +<p>"It is just the old way -- as old as the conscience -- that of +obedience to any and every law of personal duty. But if you have +ever seen the Lord, if only from afar -- if you have any vaguest +suspicion that the Jew Jesus, who professed to have come from +God, was a better man than other men, one of your first duties +must be to open your ears to his words, and see whether they +commend themselves to you as true; then, if they do, to obey them +with your whole strength and might, upheld by the hope of the +vision promised in them to the obedient. This is the way of life, +which will lead a man out of the miseries of the nineteenth +century, as it led Paul out of the miseries of the first."</p> + +<p>There followed a little pause, and then a long talk about what +the schoolmaster had called the old story; in which he spoke with +such fervid delight of this and that point in the tale; removing +this and that stumbling-block by giving the true reading - - or +the right interpretation; showing the what and why and how -- the +very intent of our Lord in the thing he said or did, that, for +the first time in her life, Clementina began to feel as if such a +man must really have lived, that his blessed feet must really +have walked over the acres of Palestine, that his human heart +must indeed have thought and felt, worshipped and borne, right +humanly. Even in the presence of her new teacher, and with his +words in her ears, she began to desire her own chamber that she +might sit down with the neglected story and read for herself.</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster walked with her to the chapel door. There her +carriage was already waiting. He put her in, and, while the +Reverend Jacob Masquar was still holding forth upon the +difference between adoption and justification, Clementina drove +away, never more to delight the hearts of the deacons with the +noise of the hoofs of her horses, staying the wheels of her +yellow chariot.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LIV"></a>CHAPTER LIV: THE FEY +FACTOR</h1> + +<p>When Mr Crathie heard of the outrage the people of Scaurnose +had committed upon the surveyors, he vowed be would empty every +house in the place at Michaelmas. His wife warned him that such a +wholesale proceeding must put him in the wrong with the country, +seeing they could not all have been guilty. He replied it would +be impossible, the rascals hung so together, to find out the +ringleaders even. She returned that they all deserved it, and +that a correct discrimination was of no consequence; it would be +enough to the purpose if he made a difference. People would then +say he had done his best to distinguish. The factor was persuaded +and made out a list of those who were to leave, in which he took +care to include all the principal men, to whom he gave warning +forthwith to quit their houses at Michaelmas. I do not know +whether the notice was in law sufficient, but exception was not +taken on that score.</p> + +<p>Scaurnose, on the receipt of the papers, all at the same time, +by the hand of the bellman of Portlossie, was like a hive about +to swarm. Endless and complicated were the comings and goings +between the houses, the dialogues, confabulations, and +consultations, in the one street and its many closes. In the +middle of it, in front of the little public house, stood, all +that day and the next, a group of men and women, for no five +minutes in its component parts the same, but, like a cloud, ever +slow dissolving, and as continuously reforming, some dropping +away, others falling to. Such nid nodding, such uplifting and +fanning of palms among the women, such semi-revolving side shakes +of the head, such demonstration of fists, and such cursing among +the men, had never before been seen and heard in Scaurnose. The +result was a conclusion to make common cause with the first +victim of the factor's tyranny, namely Blue Peter, whose +expulsion would arrive three months before theirs, and was +unquestionably head and front of the same cruel scheme for +putting down the fisher folk altogether.</p> + +<p>Three of them, therefore, repaired to Joseph's house, +commissioned with the following proposal and condition of +compact: that Joseph should defy the notice given him to quit, +they pledging themselves that he should not be expelled. Whether +he agreed or not, they were equally determined, they said, when +their turn came, to defend the village; but if he would cast in +his lot with them, they would, in defending him, gain the +advantage of having the question settled three months sooner for +themselves. Blue Peter sought to dissuade them, specially +insisting on the danger of bloodshed. They laughed. They had +anticipated objection, but being of the youngest and roughest in +the place, the idea of a scrimmage was, neither in itself nor in +its probable consequences, at all repulsive to them. They +answered that a little blood letting would do nobody any harm, +neither would there be much of that, for they scorned to use any +weapon sharper than their fists or a good thick rung: the women +and children would take stones of course. Nobody would be killed, +but every meddlesome authority taught to let Scaurnose and +fishers alone. Peter objected that their enemies could easily +starve them out. Dubs rejoined that, if they took care to keep +the sea door open, their friends at Portlossie would not let them +starve. Grosert said he made no doubt the factor would have the +Seaton to fight as well as Scaurnose, for they must see plainly +enough that their turn would come next. Joseph said the factor +would apply to the magistrates, and they would call out the +militia.</p> + +<p>"An' we'll call out Buckie," answered Dubs.</p> + +<p>"Man," said Fite Folp, the eldest of the three, "the haill +shore, frae the Brough to Fort George, 'll be up in a jiffie, an' +a' the cuintry, frae John o' Groat's to Berwick, 'ill hear hoo +the fisher fowk 's misguidit; an' at last it'll come to the king, +an' syne we'll get oor richts, for he'll no stan' to see't, an' +maitters 'll sane be set upon a better futtin' for puir fowk 'at +has no freen' but God an' the sea."</p> + +<p>The greatness of the result represented laid hold of Peter's +imagination, and the resistance to injustice necessary to reach +it stirred the old tar in him. When they took their leave, he +walked halfway up the street with them, and then returned to tell +his wife what they had been saying, all the way murmuring to +himself as he went, "The Lord is a man of war." And ever as he +said the words, he saw as in a vision the great man of war in +which he had served, sweeping across the bows of a Frenchman, and +raking him, gun after gun, from stem to stern. Nor did the +warlike mood abate until he reached home and looked his wife in +the eyes. He told her all, ending with the half repudiatory, half +tentative words.</p> + +<p>"That's what they say, ye see, Annie."</p> + +<p>"And what say ye, Joseph?" returned his wife.</p> + +<p>"Ow! I'm no sayin'," he answered.</p> + +<p>"What are ye thinkin' than, Joseph?" she pursued. "Ye canna +say ye're no thinkin'."</p> + +<p>"Na; I'll no say that, lass," he replied, but said no +more.</p> + +<p>"Weel, gien ye winna say," resumed Annie, "I wull; an' my say +is, 'at it luiks to me unco like takin' things intil yer ain +han'."</p> + +<p>"An' whase han' sud we tak them intil but oor ain?" said +Peter, with a falseness which in another would have roused his +righteous indignation.</p> + +<p>"That's no the p'int. It's whase han' ye're takin' them oot +o'," returned she, and spoke with solemnity and significance.</p> + +<p>Peter made no answer, but the words Vengeance is mine began to +ring in his mental ears instead of The Lord is a man of war.</p> + +<p>Before Mr Graham left them, and while Peter's soul was +flourishing, he would have simply said that it was their part to +endure, and leave the rest to the God of the sparrows. But now +the words of men whose judgment had no weight with him, threw him +back upon the instinct of self defence -- driven from which by +the words of his wife, he betook himself, not alas! to the +protection, but to the vengeance of the Lord!</p> + +<p>The next day he told the three commissioners that he was sorry +to disappoint them, but he could not make common cause with them, +for he could not see it his duty to resist, much as it would +gratify the natural man. They must therefore excuse him if he +left Scaurnose at the time appointed. He hoped he should leave +friends behind him.</p> + +<p>They listened respectfully, showed no offence, and did not +even attempt to argue the matter with him. But certain looks +passed between them.</p> + +<p>After this Blue Peter was a little happier in his mind, and +went more briskly about his affairs.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LV"></a>CHAPTER LV: THE +WANDERER</h1> + +<p>It was a lovely summer evening, and the sun, going down just +beyond the point of the Scaurnose, shone straight upon the +Partan's door. That it was closed in such weather had a +significance -- general as well as individual. Doors were oftener +closed in the Seaton now. The spiritual atmosphere of the place +was less clear and open than hitherto. The behaviour of the +factor, the trouble of their neighbours, the conviction that the +man who depopulated Scaurnose would at least raise the rents upon +them, had brought a cloud over the feelings and prospects of its +inhabitants -- which their special quarrel with the oppressor for +Malcolm's sake, had drawn deeper around the Findlays; and hence +it was that the setting sun shone upon the closed door of their +cottage.</p> + +<p>But a shadow darkened it, cutting off the level stream of rosy +red. An aged man, in Highland garments, stood and knocked. His +overworn dress looked fresher and brighter in the friendly rays, +but they shone very yellow on the bare hollows of his old knees. +It was Duncan MacPhail, the supposed grandfather of Malcolm. He +was older and feebler, I had almost said blinder, but that could +not be, certainly shabbier than ever. The glitter of dirk and +broadsword at his sides, and the many coloured ribbons adorning +the old bagpipes under his arms, somehow enhanced the look of +more than autumnal, of wintry desolation in his appearance.</p> + +<p>Before he left the Seaton, the staff he carried was for show +rather than use, but now he was bent over it, as if but for it he +would fall into his grave. His knock was feeble and doubtful, as +if unsure of a welcoming response. He was broken, sad, and +uncomforted.</p> + +<p>A moment passed. The door was unlatched, and within stood the +Partaness, wiping her hands in her apron, and looking thunderous. +But when she saw who it was, her countenance and manner changed +utterly.</p> + +<p>"Preserve's a'! Ye're a sicht for sair e'en, Maister +MacPhail!" she cried, holding out her hand, which the blind man +took as if he saw as well as she. "Come awa' but the hoose. Wow! +but ye're walcome."</p> + +<p>"She thanks your own self, Mistress Partan," said Duncan, as +he followed her in; "and her heart will pe thanking you for ta +coot welcome; and it will pe a long time since she'll saw you +howefer."</p> + +<p>"Noo, noo!" exclaimed Meg, stopping in the middle of her +little kitchen, as she was getting a chair for the old man, and +turning upon him to revive on the first possible chance what had +been a standing quarrel between them, "what can be the rizon 'at +gars ane like you, 'at never saw man or wuman i' yer lang life, +the verra meenute ye open yer mou', say it's lang sin' ye saw me. +A mensefu' body like you, Maister MacPhail, sud speyk mair to the +p'int."</p> + +<p>"Ton't you'll pe preaking her heart with ta one hand while +you'll pe clapping her head with ta other," said the piper. +"Ton't be taking her into your house to pe telling her she can't +see. Is it that old Tuncan is not a man as much as any woman in +ta world, tat you'll pe telling her she can't see? I tell you she +can see, and more tan you'll pe think. And I will tell it to you, +tere iss a pape in this house, and tere was pe none when Tuncan +she'll co away."</p> + +<p>"We a' ken ye ha'e the second sicht," said Mrs Findlay, who +had not expected such a reply; "an' it was only o' the first I +spak. Haith! it wad be ill set o' me to anger ye the moment ye +come back to yer ain. Sit ye doon there by the chimla neuk, till +I mask ye a dish o' tay. Or maybe ye wad prefar a drap o' +parritch an' milk? It's no muckle I ha'e to offer ye, but ye +cudna be mair walcome."</p> + +<p>As easily appeased as irritated, the old man sat down with a +grateful, placid look, and while the tea was drawing Mrs Findlay, +by judicious questions, gathered from him the history of his +adventures.</p> + +<p>Unable to rise above the disappointment and chagrin of finding +that the boy he loved as his own soul, and had brought up as his +own son was actually the child of a Campbell woman, one of the +race to which belonged the murderer of his people in Glencoe, and +which therefore he hated with an absolute passion of hatred, +unable also to endure the terrible schism in his being occasioned +by the conflict between horror at the Campbell blood, and +ineffaceable affection for the youth in whose veins it ran, and +who so fully deserved all the love he had lavished upon him, he +had concluded to rid himself of all the associations of place and +people and event now grown so painful, to make his way back to +his native Glencoe, and there endure his humiliation as best he +might, beheld of the mountains which had beheld the ruin of his +race. He would end the few and miserable days of his pilgrimage +amid the rushing of the old torrents, and the calling of the old +winds about the crags and precipices that had hung over his +darksome yet blessed childhood. These were still his friends. But +he had not gone many days' journey before a farmer found him on +the road insensible, and took him home. As he recovered, his +longing after his boy Malcolm grew, until it rose to agony, but +he fought with his heart, and believed he had overcome it. The +boy was a good boy, he said to himself; the boy had been to him +as the son of his own heart; there was no fault to find with him +or in him; he was as brave as he was kind, as sincere as he was +clever, as strong as he was gentle; he could play on the +bagpipes, and very nearly talk Gaelic, but his mother was a +Campbell, and for that there was no help. To be on loving terms +with one in whose veins ran a single drop of the black pollution +was a thing no MacDhonuill must dream of. He had lived a man of +honour, and he would die a man of honour, hating the Campbells to +their last generation. How should the bard of his clan ever talk +to his own soul if he knew himself false to the name of his +fathers! Hard fate for him! As if it were not enough that he had +been doomed to save and rear a child of the brood abominable, he +was yet further doomed, worst fate of all, to love the evil +thing! he could not tear the lovely youth from his heart. But he +could go further and further from him.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was able, he resumed his journey westward, and +at length reached his native glen, the wildest spot in all the +island. There he found indeed the rush of the torrents and the +call of the winds unchanged, but when his soul cried out in its +agonies, they went on with the same song that had soothed his +childhood; for the heart of the suffering man they had no +response. Days passed before he came upon a creature who +remembered him; for more than twenty years were gone, and a new +generation had come up since he forsook the glen. Worst of all, +the clan spirit was dying out, the family type of government all +but extinct, the patriarchal vanishing in a low form of the +feudal, itself already in abject decay. The hour of the Celt was +gone by, and the long wandering raven, returning at last, found +the ark it had left afloat on the waters dry and deserted and +rotting to dust. There was not even a cottage in which he could +hide his head. The one he had forsaken when cruelty and crime +drove him out, had fallen to ruins, and now there was nothing of +it left but its foundations. The people of the inn at the mouth +of the valley did their best for him, but he learned by accident +that they had Campbell connections, and, rising that instant, +walked from it for ever. He wandered about for a time, playing +his pipes, and everywhere hospitably treated; but at length his +heart could endure its hunger no more: he must see his boy, or +die. He walked therefore straight to the cottage of his +quarrelsome but true friend, Mrs Partan -- to learn that his +benefactor, the marquis, was dead, and Malcolm gone. But here +alone could he hope ever to see him again, and the same night he +sought his cottage in the grounds of Lossie House, never doubting +his right to re-occupy it. But the door was locked, and he could +find no entrance. He went to the House, and there was referred to +the factor. But when he knocked at his door, and requested the +key of the cottage, Mr Crathie, who was in the middle of his +third tumbler, came raging out of his dining room, cursed him for +an old Highland goat, and heaped insults on him and his grandson +indiscriminately. It was well he kept the door between him and +the old man, for otherwise he would never have finished the said +third tumbler. That door carried in it thenceforth the marks of +every weapon that Duncan bore, and indeed the half of his sgian +dhu was the next morning found sticking in it, like the sting +which the bee is doomed to leave behind her. He returned to +Mistress Partan white and trembling, in a mountainous rage with +"ta low pred hount of a factor." Her sympathy was enthusiastic, +for they shared a common wrath. And now came the tale of the +factor's cruelty to the fishers, his hatred of Malcolm, and his +general wildness of behaviour. The piper vowed to shed the last +drop of his blood in defence of his Mistress Partan. But when, to +strengthen the force of his asseveration, he drew the dangerous +looking dirk from its sheath, she threw herself upon him, +wrenched it from his hand, and testified that "fules sudna hae +chappin' sticks, nor yet teylors guns." It was days before Duncan +discovered where she had hidden it. But not the less heartily did +she insist on his taking up his abode with her; and the very next +day he resumed his old profession of lamp cleaner to the +community.</p> + +<p>When Miss Horn heard that he had come and where he was, old +feud with Meg Partan rendering it imprudent to call upon him, she +watched for him in the street, and welcomed him home, assuring +him that, if ever he should wish to change his quarters, her +house was at his service.</p> + +<p>"I'm nae Cam'ell, ye ken, Duncan," she concluded, "an' what an +auld wuman like mysel' can du to mak ye coamfortable sail no +fail, an' that I promise ye."</p> + +<p>The old man thanked her with the perfect courtesy of the Celt, +confessed that he was not altogether at ease where he was, but +said he must not hurt the feelings of Mistress Partan, "for +she'll not pe a paad womans," he added, "but her house will pe +aalways in ta flames, howefer."</p> + +<p>So he remained where he was, and the general heart of the +Seaton was not a little revived by the return of one whose +presence reminded them of a better time, when no such cloud as +now threatened them heaved its ragged sides above their +horizon.</p> + +<p>The factor was foolish enough to attempt inducing Meg to send +her guest away.</p> + +<p>"We want no landloupin' knaves, old or young, about Lossie," +he said. "If the place is no keepit dacent, we'll never get the +young marchioness to come near's again."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, factor," returned Meg, enhancing the force of her +utterance by a composure marvellous from it's rarity, "the first +thing to mak' the place -- I'll no say dacent, sae lang there's +sae mony claverin' wives in't, but mair dacent nor it has been +for the last ten year, wad be to sen' factors back whaur they +cam' frae."</p> + +<p>"And whaur may that be?" asked Mr Crathie.</p> + +<p>"That's mair nor I richtly can say," answered Meg Partan, "but +auld farand fouk threepit it was somewhaur 'ithin the swing o' +Sawtan's tail."</p> + +<p>The reply on the factor's lips as he left the house, tended to +justify the rude sarcasm.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LVI"></a>CHAPTER LVI: MID +OCEAN</h1> + +<p>There came a breath of something in the east. It was neither +wind nor warmth. It was light before it is light to the eyes of +men. Slowly and slowly it grew, until, like the dawning soul in +the face of one who lies in a faint, the life of light came back +to the world, and at last the whole huge hollow hemisphere of +rushing sea and cloud flecked sky lay like a great empty heart, +waiting, in conscious glory of the light, for the central glory, +the coming lord of day. And in the whole crystalline hollow, +gleaming and flowing with delight, yet waiting for more, the +Psyche was the only lonely life bearing thing -- the one cloudy +germ spot afloat in the bosom of the great roc egg of sea and +sky, whose sheltering nest was the universe with its walls of +flame.</p> + +<p>Florimel woke, rose, went on deck, and for a moment was fresh +born. It was a forescent -- even this could not be called a +foretaste, of the kingdom of heaven; but Florimel never thought +of the kingdom of heaven, the ideal of her own existence. She +could however half appreciate this earthly outbreak of its glory, +this incarnation of truth invisible. Round her, like a thousand +doves, clamoured with greeting wings the joyous sea wind. Up came +a thousand dancing billows, to shout their good morning. Like a +petted animal, importunate for play, the breeze tossed her hair +and dragged at her fluttering garments, then rushed in the +Psyche's sails, swelled them yet deeper, and sent her dancing +over the dancers. The sun peered up like a mother waking and +looking out on her frolicking children. Black shadows fell from +sail to sail, slipping and shifting, and one long shadow of the +Psyche herself shot over the world to the very gates of the west, +but held her not, for she danced and leaned and flew as if she +had but just begun her corantolavolta fresh with the morning, and +had not been dancing all the livelong night over the same floor. +Lively as any newborn butterfly, not like a butterfly's, flitting +and hovering, was her flight, for still, like one that longed, +she sped and strained and flew. The joy of bare life swelled in +Florimel's bosom. She looked up, she looked around, she breathed +deep. The cloudy anger that had rushed upon her like a watching +tiger the moment she waked, fell back, and left her soul a clear +minor to reflect God's dream of a world. She turned, and saw +Malcolm at the tiller, and the cloudy wrath sprang upon her. He +stood composed and clear and cool as the morning, without sign of +doubt or conscience of wrong, now peeping into the binnacle, now +glancing at the sunny sails, where swayed across and back the +dark shadows of the rigging, as the cutter leaned and rose, like +a child running and staggering over the multitudinous and +unstable hillocks. She turned from him.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, my lady! What a good morning it is!" As in all +his address to his mistress, the freedom of the words did not +infect the tone; that was resonant of essential honour. "Strange +to think," he went on, "that the sun himself there is only a +great fire, and knows nothing about it! There must be a sun to +that sun, or the whole thing is a vain show. There must be one to +whom each is itself, yet the all makes a whole -- one who is at +once both centre and circumference to all."</p> + +<p>Florimel cast on him a scornful look. For not merely was he +talking his usual unintelligible rubbish of poetry, but he had +the impertinence to speak as if he had done nothing amiss, and +she had no ground for being offended with him. She made him no +answer. A cloud came over Malcolm's face; and until she went +again below, he gave his attention to his steering.</p> + +<p>In the meantime Rose, who happily had turned out as good a +sailor as her new mistress, had tidied the little cabin; and +Florimel found, if not quite such a sumptuous breakfast laid as +at Portland Place, yet a far better appetite than usual to meet +what there was; and when she had finished, her temper was better, +and she was inclined to think less indignantly of Malcolm's share +in causing her so great a pleasure. She was not yet quite +spoiled. She was still such a lover of the visible world and of +personal freedom, that the thought of returning to London and its +leaden footed hours, would now have been unendurable. At this +moment she could have imagined no better thing than thus to go +tearing through the water -- home to her home. For although she +had spent little of her life at Lossie House, she could not but +prefer it unspeakably to the schools in which she had passed +almost the whole of the preceding portion of it. There was little +or nothing in the affair she could have wished otherwise except +its origin. She was mischievous enough to enjoy even the thought +of the consternation it would cause at Portland Place. She did +not realize all its awkwardness. A letter to Lady Bellair when +she reached home would, she said to herself, set everything +right; and if Malcolm had now repented and put about, she would +instantly have ordered him to hold on for Lossie. But it was +mortifying that she should have come at the will of Malcolm, and +not by her own -- worse than mortifying that perhaps she would +have to say so. If she were going to say so, she must turn him +away as soon as she arrived. There was no help for it. She dared +not keep him after that in the face of society. But she might +take the bold, and perhaps a little dangerous measure of adopting +the flight as altogether her own madcap idea. Her thoughts went +floundering in the bog of expediency, until she was tired, and +declined from thought to reverie.</p> + +<p>Then dawning out of the dreamland of her past, appeared the +image of Lenorme. Pure pleasure, glorious delight, such as she +now felt, could not long possess her mind, without raising in its +charmed circle the vision of the only man except her father whom +she had ever -- something like loved. Her behaviour to him had +not yet roused in her shame or sorrow or sense of wrong. She had +driven him from her; she was ashamed of her relation to him; she +had caused him bitter suffering; she had all but promised to +marry another man; yet she had not the slightest wish for that +man's company there and then: with no one of her acquaintance but +Lenorme could she have shared this conscious splendour of +life.</p> + +<p>"Would to God he had been born a gentleman instead of a +painter!" she said to herself when her imagination had brought +him from the past, and set him in the midst of the present.</p> + +<p>"Rank," she said, "I am above caring about. In that he might +be ever so far my inferior, and welcome, if only he had been of a +good family, a gentleman born!"</p> + +<p>She was generosity, magnanimity itself in her own eyes! Yet he +was of far better family than she knew, for she had never taken +the trouble to inquire into his history. And now she was so much +easier in her mind since she had so cruelly broken with him, that +she felt positively virtuous because she had done it, and he was +not at that moment by her side. And yet if he had that moment +stepped from behind the mainsail, she would in all probability +have thrown herself into his arms.</p> + +<p>The day passed on: Florimel grew tired and went to sleep; woke +and had her dinner; took a volume of the "Arabian Nights," and +read herself again to sleep; woke again; went on deck; saw the +sun growing weary in the west. And still the unwearied wind blew, +and still the Psyche danced on, as unwearied as the wind.</p> + +<p>The sunset was rather an assumption than a decease, a +reception of him out of their sight into an eternity of gold and +crimson; and when he was gone, and the gorgeous bliss had +withered into a dove hued grief, then the cool, soft twilight, +thoughtful of the past and its love, crept out of the western +caves over the breast of the water, and filled the dome and made +of itself a great lens royal, through which the stars and their +motions were visible; and the ghost of Aurora with both hands +lifted her shroud above her head and made a dawn for the moon on +the verge of the watery horizon -- a dawn as of the past, the +hour of inverted hope.</p> + +<p>Not a word all day had been uttered between Malcolm and his +mistress: when the moon appeared, with the waves sweeping up +against her face, he approached Florimel where she sat in the +stern. Davy was steering.</p> + +<p>"Will your ladyship come forward and see how the Psyche goes?" +he said. "At the stern, you can see only the passive part of her +motion. It is quite another thing to see the will of her at work +in the bows."</p> + +<p>At first she was going to refuse; but she changed her mind, or +her mind changed her: she was not much more of a living and +acting creature yet than the Psyche herself. She said nothing, +but rose, and permitted Malcolm to help her forward.</p> + +<p>It was the moon's turn now to be level with the water, and as +Florimel stood on the larboard side, leaning over and gazing +down, she saw her shine through the little feather of spray the +cutwater sent curling up before it, and turn it into pearls and +semiopals.</p> + +<p>"She's got a bone in her mouth, you see, my lady," said old +Travers.</p> + +<p>"Go aft till I call you, Travers," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Rose was in Florimel's cabin, and they were now quite +alone.</p> + +<p>"My lady," said Malcolm, "I can't bear to have you angry with +me."</p> + +<p>"Then you ought not to deserve it," returned Florimel.</p> + +<p>"My lady, if you knew all, you would not say I deserved +it."</p> + +<p>"Tell me all then, and let me judge."</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell you all yet, but I will tell you something +which may perhaps incline you to feel merciful. Did your ladyship +ever think what could make me so much attached to your +father?"</p> + +<p>"No indeed. I never saw anything peculiar in it. Even nowadays +there are servants to be found who love their masters. It seems +to me natural enough. Besides he was very kind to you."</p> + +<p>"It was natural indeed, my lady -- more natural than you +think. Kind to me he was, and that was natural too."</p> + +<p>"Natural to him, no doubt, for he was kind to everybody."</p> + +<p>"My grandfather told you something of my early history -- did +he not, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"Yes -- at least I think I remember his doing so."</p> + +<p>"Will you recall it, and see whether it suggests nothing?"</p> + +<p>But Florimel could remember nothing in particular, she said. +She had in truth, for as much as she was interested at the time, +forgotten almost everything of the story.</p> + +<p>"I really cannot think what you mean," she added. "If you are +going to be mysterious, I shall resume my place by the tiller. +Travers is deaf, and Davy is dumb: I prefer either."</p> + +<p>"My lady," said Malcolm, "your father knew my mother, and +persuaded her that he loved her."</p> + +<p>Florimel drew herself up, and would have looked him to ashes +if wrath could burn. Malcolm saw he must come to the point at +once or the parley would cease.</p> + +<p>"My lady," he said, "your father was my father too. I am a son +of the Marquis of Lossie, and your brother -- your ladyship's +half brother, that is."</p> + +<p>She looked a little stunned. The gleam died out of her eyes, +and the glow out of her cheek. She turned and leaned over the +bulwark. He said no more, but stood watching her. She raised +herself suddenly, looked at him, and said,</p> + +<p>"Do I understand you?"</p> + +<p>"I am your brother," Malcolm repeated.</p> + +<p>She made a step forward, and held out her hand. He took the +little thing in his great grasp tenderly. Her lip trembled. She +gazed at him for an instant, full in the face, with a womanly, +believing expression.</p> + +<p>"My poor Malcolm!" she said, "I am sorry for you."</p> + +<p>She withdrew her hand, and again leaned over the bulwark. Her +heart was softened towards her groom brother, and for a moment it +seemed to her that some wrong had been done. Why should the one +be a marchioness and the other a groom? Then came the thought +that now all was explained. Every peculiarity of the young man, +every gift extraordinary of body, mind, or spirit, his strength, +his beauty, his courage, and honesty, his simplicity, nobleness, +and affection, yes, even what in him was mere doggedness and +presumption, all, everything explained itself to Florimel in the +fact that the incomprehensible fisherman groom, that talked like +a parson, was the son of her father. She never thought of the +woman that was his mother, and what share she might happen to +have in the phenomenon -- thought only of her father, and a +little pitifully of the half honour and more than half disgrace +infolding the very existence of her attendant. As usual her +thoughts were confused. The one moment the poor fellow seemed to +exist only on sufferance, having no right to be there at all, for +as fine a fellow as he was; the next she thought how immeasurably +he was indebted to the family of the Colonsays.</p> + +<p>Then arose the remembrance of his arrogance and presumption in +assuming on such a ground something more than guardianship -- +absolute tyranny over her, and with the thought pride and injury +at once got the upper hand. Was she to be dictated to by a low +born, low bred fellow like that -- a fellow whose hands were +harder than any leather, not with doing things for his amusement +but actually with earning his daily bread -- one that used to +smell so of fish -- on the ground of right too -- and such a +right as ought to exclude him for ever from her presence! -- She +turned to him again.</p> + +<p>"How long have you known this -- this -- painful -- indeed I +must confess to finding it an awkward and embarrassing fact? I +presume you do know it?" she said, coldly and searchingly.</p> + +<p>"My father confessed it on his deathbed."</p> + +<p>"Confessed!" echoed Florimel's pride, but she restrained her +tongue.</p> + +<p>"It explains much," she said, with a sort of judicial relief. +"There has been a great change upon you since then. Mind I only +say explains. It could never justify such behaviour as yours -- +no, not if you had been my true brother. There is some excuse, I +daresay, to be made for your ignorance and inexperience. No doubt +the discovery turned your head. Still I am at a loss to +understand how you could imagine that sort of -- of -- that sort +of thing gave you any right over me!"</p> + +<p>"Love has its rights, my lady," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Again her eyes flashed and her cheek flushed. "I cannot permit +you to talk so to me. You must not fancy such things are looked +upon in our position with the same indifference as in yours. You +must not flatter yourself that you can be allowed to cherish the +same feelings towards me as if -- as if -- you were really my +brother. I am sorry for you, Malcolm, as I said already; but you +have altogether missed your mark if you think that can alter +facts, or shelter you from the consequences of presumption."</p> + +<p>Again she turned away. Malcolm's heart was sore for her. How +grievously she had sunk from the Lady Florimel of the old days! +It was all from being so constantly with that wretched woman and +her vile nephew. Had he been able to foresee such a rapid +declension, he would have taken her away long ago, and let come +of her feelings what might. He had been too careful over +them.</p> + +<p>"Indeed," Florimel resumed, but this time without turning +towards him, "I do not see how things can possibly, after what +you have told me, remain as they are. I should not feel at all +comfortable in having one about me who would be constantly +supposing he had rights, and reflecting on my father for fancied +injustice, and whom I fear nothing could prevent from taking +liberties. It is very awkward indeed, Malcolm -- very awkward! +But it is your own fault that you are so changed, and I must say +I should not have expected it of you. I should have thought you +had more good sense and regard for me. If I were to tell the +world why I wanted to keep you, people would but shrug their +shoulders and tell me to get rid of you; and if I said nothing, +there would always be something coming up that required +explanation. Besides, you would for ever be trying to convert me +to one or other of your foolish notions. I hardly know what to +do. I will consult -- my friends on the subject. And yet I would +rather they knew nothing of it, My father you see --" She paused. +"If you had been my real brother it would have been +different."</p> + +<p>"I am your real brother, my lady, and I have tried to behave +like one ever since I knew it."</p> + +<p>"Yes; you have been troublesome. I have always understood that +brothers were troublesome. I am told they are given to taking +upon them the charge of their sisters conduct. But I would not +have even you think me heartless. If you had been a real brother, +of course I should have treated you differently."</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt it, my lady, for everything would have been +different then. I should have been the Marquis of Lossie, and you +would have been Lady Florimel Colonsay. But it would have made +little difference in one thing: I could not have loved you better +than I do now -- if only you would believe it, my lady!"</p> + +<p>The emotion of Malcolm, evident in his voice as he said this, +seemed to touch her a little.</p> + +<p>"I believe it, my poor Malcolm," she returned, "quite as much +as I want, or as it is pleasant to believe it. I think you would +do a great deal for me, Malcolm. But then you are so rude! take +things into your hands, and do things for me I don't want done! +You will judge, not only for yourself, but for me! How can a man +of your training and position judge for a lady of mine! Don't you +see the absurdity of it? At times it has been very awkward +indeed. Perhaps when I am married it might be arranged; but I +don't know."</p> + +<p>Here Malcolm ground his teeth, but was otherwise irresponsive +as block of stone.</p> + +<p>"How would a gamekeeper's place suit you? That is a half +gentlemanly kind of post. I will speak to the factor, and see +what can be done. -- But on the whole I think, Malcolm, it will +be better you should go. I am very sorry. I wish you had not told +me. It is very painful to me. You should not have told me. These +things are not intended to be talked of -- Suppose you were to +marry -- say --"</p> + +<p>She stopped abruptly, and it was well both for herself and +Malcolm that she caught back the name that was on her lips.</p> + +<p>The poor girl must not be judged as if she had been more than +a girl, or other than one with every disadvantage of evil +training. Had she been four or five years older, she might have +been a good deal worse, and have seemed better, for she would +have kept much of what she had now said to herself, and would +perhaps have treated her brother more kindly while she cared even +less for him.</p> + +<p>"What will you do with Kelpie, my lady?" asked Malcolm +quietly.</p> + +<p>"There it is, you see!" she returned. "So awkward! If you had +not told me, things could have gone on as before, and for your +sake I could have pretended I came this voyage of my own will and +pleasure. Now, I don't know what I can do -- except indeed you -- +let me see -- if you were to hold your tongue, and tell nobody +what you have just told me -- I don't know but you might stay +till you got her so far trained that another man could manage +her. I might even be able to ride her myself. -- Will you +promise?"</p> + +<p>"I will promise not to let the fact come out so long as I am +in your service, my lady."</p> + +<p>"After all that has passed, I think you might promise me a +little more! But I will not press it."</p> + +<p>"May I ask what it is, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"I am not going to press it, for I do not choose to make a +favour of it. Still, I do not see that it would be such a mighty +favour to ask -- of one who owes respect at least to the house of +Lossie. But I will not ask. I will only suggest, Malcolm, that +you should leave this part of the country -- say this country +altogether, and go to America, or New South Wales, or the Cape of +Good Hope. If you will take the hint, and promise never to speak +a word of this unfortunate -- yes, I must be honest, and allow +there is a sort of relationship between us; but if you will keep +it secret, I will take care that something is done for you -- +something, I mean, more than you could have any right to expect. +And mind, I am not asking you to conceal anything that could +reflect honour upon you or dishonour upon us."</p> + +<p>"I cannot, my lady."</p> + +<p>"I scarcely thought you would. Only you hold such grand ideas +about self denial, that I thought it might be agreeable to you to +have an opportunity of exercising the virtue at a small expense +and a great advantage."</p> + +<p>Malcolm was miserable. Who could have dreamed to find in her +such a woman of the world! He must break off the hopeless +interview.</p> + +<p>"Then, my lady," he said, "I suppose I am to give my chief +attention to Kelpie, and things are to be as they have been."</p> + +<p>"For the present. And as to this last piece of presumption, I +will so far forgive you as to take the proceeding on myself -- +mainly because it would have been my very choice had you +submitted it to me. There is nothing I should have preferred to a +sea voyage and returning to Lossie at this time of the year.</p> + +<p>"But you also must be silent on your insufferable share in the +business. And for the other matter, the least arrogance or +assumption I shall consider to absolve me at once from all +obligation towards you of any sort. Such relationships are never +acknowledged."</p> + +<p>"Thank you -- sister," said Malcolm -- a last forlorn +experiment; and as he said the word he looked lovingly in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>She drew herself up like the princess Lucifera, "with loftie +eyes, halfe loth to looke so lowe," and said, cold as ice,</p> + +<p>"If once I hear that word on your lips again, as between you +and me, Malcolm, I shall that very moment discharge you from my +service, as for a misdemeanour. You have no claim upon me, and +the world will not blame me."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, my lady. I beg your pardon. But there is one +who perhaps will blame you a little."</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean; but I don't pretend to any of your +religious motives. When I do, then you may bring them to bear +upon me."</p> + +<p>"I was not so foolish as you think me, my lady. I merely +imagined you might be as far on as a Chinaman," said Malcolm, +with a poor attempt at a smile.</p> + +<p>"What insolence do you intend now?"</p> + +<p>"The Chinese, my lady, pay the highest respect to their +departed parents. When I said there was one who would blame you a +little, I meant your father."</p> + +<p>He touched his cap, and withdrew.</p> + +<p>"Send Rose to me," Florimel called after him, and presently +with her went down to the cabin.</p> + +<p>And still the Psyche soul-like flew. Her earthly birth held +her to the earth, but the ocean upbore her, and the breath of God +drove her on. Little thought Florimel to what she hurried her! A +queen in her own self sufficiency and condescension, she could +not suspect how little of real queendom, noble and self +sustaining, there was in her being; for not a soul of man or +woman whose every atom leans not upon its father fact in God, can +sustain itself when the outer wall of things begins to tumble +towards the centre, crushing it in on every side.</p> + +<p>During the voyage no further allusion was made by either to +what had passed. By the next morning Florimel had yet again +recovered her temper, and, nothing fresh occurring to irritate +her, kept it and was kind.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was only too glad to accept whatever parings of heart +she might offer. By the time their flight was over, Florimel +almost felt as if it had indeed been undertaken at her own desire +and motion, and was quite prepared to assert that such was the +fact.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LVII"></a>CHAPTER LVII: THE +SHORE</h1> + +<p>It was two days after the longest day of the year, when there +is no night in those regions, only a long twilight, in which many +dream and do not know it. There had been a week of variable +weather, with sudden changes of wind to east and north, and round +again by south to west, and then there had been a calm for +several days.</p> + +<p>But now the little wind there was blew from the northeast; and +the fervour of June was rendered more delicious by the films of +flavouring cold that floated through the mass of heat. All +Portlossie more and less, the Seaton especially, was in a state +of excitement, for its little neighbour, Scaurnose, was more +excited still. There the man most threatened, and with greatest +injustice, was the only one calm amongst the men, and amongst the +women his wife was the only one that was calmer than he. Blue +Peter was resolved to abide the stroke of wrong, and not resist +the powers that were, believing them in some true sense, which he +found it hard to understand when he thought of the factor as the +individual instance, ordained of God. He had a dim perception too +that it was better that one, that one he, should suffer, than +that order should be destroyed and law defied. Suffering, he +might still in patience possess his soul, and all be well with +him; but what would become of the country if everyone wronged +were to take the law into his own hands? Thousands more would be +wronged by the lawless in a week than by unjust powers in a year. +But the young men were determined to pursue their plan of +resistance, and those of the older and soberer who saw the +uselessness of it, gave themselves little trouble to change the +minds of the rest.</p> + +<p>Peter, although he knew they were not for peace, neither +inquired what their purpose might be, nor allowed any conjecture +or suspicion concerning it to influence him in his preparations +for departure. Not that he had found a new home. Indeed he had +not heartily set about searching for one; in part because, +unconsciously to himself he was buoyed up by the hope he read so +clear in the face of his more trusting wife -- that Malcolm would +come to deliver them. His plan was to leave her and his children +with certain friends at Port Gordon; he would not hear of going +to the Partans to bring them into trouble. He would himself set +out immediately after for the Lewis fishing.</p> + +<p>Few had gone to the Hebrides that year from Scaurnose or +Portlossie. The magnitude of the events that were about to take +place, yet more the excitement and interest they occasioned, kept +the most of the men at home -- to content themselves with fishing +the waters of the Moray Frith. And they had notable success. But +what was success with such a tyrant over them as the factor, +threatening to harry their nests, and turn the sea birds and +their young out of their heritage of rock and sand and shingle? +They could not keep house on the waves, any more than the gulls! +Those who still held their religious assemblies in the cave +called the Baillies' Barn, met often, read and sang the +comminatory psalms more than any others, and prayed much against +the wiles and force of their enemies both temporal and spiritual; +while Mr Crathie went every Sunday to Church, grew redder in the +nose, and hotter in the temper.</p> + +<p>Miss Horn was growing more and more uncomfortable concerning +events, and dissatisfied with Malcolm. She had not for some time +heard from him, and here was his most important duty unattended +to -- she would not yet say neglected -- the well being of his +tenantry, namely, left in the hands of an unsympathetic, self +important underling, who was fast losing all the good sense he +had once possessed! Was the life and history of all these brave +fishermen and their wives and children to be postponed to the +pampered feelings of one girl, and that because she was what she +had no right to be, his half sister forsooth? said Miss Horn to +herself -- that bosom friend to whom some people, and those not +the worst, say oftener what they do not mean than what they do. +She had written to him within the last month a very hot letter +indeed, which had afforded no end of amusement to Mrs Catanach, +as she sat in his old lodging over the curiosity shop, but, I +need hardly say, had not reached Malcolm: and now there was but +one night, and the best of all the fisher families would have +nowhere to lie down! Miss Horn, with Joseph Mair, thought she did +well to be angry with Malcolm.</p> + +<p>The blind piper had been very restless all day. Questioned +again and again by Meg Partan as to what was amiss with him, he +had always returned her odd and evasive answers. Every few +minutes he got up -- even from cleaning her lamp -- to go to the +shore. He had but to cross the threshold, and take a few steps +through the close, to reach the road that ran along the sea front +of the village: on the one side were the cottages, scattered and +huddled, on the other the shore and ocean wide outstretched. He +would walk straight across this road until he felt the sand under +his feet; there stand for a few moments facing the sea, and, with +nostrils distended, breathing deep breaths of the air from the +northeast; then turn and walk back to Meg Partan's kitchen, to +resume his ministration of light. These his sallies were so +frequent, and his absences so short, that a more serene temper +than hers might have been fretted by them. But there was +something about his look and behaviour that, while it perplexed, +restrained her; and instead of breaking out upon him, she eyed +him curiously.</p> + +<p>She had found that it would not do to stare at him. The +instant she began to do so, he began to fidget, and turned his +back to her. It had made her lose her temper for a moment, and +declare aloud as her conviction that he was after all an +impostor, and saw as well as any of them.</p> + +<p>"She has told you so, Mistress Partan, one hundred thousand +times," replied Duncan with an odd smile: "and perhaps she will +pe see a little petter as any of you, no matter."</p> + +<p>Thereupon she murmured to herself "The cratur 'ill be seein' +something!" and with mingled awe and curiosity sought to lay +restraint upon her unwelcome observation of him.</p> + +<p>Thus it went on the whole day, and as the evening approached, +he grew still more excited. The sun went down, and the twilight +began; and, as the twilight deepened, still his excitement +grew.</p> + +<p>Straightway it seemed as if the whole Seaton had come to share +in it. Men and women were all out of doors; and, late as it was +when the sun set, to judge by the number of red legs and feet +that trotted in and out with a little shadowy flash, with a dull +patter pat on earthen floor and hard road, and a scratching and +hustling among the pebbles, there could not have been one older +than a baby in bed; while of the babies even not a few were awake +in their mothers' arms, and out with them on the sea front.</p> + +<p>The men, with their hands in their trouser pockets, were +lazily smoking pigtail, in short clay pipes with tin covers +fastened to the stems by little chains, and some of the women, in +short blue petticoats and worsted stockings, doing the same.</p> + +<p>Some stood in their doors, talking with neighbours standing in +their doors; but these were mostly the elder women: the younger +ones -- all but Lizzy Findlay -- were out in the road. One man +half leaned, half sat on the window sill of Duncan's former +abode, and round him were two or three more, and some women, +talking about Scaurnose, and the factor, and what the lads would +do tomorrow; while the hush of the sea on the pebbles mingled +with their talk, like an unknown tongue of the infinite -- never +articulating, only suggesting -- uttering in song and not in +speech -- dealing not with thoughts, but with feelings and +foretastes. No one listened: what to them was the Infinite with +Scaurnose in the near distance! It was now almost as dark as it +would be throughout the night if it kept as clear.</p> + +<p>Once more there was Duncan, standing as if looking out to sea, +and shading his brows with his hand as if to protect his eyes +from the glare of the sun, and enable his sight!</p> + +<p>"There's the auld piper again!" said one of the group, a young +woman. "He's unco fule like to be stan'in that gait (way), makin' +as gien he cudna weel see for the sun in 's e'en."</p> + +<p>"Haud ye yer tongue, lass," rejoined an elderly woman beside +her. "There's mair things nor ye ken, as the Beuk says. There's +een 'at can see an' een 'at canna, an' een 'at can see twise +ower, an' een 'at can see steikit what nane can see open."</p> + +<p>"Ta poat! ta poat of my chief!" cried the seer. "She is coming +like a tream of ta night, put one tat will not tepart with ta +morning."</p> + +<p>He spoke as one suppressing a wild joy.</p> + +<p>"Wha'll that be, lucky deddy (grandfather)?" inquired, in a +respectful voice, the woman who had last spoken, while those +within hearing hushed each other and stood in silence. And all +the time the ghost of the day was creeping round from west to +east to put on its resurrection body, and rise new born. It +gleamed faint like a cold ashy fire in the north.</p> + +<p>"And who will it pe than her own son, Mistress Reekie?" +answered the piper, calling her by her husband's nickname, as was +usual, but, as was his sole wont, prefixing the title of respect, +where custom would have employed but her Christian name.</p> + +<p>"Who'll should it pe put her own Malcolm?" he went on. "I see +his poat come round ta Tead Head. She flits over the water like a +pale ghost over Morven. But it's ta young and ta strong she is +pringing home to Tuncan. 0 m'anam, beannuich!"</p> + +<p>Involuntarily all eyes turned towards the point called the +Death's Head, which bounded the bay on the east.</p> + +<p>"It's ower dark to see onything," said the man on the window +sill. "There's a bit haar (fog) come up."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Duncan, "it'll pe too tark for you who haf cot no +eyes only to speak of. Put your'll wait a few, and you'll pe +seeing as well as herself. Och, her poy! her poy! 0 m'anam! Ta +Lort pe praised! and she'll tie in peace, for he'll pe only ta +one half of him a Cam'ell, and he'll pe safed at last, as sure as +there's a heafen to co to and a hell to co from. For ta half +tat's not a Cam'ell must pe ta strong half and it will trag ta +other half into heafen -- where it will not pe ta welcome, +howefer."</p> + +<p>As if to get rid of the unpleasant thought that his Malcolm +could not enter heaven without taking half a Campbell with him, +he turned from the sea and hurried into the house -- but only to +catch up his pipes and hasten out again, filling the bag as he +went. Arrived once more on the verge of the sand, he stood again +facing the northeast, and began to blow a pibroch loud and +clear.</p> + +<p>Meantime the Partan had joined the same group, and they were +talking in a low tone about the piper's claim to the second +sight, for, although all were more or less inclined to put faith +in Duncan, there was here no such unquestioning belief in the +marvel as would have been found on the west coast in every glen +from the Mull of Cantyre to Loch Eribol -- when suddenly Meg +Partan, almost the only one hitherto remaining in the house, +appeared rushing from the close.</p> + +<p>"Hech, sirs!" she cried, addressing the Seaton in general, +"gien the auld man be i' the richt,"</p> + +<p>"She'll pe aal in ta right, Mistress Partan, and tat you'll pe +seeing," said Duncan, who, hearing her first cry, had stopped his +drone, and played softly, listening.</p> + +<p>But Meg went on without heeding him any more than was implied +in the repetition of her exordium.</p> + +<p>"Gien the auld man be i' the richt, it'll be the marchioness +hersel' 'at's h'ard o' the ill duin's o' her factor, an's comin' +to see efter her fowk! An' it'll be Ma'colm's duin', an' that'll +be seen. But the bonny laad winna ken the state o' the herbour, +an' he'll be makin' for the moo' o't, an' he'll jist rin 's bonny +boatie agrun' 'atween the twa piers, an' that'll no be a richt +hame comin' for the leddy o' the lan', an' what's mair, Ma'colm +'ill get the wyte (blame) o' 't, an' that'll be seen. Sae ye maun +some o' ye to the pier-heid, an' luik oot to gie 'im +warnin'."</p> + +<p>Her own husband was the first to start, proud of the foresight +of his wife.</p> + +<p>"Haith, Meg !" he cried, "ye're maist as guid at the lang +sicht as the piper himsel'!"</p> + +<p>Several followed him, and as they ran, Meg cried after them, +giving her orders as if she had been vice admiral of the red, in +a voice shrill enough to pierce the worst gale that ever blew on +northern shore.</p> + +<p>"Ye'll jist tell the bonnie laad to haud wast a bit an' rin +her ashore, an' we'll a' be there an' hae her as dry's Noah's ark +in a jiffie. Tell her leddyship we'll cairry the boat, an' her +intil't, to the tap o' the Boar's Tail, gien she'll gie's her +orders. -- Winna we, laads?"</p> + +<p>"We can but try!" said one. "-- But the Fisky 'ill be waur to +get a grip o' nor Nancy here," he added, turning suddenly upon +the plumpest girl in the place, who stood next to him. She foiled +him however of the kiss he had thought to snatch, and turned the +laugh from herself upon him, so cleverly avoiding his clutch that +he staggered into the road, and nearly fell upon his nose.</p> + +<p>By the time the Partan and his companions reached the pier +head, something was dawning in the vague of sea and sky that +might be a sloop and standing for the harbour. Thereupon the +Partan and Jamie Ladle jumped into a small boat and pulled out. +Dubs, who had come from Scaurnose on the business of the +conjuration, had stepped into the stern, not to steer but to show +a white ensign -- somebody's Sunday shirt he had gathered, as +they ran, from a furze bush, where it hung to dry, between the +Seaton and the harbour.</p> + +<p>"Hoots! ye'll affront the marchioness," objected the +Partan.</p> + +<p>"Man, i' the gloamin' she'll no ken 't frae buntin'," said +Dubs, and at once displayed it, holding it by the two +sleeves.</p> + +<p>The wind had now fallen to the softest breath, and the little +vessel came on slowly. The men rowed hard, shouting, and waving +their flag, and soon heard a hail which none of them could +mistake for other than Malcolm's. In a few minutes they were on +board, greeting their old friend with jubilation, but talking in +a subdued tone, for they perceived by Malcolm's that the cutter +bore their lady.</p> + +<p>Briefly the Partan communicated the state of the harbour, and +recommended porting his helm, and running the Fisky ashore about +opposite the brass swivel.</p> + +<p>"A' the men an' women i' the Seaton," he said, "'ill be there +to haul her up."</p> + +<p>Malcolm took the helm, gave his orders, and steered further +westward. By this time the people on shore had caught sight of +the cutter. They saw her come stealing out of the thin dark like +a thought half thought, and go gliding along the shore like a sea +ghost over the dusky water, faint, uncertain, noiseless, +glimmering. It could be no other than the Fisky! Both their lady +and their friend Malcolm must be on board, they were certain, for +how could the one of them come without the other? and doubtless +the marchioness, whom they all remembered as a good humoured +handsome young lady, never shy of speaking to anybody, had come +to deliver them from the hateful red nosed ogre, her factor! Out +at once they all set along the shore to greet her arrival, each +running regardless of the rest, so that from the Seaton to the +middle of the Boar's Tail there was a long, straggling broken +string of hurrying fisher folk, men and women, old and young, +followed by all the current children, tapering to one or two +toddlers, who felt themselves neglected and wept their way along. +The piper, too asthmatic to run, but not too asthmatic to walk +and play his bagpipes, delighting the heart of Malcolm, who could +not mistake the style, believed he brought up the rear, but was +wrong; for the very last came Mrs Findlay and Lizzy, carrying +between them their little deal kitchen table, for her ladyship to +step out of the boat upon, and Lizzy's child fast asleep on the +top of it.</p> + +<p>The foremost ran and ran until they saw that the Psyche had +chosen her couch, and was turning her head to the shore, when +they stopped and stood ready with greased planks and ropes to +draw her up.</p> + +<p>In a few moments the whole population was gathered, darkening, +in the June midnight, the yellow sands between the tide and dune. +The Psyche was well manned now with a crew of six. On she came +under full sail till within a few yards of the beach, when, in +one and the same moment, every sheet was let go, and she swept +softly up like a summer wave, and lay still on the shore.</p> + +<p>The butterfly was asleep. But ere she came to rest, the +instant indeed that her canvas went fluttering away, thirty +strong men had rushed into the water and laid hold of the now +broken winged thing. In a few minutes she was high and dry.</p> + +<p>Malcolm leaped on the sand just as the Partaness came bustling +up with her kitchen table between her two hands like a tray. She +set it down, and across it shook hands with him violently; then +caught it up and deposited it firm on its four legs beneath the +cutter's waist.</p> + +<p>"Noo, my leddy," said Meg, looking up at the marchioness, "set +ye yer bit fut upo' my table, an' we'll think the mair o't efter +whan we tak' oor denner aff o' 't."</p> + +<p>Florimel thanked her, stepped lightly upon it, and sprang to +the sand, where she was received with words of welcome from many, +and shouts which rendered them inaudible from the rest. The men, +their bonnets in their hands, and the women courtesying, made a +lane for her to pass through, while the young fellows would +gladly have begged leave to carry her, could they have +extemporised any suitable sort of palanquin or triumphal +litter.</p> + +<p>Followed by Malcolm, she led the way over the Boar's Tail -- +nor would accept any help in climbing it -- straight for the +tunnel:</p> + +<p>Malcolm had never laid aside the key to the private doors his +father had given him while he was yet a servant. They crossed by +the embrasure of the brass swivel. That implement had now long +been silent, but they had not gone many paces from the bottom of +the dune when it went off with a roar. The shouts of the people +drowned the startled cry with which Florimel, involuntarily +mindful of old and for her better times, turned to Malcolm. She +had not looked for such a reception, and was both flattered and +touched by it. For a brief space the spirit of her girlhood came +back. Possibly, had she then understood that hope rather than +faith or love was at the heart of their enthusiasm, that her +tenants looked upon her as their saviour from the factor, and +sorely needed the exercise of her sovereignty, she might have +better understood her position, and her duty towards them.</p> + +<p>Malcolm unlocked the door of the tunnel, and she entered, +followed by Rose, who felt as if she were walking in a dream. As +he stepped in after them, he was seized from behind, and clasped +close in an embrace he knew at once.</p> + +<p>"Daddy, daddy!" he said, and turning threw his arms round the +piper.</p> + +<p>"My poy! my poy! Her nain son Malcolm!" cried the old man in a +whisper of intense satisfaction and suppression. "You'll must pe +forgifing her for coming pack to you. She cannot help lofing you, +and you must forget tat you are a Cam'ell."</p> + +<p>Malcolm kissed his cheek, and said, also in a whisper:</p> + +<p>"My ain daddy! I ha'e a heap to tell ye, but I maun see my +leddy hame first."</p> + +<p>"Co, co, this moment co," cried the old man, pushing him away. +"To your tuties to my leddyship first, and then come to her old +daddy."</p> + +<p>"I'll be wi' ye in half an hoor or less."</p> + +<p>"Coot poy! coot poy! Come to Mistress Partan's."</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, daddy!" said Malcolm, and hurried through the +tunnel.</p> + +<p>As Florimel approached the ancient dwelling of her race, now +her own to do with as she would, her pleasure grew. Whether it +was the twilight, or the breach in dulling custom, everything +looked strange, the grounds wider, the trees larger, the house +grander and more anciently venerable. And all the way the burn +sang in the hollow. The spirit of her father seemed to hover +about the place, and while the thought that her father's voice +would not greet her when she entered the hall, cast a solemn +funereal state over her simple return, her heart yet swelled with +satisfaction and far derived pride.</p> + +<p>All this was hers to work her pleasure with, to confer as she +pleased! No thought of her tenants, fishers or farmers, who did +their strong part in supporting the ancient dignity of her house, +had even an associated share in the bliss of the moment. She had +forgotten her reception already, or regarded it only as the +natural homage to such a position and power as hers. As to owing +anything in return, the idea had indeed been presented to her +when with Clementina and Malcolm she talked over "St Ronan's +Well," but it had never entered her mind.</p> + +<p>The drawing room and the hall were lighted. Mrs Courthope was +at the door as if she expected her, and Florimel was careful to +take everything as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>"When will your ladyship please to want me?" asked +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"At the usual hour, Malcolm," she answered.</p> + +<p>He turned, and ran to the Seaton.</p> + +<p>His first business was the accommodation of Travers and Davy, +but he found them already housed at the Salmon, with Jamie Ladle +teaching Travers to drink toddy. They had left the Psyche snug: +she was high above high water mark, and there were no tramps +about; they had furled her sails, locked the companion door, and +left her.</p> + +<p>Mrs Findlay rejoiced over Malcolm as if he had been her own +son from a far country; but the poor piper between politeness and +gratitude on the one hand, and the urging of his heart on the +other, was sorely tried by her loquacity: he could hardly get in +a word. Malcolm perceived his suffering, and, as soon as seemed +prudent, proposed that he should walk with him to Miss Horn's, +where he was going to sleep, he said, that night. Mrs Partan +snuffed, but held her peace. For the third or fourth time that +day, wonderful to tell, she restrained herself!</p> + +<p>As soon as they were out of the house, Malcolm assured Duncan, +to the old man's great satisfaction, that, had he not found him +there, he would, within another month, have set out to roam +Scotland in search of him.</p> + +<p>Miss Horn had heard of their arrival, and was wandering about +the house, unable even to sit down until she saw the marquis. To +herself she always called him the marquis; to his face he was +always Malcolm. If he had not come, she declared she could not +have gone to bed -- yet she received him with an edge to her +welcome: he had to answer for his behaviour. They sat down, and +Duncan told a long sad story; which finished, with the toddy that +had sustained him during the telling, the old man thought it +better, for fear of annoying his Mistress Partan, to go home. As +it was past one o'clock, they both agreed.</p> + +<p>"And if she'll tie tonight, my poy," said Duncan, "she'll pe +lie awake in her crave all ta long tarkness, to pe waiting to +hear ta voice of your worrts in ta morning. And nefer you mind, +Malcolm, she'll has learned to forgife you for peing only ta one +half of yourself a cursed Cam'ell."</p> + +<p>Miss Horn gave Malcolm a wink, as much as to say, "Let the old +man talk. It will hurt no Campbell," and showed him out with much +attention. And then at last Malcolm poured forth his whole story, +and his heart with it, to Miss Horn, who heard and received it +with understanding, and a sympathy which grew ever as she +listened. At length she declared herself perfectly satisfied, for +not only had he done his best, but she did not see what else he +could have done. She hoped, however, that now he would contrive +to get this part over as quickly as possible, for which, in the +morning, she would, she said, show him cogent reasons.</p> + +<p>"I ha'e no feelin's mysel', as ye weel ken, laddie," she +remarked in conclusion, "an' I doobt, gien I had been i' your +place, I wad na hae luikit to a' sides o' the thing at ance as ye +hae dune. -- An' it was a man like you 'at sae near lost yer life +for the hizzy!" she exclaimed. "I maunna think aboot it, or I +winna sleep a wink. But we maun get that deevil Catanach (an' cat +eneuch!) hangt. Weel, my man, ye may haud up yer heid afore the +father o' ye, for ye're the first o' the race, I'm thinkin', 'at +ever was near han' deein' for anither. But mak ye a speedy en' +till 't noo, laad, an' fa' to the lave o' yer wark. There's a +terrible heap to be dune. But I maun haud my tongue the nicht, +for I wad fain ye had a guid sleep, an' I'm needin' ane sair +mysel', for I'm no sae yoong as I ance was, an' I ha'e been that +anxious aboot ye, Ma'colm, 'at though I never hed ony feelin's, +yet, noo 'at a' 's gaein' richt, an' ye're a' richt, and like to +be richt for ever mair, my heid's just like to split. Gang yer +wa's to yer bed, and soon may ye sleep. It's the bed yer bonny +mither got a soon' sleep in at last, and muckle was she i' the +need o' 't! An' jist tak tent the morn what ye say whan Jean's i' +the room, or maybe o' the ither side o' the door, for she's no +mowse. I dinna ken what gars me keep the jaud. I believe 'at gien +the verra deevil himsel' had been wi' me sae lang, I wadna ha'e +the hert to turn him aboot his ill business. That's what comes o' +haein' no feelin's. Ither fowk wad ha'e gotten rid o' her half a +score years sin' syne."<br> +</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LVIII"></a>CHAPTER LVIII: THE +TRENCH</h1> + +<p>Malcolm had not yet, after all the health giving of the +voyage, entirely recovered from the effects of the ill compounded +potion. Indeed, sometimes the fear crossed his mind that never +would he be the same man again, that the slow furnace of the +grave alone would destroy the vile deposit left in his house of +life. Hence it came that he was weary, and overslept himself the +next day -- but it was no great matter; he had yet time enough. +He swallowed his breakfast as a working man alone can, and set +out for Duff Harbour. At Leith, where they had put in for +provisions, he had posted a letter to Mr Soutar, directing him to +have Kelpie brought on to his own town, whence he would fetch her +himself. The distance was about ten miles, the hour eight, and he +was a good enough walker, although boats and horses had combined +to prevent him, he confessed, from getting over fond of Shanks' +mare. To men who delight in the motions of a horse under them, +the legs of a man are a tame, dull means of progression, although +they too have their superiorities; and one of the disciplines of +this world is to have to get out of the saddle and walk afoot. He +who can do so with perfect serenity, must very nearly have +learned with St Paul in whatsoever state he is therein to be +content. It was the loveliest of mornings, however, to be abroad +in upon any terms, and Malcolm hardly needed the resources of one +who knew both how to be abased and how to abound -- enviable +perfection- -- for the enjoyment of even a long walk. Heaven and +earth were just settling to the work of the day after their +morning prayer, and the whole face of things yet wore something +of that look of expectation which one who mingled the vision of +the poet with the faith of the Christian might well imagine to be +their upward look of hope after a night of groaning and +travailing -- the earnest gaze of the creature waiting for the +manifestation of the sons of God and for himself, though the +hardest thing was yet to come, there was a satisfaction in +finding himself almost up to his last fence, with the heavy +ploughed land through which he had been floundering nearly all +behind him -- which figure means that he had almost made up his +mind what to do.</p> + +<p>When he reached the Duff Arms, he walked straight into the +yard, where the first thing he saw was a stable boy in the air, +hanging on to a twitch on the nose of the rearing Kelpie. In +another instant he would have been killed or maimed for life, and +Kelpie loose, and scouring the streets of Duff Harbour. When she +heard Malcolm's voice and the sound of his running feet, she +stopped as if to listen. He flung the boy aside and caught her +halter. Once or twice more she reared, in the vain hope of so +ridding herself of the pain that clung to her lip and nose, nor +did she, through the mist of her anger and suffering, quite +recognize her master in his yacht uniform. But the torture +decreasing, she grew able to scent his presence, welcomed him +with her usual glad whinny, and allowed him to do with her as he +would.</p> + +<p>Having fed her, found Mr Soutar, and arranged several matters +with him, he set out for home.</p> + +<p>That was a ride! Kelpie was mad with life. Every available +field he jumped her into, and she tore its element of space at +least to shreds with her spurning hoofs. But the distance was not +great enough to quiet her before they got to hard turnpike and +young plantations. He would have entered at the grand gate, but +found no one at the lodge, for the factor, to save a little, had +dismissed the old keeper. He had therefore to go on, and through +the town, where, to the awe stricken eyes of the population +peeping from doors and windows, it seemed as if the terrible +horse would carry him right over the roofs of the fisher cottages +below, and out to sea.</p> + +<p>"Eh, but he's a terrible cratur that Ma'colm MacPhail!" said +the old wives to each other, for they felt there must be +something wicked in him to ride like that. But he turned her +aside from the steep hill, and passed along the street that led +to the town gate of the House. -- Whom should he see, as he +turned into it, but Mrs Catanach! -- standing on her own +doorstep, opposite the descent to the Seaton, shading her eyes +with her hand, and looking far out over the water through the +green smoke of the village below. As long as he could remember +her, it had been her wont to gaze thus; though what she could at +such times be looking for, except it were the devil in person, he +found it hard to conjecture.</p> + +<p>At the sound of his approach she turned; and such an +expression crossed her face in a momentary flash ere she +disappeared in the house, as added considerably to his knowledge +of fallen humanity. Before he reached her door she was out again, +tying on a clean white apron as she came, and smiling like a dark +pool in sunshine. She dropped him a low courtesy, and looked as +if she had been occupying her house for months of his absence. +But Malcolm would not meet even cunning with its own weapons, and +therefore turned away his head, and took no notice of her. She +ground her teeth with the fury of hate, and swore that she would +yet disappoint him of his purpose, whatever it were, in this +masquerade of service. Her heart being scarcely of the calibre to +comprehend one like Malcolm's, her theories for the +interpretation of the mystery were somewhat wild, and altogether +of a character unfit to see the light.</p> + +<p>The keeper of the town gate greeted Malcolm, as he let him in, +with a pleased old face and words of welcome; but added +instantly, as if it was no time for the indulgence of friendship, +that it was a terrible business going on at the Nose.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" asked Malcolm, in alarm.</p> + +<p>"Ye ha'e been ower lang awa', I doobt," answered the man, "to +ken hoo the factor -- But, Lord save ye! haud yer tongue," he +interjected, looking fearfully around him. "Gien he kenned 'at I +said sic a thing, he wad turn me oot o' hoose an' ha'."</p> + +<p>"You've said nothing yet," rejoined Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"I said factor, an' that same 's 'maist eneuch, for he's like +a roarin' lion an' a ragin' bear amang the people, an' that sin' +ever ye gaed. Bow o' Meal said i' the meetin' the ither nicht 'at +he bude to be the verra man, the wickit ruler propheseed o' sae +lang sin syne i' the beuk o' the Proverbs. Eh! it's an awfu' +thing to be foreordeent to oonrichteousness!"</p> + +<p>"But you haven't told me what is the matter at Scaurnose," +said Malcolm impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Ow, it's jist this -- at this same's midsimmer day, an' Blew +Peter, honest fallow! he's been for the last three month un'er +nottice frae the factor to quit. An' sae, ye see,"</p> + +<p>"To quit!" exclaimed Malcolm. "Sic a thing was never h'ard +tell o'!"</p> + +<p>"Haith! it's h'ard tell o' noo," returned the gatekeeper. +"Quittin' 's as plenty as quicken (couch grass). 'Deed there's +maist naething ither h'ard tell o' bit quittin'; for the full +half o' Scaurnose is un'er like nottice for Michaelmas, an' the +Lord kens what it 'll a' en' in!"</p> + +<p>"But what's it for? Blue Peter's no the man to misbehave +himsel'."</p> + +<p>"Weel, ye ken mair yersel' nor ony ither as to the warst fau't +there is to lay till's chairge; for they say -- that is, some +say, it's a' yer ain wyte, Ma'colm."</p> + +<p>"What mean ye, man? Speyk oot," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"They say it's a' anent the abduckin' o' the markis's boat, +'at you an' him gaed aff wi' thegither."</p> + +<p>"That'll hardly haud, seeing the marchioness hersel' cam' hame +in her the last nicht."</p> + +<p>"Ay, but ye see the decree's gane oot, an' what the factor +says is like the laws o' the Medes an' the Prussians, 'at they +say's no to be altert; I kenna mysel'."</p> + +<p>"Ow weel! gien that be a', I'll see efter that wi' the +marchioness."</p> + +<p>"Ay, but ye see there's a lot o' the laads there, as I'm +tellt, 'at has vooed 'at factor nor factor's man s'all ever set +fut in Scaurnose fine this day furth. Gang ye doon to the Seaton, +an' see hoo mony o' yer auld freen's ye'll fin' there. Man, +they're a' oot to Scaurnose to see the plisky. The factor he's +there, I ken, an' some constables wi' 'im -- to see 'at his order +'s cairried oot. An' the laads they ha'e been fortifeein' the +place -- as they ca' 't -- for the last oor. They've howkit a +trenk, they tell me, 'at nane but a hunter on 's horse cud win +ower, an' they're postit alang the toon side o' 't wi' sticks an' +stanes, an' boat heuks, an' guns an' pistils. An' gien there bena +a man or twa killt a'ready,"</p> + +<p>Before he finished his sentence, Kelpie was levelling herself +for the sea gate.</p> + +<p>Johnny Bykes was locking it on the other side, in haste to +secure his eye share of what was going on, when he caught sight +of Malcolm tearing up. Mindful of the old grudge, also that there +was no marquis now to favour his foe, he finished the arrested +act of turning the key, drew it from the lock, and to Malcolm's +orders, threats, and appeals, returned for all answer that he had +no time to attend to him, and so left him looking through the +bars. Malcolm dashed across the burn, and round the base of the +hill on which stood the little windgod blowing his horn, +dismounted, unlocked the door in the wall, got Kelpie through, +and was in the saddle again before Johnny was halfway from the +gate. When the churl saw him, he trembled, turned, and ran for +its shelter again in terror -- nor perceived until he reached it, +that the insulted groom had gone off like the wind in the +opposite direction.</p> + +<p>Malcolm soon left the high road and cut across the fields -- +over which the wind bore cries and shouts, mingled with laughter +and the animal sounds of coarse jeering. When he came nigh the +cart road which led into the village, he saw at the entrance of +the street a crowd, and rising from it the well known shape of +the factor on his horse. Nearer the sea, where was another +entrance through the back yards of some cottages, was a smaller +crowd. Both were now pretty silent, for the attention of all was +fixed on Malcolm's approach. As he drew up Kelpie foaming and +prancing, and the group made way for her, he saw a deep wide +ditch across the road, on whose opposite side was ranged +irregularly the flower of Scaurnose's younger manhood, calmly, +even merrily prepared to defend their entrenchment. They had been +chaffing the factor, and loudly challenging the constables to +come on, when they recognised Malcolm in the distance, and +expectancy stayed the rush of their bruising wit. For they +regarded him as beyond a doubt come from the marchioness with +messages of goodwill. When he rode up, therefore, they raised a +great shout, everyone welcoming him by name. But the factor, who, +to judge by appearances, had had his forenoon dram ere he left +home, burning with wrath, moved his horse in between Malcolm and +the assembled Scaurnoseans on the other side of the ditch. He had +self command enough left, however, to make one attempt at the +loftily superior.</p> + +<p>"Pray what is your business?" he said, as if he had never seen +Malcolm in his life before, "I presume you come with a +message."</p> + +<p>"I come to beg you, sir, not to go further with this business. +Surely the punishment is already enough!" said Malcolm +respectfully.</p> + +<p>"Who sends me the message?" asked the factor, his teeth +clenched, and his eyes flaming.</p> + +<p>"One," answered Malcolm, "who has some influence for justice, +and will use it, upon whichever side the justice may lie."</p> + +<p>"Go to hell," cried the Factor, losing utterly his slender +self command, and raising his whip.</p> + +<p>Malcolm took no heed of the gesture, for he was at the moment +beyond his reach.</p> + +<p>"Mr Crathie," he said calmly, "you are banishing the best man +in the place."</p> + +<p>"No doubt! no doubt! seeing he's a crony of yours," laughed +the factor in mighty scorn. "A canting, prayer meeting rascal!" +he added.</p> + +<p>"Is that ony waur nor a drucken elyer o' the kirk?" cried Dubs +from the other side of the ditch, raising a roar of laughter.</p> + +<p>The very purple forsook the factor's face, and left it a +corpse-like grey in the fire of his fury.</p> + +<p>"Come, come, my men! that's going too far," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"An' wha ir ye for a fudgie (truant) fisher, to gi'e coonsel +ohn speired?" shouted Dubs, altogether disappointed in the poor +part Malcolm seemed taking. "Haud to the factor there wi' yer +coonsel."</p> + +<p>"Get out of my way," said Mr Crathie, still speaking through +his set teeth, and came straight upon Malcolm. "Home with you! +or-r-r"</p> + +<p>Again he raised his whip, this time plainly with intent.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, factor, min' the mere," cried Malcolm. "Ribs +an' legs an' a' 'ill be to crack, gien ye anger her wi' yer +whuppin."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he drew a little aside that the factor might pass +if he pleased. A noise arose in the smaller crowd, and Malcolm +turned to see what it meant: off his guard, he received a +stinging cut over the head from the factor's whip. +Simultaneously, Kelpie stood up on end, and Malcolm tore the +weapon from the treacherous hand.</p> + +<p>"If I gave you what you deserve, Mr Crathie, I should knock +you and your horse together into that ditch. A touch of the spur +would do it. I am not quite sure that I ought not. A nature like +yours takes forbearance for fear."</p> + +<p>While he spoke, his mare was ramping and kicking, making a +clean sweep all about her. Mr Crathie's horse turned restive from +sympathy, and it was all his rider could do to keep his seat. As +soon as he got Kelpie a little quieter, Malcolm drew near and +returned him his whip. He snatched it from his outstretched hand, +and essayed a second cut at him, which Malcolm rendered powerless +by pushing Kelpie close up to him. Then suddenly wheeling, he +left him.</p> + +<p>On the other side of the trench the fellows were shouting and +roaring with laughter.</p> + +<p>"Men," cried Malcolm, "you have no right to stop up this road. +I want to go and see Blue Peter."</p> + +<p>"Come on," cried one of the young men, emulous of Dubs's +humour, and spread out his arms as if to receive Kelpie to his +bosom.</p> + +<p>"Stand out of the way then," said Malcolm, "I am coming."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he took Kelpie a little round, keeping out of the +way of the factor, who sat trembling with rage on his still +excited animal, and sent her at the trench.</p> + +<p>The Deevil's Jock, as they called him, kept jumping, with his +arms outspread, from one place to another, as if to receive +Kelpie's charge, but when he saw her actually coming, in short, +quick bounds, straight to the trench, he was seized with terror, +and, half paralysed, slipped as he turned to flee, and rolled +into the ditch, just in time to let Kelpie fly over his head. His +comrades scampered right and left, and Malcolm, rather disgusted, +took no notice of them.</p> + +<p>A cart, loaded with their little all, the horse in the shafts, +was standing at Peter's door, but nobody was near it. Hardly was +Malcolm well into the close, however, when out rushed Annie, and, +heedless of Kelpie's demonstrative repellence, reached up her +hands like a child, caught him by the arm, while yet he was +busied with his troublesome charge, drew him down towards her, +and held him till, in spite of Kelpie, she had kissed him again +and again.</p> + +<p>"Eh, Ma'colm! eh, my lord!" she said, "ye ha'e saved my faith. +I kenned ye wad come!"</p> + +<p>"Haud yer tongue, Annie. I mauna be kenned," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"There's nae danger. They'll tak' it for sweirin'," answered +Annie, laughing and crying both at once.</p> + +<p>Out next came Blue Peter, his youngest child in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Eh, Peter man! I'm blythe to see ye," cried Malcolm. "Gie's a +grup o' yer honest han'."</p> + +<p>More than even the sight of his face beaming with pleasure, +more than that grasp of the hand that would have squeezed the +life out of a polecat, was the sound of the mother tongue from +his lips. The cloud of Peter's long distrust broke and vanished, +and the sky of his soul was straightway a celestial blue. He +snatched his hand from Malcolm's, walked back into the empty +house, ran into the little closet off the kitchen, bolted the +door, fell on his knees in the void little sanctuary that had of +late been the scene of so many foiled attempts to lift up his +heart, and poured out speechless thanksgiving to the God of all +grace and consolation, who had given him back his friend, and +that in the time of his sore need. So true was his heart in its +love, that, giving thanks for his friend, he forgot that friend +was the Marquis of Lossie, before whom his enemy was but as a +snail in the sun.</p> + +<p>When he rose from his knees, and went out again, his face +shining and his eyes misty, his wife was on the top of the cart, +tying a rope across the cradle.</p> + +<p>"Peter," said Malcolm, "ye was quite richt to gang, but I'm +glaid they didna lat ye."</p> + +<p>"I wad ha'e been half w'y to Port Gordon or noo," said +Peter.</p> + +<p>"But noo ye'll no gang to Port Gordon," said Malcolm. "Ye'll +jist gang to the Salmon for a feow days, till we see hoo things +gang."</p> + +<p>"I'll du onything ye like, Ma'colm," said Peter, and went into +the house to fetch his bonnet.</p> + +<p>In the street arose the cry of a woman, and into the close +rushed one of the fisherwives, followed by the factor. He had +found a place on the eastern side of the village, where, jumping +a low earth wail, he got into a little back yard, and was +trampling over its few stocks of kail, and its one dusty miller +and double daisy, when the woman to whose cottage it belonged +caught sight of him through the window, and running out fell to +abusing him in no measured language. He rode at her in his rage, +and she fled shrieking into Peter's close, where she took refuge +behind the cart, never ceasing her vituperation, but calling him +every choice name in her vocabulary. Beside himself with the rage +of murdered dignity, he rode up, and struck at her over the +corner of the cart, whereupon, from the top of it, Annie Mair +ventured to expostulate.</p> + +<p>"Hoot, sir! It's no mainners to lat at a wuman like that."</p> + +<p>He turned upon her, and gave her a cut on the arm and hand, so +stinging that she cried out, and nearly fell from the cart. Out +rushed Peter and flew at the factor, who from his seat of vantage +began to ply his whip about his head. But Malcolm, who, when the +factor appeared, had moved aside to keep Kelpie out of mischief, +and saw only the second of the two assaults, came forward with a +scramble and a bound.</p> + +<p>"Haud awa, Peter," he cried. "This belangs to me. I ga'e him +back 's whup, an' sae I'm accoontable. -- Mr Crathie,"-- and as +he spoke he edged his mare up to the panting factor, "the man who +strikes a woman must be taught that he is a scoundrel, and that +office I take. I would do the same if you were the lord of Lossie +instead of his factor."</p> + +<p>Mr Crathie, knowing himself now in the wrong, was a little +frightened at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, +but the swift descent of Malcolm's heavy riding whip on his +shoulders and back made him voluble in curses. Then began a +battle that could not last long with such odds on the side of +justice. It was gazed at from the mouth of the close by many +spectators, but none dared enter because of the capering and +plunging and kicking of the horses. In less than a minute the +factor turned to flee, and spurring out of the court, galloped up +the street at full stretch.</p> + +<p>"Haud oot o' the gait," cried Malcolm, and rode after him. But +more careful of the people, he did not get a good start, and the +factor was over the trench and into the fields before he caught +him up. Then again the stinging switch buckled about the +shoulders of the oppressor, driven with all the force of +Malcolm's brawny arm. The factor yelled and cursed and swore, and +still Malcolm plied the whip, and still the horses flew -- over +fields and fences and ditches. At length in the last field, from +which they must turn into the high road, the factor groaned out +-- "For God's sake, Ma'colm, ha'e mercy!"</p> + +<p>The youth's uplifted arm fell by his side. He turned his +mare's head, and when the factor turned his, he saw the avenger +already halfway back to Scaurnose, and the constables in full +flight meeting him.</p> + +<p>While Malcolm was thus occupied, his sister was writing to +Lady Bellair. She told her that, having gone out for a sail in +her yacht, which she had sent for from Scotland, the desire to +see her home had overpowered her to such a degree that of the +intended sail she had made a voyage, and here she was, longing +just as much now to see Lady Bellair; and if she thought proper +to bring a gentleman to take care of her, he also should be +welcomed for her sake. It was a long way for her to come, she +said, and Lady Bellair knew what sort of a place it was; but +there was nobody in London now, and if she had nothing more +enticing on her tablets, &c., &c. She ended with begging +her, if she was mercifully inclined to make her happy with her +presence, to bring to her Caley and her hound Demon. She had +hardly finished when Malcolm presented himself.</p> + +<p>She received him very coldly, and declined to listen to +anything about the fishers. She insisted that, being one of their +party, he was prejudiced in their favour; and that of course a +man of Mr Crathie's experience must know better than he what +ought to be done with such people, in view of protecting her +rights, and keeping them in order. She declared that she was not +going to disturb the old way of things to please him; and said +that he had now done her all the mischief he could, except, +indeed, he were to head the fishers and sack Lossie House.</p> + +<p>Malcolm found that, by making himself known to her as her +brother, he had but given her confidence in speaking her mind to +him, and set her free from considerations of personal dignity +when she desired to humiliate him. But he was a good deal +surprised at the ability with which she set forth and defended +her own view of her affairs, for she did not tell him that the +Rev. Mr Cairns had been with her all the morning, flattering her +vanity, worshipping her power, and generally instructing her in +her own greatness -- also putting in a word or two anent his +friend Mr Crathie and his troubles with her ladyship's fisher +tenants. She was still, however, so far afraid of her brother -- +which state of feeling was, perhaps, the main cause of her +insulting behaviour to him -- that she sat in some dread lest he +might chance to see the address of the letter she had been +writing.</p> + +<p>I may mention here that Lady Bellair accepted the invitation +with pleasure for herself and Liftore, promised to bring Caley, +but utterly declined to take charge of Demon, or allow him to be +of the party. Thereupon Florimel, who was fond of the animal, and +feared much, as he was no favourite, that something would happen +to him, wrote to Clementina, praying her to visit her in her +lovely loneliness -- good as The Gloom in its way, though not +quite so dark -- and to add a hair to the weight of her +obligations if she complied, by allowing her deerhound to +accompany her. Clementina was the only one, she said, of her +friends for whom the animal had ever shown a preference.</p> + +<p>Malcolm retired from his sister's presence much depressed, saw +Mrs Courthope, who was kind as ever, and betook himself to his +own room, next to that in which his strange history began. There +he sat down and wrote urgently to Lenorme, stating that he had an +important communication to make, and begging him to start for the +north the moment he received the letter. A messenger from Duff +Harbour well mounted, he said, would ensure his presence within a +couple of hours.</p> + +<p>He found the behaviour of his old acquaintances and friends in +the Seaton much what he had expected: the few were as cordial as +ever, while the many still resented, with a mingling of the +jealousy of affection, his forsaking of the old life for a +calling they regarded as unworthy of one bred at least if not +born a fisherman. A few there were besides who always had been, +for reasons perhaps best known to themselves, less than friendly. +The women were all cordial.</p> + +<p>"Sic a mad-like thing," said old Futtocks, who was now the +leader of the assembly at the barn, "to gang scoorin' the cuintry +on that mad brute o' a mere! What guid, think ye, can come sic +like?"</p> + +<p>"H'ard ye him ever tell the story aboot Colonsay Castel +yon'er?"</p> + +<p>"Ay hey!"</p> + +<p>"Weel, isna his mere 'at they ca' Kelpie jist the pictur' o' +the deil's ain horse 'at lay at the door an' watched, whan he +flaw oot an' tuik the wa' wi' 'im?"</p> + +<p>"I cudna say till I saw whether the deil himsel' cud gar her +lie still."</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LIX"></a>CHAPTER LIX: THE +PEACEMAKER</h1> + +<p>The heroes of Scaurnose expected a renewal of the attack, and +in greater force, the next day, and made their preparations +accordingly, strengthening every weak point around the village. +They were put in great heart by Malcolm's espousal of their +cause, as they considered his punishment of the factor; but most +of them set it down in their wisdom as resulting from the popular +condemnation of his previous supineness. It did not therefore add +greatly to his influence with them. When he would have prevailed +upon them to allow Blue Peter to depart, arguing that they had +less right to prevent than the factor had to compel him, they +once more turned upon him: what right had he to dictate to them? +he did not belong to Scaurnose!</p> + +<p>He reasoned with them that the factor, although he had not +justice, had law on his side, and could turn out whom he pleased. +They said -- "Let him try it!" He told them that they had given +great provocation, for he knew that the men they had assaulted +came surveying for a harbour, and that they ought at least to +make some apology for having maltreated them. It was all useless: +that was the women's doing, they said; besides they did not +believe him; and if what he said was true, what was the thing to +them, seeing they were all under notice to leave?</p> + +<p>Malcolm said that perhaps an apology would be accepted. They +told him, if he did not take himself off, they would serve him as +he had served the factor. Finding expostulation a failure, +therefore, he begged Joseph and Annie to settle themselves again +as comfortably as they could, and left them.</p> + +<p>Contrary to the expectation of all, however, and considerably +to the disappointment of the party of Dubs, Fite Folp, and the +rest, the next day was as peaceful as if Scaurnose had been a +halcyon nest floating on the summer waves; and it was soon +reported that, in consequence of the punishment he had received +from Malcolm, the factor was far too ill to be troublesome to any +but his wife. This was true, but, severe as his chastisement was, +it was not severe enough to have had any such consequences but +for his late growing habit of drinking whisky. As it was, fever +had followed upon the combination of bodily and mental suffering. +But already it had wrought this good in him, that he was far more +keenly aware of the brutality of the offence of which he had been +guilty than he would otherwise have been all his life through. To +his wife, who first learned the reason of Malcolm's treatment of +him from his delirious talk in the night, it did not, +circumstances considered, appear an enormity, and her indignation +with the avenger of it, whom she had all but hated before, was +furious.</p> + +<p>Malcolm, on his part, was greatly concerned to hear the result +of his severity. He refrained, however, from calling to inquire, +knowing it would be interpreted as an insult, not accepted as a +sign of sympathy. He went to the doctor instead -- who, to his +consternation, looked very serious at first. But when he learned +all about the affair, he changed his view considerably, and +condescended to give good hopes of his coming through, even +adding that it would lengthen his life by twenty years if it +broke him of his habits of whisky drinking and rage.</p> + +<p>And now Malcolm had a little time of leisure, which he put to +the best possible use in strengthening his relations with the +fishers. For he had nothing to do about the House, except look +after Kelpie; and Florimel, as if determined to make him feel +that he was less to her than before, much as she used to enjoy +seeing him sit his mare, never took him out with her -- always +Stoat. He resolved therefore, seeing he must yet delay action a +while in the hope of the appearance of Lenorme, to go out as in +the old days after the herring, both for the sake of splicing, if +possible, what strands had been broken between him and the +fishers, and of renewing for himself the delights of elemental +conflict.</p> + +<p>With these views, he hired himself to the Partan, whose boat's +crew was short handed. And now, night after night, he revelled in +the old pleasure, enhanced by so many months of deprivation. Joy +itself seemed embodied in the wind blowing on him out of the +misty infinite while his boat rocked and swung on the waters, +hanging between two worlds, that in which the wind blew, and that +other dark swaying mystery whereinto the nets to which it was +tied went away down and down, gathering the harvest of the +ocean.</p> + +<p>It was as if nature called up all her motherhood to greet and +embrace her long absent son. When it came on to blow hard, as it +did once and again during those summer nights, instead of making +him feel small and weak in the midst of the storming forces, it +gave him a glorious sense of power and unconquerable life. And +when his watch was out, and the boat lay quiet, like a horse +tethered and asleep in his clover field, he too would fall asleep +with a sense of simultaneously deepening and vanishing delight +such as be had not at all in other conditions experienced.</p> + +<p>Ever since the poison had got into his system, and crept where +it yet lay lurking in hidden corners and crannies, a noise at +night would on shore startle him awake, and set his heart beating +hard; but no loudest sea noise ever woke him; the stronger the +wind flapped its wings around him, the deeper he slept. When a +comrade called him by name, he was up at once and wide awake.</p> + +<p>It answered also all his hopes in regard to his companions and +the fisher folk generally. Those who had really known him found +the same old Malcolm, and those who had doubted him soon began to +see that at least he had lost nothing in courage or skill or +goodwill: ere long he was even a greater favourite than before. +On his part, he learned to understand far better the nature of +his people, as well as the individual characters of them, for his +long (but not too long) absence and return enabled him to regard +them with unaccustomed, and therefore in some respects more +discriminating eyes.</p> + +<p>Duncan's former dwelling happening to be then occupied by a +lonely woman, Malcolm made arrangements with her to take them +both in; so that in relation to his grandfather too something +very much like the old life returned for a time -- with this +difference, that Duncan soon began to check himself as often as +the name of his hate, with its accompanying curse, rose to his +lips.</p> + +<p>The factor continued very ill. He had sunk into a low state, +in which his former indulgence was greatly against him. Every +night the fever returned, and at length his wife was worn out +with watching, and waiting upon him.</p> + +<p>And every morning Lizzy Findlay, without fail, called to +inquire how Mr Crathie had spent the night. To the last, while +quarrelling with every one of her neighbours with whom he had +anything to do, he had continued kind to her, and she was more +grateful than one in other trouble than hers could have +understood. But she did not know that an element in the +origination of his kindness was the belief that it was by Malcolm +she had been wronged and forsaken.</p> + +<p>Again and again she had offered, in the humblest manner, to +ease his wife's burden by sitting with him at night; and at last, +finding she could hold up no longer, Mrs Crathie consented. But +even after a week she found herself still unable to resume the +watching, and so, night after night, resting at home during a +part of the day, Lizzy sat by the sleeping factor, and when he +woke ministered to him like a daughter. Nor did even her mother +object, for sickness is a wondrous reconciler.</p> + +<p>Little did the factor suspect, however, that it was partly for +Malcolm's sake she nursed him, anxious to shield the youth from +any possible consequences of his righteous vengeance.</p> + +<p>While their persecutor lay thus, gradually everything at +Scaurnose, and consequently at the Seaton, lapsed into its old +way, and the summer of such content as before they had possessed, +returned to the fishers. I fear it would have proved hard for +some of them, had they made effort in that direction, to join in +the prayer, if prayer it may be called, put up in church for him +every Sunday. What a fearful canopy the prayers that do not get +beyond the atmosphere would make if they turned brown with age! +Having so lately seen the factor going about like a maniac, +raving at this piece of damage and that heap of dirt, the few +fishers present could never help smiling when Mr Cairns prayed +for him as "the servant of God and his church now lying +grievously afflicted -- persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, +but not destroyed;" -- having found the fitting phrases he seldom +varied them.</p> + +<p>Through her sorrow, Lizzy had grown tender, as through her +shame she had grown wise. That the factor had been much in the +wrong only rendered her anxious sympathy the more eager to serve +him. Knowing so well what it was to have done wrong, she was +pitiful over him, and her ministrations were none the less +devoted that she knew exactly how Malcolm thought and felt about +him; for the affair, having taken place in open village and wide +field and in the light of midday, and having been reported by +eyewitnesses many, was everywhere perfectly known, and Malcolm +therefore talked of it freely to his friends, amongst them both +to Lizzy and her mother.</p> + +<p>Sickness sometimes works marvellous changes, and the most +marvellous on persons who to the ordinary observer seem the least +liable to change. Much apparent steadfastness of nature, however, +is but sluggishness, and comes from incapacity to generate change +or contribute towards personal growth; and it follows that those +whose nature is such can as little prevent or retard any change +that has its initiative beyond them. The men who impress the +world as the mightiest are those often who can the least -- never +those who can the most in their natural kingdom; generally those +whose frontiers lie openest to the inroads of temptation, whose +atmosphere is most subject to moody changes and passionate +convulsions, who, while perhaps they can whisper laws to a +hemisphere, can utter no decree of smallest potency as to how +things shall be within themselves. Place Alexander ille Magnus +beside Malcolm's friend Epictetus, ille servorum servus; take his +crutch from the slave and set the hero upon his Bucephalus -- but +set them alone and in a desert: which will prove the great man? +which the unchangeable? The question being what the man himself +shall or shall not be, shall or shall not feel, shall or shall +not recognize as of himself and troubling the motions of his +being, Alexander will prove a mere earth bubble, Epictetus a +cavern in which pulses the tide of the eternal and infinite +Sea.</p> + +<p>But then first, when the false strength of the self imagined +great man is gone, when the want or the sickness has weakened the +self assertion which is so often mistaken for strength of +individuality, when the occupations in which he formerly found a +comfortable consciousness of being have lost their interest, his +ambitions their glow, and his consolations their colour, when +suffering has wasted away those upper strata of his factitious +consciousness, and laid bare the lower, simpler, truer deeps, of +which he has never known or has forgotten the existence, then +there is a hope of his commencing a new and real life.</p> + +<p>Powers then, even powers within himself of which he knew +nothing, begin to assert themselves, and the man commonly +reported to possess a strong will, is like a wave of the sea +driven with the wind and tossed. This factor, this man of +business, this despiser of humbug, to whom the scruples of a +sensitive conscience were a contempt, would now lie awake in the +night and weep.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" I hear it answered, "but that was the weakness caused by +his illness." True: but what then had become of his strength? And +was it all weakness? What if this weakness was itself a sign of +returning life, not of advancing death -- of the dawn of a new +and genuine strength! For he wept because, in the visions of his +troubled brain, he saw once more the cottage of his father the +shepherd, with all its store of lovely nothings round which the +nimbus of sanctity had gathered while he thought not of them; +wept over the memory of that moment of delight when his mother +kissed him for parting with his willow whistle to the sister who +cried for it: he cried now in his turn, after five and fifty +years, for not yet had the little fact done with him, not yet had +the kiss of his mother lost its power on the man: wept over the +sale of the pet lamb, though he had himself sold thousands of +lambs, since; wept over even that bush of dusty miller by the +door, like the one he trampled under his horse's feet in the +little yard at Scaurnose that horrible day. And oh, that nest of +wild bees with its combs of honey unspeakable! He used to laugh +and sing then: he laughed still sometimes -- he could hear how he +laughed, and it sounded frightful -- but he never sang! Were the +tears that honoured such childish memories all of weakness? Was +it cause of regret that he had not been wicked enough to have +become impregnable to such foolish trifles? Unable to mount a +horse, unable to give an order, not caring even for his toddy, he +was left at the mercy of his fundamentals; his childhood came up +and claimed him, and he found the childish things he had put away +better than the manly things he had adopted. It is one thing for +St Paul and another for Mr Worldly Wiseman to put away childish +things. The ways they do it, and the things they substitute, are +both so different? And now first to me, whose weakness it is to +love life more than manners, and men more than their portraits, +the man begins to grow interesting. Picture the dawn of innocence +on a dull, whisky drinking, commonplace soul, stained by self +indulgence, and distorted by injustice! Unspeakably more +interesting and lovely is to me such a dawn than the honeymoon of +the most passionate of lovers, except indeed I know them such +lovers that their love will outlast all the moons.</p> + +<p>"I'm a poor creature, Lizzy," he said, turning his heavy face +one midnight towards the girl, as she sat half dozing, ready to +start awake.</p> + +<p>"God comfort ye, sir!" said the girl.</p> + +<p>"He'll take good care of that!" returned the factor. "What did +I ever do to deserve it? -- There's that MacPhail, now -- to +think of him! Didn't I do what man could for him? Didn't I keep +him about the place when all the rest were dismissed? Didn't I +give him the key of the library, that he might read and improve +his mind? And look what comes of it!"</p> + +<p>"Ye mean, sir," said. Lizzy, quite innocently, "'at that 's +the w'y ye ha'e dune wi' God, an' sae he winna heed ye?"</p> + +<p>The factor had meant nothing in the least like it. He had +merely been talking as the imps of suggestion tossed up. His +logic was as sick and helpless as himself. So at that he held his +peace -- stung in his pride at least -- perhaps in his conscience +too, only he was not prepared to be rebuked by a girl like her, +who had -- Well, he must let it pass: how much better was he +himself?</p> + +<p>But Lizzy was loyal: she could not hear him speak so of +Malcolm and hold her peace as if she agreed in his +condemnation.</p> + +<p>"Ye'll ken Ma'colm better some day, sir," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, Lizzy," returned the sick man, in a tone that but for +feebleness would have been indignant, "I have heard a good deal +of the way women will stand up for men that have treated them +cruelly, but you to stand up for him passes!"</p> + +<p>"He's been the best friend I ever had," said Lizzy.</p> + +<p>"Girl! how can you sit there, and tell me so to my face?" +cried the factor, his voice strengthened by the righteousness of +the reproof it bore. "If it were not the dead of the night"</p> + +<p>"I tell ye naething but the trowth, sir," said Lizzy, as the +contingent threat died away. "But ye maun lie still or I maun +gang for the mistress. Gien ye be the waur the morn, it'll be a' +my wyte, 'cause I cudna bide to hear sic things said o' +Ma'colm."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me," persisted her charge, heedless of +her expostulation, "that the fellow who brought you to disgrace, +and left you with a child you could ill provide for -- and I well +know never sent you a penny all the time he was away, whatever he +may have done now, is the best friend you ever had?"</p> + +<p>"Noo God forgi'e ye, Maister Crathie, for threipin' sic a +thing!" cried Lizzy, rising as if she would leave him; "Ma'colm +MacPhail 's as clear o' ony sin like mine as my wee bairnie +itsel'."</p> + +<p>"Do ye daur tell me he's no the father o' that same, +lass?"</p> + +<p>"No, nor never will be the father a' ony bairn whase mither 's +no his wife!" said. Lizzy, with burning cheeks and resolute +voice.</p> + +<p>The factor, who had risen on his elbow to look her in the +face, fell back in silence; and neither of them spoke for what +seemed to the watcher a long time; When she ventured to look at +him, he was asleep.</p> + +<p>He lay in one of those troubled slumbers into which weakness +and exhaustion will sometimes pass very suddenly; and in that +slumber he had a dream which he never forgot. He thought he had +risen from his grave with an awful sound in his ears, and knew he +was wanted at the judgment seat. But he did not want to go, +therefore crept into the porch of the church, and hoped to be +forgotten. But suddenly an angel appeared with a flaming sword +and drove him out of the churchyard away to Scaurnose where the +judge was sitting. And as he fled in terror before the angel, he +fell, and the angel came and stood over him, and his sword +flashed torture into his bones, but he could not and dared not +rise. At last, summoning all his strength,. he looked up at him, +and cried out, "Sir, ha'e mercy, for God's sake." Instantly all +the flames drew back into the sword, and the blade dropped, +burning like a brand, from the hilt, which the angel threw away. +-- And lo! it was Malcolm MacPhail, and he was stooping to raise +him. With that he awoke, and there was Lizzy looking down on him +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"What are you looking like that for?" he asked crossly.</p> + +<p>She did not like to tell him that she had been alarmed by his +dropping asleep: and in her confusion she fell back on the last +subject.</p> + +<p>"There maun be some mistak, Mr Crathie," she said. "I wuss ye +wad tell me what gars ye hate Ma'colm MacPhail as ye du."</p> + +<p>The factor, although he seemed to himself to know well enough, +was yet a little puzzled how to commence his reply; and therewith +a process began that presently turned into something with which +never in his life before had his inward parts been acquainted -- +a sort of self examination to wit. He said to himself, partly in +the desire to justify his present dislike -- he would not call it +hate, as Lizzy did -- that he used to get on with the lad well +enough, and had never taken offence at his freedoms, making no +doubt his manner came of his blood, and he could not help it, +being a chip of the old block; but when he ran away with the +marquis's boat, and went to the marchioness and told her lies +against him -- then what could he do but dislike him?</p> + +<p>Arrived at this point, he opened his mouth and gave the +substance of what preceded it for answer to Lizzy's question. But +she replied at once.</p> + +<p>"Nobody 'ill gar me believe, sir, 'at Ma'colm MacPhail ever +tellt a lee again' you or onybody. I dinna believe he ever tellt +a lee in 's life. Jist ye exem' him weel anent it, sir. An' for +the boat, nae doobt it was makin' free to tak it; but ye ken, +sir, 'at hoo he was maister o' the same. It was in his chairge, +an' ye ken little aboot boats yersel,' or the sailin' o' them, +sir."</p> + +<p>"But it was me that engaged him again, after all the servants +at the House had been dismissed: he was my servant."</p> + +<p>"That maks the thing luik waur, nae doobt," allowed Lizzy, -- +with something of cunning. "Hoo was't 'at he cam to du 't ava' +(of all; at all), sir? Can ye min'?" she pursued.</p> + +<p>"I discharged him."</p> + +<p>"An' what for, gien I may mak' hold to speir, sir?" she went +on.</p> + +<p>"For insolence."</p> + +<p>"Wad ye tell me hoo he answert ye? Dinna think me meddlin', +sir. I'm clear certain there's been some mistak. Ye cudna be sae +guid to me, an' be ill to him, ohn some mistak."</p> + +<p>It was consoling to the conscience of the factor, in regard of +his behaviour to the two women, to hear his own praise for +kindness from woman's lips. He took no offence therefore at her +persistent questioning, but told her as well and as truly as he +could remember, with no more than the all but unavoidable +exaggeration with which feeling will colour fact, the whole +passage between Malcolm and himself concerning the sale of +Kelpie, and closed with an appeal to the judgment of his +listener, in which he confidently anticipated her verdict.</p> + +<p>"A most ridic'lous thing! ye can see yersel' as weel 's +onybody, Lizzy! An' sic a thing to ca' an honest man like mysel' +a hypocrete for! ha! ha! ha! There's no a bairn 'atween John o' +Groat's an' the Lan's En' disna ken 'at the seller a horse is +b'un' to reese (extol) him, an' the buyer to tak care o' himsel'. +I'll no say it's jist allooable to tell a doonricht lee, but ye +may come full nearer till't in horse dealin', ohn sinned, nor in +ony ither kin' o' merchandeze. It's like luve an' war, in baith +which, it's weel keened, a' thing's fair. The saw sud rin -- Luve +an' war an' horse dealin'. -- Divna ye see, Lizzy?"</p> + +<p>But Lizzy did not answer, and the factor, hearing a stifled +sob, started to his elbow.</p> + +<p>"Lie still, sir," said Lizzy. "It's naething. I was only jist +thinkin' 'at that wad be the w'y 'at the father o' my bairn +rizoned wi' himsel' whan he lee'd to me."</p> + +<p>"Hey!" said the astonished factor, and in his turn held his +peace, trying to think.</p> + +<p>Now Lizzy, for the last few months, had been going to school, +the same school with Malcolm, open to all comers, the only school +where one is sure to be led in the direction of wisdom, and there +she had been learning to some purpose -- as plainly appeared +before she had done with the factor.</p> + +<p>"Whase kirk are ye elder o', Maister Crathie?" she asked +presently.</p> + +<p>"Ow, the kirk o' Scotlan', of coorse!" answered the patient, +in some surprise at her ignorance.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay," returned Lizzy; "but whase aucht (owning, property) +is 't?"</p> + +<p>"Ow, whase but the Redeemer's!"</p> + +<p>"An' div ye think, Mr Craithie, 'at gien Jesus Christ had had +a horse to sell, he wad ha'e hidden frae him 'at wad buy, ae hair +a fau't 'at the beast hed? Wad he no ha'e dune till's neiper as +he wad ha'e his neiper du to him?"</p> + +<p>"Lassie! lassie! tak care hoo ye even him to sic like as hiz +(us). What wad he hae to du wi' horse flesh?"</p> + +<p>Lizzy held her peace. Here was no room for argument. He had +flung the door of his conscience in the face of her who woke it. +But it was too late, for the word was in already. Oh! that false +reverence which men substitute for adoring obedience, and +wherewith they reprove the childlike spirit that does not know +another kingdom than that of God and that of Mammon! God never +gave man thing to do concerning which it were irreverent to +ponder how the son of God would have done it.</p> + +<p>But, I say, the word was in, and, partly no doubt from its +following so close upon the dream the factor had had, was potent +in its operation. He fell a thinking, and a thinking more +honestly than he had thought for many a day. And presently it was +revealed to him that, if he were in the horse market wanting to +buy, and a man there who had to sell said to him -- "He wadna du +for you, sir; ye wad be tired o' 'im in a week," he would never +remark, "What a fool the fellow is!" but -- "Weel noo, I ca' that +neibourly!" He did not get quite so far just then as to see that +every man to whom he might want to sell a horse was as much his +neighbour as his own brother; nor, indeed, if he had got as far, +would it have indicated much progress in honesty, seeing he would +at any time, when needful and possible, have cheated that brother +in the matter of a horse, as certainly as he would a Patagonian +or a Chinaman. But the warped glass of a bad maxim had at least +been cracked in his window.</p> + +<p>The peacemaker sat in silence the rest of the night, but the +factor's sleep was broken, and at times he wandered. He was not +so well the next day, and his wife, gathering that Lizzy had been +talking, and herself feeling better, would not allow her to sit +up with him any more.</p> + +<p>Days and days passed, and still Malcolm had no word from +Lenorme, and was getting hopeless in respect of that quarter of +possible aid. But so long as Florimel could content herself with +the quiet of Lossie House, there was time to wait, he said to +himself. She was not idle, and that was promising. Every day she +rode out with Stoat. Now and then she would make a call in the +neighbourhood, and, apparently to trouble Malcolm, took care to +let him know that on one of these occasions her call had been +upon Mrs Stewart.</p> + +<p>One thing he did feel was that she made no renewal of her +friendship with his grandfather: she had, alas! outgrown the +girlish fancy. Poor Duncan took it much to heart. She saw more of +the minister and his wife, who both flattered her, than anybody +else, and was expecting the arrival of Lady Bellair and Lord +Liftore with the utmost impatience. They, for their part, were +making the journey by the easiest possible stages, tacking and +veering, and visiting everyone of their friends that lay between +London and Lossie: they thought to give Florimel the little +lesson, that, though they accepted her invitation, they had +plenty of friends in the world besides her ladyship, and were not +dying to see her.</p> + +<p>One evening, Malcolm, as he left the grounds of Mr Morrison, +on whom he had been calling, saw a travelling carriage pass +towards Portlossie; and something liker fear laid hold of his +heart than he had ever felt except when Florimel and he on the +night of the storm took her father for Lord Gernon the wizard. As +soon as he reached certain available fields, he sent Kelpie +tearing across them, dodged through a fir wood, and came out on +the road half a mile in front of the carriage: as again it passed +him he saw that his fears were facts, for in it sat the bold +faced countess, and the mean hearted lord. Something must be done +at last, and until it was done good watch must be kept.</p> + +<p>I must here note that, during this time of hoping and waiting, +Malcolm had attended to another matter of importance. Over every +element influencing his life, his family, his dependents, his +property, he desired to possess a lawful, honest command: where +he had to render account, he would be head. Therefore, through Mr +Soutar's London agent, to whom he sent up Davy, and whom he +brought acquainted with Merton, and his former landlady at the +curiosity shop, he had discovered a good deal about Mrs Catanach +from her London associates, among them the herb doctor, and his +little boy who had watched Davy, and he had now almost completed +an outline of evidence, which, grounded on that of Rose, might be +used against Mrs Catanach at any moment. He had also set +inquiries on foot in the track of Caley's antecedents, and had +discovered more than the acquaintance between her and Mrs +Catanach. Also he had arranged that Hodges, the man who had lost +his leg through his cruelty to Kelpie, should leave for Duff +Harbour as soon as possible after his discharge from the +hospital. He was determined to crush the evil powers which had +been ravaging his little world.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LX"></a>CHAPTER LX: AN +OFFERING</h1> + +<p>Clementina was always ready to accord any reasonable request +Florimel could make of her; but her letter lifted such a weight +from her heart and life that she would now have done whatever she +desired, reasonable or unreasonable, provided only it was honest. +She had no difficulty in accepting Florimel's explanation that +her sudden disappearance was but a breaking of the social gaol, +the flight of the weary bird from its foreign cage back to the +country of its nest; and that same morning she called upon Demon. +The hound, feared and neglected, was rejoiced to see her, came +when she called him, and received her caresses: there was no +ground for dreading his company. It was a long journey, but if it +had been across a desert instead of through her own country, the +hope that lay at the end of it would have made it more than +pleasant. She, as well as Lady Bellair, had friends upon the way, +but no desire to lengthen the journey or shorten its tedium by +visiting them.</p> + +<p>The letter would have found her at Wastbeach instead of +London, had not the society and instructions of the schoolmaster +detained her a willing prisoner to its heat and glare and dust. +Him only in all London must she see to bid goodbye. To Camden +Town therefore she went that same evening, when his work would be +over for the day. As usual now, she was shown into his room -- +his only one. As usual also, she found him poring over his Greek +Testament. The gracious, graceful woman looked lovelily strange +in that mean chamber -- like an opal in a brass ring.</p> + +<p>There was no such contrast between the room and its occupant. +His bodily presence was too weak to "stick fiery off" from its +surroundings, and to the eye that saw through the bodily presence +to the inherent grandeur, that grandeur suggested no discrepancy, +being of the kind that lifts everything to its own level, casts +the mantle of its own radiance around its surroundings. Still to +the eye of love and reverence it was not pleasant to see him in +such entourage, and now that Clementina was going to leave him, +the ministering spirit that dwelt in the woman was troubled.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said, and rose as she entered; "this is then the +angel of my deliverance!" But with such a smile he did not look +as if he had much to be delivered from. "You see," he went on, +"old man as I am, and peaceful, the summer will lay hold upon me. +She stretches out a long arm into this desert of houses and +stones, and sets me longing after the green fields and the living +air -- it seems dead here -- and the face of God -- as much as +one may behold of the Infinite through the revealing veil of +earth and sky and sea. Shall I confess my weakness, my poverty of +spirit, my covetousness after the visual? I was even getting a +little tired of that glorious God and man lover, Saul of Tarsus +-- no, not of him, never of him, only of his shadow in his words. +Yet perhaps, yes I think so, it is God alone of whom a man can +never get tired. Well, no matter; tired I was; when lo! here +comes my pupil, with more of God in her face than all the worlds +and their skies he ever made!"</p> + +<p>"I would my heart were as full of him, too, then, sir!" +answered Clementina. "But if I am anything of a comfort to you, I +am more than glad, -- therefore the more sorry to tell you that I +am going to leave you -- though for a little while only, I +trust."</p> + +<p>"You do not take me by surprise, my lady. I have of course +been looking forward for some time to my loss and your gain. The +world is full of little deaths, deaths of all sorts and sizes, +rather let me say. For this one I was prepared. The good summer +land calls you to its bosom, and you must go."</p> + +<p>"Come with me," cried Clementina, her eyes eager with the +light of the sudden thought, while her heart reproached her +grievously that only now first had it come to her.</p> + +<p>"A man must not leave the most irksome work for the most +peaceful pleasure," answered the schoolmaster. "I am able to live +-- yes, and do my work, without you, my lady," he added with a +smile, "though I shall miss you sorely."</p> + +<p>"But you do not know where I want you to come," she said.</p> + +<p>"What difference can that make, my lady, except indeed in the +amount of pleasure to be refused, seeing this is not a matter of +choice? I must be with the children whom I have engaged to teach, +and whose parents pay me for my labour -- not with those who, +besides, can do well without me."</p> + +<p>"I cannot, sir -- not for long, at least."</p> + +<p>"What! not with Malcolm to supply my place?"</p> + +<p>Clementina blushed, but only like a white rose. She did not +turn her head aside; she did not lower their lids to veil the +light she felt mount into her eyes; she looked him gently in the +face as before, and her aspect of entreaty did not change.</p> + +<p>"Ah! do not be unkind, master," she said.</p> + +<p>"Unkind!" he repeated. "You know I am not. I have more +kindness in my heart than my lips can tell. You do not know, you +could not yet imagine the half of what I hope of and for and from +you."</p> + +<p>"I am going to see Malcolm," she said, with a little sigh. +"That is, I am going to visit Lady Lossie at her place in +Scotland -- your own old home, where so many must love you. -- +Can't you come? I shall be travelling alone, quite alone, except +my servants."</p> + +<p>A shadow came over the schoolmaster's face.</p> + +<p>"You do not think, my lady, or you would not press me. It +pains me that you do not see at once it would be dishonest to go +without timely notice to my pupils, and to the public too. But, +beyond that quite, I never do anything of myself. I go, not where +I wish, but where I seem to be called or sent. I never even wish +much -- except when I pray to him in whom are hid all the +treasures of wisdom and knowledge. After what he wants to give me +I am wishing all day long. I used to build many castles, not +without a beauty of their own -- that was when I had less +understanding: now I leave them to God to build for me -- he does +it better and they last longer. See now, this very hour, when I +needed help -- could I have contrived a more lovely annihilation +of the monotony that threatened to invade my weary spirit, than +this inroad of light in the person of my lady Clementina? Nor +will he allow me to get over wearied with vain efforts. I do not +think he will keep me here long, for I find I cannot do much for +these children. They are but some of his many pagans -- not yet +quite ready to receive Christianity, I think -- not like children +with some of the old seeds of the truth buried in them, that want +to be turned up nearer to the light. This ministration I take to +be more for my good than theirs -- a little trial of faith and +patience for me -- a stony corner of the lovely valley of +humiliation to cross. True, I might be happier where I could hear +the larks, but I do not know that anywhere have I been more +peaceful than in this little room, on which I see you so often +cast round your eyes curiously -- perhaps pitifully, my +lady?"</p> + +<p>"It is not at all a fit place for you," said Clementina, with +a touch of indignation.</p> + +<p>"Softly, my lady -- -- lest, without knowing it, your love +should make you sin! Who set thee, I pray, for a guardian angel +over my welfare? I could scarce have a lovelier -- true! but +where is thy brevet? No, my lady! it is a greater than thou that +sets me the bounds of my habitation. Perhaps he may give me a +palace one day. If I might choose, it would be the things that +belong to a cottage -- the whiteness and the greenness and the +sweet odours of cleanliness. But the father has decreed for his +children that they shall know the thing that is neither their +ideal nor his. Who can imagine how in this respect things looked +to our Lord when he came and found so little faith on the earth! +But, perhaps, my lady, you would not pity my present condition so +much, if you had seen the cottage in which I was born, and where +my father and my mother loved each other, and died happier than +on their wedding day. There I was happy too until their loving +ambition decreed that I should be a scholar and a clergyman. Not +before then did I ever know anything worthy of the name of +trouble. A little cold and a little hunger at times, and not a +little restlessness always was all. But then -- ah then, my +troubles began! Yet God, who bringeth light out of darkness, hath +brought good even out of my weakness and presumption and half +unconscious falsehood! -- When do you go?"</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow morning -- as I purpose."</p> + +<p>"Then God be with thee. He is with thee, only my prayer is +that thou mayest know it. He is with me and I know it. He does +not find this chamber too mean or dingy or unclean to let me know +him near me in it."</p> + +<p>"Tell me one thing before I go," said Clementina: "are we not +commanded to bear each other's burdens and so fulfil the law of +Christ? I read it today."</p> + +<p>"Then why ask me?"</p> + +<p>"For another question: does not that involve the command to +those who have burdens that they should allow others to bear +them?"</p> + +<p>"Surely, my lady. But I have no burden to let you bear."</p> + +<p>"Why should I have everything, and you nothing? -- Answer me +that?"</p> + +<p>"My lady, I have millions more than you, for I have been +gathering the crumbs under my master's table for thirty +years."</p> + +<p>"You are a king," answered Clementina. "But a king needs a +handmaiden somewhere in his house: that let me be in yours. No, I +will be proud, and assert my rights. I am your daughter. If I am +not, why am I here? Do you not remember telling me that the +adoption of God meant a closer relation than any other +fatherhood, even his own first fatherhood could signify? You +cannot cast me off if you would. Why should you be poor when I am +rich? -- You are poor. You cannot deny it," she concluded with a +serious playfulness.</p> + +<p>"I will not deny my privileges," said the schoolmaster, with a +smile such as might have acknowledged the possession of some +exquisite and envied rarity.</p> + +<p>"I believe," insisted Clementina, "you are just as poor as the +apostle Paul when he sat down to make a tent -- or as our Lord +himself after he gave up carpentering."</p> + +<p>"You are wrong there, my lady. I am not so poor as they must +often have been."</p> + +<p>"But I don't know how long I may be away, and you may fall +ill, or -- or -- see some -- some book you want very much, +or"</p> + +<p>"I never do," said the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>"What! never see a book you want to have?"</p> + +<p>"No; not now. I have my Greek Testament, my Plato, and my +Shakspere -- and one or two little books besides, whose wisdom I +have not yet quite exhausted."</p> + +<p>"I can't bear it!" cried Clementina, almost on the point of +weeping. "You will not let me near you. You put out an arm as +long as the summer's and push me away from you. Let me be your +servant."</p> + +<p>As she spoke, she rose, and walking softly up to him where he +sat kneeled at his knees, and held out suppliantly a little bag +of white silk, tied with crimson.</p> + +<p>"Take it -- father," she said, hesitating, and bringing the +word out with an effort; "take your daughter's offering -- a poor +thing to show her love, but something to ease her heart."</p> + +<p>He took it, and weighed it up and down in his hand with an +amused smile, but his eyes full of tears. It was heavy. He opened +it. A chair was within his reach, he emptied it on the seat of +it, and laughed with merry delight as its contents came tumbling +out.</p> + +<p>"I never saw so much gold in my life, if it were all taken +together," he said. "What beautiful stuff it is! But I don't want +it, my dear. It would but trouble me." And as he spoke, he began +to put it in the bag again. "You will want it for your journey," +he said.</p> + +<p>"I have plenty in my reticule," she answered. "That is a mere +nothing to what I could have tomorrow morning for writing a +cheque. I am afraid I am very rich. It is such a shame! But I +can't well help it. You must teach me how to become poor. -- Tell +me true: how much money have you?"</p> + +<p>She said this with such an earnest look of simple love that +the schoolmaster made haste to rise, that he might conceal his +growing emotion.</p> + +<p>"Rise, my dear lady," he said, as he rose himself, "and I will +show you."</p> + +<p>He gave her his hand, and she obeyed, but troubled and +disappointed, and so stood looking after him, while he went to a +drawer. Thence, searching in a corner of it, he brought a half +sovereign, a few shillings, and some coppers, and held them out +to her on his hand, with the smile of one who has proved his +point.</p> + +<p>"There!" he said; "do you think Paul would have stopped +preaching to make a tent so long as he had as much as that in his +pocket? I shall have more on Saturday, and I always carry a +month's rent in my good old watch, for which I never had much +use, and now have less than ever."</p> + +<p>Clementina had been struggling with herself; now she burst +into tears.</p> + +<p>"Why, what a misspending of precious sorrow!" exclaimed the +schoolmaster. "Do you think because a man has not a gold mine he +must die of hunger? I once heard of a sparrow that never had a +worm left for the morrow, and died a happy death +notwithstanding."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he took her handkerchief from her hand and dried +her tears with it. But he had enough ado to keep his own +back.</p> + +<p>"Because I won't take a bagful of gold from you when I don't +want it," he went on, "do you think I should let myself starve +without coming to you? I promise you I will let you know -- come +to you if I can, the moment I get too hungry to do my work well, +and have no money left. Should I think it a disgrace to take +money from you? That would show a poverty of spirit such as I +hope never to fall into. My sole reason for refusing it now is +that I do not need it."</p> + +<p>But for all his loving words and assurances Clementina could +not stay her tears. She was not ready to weep, but now her eyes +were as a fountain.</p> + +<p>"See, then, for your tears are hard to bear, my daughter," he +said, "I will take one of these golden ministers, and if it has +flown from me ere you come, seeing that, like the raven, it will +not return if once I let it go, I will ask you for another. It +may be God's will that you should feed me for a time."</p> + +<p>"Like one of Elijah's ravens," said Clementina, with an +attempted laugh that was really a sob.</p> + +<p>"Like a dove whose wings are covered with silver, and her +feathers with yellow gold," said the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>A moment of silence followed, broken only by Clementina's +failures in quieting herself.</p> + +<p>"To me," he resumed, "the sweetest fountain of money is the +hand of love, but a man has no right to take it from that +fountain except he is in want of it. I am not. True, I go +somewhat bare, my lady; but what is that when my Lord would have +it so?"</p> + +<p>He opened again the bag, and slowly, reverentially indeed, +drew from it one of the new sovereigns with which it was filled. +He put it into a waistcoat pocket, and laid the bag on the +table.</p> + +<p>"But your clothes are shabby, sir," said Clementina, looking +at him with a sad little shake of the head.</p> + +<p>"Are they?" he returned, and looked down at his lower +garments, reddening and anxious. "-- I did not think they were +more than a little rubbed, but they shine somewhat," he said. "-- +They are indeed polished by use," he went on, with a troubled +little laugh; "but they have no holes yet -- at least none that +are visible," he corrected. "If you tell me, my lady, if you +honestly tell me that my garments" -- and he looked at the sleeve +of his coat, drawing back his head from it to see it better -- +"are unsightly, I will take of your money and buy me a new +suit."</p> + +<p>Over his coat sleeve he regarded her, questioning.</p> + +<p>"Everything about you is beautiful!" she burst out "You want +nothing but a body that lets the light through!"</p> + +<p>She took the hand still raised in his survey of his sleeve, +pressed it to her lips, and walked, with even more than her +wonted state, slowly from the room. He took the bag of gold from +the table, and followed her down the stair. Her chariot was +waiting her at the door. He handed her in, and laid the bag on +the little seat in front.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell him to drive home," she said, with a firm +voice, and a smile which if anyone care to understand, let him +read Spenser's fortieth sonnet. And so they parted. The coachman +took the queer shabby un-London-like man for a fortune teller his +lady was in the habit of consulting, and paid homage to his power +with the handle of his whip as he drove away. The schoolmaster +returned to his room, not to his Plato, not even to Saul of +Tarsus, but to the Lord himself.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXI"></a>CHAPTER LXI: +THOUGHTS</h1> + +<p>When Malcolm took Kelpie to her stall the night of the arrival +of Lady Bellair and her nephew, he was rushed upon by Demon, and +nearly prostrated between his immoderate welcome and the startled +rearing of the mare. The hound had arrived a couple of hours +before, while Malcolm was out. He wondered he had not seen him +with the carriage he had passed, never suspecting he had had +another conductress, or dreaming what his presence there +signified for him.</p> + +<p>I have not said much concerning Malcolm's feelings with regard +to Lady Clementina, but all this time the sense of her existence +had been like an atmosphere surrounding and pervading his +thought. He saw in her the promise of all he could desire to see +in woman. His love was not of the blind little boy sort, but of a +deeper, more exacting, keen eyed kind, that sees faults where +even a true mother will not, so jealous is it of the perfection +of the beloved.</p> + +<p>But one thing was plain even to this seraphic dragon that +dwelt sleepless in him, and there was eternal content in the +thought, that such a woman, once started on the right way, would +soon leave fault and weakness behind her, and become as one of +the grand women of old, whose religion was simply what religion +is -- life -- neither more nor less than life. She would be a +saint without knowing it, the only grand kind of sainthood.</p> + +<p>Whoever can think of religion as an addition to life, however +glorious -- a starry crown, say, set upon the head of humanity, +is not yet the least in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever thinks of +life as a something that could be without religion, is in deathly +ignorance of both. Life and religion are one, or neither is +anything: I will not say neither is growing to be anything. +Religion is no way of life, no show of life, no observance of any +sort. It is neither the food nor the medicine of being. It is +life essential. To think otherwise is as if a man should pride +himself on his honesty, or his parental kindness, or hold up his +head amongst men because he never killed one: were he less than +honest or kind or free from blood, he would yet think something +of himself! The man to whom virtue is but the ornament of +character, something over and above, not essential to it, is not +yet a man.</p> + +<p>If I say then, that Malcolm was always thinking about Lady +Clementina when he was not thinking about something he had to +think about, have I not said nearly enough on the matter? Should +I ever dream of attempting to set forth what love is, in such a +man for such a woman? There are comparatively few that have more +than the glimmer of a notion of what love means. God only knows +how grandly, how passionately yet how calmly, how divinely the +man and the woman he has made, might, may, shall love each other. +One thing only I will dare to say: that the love that belonged to +Malcolm's nature was one through the very nerves of which the +love of God must rise and flow and return, as its essential life. +If any man think that such a love could no longer be the love of +the man for the woman, he knows his own nature, and that of the +woman he pretends or thinks he adores, but in the darkest of +glasses.</p> + +<p>Malcolm's lowly idea of himself did not at all interfere with +his loving Clementina, for at first his love was entirely +dissociated from any thought of hers. When the idea -- the mere +idea of her loving him presented itself, from whatever quarter +suggested, he turned from it with shame and self reproof: the +thought was in its own nature too unfit! That splendour regard +him!</p> + +<p>From a social point of view there was of course little +presumption in it. The Marquis of Lossie bore a name that might +pair itself with any in the land; but Malcolm did not yet feel +that the title made much difference to the fisherman. He was what +he was, and that was something very lowly indeed. Yet the thought +would at times dawn up from somewhere in the infinite matrix of +thought, that perhaps, if he went to college, and graduated, and +dressed like a gentleman, and did everything as gentlemen do, in +short, claimed his rank, and lived as a marquis should, as well +as a fisherman might, -- then -- then -- was it not -- might it +not be within the bounds of possibility -- just within them -- +that the great hearted, generous, liberty loving Lady Clementina, +groom as he had been, menial as he had heard himself called, and +as, ere yet he knew his birth, he had laughed to hear, knowing +that his service was true, -- that she, who despised nothing +human, would be neither disgusted nor contemptuous nor wrathful, +if, from a great way off, at an awful remove of humility and +worship, he were to wake in her a surmise that he dared feel +towards her as he had never felt and never could feel towards any +other?</p> + +<p>For would it not be altogether counter to the principles he +had so often heard her announce and defend, to despise him +because he had earned his bread by doing honourable work -- work +hearty, and up to the worth of his wages? Was she one to say and +not see -- to opine and not believe? or was she one to hold and +not practise -- to believe for the heart and not for the hand -- +to say I go, and not go -- I love, and not help? If such she +were, then there were for him no further searchings of the heart +upon her account; he could but hold up her name in the common +prayer for all men, only praying besides not to dream about her +when he slept.</p> + +<p>At length, such thoughts rising again and again, and ever +accompanied by such reflections concerning the truth of her +character, and by the growing certainty that her convictions were +the souls of actions to be born them, his daring of belief in +her strengthened until he began to think that perhaps it would be +neither his early history, nor his defective education, nor his +clumsiness, that would prevent her from listening to such words +wherewith he burned to throw open the gates of his world, and +pray her to enter and sit upon its loftiest throne -- its +loftiest throne but one. And with the thought he felt as if he +must run to her, calling aloud that he was the Marquis of Lossie, +and throw himself at her feet.</p> + +<p>But the wheels of his thought chariot, self moved, were +rushing, and here was no goal at which to halt or turn! -- for, +feeling thus, where was his faith in her principles? How now was +he treating the truth of her nature? where now were his +convictions of the genuineness of her professions? Where were +those principles, that truth, those professions, if after all she +would listen to a marquis and would not listen to a groom? To +suppose such a thing was to wrong her grievously. To herald his +suit with his rank would be to insult her, declaring that he +regarded her theories of humanity as wordy froth. And what a +chance of proving her truth would he not deprive her of, if, as +he approached her, he called on the marquis to supplement the +man! -- But what then was the man, fisherman or marquis, to dare +even himself to such a glory as the Lady Clementina? -- This much +of a man at least, answered his waking dignity, that he could not +condescend to be accepted as Malcolm, Marquis of Lossie, knowing +he would have been rejected as Malcolm MacPhail, fisherman and +groom.</p> + +<p>Accepted as marquis, he would for ever be haunted with the +channering question whether she would have accepted him as groom? +And if in his pain he were one day to utter it, and she in her +honesty were to confess she would not, must she not then fall +prone from her pedestal in his imagination? Could he then, in +love for the woman herself condescend as marquis to marry one who +might not have married him as any something else he could +honestly have been, under the all enlightening sun: but again! +was that fair to her yet? Might she not see in the marquis the +truth and worth which the blinding falsehoods of society +prevented her from seeing in the groom? Might not a lady -- he +tried to think of a lady in the abstract -- might not a lady, in +marrying a marquis, a lady to whom from her own position a +marquis was just a man on the level, marry in him the man he was, +and not the marquis he seemed? Most certainly, he answered: he +must not be unfair. -- Not the less however did he shrink from +the thought of taking her prisoner under the shield of his +marquisate, beclouding her nobility, and depriving her of the +rare chance of shining forth as the sun in the splendour of +womanly truth. No; he would choose the greater risk of losing +her, for the chance of winning her greater.</p> + +<p>So far Malcolm got with his theories; but the moment he began +to think in the least practically, he recoiled altogether from +the presumption. Under no circumstances could he ever have the +courage to approach Lady Clementina with a thought of himself in +his mind. How could he have dared even to raise her imagined +eidolon for his thoughts to deal withal. She had never shown him +personal favour. He could not tell whether she had listened to +what he had tried to lay before her. He did not know that she had +gone to hear his master; Florimel had never referred to their +visit to Hope Chapel; his surprise would have equalled his +delight at the news that she had already become as a daughter to +the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>And what had been Clementina's thoughts since learning that +Florimel had not run away with her groom? It were hard to say +with completeness. Accuracy however may not be equally +unattainable. Her first feeling was an utterly inarticulate, +undefined pleasure that Malcolm was free to be thought about. She +was clear next that it would be matter for honest rejoicing if +the truest man she had ever met except his master, was not going +to marry such an unreality as Florimel -- one concerning whom, as +things had been going of late, it was impossible to say that she +was not more likely to turn to evil than to good.</p> + +<p>Clementina with all her generosity could not help being +doubtful of a woman who could make a companion of such a man as +Liftore, a man to whom every individual particle of Clementina's +nature seemed for itself to object. But she was not yet past +befriending.</p> + +<p>Then she began to grow more curious about Malcolm. She had +already much real knowledge of him, gathered both from himself +and from Mr Graham; -- as to what went to make the man, she knew +him indeed, not thoroughly, but well; and just therefore, she +said to herself, there were some points in his history and +condition concerning which she had curiosity. The principal of +these was whether he might not be engaged to some young woman in +his own station of life. It was not merely possible, but was it +likely he could have escaped it? In the lower ranks of society, +men married younger -- they had no false aims to prevent them +that implied earlier engagements. On the other hand, was it +likely that in a fishing village there would be any choice of +girls who could understand him when he talked about Plato and the +New Testament? If there was one however, that might be -- worse +-- Yes, worse; she accepted the word. Neither was it absolutely +necessary in a wife that she should understand more of a husband +than his heart. Many learned men had had mere housekeepers for +wives, and been satisfied, at least never complained.</p> + +<p>And what did she know about the fishers, men or women -- there +were none at Wastbeach? For anything she knew to the contrary, +they might all be philosophers together, and a fitting match for +Malcolm might be far more easy to find amongst them than in the +society to which she herself belonged, where in truth the +philosophical element was rare enough. Then arose in her mind, +she could not have told how, the vision, half logical, half +pictorial, of a whole family of brave, believing, daring, saving +fisher folk, father, mother, boys and girls, each sacrificing to +the rest, each sacrificed to by all, and all devoted to their +neighbours.</p> + +<p>Grand it was and blissful, and the borders of the great sea +alone seemed fit place for such beings amphibious of time and +eternity! Their very toils and dangers were but additional +atmospheres to press their souls together! It was glorious! Why +had she been born an earl's daughter, -- never to look a danger +in the face -- never to have a chance of a true life -- that is, +a grand, simple, noble one? -- Who then denied her the chance? +Had she no power to order her own steps, to determine her own +being? Was she nailed to her rank? Or who was there that could +part her from it? Was she a prisoner in the dungeons of the House +of Pride?</p> + +<p>When the gates of paradise closed behind Adam and Eve, they +had this consolation left, that "the world was all before them +where to choose." Was she not a free woman -- without even a +guardian to trouble her with advice? She had no excuse to act +ignobly! -- But had she any for being unmaidenly? -- Would it +then be -- would it be a very unmaidenly thing if? The rest of +the sentence did not take even the shape of words. But she +answered it nevertheless in the words: "Not so unmaidenly as +presumptuous." And alas there was little hope that he would ever +presume to? He was such a modest youth with all his directness +and fearlessness! If he had no respect for rank, -- and that was +-- yes, she would say the word, hopeful -- he had, on the other +hand, the profoundest respect for the human, and she could not +tell how that might, in the individual matter, operate.</p> + +<p>Then she fell a-thinking of the difference between Malcolm and +any other servant she had ever known. She hated the servile. She +knew that it was false as well as low: she had not got so far as +to see that it was low through its being false. She knew that +most servants, while they spoke with the appearance of respect in +presence, altered their tone entirely when beyond the circle of +the eye -- theirs was eye service -- they were men pleasers -- +they were servile. She had overheard her maid speak of her as +Lady Clem, and that not without a streak of contempt in the +tone.</p> + +<p>But here was a man who touched no imaginary hat while he stood +in the presence of his mistress, neither swore at her in the +stable yard. He looked her straight in the face, and would upon +occasion speak -- not his mind -- but the truth to her. Even his +slight mistress had the conviction that if one dared in his +presence but utter her name lightly, whoever he were he would +have to answer to him for it. What a lovely thing was true +service -- Absolutely divine!</p> + +<p>But, alas, such a youth would never, could never dare offer +other than such service! Were she even to encourage him as a +maiden might, he would but serve her the better -- would but +embody his recognition of her favour, in fervour of ministering +devotion. -- Was it not a recognized law, however, in the +relation of superiors and inferiors, that with regard to such +matters as well as others of no moment, the lady?</p> + +<p>Ah, but! for her to take the initiative, would provoke the +conclusion -- as revolting to her as unavoidable to him -- that +she judged herself his superior -- so greatly his superior as to +be absolved from the necessity of behaving to him on the ordinary +footing of man and woman. What a ground to start from with a +husband! The idea was hateful to her. She tried the argument that +such a procedure arrogated merely a superiority in social +standing; but it made her recoil from it the more. He was so +immeasurably her superior, that the poor little advantage on her +side vanished like a candle in the sunlight, and she laughed +herself to scorn.</p> + +<p>"Fancy," she laughed, "a midge, on the strength of having +wings, condescending to offer marriage to a horse !" It would +argue the assumption of equality in other and more important +things than rank, or at least the confidence that her social +superiority not only counterbalanced the difference, but left +enough over to her credit to justify her initiative. And what a +miserable fiction that money and position had a right to the +first move before greatness of living fact! that having had the +precedence of being! That Malcolm should imagine such her +judgment -- No -- let all go -- let himself go rather! And then +he might not choose to accept her munificent offer! Or worse -- +far worse! -- what if he should be tempted by rank and wealth, +and, accepting her, be shorn of his glory and proved of the +ordinary human type after all! A thousand times rather would she +see the bright particular star blazing unreachable above her! +What! would she carry it about a cinder in her pocket? -- And yet +if he could be "turned to a coal," why should she go on +worshipping him? -- alas! the offer itself was the only test +severe enough to try him withal, and if he proved a cinder, she +would by the very use of the test be bound to love, honour, and +obey her cinder.</p> + +<p>She could not well reject him for accepting her -- neither +could she marry him if he rose grandly superior to her +temptations. No; he could be nothing to her nearer than the +bright particular star.</p> + +<p>Thus went the thoughts to and fro in the minds of each. +Neither could see the way. Both feared the risk of loss. Neither +could hope greatly for gain.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXII"></a>CHAPTER LXII: THE +DUNE</h1> + +<p>Having put Kelpie up, and fed and bedded her, Malcolm took his +way to the Seaton, full of busily anxious thought. Things had +taken a bad turn, and he was worse off for counsel than before. +The enemy was in the house with his sister, and he had no longer +any chance of judging how matters were going, as now he never +rode out with her. But at least he could haunt the house. He +would run therefore to his grandfather, and tell him that he was +going to occupy his old quarters at the House that night.</p> + +<p>Returning directly and passing, as had been his custom, +through the kitchen to ascend the small corkscrew stair the +servants generally used, he encountered Mrs Courthope, who told +him that her ladyship had given orders that her maid, who had +come with Lady Bellair, should have his room.</p> + +<p>He was at once convinced that Florimel had done so with the +intention of banishing him from the house, for there were dozens +of rooms vacant, and many of them more suitable. It was a hard +blow! How he wished for Mr Graham to consult! And yet Mr Graham +was not of much use where any sort of plotting was wanted. He +asked Mrs Courthope to let him have another room; but she looked +so doubtful that he withdrew his request, and went back to his +grandfather.</p> + +<p>It was Saturday, and not many of the boats would go fishing. +Findlay's would not leave the harbour till Sunday was over, and +therefore Malcolm was free. But he could not rest, and would go +line fishing.</p> + +<p>"Daddy," he said, "I'm gaein oot to catch a haddick or sae to +oor denner the morn. Ye micht jist sit doon upo' ane o' the +Boar's Taes, an' tak a play o' yer pipes. I'll hear ye fine, an' +it'll du me guid."</p> + +<p>The Boar's Toes were two or three small rocks that rose out of +the sand near the end of the dune. Duncan agreed right willingly, +and Malcolm, borrowing some lines, and taking the Psyche's +dinghy, rowed out into the bay.</p> + +<p>The sun was down, the moon was up, and he had caught more fish +than he wanted. His grandfather had got tired, and gone home, and +the fountain of his anxious thoughts began to flow more rapidly. +He must go ashore. He must go up to the House: who could tell +what might not be going on there? He drew in his line, purposing +to take the best of the fish to Miss Horn, and some to Mrs +Courthope, as in the old days.</p> + +<p>The Psyche still lay on the sands, and he was rowing the +dinghy towards her, when, looking round to direct his course, he +thought he caught a glimpse of some one seated on the slope of +the dune. Yes, there was some one there, sure enough. The old +times rushed back on his memory: could it be Florimel? Alas! it +was not likely she would now be wandering about alone! But if it +were? Then for one endeavour more to rouse her slumbering +conscience! He would call up all the associations of the last few +months she had spent in the place, and, with the spirit of her +father, as it were, hovering over her, conjure her, in his name, +to break with Liftore.</p> + +<p>He rowed swiftly to the Psyche -- beached and drew up the +dinghy, and climbed the dune. Plainly enough it was a lady who +sat there. It might be one from the upper town, enjoying the +lovely night; it might be Florimel, but how could she have got +away, or wished to get away from her newly arrived guests? The +voices of several groups of walkers came from the high road +behind the dune, but there was no other figure to be seen all +along the sands. He drew nearer. The lady did not move. If it +were Florimel, would she not know him as he came, and would she +wait for him?</p> + +<p>He drew nearer still. His heart gave a throb. Could it be? Or +was the moon weaving some hallucination in his troubled brain? If +it was a phantom, it was that of Lady Clementina; if but modelled +of the filmy vapours of the moonlight, and the artist his own +brain, the phantom was welcome as joy! His spirit seemed to soar +aloft in the yellow air, and hang hovering over and around her, +while his body stood rooted to the spot, like one who fears by +moving nigher to lose the lovely vision of a mirage. She sat +motionless, her gaze on the sea. Malcolm bethought himself that +she could not know him in his fisher dress, and must take him for +some rude fisherman staring at her. He must go at once, or +approach and address her. He came forward at once.</p> + +<p>"My lady!" he said.</p> + +<p>She did not start. Neither did she speak. She did not even +turn her face. She rose first, then turned, and held out her +hand. Three steps more, and he had it in his, and his eyes looked +straight into hers. Neither spoke. The moon shone full on +Clementina's face. There was no illumination fitter for that face +than the moonlight, and to Malcolm it was lovelier than ever. Nor +was it any wonder it should seem so to him, for certainly never +had the eyes in it rested on his with such a lovely and trusting +light in them.</p> + +<p>A moment she stood, then slowly sank upon the sand, and drew +her skirts about her with a dumb show of invitation. The place +where she sat was a little terraced hollow in the slope, forming +a convenient seat. Malcolm saw but could not believe she actually +made room for him to sit beside her -- alone with her in the +universe. It was too much; he dared not believe it. And now by +one of those wondrous duplications which are not always at least +born of the fancy, the same scene in which he had found Florimel +thus seated on the slope of the dune, appeared to be passing +again through Malcolm's consciousness, only instead of Florimel +was Clementina, and instead of the sun was the moon. And creature +of the sunlight as Florimel was, bright and gay and beautiful, +she paled into a creature of the cloud beside this maiden of the +moonlight, tall and stately, silent and soft and grand.</p> + +<p>Again she made a movement. This time he could not doubt her +invitation. It was as if her soul made room in her unseen world +for him to enter and sit beside her. But who could enter heaven +in his work day garments?</p> + +<p>"Won't you sit by me, Malcolm?" seeing his more than +hesitation, she said at last, with a slight tremble in the voice +that was music itself in his ears.</p> + +<p>"I have been catching fish, my lady," he answered, "and my +clothes must be unpleasant. I will sit here."</p> + +<p>He went a little lower on the slope, and laid himself down, +leaning on his elbow.</p> + +<p>"Do fresh water fishes smell the same as the sea fishes, +Malcolm?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Indeed I am not certain, my lady. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because if they do, -- You remember what you said to me as we +passed the sawmill in the wood?"</p> + +<p>It was by silence Malcolm showed he did remember.</p> + +<p>"Does not this night remind you of that one at Wastbeach when +we came upon you singing?" said Clementina.</p> + +<p>"It is like it, my lady -- now. But a little ago, before I saw +you, I was thinking of that night, and thinking how different +this was."</p> + +<p>Again a moon filled silence fell; and once more it was the +lady who broke it.</p> + +<p>"Do you know who are at the house?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I do, my lady," he replied.</p> + +<p>"I had not been there more than an hour or two," she went on, +"when they arrived. I suppose Florimel -- Lady Lossie thought I +would not come if she told me she expected them."</p> + +<p>"And would you have come, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot endure the earl."</p> + +<p>"Neither can I. But then I know more about him than your +ladyship does, and I am miserable for my mistress."</p> + +<p>It stung Clementina as if her heart had taken a beat backward. +But her voice was steadier than it had yet been as she returned +-- "Why should you be miserable for Lady Lossie?"</p> + +<p>"I would die rather than see her marry that wretch," he +answered.</p> + +<p>Again her blood stung her in the left side.</p> + +<p>"You do not want her to marry, then?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I do," answered Malcolm, emphatically, "but not that +fellow."</p> + +<p>"Whom then, if I may ask?" ventured Clementina, trembling.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm was silent He did not feel it would be right to +say. Clementina turned sick at heart.</p> + +<p>"I have heard there is something dangerous about the +moonlight," she said. "I think it does not suit me tonight. I +will go -- home."</p> + +<p>Malcolm sprung to his feet and offered his hand. She did not +take it, but rose more lightly, though more slowly than he.</p> + +<p>"How did you come from the park, my lady?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"By a gate over there," she answered, pointing. "I wandered +out after dinner, and the sea drew me."</p> + +<p>"If your ladyship will allow me, I will take you a much nearer +way back," he said.</p> + +<p>"Do then," she returned.</p> + +<p>He thought she spoke a little sadly, and set it down to her +hating to go back to her fellow guests. What if she should leave +tomorrow morning! he thought He could never then be sure she had +really been with him that night. He must then sometimes think it +a dream. But oh, what a dream! He could thank God for it all his +life, if he should never dream so again.</p> + +<p>They walked across the grassy sand towards the tunnel in +silence, he pondering what he could say that might comfort her +and keep her from going so soon.</p> + +<p>"My lady never takes me out with her now," he said at +length.</p> + +<p>He was going to add that, if she pleased, he could wait upon +her with Kelpie, and show her the country. But then he saw that, +if she were not with Florimel, his sister would be riding +everywhere alone with Liftore. Therefore he stopped short.</p> + +<p>"And you feel forsaken -- deserted?" returned Clementina, +sadly still.</p> + +<p>"Rather, my lady."</p> + +<p>They had reached the tunnel. It looked very black when he +opened the door, but there was just a glimmer through the trees +at the other end.</p> + +<p>"This is the valley of the shadow of death," she said. "Do I +walk straight through?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady. You will soon come out in the light again," he +said.</p> + +<p>"Are there no steps to fall down?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"None, my lady. But I will go first if you wish."</p> + +<p>"No, that would but cut off the little light I have," she +said. "Come beside me."</p> + +<p>They passed through in silence, save for the rustle of her +dress, and the dull echo that haunted their steps. In a few +moments they came out among the trees, but both continued silent. +The still, thoughtful moonlight seemed to press them close +together, but neither knew that the other felt the same.</p> + +<p>They reached a point in the road where another step would +bring them in sight of the house.</p> + +<p>"You cannot go wrong now, my lady," said Malcolm. "If you +please I will go no farther."</p> + +<p>"Do you not live in the house?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I used to do as I liked, and could be there or with my +grandfather. I did mean to be at the House tonight, but my lady +has given my room to her maid."</p> + +<p>"What! that woman Caley?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so, my lady. I must sleep tonight in the village. +If you could, my lady," he added, after a pause, and faltered, +hesitating. She did not help him, but waited. "If you could -- if +you would not be displeased at my asking you," he resumed, "-- if +you could keep my lady from going farther with that -- I shall +call him names if I go on."</p> + +<p>"It is a strange request," Clementina replied, after a +moment's reflection. "I hardly know, as the guest of Lady Lossie, +what answer I ought to make to it. One thing I will say, however, +that, though you may know more of the man than I, you can hardly +dislike him more. Whether I can interfere is another matter. +Honestly, I do not think it would be of any use. But I do not say +I will not. Good night."</p> + +<p>She hurried away, and did not again offer her hand.</p> + +<p>Malcolm walked back through the tunnel, his heart singing and +making melody. Oh how lovely, how more than lovely, how divinely +beautiful she was! And so kind and friendly! Yet she seemed just +the least bit fitful too. Something troubled her, he said to +himself. But he little thought that he, and no one else, had +spoiled the moonlight for her. He went home to glorious dreams -- +she to a troubled half wakeful night. Not until she had made up +her mind to do her utmost to rescue Florimel from Liftore, even +if it gave her to Malcolm, did she find a moment's quiet. It was +morning then, but she fell fast asleep, slept late, and woke +refreshed.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXIII"></a>CHAPTER LXIII: +CONFESSION OF SIN</h1> + +<p>Mr Crathie was slowly recovering, but still very weak. He did +not, after having turned the corner, get well so fast as his +medical minister judged he ought, and the reason was plain to +Lizzy, dimly perceptible to his wife: he was ill at ease. A man +may have more mind and more conscience, and more discomfort in +both or either, than his neighbours give him credit for. They may +be in the right about him up to a certain point in his history, +but then a crisis, by them unperceived, perhaps to them +inappreciable, arrived, after which the man to all eternity could +never be the same as they had known him. Such a change must +appear improbable, and save on the theory of a higher operative +power, is improbable because impossible. But a man who has not +created himself can never secure himself against the inroad of +the glorious terror of that Goodness which was able to utter him +into being, with all its possible wrongs and repentances. The +fact that a man has never, up to any point yet, been aware of +aught beyond himself, cannot shut him out who is beyond him, when +at last he means to enter. Not even the soul benumbing visits of +his clerical minister could repress the swell of the slow +mounting dayspring in the soul of the hard, commonplace, business +worshipping man, Hector Crathie.</p> + +<p>The hireling would talk to him kindly enough -- of his +illness, or of events of the day, especially those of the town +and neighbourhood, and encourage him with reiterated expression +of the hope that ere many days they would enjoy a tumbler +together as of old, but as to wrong done, apology to make, +forgiveness to be sought, or consolation to be found, the dumb +dog had not uttered a bark.</p> + +<p>The sources of the factor's restless discomfort were now two; +the first, that he had lifted his hand to women; the second, the +old ground of his quarrel with Malcolm, brought up by Lizzy.</p> + +<p>All his life, since ever he had had business, Mr Crathie had +prided himself on his honesty, and was therefore in one of the +most dangerous moral positions a man could occupy -- ruinous even +to the honesty itself. Asleep in the mud, he dreamed himself +awake on a pedestal. At best such a man is but perched on a +needle point when he thinketh he standeth. Of him who prided +himself on his honour I should expect that one day, in the long +run it might be, he would do some vile thing. Not, probably, +within the small circle of illumination around his wretched +rushlight, but in the great region beyond it, of what to him is a +moral darkness, or twilight vague, he may be or may become +capable of doing a deed that will stink in the nostrils of the +universe -- and in his own when he knows it as it is. The honesty +in which a man can pride himself must be a small one, for more +honesty will ever reveal more defect, while perfect honesty will +never think of itself at all. The limited honesty of the factor +clave to the interests of his employers, and let the rights he +encountered take care of themselves. Those he dealt with were to +him rather as enemies than friends, not enemies to be prayed for, +but to be spoiled. Malcolm's doctrine of honesty in horse dealing +was to him ludicrously new. His notion of honesty in that kind +was to cheat the buyer for his master if he could, proud to write +in his book a large sum against the name of the animal. He would +have scorned in his very soul the idea of making a farthing by it +himself through any business quirk whatever, but he would not +have been the least ashamed if, having sold Kelpie, he had heard +-- let me say after a week of possession -- that she had dashed +out her purchaser's brains. He would have been a little shocked, +a little sorry perhaps, but nowise ashamed. "By this time," he +would have said, "the man ought to have been up to her, and +either taken care of himself -- or sold her again," -- to dash +out another man's brains instead!</p> + +<p>That the bastard Malcolm, or the ignorant and indeed fallen +fisher girl Lizzy, should judge differently, nowise troubled him: +what could they know about the rights and wrongs of business? The +fact which Lizzy sought to bring to bear upon him, that our Lord +would not have done such a thing, was to him no argument at all. +He said to himself with the superior smile of arrogated common +sense, that "no mere man since the fall" could be expected to do +like him; that he was divine, and had not to fight for a living; +that he set us an example that we might see what sinners we were; +that religion was one thing, and a very proper thing, but +business was another, and a very proper thing also -- with +customs and indeed laws of its own far more determinate, at least +definite, than those of religion, and that to mingle the one with +the other was not merely absurd -- it was irreverent and wrong, +and certainly never intended in the Bible, which must surely be +common sense.</p> + +<p>It was the Bible always with him, -- never the will of Christ. +But although he could dispose of the question thus +satisfactorily, yet, as he lay ill, supine, without any +distracting occupation, the thing haunted him.</p> + +<p>Now in his father's cottage had lain, much dabbled in of the +children, a certain boardless copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, +round in the face and hollow in the back, in which, amongst other +pictures was one of the Wicket Gate. This scripture of his +childhood, given by inspiration of God, threw out, in one of his +troubled and feverish nights, a dream bud in the brain of the +man. He saw the face of Jesus looking on him over the top of the +Wicket Gate, at which he had been for some time knocking in vain, +while the cruel dog barked loud from the enemy's yard. But that +face, when at last it came, was full of sorrowful displeasure. +And in his heart he knew that it was because of a certain +transaction in horse dealing, wherein he had hitherto lauded his +own cunning -- adroitness, he considered it -- and success. One +word only he heard from the lips of the Man -- "Worker of +iniquity," -- and woke with a great start. From that moment +truths began to be facts to him. The beginning of the change was +indeed very small, but every beginning is small, and every +beginning is a creation. Monad, molecule, protoplasm, whatever +word may be attached to it when it becomes appreciable by men, +being then, however many stages, I believe, upon its journey, +beginning is an irrepressible fact; and however far from good or +humble even after many days, the man here began to grow good and +humble. His dull unimaginative nature, a perfect lumber room of +the world and its rusting affairs, had received a gift in a dream +-- a truth from the lips of the Lord, remodelled in the brain and +heart of the tinker of Elstow, and sent forth in his wondrous +parable to be pictured and printed, and lie in old Hector +Crathie's cottage, that it might enter and lie in young Hector +Crathie's brain until he grew old and had done wrong enough to +heed it, when it rose upon him in a dream, and had its way. +Henceforth the claims of his neighbour began to reveal +themselves, and his mind to breed conscientious doubts and +scruples, with which, struggle as he might against it, a certain +respect for Malcolm would keep coming and mingling -- a feeling +which grew with its returns, until, by slow changes, he began at +length to regard him as the minister of God's vengeance -- for +his punishment, -- and perhaps salvation -- who could tell?</p> + +<p>Lizzy's nightly ministrations had not been resumed, but she +often called, and was a good deal with him; for Mrs Crathie had +learned to like the humble, helpful girl still better when she +found she had taken no offence at being deprived of her post of +honour by his bedside. One day, when Malcolm was seated, mending +a net, among the thin grass and great red daisies of the links by +the bank of the burn, where it crossed the sands from the Lossie +grounds to the sea, Lizzy came up to him and said,</p> + +<p>"The factor wad like to see ye, Ma'colm, as sune's ye can gang +till 'im."</p> + +<p>She waited no reply. Malcolm rose and went</p> + +<p>At the factor's, the door was opened by Mrs Crathie herself, +who, looking mysterious, led him to the dining room, where she +plunged at once into business, doing her best to keep down all +manifestation of the profound resentment she cherished against +him. Her manner was confidential, almost coaxing.</p> + +<p>"Ye see, Ma'colm," she said, as if pursuing instead of +commencing a conversation, "he's some sore about the little +fraicass between him 'an you. Jest make your apoalogies till 'im +and tell 'im you had a drop too much, and your soary for +misbehavin' yerself to wann sae much your shuperrior. Tell him +that, Ma'colm, an' there's a half croon to ye."</p> + +<p>She wished much to speak English, and I have tried to +represent the thing she did speak, which was neither honest +Scotch nor anything like English. Alas! the good, pithy, old +Anglo Saxon dialect is fast perishing, and a jargon of corrupt +English taking its place.</p> + +<p>"But, mem," said Malcolm, taking no notice either of the coin +or the words that accompanied the offer of it, "I canna lee. I +wasna in drink, an' I'm no sorry."</p> + +<p>"Hoot!" returned Mrs Crathie, blurting out her Scotch fast +enough now, "I s' warran' ye can lee well eneuch whan ye ha'e +occasion. Tak' yer siller, an' du as I tell ye."</p> + +<p>"Wad ye ha'e me damned, mem?"</p> + +<p>Mrs Crathie gave a cry and held up her hands. She was too well +accustomed to imprecations from the lips of her husband for any +but an affected horror, but, regarding the honest word as a bad +one, she assumed an air of injury.</p> + +<p>"Wad ye daur to sweir afore a leddy," she exclaimed, shaking +her uplifted hands in pretence of ghasted astonishment.</p> + +<p>"If Mr Crathie wishes to see me, ma'am," rejoined Malcolm, +taking up the shield of English, "I am ready. If not, please +allow me to go."</p> + +<p>The same moment the bell whose rope was at the head of the +factor's bed, rang violently, and Mrs Crathie's importance +collapsed.</p> + +<p>"Come this w'y," she said, and turning led him up the stair to +the room where her husband lay.</p> + +<p>Entering, Malcolm stood astonished at the change he saw upon +the strong man of rubicund countenance, and his heart filled with +compassion. The factor was sitting up in bed, looking very white +and worn and troubled. Even his nose had grown thin and white. He +held out his hand to him, and said to his wife, "Tak the door to +ye, Mistress Crathie," indicating which side he wished it closed +from.</p> + +<p>"Ye was some sair upo' me, Ma'colm," he went on, grasping the +youth's hand.</p> + +<p>"I doobt I was ower sair," said Malcolm, who could hardly +speak for a lump in his throat.</p> + +<p>"Weel, I deserved it. But eh, Ma'colm! I canna believe it was +me: it bude to be the drink."</p> + +<p>"It was the drink," rejoined Malcolm; "an' eh sir! afore ye +rise frae that bed, sweir to the great God 'at ye'll never drink +nae mair drams, nor onything 'ayont ae tum'ler at a sittin'."</p> + +<p>"I sweir't; I sweir't, Ma'colm!" cried the factor.</p> + +<p>"It's easy to sweir't noo, sir, but whan ye're up again it'll +be hard to keep yer aith. -- O Lord!" spoke the youth, breaking +out into almost involuntary prayer, "help this man to haud troth +wi' thee. -- An' noo, Maister Crathie," he resumed, "I'm yer +servan', ready to do onything I can. Forgi'e me, sir, for layin' +on ower sair."</p> + +<p>"I forgi'e ye wi' a' my hert," returned the factor, inly +delighted to have something to forgive.</p> + +<p>"I thank ye frae mine," answered Malcolm, and again they shook +hands.</p> + +<p>"But eh, Ma'colm, my man!" said the factor, "hoo will I ever +shaw my face again?"</p> + +<p>"Fine that!" returned Malcolm, eagerly. "Fowk's terrible guid +natur'd whan ye alloo 'at ye're i' the wrang. I do believe 'at +whan a man confesses till 's neebour, an' says he's sorry, he +thinks mair o' 'im nor afore he did it. Ye see we a' ken we ha'e +dune wrang, but we ha'ena a' confessed. An' it's a queer thing, +but a man'll think it gran' o' 's neebour to confess, whan a' the +time there's something he winna repent o' himsel' for fear o' the +shame o' ha'ein' to confess 't. To me, the shame lies in no +confessin' efter ye ken ye're wrang. Ye'll see, sir, the fisher +fowk 'll min' what ye say to them a heap better noo."</p> + +<p>"Div ye railly think it, Ma'colm?" sighed the factor with a +flush.</p> + +<p>"I div that, sir. Only whan ye grow better, gien ye'll alloo +me to say't, sir, ye maunna lat Sawtan temp' ye to think 'at this +same repentin' was but a wakeness o' the flesh, an' no an +enlichtenment o' the speerit."</p> + +<p>"I s' tie mysel' up till 't," cried the factor, eagerly. "Gang +an' tell them i' my name, 'at I tak' back ilka scart o' a nottice +I ever ga'e ane o' them to quit, only we maun ha'e nae mair +stan'in' o' honest fowk 'at comes to bigg herbours till them. -- +Div ye think it wad be weel ta'en gien ye tuik a poun' nott the +piece to the twa women?"</p> + +<p>"I wadna du that, sir, gien I was you," answered Malcolm. "For +yer ain sake, I wadna to Mistress Mair, for naething wad gar her +tak' it -- it wad only affront her; an' for Nancy Tacket's sake, +I wadna to her, for as her name so's her natur': she wad not only +tak it, but she wad lat ye play the same as aften 's ye likit for +less siller. Ye'll ha'e mony a chance o' makin' 't up to them +baith, ten times ower, afore you an' them pairt, sir."</p> + +<p>"I maun lea' the cuintry, Ma'colm."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, sir, ye'll du naething o' the kin'. The fishers +themsel's wad rise, no to lat ye, as they did wi' Blew Peter! As +sune's ye're able to be aboot again, ye'll see plain eneuch 'at +there's no occasion for onything like that, sir. Portlossie wadna +ken 'tsel' wantin' ye. Jist gie me a commission to say to the twa +honest women 'at ye're sorry for what ye did, an' that's a' 'at +need be said 'atween you an them, or their men aither."</p> + +<p>The result showed that Malcolm was right; for, the very next +day, instead of looking for gifts from him, the two injured women +came to the factor's door, first Annie Mair, with the offering of +a few fresh eggs, scarce at the season, and after her Nancy +Tacket, with a great lobster.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXIV"></a>CHAPTER LXIV: A +VISITATION</h1> + +<p>Malcolm's custom was, first, immediately after breakfast, to +give Kelpie her airing -- and a tremendous amount of air she +wanted for the huge animal furnace of her frame, and the fiery +spirit that kept it alight; then, returning to the Seaton, to +change the dress of the groom, in which he always appeared about +the house, lest by any chance his mistress should want him, for +that of the fisherman, and help with the nets, or the boats, or +in whatever was going on. As often as he might he did what seldom +a man would -- went to the long shed where the women prepared the +fish for salting, took a knife, and wrought as deftly as any of +them, throwing a marvellously rapid succession of cleaned +herrings into the preserving brine. It was no wonder he was a +favourite with the women. Although, however, the place was +malodorous and the work dirty, I cannot claim so much for Malcolm +as may at first appear to belong to him, for he had been +accustomed to the sight and smell from earliest childhood. Still, +as I say, it was work the men would not do. He had such a +chivalrous humanity that it was misery to him to see man or woman +at anything scorned, except he bore a hand himself. He did it half +in love, half in terror of being unjust.</p> + +<p>He had gone to Mr Crathie in his fisher clothes, thinking it +better the sick man should not be reminded of the cause of his +illness more forcibly than could not be helped. The nearest way +led past a corner of the house overlooked by one of the drawing +room windows, Clementina saw him, and, judging by his garb that +he would probably return presently, went out in the hope of +meeting him; and as he was going back to his net by the sea gate, +he caught sight of her on the opposite side of the burn, +accompanied only by a book. He walked through the burn, climbed +the bank, and approached her.</p> + +<p>It was a hot summer afternoon. The burn ran dark and brown and +cool in deep shade, but the sea beyond was glowing in light, and +the laburnum blossoms hung like cocoons of sunbeams. No breath of +air was stirring; no bird sang; the sun was burning high in the +west. Clementina stood waiting him, like a moon that could hold +her own in the face of the sun.</p> + +<p>"Malcolm," she said, "I have been watching all day, but have +not found a single opportunity of speaking to your mistress as +you wished. But to tell the truth, I am not sorry, for the more I +think about it, the less I see what to say. That another does not +like a person, can have little weight with one who does, and I +know nothing against him. I wish you would release me from my +promise. It is such an ugly thing to speak to one's hostess to +the disadvantage of a fellow guest!"</p> + +<p>"I understand," said Malcolm. "It was not a right thing to ask +of you. I beg your pardon, my lady, and give you back your +promise, if such you count it. But indeed I do not think you +promised."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, I would rather be free. Had it been before you +left London -- Lady Lossie is very kind, but does not seem to put +the same confidence in me as formerly. She and Lady Bellair and +that man make a trio, and I am left outside. I almost think I +ought to go. Even Caley is more of a friend than I am. I cannot +get rid of the suspicion that something not right is going on. +There seems a bad air about the place. Those two are playing +their game with the inexperience of that poor child, your +mistress."</p> + +<p>"I know that very well, my lady, but I hope yet they will not +win," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>By this time they were near the tunnel.</p> + +<p>"Could you let me through to the shore?" asked Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, my lady. -- I wish you could see the boats go out. +From the Boar's Tail it is a pretty sight. They will all be +starting together as soon as the tide turns."</p> + +<p>Thereupon Clementina began questioning him about the night +fishing, and Malcolm described its pleasures and dangers, and the +pleasures of its dangers, in such fashion that Clementina +listened with delight. He dwelt especially on the feeling almost +of disembodiment, and existence as pure thought, arising from the +all pervading clarity and fluidity, the suspension, and the +unceasing motion.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could once feel like that," exclaimed Clementina. +"Could I not go with you -- for one night -- just for once, +Malcolm?"</p> + +<p>"My lady, it would hardly do, I am afraid. If you knew the +discomforts that must assail one unaccustomed -- I cannot tell -- +but I doubt if you would go. All the doors to bliss have their +defences of swamps and thorny thickets through which alone they +can be gained. You would need to be a fisherman's sister -- or +wife, I fear, my lady, to get through to this one."</p> + +<p>Clementina smiled gravely, but did not reply, and Malcolm too +was silent, thinking.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said at last, "I see how we can manage it. You shall +have a boat for your own use, my lady, and --"</p> + +<p>"But I want to see just what you see, and to feel, as nearly +as I may, what you feel. I don't want a downy, rose leaf notion +of the thing. I want to understand what you fishermen encounter +and experience."</p> + +<p>"We must make a difference though, my lady. Look what clothes, +what boots we fishers must wear to be fit for our work! But you +shall have a true idea as far as it reaches, and one that will go +a long way towards enabling you to understand the rest. You shall +go in a real fishing boat, with a full crew and all the nets, and +you shall catch real herrings; only you shall not be out longer +than you please. -- But there is hardly time to arrange for it +tonight, my lady."</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow then?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I have no doubt I can manage it then."</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you!" said Clementina. "It will be a great +delight."</p> + +<p>"And now," suggested Malcolm, "would you like to go through +the village, and see some of the cottages, and how the fishers +live?"</p> + +<p>"If they would not think me inquisitive, or intrusive," +answered Clementina.</p> + +<p>"There is no danger of that," rejoined Malcolm. "If it were my +Lady Bellair, to patronize, and deal praise and blame, as if what +she calls poverty were fault and childishness, and she their +spiritual as well as social superior, they might very likely be +what she would call rude. She was here once before, and we have +some notion of her about the Seaton. I venture to say there is +not a woman in it who is not her moral superior, and many of them +are her superiors in intellect and true knowledge, if they are +not so familiar with London scandal. Mr Graham says that in the +kingdom of heaven every superior is a ruler, for there to rule is +to raise, and a man's rank is his power to uplift."</p> + +<p>"I would I were in the kingdom of heaven, if it be such as you +and Mr Graham take it for," said Clementina.</p> + +<p>"You must be in it, my lady, or you couldn't wish it to be +such as it is."</p> + +<p>"Can one then be in it, and yet seem to be out of it, +Malcolm?"</p> + +<p>"So many are out of it that seem to be in it, my lady, that +one might well imagine it the other way with some."</p> + +<p>"Are you not uncharitable, Malcolm?"</p> + +<p>"Our Lord speaks of many coming up to his door confident of +admission, whom yet he sends from him. Faith is obedience, not +confidence."</p> + +<p>"Then I do well to fear."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady, so long as your fear makes you knock the +louder."</p> + +<p>"But if I be in, as you say, how can I go on knocking?"</p> + +<p>"There are a thousand more doors to knock at after you are in, +my lady. No one content to stand just inside the gate will be +inside it long. But it is one thing to be in, and another to be +satisfied that we are in. Such a satisfying as comes from our own +feelings may, you see from what our Lord says, be a false one. It +is one thing to gather the conviction for ourselves, and another +to have it from God. What wise man would have it before he gives +it? He who does what his Lord tells him, is in the kingdom, if +every feeling of heart or brain told him he was out. And his Lord +will see that he knows it one day. But I do not think, my lady, +one can ever be quite sure, until the king himself has come in to +sup with him, and has let him know that he is altogether one with +him."</p> + +<p>During the talk of which this is the substance, they reached +the Seaton, and Malcolm took her to see his grandfather.</p> + +<p>"Taal and faer and chentle and coot!" murmured the old man as +he held her hand for a moment in his. With a start of suspicion +he dropped it, and cried out in alarm -- "She'll not pe a +Cam'ell, Malcolm?"</p> + +<p>"Na, na, daddy -- far frae that," answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Then my laty will pe right welcome to Tuncan's heart," he +replied, and taking her hand again led her to a chair.</p> + +<p>When they left, she expressed herself charmed with the piper, +but when she learned the cause of his peculiar behaviour at +first, she looked grave, and found his feeling difficult to +understand.</p> + +<p>They next visited the Partaness, with whom she was far more +amused than puzzled. But her heart was drawn to the young woman +who sat in a corner, rocking her child in its wooden cradle, and +never lifting her eyes from her needlework: she knew her for the +fisher girl of Malcolm's picture.</p> + +<p>From house to house he took her, and where they went, they +were welcomed. If the man was smoking, he put away his pipe, and +the woman left her work and sat down to talk with her. They did +the honours of their poor houses in a homely and dignified +fashion. Clementina was delighted. But Malcolm told her he had +taken her only to the best houses in the place to begin with. The +village, though a fair sample of fishing villages, was no +ex-sample, he said: there were all kinds of people in it as in +every other. It was a class in the big life school of the world, +whose special masters were the sea and the herrings.</p> + +<p>"What would you do now, if you were lord of the place?" asked +Clementina, as they were walking back by the sea gate; "-- I +mean, what would be the first thing you would do?"</p> + +<p>"As it would be my business to know my tenants that I might +rule them," he answered, "I would first court the society and +confidence of the best men among them. I should be in no hurry to +make changes, but would talk openly with them, and try to be +worthy of their confidence. Of course I would see a little better +to their houses, and improve their harbour: and I would build a +boat for myself that would show them a better kind; but my main +hope for them would be the same as for myself -- the knowledge of +him whose is the sea and all its store, who cares for every fish +in its bosom, but for the fisher more than many herrings. I would +spend my best efforts to make them follow him whose first +servants were the fishermen of Galilee, for with all my heart I +believe that that Man holds the secret of life, and that only the +man who obeys him can ever come to know the God who is the root +and crown of our being, and whom to know is freedom and +bliss."</p> + +<p>A pause followed.</p> + +<p>"But do you not sometimes find it hard to remember God all +through your work?" asked Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Not very hard, my lady. Sometimes I wake up to find that I +have been in an evil mood and forgetting him, and then life is +hard until I get near him again. But it is not my work that makes +me forget him. When I go a-fishing, I go to catch God's fish; +when I take Kelpie out, I am teaching one of God's wild +creatures; when I read the Bible or Shakspere, I am listening to +the word of God, uttered in each after its kind. When the wind +blows on my face, what matter that the chymist pulls it to +pieces! He cannot hurt it, for his knowledge of it cannot make my +feeling of it a folly, so long as he cannot pull that to pieces +with his retorts and crucibles: it is to me the wind of him who +makes it blow, the sign of something in him, the fit emblem of +his spirit, that breathes into my spirit the breath of life. When +Mr Graham talks to me, it is a prophet come from God that teaches +me, as certainly as if his fiery chariot were waiting to carry +him back when he had spoken; for the word he utters at once +humbles and uplifts my soul, telling it that God is all in all +and my God -- that the Lord Christ is the truth and the life, and +the way home to the Father."</p> + +<p>After a little pause,</p> + +<p>"And when you are talking to a rich, ignorant, proud lady?" +said Clementina, "-- what do you feel then?"</p> + +<p>"That I would it were my lady Clementina instead," answered +Malcolm with a smile.</p> + +<p>She held her peace.</p> + +<p>When he left her, Malcolm hurried to Scaurnose and arranged +with Blue Peter for his boat and crew the next night. Returning +to his grandfather, he found a note waiting him from Mrs +Courthope, to the effect that, as Miss Caley, her ladyship's +maid, had preferred another room, there was no reason why, if he +pleased, he should not re-occupy his own.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXV"></a>CHAPTER LXV: THE EVE +OF THE CRISIS</h1> + +<p>It was late in the sweetest of summer mornings when the +Partan's boat slipped slowly back with a light wind to the +harbour of Portlossie. Malcolm did not wait to land the fish, but +having changed his clothes and taken breakfast with Duncan, who +was always up early, went to look after Kelpie. When he had done +with her, finding some of the household already in motion, he +went through the kitchen, and up the old corkscrew stone stair to +his room to have the sleep he generally had before his breakfast. +Presently came a knock at his door, and there was Rose.</p> + +<p>The girl's behaviour to Malcolm was much changed. The +conviction had been strengthened in her that he was not what he +seemed, and she regarded him now with a vague awe. She looked +this way and that along the passage, with fear in her eyes, then +stepped timidly inside the room to tell him, in a hurried +whisper, that she had seen the woman who gave her the poisonous +philtre, talking to Caley the night before, at the foot of the +bridge, after everybody else was in bed. She had been miserable +till she could warn him. He thanked her heartily, and said he +would be on his guard; he would neither eat nor drink in the +house. She crept softly away. He secured the door, lay down, and +trying to think fell asleep.</p> + +<p>When he woke his brain was clear. The very next day, whether +Lenorme came or not, he would declare himself. That night he +would go fishing with Lady Clementina, but not one day longer +would he allow those people to be about his sister. Who could +tell what might not be brewing, or into what abyss, with the help +of her friends, the woman Catanach might not plunge Florimel?</p> + +<p>He rose, took Kelpie out, and had a good gallop. On his way +back he saw in the distance Florimel riding with Liftore. The +earl was on his father's bay mare. He could not endure the sight, +and dashed home at full speed.</p> + +<p>Learning from Rose that Lady Clementina was in the flower +garden, he found her at the swan basin, feeding the gold and +silver fishes. An under gardener who had been about the place for +thirty years, was at work not far off. The light splash of the +falling column which the marble swan spouted from its upturned +beak, prevented her from hearing his approach until he was close +behind her. She turned, and her fair face took the flush of a +white rose.</p> + +<p>"My lady," he said, "I have got everything arranged for +tonight."</p> + +<p>"And when shall we go?" she asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"At the turn of the tide, about half past seven. But seven is +your dinner hour."</p> + +<p>"It is of no consequence. -- But could you not make it half an +hour later, and then I should not seem rude?"</p> + +<p>"Make it any hour you please, my lady, so long as the tide is +falling."</p> + +<p>"Let it be eight then, and dinner will be almost over. They +will not miss me after that. Mr Cairns is going to dine with +them. I think, except Liftore, I never disliked a man so much. +Shall I tell them where I am going?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady. It will be better. -- They will look amazed -- +for all their breeding!"</p> + +<p>"Whose boat is it, that I may be able to tell them if they +should ask me?"</p> + +<p>"Joseph Mair's. He and his wife will come and fetch you. Annie +Mair will go with us -- if I may say us: will you allow me to go +in your boat, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't go without you, Malcolm."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my lady. Indeed I don't know how I could let you +go without me! Not that there is anything to fear, or that I +could make it the least safer; but somehow it seems my business +to take care of you."</p> + +<p>"Like Kelpie?" said Clementina, with a merrier smile than he +had ever seen on her face before.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady," answered Malcolm; "-- if to do for you all and +the best you will permit me to do, be to take care of you like +Kelpie, then so it is."</p> + +<p>Clementina gave a little sigh.</p> + +<p>"Mind you don't scruple, my lady, to give what orders you +please. It will be your fishing boat for tonight."</p> + +<p>Clementina bowed her head in acknowledgment.</p> + +<p>"And now, my lady," Malcolm went on, "just look about you for +a moment. See this great vault of heaven, full of golden light +raining on trees and flowers -- every atom of air shining. Take +the whole into your heart, that you may feel the difference at +night, my lady -- when the stars, and neither sun nor moon, will +be in the sky, and all the flowers they shine on will be their +own flitting, blinking, swinging, shutting and opening +reflections in the swaying floor of the ocean, -- when the heat +will be gone, and the air clean and clear as the thoughts of a +saint."</p> + +<p>Clementina did as he said, and gazed above and around her on +the glory of the summer day overhanging the sweet garden, and on +the flowers that had just before been making her heart ache with +their unattainable secret. But she thought with herself that if +Malcolm and she but shared it with a common heart as well as +neighboured eyes, gorgeous day and ethereal night, or snow clad +wild and sky of stormy blackness, were alike welcome to her +spirit.</p> + +<p>As they talked they wandered up the garden, and had drawn near +the spot where, in the side of the glen, was hollowed the cave of +the hermit. They now turned towards the pretty arbour of moss +that covered its entrance, each thinking the other led, but +Malcolm not without reluctance. For how horribly and +unaccountably had he not been shaken, the only time he ever +entered it, at the sight of the hermit! The thing was a foolish +wooden figure, no doubt, but the thought that it still sat over +its book in the darkest corner of the cave, ready to rise and +advance with outstretched hand to welcome its visitor, had, ever +since then, sufficed to make him shudder. He was on the point of +warning Clementina lest she too should be worse than startled, +when he was arrested by the voice of John Jack, the old gardener, +who came stooping after them, looking a sexton of flowers.</p> + +<p>"Ma'colm, Ma'colm!" he cried, and crept up wheezing. "-- I beg +yer leddyship's pardon, my leddy, but I wadna ha'e Ma'colm lat ye +gang in there ohn tellt ye what there is inside."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, John. I was just going to tell my lady," said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Because, ye see," pursued John, "I was ae day here i' the +gairden -- an' I was jist graftin' a bonny wull rose buss wi' a +Hector o' France -- an' it grew to be the bonniest rose buss in +a' the haul gairden -- whan the markis, no the auld markis, but +my leddy's father, cam' up the walk there, an' a bonny young +leddy wi' his lordship, as it micht be yersel's twa -- an' I beg +yer pardon, my leddy, but I'm an auld man noo, an' whiles forgets +the differs 'atween fowk -- an' this yoong leddy 'at they ca'd +Miss Cam'ell -- ye kenned her yersel' efterhin', I daursay, +Ma'colm -- he was unco ta'en with her, the markis, as ilka body +cud see ohn luikit that near, sae 'at some saich 'at hoo he hed +no richt to gang on wi' her that gait, garrin' her believe, gien +he wasna gaein' to merry her. That's naither here nor there, +hooever, seein' it a' cam' to jist naething ava'. Sae up they +gaed to the cave yon'er, as I was tellin' ye; an' hoo it was, was +a won'er, for I s' warran' she had been aboot the place near a +towmon (twelvemonth), but never had she been intil that cave, and +kenned no more nor the bairn unborn what there was in 't. An' sae +whan the airemite, as the auld minister ca'd him, though what for +he ca'd a muckle block like yon an airy mite, I'm sure I never +cud fathom -- whan he gat up, as I was sayin', an' cam' foret wi' +his han' oot, she gae a scraich 'at jist garred my lugs dirl, an' +doon she drappit, an' there, whan I ran up, was she lyin' i' the +markis his airms, as white 's a cauk eemege, an' it was lang or +he brought her till hersel', for he wadna lat me rin for the +hoosekeeper, but sent me fleein' to the f'untain for watter, an' +gied me a gowd guinea to haud my tongue aboot it a'. Sae noo, my +leddy, ye're forewarnt, an' no ill can come to ye, for there's +naething to be fleyt at whan ye ken what's gauin' to meet +ye."</p> + +<p>Malcolm had turned his head aside, and now moved on without +remark. Struck by his silence, Clementina looked up, and saw his +face very pale, and the tears standing in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"You must tell me the sad story, Malcolm," she murmured. "I +could scarcely understand a word the old man said."</p> + +<p>He continued silent, and seemed struggling with some emotion. +But when they were within a few paces of the arbour, he stopped +short, and said -- "I would rather not go in there today. You +would oblige me, my lady, if you would not go."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him again, with wonder but more concern in +her lovely face, put her hand on his arm, gently turned him away, +and walked back with him to the fountain. Not a word more did she +say about the matter.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXVI"></a>CHAPTER LXVI: +SEA</h1> + +<p>The evening came; and the company at Lossie House was still +seated at table, Clementina heartily weary of the vapid talk that +had been going on all through the dinner, when she was informed +that a fisherman of the name of Mair was at the door, accompanied +by his wife, saying they had an appointment with her. She had +already acquainted her hostess, when first they sat down, with +her arrangements for going a-fishing that night, and much foolish +talk and would be wit had followed; now, when she rose and +excused herself, they all wished her a pleasant evening, in a +tone indicating the conviction that she little knew what she was +about, and would soon be longing heartily enough to be back with +them in the drawing room, whose lighted windows she would see +from the boat. But Clementina hoped otherwise, hurriedly changed +her dress, hastened to join Malcolm's messengers, and almost in a +moment had made the two childlike people at home with her, by the +simplicity and truth of her manner, and the directness of her +utterance. They had not talked with her five minutes before they +said in their hearts that here was the wife for the marquis if he +could get her.</p> + +<p>"She's jist like ane o' oorsel's," whispered Annie to her +husband on the first opportunity, "only a hantle better an +bonnier."</p> + +<p>They took the nearest way to the harbour -- through the town, +and Lady Clementina and Blue Peter kept up a constant talk as +they went. All in the streets and at the windows stared to see +the grand lady from the House walking between a Scaurnose +fisherman and his wife, and chatting away with them as if they +were all fishers together.</p> + +<p>"What's the wordle comin' till!" cried Mrs Mellis, the +draper's wife, as she saw them pass.</p> + +<p>"I'm glaid to see the yoong wuman -- an' a bonny lass she is! +-- in sic guid company," said Miss Horn, looking down from the +opposite side of the way. "I'm thinkin' the han' o' the markis +'ill be i' this, no'!"</p> + +<p>All was ready to receive her, but in the present bad state of +the harbour, and the tide having now ebbed a little way, the boat +could not get close either to quay or shore. Six of the crew were +on board, seated on the thwarts with their oars shipped, for +Peter had insisted on a certain approximation to man of war +manners and discipline for the evening, or at least until they +got to the fishing ground. The shore itself formed one side of +the harbour, and sloped down into it, and on the sand stood +Malcolm with a young woman, whom Clementina recognised at once as +the girl she had seen at the Findlays'.</p> + +<p>"My lady," he said, approaching, "would you do me the favour +to let Lizzy go with you. She would like to attend your ladyship, +because, being a fisherman's daughter, she is used to the sea, +and Mrs Mair is not so much at home upon it, being a farmer's +daughter from inland."</p> + +<p>Receiving Clementina's thankful assent, he turned to Lizzy and +said --</p> + +<p>"Min' ye tell my lady what rizon ye ken whaurfor my mistress +at the Hoose sudna be merried upo' Lord Liftore -- him 'at was +Lord Meikleham. Ye may speyk to my lady there as ye wad to mysel' +-- an' better, haein' the hert o' a wuman."</p> + +<p>Lizzy blushed a deep red, and dared but the glimmer of a +glance at Clementina, but there was only shame, no annoyance in +her face.</p> + +<p>"Ye winna repent it, Lizzy," concluded Malcolm, and turned +away.</p> + +<p>He cherished a faint hope that, if she heard or guessed +Lizzy's story, Clementina might yet find some way of bringing her +influence to bear on his sister even at the last hour of her +chance -- from which, for her sake, he shrunk the more the nearer +it drew. Clementina held out her hand to Lizzy, and again +accepted her offered service with kindly thanks.</p> + +<p>Now Blue Peter, having been ship's carpenter in his day, had +constructed a little poop in the stern of his craft; thereon +Malcolm had laid cushions and pillows and furs and blankets from +the Psyche, -- a grafting of Cleopatra's galley upon the rude +fishing boat -- and there Clementina was to repose in state. +Malcolm gave a sign: Peter took his wife in his arms, and walking +through the few yards of water between, lifted her into the boat, +which lay with its stern to the shore. Malcolm and Clementina +turned to each other: he was about to ask leave to do her the +same service, but she spoke before him.</p> + +<p>"Put Lizzy on board first," she said.</p> + +<p>He obeyed, and when, returning, he again approached her -- +"Are you able, Malcolm?" she asked. "I am very heavy."</p> + +<p>He smiled for all reply, took her in his arms like a child, +and had placed her on the cushions before she had time to realize +the mode of her transference. Then taking a stride deeper into +the water, he scrambled on board. The same instant the men gave +way. They pulled carefully through the narrow jaws of the little +harbour, and away with quivering oar and falling tide, went the +boat, gliding out into the measureless north, where the horizon +was now dotted with the sails that had preceded it.</p> + +<p>No sooner were they afloat than a kind of enchantment +enwrapped and possessed the soul of Clementina. Everything seemed +all at once changed utterly. The very ends of the harbour piers +might have stood in the Divina Commedia instead of the Moray +Frith. Oh that wonderful look everything wears when beheld from +the other side! Wonderful surely will this world appear -- +strangely more, when, become children again by being gathered to +our fathers -- joyous day! we turn and gaze back upon it from the +other side! I imagine that, to him who has overcome it, the +world, in very virtue of his victory, will show itself the lovely +and pure thing it was created -- for he will see through the +cloudy envelope of his battle to the living kernel below. The +cliffs, the rocks, the sands, the dune, the town, the very clouds +that hung over the hill above Lossie House, were in strange +fashion transfigured. To think of people sitting behind those +windows while the splendour and freedom of space with all its +divine shows invited them -- lay bare and empty to them! Out and +still out they rowed and drifted, till the coast began to open up +beyond the headlands on either side.</p> + +<p>There a light breeze was waiting them. Up then went three +short masts, and three dark brown sails shone red in the sun, and +Malcolm came aft, over the great heap of brown nets, crept with +apology across the poop, and got down into a little well behind, +there to sit and steer the boat; for now, obedient to the wind in +its sails, it went frolicking over the sea.</p> + +<p>The bonnie Annie bore a picked crew; for Peter's boat was to +him a sort of church, in which he would not with his will carry +any Jonah fleeing from the will of the lord of the sea. And that +boat's crew did not look the less merrily out of their blue eyes, +or carry themselves the less manfully in danger, that they +believed a lord of the earth and the sea and the fountains of +water cared for his children and would have them honest and +fearless.</p> + +<p>And now came a scattering of rubies and topazes over the slow +waves, as the sun reached the edge of the horizon, and shone with +a glory of blinding red along the heaving level of green, dashed +with the foam of their flight. Could such a descent as this be +intended for a type of death? Clementina asked. Was it not rather +as if, from a corner of the tomb behind, she saw the back parts +of a resurrection and ascension: warmth, out shining, splendour; +departure from the door of the tomb; exultant memory; tarnishing +gold, red fading to russet; fainting of spirit, loneliness; +deepening blue and green; pallor, grayness, coldness; out +creeping stars; further reaching memory; the dawn of infinite +hope and foresight; the assurance that under passion itself lay a +better and holier mystery? Here was God's naughty child, the +world, laid asleep and dreaming -- if not merrily, yet +contentedly; and there was the sky with all the day gathered and +hidden up in its blue, ready to break forth again in laughter on +the morrow, bending over its skyey cradle like a mother! and +there was the aurora, the secret of life, creeping away round to +the north to be ready! Then first, when the slow twilight had +fairly settled into night, did Clementina begin to know the +deepest marvel of this facet of the rose diamond life! God's +night and sky and sea were her's now, as they had been Malcolm's +from childhood! And when the nets had been paid out, and sank +straight into the deep, stretched betwixt leads below and floats +and buoys above, extending a screen of meshes against the rush of +the watery herd; when the sails were down, and the whole vault of +stars laid bare to her eyes as she lay; when the boat was still, +fast to the nets, anchored as it were by hanging acres of +curtain, and all was silent as a church, waiting, and she might +dream or sleep or pray as she would, with nothing about her but +peace and love and the deep sea, and over her but still peace and +love and the deeper sky, then the soul of Clementina rose and +worshipped the soul of the universe; her spirit clave to the Life +of her life, the Thought of her thought, the Heart of her heart; +her will bowed itself to the creator of will, worshipping the +supreme, original, only Freedom -- the Father of her love, the +Father of Jesus Christ, the God of the hearts of the universe, +the Thinker of all thoughts, the Beginner of all beginnings, the +All in all. It was her first experience of speechless +adoration.</p> + +<p>Most of the men were asleep in the bows of the boat; all were +lying down but one. That one was Malcolm. He had come aft, and +seated himself under the platform leaning against it.</p> + +<p>The boat rose and sank a little, just enough to rock the +sleeping children a little deeper into their sleep; Malcolm +thought all slept. He did not see how Clementina's eyes shone +back to the heavens -- no star in them to be named beside those +eyes. She knew that Malcolm was near her, but she would not +speak; she would not break the peace of the presence. A minute or +two passed. Then softly woke a murmur of sound, that strengthened +and grew, and swelled at last into a song. She feared to stir +lest she should interrupt its flow. And thus it flowed:</p> + +<pre> +The stars are steady abune; +I' the water they flichter an' flee; +But steady aye luikin' doon, +They ken themsel's i' the sea. + +A' licht, an' clear, an' free, +God, thou shinest abune; +Yet luik, an' see thysel' in me, +God, whan thou luikest doon. +</pre> + +<p>A silence followed, but a silence that seemed about to be +broken. And again Malcolm sang:</p> + +<pre> +There was an auld fisher -- he sat by the wa', +An' luikit oot ower the sea; +The bairnies war playin', he smilit on them a', +But the tear stude in his e'e. + +An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! +An' it's oh to win awa' +Whaur the bairns come home, an' the wives they bide, +An' God is the Father o' a'! + +Jocky an' Jeamy an' Tammy oot there, +A' i' the boatie gaed doon; +An' I'm ower auld to fish ony mair, +An' I hinna the chance to droon. +An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! &c. + +An' Jeanie she grat to ease her hert, +An' she easit hersel' awa' +But I'm ower auld for the tears to stert, +An' sae the sighs maun blaw. +An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! &c. + +Lord, steer me hame whaur my Lord has steerit, +For I'm tired o' life's rockin' sea +An' dinna be lang, for I'm nearhan' fearit +'At I'm 'maist ower auld to dee. +An' it's oh to win awa', awe'! &c. +</pre> + +<p>Again the stars and the sky were all, and there was no sound +but the slight murmurous lipping of the low swell against the +edges of the planks. Then Clementina said:</p> + +<p>"Did you make that song, Malcolm?"</p> + +<p>"Whilk o' them, my leddy? -- But it's a' ane -- they're baith +mine, sic as they are."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," she returned.</p> + +<p>"What for, my leddy?"</p> + +<p>"For speaking Scotch to me."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, my lady. I forgot your ladyship was +English."</p> + +<p>"Please forget it," she said. "But I thank you for your songs +too. It was the second I wanted to know about; the first I was +certain was your own. I did not know you could enter like that +into the feelings of an old man."</p> + +<p>"Why not, my lady? I never can see living thing without asking +it how it feels. Often and often, out here at such a time as +this, have I tried to fancy myself a herring caught by the gills +in the net down below, instead of the fisherman in the boat above +going to haul him out."</p> + +<p>"And did you succeed?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I fancy I came to understand as much of him as he does +himself. It's a merry enough life down there. The flukes -- +plaice, you call them, my lady, -- bother me, I confess. I never +contemplate one without feeling as if I had been sat upon when I +was a baby. But for an old man! -- Why, that's what I shall be +myself one day most likely, and it would be a shame not to know +pretty nearly how he felt -- near enough at least to make a song +about him."</p> + +<p>"And shan't you mind being an old man, then, Malcolm?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least, my lady. I shall mind nothing so long as I +can trust in the maker of me. If my faith should give way -- why +then there would be nothing worth minding either! I don't know +but I should kill myself."</p> + +<p>"Malcolm!"</p> + +<p>"Which is worse, my lady -- to distrust God, or to think life +worth having without him?"</p> + +<p>"But one may hope in the midst of doubt -- at least that is +what Mr Graham -- and you -- have taught me to do."</p> + +<p>"Yes, surely, my lady. I won't let anyone beat me at that, if +I can help it. And I think that so long as I kept my reason, I +should be able to cry out, as that grandest and most human of all +the prophets did -- 'Though he slay me yet will I trust in him.' +But would you not like to sleep, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"No, Malcolm. I would much rather hear you talk, -- Could you +not tell me a story now? Lady Lossie mentioned one you once told +her about an old castle somewhere not far from here."</p> + +<p>"Eh, my leddy!" broke in Annie Mair, who had waked up while +they were speaking, "I wuss ye wad gar him tell ye that story, +for my man he's h'ard 'im tell't, an' he says it's unco gruesome: +I wad fain hear 't. -- Wauk up, Lizzy," she went on, in her +eagerness waiting for no answer; "Ma'colm's gauin' to tell 's the +tale o' the auld castel o' Colonsay. -- It's oot by yon'er, my +leddy -- 'no that far frae the Deid Heid. -- Wauk up, Lizzy."</p> + +<p>"I'm no sleepin', Annie," said Lizzy, "-- though like +Ma'colm's auld man," she added with a sigh, "I wad whiles fain +be."</p> + +<p>Now there were reasons why Malcolm should not be unwilling to +tell the strange wild story requested of him, and he commenced it +at once, but modified the Scotch of it considerably for the sake +of the unaccustomed ears. When it was ended Clementina said +nothing; Annie Mair said "Hech, sirs!" and Lizzy with a great +sigh, remarked,</p> + +<p>"The deil maun be in a'thing whaur God hasna a han', I'm +thinkin'."</p> + +<p>"Ye may tak yer aith upo' that," rejoined Malcolm.</p> + +<p>It was a custom in Peter's boat never to draw the nets without +a prayer, uttered now by one and now by another of the crew. Upon +this occasion, whether it was in deference to Malcolm, who, as he +well understood, did not like long prayers, or that the presence +of Clementina exercised some restraint upon his spirit, out of +the bows of the boat came now the solemn voice of its master, +bearing only this one sentence:</p> + +<p>"Oh Thoo, wha didst tell thy dissiples to cast the net upo' +the side whaur swam the fish, gien it be thy wull 'at we catch +the nicht, lat 's catch; gien it binna thy wull, lat 's no catch. +-- Haul awa', my laads."</p> + +<p>Up sprang the men, and went each to his place, and straight a +torrent of gleaming fish was pouring in over the gunwale of the +boat. Such a take it was ere the last of the nets was drawn, as +the oldest of them had seldom seen. Thousands of fish there were +that had never got into the meshes at all.</p> + +<p>"I cannot understand it," said Clementina. "There are +multitudes more fish than there are meshes in the nets to catch +them: if they are not caught, why do they not swim away?"</p> + +<p>"Because they are drowned, my lady," answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that? How can you drown a fish?"</p> + +<p>"You may call it suffocated if you like, my lady; it is all +the same. You have read of panic stricken people, when a church +or a theatre is on fire, rushing to the door all in a heap, and +crowding each other to death? It is something like that with the +fish. They are swimming along in a great shoal, yards thick; and +when the first can get no farther, that does not at once stop the +rest, any more than it would in a crowd of people; those that are +behind come pressing up into every corner, where there is room, +till they are one dense mass. Then they push and push to get +forward, and can't get through, and the rest come still crowding +on behind and above and below, till a multitude of them are +jammed so tight against each other that they can't open their +gills; and even if they could, there would not be air enough for +them. You've seen the goldfish in the swan basin, my lady, how +they open and shut their gills constantly: that's their way of +getting air out of the water by some wonderful contrivance nobody +understands, for they need breath just as much as we do: and to +close their gills is to them the same as closing a man's mouth +and nose. That's how the most of those herrings are taken."</p> + +<p>All were now ready to seek the harbour. A light westerly wind +was still blowing, with the aid of which, heavy laden, they crept +slowly to the land. As she lay snug and warm, with the cool +breath of the sea on her face, a half sleep came over Clementina, +and she half dreamed that she was voyaging in a ship of the air, +through infinite regions of space, with a destination too +glorious to be known. The herring boat was a living splendour of +strength and speed, its sails were as the wings of a will, in +place of the instruments of a force, and softly as mightily it +bore them through the charmed realms of dreamland towards the +ideal of the soul. And yet the herring boat but crawled over the +still waters with its load of fish, as the harvest waggon creeps +over the field with its piled up sheaves; and she who imagined +its wondrous speed was the only one who did not desire it should +move faster.</p> + +<p>No word passed between her and Malcolm all their homeward way. +Each was brooding over the night and its joy that enclosed them +together, and hoping for that which was yet to be shaken from the +lap of the coming time.</p> + +<p>Also Clementina had in her mind a scheme for attempting what +Malcolm had requested of her; the next day must see it carried +into effect; and ever and anon, like a cold blast of doubt +invading the bliss of confidence, into the heart of that sea +borne peace darted the thought, that, if she failed, she must +leave at once for England, for she would not again meet +Liftore.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXVII"></a>CHAPTER LXVII: +SHORE</h1> + +<p>At last they glided once more through the stony jaws of the +harbour, as if returning again to the earth from a sojourn in the +land of the disembodied. When Clementina's foot touched the shore +she felt like one waked out of a dream, from whom yet the dream +has not departed -- but keeps floating about him, waved in +thinner and yet thinner streams from the wings of the vanishing +sleep.</p> + +<p>It seemed almost as if her spirit, instead of having come back +to the world of its former abode, had been borne across the +parting waters and landed on the shore of the immortals. There +was the ghostlike harbour of the spirit land, the water gleaming +betwixt its dark walls, one solitary boat motionless upon it, the +men moving about like shadows in the star twilight! Here stood +three women and a man on the shore, and save the stars no light +shone, and from the land came no sound of life. Was it the dead +of the night, or a day that had no sun? It was not dark, but the +light was rayless. Or, rather, it was as if she had gained the +power of seeing in the dark.</p> + +<p>Suppressed sleep wove the stuff of a dream around her, and the +stir at her heart kept it alive with dream forms. Even the voice +of Peter's Annie, saying, "I s' bide for my man. Gude nicht, my +leddy," did not break the charm. Her heart shaped that also into +the dream. Turning away with Malcolm and Lizzy, she passed along +the front of the Seaton.</p> + +<p>How still, how dead, how empty like cenotaphs, all the +cottages looked! How the sea which lay like a watcher at their +doors, murmured in its sleep! Arrived at the entrance to her own +close, Lizzy next bade them good night, and Clementina and +Malcolm were left.</p> + +<p>And now drew near the full power, the culmination of the +mounting enchantment of the night for Malcolm. When once the +Scaurnose people should have passed them, they would be alone -- +alone as in the spaces between the stars. There would not be a +living soul on the shore for hours. From the harbour the nearest +way to the House was by the sea gate, but where was the haste -- +with the lovely night around them, private as a dream shared only +by two? Besides, to get in by that, they would have had to rouse +the cantankerous Bykes, and what a jar would not that bring into +the music of the silence! Instead, therefore, of turning up by +the side of the stream where it crossed the shore, he took +Clementina once again in his arms unforbidden, and carried her +over. Then the long sands lay open to their feet. Presently they +heard the Scaurnose party behind them, coming audibly, merrily +on. As by a common resolve they turned to the left, and crossing +the end of the Boar's Tail, resumed their former direction, with +the dune now between them and the sea. The voices passed on the +other side, and they heard them slowly merge into the inaudible. +At length, after an interval of silence, on the westerly air came +one quiver of laughter -- by which Malcolm knew his friends were +winding up the red path to the top of the cliff. And now the +shore was bare of presence, bare of sound save the soft fitful +rush of the rising tide. But behind the long sandhill, for all +they could see of the sea, they might have been in the heart of a +continent.</p> + +<p>"Who would imagine the ocean so near us, my lady!" said +Malcolm, after they had walked for some time without word +spoken.</p> + +<p>"Who can tell what may be near us?" she returned.</p> + +<p>"True, my lady. Our future is near us, holding thousands of +things unknown. Hosts of thinking beings with endless myriads of +thoughts may be around us. What a joy to know that, of all things +and all thoughts, God is nearest to us -- so near that we cannot +see him, but, far beyond seeing him, can know of him +infinitely!"</p> + +<p>As he spoke they came opposite the tunnel, but he turned from +it and they ascended the dune. As their heads rose over the top, +and the sky night above and the sea night beneath rolled +themselves out and rushed silently together, Malcolm said, as if +thinking aloud:</p> + +<p>"Thus shall we meet death and the unknown, and the new that +breaks from the bosom of the invisible will be better than the +old upon which the gates close behind us. The Son of man is +content with my future, and I am content."</p> + +<p>There was a peace in the words that troubled Clementina: he +wanted no more than he had -- this cold, imperturbable, devout +fisherman! She did not see that it was the confidence of having +all things that held his peace rooted. From the platform of the +swivel, they looked abroad over the sea. Far north in the east +lurked a suspicion of dawn, which seemed, while they gazed upon +it, to "languish into life," and the sea was a shade less dark +than when they turned from it to go behind the dune. They +descended a few paces, and halted again.</p> + +<p>"Did your ladyship ever see the sun rise?" asked Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Never in open country," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Then stay and see it now, my lady. He'll rise just over +yonder, a little nearer this way than that light from under his +eyelids. A more glorious chance you could not have. And when he +rises, just observe, one minute after he is up, how like a dream +all you have been in tonight will look. It is to me strange even +to awfulness how many different phases of things, and feelings +about them, and moods of life and consciousness, God can tie up +in the bundle of one world with one human soul to carry it."</p> + +<p>Clementina slowly sank on the sand of the slope, and like +lovely sphinx of northern desert, gazed in immovable silence out +on the yet more northern sea. Malcolm took his place a little +below, leaning on his elbow, for the slope was steep, and looking +up at her. Thus they waited the sunrise.</p> + +<p>Was it minutes or only moments passed in that silence -- whose +speech was the soft ripple of the sea on the sand? Neither could +have answered the question. At length said Malcolm,</p> + +<p>"I think of changing my service, my lady."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, Malcolm!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady. My -- mistress does not like to turn me away, +but she is tired of me, and does not want me any longer."</p> + +<p>"But you would never think of finally forsaking a fisherman's +life for that of a servant, surely, Malcolm?"</p> + +<p>"What would become of Kelpie, my lady?" rejoined Malcolm, +smiling to himself.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Clementina, bewildered; "I had not thought of her. +-- But you cannot take her with you," she added, coming a little +to her senses.</p> + +<p>"There is nobody about the place who could, or rather, who +would do anything with her. They would sell her. I have enough to +buy her, and perhaps somebody might not object to the +encumbrance, but hire me and her together. -- Your groom wants a +coachman's place, my lady."</p> + +<p>"0 Malcolm! do you mean you would be my groom?" cried +Clementina, pressing her palms together.</p> + +<p>"If you would have me, my lady; but I have heard you say you +would have none but a married man."</p> + +<p>"But -- Malcolm -- don't you know anybody that would? -- Could +you not find some one -- some lady -- that? -- I mean, why +shouldn't you be a married man?"</p> + +<p>"For a very good and to me rather sad reason, my lady; the +only woman I could marry, or should ever be able to marry, -- +would not have me. She is very kind and very noble, but -- it is +preposterous -- the thing is too preposterous. I dare not have +the presumption to ask her."</p> + +<p>Malcolm's voice trembled as he spoke, and a few moments' pause +followed, during which he could not lift his eyes. The whole +heaven seemed pressing down their lids. The breath which he +modelled into words seemed to come in little billows.</p> + +<p>But his words had raised a storm in Clementina's bosom. A cry +broke from her, as if driven forth by pain. She called up all the +energy of her nature, and stilled herself to speak. The voice +that came was little more than a sob scattered whisper, but to +her it seemed as if all the world must hear.</p> + +<p>"Oh Malcolm!" she panted, "I will try to be good and wise. +Don't marry anybody else -- anybody, I mean; but come with Kelpie +and be my groom, and wait and see if I don't grow better."</p> + +<p>Malcolm leaped to his feet and threw himself at hers. He had +heard but in part, and he must know all.</p> + +<p>"My lady," he said, with intense quiet, "Kelpie and I will be +your slaves. Take me for fisherman -- groom -- what you will. I +offer the whole sum of service that is in me." He kissed her +feet.</p> + +<p>"My lady, I would put your feet on my head," he went on, "only +then what should I do when I see my Lord, and cast myself before +Him?"</p> + +<p>But Clementina, again her own to give, rose quickly, and said +with all the dignity born of her inward grandeur,</p> + +<p>"Rise, Malcolm; you misunderstand me."</p> + +<p>Malcolm rose abashed, but stood erect before her, save that +his head was bowed, for his heart was sunk in dismay. Then +slowly, gently, Clementina knelt before him. He was bewildered, +and thought she was going to pray. In sweet, clear, unshaken +tones, for she feared nothing now, she said,</p> + +<p>"Malcolm, I am not worthy of you. But take me -- take my very +soul if you will, for it is yours."</p> + +<p>Now Malcolm saw that he had no right to raise a kneeling lady; +all he could do was to kneel beside her. When people kneel, they +lift up their hearts; and the creating heart of their joy was +forgotten of neither. And well for them, for the love where God +is not, be the lady lovely as Cordelia, the man gentle as Philip +Sidney, will fare as the overkept manna.</p> + +<p>When the huge tidal wave from the ocean of infinite delight +had broken at last upon the shore of the finite, and withdrawn +again into the deeps, leaving every cistern brimming, every +fountain overflowing, the two entranced souls opened their bodily +eyes, looked at each other, rose, and stood hand in hand, +speechless.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my lady!" said Malcolm at length, "what is to become of +this delicate smoothness in my great rough hand? Will it not be +hurt?"</p> + +<p>"You don't know how strong it is, Malcolm. There!"</p> + +<p>"I can scarcely feel it with my hand, my lady; it all goes +through to my heart. It shall lie in mine as the diamond in the +rock."</p> + +<p>"No, no, Malcolm! Now that I am going to be a fisherman's +wife, it must be a strong hand -- it must work. What homage shall +you require of me, Malcolm? What will you have me do to rise a +little nearer your level? Shall I give away lands and money? And +shall I live with you in the Seaton? or will you come and fish at +Wastbeach?"</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, my lady; I can't think about things now -- even +with you in them. There is neither past nor future to me now -- +only this one eternal morning. Sit here, and look up, Lady +Clementina: -- see all those worlds: -- something in me +constantly says that I shall know every one of them one day; that +they are all but rooms in the house of my spirit, that is, the +house of our Father. Let us not now, when your love makes me +twice eternal, talk of time and places. Come, let us fancy +ourselves two blessed spirits, lying full in the sight and light +of our God, -- as indeed what else are we? -- warming our hearts +in his presence and peace; and that we have but to rise and +spread our wings to sear aloft and find -- what shall it be, my +lady? Worlds upon worlds? No, no. What are worlds upon worlds in +infinite show until we have seen the face of the Son of Man?"</p> + +<p>A silence fell. But he resumed.</p> + +<p>"Let us imagine our earthly life behind us, our hearts clean, +love all in all. -- But that sends me back to the now. My lady, I +know I shall never love you aright until you have helped me +perfect. When the face of the least lovely of my neighbours needs +but appear to rouse in my heart a divine tenderness, then it must +be that I shall love you better than now. Now, alas! I am so +pervious to wrong! so fertile of resentments and indignations! +You must cure me, my divine Clemency. -- Am I a poor lover to +talk, this first glorious hour, of anything but my lady love? Ah! +but let it excuse me that this love is no new thing to me. It is +a very old love. I have loved you a thousand years. I love every +atom of your being, every thought that can harbour in your soul, +and I am jealous of hurting your blossoms with the over jubilant +winds of that very love. I would therefore behold you folded in +the atmosphere of the Love eternal. My lady, if I were to talk of +your beauty, I should but offend you, for you would think I +raved, and spoke not the words of truth and soberness. But how +often have I not cried to the God who breathed the beauty into +you that it might shine out of you, to save my soul from the +tempest of its own delight therein. And now I am like one that +has caught an angel in his net, and fears to come too nigh, lest +fire should flash from the eyes of the startled splendour, and +consume the net and him who holds it. But I will not rave, +because I would possess in grand peace that which I lay at your +feet. I am yours, and would be worthy of your moonlight +calm."</p> + +<p>"Alas! I am beside you but a block of marble!" said +Clementina. "You are so eloquent, my --"</p> + +<p>"New groom," suggested Malcolm gently.</p> + +<p>Clementina smiled.</p> + +<p>"But my heart is so full," she went on, "that I cannot think +the filmiest thought. I hardly know that I feel. I only know that +I want to weep."</p> + +<p>"Weep then, my word ineffable!" cried Malcolm, and laid +himself again at her feet, kissed them, and was silent.</p> + +<p>He was but a fisher poet; no courtier, no darling of society, +no dealer in the fine speeches, no clerk of compliments. All the +words he had were the living blossoms of thought rooted in +feeling. His pure clear heart was as a crystal cup, through which +shone the red wine of his love. To himself Malcolm stammered as a +dumb man, the string of whose tongue has but just been loosed; to +Clementina his speech was as the song of the Lady to Comus, +"divine enchanting ravishment." The God of truth is surely +present at every such marriage feast of two radiant spirits. +Their joy was that neither had fooled the hope of the other.</p> + +<p>And so the herring boat had indeed carried Clementina over +into paradise, and this night of the world was to her a twilight +of heaven. God alone can tell what delights it is possible for +him to give to the pure in heart who shall one day behold him. +Like two that had died and found each other, they talked until +speech rose into silence, they smiled until the dews which the +smiles had sublimed claimed their turn and descended in +tears.</p> + +<p>All at once they became aware that an eye was upon them. It +was the sun. He was ten degrees up the slope of the sky, and they +had never seen him rise.</p> + +<p>With the sun came a troublous thought, for with the sun came +"a world of men." Neither they nor the simple fisher folk, their +friends, had thought of the thing, but now at length it occurred +to Clementina that she would rather not walk up to the door of +Lossie House with Malcolm at this hour of the morning. Yet +neither could she well appear alone. Ere she had spoken Malcolm +rose.</p> + +<p>"You won't mind being left, my lady," he said, "for a quarter +of an hour or so -- will you? I want to bring Lizzy to walk home +with you."</p> + +<p>He went, and Clementina sat alone on the dune in a reposeful +rapture, to which the sleeplessness of the night gave a certain +additional intensity and richness and strangeness. She watched +the great strides of her fisherman as he walked along the sands, +and she seemed not to be left behind, but to go with him every +step. The tide was again falling, and the sea shone and sparkled +and danced with life, and the wet sand gleamed, and a soft air +blew on her cheek, and the lordly sun was mounting higher and +higher, and a lark over her head was sacrificing all nature in +his song; and it seemed as if Malcolm were still speaking +strange, half intelligible, altogether lovely things in her ears. +She felt a little weary, and laid her head down upon her arm to +listen more at her ease.</p> + +<p>Now the lark had seen all and heard all, and was telling it +again to the universe, only in dark sayings which none but +themselves could understand; therefore it is no wonder that, as +she listened, his song melted into a dream, and she slept. And +the dream was lovely as dream needs be, but not lovelier than the +wakeful night. She opened her eyes, calm as any cradled child, +and there stood her fisherman!</p> + +<p>"I have been explaining to Lizzy, my lady," he said, "that +your ladyship would rather have her company up to the door than +mine. Lizzy is to be trusted, my lady."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, my leddy," said Lizzy, "Ma'colm's been ower guid to +me, no to gar me du onything he wad ha'e o' me, I can haud my +tongue whan I like, my leddy. An' dinna doobt my thouchts, my +leddy, for I ken Ma'colm as weel's ye du yersel', my leddy."</p> + +<p>While she was speaking, Clementina rose, and they went +straight to the door in the bank. Through the tunnel and the +young wood and the dew and the morning odours, along the lovely +paths the three walked to the house together. And oh, how the +larks of the earth and the larks of the soul sang for two of +them! And how the burn rang with music, and the air throbbed with +sweetest life! while the breath of God made a little sound as of +a going now and then in the tops of the fir trees, and the sun +shone his brightest and best, and all nature knew that the heart +of God is the home of his creatures.</p> + +<p>When they drew near the house Malcolm left them. After they +had rung a good many times, the door was opened by the +housekeeper, looking very proper and just a little +scandalized.</p> + +<p>"Please, Mrs Courthope," said Lady Clementina, "will you give +orders that when this young woman comes to see me today she shall +be shown up to my room?"</p> + +<p>Then she turned to Lizzy and thanked her for her kindness, and +they parted -- Lizzy to her baby, and Clementina to yet a dream +or two. Long before her dreams were sleeping ones, however, +Malcolm was out in the bay in the Psyche's dinghy, catching +mackerel: some should be for his grandfather, some for Miss Horn, +some for Mrs Courthope, and some for Mrs Crathie.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXVIII"></a>CHAPTER LXVIII: +THE CREW OF THE BONNIE ANNIE</h1> + +<p>Having caught as many fish as he wanted, Malcolm rowed to the +other side of the Scaurnose. There he landed and left the dinghy +in the shelter of the rocks, the fish covered with long broad +leaved tangles, climbed the steep cliff, and sought Blue Peter. +The brown village was quiet as a churchyard, although the sun was +now growing hot. Of the men some were not yet returned from the +night's fishing, and some were asleep in their beds after it. Not +a chimney smoked. But Malcolm seemed to have in his own single +being life and joy enough for a world; such an intense +consciousness of bliss burned within him, that, in the sightless, +motionless village, he seemed to himself to stand like an altar +blazing in the midst of desert Carnac. But he was not the only +one awake: on the threshold of Peter's cottage sat his little +Phemy, trying to polish a bit of serpentine marble upon the +doorstep, with the help of water, which stood by her side in a +broken tea cup.</p> + +<p>She lifted her sweet gray eyes, and smiled him a welcome.</p> + +<p>"Are ye up a'ready, Phemy?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I ha'ena been doon yet," she answered. "My mither was oot +last nicht wi' the boat, an' Auntie Jinse was wi' the bairn, an' +sae I cud du as I likit."</p> + +<p>"An' what did ye like, Phemy?"</p> + +<p>"A'body kens what I like," answered the child: "I was oot an' +aboot a' nicht. An' eh, Ma'colm! I hed a veesion."</p> + +<p>"What was that, Phemy?"</p> + +<p>"I was upo' the tap o' the Nose, jist as the sun rase, luikin' +aboot me, an' awa' upo' the Boar's Tail I saw twa angels sayin' +their prayers. Nae doobt they war prayin' for the haill warl', i' +the quaiet o' the mornin' afore the din begud. Maybe ane them was +that auld priest wi' the lang name i' the buik o' Genesis, 'at +hed naither father nor mither -- puir man! -- him 'at gaed aboot +blissin' fowk."</p> + +<p>Malcolm thought he might take his own time to set the child +right, and asked her to go and tell her father that he wanted to +see him. In a few minutes Blue Peter appeared, rubbing his eyes +-- one of the dead called too early from the tomb of sleep.</p> + +<p>"Freen' Peter," said Malcolm, "I'm gaein' to speak oot the +day."</p> + +<p>Peter woke up.</p> + +<p>"Weel," he said, "I am glaid o' that, Ma'colm, -- I beg yer +pardon, my lord, I sud say. -- Annie!"</p> + +<p>"Haud a quaiet sough, man. I wadna hae 't come oot at +Scaurnose first. I'm come noo 'cause I want ye to stan' by +me."</p> + +<p>"I wull that, my lord."</p> + +<p>"Weel, gang an' gether yer boat's crew, an' fess them doon to +the cove, an' I'll tell them, an' maybe they'll stan' by me as +weel."</p> + +<p>"There's little fear o' that, gien I ken my men," answered +Peter, and went off, rather less than half clothed, the sun +burning hot upon his back, through the sleeping village, to call +them, while Malcolm went and waited beside the dinghy.</p> + +<p>At length six men in a body, and one lagging behind, appeared +coming down the winding path -- all but Peter no doubt wondering +why they were called so soon from their beds, on such a peaceful +morning, after being out the night before. Malcolm went to meet +them.</p> + +<p>"Freen's," he said, "I'm in want o' yer help."</p> + +<p>"Onything ye like, Ma'colm, sae far 's I'm concernt, 'cep' it +be to ride yer mere. That I wull no tak in han'," said Jeames +Gentle.</p> + +<p>"It's no that," returned Malcolm. "It's naething freely sae +hard's that, I'm thinkin'. The hard 'll be to believe what I'm +gaein' to tell ye."</p> + +<p>"Ye'll no be gaein' to set up for a proaphet?" said Girnel, +with something approaching a sneer.</p> + +<p>Girnel was the one who came down behind the rest.</p> + +<p>"Na, na; naething like it," said Blue Peter.</p> + +<p>"But first ye'll promise to haud yer tongues for half a day?" +said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay; we'll no clype." -- "We s' haud ower tongues," cried +one and another and another, and all seemed to assent.</p> + +<p>"Weel," said Malcolm, "My name 's no Ma'colm MacPhail, but +--"</p> + +<p>"We a' ken that," said Girnel.</p> + +<p>"An' what mair du ye ken?" asked Blue Peter, with some anger +at his interruption.</p> + +<p>"Ow, naething."</p> + +<p>"Weel, ye ken little," said Peter, and the rest laughed.</p> + +<p>"I'm the Markis o' Lossie," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Every man but Peter laughed again: all took it for a joke +precursive of some serious announcement. That which it would have +least surprised them to hear, would have been that he was a +natural son of the late marquis.</p> + +<p>"My name 's Ma'colm Colonsay," resumed Malcolm, quietly; "an' +I'm the saxt Markis o' Lossie."</p> + +<p>A dead silence followed, and in doubt, astonishment, +bewilderment, and vague awe, accompanied in the case of two or +three by a strong inclination to laugh, with which they +struggled, belief began. Always a curious observer of humanity, +Malcolm calmly watched them. From discord of expression, most of +their faces had grown idiotic. But after a few moments of +stupefaction, first one and then another turned his eyes upon +Blue Peter, and perceiving that the matter was to him not only +serious but evidently no news, each began to come to his senses, +the chaos within him slowly arranged itself, and his face +gradually settled into an expression of sanity -- the foolishness +disappearing while the wonder and pleasure remained.</p> + +<p>"Ye mauna tak it ill, my lord," said Peter, "gien the laads be +ta'en aback wi' the news. It's a some suddent shift o' the win, +ye see, my lord."</p> + +<p>"I wuss yer lordship weel," thereupon said one, and held out +his hand.</p> + +<p>"Lang life to yer lordship," said another.</p> + +<p>Each spoke a hearty word, and shook hands with him -- all +except Girnel, who held back, looking on, with his right hand in +his trouser pocket. He was one who always took the opposite side +-- a tolerably honest and trustworthy soul, with a good many +knots and pieces of cross grain in the timber of him. His old +Adam was the most essential and thorough of dissenters, always +arguing and disputing, especially on theological questions.</p> + +<p>"Na," said Girnel; "ye maun saitisfee me first wha ye are, an' +what ye want o' me. I'm no to be drawn into onything 'at I dinna +ken a' aboot aforehan'. I s' no tie mysel' up wi' ony promises. +Them 'at gangs whaur they kenna, may lan' at the widdie +(gallows)."</p> + +<p>"Nae doobt," said Malcolm, "yer ain jeedgement 's mair to ye +nor my word, Girnel; but saw ye ever onything in me 'at wad +justifee ye in no lippenin' to that sae far 's it gaed?"</p> + +<p>"Ow na! I'm no sayin' that naither. But what ha'e ye to shaw +anent the privin' o' 't?"</p> + +<p>"I have papers signed by my father, the late marquis, and +sealed and witnessed by well known gentlemen of the +neighbourhood."</p> + +<p>"Whaur are they?" said Girnel, holding out his hand.</p> + +<p>"I don't carry such valuable things about me," answered +Malcolm. "But if you go with the rest, you shall see them +afterwards."</p> + +<p>"I'll du naething i' the dark," persisted Girnel. "Whan I see +the peppers, I'll ken what to du."</p> + +<p>With a nod of the head as self important as decisive, he +turned his back.</p> + +<p>"At all events," said Malcolm, "you will say nothing about it +before you hear from one of us again?"</p> + +<p>"I mak nae promises," answered Girnel, from behind his own +back.</p> + +<p>A howl arose from the rest.</p> + +<p>"Ye promised a'ready," said Blue Peter.</p> + +<p>"Na, I didna that. I said never a word."</p> + +<p>"What right then had you to remain and listen to my +disclosure?" said Malcolm. "If you be guilty of such a mean trick +as betray me and ruin my plans, no honest man in Portlossie or +Scaurnose but will scorn you."</p> + +<p>"There! tak ye that!" said Peter. "An' I s' promise ye, ye s' +never lay leg ower the gunnel o' my boat again. I s' hae nane but +Christian men i' my pey."</p> + +<p>"Ye hired me for the sizon, Blew Peter," said Girnel, turning +defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Oh! ye s' ha'e yer wauges. I'm no ane to creep oot o' a +bargain, or say 'at I didna promise. Ye s' get yer reward, never +fear. But into my boat ye s' no come. We'll ha'e nae Auchans i' +oor camp. Eh, Girnel, man, but ye ha'e lost yersel' the day! +He'll never loup far 'at winna lippen. The auld worthies tuik +their life i' their han', but ye tak yer fit (foot) i' yours. I'm +clean affrontit 'at ever I hed ye amo' my men."</p> + +<p>But with that there rushed over Peter the recollection of how +he had himself mistrusted, not Malcolm's word indeed, but his +heart. He turned, and clasping his hands in sudden self +reproach,</p> + +<p>"My lord, I saired ye ill mysel' ance," he cried; "for I +misdoobted 'at ye wasna the same to me efter ye cam to yer ain. I +beg yer pardon, my lord, here i' the face o' my freen's. It was +ill temper an' pride i' me, jist the same as it's noo in Girnel +there; an' ye maun forgi'e him, as ye forga'e me, my lord, as +sune 's ye can."</p> + +<p>"I'll du that, my Peter, the verra moment he wants to be +forgi'en," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>But Girnel turned with a grunt, and moved away towards the +cliff.</p> + +<p>"This 'll never du," said Peter. "A man 'at 's honest i' the +main may play the verra dog afore he gets the deevil oot o' 'im +ance he 's in like that. Gang efter 'im, laads, an' kep +(intercept) 'im an' keep 'im. We'll ha'e to cast a k-not or twa +aboot 'im, an' lay 'im i' the boddom o' the boat."</p> + +<p>The six had already started after him like one man. But +Malcolm cried,</p> + +<p>"Let him go: he has done me no wrong yet, and I don't believe +will do me any. But for no risk must we prevent wrong with +wrong."</p> + +<p>So Girnel was allowed to depart -- scarcely in peace, for he +was already ashamed of himself. With the understanding that they +were to be ready to his call, and that they should hear from him +in the course of the day, Malcolm left them, and rowed back to +the Psyche. There he took his basket of fish on his arm, which he +went and distributed according to his purpose, ending with Mrs +Courthope at the House. Then he fed and dressed Kelpie, saddled +her and galloped to Duff Harbour, where he found Mr Soutar at +breakfast, and arranged with him to be at Lossie House at two +o'clock. On his way back he called on Mr Morrison, and requested +his presence at the same hour. Skirting the back of the House, +and riding as straight as he could, he then made for Scaurnose, +and appointed his friends to be near the House at noon, so placed +as not to attract observation and yet be within hearing of his +whistle from door or window in the front.</p> + +<p>Returning to the House, he put up Kelpie, rubbed her down and +fed her; then, as there was yet some time to spare, paid a visit +to the factor. He found his lady, for all his present of fish in +the earlier morning, anything but friendly. She did all she could +to humble him; insisted on paying him for the fish; and ordered +him, because they smelt of the stable, to take off his boots +before he went upstairs -- to his master's room, as she phrased +it. But Mr Crathie was cordial, and, to Malcolm's great +satisfaction, much recovered. He had better than pleasant talk +with him.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXIX"></a>CHAPTER LXIX: +LIZZY'S BABY</h1> + +<p>While they were out in the fishing boat together, Clementina +had, with less difficulty than she had anticipated, persuaded +Lizzy to tell Lady Lossie her secret. It was in the hope of an +interview with her false lover that the poor girl had consented +so easily.</p> + +<p>A great longing had risen within her to have the father of her +child acknowledge him -- only to her, taking him once in his +arms. That was all. She had no hope, thought indeed she had no +desire for herself. But a kind word to him would be welcome as +light. The love that covers sins had covered the multitude of +his, and although hopelessness had put desire to sleep, she would +gladly have given her life for a loving smile from him. But +mingled with this longing to see him once with his child in his +arms, a certain loyalty to the house of Lossie also influenced +her to listen to the solicitation of Lady Clementina, and tell +the marchioness the truth.</p> + +<p>She cherished no resentment against Liftore, but not therefore +was she willing to allow a poor young thing like Lady Lossie, +whom they all liked, to be sacrificed to such a man, who would +doubtless at length behave badly enough to her also.</p> + +<p>With trembling hands, and heart now beating wildly, now +failing for fear, she dressed her baby and herself as well as she +could, and, about one o'clock, went to the House.</p> + +<p>Now nothing would have better pleased Lady Clementina than +that Liftore and Lizzy should meet in Florimel's presence, but +she recoiled altogether from the small stratagems, not to mention +the lies, necessary to the effecting of such a confrontation. So +she had to content herself with bringing the two girls together, +and, when Lizzy was a little rested, and had had a glass of wine, +went to look for Florimel.</p> + +<p>She found her in a little room adjoining the library, which, +on her first coming to Lossie, she had chosen for her waking +nest. Liftore had, if not quite the freedom of the spot, yet +privileges there; but at that moment Florimel was alone in it. +Clementina informed her that a fisher girl, with a sad story +which she wanted to tell her, had come to the house; and +Florimel, who was not only kind hearted, but relished the +position she imagined herself to occupy as lady of the place, at +once assented to her proposal to bring the young woman to her +there.</p> + +<p>Now Florimel and the earl had had a small quarrel the night +before, after Clementina left the dinner table, and for the +pleasure of keeping it up Florimel had not appeared at breakfast, +and had declined to ride with his lordship, who had therefore +been all the morning on the watch for an opportunity of +reconciling himself. It so happened that from the end of one of +the long narrow passages in which the house abounded, he caught a +glimpse of Clementina's dress vanishing through the library door, +and took the lady for Florimel on her way to her boudoir.</p> + +<p>When Clementina entered with Lizzy carrying her child, +Florimel instantly suspected the truth, both as to who she was +and as to the design of her appearance. Her face flushed, for her +heart filled with anger, chiefly indeed against Malcolm, but +against the two women as well, who, she did not doubt, had lent +themselves to his designs, whatever they might be. She rose, drew +herself up, and stood prepared to act for both Liftore and +herself.</p> + +<p>Scarcely however had the poor girl, trembling at the evident +displeasure the sight of her caused in Florimel, opened her mouth +to answer her haughty inquiry as to her business, when Lord +Liftore, daring an entrance without warning, opened the door +behind her, and, almost as he opened it, began his apology.</p> + +<p>At the sound of his voice Lizzy turned with a cry, and her +small remaining modicum of self possession vanished at sight of +him round whose phantom in her bosom whirred the leaves of her +withered life on the stinging blasts of her shame and sorrow. As +much from inability to stand as in supplication for the coveted +favour, she dropped on her knees before him, incapable of +uttering a word, but holding up her child imploringly. Taken +altogether by surprise, and not knowing what to say or do, the +earl stood and stared for a moment, then, moved by a dull spirit +of subterfuge, fell back on the pretence of knowing nothing about +her.</p> + +<p>"Well, young woman," he said, affecting cheerfulness, "what do +you want with me? I didn't advertise for a baby. Pretty child, +though!"</p> + +<p>Lizzy turned white as death, and her whole body seemed to give +a heave of agony. Clementina had just taken the child from her +arms when she sunk motionless at his feet. Florimel went to the +bell. But Clementina prevented her from ringing.</p> + +<p>"I will take her away," she said. "Do not expose her to your +servants. Lady Lossie, my Lord Liftore is the father of this +child: and if you can marry him after the way you have seen him +use its mother, you are not too good for him, and I will trouble +myself no more about you."</p> + +<p>"I know the author of this calumny!" cried Florimel, panting +and flushed. "You have been listening to the inventions of an +ungrateful dependent! You slander my guest."</p> + +<p>"Is it a calumny, my lord? Do I slander you?" said Lady +Clementina, turning sharply upon the earl.</p> + +<p>His lordship made her a cool obeisance. Clementina ran into +the library, laid the child in a big chair, and returned for the +mother. She was already coming a little to herself; and feeling +about blindly for her baby, while Florimel and Liftore were +looking out of the window, with their backs towards her. +Clementina raised and led her from the room. But in the doorway +she turned and said -- "Goodbye, Lady Lossie. I thank you for +your hospitality, but I can of course be your guest no +longer."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. There is no occasion for prolonged leave +taking," returned Florimel, with the air of a woman of forty.</p> + +<p>"Florimel, you will curse the day you marry that man!" cried +Clementina, and closed the door.</p> + +<p>She hurried Lizzy to the library, put the baby in her arms, +and clasped them both in her own. A gush of tears lightened the +oppressed heart of the mother.</p> + +<p>"Lat me oot o' the hoose, for God's sake!" she cried; and +Clementina, almost as anxious to leave it as she, helped her down +to the hall. When she saw the open door, she rushed out of it as +if escaping from the pit.</p> + +<p>Now Malcolm, as he came from the factor's, had seen her go in +with her baby in her arms, and suspected the hand of Clementina. +Wondering and anxious, but not very hopeful as to what might come +of it, he waited close by; and when now he saw Lizzy dart from +the house in wild perturbation, he ran from the cover of the +surrounding trees into the open drive to meet her.</p> + +<p>"Ma'colm!" groaned the poor girl, holding out her baby, "he +winna own till't. He winna alloo 'at he kens oucht aboot me or +the bairn aither!"</p> + +<p>Malcolm had taken the child from her, and was clasping him to +his bosom.</p> + +<p>"He's the warst rascal, Lizzy," he said, "'at ever God made +an' the deevil blaudit."</p> + +<p>"Na, na," cried Lizzy; "the likes o' him whiles kills the +wuman, but he wadna du that. Na, he's nae the warst; there's a +heap waur nor him."</p> + +<p>"Did ye see my mistress?" asked Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Ow ay; but she luikit sae angry at me, I cudna speyk. Him an' +her 's ower thrang for her to believe onything again' him. An' +what ever the bairn 's to du wantin' a father!"</p> + +<p>"Lizzy," said Malcolm, clasping the child again to his bosom. +"I s' be a father to yer bairn -- that is, as weel's ane 'at's no +yer man can be."</p> + +<p>And he kissed the child tenderly.</p> + +<p>The same moment an undefined impulse -- the drawing of eyes +probably -- made him lift his towards the house: half leaning +from the open window of the boudoir above him, stood Florimel and +Liftore; and just as he looked up, Liftore was turning to +Florimel with a smile that seemed to say -- "There! I told you +so! He is the father himself."</p> + +<p>Malcolm replaced the infant in his mother's arm, and strode +towards the house. Imagining he went to avenge her wrongs, Lizzy +ran after him.</p> + +<p>"Ma'colm Ma'colm!" she cried; "-- for my sake! -- He's the +father o' my bairn!"</p> + +<p>Malcolm turned.</p> + +<p>"Lizzy," he said solemnly, "I winna lay han' upon 'im."</p> + +<p>Lizzy pressed her child closer with a throb of relief.</p> + +<p>"Come in yersel' an' see," he added.</p> + +<p>"I daurna! I daurna!" she said. But she lingered about the +door.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXX"></a>CHAPTER LXX: THE +DISCLOSURE</h1> + +<p>When the earl saw Malcolm coming, although he was no coward, +and had reason to trust his skill, yet knowing himself both in +the wrong and vastly inferior in strength to his enemy, it may be +pardoned him that for the next few seconds his heart doubled its +beats. But of all things he must not show fear before +Florimel!</p> + +<p>"What can the fellow be after now?" he said. "I must go down +to him."</p> + +<p>"No, no; don't go near him -- he may be violent," objected +Florimel, and laid her hand on his arm with a beseeching look in +her face. "He is a dangerous man."</p> + +<p>Liftore laughed.</p> + +<p>"Stop here till I return," he said, and left the room.</p> + +<p>But Florimel followed, fearful of what might happen, and +enraged with her brother.</p> + +<p>Malcolm's brief detention by Lizzy gave Liftore a little +advantage, for just as Malcolm approached the top of the great +staircase, Liftore gained it. Hastening to secure the command of +the position, and resolved to shun all parley, he stood ready to +strike. Malcolm, however, caught sight of him and his attitude in +time, and, fearful of breaking his word to Lizzy, pulled himself +up abruptly a few steps from the top -- just as Florimel +appeared.</p> + +<p>"MacPhail," she said, sweeping to the stair like an indignant +goddess, "I discharge you from my service. Leave the house +instantly."</p> + +<p>Malcolm turned, flew down, and ran to the servants' stair half +the length of the house away. As he crossed the servants' hall he +saw Rose. She was the only one in the house except Clementina to +whom he could look for help.</p> + +<p>"Come after me, Rose," he said without stopping.</p> + +<p>She followed instantly, as fast as she could run, and saw him +enter the drawing room. Florimel and Liftore were there. The earl +had Florimel's hand in his.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, my lady!" cried Malcolm, "hear me one word +before you promise that man anything."</p> + +<p>His lordship started back from Florimel, and turned upon +Malcolm in a fury. But he had not now the advantage of the stair, +and hesitated. Florimel's eyes dilated with wrath.</p> + +<p>"I tell you for the last time, my lady," said Malcolm, "if you +marry that man, you will marry a liar and a scoundrel."</p> + +<p>Liftore laughed, and his imitation of scorn was wonderfully +successful, for he felt sure of Florimel, now that she had thus +taken his part.</p> + +<p>"Shall I ring for the servants, Lady Lossie, to put the fellow +out?" he said. "The man is as mad as a March hare."</p> + +<p>Meantime Lady Clementina, her maid having gone to send her man +to get horses for her at once, was alone in her room, which was +close to the drawing room: hearing Malcolm's voice, she ran to +the door, and saw Rose in a listening attitude at that of the +drawing room.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing there?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Mr MacPhail told me to follow him, my lady, and I am waiting +here till he wants me."</p> + +<p>Clementina went into the drawing room, and was present during +all that now follows. Lizzy also, hearing loud voices and still +afraid of mischief had come peering up the stair, and now +approached the other door; behind Florimel and the earl.</p> + +<p>"So!" cried Florimel, "this is the way you keep your promise +to my father!"</p> + +<p>"It is, my lady. To associate the name of Liftore with his +would be to blot the scutcheon of Lossie. He is not fit to walk +the street with men: his touch is to you an utter degradation. My +lady, in the name of your father, I beg a word with you in +private."</p> + +<p>"You insult me."</p> + +<p>"I beg of you, my lady -- for your own dear sake."</p> + +<p>"Once more I order you to leave my house, and never set foot +in it again."</p> + +<p>"You hear her ladyship?" cried Liftore. "Get out." He +approached threateningly.</p> + +<p>"Stand back," said Malcolm. "If it were not that I promised +the poor girl carrying your baby out there, I should soon --"</p> + +<p>It was unwisely said: the earl came on the bolder. For all +Malcolm could do to parry, evade, or stop his blows, he had soon +taken several pretty severe ones. Then came the voice of Lizzy in +an agony from the door --</p> + +<p>"Haud aff o' yersel', Ma'colm. I canna bide it. I gi'e ye back +yer word."</p> + +<p>"We'll manage yet Lizzy," answered Malcolm, and kept warily +retreating towards a window. Suddenly he dashed his elbow through +a pane, and gave a loud shrill whistle, the same instant +receiving a blow over the eye which the blood followed. Lizzy +made a rush forward, but the terror that the father would strike +the child he had disowned, seized her, and she stood trembling. +Already, however, Clementina and Rose had darted between, and, +full of rage as he was, Liftore was compelled to restrain +himself.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he said, "if ladies want a share in the row, I must +yield my place," and drew back.</p> + +<p>The few men servants now came hurrying all together into the +room.</p> + +<p>"Take that rascal there, and put him under the pump," said +Liftore. "He is mad."</p> + +<p>"My fellow servants know better than touch me," said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>The men looked to their mistress.</p> + +<p>"Do as my lord tells you," she said, "-- and instantly."</p> + +<p>"Men," said Malcolm, "I have spared that foolish lord there +for the sake of this fisher girl and his child, but don't one of +you touch me."</p> + +<p>Stoat was a brave enough man, and not a little jealous of +Malcolm, but he dared not obey his mistress.</p> + +<p>And now came the tramp of many feet along the landing from the +stair head, and the six fisherman entered, two and two. Florimel +started forward.</p> + +<p>"My brave fisherman!" she cried. "Take that bad man MacPhail, +and put him out of my grounds."</p> + +<p>"I canna du't, my leddy," answered their leader.</p> + +<p>"Take Lord Liftore," said Malcolm, "and hold him, while I make +him acquainted with a fact or two which he may judge of +consequence to him."</p> + +<p>The men walked straight up to the earl. He struck right and +left, but was overpowered in a moment, and held fast.</p> + +<p>"Stan' still," said Peter, "or I ha'e a han'fu' o' twine i' my +pooch 'at I'll jist cast a k-not aboot yer airms wi' in a +jiffey."</p> + +<p>His lordship stood still, muttering curses.</p> + +<p>Then Malcolm stepped into the middle of the room approaching +his sister.</p> + +<p>"I tell you to leave the house," Florimel shrieked, beside +herself with fury, yet pale as marble with a growing terror for +which she could ill have accounted.</p> + +<p>"Florimel!" said Malcolm solemnly, calling her sister by name +for the first time.</p> + +<p>"You insolent wretch!" she cried, panting. "What right have +you, if you be, as you say, my base born brother, to call me by +my name."</p> + +<p>"Florimel!" repeated Malcolm, and the voice was like the voice +of her father, "I have done what I could to serve you."</p> + +<p>"And I want no more such service!" she returned, beginning to +tremble.</p> + +<p>"But you have driven me almost to extremities," he went on, +heedless of her interruption. "Beware of doing so quite."</p> + +<p>"Will nobody take pity on me?" said Florimel, and looked round +imploringly. Then, finding herself ready to burst into tears, she +gathered all her pride, and stepping up to Malcolm, looked him in +the face, and said,</p> + +<p>"Pray, sir! is this house yours or mine?"</p> + +<p>"Mine," answered Malcolm. "I am the Marquis of Lossie, and +while I am your elder brother and the head of the family, you +shall never with my consent marry that base man -- a man it would +blast me to the soul to call brother."</p> + +<p>Liftore uttered a fierce imprecation.</p> + +<p>"If you dare give breath to another such word in my sister's +presence, I will have you gagged," said Malcolm. "If my sister +marries him," he continued, turning again to Florimel, "not one +shilling shall she take with her beyond what she may happen to +have in her purse at the moment. She is in my power, and I will +use it to the utmost to protect her from that man."</p> + +<p>"Proof!" cried Liftore sullenly. But Florimel gazed with pale +dilated eyes in the face of the speaker. She knew his words were +true. Her soul assured her of it.</p> + +<p>"To my sister," answered Malcolm, "I will give all the proof +she may please to require; to Lord Liftore I will not even repeat +my assertion. To him I will give no shadow of proof. I will but +cast him out of my house. Stoat, order horses for Lady +Bellair."</p> + +<p>"Gien ye please, sir, my Lord," replied Stoat, "the Lossie +Airms horses is ordered a'ready for Lady Clementina."</p> + +<p>"Will my Lady Clementina oblige me by yielding her horses to +Lady Bellair?" said Malcolm, turning to her.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, my lord," answered Clementina.</p> + +<p>"You, I trust, my lady," said Malcolm, "will stay a little +longer with my sister."</p> + +<p>Lady Bellair came up.</p> + +<p>"My lord," she said, "is this the marquis or the fisherman's +way of treating a lady?"</p> + +<p>"Neither. But do not drive me to give the rein to my tongue. +Let it be enough to say that my house shall never be what your +presence would make it."</p> + +<p>He turned to the fishermen.</p> + +<p>"Three of you take that lord to the town gate, and leave him +on the other side of it. His servant shall follow as soon as the +horses come."</p> + +<p>"I will go with you," said Florimel, crossing to Lady +Bellair.</p> + +<p>Malcolm took her by the arm. For one moment she struggled, but +finding no one dared interfere, submitted, and was led from the +room like a naughty child.</p> + +<p>"Keep my lord there till I return," he said as he went.</p> + +<p>He led her into the room which had been her mother's boudoir, +and when he had shut the door,</p> + +<p>"Florimel," he said, "I have striven to serve you the best way +I knew. Your father, when he confessed me his heir, begged me to +be good to you, and I promised him. Would I have given all these +months of my life to the poor labour of a groom, allowed my +people to be wronged and oppressed, my grandfather to be a +wanderer, and my best friend to sit with his lips of wisdom +sealed, but for your sake? I can hardly say it was for my +father's sake, for I should have done the same had he never said +a word about you. Florimel, I loved my sister, and longed for her +goodness. But she has foiled all my endeavours. She has not loved +or followed the truth. She has been proud and disdainful, and +careless of right. Yourself young and pure, and naturally +recoiling from evil, you have yet cast from you the devotion of a +noble, gifted, large hearted, and great souled man, for the +miserable preference of the smallest, meanest, vilest of men. Nor +that only! for with him you have sided against the woman he most +bitterly wrongs: and therein you wrong the nature and the God of +women. Once more, I pray you to give up this man; to let your +true self speak and send him away."</p> + +<p>"Sir, I go with my Lady Bellair, driven from her father's +house by one who calls himself my brother. My lawyer shall make +inquiries."</p> + +<p>She would have left the room, but he intercepted her.</p> + +<p>"Florimel," he said, "you are casting the pearl of your +womanhood before a swine. He will trample it under his feet and +turn again and rend you. He will treat you worse still than poor +Lizzy, whom he troubles no more with his presence."</p> + +<p>He had again taken her arm in his great grasp.</p> + +<p>"Let me go. You are brutal. I shall scream."</p> + +<p>"You shall not go until you have heard all the truth."</p> + +<p>"What! more truth still? Your truth is anything but +pleasant."</p> + +<p>"It is more unpleasant yet than you surmise. Florimel, you +have driven me to it. I would have prepared you a shield against +the shock which must come, but you compel me to wound you to the +quick. I would have had you receive the bitter truth from lips +you loved, but you drove those lips of honour from you, and now +there are left to utter it only the lips you hate, yet the truth +you shall receive: it may help to save you from weakness, +arrogance, and falsehood. -- Sister, your mother was never Lady +Lossie."</p> + +<p>"You lie. I know you lie. Because you wrong me, you would +brand me with dishonour, to take from me as well the sympathy of +the world. But I defy you."</p> + +<p>"Alas! there is no help, sister. Your mother indeed passed as +Lady Lossie, but my mother, the true Lady Lossie, was alive all +the time, and in truth, died only last year. For twenty years my +mother suffered for yours in the eye of the law. You are no +better than the little child his father denied in your presence. +Give that man his dismissal, or he will give you yours. Never +doubt it. Refuse again, and I go from this room to publish in the +next the fact that you are neither Lady Lossie nor Lady Florimel +Colonsay. You have no right to any name but your mother's. You +are Miss Gordon."</p> + +<p>She gave a great gasp at the word, but bravely fought the +horror that was taking possession of her. She stood with one hand +on the back of a chair, her face white, her eyes starting, her +mouth a little open and rigid -- her whole appearance, except for +the breath that came short and quick, that of one who had died in +sore pain.</p> + +<p>"All that is now left you," concluded Malcolm, "is the choice +between sending Liftore away, and being abandoned by him. That +choice you must now make."</p> + +<p>The poor girl tried to speak, but could not. Her fire was +burning out, her forced strength fast failing her.</p> + +<p>"Florimel," said Malcolm, and knelt on one knee and took her +hand. It gave a flutter as if it would fly like a bird; but the +net of his love held it, and it lay passive and cold. "Florimel, +I will be your true brother. I am your brother, your very own +brother, to live for you, love you, fight for you, watch and ward +you, till a true man takes you for his wife." Her hand quivered +like a leaf. "Sister, when you and I appear before our father, I +shall hold up my face before him: will you?"</p> + +<p>"Send him away," she breathed rather than said, and sank on +the floor. He lifted her, laid her on a couch, and returned to +the drawing room.</p> + +<p>"My lady Clementina," he said, "will you oblige me by going to +my sister in the room at the top of the stair?"</p> + +<p>"I will, my lord," she answered, and went.</p> + +<p>Malcolm walked up to Liftore.</p> + +<p>"My lord," he said, "my sister takes leave of you."</p> + +<p>"I must have my dismissal from her own lips."</p> + +<p>"You shall have it from the hands of my fishermen. Take him +away."</p> + +<p>"You shall hear from me, my lord marquis, if such you be," +said Liftore.</p> + +<p>"Let it be of your repentance, then, my lord," said Malcolm. +"That I shall be glad to hear of."</p> + +<p>As he turned from him, he saw Caley gliding through the little +group of servants towards the door. He walked after her, laid his +hand on her shoulder, and whispered a word in her ear, she grew +gray rather than white, and stood still.</p> + +<p>Turning again to go to Florimel, he saw the fishermen stopped +with their charge in the doorway by Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, +entering together.</p> + +<p>"My lord! my lord!" said the lawyer, coming hastily up to him, +"there can be surely no occasion for such -- such -- +measures!"</p> + +<p>Catching sight of Malcolm's wounded forehead, however, he +supplemented the remark with a low exclamation of astonishment +and dismay -- the tone saying almost as clearly as words, "How +ill and foolishly everything is managed without a lawyer!"</p> + +<p>Malcolm only smiled, and went up to the magistrate, whom he +led into the middle of the room, saying,</p> + +<p>"Mr Morrison, every one here knows you: tell them who I +am."</p> + +<p>"The Marquis of Lossie, my lord," answered Mr Morrison; "and +from my heart I congratulate your people that at length you +assume the rights and honours of your position."</p> + +<p>A murmur of pleasure arose in response. Ere it ceased, Malcolm +started and sprung to the door. There stood Lenorme! He seized +him by the arm, and, without a word of explanation, hurried him +to the room where his sister was. He called Clementina, drew her +from the room, half pushed Lenorme in, and closed the door.</p> + +<p>"Will you meet me on the sand hill at sunset, my lady?" he +said.</p> + +<p>She smiled assent. He gave her the key of the tunnel, hinted +that she might leave the two to themselves for awhile, and +returned to his friends in the drawing room.</p> + +<p>Having begged them to excuse him for a little while, and +desired Mrs Courthope to serve luncheon for them, he ran to his +grandfather, dreading lest any other tongue than his own should +yield him the opened secret. He was but just in time, for already +the town was in a tumult, and the spreading ripples of the news +were fast approaching Duncan's ears.</p> + +<p>Malcolm found him, expectant and restless. When he disclosed +himself he manifested little astonishment, only took him in his +arms and pressed him to his bosom, saying, "Ta Lort pe praised, +my son! and she wouldn't pe at aal surprised." Then he broke out +in a fervent ejaculation of Gaelic, during which he turned +instinctively to his pipes, for through them lay the final and +only sure escape for the prisoned waters of the overcharged +reservoir of his feelings. While he played, Malcolm slipped out, +and hurried to Miss Horn.</p> + +<p>One word to her was enough. The stern old woman burst into +tears, crying,</p> + +<p>"Oh, my Grisel! my Grisel! Luik doon frae yer bonny hoose amo' +the stars, an' see the braw laad left ahint ye, an' praise the +lord 'at ye ha'e sic a son o' yer boady to come hame to ye whan +a' 's ower."</p> + +<p>She sobbed and wept for a while without restraint. Then +suddenly she rose, dabbed her eyes indignantly, and cried,</p> + +<p>"Hoot! I'm an auld fule. A body wad think I hed feelin's efter +a'!"</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed, and she could not help joining him.</p> + +<p>"Ye maun come the morn an' chise yer ain room i' the Hoose," +he said.</p> + +<p>"What mean ye by that, laddie?"</p> + +<p>"At ye'll ha'e to come an' bide wi' me noo."</p> + +<p>"'Deed an' I s' du naething o' the kin', Ma'colm! H'ard ever +onybody sic nonsense! What wad I du wi' Jean? An' I cudna thole +men fowk to wait upo' me. I wad be clean affrontit."</p> + +<p>"Weel, weel! we'll see," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>On his way back to the House, he knocked at Mrs Catanach's +door, and said a few words to her which had a remarkable effect +on the expression of her plump countenance and deep set black +eyes.</p> + +<p>When he reached home, he ran up the main staircase, knocked at +the first door, opened it, and peeped in. There sat Lenorme on +the couch, with Florimel on his knees, nestling her head against +his shoulder, like a child that had been very naughty but was +fully forgiven. Her face was blotted with her tears, and her hair +was everywhere; but there was a light of dawning goodness all +about her, such as had never shone in her atmosphere before. By +what stormy sweet process the fountain of this light had been +unsealed, no one ever knew but themselves.</p> + +<p>She did not move when Malcolm entered -- more than just to +bring the palms of her hands together, and look up in his +face.</p> + +<p>"Have you told him all, Florimel?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Malcolm," she answered. "Tell him again yourself."</p> + +<p>"No, Florimel. Once is enough."</p> + +<p>"I told him all," she said with a gasp; then gave a wild +little cry, and, with subdued exultation, added, "and he loves me +yet! He has taken the girl without a name to his heart!"</p> + +<p>"No wonder," said Malcolm, "when she brought it with her."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lenorme, "I but took the diamond casket that held +my bliss, and now I could dare the angel Gabriel to match +happinesses with me."</p> + +<p>Poor Florimel, for all her worldly ways, was but a child. Bad +associates had filled her with worldly maxims and words and +thoughts and judgments. She had never loved Liftore, she had only +taken delight in his flatteries. And now had come the shock of a +terrible disclosure, whose significance she read in remembered +looks and tones and behaviours of the world. Her insolence to +Malcolm when she supposed his the nameless fate, had recoiled in +lurid interpretation of her own. She was a pariah -- without +root, without descent, without fathers to whom to be gathered. +She was nobody. From the courted and flattered and high seated +and powerful, she was a nobody! Then suddenly to this poor +houseless, wind beaten, rain wet nobody, a house -- no, a home +she had once looked into with longing, had opened, and received +her to its heart, that it might be fulfilled which was written of +old, "A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a +covert from the tempest." Knowing herself a nobody, she now first +began to be a somebody. She had been dreaming pleasant but bad +dreams: she woke, and here was a lovely, unspeakably blessed and +good reality, which had been waiting for her all the time on the +threshold of her sleep! She was baptized into it with the tears +of sorrow and shame. She had been a fool, but now she knew it, +and was going to be wise.</p> + +<p>"Will you come to your brother, Florimel?" said Malcolm +tenderly, holding out his arms.</p> + +<p>Lenorme raised her. She went softly to him, and laid herself +on his bosom.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, brother," she said, and held up her face.</p> + +<p>He kissed her forehead and lips, took her in his arms, and +laid her again on Lenorme's knees.</p> + +<p>"I give her to you," he said, "for you are good."</p> + +<p>With that he left them, and sought Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, +who were waiting him over a glass of wine after their lunch. An +hour of business followed, in which, amongst other matters, they +talked about the needful arrangements for a dinner to his people, +fishers and farmers and all.</p> + +<p>After the gentlemen took their leave, nobody saw him for +hours. Till sunset approached he remained alone, shut up in the +Wizard's Chamber, the room in which he was born. Part of the time +he occupied in writing to Mr Graham.</p> + +<p>As the sun's orbed furnace fell behind the tumbling waters, +Malcolm turned his face inland from the wet strip of shining +shore on which he had been pacing, and ascended the sandhill.</p> + +<p>From the other side Clementina, but a moment later, ascended +also. On the top they met, in the red light of the sunset. They +clasped each the other's hand, and stood for a moment in +silence.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my lord!" said the lady, "how shall I thank you that you +kept your secret from me! But my heart is sore to lose my +fisherman."</p> + +<p>"My lady," returned Malcolm, "you have not lost your +fisherman; you have only found your groom."</p> + +<p>And the sun went down, and the twilight came, and the night +followed, and the world of sea and land and wind and vapour was +around them, and the universe of stars and spaces over and under +them, and eternity within them, and the heart of each for a +chamber to the other, and God filling all -- nay, nay -- God's +heart containing, infolding, cherishing all -- saving all, from +height to height of intensest being, by the bliss of that love +whose absolute devotion could utter itself only in death.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXXI"></a>CHAPTER LXXI: THE +ASSEMBLY</h1> + +<p>That same evening, Duncan, in full dress, claymore and dirk at +his sides, and carrying the great Lossie pipes, marched first +through the streets of the upper, then through the closes of the +lower town, followed by the bellman who had been appointed crier +upon his disappearance. At the proper stations, Duncan blew a +rousing pibroch, after which the bellman, who, for the dignity of +his calling, insisted on a prelude of three strokes of his +clapper, proclaimed aloud that Malcolm, Marquis of Lossie, +desired the presence of each and every of his tenants in the +royal burgh of Portlossie, Newton and Seaton, in the town hall of +the same, at seven of the clock upon the evening next +following.</p> + +<p>The proclamation ended, the piper sounded one note three +times, and they passed to the next station. When they had gone +through the Seaton, they entered a carriage waiting for them at +the sea gate, and were driven to Scaurnose, and thence again to +the several other villages on the coast belonging to the marquis, +making at each in like manner the same announcement.</p> + +<p>Portlossie was in a ferment of wonder, satisfaction, and +pleasure. There were few in it who were not glad at the accession +of Malcolm, and with every one of those few the cause lay in +himself. In the shops, among the nets, in the curing sheds, in +the houses and cottages, nothing else was talked about; and +stories and reminiscences innumerable were brought out, chiefly +to prove that Malcolm had always appeared likely to turn out +somebody, the narrator not seldom modestly hinting at a +glimmering foresight on his own part of what had now been at +length revealed to the world. His friends were jubilant as +revellers. For Meg Partan, she ran from house to house like a +maniac, laughing and crying. It was as if the whole Seaton had +suddenly been translated. The men came crowding about Duncan, +congratulating him and asking him a hundred questions. But the +old man maintained a reticence whose dignity was strangely +mingled of pomp and grace; sat calm and stately as feeling the +glow of reflected honour; would not, by word, gesture, tone, or +exclamation, confess to any surprise; behaved as if he had known +it all the time; made no pretence however of having known it, +merely treated the fact as not a whit more than might have been +looked for by one who had known Malcolm as he had known him.</p> + +<p>Davy, in his yacht uniform, was the next morning appointed the +marquis's personal attendant, and a running time he had of it for +a fortnight.</p> + +<p>Almost the first thing that fell to him in his office was to +show into the room on the ground floor where his master sat -- +the same in which for ages the lords of Lossie had been wont to +transact what little business any of them ever attended to -- a +pale, feeble man, bowed by the weight of a huge brass clasped +volume under each arm. His lordship rose and met him with +outstretched hand.</p> + +<p>"I am glad indeed to see you, Mr Crathie," he said, "but I +fear you are out too soon."</p> + +<p>"I am quite well since yesterday, my lord," returned the +factor, his face shining with pleasure. "Your lordship's +accession has made a young man of me again. Here I am to render +account of my stewardship."</p> + +<p>"I want none, Mr Crathie -- nothing, that is, beyond a summary +statement of how things stand with me."</p> + +<p>"I should like to satisfy your lordship that I have dealt +honestly" -- here the factor paused for a moment, then with an +effort added -- "by you, my lord."</p> + +<p>"One word," said Malcolm "-- the last of the sort, I believe, +that will ever pass between us. Thank God! we had made it up +before yesterday. -- If you have ever been hard upon any of my +tenants, not to say unfair, you have wronged me infinitely more +than if you had taken from me. God be with me as I prefer ruin to +wrong. Remember, besides, that my tenants are my charge and care. +For you, my representative, therefore, to do one of them an +injury is to do me a double injury -- to wrong my tenant, and to +wrong him in my name."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my lord! you don't know how they would take advantage of +you, if there were nobody to look after your interests."</p> + +<p>"Then do look after them, sir. It would be bad for them to +succeed, as well as crippling to me. Only be sure, with the +thought of the righteous God to elevate your sense of justice, +that you are in the right. If doubtful, then give in. -- And now, +if any man thinks he has cause of complaint, I leave it to you, +with the help of the new light that has been given you, to +reconsider the matter, and, where needful, to make reparation. +You must be the friend of my tenant as much as of his landlord. I +have no interests inimical to those of my tenants. If any man +comes to me with complaint, I will send him to restate his case +to you, with the understanding that, if you will not listen to +him, he is to come to me again, when I shall hear both sides and +judge between. If after six months you should desire me to go +over the books with you, I will do so. As to your loyalty to my +family and its affairs, of that I never had a shadow of +suspicion."</p> + +<p>As he ended, Malcolm held out his hand. The factor's trembled +in his strong grasp.</p> + +<p>"Mistress Crathie is sorely vexed, my lord," he said, rising +to take his leave, "at things both said and done in the +dark."</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed.</p> + +<p>"Give Mrs Crathie my compliments," he said, "and tell her a +man is more than a marquis. If she will after this treat every +honest fisherman as if he might possibly turn out a lord, she and +I shall be more than quits."</p> + +<p>The next morning he carried her again a few mackerel he had +just caught, and she never forgot the lesson given her. That +morning, I may mention, he did not go fishing alone, but had a +lady with him in the dinghy; and indeed they were together, in +one place and another, the most of the day -- at one time flying +along the fields, she on the bay mare, and he on Kelpie.</p> + +<p>When the evening came, the town hall was crammed -- men +standing on all the window sills; and so many could not get in +that Malcolm proposed they should occupy the square in front. A +fisherman in garb and gesture, not the less a gentleman and a +marquis, he stood on the steps of the town hall and spoke to his +people. They received him with wild enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"The open air is better for everything," he began. "Fishers, I +have called you first, because you are my own people. I am, and +shall be a fisherman, after such fashion, I trust, as will +content my old comrades. How things have come about, I shall not +now tell you. Come all of you and dine with me, and you shall +hear enough to satisfy at least lawful curiosity. At present my +care is that you should understand the terms upon which it is +possible for us to live together as friends. I make no allusion +to personal friendships. A true friend is for ever a friend. And +I venture to say my old friends know best both what I am and what +I shall be. As to them I have no shadow of anxiety. But I would +gladly be a friend to all, and will do my endeavour to that +end.</p> + +<p>"You of Portlossie shall have your harbour cleared without +delay."</p> + +<p>In justice to the fishers I here interrupt my report to state +that the very next day they set about clearing the harbour +themselves. It was their business -- in part at least, they said, +and they were ashamed of having left it so long. This did much +towards starting well for a new order of things.</p> + +<p>"You of Scaurnose shall hear the blasting necessary for your +harbour commence within a fortnight; and every house shall ere +long have a small piece of land at a reasonable rate allotted to +it. But I feel bound to mention that there are some among you +upon whom, until I see that they carry themselves differently, I +must keep an eye. That they have shown themselves unfriendly to +myself in my attempts to persuade them to what they knew to be +right, I shall endeavour to forget, but I give them warning that +whoever shall hereafter disturb the peace or interfere with the +liberty of my people, shall assuredly be cast out of my borders, +and that as soon as the law will permit.</p> + +<p>"I shall take measures that all complaints shall be heard, and +all save foolish ones heeded; for, as much as in me lies, I will +to execute justice and judgment and righteousness in the land. +Whoever oppresses or wrongs his neighbour shall have to do with +me. And to aid me in doing justice, I pray the help of every +honest man. I have not been so long among you without having in +some measure distinguished between the men who have heart and +brain, and the men who have merely a sense of their own +importance -- which latter class unhappily, always takes itself +for the former. I will deal with every man as I find him. I am +set to rule, and rule I will. He who loves righteousness, will +help me to rule; he who loves it not, shall be ruled, or +depart."</p> + +<p>The address had been every now and then interrupted by a +hearty cheer; at this point the cheering was greatly prolonged; +after it there was no more. For thus he went on:</p> + +<p>"And now I am about to give you proof that I mean what I say, +and that evil shall not come to the light without being noted and +dealt with.</p> + +<p>"There are in this company two women -- my eyes are at this +moment upon them where they stand together. One of them is +already well known to you all by sight: now you shall know, not +what she looks, but what she is. Her name, or at least that by +which she goes among you, is Barbara Catanach. The other is an +Englishwoman of whom you know nothing. Her name is Caley."</p> + +<p>All eyes were turned upon the two. Even Mrs Catanach was cowed +by the consciousness of the universal stare, and a kind of numb +thrill went through her from head to foot.</p> + +<p>"Well assured that if I brought a criminal action against +them, it would hang them both, I trust you will not imagine it +revenge that moves me thus to expose them. In refraining from +prosecuting them, I bind myself of necessity to see that they +work no more evil. In giving them time for repentance, I take the +consequences upon myself. I am bound to take care that they do +not employ the respite in doing mischief to their neighbours. +Without precaution I could not be justified in sparing them. +Therefore those women shall not go forth to pass for harmless +members of society, and see the life and honour of others lie +bare to their secret attack. They shall live here, in this town, +thoroughly known; and absolutely distrusted. And that they may +thus be known and distrusted, I publicly declare that I hold +proof against these women of having conspired to kill me. From +the effects of the poison they succeeded in giving me, I fear I +shall never altogether recover. I can prove also, to the extreme +of circumstantial evidence, that there is the blood of one child +at least upon the hands of each; and that there are mischiefs +innumerable upon their lying tongues, it were an easy task to +convince you. If I wrong them, let them accuse me; and whether +they lose or gain their suit, I promise before you for witnesses, +I will pay all; only thereby they will compel me to bring my +actions for murder and conspiracy. Let them choose.</p> + +<p>"Hear what I have determined concerning them. The woman +Catanach shall take to her cottage the woman Caley. That cottage +they shall have rent free: who could receive money from such +hands? I will appoint them also a sufficiency for life and +maintenance, bare indeed, for I would not have them comfortable. +But they shall be free to work if they can find any to employ +them. If, however, either shall go beyond the bounds I set, she +shall be followed the moment she is missed, and that with a +warrant for her apprehension. And I beg all honest people to keep +an eye upon them. According as they live shall their life be. If +they come to repentance, they will bless the day I resolved upon +such severe measures on their behalf. Let them go to their +place."</p> + +<p>I will not try to describe the devilish look, mingled of +contempt and hate, that possessed the countenance of the midwife, +as, with head erect, and eyes looking straight before her, she +obeyed the command. Caley, white as death, trembled and tottered, +nor dared once look up as she followed her companion to their +appointed hell. Whether they made it pleasant for each other my +reader may debate with himself. Before many months had gone by, +stared at and shunned by all, even by Miss Horn's Jean, driven +back upon her own memories, and the pictures that rose out of +them, and deprived of every chance of indulging her dominant +passion for mischievous influence, the midwife's face told such a +different tale, that the schoolmaster began to cherish a feeble +hope that within a few years Mrs Catanach might get so far as to +begin to suspect she was a sinner -- that she had actually done +things she ought not to have done. One of those things that same +night Malcolm heard from the lips of Duncan, a tale of horror and +dismay. Not until then did he know, after all he knew concerning +her, what the woman was capable of.</p> + +<p>At his own entreaty, Duncan was formally recognized as piper +to the Marquis of Lossie. His ambition reached no higher. Malcolm +himself saw to his perfect equipment, heedful specially that his +kilt and plaid should be of Duncan's own tartan of red and blue +and green. His dirk and broadsword he had new sheathed, with +silver mountings. A great silver brooch with a big cairngorm in +the centre, took the place of the brass one, which henceforth was +laid up among the precious things in the little armoury, and the +badge of his clan in gold, with rubies and amethysts for the +bells of the heather, glowed on his bonnet. And Malcolm's guests, +as long as Duncan continued able to fill the bag, had to endure +as best they might, between each course of every dinner without +fail, two or three minutes of uproar and outcry from the treble +throat of the powerful Lossie pipes. By his own desire, the piper +had a chair and small table set for him behind and to the right +of his chief, as he called him; there he ate with the family and +guests, waited upon by Davy, part of whose business it was to +hand him the pipes at the proper moment, whereupon he rose to his +feet, for even he with all his experience and habitude was unable +in a sitting posture to keep that stand of pipes full of wind, +and raised such a storm of sound as made the windows tremble. A +lady guest would now and then venture to hint that the custom was +rather a trying one for English ears; but Clementina would never +listen to a breath against Duncan's music. Her respect and +affection for the old man were unbounded.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was one of the few who understand the shelter of +light, the protection to be gained against lying tongues by the +discarding of needless reticence, and the open presentation of +the truth. Many men who would not tell a lie, yet seem to have +faith in concealment: they would rather not reveal the truth; +darkness seems to offer them the cover of a friendly wing. But +there is no veil like light -- no adamantine armour against hurt +like the truth. To Malcolm it was one of the promises of the +kingdom that there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed. +He was anxious, therefore, to tell his people, at the coming +dinner, the main points of his story, and certain that such +openness would also help to lay the foundation of confidence +between him and his people. The one difficulty in the way was the +position of Florimel. But that could not fail to appear in any +case, and he was satisfied that even for her sake it was far +better to speak openly; for then the common heart would take her +in and cover her. He consulted, therefore, with Lenorme, who went +to find her. She came, threw her arms round his neck and begged +him to say whatever he thought best.</p> + +<p>To add the final tinge to the rainbow of Malcolm's joy, on the +morning of the dinner the schoolmaster arrived. It would be hard +to say whether Malcolm or Clementina was the more delighted to +see him. He said little with his tongue, but much with his eyes +and face and presence.</p> + +<p>This time the tables were not set in different parts of the +grounds, but gathered upon the level of the drive and the +adjacent lawny spaces between the house and the trees. Malcolm, +in full highland dress as chief of his clan, took the head of the +central table, with Florimel in the place of honour at his right +hand, and Clementina on his left. Lenorme sat next to Florimel, +and Annie Mair next to Lenorme. On the other side, Mr Graham sat +next to Clementina, Miss Horn next to Mr Graham, and Blue Peter +next to Miss Horn. Except Mr Morrison, he had asked none who were +not his tenants or servants or in some way connected with the +estates, except indeed a few whom he counted old friends, amongst +them some aged beggar folk, waiting their summons to Abraham's +bosom -- in which there was no such exceptional virtue on the +marquis's part, for, the poor law not having yet invaded +Scotland, a man was not without the respect of his neighbours +merely because he was a beggar. He set Mr Morrison to preside at +the farmers' tables, and had all the fisher folk about +himself.</p> + +<p>When the main part of the dinner was over, he rose, and with +as much circumstance as he thought desirable, told his story, +beginning with the parts in it his uncle and Mrs Catanach had +taken. It was, however, he said, a principle in the history of +the world, that evil should bring forth good, and his poor little +cock boat had been set adrift upon an ocean of blessing. For had +he not been taken to the heart of one of the noblest and simplest +of men, who had brought him up in honourable poverty and +rectitude? When he had said this, he turned to Duncan, who sat at +his own table behind him, with his pipe on a stool covered with a +rich cloth by his side.</p> + +<p>"You all know my grandfather," he went on, "and you all +respect him."</p> + +<p>At this rose a great shout.</p> + +<p>"I thank you, my friends," he continued. "My desire is that +every soul upon land of mine should carry himself to Duncan +MacPhail as if he were in blood that which he is in deed and in +truth, my grandfather."</p> + +<p>A second great shout arose, which wavered and sank when they +saw the old man bow his head upon his hands.</p> + +<p>He went on to speak of the privileges he alone of all his race +had ever enjoyed -- the privileges of toil and danger, with all +their experiences of human dependence and divine aid; the +privilege of the confidence and companionship of honourable +labouring men, and the understanding of their ways and thoughts +and feelings; and, above all, the privilege of the friendship and +instruction of the schoolmaster, to whom he owed more than +eternity could reveal.</p> + +<p>Then he turned again to his narrative, and told how his +father, falsely informed that his wife and child were dead, +married Florimel's mother; how his mother, out of compassion for +both of them, held her peace; how for twenty years she had lived +with her cousin Miss Horn, and held her peace even from her; how +at last, when, having succeeded to the property, she heard he was +coming to the House, the thought of his nearness yet +unapproachableness -- in this way at least he, the child of +both, interpreted the result -- so worked upon a worn and +enfeebled frame, that she died.</p> + +<p>Then he told how Miss Horn, after his mother's death, came +upon letters revealing the secret which she had all along known +must exist, but after which, from love and respect for her +cousin, she had never inquired.</p> + +<p>Last of all he told how, in a paroxysm of rage, Mrs Catanach +had let the secret of his birth escape her; how she had +afterwards made affidavit concerning it; and how his father had +upon his death bed, with all necessary legal observances, +acknowledged him his son and heir.</p> + +<p>"And now, to the mighty gladness of my soul," he said, looking +on Florimel at his side, "my dearly loved and honoured sister, +loved and honoured long before I knew she was my own, has +accepted me as her brother, and I do not think she greatly +regrets the loss of the headship of the house which she has +passed over to me. She will lose little else. And of all women it +may well be to her a small matter to lose a mere title, seeing +she is so soon to change her name for one who will bring her +honour of a more enduring reality. For he who is about to become +her husband is not only one of the noblest of men, but a man of +genius whose praises she will hear on all sides. One of his +works, the labour and gift of love, you shall see when we rise +from the table. It is a portrait of your late landlord, my +father, painted partly from a miniature, partly from my sister, +partly from the portraits of the family, and partly, I am happy +to think, from myself. You must yourselves judge of the truth of +it. And you will remember that Mr Lenorme never saw my father. I +say this, not to excuse, but to enhance his work.</p> + +<p>"My tenants, I will do my best to give you fair play. My +friend and factor, Mr Crathie, has confided to me his doubts +whether he may not have been a little hard: he is prepared to +reconsider some of your cases. Do not imagine that I am going to +be a careless man of business. I want money, for I have enough to +do with it, if only to set right much that is wrong. But let God +judge between you and me.</p> + +<p>"My fishermen, every honest man of you is my friend, and you +shall know it. Between you and me that is enough. But for the +sake of harmony, and right, and order, and that I may keep near +you, I shall appoint three men of yourselves in each village, to +whom any man or woman may go with request or complaint. If two of +those three men judge the matter fit to refer to me, the +probability is that I shall see it as they do. If any man think +them scant of justice towards him, let him come to me. Should I +find myself in doubt, I have here at my side my beloved and +honoured master to whom to apply for counsel, knowing that what +oracle he may utter I shall receive straight from the innermost +parts of a temple of the Holy Ghost. Friends, if we be honest +with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.</p> + +<p>"And, in conclusion, why should you hear from any lips but my +own, that this lady beside me, the daughter of an English earl of +ancient house, has honoured the house of Lossie by consenting to +become its marchioness? Lady Clementina Thornicroft possesses +large estates in the south of England, but not for them did I +seek her favour -- as you will be convinced when you reflect what +the fact involves which she has herself desired me to make known +to you -- namely, that it was while yet she was unacquainted with +my birth and position, and had never dreamed that I was other +than only a fisherman and a groom, that she accepted me for her +husband. -- I thank my God."</p> + +<p>With that he took his seat, and after hearty cheering, a glass +or two of wine, and several speeches, all rose, and went to look +at the portrait of the late marquis.</p> + +<h1 align="CENTER"><a name="CHAPTER_LXXII"></a>CHAPTER LXXII: +KNOTTED STRANDS</h1> + +<p>Lady Clementina had to return to England to see her lawyers, +and arrange her affairs. Before she went, she would gladly have +gone with Malcolm over every spot where had passed any portion of +his history, and at each heard its own chapter or paragraph; but +Malcolm obstinately refused to begin such a narration before +Clementina was mistress of the region to which it mainly +belonged. After that, he said, he would, even more gladly, he +believed, than she, occupy all the time that could be spared from +the duties of the present in piecing together the broken +reflections of the past in the pools of memory, until they had +lived both their lives over again together, from earliest +recollection to the time when the two streams flowed into one, +thenceforth to mingle more and more inwardly to endless ages.</p> + +<p>So the Psyche was launched. Lady Clementina, Florimel, and +Lenorme were the passengers, and Malcolm, Blue Peter, and Davy +the crew. There was no room for servants, yet was there no lack +of service. They had rough weather a part of the time, and +neither Clementina nor Lenorme was altogether comfortable, but +they made a rapid voyage, and were all well when they landed at +Greenwich.</p> + +<p>Knowing nothing of Lady Bellair's proceedings, they sent Davy +to reconnoitre in Portland Place. He brought back word that there +was no one in the house but an old woman. So Malcolm took +Florimel there. Everything belonging to their late visitors had +vanished, and nobody knew where they had gone.</p> + +<p>Searching the drawers and cabinets, Malcolm, to his +unspeakable delight, found a miniature of his mother, along with +one of his father -- a younger likeness than he had yet seen. +Also he found a few letters of his mother -- mostly mere notes in +pencil; but neither these nor those of his father which Miss Horn +had given him, would he read:</p> + +<p>"What right has life over the secrets of death?" he said. "Or +rather, what right have we who sleep over the secrets of those +who have waked from their sleep and left the fragments of their +dreams behind them?"</p> + +<p>Lovingly he laid them together, and burned them to dust +flakes.</p> + +<p>"My mother shall tell me what she pleases, when I find her," +he said. "She shall not reprove me for reading her letters to my +father."</p> + +<p>They were married, at Wastbeach, both couples in the same +ceremony. Immediately after the wedding, the painter and his +bride set out for Rome, and the marquis and marchioness went on +board the Psyche. For nothing would content Clementina, troubled +at the experience of her first voyage, but she must get herself +accustomed to the sea, as became the wife of a fisherman; +therefore in no way would she journey but on board the Psyche; +and as it was the desire of each to begin their married life at +home, they sailed direct for Portlossie. After a good voyage, +however, they landed, in order to reach home quietly, at Duff +Harbour, took horses from there, and arrived at Lossie House late +in the evening.</p> + +<p>Malcolm had written to the housekeeper to prepare for them the +Wizard's Chamber, but to alter nothing on walls or in furniture. +That room, he had resolved, should be the first he occupied with +his bride. Mrs Courthope was scandalized at the idea of taking an +earl's daughter to sleep in the garret, not to mention that the +room had for centuries had an ill name; but she had no choice, +and therefore contented herself with doing all that lay in the +power of woman, under such severe restrictions, to make the dingy +old room cheerful.</p> + +<p>Alone at length in their somewhat strange quarters, concerning +which Malcolm had merely told her that the room was that in which +he was born -- what place fitter, thought Clementina, wherein to +commence the long and wonderful story she hungered to hear. +Malcolm would still have delayed it, but she asked question upon +question till she had him fairly afloat. He had not gone far, +however, before he had to make mention of the stair in the wall, +which led from the place where they sat, straight from the +house.</p> + +<p>"Can there be such a stair in this room?" she asked in +surprise.</p> + +<p>He rose, took a candle, opened a door, then another, and +showed her the first of the steps down which the midwife had +carried him, and descending which, twenty years after, his father +had come by his death.</p> + +<p>"Let us go down," said Clementina.</p> + +<p>"Are you not afraid? Look," said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>"Afraid, and you with me!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"But it is dark, and the steps are broken."</p> + +<p>"If it led to Hades, I would go with my fisherman. The only +horror would be to be left behind."</p> + +<p>"Come then," said Malcolm, "Only you must be very careful." He +laid a shawl on her shoulders, and down they went, Malcolm a few +steps in front, holding the candle to every step for her, many +being broken.</p> + +<p>They came at length where the stair ceased in ruin. He leaped +down; she stooped, put her hands on his shoulder, and dropped +into his arms. Then over the fallen rubbish, out by the groaning +door, they went into the moonlight.</p> + +<p>Clementina was merry as a child. All was so safe and peaceful +with her fisherman! She would not hear of returning. They must +have a walk in the moonlight first! So down the steps and the +winding path into the valley of the burn, and up to the flower +garden they wandered, Clementina telling him how sick the +moonlight had made her feel that night she met him first on the +Boar's Tail, when his words concerning her revived the conviction +that he loved Florimel. At the great stone basin Malcolm set the +swan spouting, but the sweet musical jargon of the falling water +seemed almost coarse in the soundless diapason of the moonlight. +So he stopped it again, and they strolled farther up the +garden.</p> + +<p>Clementina venturing to remind him of the sexton-like +gardener's story of the lady and the hermit's cave, which because +of its Scotch, she was unable to follow. Malcolm told her now +what John Jack had narrated, adding that the lady was his own +mother, and that from the gardener's tale he learned that morning +at length how to account for the horror which had seized him on +his first entering the cave, as also for his father's peculiar +carriage on that occasion: doubtless he then caught a likeness in +him to his mother. He then recounted the occurrence +circumstantially.</p> + +<p>"I have ever since felt ashamed of the weakness," he +concluded: "but at this moment I believe I could walk in with +perfect coolness."</p> + +<p>"We won't try it tonight," said Clementina, and once more +turned him from the place, reverencing the shadow he had brought +with him from the spirit of his mother.</p> + +<p>They walked and sat and talked in the moonlight, for how long +neither knew; and when the moon went behind the trees on the +cliff, and the valley was left in darkness, but a darkness that +seemed alive with the new day soon to be born, they sat yet, lost +in a peaceful unveiling of hearts, till a sudden gust of wind +roused Malcolm, and looking up he saw that the stars were +clouded, and knew that the chill of the morning was drawing +near.</p> + +<p>He kept that chamber just as it was ever after, and often +retired to it for meditation. He never restored the ruinous parts +of the stair, and he kept the door at the top carefully closed. +But he cleared out the rubbish that choked the place where the +stair had led lower down, came upon it again in tolerable +preservation a little beneath, and followed it into a passage +that ran under the burn, appearing to lead in the direction of +the cave behind the Baillies' Barn. Doubtless there was some +foundation for the legend of Lord Gernon.</p> + +<p>There however, he abandoned the work, thinking of the +possibility of a time when employment would be scarce, and his +people in want of all he could give them. And when such a time +arrived, as arrive it did before they had been two years married, +a far more important undertaking was found needful to employ the +many who must earn or starve. Then it was that Clementina had the +desire of her heart, and began to lay out the money she had been +saving for the purpose, in rebuilding the ancient Castle of +Colonsay. Its vaults were emptied of rubbish and ruin, the rock +faced afresh, walls and towers and battlements raised, until at +last, when the loftiest tower seemed to have reached its height, +it rose yet higher, and blossomed in radiance; for, topmost crown +of all, there, flaming far into the northern night, shone a +splendid beacon lamp, to guide the fisherman when his way was +hid.</p> + +<p>Every summer for years, Florimel and her husband spent weeks +in the castle, and many a study the painter made there of the +ever changing face of the sea.</p> + +<p>Malcolm, as he well might, had such a strong feeling of the +power for good of every high souled schoolmaster, that nothing +would serve him but Mr Graham must be reinstated. He told the +presbytery that if it were not done, he would himself build a +school house for him, and the consequence, he said, needed no +prediction. Finding, at the same time, that the young man they +had put in his place was willing to act as his assistant, he +proposed that he should keep the cottage, and all other +emoluments of the office, on the sole condition that, when he +found he could no longer conscientiously and heartily further the +endeavours of Mr Graham, he should say so; whereupon the marquis +would endeavour to procure him another appointment; and on these +understandings the thing was arranged.</p> + +<p>Mr Graham thenceforward lived in the House, a spiritual father +to the whole family, reverenced by all, ever greeted with +gladness, ever obeyed. The spiritual dignity and simplicity, the +fine sense and delicate feeling of the man, rendered him a saving +presence in the place; and Clementina felt as if one of the +ancient prophets, blossomed into a Christian, was the glory of +their family and house. Like a perfect daughter, she watched him, +tried to discover preferences of which he might not himself be +aware, and often waited upon him with her own hands.</p> + +<p>There was an ancient building connected with the house, +divided now for many years into barn and dairy, but evidently the +chapel of the monastery: this Malcolm soon set about +reconverting. It made a lovely chapel -- too large for the +household, but not too large for its congregation upon Wednesday +evenings, when many of the fishermen and their families, and not +a few of the inhabitants of the upper town, with occasionally +several farm servants from the neighbourhood, assembled to listen +devoutly to the fervent and loving expostulations and rousings, +or the tender consolings and wise instructions of the master, as +every one called him. The hold he had of their hearts was firm, +and his influence on their consciences far reaching.</p> + +<p>When there was need of conference, or ground for any wide +expostulation, the marquis would call a meeting in the chapel; +but this occurred very seldom. Now and then the master, sometimes +the marquis himself, would use it for a course of lectures or a +succession of readings from some specially interesting book; and +in what had been the sacristy they gathered a small library for +the use of the neighbourhood.</p> + +<p>No meeting was held there of a Sunday, for although the +clergyman was the one person to whom all his life the marquis +never came any nearer, he was not the less careful to avoid +everything that might rouse contention or encourage division.</p> + +<p>"I find the doing of the will of God," he would say, "leaves +me no time for disputing about his plans -- I do not say for +thinking about them."</p> + +<p>Not therefore, however, would he waive the exercise of the +inborn right of teaching, and anybody might come to the house and +see the master on Sunday evenings. As to whether people went to +church or stayed away, he never troubled himself in the least; +and no more did the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>The chapel had not been long finished when he had an organ +built in it. Lady Lossie played upon it. Almost every evening, at +a certain hour, she played for a while; the door was always open, +and any one who pleased might sit down and listen.</p> + +<p>Gradually the feeling of the community, from the strengthening +and concentrating influence of the House, began to bear upon +offenders; and any whose conduct had become in the least flagrant +soon felt that the general eye was upon them, and that gradually +the human tide was falling from them, and leaving them prisoned +in a rocky basin on a barren shore. But at the same time, all +three of the powers at the House were watching to come in the +moment there was a chance; and what with the marquis's warnings, +his wife's encouragements, and the master's expostulations, there +was no little hope of the final recovery of several who would +otherwise most likely have sunk deeper and deeper.</p> + +<p>The marchioness took Lizzy for her personal attendant, and had +her boy much about her; so that by the time she had children of +her own, she had some genuine and worthy notion of what a child +was, and what could and ought to be done for the development of +the divine germ that lay in the human egg; and had found that the +best she could do for any child, or indeed anybody, was to be +good herself.</p> + +<p>Rose married a young fisherman, and made a brave wife and +mother. To the end of her days she regarded the marquis almost as +a being higher than human, an angel that had found and saved +her.</p> + +<p>Kelpie had a foal, and, apparently in consequence, grew so +much more gentle that at length Malcolm consented that +Clementina, who was an excellent horsewoman, should mount her. +After a few attempts to unseat her, not of the most determined +kind however, Kelpie, on her part, consented to carry her, and +ever after seemed proud of having a mistress that could ride. Her +foal turned out a magnificent horse. Malcolm did not allow him to +do anything that could be called work before he was eight years +old, and had the return at the other end, for when Goblin was +thirty he rode him still, and to judge by appearances, might but +for an accident have ridden him ten years more.</p> + +<p>It was not long ere people began to remark that no one now +ever heard the piper utter the name Campbell. An ill bred youth +once -- it was well for him that Malcolm was not near -- dared +the evil word in his presence: a cloud swept across the old man's +face, but he held his peace; and to the day of his death, which +arrived in his ninety-first year, it never crossed his lips. He +died with the Lossie pipes on his bed, Malcolm on one side of +him, and Clementina on the other.</p> + +<p>Some of my readers may care to know that Phemy and Davy were +married, and made the quaintest, oldest fashioned little couple, +with hearts which king or beggar might equally have trusted.</p> + +<p>Malcolm's relations with the fisher folk, founded as they were +in truth and open uprightness, were not in the least injured by +his change of position. He made it a point to be always at home +during the herring fishing. Whatever might be going on in London, +the marquis and marchioness, their family and household, were +sure to leave in time for the commencement of that. Those who +admired Malcolm, of whom there were not a few even in Vanity +Fair, called him the fisher king: the wags called him the +kingfisher, and laughed at the oddity of his taste in preferring +what he called his duty to the pleasures of the season. But the +marquis found even the hen pecked Partan a nobler and more +elevating presence than any strutting platitude of Bond Street. +And when he was at home, he was always about amongst the people. +Almost every day he would look in at some door in the Seaton, and +call out a salutation to the busy housewife -- perhaps go in and +sit down for a minute. Now he would be walking with this one, now +talking with that -- oftenest with Blue Peter; and sometimes both +their wives would be with them, upon the shore, or in the +grounds. Nor was there a family meal to which any one or all +together of the six men whom he had set over the Seaton and +Scaurnose would not have been welcomed by the marquis and his +Clemency. The House was head and heart of the whole district.</p> + +<p>A conventional visitor was certain to feel very shruggish at +first sight of the terms on which the marquis was with "persons +of that sort;" but often such a one came to allow that it was no +great matter: the persons did not seem to presume unpleasantly, +and, notwithstanding his atrocious training, the marquis was +after all a very good sort of fellow -- considering.</p> + +<p>In the third year he launched a strange vessel. Her tonnage +was two hundred, but she was built like a fishing boat. She had +great stowage forward and below: if there was a large take, boat +after boat could empty its load into her, and go back and draw +its nets again. But this was not the original design in her.</p> + +<p>The after half of her deck was parted off with a light rope +rail, was kept as white as holystone could make it, and had a +brass railed bulwark. She was steered with a wheel, for more +room; the top of the binnacle was made sloping, to serve as a +lectern; there were seats all round the bulwarks; and she was +called the Clemency.</p> + +<p>For more than two years he had provided training for the +fittest youths he could find amongst the fishers, and now he had +a pretty good band playing on wind instruments, able to give back +to God a shadow of his own music. The same formed the Clemency's +crew. And every Sunday evening the great fishing boat with the +marquis, and almost always the marchioness on board, and the +latter never without a child or children, led out from the +harbour such of the boats as were going to spend the night on the +water.</p> + +<p>When they reached the ground, all the other boats gathered +about the great boat, and the chief men came on board, and +Malcolm stood up betwixt the wheel and the binnacle, and read -- +always from the gospel, and generally words of Jesus, and talked +to them, striving earnestly to get the truth alive into their +hearts. Then he would pray aloud to the living God, as one so +living that they could not see him, so one with them that they +could not behold him. When they rose from their knees; man after +man dropped into his boat, and the fleet scattered wide over the +waters to search them for their treasure.</p> + +<p>Then the little ones were put to bed; and Malcolm and +Clementina would sit on the deck, reading and talking, till the +night fell, when they too went below, and slept in peace. But if +ever a boat wanted help, or the slightest danger arose, the first +thing was to call the marquis, and he was on deck in a +moment.</p> + +<p>In the morning, when a few of the boats had gathered, they +would make for the harbour again, but now with full blast of +praising trumpets and horns, the waves seeming to dance to the +well ordered noise divine. Or if the wind was contrary, or no +wind blew, the lightest laden of the boats would take the +Clemency in tow, and, with frequent change of rowers, draw her +softly back to the harbour.</p> + +<p>For such Monday mornings, the marquis wrote a little song, and +his Clemency made an air to it, and harmonized it for the band. +Here is the last stanza of it:</p> + +<pre> +Like the fish that brought the coin, +We in ministry will join -- +Bring what pleases thee the best; +Help from each to all the rest. +</pre> + +<p>THE END</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Marquis of Lossie, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE *** + +This file should be named 7174-h.htm or 7174-h.zip + +This etext was produced by Martin Robb [MartinRobb@ieee.org] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> + + diff --git a/old/7174-h.zip b/old/7174-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d09e7f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7174-h.zip diff --git a/old/7174.htm b/old/7174.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a98382d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7174.htm @@ -0,0 +1,18972 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Marquis of Lossie | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> /* <![CDATA[ */ + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.small {font-size: 0.8em;} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 4px; } +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Footnotes */ + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 5%; text-indent: 0em;} +.x-ebookmaker .poetry {margin-left: 5%;} +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry in browsers */ +/* .poetry {display: inline-block;} */ +/* large inline blocks don't split well on paged devices */ +@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } +.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block;} + + + /* ]]> */ </style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Marquis of Lossie, by George +MacDonald</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Marquis of Lossie</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: George MacDonald</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7174]<br> +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]<br> +[This file was first posted on March 21, 2003]<br> +Last Updated: April 25, 2023</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Martin Robb; smart quotes, italics, etc., added by Lisa +Wadsworth.</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE ***</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1 class="nobreak" id="THE_MARQUIS_OF_LOSSIE">THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE</h1> + +<p class="center p2"> +by George MacDonald</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2> +</div> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I. <span class="smcap">The Stable-yard</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II. <span class="smcap">The Library</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III. <span class="smcap">Miss Horn</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV. <span class="smcap">Kelpie’s Airing</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V. <span class="smcap">Lizzy Findlay</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI. <span class="smcap">Mr Crathie</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII. <span class="smcap">Blue Peter</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII. <span class="smcap">Voyage to London</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX. <span class="smcap">London Streets</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X. <span class="smcap">The Tempest</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI. <span class="smcap">Demon and the Pipes</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII. <span class="smcap">A New Library</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII. <span class="smcap">Two Conversations</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV. <span class="smcap">Florimel</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV. <span class="smcap">Portlossie</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI. <span class="smcap">St James the Apostle</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII. <span class="smcap">A Difference</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII. <span class="smcap">Lord Liftore</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX. <span class="smcap">Kelpie in London</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX. <span class="smcap">Blue Peter</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI. <span class="smcap">Mr Graham</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII. <span class="smcap">Richmond Park</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII. <span class="smcap">Painter and Groom</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV. <span class="smcap">A Lady</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV. <span class="smcap">The Psyche</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI. <span class="smcap">The Schoolmaster</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII. <span class="smcap">The Preacher</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII. <span class="smcap">The Portrait</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX. <span class="smcap">An Evil Omen</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX. <span class="smcap">A Quarrel</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI. <span class="smcap">The Two Daimons</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII. <span class="smcap">A Chastisement</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">XXXIII. <span class="smcap">Lies</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">XXXIV. <span class="smcap">An Old Enemy</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">XXXV. <span class="smcap">The Evil Genius</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">XXXVI. <span class="smcap">Conjunctions</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">XXXVII. <span class="smcap">An Innocent Plot</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">XXXVIII. <span class="smcap">The Journey</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">XXXIX. <span class="smcap">Discipline</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">XL. <span class="smcap">Moonlight</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">XLI. <span class="smcap">The Swift</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">XLII. <span class="smcap">St Ronan’s Well</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">XLIII. <span class="smcap">A Perplexity</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">XLIV. <span class="smcap">The Mind of the Author</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">XLV. <span class="smcap">The Ride Home</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">XLVI. <span class="smcap">Portland Place</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">XLVII. <span class="smcap">Portlossie and Scaurnose</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">XLVIII. <span class="smcap">Torture</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">XLIX. <span class="smcap">The Philtre</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_L">L. <span class="smcap">The Demoness at Bay</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LI">LI. <span class="smcap">The Psyche</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LII">LII. <span class="smcap">Hope Chapel</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LIII">LIII. <span class="smcap">A New Pupil</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LIV">LIV. <span class="smcap">The Fey Factor</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LV">LV. <span class="smcap">The Wanderer</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LVI">LVI. <span class="smcap">Mid-Ocean</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LVII">LVII. <span class="smcap">The Shore</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LVIII">LVIII. <span class="smcap">The Trench</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LIX">LIX. <span class="smcap">The Peacemaker</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LX">LX. <span class="smcap">An Offering</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXI">LXI. <span class="smcap">Thoughts</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXII">LXII. <span class="smcap">The Dune</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXIII">LXIII. <span class="smcap">Confession of Sin</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXIV">LXIV. <span class="smcap">A Visitation</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXV">LXV. <span class="smcap">The Eve of the Crisis</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXVI">LXVI. <span class="smcap">Sea</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXVII">LXVII. <span class="smcap">Shore</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXVIII">LXVIII. <span class="smcap">The Crew of the Bonnie Annie</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXIX">LXIX. <span class="smcap">Lizzy’s Baby</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXX">LXX. <span class="smcap">The Disclosure</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXXI">LXXI. <span class="smcap">The Assembly</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_LXXII">LXXII. <span class="smcap">Knotted Strands</span></a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br><span class="small">THE STABLE-YARD.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>It was one of those exquisite days that come in every winter, in which +it seems no longer the dead body, but the lovely ghost of summer. Such +a day bears to its sister of the happier time something of the relation +the marble statue bears to the living form; the sense it awakes of +beauty is more abstract, more ethereal; it lifts the soul into a higher +region than will summer day of lordliest splendour. It is like the love +that loss has purified.</p> + +<p>Such, however, were not the thoughts that at the moment occupied the +mind of Malcolm Colonsay. Indeed, the loveliness of the morning was +but partially visible from the spot where he stood—the stable-yard of +Lossie House, ancient and roughly paved. It was a hundred years since +the stones had been last relaid and levelled: none of the horses of +the late Marquis minded it but one—her whom the young man in Highland +dress was now grooming—and she would have fidgeted had it been an oak +floor. The yard was a long and wide space, with two-storied buildings +on all sides of it. In the centre of one of them rose the clock, and +the morning sun shone red on its tarnished gold. It was an ancient +clock, but still capable of keeping good time—good enough, at least, +for all the requirements of the house, even when the family was at +home, seeing it never stopped, and the church clock was always ordered +by it.</p> + +<p>It not only set the time, but seemed also to set the fashion of the +place, for the whole aspect of it was one of wholesome, weather-beaten, +time-worn existence. One of the good things that accompany good blood +is that its possessor does not much mind a shabby coat. Tarnish and +lichens and water-wearing, a wavy house-ridge, and a few families of +worms in the wainscot do not annoy the marquis as they do the city man +who has just bought a little place in the country. When an old family +ceases to go lovingly with nature, I see no reason why it should go +any longer. An old tree is venerable, and an old picture precious to +the soul, but an old house, on which has been laid none but loving and +respectful hands, is dear to the very heart. Even an old barn door, +with the carved initials of hinds and maidens of vanished centuries, +has a place of honour in the cabinet of the poet’s brain. It was +centuries since Lossie House had begun to grow shabby—and beautiful; +and he to whom it now belonged was not one to discard the reverend for +the neat, or let the vanity of possession interfere with the grandeur +of inheritance.</p> + +<p>Beneath the tarnished gold of the clock, flushed with the red winter +sun, he was at this moment grooming the coat of a powerful black mare. +That he had not been brought up a groom was pretty evident from the +fact that he was not hissing; but that he was Marquis of Lossie there +was nothing about him to show. The mare looked dangerous. Every now +and then she cast back a white glance of the one visible eye. But the +youth was on his guard, and as wary as fearless in his handling of her. +When at length he had finished the toilet which her restlessness—for +her four feet were never all still at once upon the stones—had +considerably protracted, he took from his pocket a lump of sugar, and +held it for her to bite at with her angry-looking teeth.</p> + +<p>It was a keen frost, but in the sun the icicles had begun to drop. The +roofs in the shadow were covered with hoar frost; wherever there was +shadow there was whiteness. But for all the cold, there was keen life +in the air, and yet keener life in the two animals, biped and quadruped.</p> + +<p>As they thus stood, the one trying to sweeten the other’s relation to +himself, if he could not hope much for her general temper, a man, who +looked half farmer, half lawyer, appeared on the opposite side of the +court in the shadow.</p> + +<p>“You are spoiling that mare, MacPhail,” he cried.</p> + +<p>“I canna weel du that, sir; she canna be muckle waur,” said the youth.</p> + +<p>“It’s whip and spur she wants, not sugar.”</p> + +<p>“She has had, and sall hae baith, time aboot (<i>in turn</i>); and I houp +they’ll du something for her in time, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Her time shall be short here, anyhow. She’s not worth the sugar you +give her.”</p> + +<p>“Eh, sir! luik at her,” said Malcolm, in a tone of expostulation, as he +stepped back a few paces and regarded her with admiring eyes. “Saw ye +ever sic legs? an’ sic a neck? an’ sic a heid? an’ sic fore an’ hin’ +quarters? She’s a’ bonny but the temper o’ her, an’ that she canna help +like the likes o’ you an’ me.”</p> + +<p>“She’ll be the death o’ somebody some day. The sooner we get rid of her +the better. Just look at that,” he added, as the mare laid back her +ears and made a vicious snap at nothing in particular.</p> + +<p>“She was a favourite o’ my—maister, the marquis,” returned the youth, +“an’ I wad ill like to pairt wi’ her.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll take any offer in reason for her,” said the factor. “You’ll just +ride her to Forres market next week, and see what you can get for her. +I do think she’s quieter since you took her in hand.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure she is—but it winna laist a day. The moment I lea’ her, +she’ll be as ill ’s ever,” said the youth. “She has a kin’ o’ a likin’ +to me, ’cause I gi’e her sugar, an’ she canna cast me; but she’s no +a bit better i’ the hert o’ her yet. She’s an oonsanctifeed brute. I +cudna think o’ sellin’ her like this.”</p> + +<p>“Lat them ’at buys tak tent (<i>beware</i>),” said the factor.</p> + +<p>“Ow ay! lat them; I dinna objec’; gien only they ken what she’s like +afore they buy her,” rejoined Malcolm.</p> + +<p>The factor burst out laughing. To his judgment the youth had spoken +like an idiot.</p> + +<p>“We’ll not send you to sell,” he said. “Stoat shall go with you, and +you shall have nothing to do but hold the mare and your own tongue.”</p> + +<p>“Sir,” said Malcolm, seriously, “ye dinna mean what ye say? Ye said +yersel’ she wad be the deith o’ somebody, an’ to sell her ohn tell’t +what she’s like wad be to caw the saxt comman’ment clean to shivers.”</p> + +<p>“That may be good doctrine i’ the kirk, my lad, but it’s pure heresy +i’ the horse-market. No, no! You buy a horse as you take a wife— for +better for worse, as the case may be. A woman’s not bound to tell her +faults when a man wants to marry her. If she keeps off the worst of +them afterwards, it’s all he has a right to look for.”</p> + +<p>“Hoot, sir! there’s no a pair o’ parallel lines in a’ the compairison,” +returned Malcolm. “Mistress Kelpie here’s e’en ower ready to confess +her fauts, an’ that by giein’ a taste o’ them; she winna bide to be +speired; but for haudin’ aff o’ them efter the bargain’s made—ye ken +she’s no even responsible for the bargain. An’ gien ye expec’ me to +haud my tongue aboot them—faith, Maister Crathie, I wad as sune think +o’ sellin’ a rotten boat to Blue Peter. Gien the man ’at has her to see +till, dinna ken to luik oot for a storm o’ iron shune or lang teeth ony +moment, his wife may be a widow that same market nicht. An’ forbye, +it’s again’ the aucht comman’ment as weel ’s the saxt. There’s nae +exception there in regaird o’ horse flesh. We maun be honest i’ that +as weel ’s i’ corn or herrin’, or onything ither ’at’s coft an’ sell’t +atween man an’ his neibor.”</p> + +<p>“There’s one commandment, my lad,” said Mr Crathie, with the dignity of +intended rebuke, “you seem to find hard to learn, and that is, to mind +your own business.”</p> + +<p>“Gien ye mean catchin’ the herrin’, maybe ye’re richt,” said the youth. +“I ken muir aboot that nor the horse-coupin’, an’ it’s full cleaner.”</p> + +<p>“None of your impudence!” returned the factor. “The marquis is not here +to uphold you in your follies. That they amused him is no reason why +I should put up with them. So keep your tongue between your teeth, or +you’ll find it the worse for you.”</p> + +<p>The youth smiled a little oddly, and held his peace.</p> + +<p>“You’re here to do what I tell you, and make no remarks,” added the +factor.</p> + +<p>“I’m awaur o’ that, sir—within certain leemits,” returned Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?”</p> + +<p>“I mean within the leemits o’ duin’ by yer neibor as ye wad ha’e yer +neibor du by you—that’s what I mean, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve told you already that doesn’t apply in horse-dealing. Every man +has to take care of himself in the horse-market: that’s understood. If +you had been brought up amongst horses instead of herring, you would +have known that as well as any other man.”</p> + +<p>“I doobt I’ll ha’e to gang back to the herrin’ than, sir, for they’re +like to pruv’ the honester o’ the twa. But there’s nae hypocrisy in +Kelpie, an’ she maun ha’e her day’s denner, come o’ the morn’s what +may.”</p> + +<p>At the word <i>hypocrisy</i>, Mr Crathie’s face grew red as the sun in a +fog. He was an elder of the kirk, and had family worship every night as +regularly as his toddy. So the word was as offensive and insolent as it +was foolish and inapplicable. He would have turned Malcolm adrift on +the spot, but that he remembered—not the favour of the late marquis +for the lad—that was nothing to the factor now: his lord under the +mould was to him as if he had never been above it—but the favour +of the present marchioness, for all in the house knew that she was +interested in him. Choking down therefore his rage and indignation, he +said sternly:</p> + +<p>“Malcolm, you have two enemies—a long tongue, and a strong conceit. +You have little enough to be proud of, my man, and the less said the +better. I advise you to mind what you’re about, and show suitable +respect to your superiors, or as sure as judgment, you’ll go back to +fish-guts.”</p> + +<p>While he spoke, Malcolm had been smoothing Kelpie all over with his +palms; the moment the factor ceased talking, he ceased stroking, and +with one arm thrown over the mare’s back, looked him full in the face.</p> + +<p>“Gien ye imaigine, Maister Crathie,” he said, “’at I coont it ony rise +i’ the warl’ ’at brings me un’er the orders o’ a man less honest than +he micht be, ye’re mista’en. I dinna think it’s pride this time; I wad +ile Blue Peter’s lang butes till him, but I winna lee for ony factor +atween this an’ Davy Jones.”</p> + +<p>It was too much. Mr Crathie’s feelings overcame him, and he was a +wrathful man to see, as he strode up to the youth with clenched fist.</p> + +<p>“Haud frae the mere, for God’s sake, Maister Crathie,” cried Malcolm.</p> + +<p>But even as he spoke, two reversed Moorish arches of gleaming iron +opened on the terror-quickened imagination of the factor a threatened +descent from which his most potent instinct, that of self-preservation, +shrank in horror. He started back white with dismay, having by a +bare inch of space and a bare moment of time, escaped what he called +Eternity. Dazed with fear he turned and had staggered half-way across +the yard, as if going home, before he recovered himself. Then he turned +again, and with what dignity he could scrape together said—</p> + +<p>“MacPhail, you go about your business.”</p> + +<p>In his foolish heart he believed Malcolm had made the brute strike out.</p> + +<p>“I canna weel gang till Stoat comes hame,” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“If I see you about the place after sunset, I’ll horsewhip you,” said +the factor, and walked away, showing the crown of his hat.</p> + +<p>Malcolm again smiled oddly, but made no reply. He undid the mare’s +halter, and took her into the stable. There he fed her, standing by +her all the time she ate, and not once taking his eyes off her. His +father, the late marquis, had bought her at the sale of the stud of +a neighbouring laird, whose whole being had been devoted to horses, +till the pale one came to fetch himself: the men about the stable had +drugged her, and, taken with the splendid lines of the animal, nor +seeing cause to doubt her temper as she quietly obeyed the halter, +he had bid for her, and, as he thought, had her a great bargain. The +accident that finally caused his death followed immediately after, +and while he was ill no one cared to vex him by saying what she had +turned out. But Malcolm had even then taken her in hand in the hope +of taming her a little before his master, who often spoke of his +latest purchase, should see her again. In this he had very partially +succeeded; but if only for the sake of him whom he now knew for his +father, nothing would have made him part with the animal. Besides, he +had been compelled to use her with so much severity at times that he +had grown attached to her from the reaction of pity as well as from +admiration of her physical qualities, and the habitude of ministering +to her wants and comforts. The factor, who knew Malcolm only as a +servant, had afterwards allowed her to remain in his charge, merely in +the hope, through his treatment, of by-and-by selling her, as she had +been bought, for a faultless animal, but at a far better price.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.<br><span class="small">THE LIBRARY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When she had finished her oats, Malcolm left her busy with her hay, +for she was a huge eater, and went into the house, passing through the +kitchen and ascending a spiral stone stair to the library—the only +room not now dismantled. As he went along the narrow passage on the +second floor leading to it from the head of the stair, the housekeeper, +Mrs Courthope, peeped after him from one of the many bedrooms opening +upon it, and watched him as he went, nodding her head two or three +times with decision: he reminded her so strongly —not of his father, +the last marquis, but the brother who had preceded him, that she felt +all but certain, whoever might be his mother, he had as much of the +Colonsay blood in his veins as any marquis of them all. It was in +consideration of this likeness that Mr Crathie had permitted the youth, +when his services were not required, to read in the library.</p> + +<p>Malcolm went straight to a certain corner, and from amongst a dingy +set of old classics took down a small Greek book, in large type. It +was the manual of that slave among slaves, that noble among the free, +Epictetus. He was no great Greek scholar, but, with the help of the +Latin translation, and the gloss of his own rathe experience, he could +lay hold of the mind of that slave of a slave, whose very slavery was +his slave to carry him to the heights of freedom. It was not Greek he +cared for, but Epictetus. It was but little he read, however, for the +occurrence of the morning demanded, compelled thought. Mr Crathie’s +behaviour caused him neither anger nor uneasiness, but it rendered +necessary some decision with regard to the ordering of his future.</p> + +<p>I can hardly say he recalled how, on his death-bed, the late marquis, +about three months before, having, with all needful observances, +acknowledged him his son, had committed to his trust the welfare of +his sister; for the memory of this charge was never absent from his +feeling even when not immediately present to his thought. But although +a charge which he would have taken upon him all the same had his father +not committed it to him, it was none the less a source of perplexity +upon which as yet all his thinking had let in but little light. For to +appear as Marquis of Lossie was not merely to take from his sister the +title she supposed her own, but to declare her illegitimate, seeing +that, unknown to the marquis, the youth’s mother, his first wife, was +still alive when Florimel was born. How to act so that as little evil +as possible might befall the favourite of his father, and one whom he +had himself loved with the devotion almost of a dog, before he knew she +was his sister, was the main problem.</p> + +<p>For himself, he had had a rough education, and had enjoyed it: his +thoughts were not troubled about his own prospects. Mysteriously +committed to the care of a poor blind Highland piper, a stranger from +inland regions, settled amongst a fishing people, he had, as he grew +up, naturally fallen into their ways of life and labour, and but +lately abandoned the calling of a fisherman to take charge of the +marquis’s yacht, whence, by degrees, he had, in his helpfulness, grown +indispensable to him and his daughter, and had come to live in the +house of Lossie as a privileged servant. His book education, which he +owed mainly to the friendship of the parish schoolmaster, although +nothing marvellous, or in Scotland very peculiar, had opened for him +in all directions doors of thought and inquiry, but the desire of +knowledge was in his case, again through the influences of Mr Graham, +subservient to an almost restless yearning after the truth of things, a +passion so rare that the ordinary mind can hardly master even the fact +of its existence.</p> + +<p>The Marchioness of Lossie, as she was now called, for the family +was one of the two or three in Scotland in which the title descends +to an heiress, had left Lossie House almost immediately upon her +father’s death, under the guardianship of a certain dowager countess. +Lady Bellair had taken her first to Edinburgh, and then to London. +Tidings of her Malcolm occasionally received through Mr Soutar of Duff +Harbour, the lawyer the marquis had employed to draw up the papers +substantiating the youth’s claim. The last amounted to this, that, as +rapidly as the proprieties of mourning would permit, she was circling +the vortex of the London season; and Malcolm was now almost in despair +of ever being of the least service to her as a brother to whom as a +servant he had seemed at one time of daily necessity. If he might but +once be her skipper, her groom, her attendant, he might then at least +learn how to discover to her the bond between them, without breaking it +in the very act, and so ruining the hope of service to follow.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.<br><span class="small">MISS HORN</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The door opened, and in walked a tall, gaunt, hard-featured woman, in +a huge bonnet, trimmed with black ribbons, and a long black net veil, +worked over with sprigs, coming down almost to her waist. She looked +stern, determined, almost fierce, shook hands with a sort of loose +dissatisfaction, and dropped into one of the easy chairs in which the +library abounded. With the act the question seemed shot from her—</p> + +<p>“Duv ye ca’ yersel’ an honest man, noo, Ma’colm?”</p> + +<p>“I ca’ mysel’ naething,” answered the youth; “but I wad fain be what ye +say, Miss Horn.”</p> + +<p>“Ow! I dinna doobt ye wadna steal, nor yet tell lees aboot a horse: +I ha’e jist come frae a sair waggin’ o’ tongues aboot ye. Mistress +Crathie tells me her man’s in a sair vex ’at ye winna tell a wordless +lee aboot the black mere: that’s what I ca ’t—no her. But lee it wad +be, an’ dinna ye aither wag or haud a leein’ tongue. A gentleman maunna +lee, no even by sayin’ naething—na, no gien ’t war to win intill the +kingdom. But, Guid be thankit, that’s whaur leears never come. Maybe +ye’re thinkin’ I ha’e sma’ occasion to say sic like to yersel’. An’ +yet what’s yer life but a lee, Ma’colm? You ’at’s the honest Marquis +o’ Lossie to waur yer time an’ the stren’th o’ yer boady an’ the micht +o’ yer sowl tyauvin’ (<i>wrestling</i>) wi’ a deevil o’ a she-horse, whan +there’s that half-sister o’ yer ain gauin’ to the verra deevil o’ +perdition himsel’ amang the godless gentry o’ Lon’on!”</p> + +<p>“What wad ye ha’e me un’erstan’ by that, Miss Horn?” returned Malcolm. +“I hear no ill o’ her. I daursay she’s no jist a sa’nt yet, but that’s +no to be luiked for in ane o’ the breed: they maun a’ try the warl’ +first ony gait. There’s a heap o’ fowk—an’ no aye the warst, maybe,” +continued Malcolm, thinking of his father, “’at wull ha’e their bite o’ +the aipple afore they spite it oot. But for my leddy sister, she’s owre +prood ever to disgrace hersel’.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, maybe, gien she bena misguidit by them she’s wi’. But I’m no sae +muckle concernt aboot her. Only it’s plain ’at ye ha’e no richt to lead +her intill temptation.”</p> + +<p>“Hoo am I temptin’ at her, mem?”</p> + +<p>“That’s plain to half an e’e. Ir ye no lattin’ her live believin’ a +lee? Ir ye no allooin’ her to gang on as gien she was somebody mair nor +mortal, when ye ken she’s nae mair Marchioness o’ Lossie nor ye’re the +son o’ auld Duncan MacPhail? Faith, ye ha’e lost trowth gien ye ha’e +gaint the warl’ i’ the cheenge o’ forbeirs!”</p> + +<p>“Mint at naething again’ the deid, mem. My father’s gane till ’s +accoont; an it’s weel for him he has his father an’ no his sister to +pronoonce upo’ him.”</p> + +<p>“’Deed ye’re right there, laddie,” said Miss Horn, in a subdued tone.</p> + +<p>“He’s made it up wi’ my mither afore noo, I’m thinkin’; an’ ony gait, +he confesst her his wife an’ me her son afore he dee’d, an’ what mair +had he time to du?”</p> + +<p>“It’s fac’,” returned Miss Horn. “An’ noo luik at yersel’: what yer +father confesst wi’ the verra deid thraw o’ a labourin’ speerit, to +the whilk naething cud ha’e broucht him but the deid thraws (_death +struggles_) o’ the bodily natur’ an’ the fear o’ hell, that same +confession ye row up again i’ the cloot o’ secrecy, in place o’ +dightin’ wi’ ’t the blot frae the memory o’ ane wha I believe I lo’ed +mair as my third cousin nor ye du as yer ain mither!”</p> + +<p>“There’s no blot upo’ her memory, mem,” returned the youth, “or I wad +be markis the morn. There’s never a sowl kens she was mither but kens +she was wife—ay, an’ whase wife, tu.”</p> + +<p>Miss Horn had neither wish nor power to reply, and changed her front.</p> + +<p>“An’ sae, Ma’colm Colonsay,” she said, “ye ha’e no less nor made up yer +min’ to pass yer days in yer ain stable, neither better nor waur than +an ostler at the Lossie Airms, an’ that efter a’ ’at I ha’e borne an’ +dune to mak a gentleman o’ ye, bairdin’ yer father here like a verra +lion in ’s den, an’ garrin’ him confess the thing again’ ilka hair upon +the stiff neck o’ ’im? Losh, laddie! it was a pictur to see him stan’in +wi’ ’s back to the door like a camstairy (<i>obstinate</i>) bullock!”</p> + +<p>“Haud yer tongue, mem, gien ye please. I canna bide to hear my father +spoken o’ like that. For ye see I lo’ed him afore I kent he was ony +drap’s blude to me.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, that’s verra weel; but father an’ mither’s man and wife, an’ ye +camna o’ a father alane.”</p> + +<p>“That’s true, mem, an’ it canna be I sud ever forget yon face ye shawed +me i’ the coffin, the bonniest, sairest sicht I ever saw,” returned +Malcolm, with a quaver in his voice.</p> + +<p>“But what for cairry yer thouchts to the deid face o’ her? Ye kent the +leevin’ ane weel,” objected Miss Horn.</p> + +<p>“That’s true, mem; but the deid face maist blottit the leevin’ oot o’ +my brain.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry for that.—Eh, laddie, but she was bonny to see!”</p> + +<p>“I aye thoucht her the bonniest leddy I ever set e’e upo’. An’ dinna +think, mem, I’m gaein to forget the deid, ’cause I’m mair concernt +aboot the leevin’. I tell ye I jist dinna ken what to du. What wi’ my +father’s deein’ words committin’ her to my chairge, an’ the more than +regaird I ha’e to Leddy Florimel hersel’, I’m jist whiles driven to +ane mair. Hoo can I tak the verra sunsheen oot o’ her life ’at I lo’ed +afore I kent she was my ain sister, an’ jist thoucht lang to win near +eneuch till, to du her ony guid turn worth duin? An’ here I am, her ane +half-brither, wi’ naething i’ my pooer but to scaud the hert o’ her, +or else lee! Supposin’ she was weel merried first, hoo wad she stan’ +wi’ her man whan he cam to ken ’at she was nae marchioness—hed no +lawfu’ richt to ony name but her mither’s? An’ afore that, what richt +cud I ha’e to alloo ony man to merry her ohn kent the trowth aboot +her? Faith, it wad be a fine chance though for the fin’in’ oot whether +or no the man was worthy o’ her! But, ye see that micht be to make a +playock o’ her hert. Puir thing, she luiks doon upo’ me frae the tap o’ +her bonny neck, as frae a h’avenly heicht; but I s’ lat her ken yet, +gien only I can win at the gait o’ ’t, that I ha’ena come nigh her for +naething.”</p> + +<p>He gave a sigh with the words, and a pause followed.</p> + +<p>“The trowth’s the trowth,” resumed Miss Horn, “neither mair nor less.”</p> + +<p>“Ay,” responded Malcolm; “but there’s a richt an’ a wrang time for the +tellin’ o’ ’t. It’s no as gien I had had han’ or tongue in ony foregane +lee. It was naething o’ my duin’, as ye ken, mem. To mysel’, I was +never onything but a fisherman born. I confess ’at whiles, when we wad +be lyin’ i’ the lee o’ the nets, tethered to them like, wi’ the win’ +blawin’ strong an’ steady, I ha’e thocht wi’ mysel’ ’at I kent naething +aboot my father, an’ what gien it sud turn oot ’at I was the son o’ +somebody—what wad I du wi’ my siller?”</p> + +<p>“An’ what thoucht ye ye wad du, laddie?” asked Miss Horn gently.</p> + +<p>“What but bigg a harbour at Scaurnose for the puir fisher-fowk ’at was +like my ain flesh and blude!”</p> + +<p>“Weel,” rejoined Miss Horn eagerly, “div ye no look upo’ that as a voo +to the Almichty—a voo ’at ye’re bun’ to pay, noo ’at ye ha’e yer wuss? +An’ it’s no merely ’at <i>ye</i> ha’e the means, but there’s no anither that +has the richt; for they’re yer ain fowk, ’at ye gaither rent frae, an +’at’s been for mony a generation sattlet upo’ yer lan’—though for +the maitter o’ the lan’, they ha’e had little mair o’ that than the +birds o’ the rock ha’e ohn feued—an’ them honest fowks wi’ wives an’ +sowls o’ their ain! Hoo upo’ airth are ye to du yer duty by them, an’ +render yer accoont at the last, gien ye dinna tak till ye yer pooer an’ +reign? Ilk man ’at’s in ony sense a king o’ men is bun’ to reign ower +them <i>in</i> that sense. I ken little aboot things mysel’, an’ I ha’e no +feelin’s to guide me, but I ha’e a wheen cowmon sense, an’ that maun +jist stan’ for the lave.”</p> + +<p>A silence followed.</p> + +<p>“What for speak na ye, Ma’colm?” said Miss Horn, at length.</p> + +<p>“I was jist tryin’,” he answered, “to min’ upon a twa lines ’at I cam +upo’ the ither day in a buik ’at Maister Graham gied me afore he gaed +awa’—’cause I reckon he kent them a’ by hert. They say jist sic like +’s ye been sayin’, mem—gien I cud but min’ upo’ them. They’re aboot a +man ’at aye does the richt gait—made by ane they ca’ Wordsworth.”</p> + +<p>“I ken naething aboot him,” said Miss Horn, with emphasized +indifference.</p> + +<p>“An’ I ken but little: I s’ ken mair or lang though. This is hoo the +piece begins:—</p> + +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who is the happy warrior? Who is he</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That every Man in arms should wish to be?</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought.</span><br> +</p> + +<p>—There! that’s what ye wad hae o’ me, mem!”</p> + +<p>“Hear till him!” cried Miss Horn. “The man’s i’ the richt, though +naebody never h’ard o’ ’im. Haud ye by that, Ma’colm, an’ dinna ye rist +till ye ha’e biggit a harbour to the men an’ women o’ Scaurnose. Wha +kens hoo mony may gang to the boddom afore it be dune, jist for the +want o’ ’t?”</p> + +<p>“The fundation maun be laid in richteousness, though, mem, else— what +gien ’t war to save lives better lost?”</p> + +<p>“That belangs to the Michty,” said Miss Horn.</p> + +<p>“Ay, but the layin’ o’ the fundation belangs to me. An’ I’ll no du ’t +till I can du ’t ohn ruint my sister.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, there’s ae thing clear: ye’ll never ken what to do sae lang +’s ye hing on aboot a stable, fu’ o’ fower-fittet animals wantin’ +sense—an’ some twa fittet ’at has less.”</p> + +<p>“I doobt ye’re richt there, mem; and gien I cud but tak puir Kelpie +awa’ wi’ me——”</p> + +<p>“Hoots! I’m affrontit wi ye. Kelpie—quo he! Preserve ’s a’! The laad +’ill lat his ain sister gang, an’ bide at hame wi’ a mere!”</p> + +<p>Malcolm held his peace.</p> + +<p>“Ay, I’m thinkin’ I maun gang,” he said at length.</p> + +<p>“Whaur till, than?” asked Miss Horn.</p> + +<p>“Ow! to Lon’on—whaur ither?”</p> + +<p>“And what’ll yer lordship du there?”</p> + +<p>“Dinna say <i>lordship</i> to me, mem, or I’ll think ye’re jeerin’ at me. +What wad the caterpillar say,” he added, with a laugh, “gien ye ca’d +her <i>my leddie Psyche</i>?”</p> + +<p>Malcolm of course pronounced the Greek word in Scotch fashion.</p> + +<p>“I ken naething aboot yer Seechies or yer Sukies,” rejoined Miss Horn. +“I ken ’at ye’re bun’ to be a lord and no a stableman, an’ I s’ no lat +ye rist till ye up an’ say <i>what neist</i>?”</p> + +<p>“It’s what I ha’e been sayin’ for the last three month,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Ay, I daursay; but ye ha’e been sayin’ ’t upo’ the braid o’ yer back, +and I wad ha’e ye up an’ sayin’ ’t.”</p> + +<p>“Gien I but kent what to du!” said Malcolm, for the thousandth time.</p> + +<p>“Ye can at least gang whaur ye ha’e a chance o’ learnin’,” returned his +friend.—“Come an’ tak yer supper wi’ me the nicht—a rizzart haddie +an’ an egg, an’ I’ll tell ye mair aboot yer mither.”</p> + +<p>But Malcolm avoided a promise, lest it should interfere with what he +might find best to do.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.<br><span class="small">KELPIE’S AIRING.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When Miss Horn left him—with a farewell kindlier than her +greeting—rendered yet more restless by her talk, he went back to the +stable, saddled Kelpie, and took her out for an airing.</p> + +<p>As he passed the factor’s house, Mrs Crathie saw him from the window. +Her colour rose. She arose herself also, and looked after him from the +door—a proud and peevish woman, jealous of her husband’s dignity, +still more jealous of her own.</p> + +<p>“The verra image o’ the auld markis!” she said to herself; for in the +recesses of her bosom she spoke the Scotch she scorned to utter aloud; +“and sits jist like himsel’, wi’ a wee stoop i’ the saiddle, and ilka +noo an’ than a swing o’ his haill boady back, as gien some thoucht had +set him straught.—Gien the fractious brute wad but brak a bane or twa +o’ him!” she went on in growing anger. “The impidence o’ the fallow! He +has his leave: what for disna he tak it an’ gang? But oot o’ this, gang +he sall. To ca’ a man like mine a heepocreet ’cause he wadna procleem +till a haill market ilka secret fau’t o’ the horse he had to sell! +Haith, he cam upo’ the wrang side o’ the sheet to play the lord and +maister here! and that I can tell him!”</p> + +<p>The mare was fresh, and the roads through the policy hard both by +nature and by frost, so that he could not let her go, and had enough +to do with her. He turned, therefore, towards the sea-gate, and soon +reached the shore. There, westward of the Seaton, where the fisher-folk +lived, the sand lay smooth, flat, and wet along the edge of the +receding tide: he gave Kelpie the rein, and she sprang into a wild +gallop, every now and then flinging her heels as high as her rider’s +head. But finding, as they approached the stony part from which rose +the great rock called the Bored Craig, that he could not pull her up +in time, he turned her head towards the long dune of sand which, a +little beyond the tide, ran parallel with the shore. It was dry and +loose, and the ascent steep. Kelpie’s hoofs sank at every step, and +when she reached the top, with wide-spread struggling haunches, and +“nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,” he had her in hand. She +stood panting, yet pawing and dancing, and making the sand fly in all +directions.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a woman with a child in her arms rose, as it seemed to +Malcolm, under Kelpie’s very head. She wheeled and reared, and, in +wrath or in terror, strained every nerve to unseat her rider, while, +whether from faith or despair, the woman stood still as a statue, +staring at the struggle.</p> + +<p>“Haud awa’ a bit, Lizzy,” cried Malcolm. “She’s a mad brute, an’ I +mayna be able to haud her. Ye ha’e the bairnie, ye see!”</p> + +<p>She was a young woman, with a sad white face. To what Malcolm said she +paid no heed, but stood with her child in her arms and gazed at Kelpie +as she went on plunging and kicking about on the top of the dune.</p> + +<p>“I reckon ye wadna care though the she-deevil knockit oot yer harns; +but ye ha’e the bairn, woman! Ha’e mercy on the bairn, an’ rin to the +boddom.”</p> + +<p>“I want to speak to ye, Ma’colm MacPhail,” she said, in a tone whose +very stillness revealed a depth of trouble.</p> + +<p>“I doobt I canna hearken to ye richt the noo,” said Malcolm. “But bide +a wee.” He swung himself from Kelpie’s back, and, hanging hard on the +bit with one hand, searched with the other in the pocket of his coat, +saying, as he did so—</p> + +<p>“Sugar, Kelpie! sugar!”</p> + +<p>The animal gave an eager snort, settled on her feet, and began +snuffing about him. He made haste, for, if her eagerness should turn +to impatience, she would do her endeavour to bite him. After crunching +three or four lumps, she stood pretty quiet, and Malcolm must make the +best of what time she would give him.</p> + +<p>“Noo, Lizzy!” he said hurriedly. “Speyk while ye can.”</p> + +<p>“Ma’colm,” said the girl, and looked him full in the face for a moment, +for agony had overcome shame; then her gaze sought the far horizon, +which to seafaring people is as the hills whence cometh their aid to +the people who dwell among mountains; “—Ma’colm, he’s gaein’ to merry +Leddy Florimel.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm started. Could the girl have learned more concerning his sister +than had yet reached himself? A fine watching over her was his, truly! +But who was this <i>he</i>?</p> + +<p>Lizzy had never uttered the name of the father of her child, and all +her people knew was that he could not be a fisherman, for then he would +have married her before the child was born. But Malcolm had had a +suspicion from the first, and now her words all but confirmed it.—And +was that fellow going to marry his sister? He turned white with +dismay—then red with anger, and stood speechless.</p> + +<p>But he was quickly brought to himself by a sharp pinch under the +shoulder blade from Kelpie’s long teeth: he had forgotten her, and she +had taken the advantage.</p> + +<p>“Wha tellt ye that, Lizzy?” he said.</p> + +<p>“I’m no at leeberty to say, Ma’colm, but I’m sure it’s true, an’ my +hert’s like to brak.”</p> + +<p>“Puir lassie!” said Malcolm, whose own trouble had never at any time +rendered him insensible to that of others. “But is ’t onybody ’at +<i>kens</i> what he says?” he pursued.</p> + +<p>“Weel, I dinna jist richtly ken gien she <i>kens</i>, but I think she maun +ha’e gude rizzon, or she wadna say as she says. Oh me! me! my bairnie +’ill be scornin’ me sair whan he comes to ken. Ma’colm, ye’re the only +ane ’at disna luik doon upo’ me, an whan ye cam ower the tap o’ the +Boar’s Tail, it was like an angel in a fire-flaucht, an’ something +inside me said—<i>Tell ’im; tell ’im;</i> an’ sae I bude to tell ye.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm was even too simple to feel flattered by the girl’s confidence, +though to be trusted is a greater <i>compliment</i> than to be loved.</p> + +<p>“Hearken, Lizzy!” he said. “I canna e’en think, wi’ this brute ready +ilka meenute to ate me up. I maun tak her hame. Efter that, gien ye +wad like to tell me onything, I s’ be at yer service. Bide aboot +here—or, luik ye: here’s the key o’ yon door; come throu’ that intill +the park—throu’ aneth the toll ro’d, ye ken. There ye’ll get into the +lythe (<i>lee</i>) wi’ the bairnie; an’ I’ll be wi’ ye in a quarter o’ an +hoor. It’ll tak me but twa meenutes to gang hame. Stoat ’ill put up the +mere, and I’ll be back—I can du ’t in ten meenutes.”</p> + +<p>“Eh! dinna hurry for me, Ma’colm: I’m no worth it,” said Lizzy.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm was already at full speed along the top of the dune.</p> + +<p>“Lord preserve ’s!” cried Lizzy, when she saw him clear the brass +swivel. “Sic a laad as that is! Eh, he maun ha’e a richt lass to lo’e +him some day! It’s a’ ane to him, boat or beast. He wadna turn frae the +deil himsel’. An syne he’s jist as saft ’s a deuk’s neck whan he speyks +till a wuman or a bairn—ay, or an auld man aither!”</p> + +<p>And full of trouble as it was about another, Lizzy’s heart yet ached at +the thought that she should be so unworthy of one like him.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.<br><span class="small">LIZZY FINDLAY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>From the sands she saw him gain the turnpike road with a bound and a +scramble. Crossing it he entered the park by the sea-gate; she had to +enter it by the tunnel that passed under the same road. She approached +the grated door, unlocked it, and looked in with a shudder. It was +dark, the other end of it being obscured by trees, and the roots of the +hill on whose top stood the temple of the winds. Through the tunnel +blew what seemed quite another wind —one of death, from regions +beneath. She drew her shawl, one end of which was rolled about her +baby, closer around them both ere she entered. Never before had she +set foot within the place, and a strange horror of it filled her: she +did not know that by that passage, on a certain lovely summer night, +Lord Meikleham had issued to meet her on the sands under the moon. The +sea was not terrible to her; she knew all its ways nearly as well as +Malcolm knew the moods of Kelpie; but the earth and its ways were less +known to her, and to turn her face towards it and enter by a little +door into its bosom was like a visit to her grave. But she gathered +her strength, entered with a shudder, passed in growing hope and +final safety through it, and at the other end came out again into the +light, only the cold of its death seemed to cling to her still. But +the day had grown colder; the clouds that, seen or unseen, ever haunt +the winter sun, had at length caught and shrouded him, and through +the gathering vapours he looked ghastly. The wind blew from the sea. +The tide was going down. There was snow in the air. The thin leafless +trees were all bending away from the shore, and the wind went sighing, +hissing, and almost wailing through their bare boughs and budless +twigs. There would be a storm, she thought, ere the morning, but none +of their people were out.</p> + +<p>Had there been—well, she had almost ceased to care about anything, and +her own life was so little to her now, that she had become less able to +value that of other people. To this had the <i>ignis fatuus</i> of a false +love brought her! She had dreamed heedlessly, to awake sorrowfully. +But not until she heard he was going to be married, had she come right +awake, and now she could dream no more. Alas! alas! what claim had she +upon him? How could she tell, since such he was, what poor girl like +herself she might not have robbed of her part in him?</p> + +<p>Yet even in the midst of her misery and despair, it was some +consolation to think that Malcolm was her friend.</p> + +<p>Not knowing that he had already suffered from the blame of her fault, +or the risk at which he met her, she would have gone towards the house +to meet him the sooner, had not this been a part of the grounds where +she knew Mr Crathie tolerated no one without express leave given. The +fisher-folk in particular must keep to the road by the other side of +the burn, to which the sea-gate admitted them. Lizzy therefore lingered +near the tunnel, afraid of being seen.</p> + +<p>Mr Crathie was a man who did well under authority, but upon the top +of it was consequential, overbearing, and far more exacting than the +marquis. Full of his employer’s importance when he was present, and +of his own when he was absent, he was yet in the latter circumstances +so doubtful of its adequate recognition by those under him, that he +had grown very imperious, and resented with indignation the slightest +breach of his orders. Hence he was in no great favour with the fishers.</p> + +<p>Now all the day he had been fuming over Malcolm’s behaviour to him in +the morning, and when he went home and learned that his wife had seen +him upon Kelpie, as if nothing had happened, he became furious, and, in +this possession of the devil, was at the present moment wandering about +the grounds, brooding on the words Malcolm had spoken. He could not get +rid of them. They caused an acrid burning in his bosom, for they had in +them truth, like which no poison stings.</p> + +<p>Malcolm, having crossed by the great bridge at the house, hurried down +the western side of the burn to find Lizzy, and soon came upon her, +walking up and down.</p> + +<p>“Eh, lassie, ye maun be cauld!” he said.</p> + +<p>“No that cauld,” she answered, and with the words burst into tears: +“But naebody says a kin’ word to me noo,” she said in excuse, “an’ I +canna weel bide the soun’ o’ ane when it comes; I’m no used till ’t.”</p> + +<p>“Naebody?” exclaimed Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Na, naebody,” she answered. “My mither winna, my father daurna, an’ +the bairnie canna, an I gang near naebody forbye.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, we maunna stan’ oot here i’ the cauld: come this gait,” said +Malcolm. “The bairnie’ll get its deid.”</p> + +<p>“There wadna be mony to greit at that,” returned Lizzy, and pressed the +child closer to her bosom.</p> + +<p>Malcolm led the way to the little chamber contrived under the temple +in the heart of the hill, and unlocking the door made her enter. There +he seated her in a comfortable chair, and wrapped her in the plaid he +had brought for the purpose. It was all he could do to keep from taking +her in his arms for very pity, for, both body and soul, she seemed too +frozen to shiver. He shut the door, sat down on the table near her, and +said:</p> + +<p>“There’s naebody to disturb ’s here, Lizzy: what wad ye say to me noo?”</p> + +<p>The sun was nearly down, and its light already almost smothered in +clouds, so that the little chamber, whose door and window were in the +deep shadow of the hill, was nearly dark.</p> + +<p>“I wadna hae ye tell me onything ye promised no to tell,” resumed +Malcolm, finding she did not reply, “but I wad like to hear as muckle +as ye can say.”</p> + +<p>“I hae naething to tell ye, Ma’colm, but jist ’at my leddy Florimel’s +gauin’ to be merried upo’ Lord Meikleham—Lord Liftore, they ca’ him +noo. Hech me!”</p> + +<p>“God forbid she sud be merried upon ony sic a bla’guard!” cried Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Dinna ca’ ’im ill names, Ma’colm. I canna bide it, though I hae no +richt to tak up the stick for him.”</p> + +<p>“I wadna say a word ’at micht fa’ sair on a sair hert,” he returned; +“but gien ye kent a’, ye wad ken I hed a gey-sized craw to pluck wi’ ’s +lordship mysel’.”</p> + +<p>The girl gave a low cry.</p> + +<p>“Ye wadna hurt ’im, Ma’colm?” she said, in terror at the thought of the +elegant youth in the clutches of an angry fisherman, even if he were +the generous Malcolm MacPhail himself.</p> + +<p>“I wad raither not,” he replied, “but we maun see hoo he cairries +himsel’.”</p> + +<p>“Du naething till ’im for my sake, Ma’colm. Ye can hae naething again’ +him yersel’.”</p> + +<p>It was too dark for Malcolm to see the keen look of wistful regret with +which Lizzy tried to pierce the gloom and read his face: for a moment +the poor girl thought he meant he had loved her himself. But far other +thoughts were in Malcolm’s mind: one was, that her whom, as a scarce +approachable goddess, he had loved before he knew her of his own blood, +he would rather see married to an honest fisherman in the Seaton of +Portlossie, than to such a lord as Meikleham. He had seen enough of +him at Lossie House to know what he was, and puritanical fish-catching +Malcolm had ideas above those of most marquises of his day: the thought +of the alliance was horrible to him. It was possibly not inevitable, +however; only what could he do, and at the same time avoid grievous +hurt?</p> + +<p>“I dinna think he’ll ever merry my leddy,” he said.</p> + +<p>“What gars ye say that, Ma’colm?” returned Lizzy, with eagerness.</p> + +<p>“I canna tell ye jist i’ the noo; but ye ken a body canna weel be +aye aboot a place ohn seein’ things. I’ll tell ye something o’ mair +consequence hooever,” he continued. “Some fowk say there’s a God, an’ +some say there’s nane, an’ I ha’e no richt to preach to ye, Lizzy; but +I maun jist tell ye this—’at gien God dinna help them ’at cry till ’im +i’ the warst o’ tribles, they micht jist as weel ha’e nae God at a’. +For my ain pairt I ha’e been helpit, an’ I think it was him intill ’t. +Wi’ his help, a man may warstle throu’ onything. I say I think it was +himsel’ tuik me throu’ ’t, an’ here I stan’ afore ye, ready for the +neist trible, an’ the help ’at ’ll come wi’ ’t. What it may be, God +only kens!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.<br><span class="small">MR CRATHIE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>He was interrupted by the sudden opening of the door, and the voice of +the factor in exultant wrath.</p> + +<p>“MacPhail!” it cried. “Come out with you. Don’t think to sneak there. +<i>I</i> know you. What right have you to be on the premises? Didn’t I send +you about your business this morning?”</p> + +<p>“Ay, sir, but ye didna pay me my wauges,” said Malcolm, who had sprung +to the door and now stood holding it half shut, while Mr Crathie pushed +it half open.</p> + +<p>“No matter. You’re nothing better than a housebreaker if you enter any +building about the place.”</p> + +<p>“I brak nae lock,” returned Malcolm. “I ha’e the key my lord gae me to +ilka place ’ithin the wa’s excep’ the strong room.”</p> + +<p>“Give it me directly. <i>I’m</i> master here now.”</p> + +<p>“’Deed, I s’ du nae sic thing, sir. What he gae me I’ll keep.”</p> + +<p>“Give up that key, or I’ll go at once and get a warrant against you for +theft.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, we s’ refar ’t to Maister Soutar.”</p> + +<p>“Damn your impudence—’at I sud say ’t!—what has he to do with my +affairs? Come out of that directly.”</p> + +<p>“Huly, huly, sir!” returned Malcolm, in terror lest he should discover +who was with him.</p> + +<p>“You low-bred rascal! Who have you there with you?”</p> + +<p>As he spoke Mr Crathie would have forced his way into the dusky +chamber, where he could just perceive a motionless undefined form. But +stiff as a statue Malcolm kept his stand, and the door was immovable. +Mr Crathie gave a second and angrier push, but the youth’s corporeal as +well as his mental equilibrium was hard to upset, and his enemy drew +back in mounting fury.</p> + +<p>“Get out of there,” he cried, “or I’ll horsewhip you for a damned +blackguard.”</p> + +<p>“Whup awa’,” said Malcolm, “but in here ye s’ no come the nicht.”</p> + +<p>The factor rushed at him, his heavy whip upheaved—and the same moment +found himself, not in the room, but lying on the flower-bed in front of +it. Malcolm instantly stepped out, locked the door, put the key in his +pocket, and turned to assist him. But he was up already, and busy with +words unbefitting the mouth of an elder of the kirk.</p> + +<p>“Didna I say ’at ye sudna come in, sir? What for wull fowk no tak a +tellin’?” expostulated Malcolm.</p> + +<p>But the factor was far beyond force of logic or illumination of reason. +He raved and swore.</p> + +<p>“Get oot o’ my sicht,” he cried, “or I’ll shot ye like a tyke.”</p> + +<p>“Gang an’ fess yer gun,” said Malcolm, “an’ gien ye fin’ me waitin’ for +ye, ye can lat at me.”</p> + +<p>The factor uttered a horrible imprecation on himself if he did not make +him pay dearly for his behaviour.</p> + +<p>“Hoots, sir! Be asham’t o’ yersel’. Gang hame to the mistress, an’ I s’ +be up the morn’s mornin’ for my wauges.”</p> + +<p>“If ye set foot on the grounds again, I’ll set every dog in the place +upon you.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed.</p> + +<p>“Gien I was to turn the order the ither gait, wad they min’ you or me, +div ye think, Maister Crathie?”</p> + +<p>“Give me that key, and go about your business.”</p> + +<p>“Na, na, sir! What my lord gae me I s’ keep—for a’ the factors atween +this an’ the Land’s En’,” returned Malcolm. “An’ for lea’in’ the place, +gien I be na in your service, Maister Crathie, I’m nae un’er your +orders. I’ll gang whan it suits me. An’ mair yet, ye s’ gang oot o’ +this first, or I s’ gar ye, an that ye’ll see.”</p> + +<p>It was a violent proceeding, but for a matter of manners he was not +going to risk what of her good name poor Lizzy had left: like the books +of the Sibyl, that grew in value. He made, however, but one threatful +stride towards the factor, for the great man turned and fled.</p> + +<p>The moment he was out of sight, Malcolm unlocked the door, led Lizzy +out, and brought her through the tunnel to the sands. There he left +her, and set out for Scaurnose.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.<br><span class="small">BLUE PETER.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The door of Blue Peter’s cottage was opened by his sister. Not much +at home in the summer, when she carried fish to the country, she was +very little absent in the winter, and as there was but one room for +all uses, except the closet bedroom and the garret at the top of the +ladder, Malcolm, instead of going in, called to his friend, whom he saw +by the fire with his little Phemy upon his knee, to come out and speak +to him.</p> + +<p>Blue Peter at once obeyed the summons.</p> + +<p>“There’s naething wrang, I houp, Ma’colm?” he said, as he closed the +door behind him.</p> + +<p>“Maister Graham wad say,” returned Malcolm, “naething ever was wrang +but what ye did wrang yersel’, or wadna pit richt whan ye had a chance. +I ha’e him nae mair to gang till, Joseph, an’ sae I’m come to you. Come +doon by, an’ i’ the scoug o’ a rock, I’ll tell ye a’ aboot it.”</p> + +<p>“Ye wadna ha’e the mistress no ken o’ ’t?” said his friend. “I dinna +jist like haein’ secrets frae <i>her</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Ye sall jeedge for yersel’, man, an’ tell her or no jist as ye like. +Only she maun haud her tongue, or the black dog’ll ha’e a’ the butter.”</p> + +<p>“She can haud her tongue like the tae-stane o’ a grave,” said Peter.</p> + +<p>As they spoke they reached the cliff that hung over the shattered +shore. It was a clear, cold night. Snow, the remnants of the last +storm, which frost had preserved in every shadowy spot, lay all about +them. The sky was clear, and full of stars, for the wind that blew +cold from the north-west had dispelled the snowy clouds. The waves +rushed into countless gulfs and crannies and straits on the ruggedest +of shores, and the sounds of waves and wind kept calling like voices +from the unseen. By a path, seemingly fitter for goats than men, they +descended half-way to the beach, and under a great projection of rock +stood sheltered from the wind. Then Malcolm turned to Joseph Mair, +commonly called Blue Peter, because he had been a man-of-war’s man, and +laying his hand on his arm said:</p> + +<p>“Blue Peter, did ever I tell ye a lee?”</p> + +<p>“No, never,” answered Peter. “What gars ye speir sic a thing?”</p> + +<p>“Cause I want ye to believe me noo, an’ it winna be easy.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll believe onything ye tell me—’at <i>can</i> be believed.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, I ha’e come to the knowledge ’at my name’s no MacPhail: it’s +Colonsay. Man, I’m the Markis o’ Lossie.”</p> + +<p>Without a moment’s hesitation, without a single stare of unbelief +or even astonishment, Blue Peter pulled off his bonnet, and stood +bareheaded before the companion of his toils.</p> + +<p>“Peter!” cried Malcolm, “dinna brak my hert: put on yer bonnet.”</p> + +<p>“The Lord o’ lords be thankit, my lord!” said Blue Peter: “the puir man +has a freen’ this day.”</p> + +<p>Then replacing his bonnet he said—</p> + +<p>“An’ what’ll be yer lordship’s wull?”</p> + +<p>“First and foremost, Peter, that my best freen’, efter my auld daddy +and the schulemaister, ’s no to turn again’ me ’cause I hed a markis +an’ neither piper nor fisher to my father.”</p> + +<p>“It’s no like it, my lord,” returned Blue Peter, “whan the first thing +I say is—what wad ye ha’e o’ me? Here I am—no speirin’ a queston!”</p> + +<p>“Weel, I wad ha’e ye hear the story o’ ’t a’.”</p> + +<p>“Say on, my lord,” said Peter.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm was silent for a few moments.</p> + +<p>“I was thinkin’, Peter,” he said at last, “whether I cud bide to hear +you say <i>my lord</i> to me. Dootless, as it’ll ha’e to come to that, it +wad be better to grow used till ’t while we’re thegither, sae ’at whan +it maun be, it mayna ha’e the luik o’ cheenge intil it, for cheenge is +jist the thing I canna bide. I’ the meantime, hooever, we canna gi’e in +till ’t, ’cause it wad set fowk jaloosin’. But I wad be obleeged till +ye, Peter, gien you wad say <i>my lord</i> whiles, whan we’re oor lanes, +for I wad fain grow sae used till ’t ’at I never kent ye said it, for +’atween you an’ me, I dinna like it. An’ noo I s’ tell ye a’ ’at I ken.”</p> + +<p>When he had ended the tale of what had come to his knowledge, and how +it had come, and paused:</p> + +<p>“Gie ’s a grup o’ yer han’, my lord,” said Blue Peter, “an’ may God +haud ye lang in life an’ honour to reule ower us. Noo, gien ye please, +what are ye gauin’ to du?”</p> + +<p>“Tell ye me, Peter, what ye think I oucht to du.”</p> + +<p>“That wad tak a heap o’ thinkin’,” returned the fisherman; “but ae +thing seems aboot plain: ye ha’e no richt to lat yer sister gang +exposed to temptations ye cud haud frae her. That’s no, as ye promised, +to be kin’ till her. I canna believe that’s hoo yer father expeckit +o’ ye. I ken weel ’at fowk in his poseetion ha’ena the preevileeges +o’ the like o’ hiz—they ha’ena the win, an’ the watter, an’ whiles a +lee shore to gar them know they are but men, an’ sen’ them rattlin’ +at the wicket of h’aven; but still I dinna think, by yer ain accoont, +specially noo ’at I houp he’s forgi’en an’ latten in—God grant +it!—I div <i>not</i> think he wad like my leddy Florimel to be oon’er the +influences o’ sic a ane as that Leddy Bellair. Ye maun gang till her. +Ye ha’e nae ch’ice, my lord.”</p> + +<p>“But what am I to do, whan I div gang?”</p> + +<p>“That’s what ye hev to gang an’ see.”</p> + +<p>“An’ that’s what I ha’e been tellin’ mysel’, an’ what Miss Horn’s +been tellin’ me tu. But it’s a gran’ thing to get yer ain thouchts +corroborat. Ye see I’m feart for wrangin’ her for pride, and bringin’ +her doon to set mysel’ up.”</p> + +<p>“My lord,” said Blue Peter, solemnly, “ye ken the life o’ puir +fisher-fowk; ye ken hoo it micht be lichtened, sae lang as it laists, +an’ mony a hole steikit ’at the cauld deith creeps in at the noo: coont +ye them naething, my lord? Coont ye the wull o’ Providence, ’at sets +ye ower them, naething? What for could the Lord ha’e gie ye sic an +upbringin’ as no markis’s son ever hed afore ye, or maybe ever wull +ha’e efter ye, gien it bena ’at ye sud tak them in han’ to du yer pairt +by them? Gien ye forsak them noo, ye’ll be forgettin’ him ’at made them +an’ you, an’ the sea, an’ the herrin’ to be taen intill ’t. Gien ye +forget them, there’s nae houp for them, but the same deith ’ill keep on +swallowin’ at them upo’ sea an’ shore.”</p> + +<p>“Ye speyk the trowth as I ha’e spoken ’t till mysel’, Peter. Noo, +hearken: will ye sail wi’ me the nicht for Lon’on toon?”</p> + +<p>The fisherman was silent a moment—then answered, “I wull, my lord; but +I maun tell my wife.”</p> + +<p>“Rin, an’ fess her here than, for I’m fleyed at yer sister, honest +wuman, an’ little Phemy. It wad blaud a’ thing gien I was hurried to du +something afore I kenned what.”</p> + +<p>“I s’ ha’e her oot in a meenute,” said Joseph, and scrambled up the +cliff.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.<br><span class="small">VOYAGE TO LONDON.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>For a few minutes Malcolm stood alone in the dim starlight of winter, +looking out on the dusky sea, dark as his own future, into which +the wind now blowing behind him would soon begin to carry him. He +anticipated its difficulties, but never thought of perils: it was +seldom anything oppressed him but the doubt of what he ought to do. +This was ever the cold mist that swallowed the airy castles he built +and peopled with all the friends and acquaintances of his youth. But +the very first step towards action is the death-warrant of doubt, and +the tide of Malcolm’s being ran higher that night, as he stood thus +alone under the stars, than he had ever yet known it run. With all +his common-sense, and the abundance of his philosophy, which the much +leisure belonging to certain phases of his life had combined with +the slow strength of his intellect to render somewhat long-winded in +utterance, there was yet room in Malcolm’s bonnet for a bee above the +ordinary size, and if it buzzed a little too romantically for the taste +of the nineteenth century, about disguises and surprises and bounty +and plots and rescues and such like, something must be pardoned to +one whose experience had already been so greatly out of the common, +and whose nature was far too child-like and poetic, and developed in +far too simple a surrounding of labour and success, difficulty and +conquest, danger and deliverance, not to have more than the usual +amount of what is called <i>the romantic</i> in its composition.</p> + +<p>The buzzing of his bee was for the present interrupted by the return of +Blue Peter with his wife. She threw her arms round Malcolm’s neck, and +burst into tears.</p> + +<p>“Hoots, my woman!” said her husband, “what are ye greitin’ at?”</p> + +<p>“Eh, Peter!” she answered, “I canna help it. It’s jist like a deith. +He’s gauin’ to lea’ us a’, an’ gang hame till ’s ain, an’ I canna bide +’at he sud grow strange-like to hiz ’at ha’e kenned him sae lang.”</p> + +<p>“It’ll be an ill day,” returned Malcolm, “whan I grow strange to ony +freen’. I’ll ha’e to gang far down the laich (<i>low</i>) ro’d afore that be +poassible. I mayna aye be able to du jist what ye wad like; but lippen +ye to me: I s’ be fair to ye. An’ noo I want Blue Peter to gang wi’ me, +an’ help me to what I ha’e to du—gien ye ha’e nae objection to lat +him.”</p> + +<p>“Na, nane ha’e I. I wad gang mysel’ gien I cud be ony use,” answered +Mrs Mair; “but women are i’ the gait whiles.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, I’ll no even say thank ye; I’ll be awin’ ye that as weel ’s the +lave. But gien I dinna du weel, it winna be the fau’t o’ ane or the +ither o’ you twa freen’s. Noo, Peter, we maun be aff.”</p> + +<p>“No the nicht, surely?” said Mrs Mair, a little taken by surprise.</p> + +<p>“The suner the better, lass,” replied her husband. “An’ we cudna ha’e a +better win’. Jist rin ye hame, an’ get some vicktooals thegither, an’ +come efter hiz to Portlossie.”</p> + +<p>“But hoo ’ill ye get the boat to the watter ohn mair han’s? I’ll need +to come mysel’ an’ fess Jean.”</p> + +<p>“Na, na; let Jean sit. There’s plenty i’ the Seaton to help. We’re +gauin’ to tak the markis’s cutter. She’s a heap easier to lainch, an’ +she’ll sail a heap fester.”</p> + +<p>“But what’ll Maister Crathie say?”</p> + +<p>“We maun tak oor chance o’ that,” answered her husband, with a smile +of confidence; and thereupon he and Malcolm set out for the Seaton, +while Mrs Mair went home to get ready some provisions for the voyage, +consisting chiefly of oatcakes.</p> + +<p>The prejudice against Malcolm from his imagined behaviour to Lizzy +Findlay, had by this time, partly through the assurances of Peter, +partly through the power of the youth’s innocent presence, almost died +out, and when the two men reached the Seaton, they found plenty of +hands ready to help them to reach the little sloop. Malcolm said he was +going to take her to Peterhead, and they asked no questions but such as +he contrived to answer with truth, or to leave unanswered. Once afloat, +there was very little to be done to her, for she had been laid up in +perfect condition, and as soon as Mrs Mair appeared with her basket, +and they had put that, a keg of water, some fishing-lines, and a pan of +mussels for bait, on board, they were ready to sail, and wished their +friends a light good-bye, leaving them to imagine they were gone but +for a day or two, probably on some business of Mr Crathie’s.</p> + +<p>With the wind from the north-west, they soon reached Duff Harbour, +where Malcolm went on shore and saw Mr Soutar. He, with a landsman’s +prejudice, made strenuous objections to such a mad prank as sailing to +London at that time of the year, but in vain. Malcolm saw nothing mad +in it, and the lawyer had to admit he ought to know best. He brought +on board with him a lad of Peter’s acquaintance, and now fully manned, +they set sail again, and by the time the sun appeared were not far from +Peterhead.</p> + +<p>Malcolm’s spirits kept rising as they bowled along over the bright cold +waters. He never felt so capable as when at sea. His energies had been +first called out in combat with the elements, and hence he always felt +strongest, most at home, and surest of himself on the water. Young +as he was, however, such had been his training under Mr Graham, that +a large part of this elevation of spirit was owing to an unreasoned +sense of being there more immediately in the hands of God. Later in +life, he interpreted the mental condition thus—that of course he was +always and in every place equally in God’s hands, but that at sea he +felt the truth more keenly. Where a man has nothing firm under him, +where his life depends on winds invisible and waters unstable, where +a single movement may be death, he learns to feel what is at the same +time just as true every night he spends asleep in the bed in which +generations have slept before him, or any sunny hour he spends walking +over ancestral acres.</p> + +<p>They put in at Peterhead, purchased a few provisions, and again set +sail.</p> + +<p>And now it seemed to Malcolm that he must soon come to a conclusion +as to the steps he must take when he reached London. But think as +he would, he could plan nothing beyond finding out where his sister +lived, going to look at the house, and getting into it if he might. +Nor could his companion help him with any suggestions, and indeed he +could not talk much with him because of the presence of Davy, a rough, +round-eyed, red-haired young Scot, of the dull invaluable class that +can only do what they are told, but do that to the extent of their +faculty.</p> + +<p>They knew all the coast as far as the Frith of Forth; after that they +had to be more careful. They had no charts on board, nor could have +made much use of any. But the wind continued favourable, and the +weather cold, bright, and full of life. They spoke many coasters on +their way, and received many directions.</p> + +<p>Off the Nore they had rough weather, and had to stand off and on for +a day and a night till it moderated. Then they spoke a fishing boat, +took a pilot on board, and were soon in smooth water. More and more +they wondered as the channel narrowed, and ended their voyage at length +below London Bridge, in a very jungle of masts.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.<br><span class="small">LONDON STREETS.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Leaving Davy to keep the sloop, the two fishermen went on shore. +Passing from the narrow precincts of the river, they found themselves +at once in the roar of London city. Stunned at first, then excited, +then bewildered, then dazed, without plan to guide their steps, they +wandered about until, unused to the hard stones, their feet ached. It +was a dull day in March. A keen wind blew round the corners of the +streets. They wished themselves at sea again.</p> + +<p>“Sic a sicht o’ fowk!” said Blue Peter.</p> + +<p>“It’s hard to think,” rejoined Malcolm, “what w’y the God ’at made them +can luik efter them a’ in sic a tumult. But they say even the sheep-dog +kens ilk sheep i’ the flock ’at’s gien him in chairge.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, but ye see,” said Blue Peter, “they’re mair like a shoal o’ +herrin’ nor a flock o’ sheep.”</p> + +<p>“It’s no the num’er o’ them ’at plagues me,” said Malcolm. “The gran’ +diffeeculty is hoo He can lat ilk ane tak his ain gait an’ yet luik +efter them a’. But gien He does ’t, it stan’s to rizzon it maun be in +some w’y ’at them ’at’s sae luikit efter canna by ony possibeelity +un’erstan’.”</p> + +<p>“That’s trowth, I’m thinkin’. We maun jist gi’e up an’ confess there’s +things abune a’ human comprehension.”</p> + +<p>“Wha kens but that may be ’cause i’ their verra natur’ they’re ower +semple for craturs like hiz ’at’s made sae mixed-like, an’ see sae +little intill the hert o’ things?”</p> + +<p>“Ye’re ayont me there,” said Blue Peter, and a silence followed.</p> + +<p>It was a conversation very unsuitable to London Streets—but then these +were raw Scotch fisherman, who had not yet learned how absurd it is to +suppose ourselves come from anything greater than ourselves, and had no +conception of the liberty it confers on a man to know that he is the +child of a protoplasm, or something still more beautifully small.</p> + +<p>At length a policeman directed them to a Scotch eating-house, where +they fared after their country’s fashions, and from the landlady +gathered directions by which to guide themselves towards Curzon Street, +a certain number in which Mr Soutar had given Malcolm as Lady Bellair’s +address.</p> + +<p>The door was opened to Malcolm’s knock by a slatternly charwoman, who, +unable to understand a word he said, would, but for its fine frank +expression, have shut the door in his face. From the expression of +hers, however, Malcolm suddenly remembered that he must speak English, +and having a plentiful store of the book sort, he at once made himself +intelligible in spite of tone and accent. It was, however, only a +shifting of the difficulty, for he now found it nearly impossible to +understand her. But by repeated questioning and hard listening he +learnt at last that Lady Bellair had removed her establishment to Lady +Lossie’s house in Portland Place.</p> + +<p>After many curious perplexities, odd blunders, and vain endeavours to +understand shop signs and notices in the windows; after they had again +and again imagined themselves back at a place they had left miles +away; after many a useless effort to lay hold of directions given +so rapidly that the very sense could not gather the sounds, they at +length stood—not in Portland Place, but in front of Westminster Abbey. +Inquiring what it was, and finding they could go in, they entered.</p> + +<p>For some moments not a word was spoken between them, but when they +had walked slowly half-way up the nave, Malcolm turned and said, “Eh, +Peter! sic a blessin’!” and Peter replied, “There canna be muckle o’ +this i’ the warl’!”</p> + +<p>Comparing impressions afterwards, Peter said that the moment he stepped +in, he heard the rush of the tide on the rocks of Scaurnose; and +Malcolm declared he felt as if he had stepped out of the world into the +regions of eternal silence.</p> + +<p>“What a mercy it maun be,” he went on, “to mony a cratur, in sic a +whummle an’ a rum’le an’ a remish as this Lon’on, to ken ’at there is +sic a cave howkit oot o’ the din, ’at he can gang intill an’ say his +prayers intill! Man, Peter! I’m jist some feared whiles ’at the verra +din i’ my lugs mayna ’maist drive the thoucht o’ God oot o’ me.”</p> + +<p>At length they found their way into Regent Street, and leaving its mean +assertion behind, reached the stately modesty of Portland Place; and +Malcolm was pleased to think the house he sought was one of those he +now saw.</p> + +<p>It was one of the largest in the Place. He would not, however, yield +to the temptation to have a good look at it, for fear of attracting +attention from its windows and being recognised. They turned therefore +aside into some of the smaller thoroughfares lying between Portland +Place and Great Portland Street, where searching about, they came upon +a decent-looking public house and inquired after lodgings. They were +directed to a woman in the neighbourhood, who kept a dingy little +curiosity-shop. On payment of a week’s rent in advance, she allowed +them a small bedroom. But Malcolm did not want Peter with him that +night; he wished to be perfectly free; and besides it was more than +desirable that Peter should go and look after the boat and the boy.</p> + +<p>Left alone he fell once more to his hitherto futile scheming: How was +he to get near his sister? To the whitest of lies he had insuperable +objection, and if he appeared before her with no reason to give, would +she not be far too offended with his presumption to retain him in her +service? And except he could be near her as her servant, he did not see +a chance of doing anything for her without disclosing facts which might +make all such service as he would most gladly render her impossible, +by causing her to hate the very sight of him. Plan after plan rose and +passed from his mind rejected, and the only resolution he could come to +was to write to Mr Soutar, to whom he had committed the protection of +Kelpie, to send her up by the first smack from Aberdeen. He did so, and +wrote also to Miss Horn, telling her where he was, then went out, and +made his way back to Portland Place.</p> + +<p>Night had closed in, and thick vapours hid the moon, but lamps and +lighted windows illuminated the wide street. Presently it began +to snow. But through the snow and the night went carriages in all +directions, with great lamps that turned the flakes into white stars +for a moment as they gleamed past. The hoofs of the horses echoed hard +from the firm road.</p> + +<p>Could that house really belong to him? It did, yet he dared not enter +it. That which was dear and precious to him was in the house, and just +because of that he could not call it his own. There was less light +in it than in any other within his range. He walked up and down the +opposite side of the street its whole length some fifty times, but saw +no sign of vitality about the house. At length a brougham stopped at +the door, and a man got out and knocked. Malcolm instantly crossed, but +could not see his face. The door opened, and he entered. The brougham +waited. After about a quarter of an hour he came out again, accompanied +by two ladies, one of whom he judged by her figure to be Florimel. They +all got into the carriage, and Malcolm braced himself for a terrible +run. But the coachman drove carefully, the snow lay a few inches deep, +and he found no difficulty in keeping near them, following with fleet +foot and husbanded breath.</p> + +<p>They stopped at the doors of a large dark-looking building in a narrow +street. He thought it was a church, and wondered that so his sister +should be going there on a week night. Nor did the aspect of the +entrance hall, into which he followed them, undeceive him. It was more +showy, certainly, than the vestibule of any church he had ever been +in before, but what might not churches be in London? They went up a +great flight of stairs—to reach the gallery, as he thought, and still +he went after them. When he reached the top, they were just vanishing +round a curve, and his advance was checked: a man came up to him, said +he could not come there, and gruffly requested him to show his ticket.</p> + +<p>“I haven’t got one. What is this place?” said Malcolm, whom the aspect +of the man had suddenly rendered doubtful, mouthing his English with +Scotch deliberation.</p> + +<p>The man gave him a look of contemptuous surprise, and turning to +another who lounged behind him with his hands in his pockets, said—</p> + +<p>“Tom, here’s a gentleman as wants to know where he is: can you tell +him?”</p> + +<p>The person addressed laughed, and gave Malcolm a queer look.</p> + +<p>“Every cock crows on his own midden,” said Malcolm, “but if I were on +mine, I would try to be civil.”</p> + +<p>“You go down there, and pay for a pit ticket, and you’ll soon know +where you are, mate,” said Tom.</p> + +<p>He obeyed, and after a few inquiries, and the outlay of two shillings, +found himself in the pit of one of the largest of the London theatres.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.<br><span class="small">THE TEMPEST.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The play was begun, and the stage was the centre of light. Thither +Malcolm’s eyes were drawn the instant he entered. He was all but +unaware of the multitude of faces about him, and his attention was +at once fascinated by the lovely show revealed in soft radiance. But +surely he had seen the vision before! One long moment its effect +upon him was as real as if he had been actually deceived as to +its nature: was it not the shore between Scaurnose and Portlossie, +betwixt the Boar’s Tail and the sea? and was not that the marquis, +his father, in his dressing gown, pacing to and fro upon the +sands? He yielded himself to illusion—abandoned himself to the +wonderful, and looked only for what would come next.</p> + +<p>A lovely lady entered: to his excited fancy it was Florimel. A +moment more and she spoke.</p> + +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If by your art, my dearest father, you have</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.</span><br> +</p> + +<p>Then first he understood that before him rose in wondrous realization +the play of Shakspere he knew best—the first he had ever read: _The +Tempest_, hitherto a lovely phantom for the mind’s eye, now embodied +to the enraptured sense. During the whole of the first act he never +thought either of Miranda or Florimel apart. At the same time so taken +was he with the princely carriage and utterance of Ferdinand that, +though with a sigh, he consented he should have his sister.</p> + +<p>The drop-scene had fallen for a minute or two before he began to look +around him. A moment more and he had commenced a thorough search for +his sister amongst the ladies in the boxes. But when at length he found +her, he dared not fix his eyes upon her lest his gaze should make +her look at him, and she should recognise him. Alas, her eyes might +have rested on him twenty times without his face once rousing in her +mind the thought of the fisher-lad of Portlossie! All that had passed +between them in the days already old was virtually forgotten.</p> + +<p>By degrees he gathered courage, and soon began to feel that there was +small chance indeed of her eyes alighting upon him for the briefest of +moments. Then he looked more closely, and felt through rather than saw +with his eyes that some sort of change had already passed upon her. It +was Florimel, yet not the very Florimel he had known. Already something +had begun to supplant the girl-freedom that had formerly in every look +and motion asserted itself. She was more beautiful, but not so lovely +in his eyes; much of what had charmed him had vanished. She was more +stately, but the stateliness had a little hardness mingled with it: +and could it be that the first of a cloud had already gathered on her +forehead? Surely she was not so happy as she had been at Lossie House. +She was dressed in black, with a white flower in her hair.</p> + +<p>Beside her sat the bold-faced countess, and behind them her nephew, +Lord Meikleham that was now Lord Liftore. A fierce indignation seized +the heart of Malcolm at the sight. Behind the form of the earl, his +mind’s eye saw that of Lizzy, out in the wind on the Boar’s Tail, her +old shawl wrapped about herself and the child of the man who sat there +so composed and comfortable. His features were fine and clear-cut, +his shoulders broad, and his head well set: he had much improved +since Malcolm offered to fight him with one hand in the dining-room +of Lossie House. Every now and then he leaned forward between his +aunt and Florimel, and spoke to the latter. To Malcolm’s eyes she +seemed to listen with some haughtiness. Now and then she cast him an +indifferent glance. Malcolm was pleased: Lord Liftore was anything but +the Ferdinand to whom he could consent to yield his Miranda. They would +make a fine couple certainly, but for any other fitness, knowing what +he did, Malcolm was glad to perceive none. The more annoyed was he when +once or twice he fancied he caught a look between them that indicated +more than acquaintanceship— some sort of intimacy at least. But he +reflected that in the relation in which they stood to Lady Bellair it +could hardly be otherwise.</p> + +<p>The play was tolerably well put upon the stage, and free of the +absurdities attendant upon too ambitious an endeavour to represent +to the sense things which Shakspere and the dramatists of his period +freely committed to their best and most powerful ally, the willing +imagination of the spectators. The opening of the last scene, where +Ferdinand and Miranda are discovered at chess, was none the less +effective for its simplicity, and Malcolm was turning from a delighted +gaze at its loveliness to glance at his sister and her companions, when +his eyes fell on a face near him in the pit which had fixed an absorbed +regard in the same direction. It was that of a man a few years older +than himself, with irregular features, but a fine mouth, large chin; +and great forehead. Under the peculiarly prominent eyebrows shone dark +eyes of wondrous brilliancy and seeming penetration. Malcolm could not +but suspect that his gaze was upon his sister, but as they were a long +way from the boxes, he could not be certain. Once he thought he saw her +look at him, but of that also he could be in no wise certain.</p> + +<p>He knew the play so well that he rose just in time to reach the +pit-door ere exit should be impeded with the outcomers, and thence with +some difficulty he found his way to the foot of the stair up which +those he watched had gone. There he had stood but a little while, when +he saw in front of him, almost within reach of an outstretched hand, +the same young man waiting also. After what seemed a long time, he saw +his sister and her two companions come slowly down the stair in the +descending crowd. Her eyes seemed searching amongst the multitude that +filled the lobby. Presently an indubitable glance of still recognition +passed between them, and by a slight movement the young man placed +himself so that she must pass next him in the crowd. Malcolm got one +place nearer in the change, and thought they grasped hands. She turned +her head slightly back, and seemed to put a question—with her lips +only. He replied in the same manner. A light rushed into her face and +vanished. But not a feature moved and not a word had been spoken. +Neither of her companions had seen the dumb show, and her friend stood +where he was till they had left the house. Malcolm stood also, much +inclined to follow him when he went, but, his attention having been +attracted for a moment in another direction, when he looked again he +had disappeared. He sought him where he fancied he saw the movement +of his vanishing, but was soon convinced of the uselessness of the +attempt, and walked home.</p> + +<p>Before he reached his lodging, he had resolved on making trial of a +plan which had more than once occurred to him, but had as often been +rejected as too full of the risk of repulse.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.<br><span class="small">DEMON AND THE PIPES.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>His plan was to watch the house until he saw some entertainment going +on, then present himself as if he had but just arrived from her +ladyship’s country seat. At such a time no one would acquaint her with +his appearance, and he would, as if it were but a matter of course, at +once take his share in waiting on the guests. By this means he might +perhaps get her a little accustomed to his presence before she could be +at leisure to challenge it.</p> + +<p>When he put Kelpie in her stall the last time for a season, and ran +into the house to get his plaid for Lizzy, who was waiting him near +the tunnel, he bethought himself that he had better take with him also +what other of his personal requirements he could carry. He looked about +therefore, and finding a large carpet-bag in one of the garret rooms, +hurried into it some of his clothes—amongst them the Highland dress he +had worn as henchman to the marquis, and added the great Lossie pipes +his father had given to old Duncan as well, but which the piper had +not taken with him when he left Lossie House. The said Highland dress +he now resolved to put on, as that in which latterly Florimel had been +most used to see him: in it he would watch his opportunity of gaining +admission to the house.</p> + +<p>The next morning Blue Peter made his appearance early. They went +out together, spent the day in sight-seeing, and, on Malcolm’s part +chiefly, in learning the topography of London.</p> + +<p>In Hyde Park Malcolm told his friend that he had sent for Kelpie.</p> + +<p>“She’ll be the deid o’ ye i’ thae streets, as fu’ o’ wheels as the sea +o’ fish: twize I’ve been ’maist gr’un to poother o’ my ro’d here,” said +Peter.</p> + +<p>“Ay, but ye see, oot here amo’ the gentry it’s no freely sae ill, an’ +the ro’ds are no a’ stane; an’ here, ye see, ’s the place whaur they +come, leddies an’ a’, to ha’e their rides thegither. What I’m fleyt for +is ’at she’ll be brackin’ legs wi’ her deevilich kickin’.”</p> + +<p>“Haud her upo’ dry strae an’ watter for a whilie, till her banes begin +to cry oot for something to hap them frae the cauld: that’ll quaiet her +a bit,” said Peter.</p> + +<p>“It’s a’ ye ken!” returned Malcolm. “She’s aye the wau-natur’d, the +less she has to ate. Na, na; she maun be weel lined. The deevil in her +maun lie warm, or she’ll be neither to haud nor bin’. There’s nae doobt +she’s waur to haud in whan she’s in guid condeetion; but she’s nane sae +like to tak a body by the sma’ o’ the back, an’ shak the inside oot o’ +’im, as she maist did ae day to the herd-laddie at the ferm, only he +had an auld girth aboot the mids o’ ’im for a belt, an’ he tuik the +less scaith.”</p> + +<p>“Cudna we gang an’ see the maister the day?” said Blue Peter, changing +the subject.</p> + +<p>He meant Mr Graham, the late schoolmaster of Portlossie, whom the +charge of heretical teaching had driven from the place.</p> + +<p>“We canna weel du that till we hear whaur he is. The last time Miss +Horn h’ard frae him, he was changin’ his lodgin’s, an’ ye see the kin’ +o’ a place this Lon’on is,” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>As soon as Peter was gone to return to the boat, Malcolm dressed +himself in his kilt and its belongings, and when it was fairly dusk, +took his pipes under his arm, and set out for Portland Place. He +had the better hope of speedy success to his plan, that he fancied +he had read on his sister’s lips, in the silent communication that +passed between her and her friend in the crowd, the words <i>come</i> and +<i>to-morrow</i>. It might have been the merest imagination, yet it was +something: how often have we not to be grateful for shadows! Up and +down the street he walked a long time, without seeing a sign of life +about the house. But at length the hall was lighted. Then the door +opened, and a servant rolled out a carpet over the wide pavement, which +the snow had left wet and miry—a signal for the street children, +ever on the outlook for sights, to gather. Before the first carriage +arrived, there was already a little crowd of humble watchers and +waiters about the gutter and curb-stone. But they were not destined to +much amusement that evening, the visitors amounting only to a small +dinner-party. Still they had the pleasure of seeing a few grand ladies +issue from their carriages, cross the stage of their Epiphany, the +pavement, and vanish in the paradise of the shining hall, with its +ascent of gorgeous stairs. No broken steps, no missing balusters there! +And they have the show all for nothing! It is one of the perquisites of +street-service. What one would give to see the shapes glide over the +field of those cameræ obscuræ, the hearts of the street Arabs! once to +gaze on the jewelled beauties through the eyes of those shocked-haired +girls! I fancy they do not often begrudge them what they possess, +except perhaps when feature or hair or motion chances to remind them of +some one of their own people, and they feel wronged and indignant that +<i>she</i> should flaunt in such splendour, “when <i>our Sally</i> would set off +grand clothes so much better!” It is neither the wealth nor the general +consequence it confers that they envy, but, as I imagine, the power of +making a show—of living in the eyes and knowledge of neighbours for a +few radiant moments: nothing is so pleasant to ordinary human nature +as to know itself by its reflection from others. When it turns from +these warped and broken mirrors to seek its reflection in the divine +thought, then it is redeemed; then it beholds itself in the perfect law +of liberty.</p> + +<p>Before he became himself an object of curious interest to the crowd +he was watching, Malcolm had come to the same conclusion with many a +philosopher and observer of humanity before him—that on the whole the +rags are inhabited by the easier hearts; and he would have arrived at +the conclusion with more certainty but for the <i>high</i> training that +cuts off intercourse between heart and face.</p> + +<p>When some time had elapsed, and no more carriages appeared, Malcolm, +judging the dinner must now be in full vortex, rang the bell of the +front door. It was opened by a huge footman, whose head was so small in +proportion that his body seemed to have absorbed it. Malcolm would have +stepped in at once, and told what of his tale he chose at his leisure; +but the servant, who had never seen the dress Malcolm wore, except on +street-beggars, with the instinct his class shares with watch-dogs, +quickly closed the door. Ere it reached the post, however, it found +Malcolm’s foot between.</p> + +<p>“Go along, Scotchy. You’re not wanted here,” said the man, pushing the +door hard. “Police is round the corner.”</p> + +<p>Now one of the weaknesses Malcolm owed to his Celtic blood was an utter +impatience of rudeness. In his own nature entirely courteous, he was +wrathful even to absurdity at the slightest suspicion of insult. But +that, in part through the influence of Mr Graham, the schoolmaster, +he had learned to keep a firm hold on the reins of action, this +foolish feeling would not unfrequently have hurried him into conduct +undignified. On the present occasion, I fear the main part of his +answer, but for the shield of the door, would have been a blow to fell +a bigger man than the one that now glared at him through the shoe-broad +opening. As it was, his words were fierce with suppressed wrath.</p> + +<p>“Open the door, an’ lat me in,” was, however, all he said.</p> + +<p>“What’s your business?” asked the man, on whom his tone had its effect.</p> + +<p>“My business is with my Lady Lossie,” said Malcolm, recovering his +English, which was one step towards mastering, if not recovering, his +temper.</p> + +<p>“You can’t see her. She’s at dinner.”</p> + +<p>“Let me in, and I’ll wait. I come from Lossie House.”</p> + +<p>“Take away your foot and I’ll go and see,” said the man.</p> + +<p>“No. You open the door,” returned Malcolm.</p> + +<p>The man’s answer was an attempt to kick his foot out of the doorway. If +he were to let in a tramp, what would the butler say?</p> + +<p>But thereupon Malcolm set his port-vent to his mouth, rapidly filled +his bag, while the man stared as if it were a petard with which he was +about to blow the door to shivers, and then sent from the instrument +such a shriek, as it galloped off into the Lossie Gathering, that +involuntarily his adversary pressed both hands to his ears. With a +sudden application of his knee Malcolm sent the door wide, and entered +the hall, with his pipes in full cry. The house resounded with their +yell—but only for one moment. For down the stair, like bolt from +catapult, came Demon, Florimel’s huge Irish stag-hound, and springing +on Malcolm, put an instant end to his music. The footman laughed with +exultation, expecting to see him torn to pieces. But when instead +he saw the fierce animal, a foot on each of his shoulders, licking +Malcolm’s face with long fiery tongue, he began to doubt.</p> + +<p>“The dog knows you,” he said sulkily.</p> + +<p>“So shall you, before long,” returned Malcolm. “Was it my fault that I +made the mistake of looking for civility from you? One word to the dog, +and he has you by the throat.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go and fetch Wallis,” said the man, and closing the door, left +the hall.</p> + +<p>Now this Wallis had been a fellow-servant of Malcolm’s at Lossie House, +but he did not know that he had gone with Lady Bellair when she took +Florimel away: almost everyone had left at the same time. He was now +glad indeed to learn that there was one amongst the servants who knew +him.</p> + +<p>Wallis presently made his appearance, with a dish in his hands, on his +way to the dining-room, from which came the confused noises of the +feast.</p> + +<p>“You’ll be come up to wait on Lady Lossie,” he said. “I haven’t a +moment to speak to you now, for we’re at dinner, and there’s a party.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind me. Give me that dish; I’ll take it in: you can go for +another,” said Malcolm, laying his pipes in a safe spot.</p> + +<p>“You can’t go into the dining-room that figure,” said Wallis, who was +in the Bellair livery.</p> + +<p>“This is how I waited on my lord,” returned Malcolm, “and this is how +I’ll wait on my lady.”</p> + +<p>Wallis hesitated. But there was that about the fisher-fellow was too +much for him. As he spoke, Malcolm took the dish from his hands, and +with it walked into the dining-room.</p> + +<p>There one reconnoitring glance was sufficient. The butler was at the +sideboard opening a champagne bottle. He had cut wire and strings, +and had his hand on the cork as Malcolm walked up to him. It was a +critical moment, yet he stopped in the very article, and stared at the +apparition.</p> + +<p>“I’m Lady Lossie’s man from Lossie House. I’ll help you to wait,” said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>To the eyes of the butler he looked a savage. But there he was in the +room with the dish in his hands, and speaking at least intelligibly; +the cork of the champagne bottle was pushing hard against his palm, and +he had no time to question. He peeped into Malcolm’s dish.</p> + +<p>“Take it round, then,” he said. So Malcolm settled into the business of +the hour.</p> + +<p>It was some time, after he knew where she was, before he ventured to +look at his sister: he would have her already familiarised with his +presence before their eyes met. That crisis did not arrive during +dinner.</p> + +<p>Lord Liftore was one of the company, and so, to Malcolm’s pleasure, +for he felt in him an ally against the earl, was Florimel’s mysterious +friend.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.<br><span class="small">A NEW LIVERY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Scarcely had the ladies gone to the drawing-room, when Florimel’s maid, +who knew Malcolm, came in quest of him. Lady Lossie desired to see him.</p> + +<p>“What is the meaning of this, MacPhail?” she said, when he entered the +room where she sat alone. “I did not send for you. Indeed, I thought +you had been dismissed with the rest of the servants.”</p> + +<p>How differently she spoke! And she used to call him <i>Malcolm</i>! The girl +Florimel was gone, and there sat—the marchioness, was it? —or some +phase of riper womanhood only? It mattered little to Malcolm. He was no +curious student of man or woman. He loved his kind too well to study +it. But one thing seemed plain: she had forgotten the half friendship +and whole service that had had place betwixt them, and it made him feel +as if the soul of man no less than his life were but as a vapour that +appeareth for a little and then vanisheth away.</p> + +<p>But Florimel had not so entirely forgotten the past as Malcolm +thought—not so entirely at least but that his appearance, and certain +difficulties in which she had begun to find herself, brought something +of it again to her mind.</p> + +<p>“I thought,” said Malcolm, assuming his best English, “your ladyship +might not choose to part with an old servant at the will of a factor, +and so took upon me to appeal to your ladyship to decide the question.”</p> + +<p>“But how is that? Did you not return to your fishing when the household +was broken up?”</p> + +<p>“No, my lady. Mr Crathie kept me to help Stoat, and do odd jobs about +the place.”</p> + +<p>“And now he wants to discharge you?”</p> + +<p>Then Malcolm told her the whole story, in which he gave such a +description of Kelpie, that her owner, as she imagined herself, +expressed a strong wish to see her; for Florimel was almost +passionately fond of horses.</p> + +<p>“You may soon do that, my lady,” said Malcolm. “Mr Soutar, not being +of the same mind as Mr Crathie, is going to send her up. It will be +but the cost of the passage from Aberdeen, and she will fetch a better +price here if your ladyship should resolve to part with her. She won’t +fetch the third of her value anywhere, though, on account of her bad +temper and ugly tricks.”</p> + +<p>“But as to yourself, MacPhail—where are you going to go?” said +Florimel. “I don’t like to send you away, but, if I keep you, I don’t +know what to do with you. No doubt you could serve in the house, but +that would not be suitable at all to your education and previous life.”</p> + +<p>“A body wad tak you for a granny grown!” said Malcolm to himself. But +to Florimel he replied—“If your ladyship should wish to keep Kelpie, +you will have to keep me too, for not a creature else will she let near +her.”</p> + +<p>“And pray tell me what use then can I make of such an animal,” said +Florimel.</p> + +<p>“Your ladyship, I should imagine, will want a groom to attend you when +you are out on horseback, and the groom will want a horse— and here am +I and Kelpie!” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Florimel laughed.</p> + +<p>“I see,” she said. “You contrive I shall have a horse nobody can manage +but yourself.”</p> + +<p>She rather liked the idea of a groom so mounted, and had too much +well-justified faith in Malcolm to anticipate dangerous results.</p> + +<p>“My lady,” said Malcolm, appealing to her knowledge of his character to +secure credit, for he was about to use his last means of persuasion, +and as he spoke, in his eagerness he relapsed into his mother +tongue,—“My lady, did I ever tell ye a lee?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not, Malcolm, so far as I know. Indeed I am sure you never +did,” answered Florimel, looking up at him in a dominant yet kindly way.</p> + +<p>“Then,” continued Malcolm, “I’ll tell your ladyship something you +may find hard to believe, and yet is as true as that I loved your +ladyship’s father.—Your ladyship knows he had a kindness for me.”</p> + +<p>“I do know it,” answered Florimel gently, moved by the tone of +Malcolm’s voice, and the expression of his countenance.</p> + +<p>“Then I make bold to tell your ladyship that on his deathbed your +father desired me to do my best for you—took my word that I would be +your ladyship’s true servant.”</p> + +<p>“Is it so, indeed, Malcolm?” returned Florimel, with a serious wonder +in her tone, and looked him in the face with an earnest gaze. She had +loved her father, and it sounded in her ears almost like a message from +the tomb.</p> + +<p>“It’s as true as I stan’ here, my leddy,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Florimel was silent for a moment. Then she said, “How is it that only +now you come to tell me?”</p> + +<p>“Your father never desired me to tell you, my lady—only he never +imagined you would want to part with me, I suppose. But when you did +not care to keep me, and never said a word to me when you went away, +I could not tell how to do as I had promised him. It wasn’t that one +hour I forgot his wish, but that I feared to presume; for if I should +displease your ladyship my chance was gone. So I kept about Lossie +House as long as I could, hoping to see my way to some plan or other. +But when at length Mr Crathie turned me away, what was I to do but come +to your ladyship? And if your ladyship will let things be as before +in the way of service, I mean—I canna doot, my leddy, but it’ll be +pleesant i’ the sicht o’ yer father, whanever he may come to ken o’ ’t, +my leddy.”</p> + +<p>Florimel gave him a strange, half-startled look. Hardly more than once +since her father’s funeral had she heard him alluded to, and now this +fisher-lad spoke of him as if he were still at Lossie House.</p> + +<p>Malcolm understood the look.</p> + +<p>“Ye mean, my leddy—I ken what ye mean,” he said. “I canna help it. For +to lo’e onything is to ken ’t immortal. He’s livin’ to me, my leddy.”</p> + +<p>Florimel continued staring, and still said nothing.</p> + +<p>I sometimes think that the present belief in mortality is nothing but +the almost universal although unsuspected unbelief in immortality grown +vocal and articulate.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm gathered courage and went on,</p> + +<p>“An’ what for no, my leddy?” he said, floundering no more in attempted +English, but soaring on the clumsy wings of his mother-dialect. “Didna +he turn his face to the licht afore he dee’d? an’ him ’at rase frae +the deid said ’at whaever believed in him sud never dee. Sae we maun +believe ’at he’s livin’, for gien we dinna believe what <i>he</i> says, what +<i>are</i> we to believe, my leddy?”</p> + +<p>Florimel continued yet a moment looking him fixedly in the face. The +thought did arise that perhaps he had lost his reason, but she could +not look at him thus and even imagine it. She remembered how strange +he had always been, and for a moment had a glimmering idea that in +this young man’s friendship she possessed an incorruptible treasure. +The calm, truthful, believing, almost for the moment enthusiastic, +expression of the young fisherman’s face wrought upon her with a +strangely quieting influence. It was as if one spoke to her out of a +region of existence of which she had never even heard, but in whose +reality she was compelled to believe because of the sound of the voice +that came from it.</p> + +<p>Malcolm seldom made the mistake of stamping into the earth any seeds of +truth he might cast on it: he knew when to say no more, and for a time +neither spoke. But now for all the coolness of her upper crust, Lady +Florimel’s heart glowed—not indeed with the power of the shining truth +Malcolm had uttered, but with the light of gladness in the possession +of such a strong, devoted, disinterested squire.</p> + +<p>“I wish you to understand,” she said at length, “that I am not at +present mistress of this house, although it belongs to me. I am but +the guest of Lady Bellair who has rented it of my guardians. I cannot +therefore arrange for you to be here. But you can find accommodation +in the neighbourhood, and come to me every day for orders. Let me know +when your mare arrives: I shall not want you till then. You will find +room for her in the stables. You had better consult the butler about +your groom’s-livery.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm was astonished at the womanly sufficiency with which she gave +her orders. He left her with the gladness of one who has had his +righteous desire, held consultation with the butler on the matter +of the livery, and went home to his lodging. There he sat down and +meditated.</p> + +<p>A strange new yearning pity rose in his heart as he thought about his +sister and the sad facts of her lonely condition. He feared much that +her stately composure was built mainly on her imagined position in +society, and was not the outcome of her character. Would it be cruelty +to destroy that false foundation, hardly the more false as a foundation +for composure that beneath it lay a mistake? —or was it not rather +a justice which her deeper and truer self had a right to demand of +him? At present, however, he need not attempt to answer the question. +Communication even such as a trusted groom might have with her, and +familiarity with her surroundings, would probably reveal much. Meantime +it was enough that he would now be so near her that no important change +of which others might be aware, could well approach her without his +knowledge, or anything take place without his being able to interfere +if necessary.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.<br><span class="small">TWO CONVERSATIONS.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The next day Wallis came to see Malcolm and take him to the tailor’s. +They talked about the guests of the previous evening.</p> + +<p>“There’s a great change on Lord Meikleham,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“There is that,” said Wallis. “I consider him much improved. But +you see he’s succeeded; he’s the earl now, and Lord Liftore—and a +menseful, broad-shouldered man to the boot of the bargain. He used to +be such a windle-straw!”</p> + +<p>In order to speak good English, Wallis now and then, like some Scotch +people of better education, anglicized a word ludicrously.</p> + +<p>“Is there no news of his marriage?” asked Malcolm, adding, “they say he +has great property.”</p> + +<p>“My love she’s but a lassie yet,” said Wallis, “—though she too has +changed quite as much as my lord.”</p> + +<p>“Who are you speaking of?” asked Malcolm, anxious to hear the talk of +the household on the matter.</p> + +<p>“Why, Lady Lossie, of course. Anybody with half an eye can see as much +as that.”</p> + +<p>“Is it settled then?”</p> + +<p>“That would be hard to say. Her ladyship is too like her father: no one +can tell what may be her mind the next minute. But, as I say, she’s +young, and ought to have her fling first—so far, that is, as we can +permit it to a woman of her rank. Still, as I say, anybody with half +an eye can see the end of it all: he’s for ever hovering about her. My +lady, too, has set her mind on it, and for my part I can’t see what +better she can do. I must say I approve of the match. I can see no +possible objection to it.”</p> + +<p>“We used to think he drank too much,” suggested Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Claret,” said Wallis, in a tone that seemed to imply no one could +drink too much of that.</p> + +<p>“No, not claret only. I’ve seen the whisky follow the claret.”</p> + +<p>“Well, he don’t now—not whisky at least. He don’t drink too much—not +much too much—not more than a gentleman should. He don’t look like +it—does he now? A good wife, such as my Lady Lossie will make him, +will soon set him all right. I think of taking a similar protection +myself, one of these days.”</p> + +<p>“He is not worthy of her,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Well, I confess his family won’t compare with hers. There’s a +grandfather in it somewhere that was a banker or a brewer or a soap +boiler, or something of the sort, and she and her people have been +earls and marquises ever since they walked arm in arm out of the ark. +But, bless you! all that’s been changed since I came to town. So long +as there’s plenty of money and the mind to spend it, we have learned +not to be exclusive. It’s selfish that. It’s not Christian. Everything +lies in the mind to spend it though. Mrs Tredger— that’s our +lady’s-maid—only this is a secret—says it’s all settled—she knows it +for certain fact—only there’s nothing to be said about it yet—she’s +so young, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Who was the man that sat nearly opposite my lady, on the other side of +the table?” asked Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“I know who you mean. Didn’t look as if he’d got any business there +—not like the rest of them, did he? No, they never do. Odd and end +sort of people like he is, never do look the right thing— let them try +ever so hard. How can they when they ain’t it? That’s a fellow that’s +painting Lady Lossie’s portrait! Why he should be asked to dinner for +that, I’m sure I can’t tell. He ain’t paid for it in victuals, is he? +I never saw such land leapers let into Lossie House, <i>I</i> know! But +London’s an awful place. There’s no such a thing as respect of persons +here. Here you meet the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, any +night in my lady’s drawing-room. I declare to <i>you</i>, Mawlcolm MacPhail, +it makes me quite uncomfortable at times to think who I may have been +waiting upon without knowing it. For that painter-fellow, Lenorme they +call him, I could knock him on the teeth with the dish every time I +hold it to him. And to see him stare at Lady Lossie as he does!”</p> + +<p>“A painter must want to get a right good hold of the face he’s got to +paint,” said Malcolm. “Is he here often?”</p> + +<p>“He’s been here five or six times already,” answered Wallis, “and how +many times more I may have to fill his glass, I don’t know. <i>I</i> always +give him second-best sherry, <i>I</i> know. I’m sure the time that pictur’s +been on hand! He ought to be ashamed of himself. If she’s been once +to his studio, she’s been twenty times—to give him sittings, as they +call it. He’s making a pretty penny of it, I’ll be bound! I wonder he +has the cheek to show himself when my lady treats him so haughtily. But +those sort of people have no proper feelin’s, you see: it’s not to be +expected of such.”</p> + +<p>Wallis liked the sound of his own sentences, and a great deal more talk +of similar character followed before they got back from the tailor’s. +Malcolm was tired enough of him, and never felt the difference between +man and man more strongly than when, after leaving him, he set out +for a walk with Blue Peter, whom he found waiting him at his lodging. +On this same Blue Peter, however, Wallis would have looked down +from the height of his share of the marquisate as one of the lower +orders—ignorant, vulgar, even dirty.</p> + +<p>They had already gazed together upon not a few of the marvels of +London, but nothing had hitherto moved or drawn them so much as the +ordinary flow of the currents of life through the huge city. Upon +Malcolm, however, this had now begun to pall, while Peter already +found it worse than irksome, and longed for Scaurnose. At the same +time loyalty to Malcolm kept him from uttering a whisper of his +home-sickness. It was yet but the fourth day they had been in London.</p> + +<p>“Eh, my lord!” said Blue Peter, when by chance they found themselves +in the lull of a little quiet court, somewhere about Gray’s Inn, with +the roar of Holborn in their ears, “it’s like a month sin’ I was at the +kirk. I’m feart the din’s gotten into my heid, an’ I’ll never get it +oot again. I cud maist wuss I was a mackerel, for they tell me the fish +hears naething. I ken weel noo what ye meant, my lord, whan ye said ye +dreidit the din micht gar ye forget yer Macker.”</p> + +<p>“I hae been wussin’ sair mysel’, this last twa days,” responded +Malcolm, “’at I cud get ae sicht o’ the jaws clashin’ upo’ the +Scaurnose, or rowin’ up upo’ the edge o’ the links. The din o’ natur’ +never troubles the guid thouchts in ye. I reckon it’s ’cause it’s a +kin’ o’ a harmony in ’tsel’, an’ a harmony’s jist, as the maister used +to say, a higher kin’ o’ a peace. Yon organ ’at we hearkent till ae day +ootside the kirk, ye min’—man, it was a quaietness in ’tsel’, and cam +throu’ the din like a bonny silence—like a lull i’ the win’ o’ this +warl’! It wasna a din at a’, but a gran’ repose like. But this noise +tumultuous o’ human strife, this din’ o’ iron shune an’ iron wheels, +this whurr and whuzz o’ buyin’ an’ sellin’ an’ gettin’ gain—it disna +help a body to their prayers.”</p> + +<p>“Eh, na, my lord! Jist think o’ the preevilege—I never saw nor thoucht +o’ ’t afore—o’ haein’ ’t i’ yer pooer, ony nicht ’at ye’re no efter +the fish, to stap oot at yer ain door, an’ be in the mids o’ the +temple! Be ’t licht or dark, be ’t foul or fair, the sea sleepin’ or +ragin’, ye ha’e aye room, an’ naething atween ye an’ the throne o’ the +Almichty, to the whilk yer prayers ken the gait, as weel ’s the herrin’ +to the shores o’ Scotlan’: ye ha’e but to lat them flee, an’ they gang +straucht there. But here ye ha’e aye to luik sae gleg efter yer boady, +’at, as ye say, my lord, yer sowl’s like to come aff the waur, gien it +binna clean forgotten.”</p> + +<p>“I doobt there’s something no richt aboot it, Peter,” returned Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“There maun be a heap no richt aboot it,” answered Peter.</p> + +<p>“Ay, but I’m no meanin’ ’t jist as ye du. I had the haill thing throu’ +my heid last nicht, an’ I canna but think there’s something wrang +wi’ a man gien he canna hear the word o’ God as weel i’ the mids o’ +a multitude no man can number, a’ made ilk ane i’ the image o’ the +Father—as weel, I say, as i’ the hert o’ win’ an’ watter an’ the lift +an’ the starns an’ a’. Ye canna say ’at thae things are a’ made i’ the +image o’ God, in the same w’y, at least, ’at ye can say ’t o’ the body +an’ face o’ a man, for throu’ them the God o’ the whole earth revealed +Himsel’ in Christ.”</p> + +<p>“Ow, weel, I wad alloo what ye say, gien they war a’ to be considered +Christi-ans.”</p> + +<p>“Ow, I grant we canna weel du that i’ the full sense, but I doobt, gien +they bena a’ Christi-ans ’at ca’s themsels that, there’s a heap mair +Christi-anity nor gets the credit o’ its ain name. I min’ weel hoo +Maister Graham said to me ance ’at hoo there was something o’ Him ’at +made him, luikin’ oot o’ the een o’ ilka man ’at he had made; an’ what +wad ye ca’ that but a scart or a straik o’ Christi-anity.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, I kenna; but ony gait I canna think it can be again’ the trowth +o’ the gospel to wuss yersel’ mair alane wi’ yer God nor ye ever can be +in sic an awfu’ Babylon o’ a place as this.”</p> + +<p>“Na, na, Peter; I’m no sayin’ that. I ken weel we’re to gang intill the +closet and shut to the door. I’m only afeart ’at there be something +wrang in mysel’ ’at taks ’t ill to be amon’ sae mony neibors. I’m +thinkin’ ’at, gien a’ was richt ’ithin me, gien I lo’ed my neibor +as the Lord wad hae them ’at lo’ed Him lo’e ilk ane his brither, I +micht be better able to pray amang them—ay, i’ the verra face o’ the +bargainin’ an’ leein’ a’ aboot me.”</p> + +<p>“An’ min’ ye,” said Peter, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, and +heedless of Malcolm’s, “’at oor Lord himsel’ bude whiles to win awa’, +even frae his dissiples, to be him-lane wi’ the Father o’ ’im.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, ye’re richt there, Peter,” answered Malcolm, “but there’s ae +p’int in ’t ye maunna forget—and that is ’at it was never i’ the +day-time—sae far ’s I min’—’at he did sae. The lee-lang day he was +among ’s fowk—workin’ his michty wark. Whan the nicht cam, in which no +man could wark, he gaed hame till ’s Father, as ’t war. Eh me! but it’s +weel to ha’e a man like the schuilmaister to put trowth intill ye. I +kenna what comes o’ them ’at ha’e drucken maisters, or sic as cares for +naething but coontin’ an Laitin, an’ the likes o’ that!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.<br><span class="small">FLORIMEL.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>That night Florimel had her thoughts as well as Malcolm. Already life +was not what it had been to her, and the feeling of a difference is +often what sets one a-thinking first. While her father lived, and the +sureness of his love over-arched her consciousness with a heaven of +safety, the physical harmony of her nature had supplied her with a more +than sufficient sense of well-being. Since his death, too, there had +been times when she even fancied an enlargement of life in the sense of +freedom and power which came with the knowledge of being a great lady, +possessed of the rare privilege of an ancient title and an inheritance +which seemed to her a yet greater wealth than it was. But she had soon +found that, as to freedom, she had less of that than before—less of +the feeling of it within her: not much freedom of any sort is to be +had without fighting for it, and she had yet to discover that the only +freedom worth the name —that of heart, and soul, and mind—is not to +be gained except through the hardest of battles. She was very lonely, +too. Lady Bellair had never assumed with her any authority, and had +always been kind even to petting, but there was nothing about her to +make a home for the girl’s heart. She felt in her no superiority, and +for a spiritual home that is essential. As she learned to know her +better, this sense of loneliness went on deepening, for she felt more +and more that her guardian was not one in whom she could place genuine +confidence, while yet her power over her was greater than she knew. The +innocent nature of the girl had begun to recoil from what she saw in +the woman of the world, and yet she had in herself worldliness enough +to render her fully susceptible of her influences. Notwithstanding her +fine health and natural spirits, Florimel had begun to know what it +is to wake suddenly of a morning between three and four, and lie for +a long weary time, sleepless. In youth bodily fatigue ensures falling +asleep, but as soon as the body is tolerably rested, if there be unrest +in the mind, that wakes it, and consciousness returns in the shape of +a dull misgiving like the far echo of the approaching trump of the +arch-angel. Indeed, those hours are as a vestibule to the great hall +of judgment, and to such as, without rendering it absolute obedience, +yet care to keep on some sort of terms with their conscience, is +a time of anything but comfort. Nor does the court in those hours +sitting, concern itself only with heavy questions of right or wrong, +but whoever loves and cares himself for his appearance before the eyes +of men, finds himself accused of paltry follies, stupidities, and +indiscretions, and punished with paltry mortifications, chagrins, and +anxieties. From such arraignment no man is free but him who walks in +the perfect law of liberty—that is, the will of the Perfect—which +alone is peace.</p> + +<p>On the morning after she had thus taken Malcolm again into her service, +Florimel had one of these experiences—a foretaste of the Valley of +the Shadow: she awoke in the hour when judgment sits upon the hearts +of men. Or is it not rather the hour for which a legion of gracious +spirits are on the watch—when, fresh raised from the death of sleep, +cleansed a little from the past and its evils by the gift of God, the +heart and brain are most capable of their influences?—the hour when, +besides, there is no refuge of external things wherein the man may +shelter himself from the truths they would so gladly send conquering +into the citadel of his nature, —no world of the senses to rampart +the soul from thought, when the eye and the ear are as if they were +not, and the soul lies naked before the infinite of reality. This live +hour of the morning is the most real hour of the day, the hour of the +motions of a prisoned and persecuted life, of its effort to break +through and breathe. A good man then finds his refuge in the heart of +the Purifying Fire; the bad man curses the swarms of Beelzebub that +settle upon every sore spot in his conscious being.</p> + +<p>But it was not the general sense of unfitness in the conditions of her +life, neither was it dissatisfaction with Lady Bellair, or the want of +the pressure of authority upon her unstable being; it was not the sense +of loneliness and unshelteredness in the sterile waste of fashionable +life, neither was it weariness with the same and its shows, or all +these things together, that could have waked the youth of Florimel +and kept it awake at this hour of the night —for night that hour is, +however near the morning.</p> + +<p>Some few weeks agone, she had accompanied to the study of a certain +painter, a friend who was then sitting to him for her portrait. The +moment she entered, the appearance of the man and his surroundings laid +hold of her imagination. Although on the very verge of popularity, +he was young—not more than five and twenty. His face, far from what +is called handsome, had a certain almost grandeur in it, owed mainly +to the dominant forehead, and the regnant life in the eyes. To this +the rest of the countenance was submissive. The mouth was sweet yet +strong, seeming to derive its strength from the will that towered +above and overhung it, throned on the crags of those eyebrows. The +nose was rather short, not unpleasantly so, and had mass enough. +In figure he was scarcely above the usual height, but well formed. +To a first glance even, the careless yet graceful freedom of his +movements was remarkable, while his address was manly, and altogether +devoid of self-recommendation. Confident modesty and unobtrusive ease +distinguished his demeanour. His father, Arnold Lenorme, descended from +an old Norman family, had given him the Christian name of Raoul, which, +although outlandish, tolerably fitted the surname, notwithstanding +the contiguous <i>l</i>’s, objectionable to the fastidious ear of their +owner. The earlier and more important part of his education, the +beginnings, namely, of everything he afterwards further followed, +his mother herself gave him, partly because she was both poor and +capable, and partly because she was more anxious than most mothers +for his best welfare. The poverty they had crept through, as those +that strive after better things always will, one way or another, with +immeasurable advantage, and before the time came when he must leave +home, her influence had armed him in adamant—a service which alas! few +mothers seem capable of rendering the knights whom they send out into +the battle-field of the world. Most of them give their children the +best they have; but how shall a foolish woman ever be a wise mother? +The result in his case was, that reverence for her as the type of +womanhood, working along with a natural instinct for refinement, a keen +feeling of the incompatibility with art of anything in itself low or +unclean, and a healthful and successful activity of mind, had rendered +him so far upright and honourable that he had never yet done that in +one mood which in another he had looked back upon with loathing. As +yet he had withstood the temptations belonging to his youth and his +profession—in great measure also the temptations belonging to success; +he had not yet been tried with disappointment, or sorrow, or failure.</p> + +<p>As to the environment in which Florimel found him, it was to her a +region of confused and broken colour and form—a kind of chaos out of +which beauty was ever ready to start. Pictures stood on easels, leaned +against chair-backs, glowed from the wall—each contributing to the +atmosphere of solved rainbow that seemed to fill the space. Lenorme +was seated—not at his easel, but at a grand piano, which stood away, +half-hidden in a corner, as if it knew itself there on sufferance, +with pictures all about the legs of it. For they had walked straight +in without giving his servant time to announce them. A bar of a song, +in a fine tenor voice, broke as they opened the door; and the painter +came to meet them from the farther end of the study. He shook hands +with Florimel’s friend, and turned with a bow to her. At the first +glance the eyes of both fell. Raised the same instant, they encountered +each other point blank, and then the eloquent blood had its turn at +betrayal. What the moment meant, Florimel did not understand; but it +seemed as if Raoul and she had met somewhere long ago, were presumed +not to know it, but could not help remembering it, and agreeing to +recognise it as a fact. A strange pleasure filled her heart. While +Mrs Barnardiston sat, she flitted about the room like a butterfly, +looking at one thing after another, and asking now the most ignorant, +now the most penetrative question, disturbing not a little the work, +but sweetening the temper of the painter, as he went on with his study +of the mask and helmet into which the Gorgon stare of the Unideal had +petrified the face and head of his sitter. He found the situation +trying nevertheless. It was as if Cupid had been set by Jupiter to +take a portrait of Io in her stall, while evermore he heard his Psyche +fluttering about among the peacocks in the yard. For the girl had +bewitched him at first sight. He thought it was only as an artist, +though to be sure a certain throb, almost of pain, in the region of the +heart, when first his eyes fell before hers, might have warned, and +perhaps did in vain warn him otherwise. Sooner than usual he professed +himself content with the sitting, and then proceeded to show the ladies +some of his sketches and pictures. Florimel asked to see one standing +as in disgrace with its front to the wall. He put it, half reluctantly, +on an easel, and said it was meant for the unveiling of Isis, as +presented in a mӓhrchen of Novalis, introduced in _Die Lehrlinge zu +Sais_, in which the goddess of Nature reveals to the eager and anxious +gaze of the beholder the person of his Rosenblüthchen, whom he had left +behind him when he set out to visit the temple of the divinity. But +on the great pedestal where should have sat the goddess there was no +gracious form visible. That part of the picture was a blank. The youth +stood below, gazing enraptured with parted lips and outstretched arms, +as if he had already begun to suspect what had begun to dawn through +the slowly thinning veil—but to the eye of the beholder he gazed as +yet only on vacancy, and the picture had not reached an attempt at +self-explanation. Florimel asked why he had left it so long unfinished, +for the dust was thick on the back of the canvas.</p> + +<p>“Because I have never seen the face or figure,” the painter answered, +“either in eye of mind or of body, that claimed the position.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke, his eyes seemed to Florimel to lighten strangely, and as +if by common consent they turned away, and looked at something else. +Presently Mrs Barnardiston, who cared more for sound than form or +colour, because she could herself sing a little, began to glance over +some music on the piano, curious to find what the young man had been +singing, whereupon Lenorme said to Florimel hurriedly, and almost in a +whisper, with a sort of hesitating assurance,</p> + +<p>“If <i>you</i> would give me a sitting or two—I know I am presumptuous, but +if you would—I—I should send the picture to the Academy in a week.”</p> + +<p>“I will,” replied Florimel, flushing like a wild poppy, and as she said +it, she looked up in his face and smiled.</p> + +<p>“It would have been selfish,” she said to herself as they drove away, +“to refuse him.”</p> + +<p>This first interview, and all the interviews that had followed, now +passed through her mind as she lay awake in the darkness preceding the +dawn, and she reviewed them not without self-reproach. But for some of +my readers it will be hard to believe that one of the feelings that +now tormented the girl was a sense of lowered dignity because of the +relation in which she stood to the painter—seeing there was little or +no ground for moral compunction, and the feeling had its root merely +in the fact that he was a painter-fellow, and she a marchioness. Her +rank had already grown to seem to her so identified with herself +that she was hardly any longer capable of the analysis that should +show it distinct from her being. As to any <i>duty</i> arising from her +position, she had never heard the word used except as representing +something owing to, not owed by rank. Social standing in the eyes of +the super-excellent few of fashion was the Satan of unrighteousness +worshipped around her. And the precepts of this worship fell upon soil +prepared for it. For with all the simplicity of her nature, there +was in it an inborn sense of rank, of elevation in the order of the +universe above most others of the children of men—of greater intrinsic +worth therefore in herself. How could it be otherwise with the +offspring of generations of pride and falsely conscious superiority? +Hence, as things were going now with the mere human part of her, some +commotion, if not earthquake indeed, was imminent. Nay the commotion +had already begun, as manifest in her sleeplessness and the thoughts +that occupied it.</p> + +<p>Rightly to understand the sense of shame and degradation she had not +unfrequently felt of late, we must remember that in the circle in +which she moved she heard professions, arts, and trades alluded to +with the same unuttered, but the more strongly implied contempt —a +contempt indeed regarded as so much a matter of course, so thoroughly +understood, so reasonable in its nature, so absolute in its degree, +that to utter it would have been bad taste from very superfluity. +Yet she never entered the painter’s study but with trembling heart, +uncertain foot, and fluttering breath, as of one stepping within the +gates of an enchanted paradise, whose joy is too much for the material +weight of humanity to ballast even to the steadying of the bodily step, +and the outward calm of the bodily carriage. How far things had gone +between them we shall be able to judge by-and-by; it will be enough at +present to add that it was this relation and the inward strife arising +from it that had not only prematurely, but over rapidly ripened the +girl into the woman.</p> + +<p>This my disclosure of her condition, however, has not yet uncovered +the sorest spot upon which the flies of Beelzebub settled in the +darkness of this torture hour of the human clock. Although still the +same lively, self-operative nature she had been in other circumstances, +she was so far from being insensible or indifferent to the opinions of +others, that she had not even strength enough to keep a foreign will +off the beam of her choice: the will of another, in no way directly +brought to bear on hers, would yet weigh to her encouragement where +her wish was doubtful, or to her restraint where impulse was strong; +it would even move her towards a line of conduct whose anticipated +results were distasteful to her. Ever and anon her pride would rise +armed against the consciousness of slavery, but its armour was too weak +either for defence or for deliverance. She knew that the heart of Lady +Bellair, what of heart she had, was set upon her marriage with her +nephew, Lord Liftore. Now she recoiled from the idea of marriage, and +dismissed it into a future of indefinite removal; she had no special +desire to please Lady Bellair from the point of gratitude, for she +was perfectly aware that her relation to herself was far from being +without advantage to that lady’s position as well as means: a whisper +or two that had reached her had been enough to enlighten her in that +direction; neither could she persuade herself that Lord Liftore was +at all the sort of man she could become proud of as a husband; and +yet she felt destined to be his wife. On the other hand she had no +dislike to him: he was handsome, well-informed, capable—a gentleman, +she thought, of good regard in the circles in which they moved, and +one who would not in any manner disgrace her, although to be sure he +was her inferior in rank, and she would rather have married a duke. +At the same time, to confess all the truth, she was by no means +indifferent to the advantages of having for a husband a man with money +enough to restore the somewhat tarnished prestige of her own family to +its pristine brilliancy. She had never said a word to encourage the +scheming of Lady Bellair; neither, on the other hand, had she ever +said a word to discourage her hopes, or give her ground for doubting +the acceptableness of her cherished project. Hence Lady Bellair had +naturally come to regard the two as almost affianced. But Florimel’s +aversion to the idea of marriage, and her horror at the thought of +the slightest whisper of what was between her and Lenorme, increased +together.</p> + +<p>There were times too when she asked herself in anxious discomfort +whether she was not possibly a transgressor against a deeper and +simpler law than that of station—whether she was altogether maidenly +in the encouragement she had given and was giving to the painter. It +must not be imagined that she had once visited him without a companion, +though that companion was indeed sometimes only her maid—her real +object being covered by the true pretext of sitting for her portrait, +which Lady Bellair pleased herself with imagining would one day be +presented to Lord Liftore. But she could not, upon such occasions of +morning judgment as this, fail to doubt sorely whether the visits she +paid him, and the liberties which upon fortunate occasions she allowed +him, were such as could be justified on any ground other than that +she was prepared to give him all. All, however, she was by no means +prepared to give him: that involved consequences far too terrible to be +contemplated even as possibilities.</p> + +<p>With such causes for disquiet in her young heart and brain, it is not +then wonderful that she should sometimes be unable to slip across this +troubled region of the night in the boat of her dreams, but should +suffer shipwreck on the waking coast, and have to encounter the staring +and questioning eyes of more than one importunate truth. Nor is it +any wonder either that, to such an inexperienced and so troubled a +heart, the assurance of one absolutely devoted friend should come with +healing and hope—even if that friend should be but a groom, altogether +incapable of understanding her position, or perceiving the phantoms +that crowded about her, threatening to embody themselves in her ruin. A +clumsy, ridiculous fellow, she said to herself, from whose person she +could never dissociate the smell of fish, who talked a horrible jargon +called Scotch, and who could not be prevented from uttering unpalatable +truths at uncomfortable moments; yet whose thoughts were as chivalrous +as his person was powerful, and whose countenance was pleasing if only +for the triumph of honesty therein: she actually felt stronger and +safer to know he was near, and at her beck and call.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.<br><span class="small">PORTLOSSIE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Mr Crathie, seeing nothing more of Malcolm, believed himself at last +well rid of him; but it was days before his wrath ceased to flame, +and then it went on smouldering. Nothing occurred to take him to the +Seaton, and no business brought any of the fisher-people to his office +during that time. Hence he heard nothing of the mode of Malcolm’s +departure. When at length in the course of ordinary undulatory +propagation the news reached him that Malcolm had taken the yacht with +him, he was enraged beyond measure at the impudence of the theft, as he +called it, and ran to the Seaton in a fury. He had this consolation, +however: the man who had accused him of dishonesty and hypocrisy had +proved but a thief.</p> + +<p>He found the boat-house indeed empty, and went storming from cottage +to cottage, but came upon no one from whom his anger could draw +nourishment, not to say gain satisfaction. At length he reached the +Partan’s, found him at home, and commenced, at hap-hazard, abusing him +as an aider and abettor of the felony. But Meg Partan was at home also, +as Mr Crathie soon learned to his cost; for, hearing him usurp her +unique privilege of falling out upon her husband, she stole from the +ben end, and having stood for a moment silent in the doorway, listening +for comprehension, rushed out in a storm of tongue.</p> + +<p>“An’ what for sudna my man,” she cried, at full height of her +screeching voice, “lay tu his han’ wi’ ither honest fowk to du for the +boat what him ’at was weel kent for the captain o’ her, sin’ ever she +was a boat, wantit dune? Wad ye tak the comman’ o’ the boat, sir, as +weel ’s o’ a’ thing ither aboot the place?”</p> + +<p>“Hold your tongue, woman,” said the factor; “I have nothing to say to +you.”</p> + +<p>“Aigh, sirs! but it’s a peety ye wasna foreordeent to be markis +yersel’! It maun be a sair vex to ye ’at ye’re naething but the factor.”</p> + +<p>“If ye don’t mind your manners, Mistress Fin’lay,” said Mr Crathie in +glowing indignation, “perhaps you’ll find that the factor is as much as +the marquis, when he’s all there is for one.”</p> + +<p>“Lord safe ’s! hear till ’im!” cried the Partaness. “Wha wad hae +thoucht it o’ ’im? There’s fowk ’at it sets weel to tak upo’ them! His +father, honest man, wad ne’er hae spoken like that to Meg Partan; but +syne he <i>was</i> an honest man, though he was but the heid-shepherd upo’ +the estate. Man, I micht hae been yer mither—gien I had been auld +eneuch for ’s first wife, for he wad fain hae had me for ’s second.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve a great mind to take out a warrant against you, John Fin’lay, +otherwise called the Partan, as airt an’ pairt in the stealing of the +Marchioness of Lossie’s pleasure-boat,” said the factor. “And for you, +Mistress Fin’lay, I would have you please to remember that this house, +as far at least as you are concerned, is mine, although I am but the +factor, and not the marquis; and if you don’t keep that unruly tongue +of yours a little quieter in your head, I’ll set you in the street the +next quarter day but one, as sure ’s ever you gutted a herring, and +then you may bid good-bye to Portlossie, for there’s not a house, as +you very well know, in all the Seaton, that belongs to another than her +ladyship.”</p> + +<p>“’Deed, Mr Crathie,” returned Meg Partan, a little sobered by the +threat, “ye wad hae mair sense nor rin the risk o’ an uprisin’ o’ the +fisher-fowk. They wad ill stan’ to see my auld man an’ me misused, no +to say ’at her leddyship hersel’ wad see ony o’ her ain fowk turned oot +o’ hoose an’ haudin’ for naething ava.”</p> + +<p>“Her ladyship wad gi’e hersel’ sma’ concern gien the haill bilin’ o’ ye +war whaur ye cam frae,” returned the factor. “An’ for the toon here, +the fowk kens the guid o’ a quaiet caus’ay ower weel to lament the loss +o’ ye.”</p> + +<p>“The deil’s i’ the man!” cried the Partaness in high scorn. “He wad +threep upo’ me ’at I was ane o’ thae lang-tongued limmers ’at maks +themsels h’ard frae ae toon’s en’ to the tither! But I s’ gar him priv +’s words yet!”</p> + +<p>“Ye see, sir,” interposed the mild Partan, anxious to shove extremities +aside, “we didna ken ’at there was onything intill ’t by ord’nar. Gien +we had but kent ’at he was oot o’ yer guid graces,——”</p> + +<p>“Haud yer tongue afore ye lee, man,” interrupted his wife. “Ye ken weel +eneuch ye wad du what Ma’colm MacPhail wad hae ye du, for ony factor in +braid Scotlan’.”</p> + +<p>“You <i>must</i> have known,” said the factor to the Partan, apparently +heedless of this last outbreak of the generous evil temper, and laying +a cunning trap for the information he sorely wanted, but had as yet +failed in procuring—“else why was it that not a soul went with him? He +could ill manage the boat alone.”</p> + +<p>“What put sic buff an’ styte i’ yer heid, sir?” rejoined Meg; defiant +of the hints her husband sought to convey to her. “There’s mony ane wad +hae been ready to gang, only wha sud gang but him ’at gaed wi’ him an’ +’s lordship frae the first?”</p> + +<p>“And who was that?” asked Mr Crathie.</p> + +<p>“Ow! wha but Blue Peter?” answered Meg.</p> + +<p>“Hm!” said the factor, in a tone that for almost the first time in her +life made the woman regret that she had spoken, and therewith he rose +and left the cottage.</p> + +<p>“Eh, mither!” cried Lizzy, in her turn appearing from the ben-end, with +her child in her arms, “ye hae wroucht ruin i’ the earth! He’ll hae +Peter an’ Annie an’ a’ oot o’ hoose an’ ha’, come midsummer.”</p> + +<p>“I daur him till ’t!” cried her mother, in the impotence and +self-despite of a mortifying blunder; “I’ll raise the toon upon ’im.”</p> + +<p>“What wad that du, mither?” returned Lizzy, in distress about her +friends. “It wad but mak ill waur.”</p> + +<p>“An’ wha are ye to oppen yer mou’ sae wide to yer mither?” burst forth +Meg Partan, glad of an object upon which the chagrin that consumed her +might issue in flame. “Ye ha’ena luikit to yer ain gait sae weel ’at ye +can thriep to set richt them ’at broucht ye forth.—Wha are ye, I say?” +she repeated in rage.</p> + +<p>“Ane ’at folly’s made wiser, maybe, mither,” answered Lizzie sadly, +and proceeded to take her shawl from behind the door: she would go to +her friends at Scaurnose, and communicate her fears for their warning. +But her words smote the mother within the mother, and she turned and +looked at her daughter with more of the woman and less of the Partan +in her rugged countenance than had been visible there since the first +week of her married life. She had been greatly injured by the gaining +of too easy a conquest and resultant supremacy over her husband, whence +she had ever after revelled in a rule too absolute for good to any +concerned. As she was turning away, her daughter caught a glimpse of +her softened eyes, and went out of the house with more comfort in her +heart than she had felt ever since first she had given her conscience +cause to speak daggers to her.</p> + +<p>The factor kept raging to himself all the way home, flung himself +trembling on his horse, vouchsafing his anxious wife scarce any answer +to her anxious enquiries, and galloped to Duff Harbour to Mr Soutar.</p> + +<p>I will not occupy my tale with their interview. Suffice it to say that +the lawyer succeeded at last in convincing the demented factor that it +would be but prudent to delay measures for the recovery of the yacht +and the arrest and punishment of its abductors, until he knew what Lady +Lossie would say to the affair. She had always had a liking for the +lad, Mr Soutar said, and he would not be in the least surprised to hear +that Malcolm had gone straight to her ladyship and put himself under +her protection. No doubt by this time the cutter was at its owner’s +disposal: it would be just like the fellow! He always went the nearest +road anywhere. And to prosecute him for a thief would in any case but +bring down the ridicule of the whole coast upon the factor, and breed +him endless annoyance in the getting in of his rents—especially among +the fishermen. The result was that Mr Crathie went home—not indeed +a humbler or wiser man than he had gone, but a thwarted man, and +therefore the more dangerous in the channels left open to the outrush +of his angry power.</p> + +<p>When Lizzy reached Scaurnose, her account of the factor’s behaviour, to +her surprise, did not take much effect upon Mrs Mair: a queer little +smile broke over her countenance, and vanished. An enforced gravity +succeeded, however, and she began to take counsel with Lizzy as to what +they could do, or where they could go, should the worst come to the +worst, and the doors, not only of her own house, but of Scaurnose and +Portlossie as well, be shut against them. But through it all reigned +a calm regard and fearlessness of the future which, to Lizzy’s roused +and apprehensive imagination, was strangely inexplicable. Annie Mair +seemed possessed of some hidden and upholding assurance that raised her +above the fear of man or what he could do to her. The girl concluded +it must be the knowledge of God, and prayed more earnestly that night +than she had prayed since the night on which Malcolm had talked to +her so earnestly before he left. I must add this much, that she was +not altogether astray: God was in Malcolm, giving new hope to his +fisher-folk.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.<br><span class="small">ST JAMES THE APOSTLE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When Malcolm left his sister, he had a dim sense of having lapsed into +Scotch, and set about buttressing and strengthening his determination +to get rid of all unconscious and unintended use of the northern +dialect, not only that, in his attendance upon Florimel, he might be +neither offensive nor ridiculous, but that, when the time should come +in which he must appear what he was, it might be less of an annoyance +to her to yield the marquisate to one who could speak like a gentleman +and one of the family. But not the less did he love the tongue he +had spoken from his childhood, and in which were on record so many +precious ballads and songs, old and new; and he resolved that, when he +came out as a marquis, he would at Lossie House indemnify himself for +the constraint of London. He would not have an English servant there +except Mrs Courthope: he would not have the natural country speech +corrupted with cockneyisms, and his people taught to speak like Wallis! +To his old friends the fishers and their families, he would never +utter a sentence but in the old tongue, haunted with all the memories +of relations that were never to be obliterated or forgotten, its very +tones reminding him and them of hardships together endured, pleasures +shared, and help willingly given. At night, notwithstanding, he found +that in talking with Blue Peter, he had forgotten all about his +resolve, and it vexed him with himself not a little. He now saw that if +he could but get into the way of speaking English to <i>him</i>, the victory +would be gained, for with no one else would he find any difficulty then.</p> + +<p>The next morning he went down to the stairs at London Bridge, and took +a boat to the yacht. He had to cross several vessels to reach it. When +at length he looked down from the last of them on the deck of the +little cutter, he saw Blue Peter sitting on the coamings of the hatch, +his feet hanging down within. He was lost in the book he was reading. +Curious to see, without disturbing him, what it was that so absorbed +him, Malcolm dropped quietly on the tiller, and thence on the deck, +and approaching softly peeped over his shoulder. He was reading the +epistle of James the apostle. Malcolm fell a-thinking. From Peter’s +thumbed Bible his eyes went wandering through the thicket of masts, in +which moved so many busy seafarers, and then turned to the docks and +wharfs and huge warehouses lining the shores; and while they scanned +the marvellous vision, the thoughts that arose and passed through his +brain were like these: “What are ye duin’ here, Jeames the Just? Ye was +naething but a fisher-body upon a sma’ watter i’ the hert o’ the hills, +’at wasna even saut; an’ what can the thochts that gaed throu’ your +fish-catchin’ brain hae to du wi’ sic a sicht ’s this? I won’er gien +at this moment there be anither man in a’ Lon’on sittin’ readin’ that +epis-tle o’ yours but Blue Peter here? <i>He</i> thinks there’s naething +o’ mair importance, ’cep’ maybe some ither pairts o’ the same buik; +but syne he’s but a puir fisher-body himsel’, an’ what kens he o’ +the wisdom an’ riches an’ pooer o’ this michty queen o’ the nations, +thron’t aboot him?—Is ’t possible the auld body kent something ’at +was jist as necessar’ to ilka man, the busiest in this croodit mairt, +to ken an’ gang by, as it was to Jeames an’ the lave o’ the michty +apostles themsels? For me, I dinna doobt it—but hoo it sud ever be +onything but an auld-warld story to the new warld o’ Lon’on, I think it +wad bleck Maister Graham himsel’ til imaigine.”</p> + +<p>Before this, Blue Peter had become aware that some one was near him, +but, intent on the words of his brother fisher of the old time, had +half-unconsciously put off looking up to see who was behind him. When +now he did so, and saw Malcolm, he rose and touched his bonnet.</p> + +<p>“It was jist i’ my heid, my lord,” he said, without any preamble, “sic +a kin’ o’ a h’avenly Jacobin as this same Jacobus was! He’s sic a +leveller as was feow afore ’im, I doobt, wi’ his gowd-ringt man, an’ +his cloot-cled brither! He pat me in twa min’s, my lord, whan I got up, +whether I wad touch my bonnet to yer lordship or no.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed with hearty appreciation.</p> + +<p>“When I am king of Lossie,” he said, “be it known to all whom it may +concern, that it is and shall be the right of Blue Peter, and all his +descendants, to the end of time, to stand with bonneted heads in the +presence of Lord or—no, not Lady, Peter—of the house of Lossie.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, but ye see, Ma’colm,” said Peter, forgetting his address, and his +eye twinkling in the humour of the moment, “it’s no by your leave, or +ony man’s leave; it’s the richt o’ the thing; an’ that I maun think +aboot, an’ see whether I be at leeberty to ca’ ye <i>my lord</i> or no.”</p> + +<p>“Meantime, don’t do it,” said Malcolm, “lest you should have to change +afterwards. You might find it difficult.”</p> + +<p>“Ye’re cheengt a’ready,” said Blue Peter, looking up at him sharply. “I +ne’er h’ard ye speyk like that afore.”</p> + +<p>“Make nothing of it,” returned Malcolm. “I am only airing my English +on you; I have made up my mind to learn to speak in London as London +people do, and so, even to you, in the meantime only, I am going to +speak as good English as I can.—It’s nothing between you and me, Peter +and you must not mind it,” he added, seeing a slight cloud come over +the fisherman’s face.</p> + +<p>Blue Peter turned away with a sigh. The sounds of English speech from +the lips of Malcolm addressed to himself, seemed vaguely to indicate +the opening of a gulf between them, destined ere long to widen to the +whole social width between a fisherman and a marquis, swallowing up in +it not only all old memories, but all later friendship and confidence. +A shadow of bitterness crossed the poor fellow’s mind, and in it the +seed of distrust began to strike root, and all because a newer had been +substituted for an older form of the same speech and language. Truly +man’s heart is a delicate piece of work, and takes gentle handling or +hurt. But that the pain was not all of innocence is revealed in the +strange fact, afterwards disclosed by the repentant Peter himself, +that, in that same moment, what had just passed his mouth as a joke, +put on an important, serious look, and appeared to involve a matter +of doubtful duty: was it really right of one man to say <i>my lord</i> to +another? Thus the fisherman, and not the marquis, was the first to sin +against the other because of altered fortune. Distrust awoke pride in +the heart of Blue Peter, and he erred in the lack of the charity that +thinketh no evil.</p> + +<p>But the lack and the doubt made little show as yet. The two men rowed +in the dinghy down the river to the Aberdeen wharf to make arrangements +about Kelpie, whose arrival Malcolm expected the following Monday, then +dined together, and after that had a long row up the river.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.<br><span class="small">A DIFFERENCE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Notwithstanding his keenness of judgment and sobriety in action, +Malcolm had yet a certain love for effect, a delight, that is, in the +show of concentrated results, which, as I believe I have elsewhere +remarked, belongs especially to the Celtic nature, and is one form +in which the poetic element vaguely embodies itself. Hence arose the +temptation to try on Blue Peter the effect of a literally theatrical +surprise. He knew well the prejudices of the greater portion of the +Scots people against every possible form of artistic, most of all, +dramatic representation. He knew, therefore, also, that Peter would +never be persuaded to go with him to the theatre: to invite him would +be like asking him to call upon Beelzebub; but as this feeling was +cherished in utter ignorance of its object, he judged he would be doing +him no wrong if he made experiment how the thing itself would affect +the heart and judgment of the unsophisticated fisherman.</p> + +<p>Finding that <i>The Tempest</i> was still the play represented, he +contrived, as they walked together, so to direct their course that they +should be near Drury Lane towards the hour of commencement. He did not +want to take him in much before the time: he would not give him scope +for thought, doubt, suspicion, discovery.</p> + +<p>When they came in front of the theatre, people were crowding in, and +carriages setting down their occupants. Blue Peter gave a glance at the +building.</p> + +<p>“This’ll be ane o’ the Lon’on kirks, I’m thinkin’?” he said. “It’s +a muckle place; an’ there maun be a heap o’ guid fowk in Lon’on, +for as ill ’s it’s ca’d, to see sae mony, an’ i’ their cairritches, +comin’ to the kirk—on a Setterday nicht tu. It maun be some kin’ o’ a +prayer-meetin’, I’m thinkin’.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm said nothing, but led the way to the pit entrance.</p> + +<p>“That’s no an ill w’y o’ getherin’ the baubees,” said Peter, seeing how +the in-comers paid their money. “I hae h’ard o’ the plate bein’ robbit +in a muckle toon afore noo.”</p> + +<p>When at length they were seated, and he had time to glance reverently +around him, he was a little staggered at sight of the decorations; +and the thought crossed his mind of the pictures and statues he had +heard of in catholic churches; but he remembered Westminster Abbey, +its windows and monuments, and returned to his belief that he was, if +in an episcopal, yet in a protestant church. But he could not help the +thought that the galleries were a little too gaudily painted, while +the high pews in them astonished him. Peter’s nature, however, was one +of those calm, slow ones which, when occupied by an idea or a belief, +are by no means ready to doubt its correctness, and are even ingenious +in reducing all apparent contradictions to theoretic harmony with +it—whence it came that to him all this was only part of the church +furniture according to the taste and magnificence of London. He sat +quite tranquil, therefore, until the curtain rose, revealing the ship’s +company in all the confusion of the wildest of sea storms.</p> + +<p>Malcolm watched him narrowly. But Peter was first so taken by surprise, +and then so carried away with the interest of what he saw, that +thinking had ceased in him utterly, and imagination lay passive as a +mirror to the representation. Nor did the sudden change from the first +to the second scene rouse him, for before his thinking machinery could +be set in motion, the delight of the new show had again caught him in +its meshes. For to him, as it had been to Malcolm, it was the shore at +Portlossie, while the cave that opened behind was the Bailie’s Barn, +where his friends the fishers might at that moment, if it were a fine +night, be holding one of their prayer meetings. The mood lasted all +through the talk of Prospero and Miranda; but when Ariel entered there +came a snap, and the spell was broken. With a look in which doubt +wrestled with horror, Blue Peter turned to Malcolm, and whispered with +bated breath—</p> + +<p>“I’m jaloosin’—it canna be—it’s no a playhoose, this?”</p> + +<p>Malcolm merely nodded, but from the nod Peter understood that <i>he</i> had +had no discovery to make as to the character of the place they were in.</p> + +<p>“Eh!” he groaned, overcome with dismay. Then rising suddenly— “Guid +nicht to ye, my lord,” he said, with indignation, and rudely forced his +way from the crowded house.</p> + +<p>Malcolm followed in his wake, but said nothing till they were in the +street. Then, forgetting utterly his resolves concerning English in the +distress of having given his friend ground to complain of his conduct +towards him, he laid his hand on Blue Peter’s arm, and stopped him in +the middle of the narrow street.</p> + +<p>“I but thoucht, Peter,” he said, “to get ye to see wi’ yer ain een, an’ +hear wi’ yer ain ears, afore ye passed jeedgment; but ye’re jist like +the lave.”</p> + +<p>“An’ what for sudna I be jist like the lave?” returned Peter, fiercely.</p> + +<p>“’Cause it’s no fair to set doon a thing for wrang ’at ye ha’e been +i’ the w’y o’ hearing aboot by them ’at kens as little aboot them as +yersel’. I cam here mysel’, ohn kent whaur I was gaein’, the ither +nicht, for the first time i’ my life; but I wasna fleyt like you, +’cause I kent frae the buik a’ ’at was comin’. I ha’e h’ard in a kirk +in ae ten meenutes jist a sicht o’ what maun ha’e been sair displeasin’ +to the hert a’ the maister o’ ’s a’; but that nicht I saw nae ill an’ +h’ard nae ill, but was weel peyed back upo’ them ’at did it an’ said +it afore the business was ower, an’ that’s mair nor ye’ll see i’ the +streets o’ Portlossie ilka day. The play-hoose is whaur ye gang to see +what comes o’ things ’at ye canna follow oot in ordinar’ life.”</p> + +<p>Whether Malcolm, after a year’s theatre-going, would have said +precisely the same is hardly doubtful. He spoke of the ideal theatre to +which Shakspere is true, and in regard to that he spoke rightly.</p> + +<p>“Ye decoy’t me intill the hoose o’ ineequity!” was Peter’s indignant +reply; “an’ it’s no what ye ever ga’e me cause to expec’ o’ ye, sae ’at +I micht ha’e ta’en tent o’ ye.”</p> + +<p>“I thoucht nae ill o’ ’t,” returned Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Weel, <i>I div</i>,” retorted Peter.</p> + +<p>“Then perhaps you are wrong,” said Malcolm, “for charity thinketh no +evil. You wouldn’t stay to see the thing out.”</p> + +<p>“There ye are at yer English again! an’ misgugglin’ Scriptur’ wi’ ’t, +an’ a’ this upo’ Setterday nicht—maist the Sawbath day! Weel, I ha’e +aye h’ard ’at Lon’on was an awfu’ place, but I little thoucht the verra +air o’ ’t wad sae sune turn an honest laad like Ma’colm MacPhail intill +a scoffer. But maybe it’s the markis o’ ’im, an’ no the muckle toon +’at’s made the differ. Ony gait, I’m thinkin’ it’ll be aboot time for +me to be gauin’ hame.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm was vexed with himself, and both disappointed and troubled at +the change which had come over his friend, and threatened to destroy +the life-long relation between them; his feelings therefore held him +silent. Peter concluded that <i>the marquis</i> was displeased, and it +clenched his resolve to go.</p> + +<p>“What w’y am I to win hame, my lord?” he said, when they had walked +some distance without word spoken.</p> + +<p>“By the Aberdeen smack,” returned Malcolm. “She sails on Tuesday. +I will see you on board. You must take young Davy with you, for I +wouldn’t have him here after you are gone. There will be nothing for +him to do.”</p> + +<p>“Ye’re unco ready to pairt wi’ ’s noo ’at ye ha’e nae mair use for ’s,” +said Peter.</p> + +<p>“No sae ready as ye seem to pairt wi’ yer chairity,” said Malcolm, now +angry too.</p> + +<p>“Ye see Annie ’ill be thinkin’ lang,” said Peter, softening a little.</p> + +<p>No more angry words passed between them, but neither did any thoroughly +cordial ones, and they parted at the stairs in mutual, though, with +such men, it could not be more than superficial estrangement.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.<br><span class="small">LORD LIFTORE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The chief cause of Malcolm’s anxiety had been, and perhaps still was, +Lord Liftore. In his ignorance of Mr Lenorme there might lie equal +cause with him, but he knew such evil of the other that his whole +nature revolted against the thought of his marrying his sister. At +Lossie he had made himself agreeable to her, and now, if not actually +living in the same house, he was there at all hours of the day.</p> + +<p>It took nothing from his anxiety to see that his lordship was greatly +improved. Not only had the lanky youth passed into a well-formed +man, but in countenance, whether as regarded expression, complexion, +or feature, he was not merely a handsomer but looked in every way a +healthier and better man. Whether it was from some reviving sense of +duty, or that, in his attachment to Florimel, he had begun to cherish a +desire of being worthy of her, I cannot tell; but he looked altogether +more of a man than the time that had elapsed would have given ground +to expect, even had he then seemed on the mend, and indeed promised to +become a really fine-looking fellow. His features were far more regular +if less <i>informed</i> than those of the painter, and his carriage prouder +if less graceful and energetic. His admiration of and consequent +attachment to Florimel had been growing ever since his visit to Lossie +House the preceding summer, and if he had said nothing quite definite, +it was only because his aunt represented the impolicy of declaring +himself just yet: she was too young. She judged thus, attributing her +evident indifference to an incapacity as yet for falling in love. +Hence, beyond paying her all sorts of attentions and what compliments +he was capable of constructing, Lord Liftore had not gone far towards +making himself understood—at least, not until just before Malcolm’s +arrival, when his behaviour had certainly grown warmer and more +confidential.</p> + +<p>All the time she had been under his aunt’s care he had had abundant +opportunity for recommending himself, and he had made use of the +privilege. For one thing, credibly assured that he looked well in the +saddle, he had constantly encouraged Florimel’s love of riding and +desire to become a thorough horsewoman, and they had ridden a good +deal together in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. This practice they +continued as much as possible after they came to London early in the +spring; but the weather of late had not been favourable, and Florimel +had been very little out with him.</p> + +<p>For a long time Lady Bellair had had her mind set on a match between +the daughter of her old friend the Marquis of Lossie and her nephew, +and it was with this in view that, when invited to Lossie House, she +had begged leave to bring Lord Meikleham with her. The young man was +from the first sufficiently taken with the beautiful girl to satisfy +his aunt, and would even then have shown greater fervour in <i>his</i> +attentions, had he not met Lizzy Findlay at the wedding of Joseph +Mair’s sister, and found her more than pleasing. I will not say that +from the first he purposed wrong to her: he was too inexperienced in +the ways of evil for that; but even when he saw plainly enough to +what their mutual attraction was tending, he gave himself no trouble +to resist it; and through the whole unhappy affair had not had one +smallest struggle with himself for the girl’s sake. To himself he was +all in all as yet, and such was his opinion of his own precious being, +that, had he thought about it, he would have considered the honour of +his attentions far more than sufficient to make up to any girl in such +a position for whatever mishap his acquaintance might bring upon her. +What were the grief and mortification of parents to put in the balance +against his condescension? what the shame and the humiliation of the +girl herself compared with the honour of having been shone upon for +a period, however brief, by his enamoured countenance? Must not even +the sorrow attendant upon her loss be rendered more than endurable—be +radiantly consoled by the memory that she had held such a demigod in +her arms? When he left her at last, with many promises, not one of +which he ever had the intention of fulfilling, he did purpose sending +her a present. But at that time he was poor—dependent, indeed, for +his pocket-money upon his aunt; and, up to this hour, he had never +since his departure from Lossie House taken the least notice of her +either by gift or letter. He had taken care also that it should not +be in her power to write to him, and now he did not even know that he +was a father. Once or twice the possibility of such being the case +occurred to him, and he thought within himself that if he were, and +it should come to be talked of, it might, in respect of his present +hopes, be awkward and disagreeable; for, although such a predicament +was nowise unusual, in this instance the circumstances were. More +than one of his bachelor friends had a small family even, but then it +was in the regular way of an open and understood secret: the fox had +his nest in some pleasant nook, adroitly masked, where lay his vixen +and her brood; one day he would abandon them for ever, and, with such +gathered store of experience, set up for a respectable family man. A +few tears, a neat legal arrangement, and all would be as it had never +been, only that the blood of the Montmorencies or Cliffords would +meander unclaimed in this or that obscure channel, beautifying the +race, and rousing England to noble deeds! But in his case it would be +unpleasant—a little—that every one of his future tenantry should +know the relation in which he stood to a woman of the fisher-people. +He did not fear any resentment—not that he would have cared a straw +for it, on such trifling grounds, but people in their low condition +never thought anything of such slips on the part of their women +especially where a great man was concerned. What he did fear was that +the immediate relations of the woman—that was how he spoke of Lizzy +to himself —might presume upon the honour he had done them. Lizzy, +however, was a good girl, and had promised to keep the matter secret +until she heard from him, whatever might be the consequences; and +surely there was fascination enough in the holding of a secret with +such as he to enable her to keep her promise. She must be perfectly +aware, however appearances might be against him, that he was not one to +fail in appreciation of her conduct, however easy and natural all that +he required of her might be. He would requite her royally when he was +Lord of Lossie. Meantime, although it was even now in his power to make +her rich amends, he would prudently leave things as they were, and not +run the risk that must lie in opening communications.</p> + +<p>And so the young earl held his head high, looked as innocent as may be +desirable for a gentleman, had many a fair clean hand laid in his, and +many a maiden waist yielded to his arm, while “the woman” flitted about +half an alien amongst her own, with his child wound in her old shawl of +Lossie tartan; wandering not seldom in the gloaming when her little one +slept, along the top of the dune, with the wind blowing keen upon her +from the regions of eternal ice, sometimes the snow settling softly on +her hair, sometimes the hailstones nestling in its meshes; the skies +growing blacker about her, and the sea stormier, while hope retreated +so far into the heavenly regions, that hope and heaven both were lost +to her view. Thus, alas! the things in which he was superior to her, +most of all that he was a gentleman, while she was but a peasant girl— +the things whose witchery drew her to his will, he made the means +of casting her down from the place of her excellency into the mire +of shame and loss. The only love worthy of the name ever and always +uplifts.</p> + +<p>Of the people belonging to the upper town of Portlossie, which raised +itself high above the sea-town in other respects besides the topical, +there were none who did not make poor Lizzy feel they were aware of her +disgrace, and but one man who made her feel it by being kinder than +before. That man, strange to say, was the factor. With all his faults +he had some chivalry, and he showed it to the fisher-girl. Nor did he +alter his manner to her because of the rudeness with which her mother +had taken Malcolm’s part.</p> + +<p>It was a sore proof to Mr Crathie that his discharged servant was in +favour with the marchioness when the order came from Mr Soutar to send +up Kelpie. She had written to himself when she wanted her own horse; +now she sent for this brute through her lawyer. It was plain that +Malcolm had been speaking against him; and he was the more embittered +therefore against his friends.</p> + +<p>Since his departure he had been twice on the point of poisoning the +mare.</p> + +<p>It was with difficulty he found two men to take her to Aberdeen. There +they had an arduous job to get her on board and secure her. But it had +been done, and all the Monday night Malcolm was waiting her arrival at +the wharf—alone, for after what had passed between them, he would not +ask Peter to go with him, and besides he was no use with horses. At +length, in the grey of a gurly dawn, the smack came alongside. They had +had a rough passage, and the mare was considerably subdued by sickness, +so that there was less difficulty in getting her ashore, and she paced +for a little while in tolerable quietness. But with every step on dry +land, the evil spirit in her awoke, and soon Malcolm had to dismount +and lead her. The morning was little advanced, and few vehicles +were about, otherwise he could hardly have got her home uninjured, +notwithstanding the sugar with which he had filled a pocket. Before he +reached the mews he was very near wishing he had never seen her. But +when he led her into the stable, he was a little encouraged as well as +surprised to find that she had not forgotten Florimel’s horse. They had +always been a little friendly, and now they greeted each other with an +affectionate neigh; after which, with the help of all she could devour, +the demoness was quieter.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.<br><span class="small">KELPIE IN LONDON.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Before noon Lord Liftore came round to the mews: his riding horses were +there. Malcolm was not at the moment in the stable.</p> + +<p>“What animal is that?” he asked of his own groom, catching sight of +Kelpie in her loose box.</p> + +<p>“One just come up from Scotland for Lady Lossie, my lord,” answered the +man.</p> + +<p>“She looks a clipper! Lead her out, and let me see her.”</p> + +<p>“She’s not sound in the temper, my lord, the groom that brought her +says. He told me on no account to go near her till she got used to the +sight of me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! you’re afraid, are you?” said his lordship, whose breeding had not +taught him courtesy to his inferiors.</p> + +<p>At the word the man walked into her box. As he did so he looked out +for her hoofs, but his circumspection was in vain: in a moment she had +wheeled, jammed him against the wall, and taken his shoulder in her +teeth. He gave a yell of pain. His lordship caught up a stable-broom, +and attacked the mare with it over the door; but it flew from his hand +to the other end of the stable, and the partition began to go after it. +But she still kept her hold of the man. Happily, however, Malcolm was +not far off, and hearing the noise, rushed in. He was just in time to +save the groom’s life. Clearing the stall-partition, and seizing the +mare by the nose with a mighty grasp, he inserted a fore-finger behind +her tusk, for she was one of the few mares tusked like a horse, and +soon compelled her to open her mouth. The groom staggered and would +have fallen, so cruelly had she mauled him, but Malcolm’s voice roused +him.</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake gang oot, as lang ’s there’s twa limbs o’ ye stickin’ +thegither.”</p> + +<p>The poor fellow just managed to open the door, and fell senseless on +the stones. Lord Liftore called for help, and they carried him into the +saddle room, while one ran for the nearest surgeon.</p> + +<p>Meantime Malcolm was putting a muzzle on Kelpie, which he believed +she understood as a punishment, and while he was thus occupied, his +lordship came from the saddle-room and approached the box.</p> + +<p>“Who are you?” he said. “I think I have seen you before.”</p> + +<p>“I was servant to the late Marquis of Lossie, my lord, and now I am +groom to her ladyship.”</p> + +<p>“What a fury you’ve brought up with you! She’ll never do for London.”</p> + +<p>“I told the man not to go near her, my lord.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the use of her if no one can go near her?”</p> + +<p>“I can, my lord.”</p> + +<p>“By Jove, she’s a splendid creature to look at! but I don’t know what +you can do with her here, my man. She’s fit to go double with Satan +himself.”</p> + +<p>“She’ll do for me to ride after my lady well enough. If only I had room +to exercise her a bit!”</p> + +<p>“Take her into the park early in the morning, and gallop her round. +Only mind she don’t break your neck. What can have made Lady Lossie +send for such a devil as that!”</p> + +<p>Malcolm held his peace.</p> + +<p>“I’ll try her myself some morning,” said his lordship, who thought +himself a better horseman than he was.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t advise you, my lord.”</p> + +<p>“Who the devil asked your advice?”</p> + +<p>“Ten to one she’ll kill you, my lord.”</p> + +<p>“That’s my look out,” said Liftore, and went into the house.</p> + +<p>As soon as he had done with Kelpie, Malcolm dressed himself in his new +livery, and went to tell his mistress of her arrival. She sent him +orders to bring the mare round in half-an-hour. He went back to her, +took off her muzzle, fed her, and while she ate her corn, put on the +spurs he had prepared expressly for her use—a spike without a rowel, +rather blunt, but sharp indeed when sharply used —like those of the +Gauchos of the Pampas. Then he saddled her, and rode her round.</p> + +<p>Having had her fit of temper, she was, to all appearance, going to be +fairly good for the rest of the day, and looked splendid. She was a +large mare, nearly thoroughbred, but with more bone than usual for her +breeding, which she carried triumphantly—an animal most men would have +been pleased to possess—and proud to ride. Florimel came to the door +to see her, accompanied by Liftore, and was so delighted with the very +sight of her that she sent at once to the stables for her own horse, +that she might ride out attended by Malcolm. His lordship also ordered +his horse.</p> + +<p>They went straight to Rotten Row for a little gallop, and Kelpie was +behaving very well for her.</p> + +<p>“What <i>did</i> you have two such savages, horse and groom both, up from +Scotland for, Florimel?” asked his lordship, as they cantered gently +along the Row, Kelpie coming sideways after them, as if she would fain +alter the pairing of her legs.</p> + +<p>Florimel turned and cast an admiring glance on the two.</p> + +<p>“Do you know I am rather proud of them,” she said.</p> + +<p>“He’s a clumsy fellow, the groom; and for the mare, she’s downright +wicked,” said Liftore.</p> + +<p>“At least neither is a hypocrite,” returned Florimel, with Malcolm’s +account of his quarrel with the factor in her mind. “The mare is just +as wicked as she looks, and the man as good. Believe me, my lord, that +man you call a savage never told a lie in his life!”</p> + +<p>As she spoke she looked him hard in the face—with her father in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>Liftore could not return the look with equal steadiness. It seemed for +the moment to be inquiring too curiously.</p> + +<p>“I know what you mean,” he said. “You don’t believe my professions.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke he edged his horse close up to hers.</p> + +<p>“But,” he went on, “if I know that I speak the truth when I swear that +I love every breath of wind that has but touched your dress as it +passed, that I would die gladly for one loving touch of your hand—why +should you not let me ease my heart by saying so? Florimel, my life has +been a different thing from the moment I saw you first. It has grown +precious to me since I saw that it might be —Confound the fellow! +what’s he about now with his horse-devil?”</p> + +<p>For at that moment his lordship’s horse, a high-bred but timid animal, +sprang away from the side of Florimel’s, and there stood Kelpie on +her hind legs, pawing the air between him and his lady, and Florimel, +whose old confidence in Malcolm was now more than revived, was +laughing merrily at the discomfiture of his attempt at love-making. +Her behaviour and his own frustration put him in such a rage that, +wheeling quickly round, he struck Kelpie, just as she dropped on all +fours, a great cut with his whip across the haunches. She plunged and +kicked violently, came within an inch of breaking his horse’s leg, and +flew across the rail into the park. Nothing could have suited Malcolm +better. He did not punish her as he would have done had she been to +blame, for he was always just to lower as well as higher animals, but +he took her a great round at racing speed, while his mistress and +her companion looked on, and everyone in the Row stopped and stared. +Finally, he hopped her over the rail again, and brought her up dripping +and foaming to his mistress. Florimel’s eyes were flashing, and Liftore +looked still angry.</p> + +<p>“Dinna du that again, my lord,” said Malcolm. “Ye’re no my maister; an’ +gien ye war, ye wad hae no richt to brak my neck.”</p> + +<p>“No fear of that! That’s not how your neck will be broken, my man,” +said his lordship, with an attempted laugh; for though he was all the +angrier that he was ashamed of what he had done, he dared not further +wrong the servant before his mistress.</p> + +<p>A policeman came up and laid his hand on Kelpie’s bridle.</p> + +<p>“Take care what you’re about,” said Malcolm; “the mare’s not safe. +—There’s my mistress, the Marchioness of Lossie.”</p> + +<p>The man saw an ugly look in Kelpie’s eye, withdrew his hand, and turned +to Florimel.</p> + +<p>“My groom is not to blame,” said she. “Lord Liftore struck his mare, +and she became ungovernable.”</p> + +<p>The man gave a look at Liftore, seemed to take his likeness, touched +his hat, and withdrew.</p> + +<p>“You’d better ride the jade home,” said Liftore.</p> + +<p>Malcolm only looked at his mistress. She moved on, and he followed.</p> + +<p>He was not so innocent in the affair as he had seemed. The expression +of Liftore’s face as he drew nearer to Florimel, was to him so hateful, +that he interfered in a very literal fashion: Kelpie had been doing no +more than he had made her until the earl struck her.</p> + +<p>“Let us ride to Richmond to-morrow,” said Florimel, “and have a good +gallop in the park. Did you ever see a finer sight than that animal on +the grass?”</p> + +<p>“The fellow’s too heavy for her,” said Liftore. “I should very much +like to try her myself.”</p> + +<p>Florimel pulled up, and turned to Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“MacPhail,” she said, “have that mare of yours ready whenever Lord +Liftore chooses to ride her.”</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, my lady,” returned Malcolm, “but would your +ladyship make a condition with my lord that he shall not mount her +anywhere on the stones.”</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” said Liftore scornfully. “You fancy yourself the only man +that can ride!”</p> + +<p>“It’s nothing to me, my lord, if you break your neck; but I am bound to +tell you I do <i>not</i> think your lordship will sit my mare. Stoat can’t; +and I can only because I know her as well as my own palm.”</p> + +<p>The young earl made no answer and they rode on—Malcolm nearer than his +lordship liked.</p> + +<p>“I can’t think, Florimel,” he said, “why you should want that fellow +about you again. He is not only very awkward, but insolent as well.”</p> + +<p>“I should call it straightforward,” returned Florimel.</p> + +<p>“My dear Lady Lossie! See how close he is riding to us now.”</p> + +<p>“He is anxious, I daresay, as to your Lordship’s behaviour. He is like +some dogs that are a little too careful of their mistresses— touchy +as to how they are addressed—not a bad fault in dog—or groom either. +He saved my life once, and he was a great favourite with my father: I +won’t hear anything against him.”</p> + +<p>“But for your own sake—just consider:—what will people say if you +show any preference for a man like that?” said Liftore, who had already +become jealous of the man who in his heart he feared could ride better +than himself.</p> + +<p>“My lord!” exclaimed Florimel, with a mingling of surprise and +indignation in her voice, and suddenly quickening her pace, dropped him +behind.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was after her so instantly, that it brought him abreast of +Liftore.</p> + +<p>“Keep your own place,” said his lordship, with stern rebuke.</p> + +<p>“I keep my place to my mistress,” returned Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Liftore looked at him as if he would strike him. But he thought better +of it apparently, and rode after Florimel.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.<br><span class="small">BLUE PETER.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>By the time he had put up Kelpie, Malcolm found that his only chance +of seeing Blue Peter before he left London, lay in going direct to the +wharf. On his road he reflected on what had just passed, and was not +altogether pleased with himself. He had nearly lost his temper with +Liftore; and if he should act in any way unbefitting the position he +had assumed, from the duties of which he was in no degree exonerated +by the fact that he had assumed it for a purpose, it would not only +be a failure in himself, but an impediment perhaps insurmountable in +the path of his service. To attract attention was almost to insure +frustration. When he reached the wharf he found they had nearly got her +freight on board the smack. Blue Peter stood on the forecastle. He went +to him and explained how it was that he had been unable to join him +sooner.</p> + +<p>“I didna ken ye,” said Blue Peter, “in sic playactor kin’ o’ claes.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody in London would look at me twice now. But you remember how we +were stared at when first we came,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Ow ay!” returned Peter with almost a groan; “there’s a sair cheenge +past upo’ you, but I’m gauin’ hame to the auld w’y o’ things. The +herrin’ ’ll be aye to the fore, I’m thinkin’; an’ gien we getna a +harbour we’ll get a h’aven.”</p> + +<p>Judging it better to take no notice of this pretty strong expression of +distrust and disappointment, Malcolm led him aside, and putting a few +sovereigns in his hand, said,</p> + +<p>“Here, Peter, that will take you home.”</p> + +<p>“It’s ower muckle—a heap ower muckle. I’ll tak naething frae ye but +what’ll pay my w’y.”</p> + +<p>“And what is such a trifle between friends?”</p> + +<p>“There <i>was</i> a time, Ma’colm, whan what was mine was yours, an’ what +was yours was mine, but that time’s gane.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry to hear that, Peter; but still I owe you as much as that for +bare wages.”</p> + +<p>“There was no word o’ wauges when ye said, Peter, come to Lon’on wi’ +me.—Davie there—he maun hae his wauges.”</p> + +<p>“Weel,” said Malcolm, thinking it better to give way, “I’m no abune +bein’ obleeged to ye, Peter. I maun bide my time, I see, for ye winna +lippen till me. Eh man! your faith’s sune at the wa’.”</p> + +<p>“Faith! what faith?” returned Peter, almost fiercely. “We’re tauld +to put no faith in man; an’ gien I bena come to that yet freely, I’m +nearer till ’t nor ever I was afore.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, Peter, a’ ’at I can say is, I ken my ain hert, an’ ye dinna ken +’t.”</p> + +<p>“Daur ye tell me!” cried Peter. “Disna the Scriptur’ itsel’ say the +hert o’ man is deceitfu’ an’ despratly wickit: who can know it?”</p> + +<p>“Peter,” said Malcolm, and he spoke very gently, for he understood that +love and not hate was at the root of his friend’s anger and injustice, +“gien ye winna lippen to me, there’s naething for ’t but I maun lippen +to you. Gang hame to yer wife, an’ gi’e her my compliments, an’ tell +her a’ ’at’s past atween you an’ me, as near, word for word, as ye can +tell the same; an’ say till her, I pray her to jeedge atween you an’ +me—an’ to mak the best o’ me to ye ’at she can, for I wad ill thole to +loss yer freenship, Peter.”</p> + +<p>The same moment came the command for all but passengers to go ashore. +The men grasped each other’s hand, looked each other in the eyes with +something of mutual reproach, and parted—Blue Peter down the river to +Scaurnose and Annie, Malcolm to the yacht lying still in the Upper Pool.</p> + +<p>He saw it taken properly in charge, and arranged for having it towed up +the river and anchored in the Chelsea Reach.</p> + +<p>When Blue Peter found himself once more safe out at sea, with twelve +hundred yards of canvas spread above him in one mighty wing betwixt +boom and gaff; and the wind blowing half a gale, the weather inside him +began to change a little. He began to see that he had not been behaving +altogether as a friend ought. It was not that he saw reason for being +better satisfied with Malcolm or his conduct, but reason for being +worse satisfied with himself; and the consequence was that he grew +still angrier with Malcolm, and the wrong he had done him seemed more +and more an unpardonable one.</p> + +<p>When he was at length seated on the top of the coach running betwixt +Aberdeen and Fochabers, which would set him down as near Scaurnose as +coach could go, he began to be doubtful how Annie, formally retained +on Malcolm’s side by the message he had to give her, would judge in +the question between them; for what did she know of theatres and such +places? And the doubt strengthened as he neared home. The consequence +was that he felt in no haste to execute Malcolm’s commission; and +hence, the delights of greeting over, Annie was the first to open her +bag of troubles: Mr Crathie had given them notice to quit at Midsummer.</p> + +<p>“Jist what I micht hae expeckit!” cried Blue Peter, starting up. “Woe +be to the man ’at puts his trust in princes! I luikit till him to +save the fisher-fowk, an’ no to the Lord; an’ the tooer o’ Siloam’s +fa’en upo’ my heid:—what does he, the first thing, but turn his ain +auld freen’s oot o’ the sma beild they had! That his father nor his +gran’father, ’at was naither o’ them God-fearin’ men, wad never hae put +their han’ till. Eh, wuman! but my hert’s sair ’ithin me. To think o’ +Ma’colm MacPhail turnin’ his back upo’ them ’at’s been freens wi’ ’im +sin ever he was a wee loonie, rinnin’ aboot in coaties!”</p> + +<p>“Hoot, man! what’s gotten intill yer heid?” returned his wife. “It’s no +Ma’colm; it’s the illwully factor. Bide ye till he comes till ’s ain, +an’ Maister Crathie ’ll hae to lauch o’ the wrang side o’ ’s mou’.”</p> + +<p>But thereupon Peter began his tale of how he had fared in London, and +in the excitement of keenly anticipated evil, and with his recollection +of events wrapped in the mist of a displeasure which had deepened +during his journey, he so clothed the facts of Malcolm’s conduct in the +garments of his own feelings that the mind of Annie Mair also became +speedily possessed with the fancy that their friend’s good fortune +had upset his moral equilibrium, and that he had not only behaved to +her husband with pride and arrogance, breaking all the ancient bonds +of friendship between them, but had tried to seduce him from the ways +of righteousness by inveigling him into a playhouse, where marvels +of wickedness were going on at the very time. She wept a few bitter +tears of disappointment, dried them hastily, lifted her head high, and +proceeded to set her affairs in order as if death were at the door.</p> + +<p>For indeed it was to them as a death to leave Scaurnose. True, Annie +came from inland, and was not of the fisher-race, but this part of +the coast she had known from childhood, and in this cottage all her +married years had been spent, while banishment of the sort involved +banishment from every place they knew, for all the neighbourhood was +equally under the power of the factor. And poor as their accommodation +here was, they had plenty of open air and land room; whereas if they +should be compelled to go to any of the larger ports, it would be to +circumstances greatly inferior, and a neighbourhood in all probability +very undesirable for their children.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.<br><span class="small">MR GRAHAM.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When Malcolm at length reached his lodging, he found there a letter +from Miss Horn, containing the much desired information as to where +the schoolmaster was to be found in the London wilderness. It was +now getting rather late, and the dusk of a spring night had begun to +gather; but little more than the breadth of the Regent’s Park lay +between him and his best friend—his only one in London— and he set +out immediately for Camden Town.</p> + +<p>The relation between him and his late schoolmaster was indeed of the +strongest and closest. Long before Malcolm was born, and ever since, +had Alexander Graham loved Malcolm’s mother; but not until within the +last few months had he learned that Malcolm was the son of Griselda +Campbell. The discovery was to the schoolmaster like the bursting out +of a known flower on an unknown plant. He knew then, not why he had +loved the boy, for he loved every one of his pupils more or less, but +why he had loved him with such a peculiar tone of affection.</p> + +<p>It was a lovely evening. There had been rain in the afternoon as +Malcolm walked home from the Pool, but before the sun set, it had +cleared up; and as he went through the park towards the dingy suburb, +the first heralds of the returning youth of the year met him from all +sides in the guise of odours—not yet those of flowers, but the more +ethereal if less sweet, scents of buds and grass, and ever pure earth +moistened with the waters of heaven. And to his surprise he found that +his sojourn in a great city, although as yet so brief, had already made +the open earth with its corn and grass more dear to him and wonderful. +But when he left the park, and crossed the Hampstead Road into a dreary +region of dwellings crowded and commonplace as the thoughts of a +worshipper of Mammon, houses upon houses, here and there shepherded by +a tall spire, it was hard to believe that the spring was indeed _coming +slowly up this way_.</p> + +<p>After not a few inquiries, he found himself at a stationer’s shop, a +poor little place, and learned that Mr Graham lodged over it, and was +then at home.</p> + +<p>He was shown up into a shabby room, with an iron bedstead, a chest of +drawers daubed with sickly paint, a table with a stained red cover, a +few bookshelves in a recess over the wash-stand, and two chairs seated +with hair-cloth. On one of these, by the side of a small fire in a +neglected grate, sat the schoolmaster reading his Plato. On the table +beside him lay his Greek New Testament, and an old edition of George +Herbert. He looked up as the door opened, and, notwithstanding his +strange dress, recognising at once his friend and pupil, rose hastily, +and welcomed him with hand and eyes and countenance, but without word +spoken. For a few moments the two stood silent, holding each the +other’s hand, and gazing each in the other’s eyes, then sat down, still +speechless, one on each side of the fire.</p> + +<p>They looked at each other and smiled, and again a minute passed. Then +the schoolmaster rose, rang the bell, and when it was answered by a +rather careworn young woman, requested her to bring tea.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry I cannot give you cakes or fresh butter, my lord,” he said +with a smile, and they were the first words spoken. “The former is not +to be had, and the latter is beyond my means. But what I have will +content one who is able to count that abundance which many would count +privation.”</p> + +<p>He spoke in the choice word, measured phrase, and stately speech which +Wordsworth says “grave livers do in Scotland use,” but under it all +rang a tone of humour, as if he knew the form of his utterance too +important for the subject-matter of it, and would gently amuse with it +both his visitor and himself.</p> + +<p>He was a man of middle height, but so thin that notwithstanding a +slight stoop in the shoulders, he looked rather tall; much on the young +side of fifty, but apparently a good way on the other, partly from +the little hair he had being grey. He had sandy-coloured whiskers, +and a shaven chin. Except his large sweetly closed mouth, and rather +long upper lip, there was nothing very notable in his features. At +ordinary moments, indeed, there was nothing in his appearance other +than insignificant to the ordinary observer. His eyes were of a pale +quiet blue, but when he smiled they sparkled and throbbed with light. +He wore the same old black tail-coat he had worn last in his school at +Portlossie, but the white neckcloth he had always been seen in there +had given place to a black one: that was the sole change in the aspect +of the man.</p> + +<p>About Portlossie he had been greatly respected, notwithstanding the +rumour that he was a “stickit minister,” that is, one who had failed +in the attempt to preach; and when the presbytery dismissed him on the +charge of heresy, there had been many tears on the part of his pupils, +and much childish defiance of his unenviable successor.</p> + +<p>Few words passed between the two men until they had had their tea, +and then followed a long talk, Malcolm first explaining his present +position, and then answering many questions of the master as to how +things had gone since he left. Next followed anxious questions on +Malcolm’s side as to how his friend found himself in the prison of +London.</p> + +<p>“I do miss the air, and the laverocks (<i>skylarks</i>), and the gowans,” +he confessed; “but I have them all in my mind, and at my age a man +ought to be able to satisfy himself with the idea of a thing in his +soul. Of outer things that have contributed to his inward growth, the +memory alone may then well be enough. The sights which, when I lie down +to sleep, rise before that inward eye Wordsworth calls the bliss of +solitude, have upon me power almost of a spiritual vision, so purely +radiant are they of that which dwells in them, the divine thought which +is their substance, their <i>hypostasis</i>. My boy! I doubt if you can tell +what it is to know the presence of the living God in and about you.”</p> + +<p>“I houp I hae a bit notion o’ ’t, sir,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“But believe me that in any case, however much a man may have of it, +he may have it endlessly more. Since I left the cottage where I hoped +to end my days under the shadow of the house of your ancestors, since +I came into this region of bricks and smoke, and the crowded tokens +too plain of want and care, I have found a reality in the things I had +been trying to teach you at Portlossie, such as I had before imagined +only in my best moments. And more still: I am now far better able to +understand how it must have been with our Lord when he was trying to +teach the men and women of Palestine to have faith in God. Depend upon +it, we get our best use of life in learning by the facts of its ebb and +flow to understand the Son of Man. And again, when we understand Him, +then only do we understand our life and ourselves. Never can we know +the majesty of the will of God concerning us except by understanding +Jesus and the work the Father gave Him to do. Now, nothing is of a more +heavenly delight than to enter into a dusky room in the house of your +friend, and there, with a blow of the heavenly rod, draw light from +the dark wall—open a window, a fountain of the eternal light, and +let in the truth which is the life of the world. Joyously would a man +spend his life, right joyously even if the road led to the gallows, +in showing the grandest he sees—the splendid purities of the divine +religion—the mountain top up to which the voice of God is ever calling +his children. Yes, I can understand even how a man might live, like the +good hermits of old, in triumphant meditation upon such all-satisfying +truths, and let the waves of the world’s time wash by him in unheeded +flow until his cell changed to his tomb, and his spirit soared free. +But to spend your time in giving little lessons when you have great +ones to give; in teaching the multiplication table the morning after +you made at midnight a grand discovery upon the very summits of the +moonlit mountain range of the mathematics; in enforcing the old law, +<i>Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself</i>, when you know in your own +heart that not a soul can ever learn to keep it without first learning +to fulfil an infinitely greater one—_to love his neighbour even as +Christ hath loved him_ —then indeed one may well grow disheartened, +and feel as if he were not in the place prepared for, and at the work +required of him. But it is just then that he must go back to school +himself and learn not only the patience of God who keeps the whole +dull obstinate world alive, while generation after generation is born +and vanishes, and of the mighty multitude only one here and there +rises up from the fetters of humanity into the freedom of the sons of +God—and yet goes on teaching the whole, and bringing every man who +will but turn his ear a little towards the voice that calls him, nearer +and nearer to the second birth—of sonship and liberty—not only this +divine patience must he learn, but the divine insight as well, which +in every form spies the reflex of the truth it cannot contain, and +in every lowliest lesson sees the highest drawn nearer, and the soul +growing alive unto God.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.<br><span class="small">RICHMOND PARK.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The next day at noon, mounted on Kelpie, Malcolm was in attendance +upon his mistress, who was eager after a gallop in Richmond Park. Lord +Liftore, who had intended to accompany her, had not made his appearance +yet, but Florimel did not seem the less desirous of setting out at the +time she had appointed Malcolm. The fact was she had said one o’clock +to Liftore, intending twelve, that she might get away without him. +Kelpie seemed on her good behaviour, and they started quietly enough. +By the time they had got out of the park upon the Kensington Road, +however, the evil spirit had begun to wake in her. But even when she +was quietest, she was nothing to be trusted, and about London Malcolm +found he dared never let his thoughts go, or take his attention +quite off her ears. They got to Kew Bridge in safety nevertheless, +though whether they were to get safely across was doubtful all the +time they were upon it, for again and again she seemed on the very +point of clearing the stone balustrade, but for the terrible bit and +chain without which Malcolm never dared ride her. Still, whatever her +caracoles or escapades, they caused Florimel nothing but amusement, for +her confidence in Malcolm—that he could do whatever he believed he +could—was unbounded. They got through Richmond—with some trouble, but +hardly were they well into the park, when Lord Liftore, followed by his +groom, came suddenly up behind them at such a rate as quite destroyed +the small stock of equanimity Kelpie had to go upon. She bolted.</p> + +<p>Florimel was a good rider, and knew herself quite mistress of her +horse, and if she now followed, it was at her own will, and with a +design; she wanted to make the horses behind her bolt also if she +could. His lordship came flying after her, and his groom after him, +but she kept increasing her pace until they were all at full stretch, +thundering over the grass—upon which Malcolm had at once turned +Kelpie, giving her little rein and plenty of spur. Gradually Florimel +slackened speed, and at last pulled up suddenly. Liftore and his groom +went past her like the wind. She turned at right angles and galloped +back to the road. There, on a gaunt thoroughbred, with a furnace of old +life in him yet, sat Lenorme, whom she had already passed and signalled +to remain thereabout. They drew alongside of each other, but they did +not shake hands; they only looked each in the other’s eyes, and for a +few moments neither spoke. The three riders were now far away over the +park, and still Kelpie held on and the other horses after her.</p> + +<p>“I little expected <i>such</i> a pleasure,” said Lenorme.</p> + +<p>“I meant to give it you, though,” said Florimel, with a merry laugh. +“Bravo, Kelpie! take them with you,” she cried, looking after the +still retreating horsemen. “I have got a familiar since I saw you +last, Raoul,” she went on. “See if I don’t get some good for us out of +him!—We’ll move gently along the road here, and by the time Liftore’s +horse is spent, we shall be ready for a good gallop. I want to tell you +all about it. I did not mean Liftore to be here when I sent you word, +but he has been too much for me.”</p> + +<p>Lenorme replied with a look of gratitude; and as they walked their +horses along, she told him all concerning Malcolm and Kelpie.</p> + +<p>“Liftore hates him already,” she said, “and I can hardly wonder; but +<i>you</i> must not, for you will find him useful. He is one I can depend +upon. You should have seen the look Liftore gave him when he told him +he could not sit his mare! It would have been worth gold to you.”</p> + +<p>Lenorme winced a little.</p> + +<p>“He thinks no end of his riding,” Florimel continued; “but if it were +not so improper to have secrets with another gentleman, I would tell +you that he rides—just pretty well.”</p> + +<p>Lenorme’s great brow gloomed over his eyes like the Eiger in a mist, +but he said nothing yet.</p> + +<p>“He wants to ride Kelpie, and I have told my groom to let him have her. +Perhaps she’ll break his neck.”</p> + +<p>Lenorme smiled grimly.</p> + +<p>“You wouldn’t mind, would you, Raoul?” added Florimel, with a roguish +look.</p> + +<p>“Would you mind telling me, Florimel, what you mean by the impropriety +of having secrets with another gentleman? Am <i>I</i> the other gentleman?”</p> + +<p>“Why, of course! You know Liftore imagines he has only to name the day.”</p> + +<p>“And you allow an idiot like that to cherish such a degrading idea of +you.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Raoul! what does it matter what a fool like him thinks?”</p> + +<p>“If you don’t mind it, I do. I feel it an insult to me that he should +dare think of you like that.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. I suppose I shall have to marry him some day.”</p> + +<p>“Lady Lossie, do you want to make me hate you?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be foolish, Raoul. It won’t be to-morrow—nor the next day. +<i>Freuet euch des Lebens!</i>”</p> + +<p>“O Florimel! what is to come of this? Do you want to break my heart? +—I hate to talk rubbish. You won’t kill me—you will only ruin my +work, and possibly drive me mad.”</p> + +<p>Florimel drew close to his side, laid her hand on his arm, and looked +in his face with a witching entreaty.</p> + +<p>“We have the present, Raoul,” she said.</p> + +<p>“So has the butterfly,” answered Lenorme; “but I had rather be the +caterpillar with a future.—Why don’t you put a stop to the man’s +lovemaking? He can’t love you or any woman. He does not know what love +means. It makes me ill to hear him when he thinks he is paying you +irresistible compliments. They are so silly! so mawkish! Good heavens, +Florimel! can you imagine that smile every day and always? Like the +rest of his class he seems to think himself perfectly justified in +making fools of women. <i>I</i> want to help you to grow as beautiful as +God meant you to be when he thought of you first. I want you to be my +embodied vision of life, that I may for ever worship at your feet—live +in you, die with you: such bliss, even were there nothing beyond, would +be enough for the heart of a God to bestow.”</p> + +<p>“Stop, stop, Raoul; I’m not worthy of such love,” said Florimel, again +laying her hand on his arm. “I do wish for your sake I had been born a +village-girl.”</p> + +<p>“If you had been, then I might have wished for your sake that I had +been born a marquis. As it is I would rather be a painter than any +nobleman in Europe—that is, with you to love me. Your love is my +patent of nobility. But I may glorify what you love—and tell you that +I can confer something on you also—what none of your noble admirers +can.—God forgive me! you will make me hate them all!”</p> + +<p>“Raoul, this won’t do at all,” said Florimel, with the authority that +should belong only to the one in the right. And indeed for the moment +she felt the dignity of restraining a too impetuous passion. “You will +spoil everything. I dare not come to your studio if you are going to +behave like this. It would be very wrong of me. And if I am never to +come and see you, I shall die—I know I shall.”</p> + +<p>The girl was so full of the delight of the secret love between them, +that she cared only to live in the present as if there were no future +beyond: Lenorme wanted to make that future like but better than the +present. The word marriage put Florimel in a rage. She thought herself +superior to Lenorme, because he, in the dread of losing her, would have +her marry him at once, while she was more than content with the bliss +of seeing him now and then. Often and often her foolish talk stung him +with bitter pain—worst of all when it compelled him to doubt whether +there was that in her to be loved as he was capable of loving. Yet +always the conviction that there was a deep root of nobleness in her +nature again got uppermost; and, had it not been so, I fear he would, +nevertheless, have continued to prove her irresistible as often as she +chose to exercise upon him the full might of her witcheries. At one +moment she would reveal herself in such a sudden rush of tenderness +as seemed possible only to one ready to become his altogether and for +ever; the next she would start away as if she had never meant anything, +and talk as if not a thought were in her mind beyond the cultivation +of a pleasant acquaintance doomed to pass with the season, if not with +the final touches to her portrait. Or she would fall to singing some +song he had taught her, more likely a certain one he had written in a +passionate mood of bitter tenderness, with the hope of stinging her +love to some show of deeper life; but would, while she sang, look with +merry defiance in his face, as if she adopted in seriousness what he +had written in loving and sorrowful satire.</p> + +<p>They rode in silence for some hundred yards. At length he spoke, +replying to her last asseveration.</p> + +<p>“Then what <i>can</i> you gain, child,” he said——</p> + +<p>“Will you dare to call <i>me</i> child—a marchioness in my own right!” she +cried, playfully threatening him with uplifted whip, in the handle of +which the little jewels sparkled.</p> + +<p>“What, then, can you gain, my lady marchioness,” he resumed, with soft +seriousness, and a sad smile, “by marrying one of your own rank?—I +should lay new honour and consideration at your feet. I am young. I +have done fairly well already. But I have done nothing to what I could +do now, if only my heart lay safe in the port of peace:—you know +where alone that is for me my—lady marchioness. And you know too that +the names of great painters go down with honour from generation to +generation, when my lord this or my lord that is remembered only as a +label to the picture that makes the painter famous. I am not a great +painter yet, but I will be one if you will be good to me. And men shall +say, when they look on your portrait, in ages to come: No wonder he was +such a painter when he had such a woman to paint.”</p> + +<p>He spoke the words with a certain tone of dignified playfulness.</p> + +<p>“When shall the woman sit to you again, painter?” said Florimel— sole +reply to his rhapsody.</p> + +<p>The painter thought a little. Then he said:</p> + +<p>“I don’t like that tire-woman of yours. She has two evil eyes— one for +each of us. I have again and again caught their expression when they +were upon us, and she thought none were upon her: I can see without +lifting my head when I am painting, and my art has made me quick at +catching expressions, and, I hope, at interpreting them.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t altogether like her myself,” said Florimel. “Of late I am not +so sure of her as I used to be. But what can I do? I must have somebody +with me, you know.—A thought strikes me. Yes. I won’t say now what it +is lest I should disappoint my—painter; but— yes—you shall see what +I will dare for you, faithless man!”</p> + +<p>She set off at a canter, turned on to the grass, and rode to meet +Liftore, whom she saw in the distance returning, followed by the two +grooms.</p> + +<p>“Come on, Raoul,” she cried, looking back; “I must account for you. He +sees I have not been alone.”</p> + +<p>Lenorme joined her, and they rode along side by side.</p> + +<p>The earl and the painter knew each other: as they drew near, the +painter lifted his hat, and the earl nodded.</p> + +<p>“You owe Mr Lenorme some acknowledgment, my lord, for taking charge of +me after your sudden desertion,” said Florimel. “Why did you gallop off +in such a mad fashion?”</p> + +<p>“I am sorry,” began Liftore a little embarrassed.</p> + +<p>“Oh! don’t trouble yourself to apologise,” said Florimel. “I have +always understood that great horsemen find a horse more interesting +than a lady. It is a mark of their breed, I am told.”</p> + +<p>She knew that Liftore would not be ready to confess he could not hold +his hack.</p> + +<p>“If it hadn’t been for Mr Lenorme,” she added, “I should have been left +without a squire, subject to any whim of my four-footed servant here.”</p> + +<p>As she spoke she patted the neck of her horse. The earl, on his side, +had been looking the painter’s horse up and down with a would-be +humorous expression of criticism.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, marchioness,” he replied; “but you pulled up so +quickly that we shot past you. I thought you were close behind, and +preferred following.—Seen his best days, eh, Lenorme?” he concluded, +willing to change the subject.</p> + +<p>“I fancy he doesn’t think so,” returned the painter. “I bought him out +of a butterman’s cart, three months ago. He’s been coming to himself +ever since. Look at his eye, my lord.”</p> + +<p>“Are you knowing in horses, then?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t say I am, beyond knowing how to treat them something like +human beings.”</p> + +<p>“That’s no ill,” said Malcolm to himself. He was just near enough, on +the pawing and foaming Kelpie, to catch what was passing.— “The fallow +’ll du. He’s worth a score o’ sic yerls as yon.”</p> + +<p>“Ha! ha!” said his lordship; “I don’t know about that.—He’s not +the best of tempers, I can see. But look at that demon of Lady +Lossie’s—that black mare there! I wish you could teach her some of +your humanity.</p> + +<p>“—By the way, Florimel, I think now we <i>are</i> upon the grass,”— he +said it loftily, as if submitting to an injustice—“I will presume to +mount the reprobate.”</p> + +<p>The gallop had communicated itself to Liftore’s blood, and, besides, +he thought after such a run Kelpie would be less extravagant in her +behaviour.</p> + +<p>“She is at your service,” said Florimel.</p> + +<p>He dismounted, his groom rode up, he threw him the reins, and called +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Bring your mare here, my man,” he said.</p> + +<p>Malcolm rode her up half way, and dismounted.</p> + +<p>“If your lordship is going to ride her,” he said, “will you please get +on her here. I would rather not take her near the other horses.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you know her better than I do.—You and I must ride about the +same length, I think.”</p> + +<p>So saying his lordship carelessly measured the stirrup-leather against +his arm, and took the reins.</p> + +<p>“Stand well forward, my lord. Don’t mind turning your back to her head: +I’ll look after her teeth; you mind her hind-hoof,” said Malcolm, with +her head in one hand and the stirrup in the other.</p> + +<p>Kelpie stood rigid as a rock, and the earl swung himself up cleverly +enough. But hardly was he in the saddle, and Malcolm had just let her +go, when she plunged and lashed out; then, having failed to unseat her +rider, stood straight up on her hind legs.</p> + +<p>“Give her her head, my lord,” cried Malcolm.</p> + +<p>She stood swaying in the air, Liftore’s now frightened face half hid in +her mane, and his spurs stuck in her flanks.</p> + +<p>“Come off her, my lord, for God’s sake. Off with you!” cried Malcolm, +as he leaped at her head. “She’ll be on her back in a moment.”</p> + +<p>Liftore only clung the harder. Malcolm caught her head—just in time: +she was already falling backwards.</p> + +<p>“Let all go, my lord. Throw yourself off.”</p> + +<p>He swung her towards him with all his strength, and just as his +lordship fell off behind her, she fell sideways to Malcolm, and clear +of Liftore.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was on the side away from the little group, and their own +horses were excited, so those who had looked breathless on at the +struggle could not tell how he had managed it, but when they expected +to see the groom writhing under the weight of the demoness, there he +was with his knee upon her head—while Liftore was gathering himself up +from the ground, only just beyond the reach of her iron-shod hoofs.</p> + +<p>“Thank God!” said Florimel, “there is no harm done.—Well, have you had +enough of her yet, Liftore?”</p> + +<p>“Pretty nearly, I think,” said his lordship, with an attempt at a +laugh, as he walked rather feebly and foolishly towards his horse. He +mounted with some difficulty, and looked very pale.</p> + +<p>“I hope you’re not much hurt,” said Florimel kindly, as she moved +alongside of him.</p> + +<p>“Not in the least—only disgraced,” he answered, almost angrily. “The +brute’s a perfect Satan. You <i>must</i> part with her. With such a horse +and such a groom you’ll get yourself talked of all over London. I +believe the fellow himself was at the bottom of it. You really <i>must</i> +sell her.”</p> + +<p>“I would, my lord, if <i>you</i> were my groom,” answered Florimel, whom his +accusation of Malcolm had filled with angry contempt; and she moved +away towards the still prostrate mare.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was quietly seated on her head. She had ceased sprawling, and +lay nearly motionless, but for the heaving of her sides with her huge +inhalations. She knew from experience that struggling was useless.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, my lady,” said Malcolm, “but I daren’t get up.”</p> + +<p>“How long do you mean to sit there then?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“If your ladyship wouldn’t mind riding home without me, I would give +her a good half hour of it. I always do when she throws herself over +like that.—I’ve gat my Epictetus?” he asked himself, feeling in his +coat pocket.</p> + +<p>“Do as you please,” answered his mistress. “Let me see you when you get +home. I should like to know you are safe.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, my lady; there’s little fear of that,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Florimel returned to the gentlemen, and they rode homewards. On the way +she said suddenly to the earl,</p> + +<p>“Can you tell me, Liftore, who Epictetus was?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered his lordship. “One of the old +fellows.”</p> + +<p>She turned to Lenorme. Happily the Christian heathen was not altogether +unknown to the painter.</p> + +<p>“May I inquire why your ladyship asks?” he said, when he had told all +he could at the moment recollect.</p> + +<p>“Because,” she answered, “I left my groom sitting on his horse’s head +reading Epictetus.”</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” exclaimed Liftore. “Ha! ha! ha! In the original, I suppose!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t doubt it,” said Florimel.</p> + +<p>In about two hours Malcolm reported himself. Lord Liftore had gone +home, they told him. The painter-fellow, as Wallis called him, had +stayed to lunch, but was now gone also, and Lady Lossie was alone in +the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>She sent for him.</p> + +<p>“I am glad to see you safe, MacPhail,” she said. “It is clear your +Kelpie—don’t be alarmed; I am not going to make you part with her—but +it is clear she won’t always do for you to attend me upon. Suppose now +I wanted to dismount and make a call, or go into a shop?”</p> + +<p>“There’s a sort of a friendship between your Abbot and her, my lady; +she would stand all the better if I had him to hold.”</p> + +<p>“Well, but how would you put me up again?”</p> + +<p>“I never thought of that, my lady. Of course I daren’t let you come +near Kelpie.”</p> + +<p>“Could you trust yourself to buy another horse to ride after me about +town?”</p> + +<p>“No, my lady, not without a ten days’ trial. If lies stuck like London +mud, there’s many a horse would never be seen again. But there’s Mr +Lenorme! If he would go with me, I fancy between us we could do pretty +well.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! a good idea,” returned his mistress. “But what makes you think of +him?” she added, willing enough to talk about him.</p> + +<p>“The look of the gentleman and his horse together, and what I heard him +say,” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“What did you hear him say?”</p> + +<p>“That he knew he had to treat horses something like human beings. I’ve +often fancied, within the last few months, that God does with some +people something like as I do with Kelpie.”</p> + +<p>“I know nothing about theology.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t fancy you do, my lady; but this concerns biography rather than +theology. No one could tell what I meant except he had watched his own +history, and that of people he knew.”</p> + +<p>“And horses too?”</p> + +<p>“It’s hard to get at their insides, my lady, but I suspect it must be +so. I’ll ask Mr Graham.”</p> + +<p>“What Mr Graham?”</p> + +<p>“The schoolmaster of Portlossie.”</p> + +<p>“Is he in London, then?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady. He believed too much to please the presbytery, and they +turned him out.”</p> + +<p>“I should like to see him. He was very attentive to my father on his +death-bed.”</p> + +<p>“Your ladyship will never know till you are dead yourself what Mr +Graham did for my lord.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean? What could he do for him?”</p> + +<p>“He helped him through sore trouble of mind, my lady.”</p> + +<p>Florimel was silent for a little, then repeated, “I should like to see +him. I ought to pay him some attention. Couldn’t I make them give him +his school again?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know about that, my lady; but I am sure he would not take it +against the will of the presbytery.”</p> + +<p>“I should like to do something for him. Ask him to call.”</p> + +<p>“If your ladyship lays your commands upon me,” answered Malcolm; +“otherwise I would rather not.”</p> + +<p>“Why so, pray?”</p> + +<p>“Because, except he can be of any use to you, he will not come.”</p> + +<p>“But I want to be of use to him.”</p> + +<p>“How, if I may ask, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“That I can’t exactly say on the spur of the moment. I must know the +man first—especially if you are right in supposing he would not enjoy +a victory over the presbytery. <i>I</i> should. He wouldn’t take money, I +fear.”</p> + +<p>“Except it came of love or work, he would put it from him as he would +brush the dust from his coat.”</p> + +<p>“I could introduce him to good society. That is no small privilege to +one of his station.”</p> + +<p>“He has more of that and better than your ladyship could give him. He +holds company with Socrates and St. Paul, and greater still.”</p> + +<p>“But they’re not like living people.”</p> + +<p>“Very like them, my lady—only far better company in general. But Mr +Graham would leave Plato himself—yes, or St. Paul either, though +he were sitting beside him in the flesh, to go and help any old +washerwoman that wanted him.”</p> + +<p>“Then I want him.”</p> + +<p>“No, my lady, you don’t want him.”</p> + +<p>“How dare you say so?”</p> + +<p>“If you did, you would go to him.”</p> + +<p>Florimel’s eyes flashed, and her pretty lip curled. She turned to her +writing-table, annoyed with herself that she could not find a fitting +word wherewith to rebuke his presumption—rudeness, was it not?—and +a feeling of angry shame arose in her, that she, the Marchioness of +Lossie, had not dignity enough to prevent her own groom from treating +her like a child. But he was far too valuable to quarrel with.</p> + +<p>She sat down and wrote a note.</p> + +<p>“There,” she said, “take that note to Mr Lenorme. I have asked him to +help you in the choice of a horse.”</p> + +<p>“What price would you be willing to go to, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“I leave that to Mr Lenorme’s judgment—and your own,” she added.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, my lady,” said Malcolm, and was leaving the room, when +Florimel called him back.</p> + +<p>“Next time you see Mr Graham,” she said, “give him my compliments, and +ask him if I can be of any service to him.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll do that, my lady. I am sure he will take it very kindly.”</p> + +<p>Florimel made no answer, and Malcolm went to find the painter.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.<br><span class="small">PAINTER AND GROOM.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The address upon the note Malcolm had to deliver took him to a house +in Chelsea—one of a row of beautiful old houses fronting the Thames, +with little gardens between them and the road. The one he sought was +overgrown with creepers, most of them now covered with fresh spring +buds. The afternoon had turned cloudy, and a cold east wind came up +the river, which, as the tide was falling, raised little waves on its +surface and made Malcolm think of the herring. Somehow, as he went up +to the door, a new chapter of his life seemed about to commence.</p> + +<p>The servant who took the note, returned immediately, and showed him up +to the study, a large back room, looking over a good-sized garden, with +stables on one side. There Lenorme sat at his easel.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” he said, “I’m glad to see that wild animal has not quite torn you +to pieces. Take a chair. What on earth made you bring such an incarnate +fury to London?”</p> + +<p>“I see well enough now, sir, she’s not exactly the one for London use, +but if you had once ridden her, you would never quite enjoy another +between your knees.”</p> + +<p>“She’s such an infernal brute!”</p> + +<p>“You can’t say too ill of her. But I fancy a gaol chaplain sometimes +takes the most interest in the worst villain under his charge. I should +be a proud man to make <i>her</i> fit to live with decent people.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid she’ll be too much for you. At last you’ll have to part +with her, I fear.”</p> + +<p>“If she had bitten you as often as she has me, sir, you wouldn’t part +with her. Besides, it would be wrong to sell her. She would only be +worse with anyone else. But, indeed, though you will hardly believe it, +she is better than she was.”</p> + +<p>“Then what must she have been!”</p> + +<p>“You may well say that, sir!”</p> + +<p>“Here your mistress tells me you want my assistance in choosing another +horse.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir—to attend upon her in London.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t profess to be knowing in horses: what made you think of me?”</p> + +<p>“I saw how you sat your own horse, sir, and I heard you say you bought +him out of a butterman’s cart, and treated him like a human being: +that was enough for me, sir. I’ve long had the notion that the beasts, +poor things, have a half-sleeping, half-waking human soul in them, and +it was a great pleasure to hear you say something of the same sort. +‘That gentleman,’ I said to myself, ‘—he and I would understand one +another.’”</p> + +<p>“I am glad you think so,” said Lenorme, with entire courtesy.—It was +not merely that the very doubtful recognition of his profession by +society had tended to keep him clear of his prejudices, but both as a +painter and a man he found the young fellow exceedingly attractive;—as +a painter from the rare combination of such strength with such beauty, +and as a man from a certain yet rarer clarity of nature which to +the vulgar observer seems fatuity until he has to encounter it in +action, when the contrast is like meeting a thunderbolt. Naturally the +dishonest takes the honest for a fool. Beyond his understanding, he +imagines him beneath it. But Lenorme, although so much more a man of +the world, was able in a measure to look into Malcolm and appreciate +him. His nature and his art combined in enabling him to do this.</p> + +<p>“You see, sir,” Malcolm went on, encouraged by the simplicity of +Lenorme’s manner, “if they were nothing like us, how should we be able +to get on with them at all, teach them anything, or come a hair nearer +them, do what we might? For all her wickedness I firmly believe Kelpie +has a sort of regard for me—I won’t call it affection, but perhaps it +comes as near that as may be possible in the time to one of her temper.”</p> + +<p>“Now I hope you will permit me, Mr MacPhail,” said Lenorme, who had +been paying more attention to Malcolm than to his words, “to give a +violent wrench to the conversation, and turn it upon yourself. You +can’t be surprised, and I hope you will not be annoyed, if I say you +strike one as not altogether like your calling. No London groom I have +ever spoken to, in the least resembles you. How is it?”</p> + +<p>“I hope you don’t mean to imply, sir, that I don’t know my business,” +returned Malcolm, laughing.</p> + +<p>“Anything but that! It were nearer the thing to say, that for all I +know you may understand mine as well.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I did, sir. Except the pictures at Lossie House and those in +Portland Place, I’ve never seen one in my life. About most of them I +must say I find it hard to imagine what better the world is for them. +Mr Graham says that no work that doesn’t tend to make the world better +makes it richer. If he were a heathen, he says, he would build a temple +to Ses, the sister of Psyche.”</p> + +<p>“Ses?—I don’t remember her,” said Lenorme.</p> + +<p>“The moth, sir;—‘the moth and the rust,’ you know.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes; now I know! Capital! Only more things may tend to make the +world better than some people think.—Who is this Mr Graham of yours? +He must be no common man.”</p> + +<p>“You are right there, sir; there is not another like him in the whole +world, I believe.”</p> + +<p>And thereupon Malcolm set himself to give the painter an idea of the +schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>When they had talked about him for a little while,</p> + +<p>“Well, all this accounts for your being a scholar,” said Lenorme; +“but——”</p> + +<p>“I am little enough of that, sir,” interrupted Malcolm. “Any Scotch boy +that likes to learn finds the way open to him.”</p> + +<p>“I am aware of that. But were you really reading Epictetus when we left +you in the park this morning?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir: why not?”</p> + +<p>“In the original?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; but not very readily. I am a poor Greek scholar. But my copy +has a rough Latin translation on the opposite page, and that helps me +out. It’s not difficult. You would think nothing of it if it had been +Cornelius Nepos, or Cordery’s Colloquies. It’s only a better, not a +more difficult book.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know about that. It’s not every one who can read Greek that +can understand Epictetus. Tell me what you have learned from him?”</p> + +<p>“That would be hard to do. A man is very ready to forget how he came +first to think of the things he loves best. You see they are as much +a necessity of your being as they are of the man’s who thought them +first. I can no more do without the truth than Plato. It is as much my +needful food and as fully mine to possess as his. His having it, Mr +Graham says, was for my sake as well as his own. —It’s just like what +Sir Thomas Browne says about the faces of those we love—that we cannot +retain the idea of them because they are ourselves. Those that help +the world must be served like their master and a good deal forgotten, +I fancy. Of course they don’t mind it.—I remember another passage I +think says something to the same purpose—one in Epictetus himself,” +continued Malcolm, drawing the little book from his pocket and turning +over the leaves, while Lenorme sat waiting, wondering, and careful not +to interrupt him.</p> + +<p>He turned to the forty-second chapter, and began to read from the Greek.</p> + +<p>“I’ve forgotten all the Greek I ever had,” said Lenorme.</p> + +<p>Then Malcolm turned to the opposite page and began to read the Latin.</p> + +<p>“Tut! tut!” said Lenorme, “I can’t follow your Scotch pronunciation.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a pity,” said Malcolm: “it’s the right way.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t doubt it. You Scotch are always in the right! But just read it +off in English—will you?”</p> + +<p>Thus adjured, Malcolm read slowly and with choice of word and phrase:—</p> + +<p>“‘And if any one shall say unto thee, that thou knowest nothing, +notwithstanding thou must not be vexed: then know thou that thou +hast begun thy work.’—That is,” explained Malcolm, “when you keep +silence about principles in the presence of those that are incapable +of understanding them.—‘For the sheep also do not manifest to the +shepherds how much they have eaten, by producing fodder; but, inwardly +digesting their food, they produce outwardly wool and milk. And thou +therefore set not forth principles before the unthinking, but the +actions that result from the digestion of them.’—That last is not +quite literal, but I think it’s about right,” concluded Malcolm, +putting the book again in the breast pocket of his silver-buttoned +coat. “—That’s the passage I thought of, but I see now it won’t apply. +He speaks of not saying what you know; I spoke of forgetting where you +got it.”</p> + +<p>“Come now,” said Lenorme, growing more and more interested in his +new acquaintance, “tell me something about your life. Account for +yourself.—If you will make a friendship of it, you must do that.”</p> + +<p>“I will, sir,” said Malcolm, and with the word began to tell him most +things he could think of as bearing upon his mental history up to and +after the time also when his birth was disclosed to him. In omitting +that disclosure he believed he had without it quite accounted for +himself. Through the whole recital he dwelt chiefly on the lessons and +influences of the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>“Well, I must admit,” said Lenorme when he had ended, “that you are no +longer unintelligible, not to say incredible. You have had a splendid +education, in which I hope you give the herring and Kelpie their due +share.”</p> + +<p>He sat silently regarding him for a few moments. Then he said:</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you what now: if I help you to buy a horse, you must help me +to paint a picture.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know how I’m to do that,” said Malcolm, “but if <i>you</i> do, +that’s enough. I shall only be too happy to do what I can.”</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll tell you.—But you’re not to tell <i>any</i>body: it’s a +secret.—I have discovered that there is no suitable portrait of Lady +Lossie’s father. It is a great pity. His brother and his father and +grandfather are all in Portland Place, in Highland costume, as chiefs +of their clan; his place only is vacant. Lady Lossie, however, has in +her possession one or two miniatures of him, which, although badly +painted, I should think may give the outlines of his face and head with +tolerable correctness. From the portraits of his predecessors, and from +Lady Lossie herself, I gain some knowledge of what is common to the +family; and from all together I hope to gather and paint what will be +recognizable by her as a likeness of her father—which afterwards I +hope to better by her remarks. These remarks I hope to get first from +her feelings unadulterated by criticism, through the surprise of coming +upon the picture suddenly; afterwards from her judgment at its leisure. +Now I remember seeing you wait at table—the first time I saw you—in +the Highland dress: will you come to me so dressed, and let me paint +from you?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll do better than that, sir,” cried Malcolm, eagerly. “I’ll get up +from Lossie House my lord’s very dress that he wore when he went to +court—his jewelled dirk, and Andrew Ferrara broadsword with the hilt +of real silver. That’ll greatly help your design upon my lady, for he +dressed up in them all more than once just to please her.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Lenorme very heartily; “that will be of immense +advantage. Write at once.”</p> + +<p>“I will, sir.—Only I’m a bigger man than my—late master, and you must +mind that.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll see to it. You get the clothes, and all the rest of the +accoutrements—rich with barbaric gems and gold, and——”</p> + +<p>“Neither gems nor gold, sir;—honest Scotch cairngorms and plain +silver,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“I only quoted Milton,” returned Lenorme.</p> + +<p>“Then you should have quoted correctly, sir.—‘Showers on her kings +barbaric pearl and gold,’—that’s the line, and you can’t better it. Mr +Graham always pulled me up if I didn’t quote correctly.— By-the-bye, +sir, some say it’s <i>kings barbaric</i>, but there’s <i>barbaric gold</i> in +Virgil.”</p> + +<p>“I dare say you are right,” said Lenorme. “But you’re far too learned +for me.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t make game of me, sir. I know two or three books pretty well, and +when I get a chance I can’t help talking about them. It’s so seldom +now I can get a mouthful of Milton. There’s no cave here to go into, +and roll the mimic thunder in your mouth. If the people here heard me +reading loud out, they would call me mad. It’s a mercy in this London, +if a working-man get loneliness enough to say his prayers in!”</p> + +<p>“You do say your prayers then?” asked Lenorme, looking at him curiously.</p> + +<p>“Yes; don’t you, sir? You had so much sense about the beasts I thought +you must be a man that said his prayers.”</p> + +<p>Lenorme was silent. He was not altogether innocent of saying prayers; +but of late years it had grown a more formal and gradually a rarer +thing. One reason of this was that it had never come into his head that +God cared about pictures, or had the slightest interest whether he +painted well or ill. If a man’s earnest calling, to which of necessity +the greater part of his thought is given, is altogether dissociated +in his mind from his religion, it is not wonderful that his prayers +should by degrees wither and die. The question is whether they ever +had much vitality. But one mighty negative was yet true of Lenorme: +he had not got in his head, still less had he ever cherished in his +heart, the thought that there was anything fine in disbelieving in a +God, or anything contemptible in imagining communication with a being +of grander essence than himself. That in which Socrates rejoiced with +exultant humility, many a youth now-a-days thinks himself a fine fellow +for casting from him with ignorant scorn.</p> + +<p>A true conception of the conversation above recorded can hardly be had +except my reader will take the trouble to imagine the contrast between +the Scotch accent and inflection, the largeness and prolongation of +vowel sounds, and, above all, the Scotch tone of Malcolm, and the pure, +clear articulation, and decided utterance of the perfect London speech +of Lenorme. It was something like the difference between the blank +verse of Young and the prose of Burke.</p> + +<p>The silence endured so long that Malcolm began to fear he had hurt his +new friend, and thought it better to take his leave.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go and write to Mrs Courthope—that’s the housekeeper— to-night, +to send up the things at once. When would it be convenient for you to +go and look at some horses with me, Mr Lenorme?” he said.</p> + +<p>“I shall be at home all to-morrow,” answered the painter, “and ready to +go with you any time you like to come for me.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke he held out his hand, and they parted like old friends.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.<br><span class="small">A LADY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The next morning, Malcolm took Kelpie into the park, and gave her a +good breathing. He had thought to jump the rails, and let her have her +head, but he found there were too many park-keepers and police about: +he saw he could do little for her that way. He was turning home with +her again when one of her evil fits came upon her, this time taking +its first form in a sudden stiffening of every muscle: she stood stock +still with flaming eyes. I suspect we human beings know but little of +the fierceness with which the vortices of passion rage in the more +purely animal natures. This beginning he knew well would end in a wild +paroxysm of rearing and plunging. He had more than once tried the +exorcism of patience, sitting sedate upon her back until she chose to +move; but on these occasions the tempest that followed had been of the +very worst description; so that he had concluded it better to bring +on the crisis, thereby sure at least to save time; and after he had +adopted this mode with her, attacks of the sort, if no less violent, +had certainly become fewer. The moment therefore that symptoms of +an approaching fit showed themselves, he used his spiked heels with +vigour. Upon this occasion he had a stiff tussle with her, but as usual +gained the victory, and was riding slowly along the Row, Kelpie tossing +up now her head now her heels in indignant protest against obedience in +general and enforced obedience in particular, when a lady on horseback, +who had come galloping from the opposite direction, with her groom +behind her, pulled up, and lifted her hand with imperative grace: she +had seen something of what had been going on. Malcolm reined in. But +Kelpie, after her nature, was now as unwilling to stop as she had been +before to proceed, and the fight began again, with some difference of +movement and aspect, but the spurs once more playing a free part.</p> + +<p>“Man! man!” cried the lady, in most musical reproof, “do you know what +you are about?”</p> + +<p>“It would be a bad job for her and me too if I did not, my lady,” said +Malcolm, whom her appearance and manner impressed with a conviction +of rank, and as he spoke he smiled in the midst of the struggle: he +seldom got angry with Kelpie. But the smile instead of taking from the +apparent roughness of his speech, only made his conduct appear in the +lady’s eyes more cruel.</p> + +<p>“How is it possible you can treat the poor animal so unkindly —and in +cold blood too?” she said, and an indescribable tone of pleading ran +through the rebuke. “Why, her poor sides are actually——” A shudder, +and look of personal distress completed the sentence.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know what she is, my lady, or you would not think it +necessary to intercede for her.”</p> + +<p>“But if she is naughty, is that any reason why you should be cruel?”</p> + +<p>“No, my lady; but it is the best reason why I should try to make her +good.”</p> + +<p>“You will never make her good that way.”</p> + +<p>“Improvement gives ground for hope,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“But you must not treat a poor dumb animal as you would a responsible +human being.”</p> + +<p>“She’s not so very poor, my lady. She has all she wants, and does +nothing to earn it—nothing to speak of; and nothing at all with good +will. For her dumbness, that’s a mercy. If she could speak she wouldn’t +be fit to live among decent people. But for that matter, if some one +hadn’t taken her in hand, dumb as she is, she would have been shot long +ago.”</p> + +<p>“Better that than live with such usage.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think she would agree with you, my lady. My fear is that, for +as cruel as it looks to your ladyship, take it altogether, she enjoys +the fight. In any case, I am certain she has more regard for me than +any other being in the universe.”</p> + +<p>“Who <i>can</i> have any regard for you,” said the lady very gently, in +utter mistake of his meaning, “if you have no command of your temper? +You must learn to rule yourself first.”</p> + +<p>“That’s true, my lady; and so long as my mare is not able to be a law +to herself, I must be a law to her too.”</p> + +<p>“But have you never heard of the law of kindness? You could do so much +more without the severity.”</p> + +<p>“With some natures I grant you, my lady, but not with such as she. +Horse or man—they never show kindness till they have learned fear. +Kelpie would have torn me to pieces before now if I had taken your +way with her. But except I can do a great deal more with her yet she +will be nothing better than a natural brute beast made to be taken and +destroyed.”</p> + +<p>“The Bible again!” murmured the lady to herself. “Of how much cruelty +has not that book to bear the blame!”</p> + +<p>All this time Kelpie was trying hard to get at the lady’s horse to bite +him. But she did not see that. She was much too distressed— and was +growing more and more so.</p> + +<p>“I wish you would let my groom try her,” she said, after a pitiful +pause. “He’s an older and more experienced man than you. He has +children. He would show you what can be done by gentleness.”</p> + +<p>From Malcolm’s words she had scarcely gathered even a false meaning +—not a glimmer of his nature—not even a suspicion that he meant +something. To her he was but a handsome, brutal young groom. From the +world of thought and reasoning that lay behind his words, not an echo +had reached her.</p> + +<p>“It would be a great satisfaction to my old Adam to let him try her,” +said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“The Bible again!” said the lady to herself.</p> + +<p>“But it would be murder,” he added, “not knowing myself what experience +he has had.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said the lady to herself; but loud enough for Malcolm to hear, +for her tender-heartedness had made her both angry and unjust, “his +self-conceit is equal to his cruelty—just what I might have expected!”</p> + +<p>With the words she turned her horse’s head and rode away, leaving a +lump in Malcolm’s throat.</p> + +<p>“I wuss fowk”—he still spoke in Scotch in his own chamber— “wad du as +they’re tell’t, an’ no jeedge ane anither. I’m sure it’s Kelpie’s best +chance o’ salvation ’at I gang on wi’ her. Stable-men wad ha’e had her +brocken doon a’thegither by this time; an’ life wad ha’e had little +relish left.”</p> + +<p>It added hugely to the bitterness of being thus rebuked, that he had +never in his life seen such a radiance of beauty’s softest light as +shone from the face and form of the reproving angel.— “Only she canna +be an angel,” he said to himself; “or she wad ha’e ken’t better.”</p> + +<p>She was young—not more than twenty, tall and graceful, with a touch +of the matronly, which she must have had even in childhood, for it +belonged to her—so staid, so stately was she in all her grace. With +her brown hair, her lily complexion, her blue-gray eyes, she was all +of the moonlight and its shadows—even now, in the early morning, and +angry. Her nose was so nearly perfect that one never thought of it. +Her mouth was rather large, but had gained in value of shape, and in +the expression of indwelling sweetness, with every line that carried +it beyond the measure of smallness. Most little mouths are pretty, +some even lovely, but not one have I seen beautiful. Her forehead was +the sweetest of half-moons. Of those who knew her best some absolutely +believed that a radiance resembling moonlight shimmered from its +precious expanse.</p> + +<p>“Be ye angry and sin not,” had always been a puzzle to Malcolm, who +had, as I have said, inherited a certain Celtic fierceness; but now, +even while he knew himself the object of the anger, he understood the +word. It tried him sorely, however, that such gentleness and beauty +should be unreasonable. Could it be that he should never have a chance +of convincing her how mistaken she was concerning his treatment of +Kelpie! What a celestial rosy red her face had glowed! and what summer +lightnings had flashed up in her eyes, as if they had been the horizons +of heavenly worlds up which flew the dreams that broke from the brain +of a young sleeping goddess, to make the worlds glad also in the night +of their slumber.</p> + +<p>Something like this Malcolm felt: whoever saw her must feel as he had +never felt before. He gazed after her long and earnestly.</p> + +<p>“It’s an awfu’ thing to ha’e a wuman like that angert at ye!” he said +to himself when at length she had disappeared, “—as bonny as she is +angry! God be praised ’at he kens a’thing, an’ ’s no angert wi’ ye for +the luik o’ a thing! But the wheel may come roon’ again—wha kens? Ony +gait I s’ mak the best o’ Kelpie I can.— I won’er gien she kens Leddy +Florimel! She’s a heap mair boontifu’ like in her beauty nor her. The +man micht haud ’s ain wi’ an archangel ’at had a wuman like that to +the wife o’ ’m.—Hoots! I’ll be wussin’ I had had anither upbringin’, +’at I micht ha’ won a step nearer to the hem o’ her garment! an’ that +wad be to deny him ’at made an’ ordeen’t me. I wull not du that. But +I maun hae a crack wi’ Maister Graham, anent things twa or three, +jist to haud me straucht, for I’m jist girnin’ at bein’ sae regairdit +by sic a Revelation. Gien she had been an auld wife, I wad ha’e only +lauchen: what for ’s that? I doobt I’m no muckle mair rizzonable nor +hersel’! The thing was this, I fancy it was sae clear she spak frae no +ill-natur’, only frae pure humanity. She’s a gran’ ane yon, only some +saft, I doobt.”</p> + +<p>For the lady, she rode away sadly strengthened in her doubts whether +there could be a God in the world—not because there were in it such +men as she took Malcolm for, but because such a lovely animal had +fallen into his hands.</p> + +<p>“It’s a sair thing to be misjeedged,” said Malcolm to himself as he +put the demoness in her stall; “but it’s no more than the Macker o’ ’s +pits up wi’ ilka hoor o’ the day, an’ says na a word. Eh, but God’s +unco quaiet! Sae lang as he kens till himsel’ ’at he’s a’ richt, he +lats fowk think ’at they like—till he has time to lat them ken better. +Lord, mak clean my hert within me, an’ syne I’ll care little for ony +jeedgement but thine.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.<br><span class="small">THE PSYCHE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>It was a lovely day, but Florimel would not ride: Malcolm must go at +once to Mr Lenorme; she would not go out again until she could have a +choice of horses to follow her.</p> + +<p>“Your Kelpie is all very well in Richmond Park, and I wish I were able +to ride her myself, Malcolm, but she will never do in London.”</p> + +<p>His name sounded sweet on her lips, but somehow to-day, for the first +time since he saw her first, he felt a strange sense of superiority in +his protection of her: could it be because he had that morning looked +unto a higher orb of creation? It mattered little to Malcolm’s generous +nature that the voice that issued therefrom had been one of unjust +rebuke.</p> + +<p>“Who knows, my lady,” he answered his mistress, “but you may ride +her some day! Give her a bit of sugar every time you see her— on +your hand, so that she may take it with her lips, and not catch your +fingers.”</p> + +<p>“You shall show me how,” said Florimel, and gave him a note for Mr +Lenorme.</p> + +<p>When he came in sight of the river, there, almost opposite the +painter’s house, lay his own little yacht! He thought of Kelpie in the +stable, saw Psyche floating like a swan in the reach, made two or three +long strides, then sought to exhale the pride of life in thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>The moment his arrival was announced to Lenorme, he came down and went +with him, and in an hour or two they had found very much the sort of +horse they wanted. Malcolm took him home for trial, and Florimel was +pleased with him. The earl’s opinion was not to be had, for he had hurt +his shoulder when he fell from the rearing Kelpie the day before, and +was confined to his room in Curzon Street.</p> + +<p>In the evening Malcolm put on his yachter’s uniform, and set out +again for Chelsea. There he took a boat, and crossed the river to the +yacht, which lay near the other side, in charge of an old salt whose +acquaintance Blue Peter had made when lying below the bridges. On board +he found all tidy and ship-shape. He dived into the cabin, lighted a +candle, and made some measurements: all the little luxuries of the +nest, carpets, cushions, curtains, and other things, were at Lossie +House, having been removed when the Psyche was laid up for the winter: +he was going to replace them. And he was anxious to see whether he +could not fulfil a desire he had once heard Florimel express to her +father—that she had a bed on board, and could sleep there. He found +it possible, and had soon contrived a berth: even a tiny stateroom was +within the limits of construction.</p> + +<p>Returning to the deck, he was consulting Travers about a carpenter, +when, to his astonishment, he saw young Davy, the boy he had brought +from Duff Harbour, and whom he understood to have gone back with Blue +Peter, gazing at him from before the mast.</p> + +<p>“Gien ye please, Maister MacPhail,” said Davy, and said no more.</p> + +<p>“How on earth do <i>you</i> come to be here, you rascal?” said Malcolm. +“Peter was to take you home with him!”</p> + +<p>“I garred him think I was gauin’,” answered the boy, scratching his red +poll, which glowed in the dusk.</p> + +<p>“I gave him your wages,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Ay, he tauld me that, but I loot them gang an’ gae him the slip, an’ +was ashore close ahint yersel’, sir, jist as the smack set sail. I +cudna gang ohn hed a word wi’ yersel’, sir, to see whether ye wadna lat +me bide wi’ ye, sir. I haena muckle wut, they tell me, sir, but gien I +michtna aye be able to du what ye tell’t me to du, I cud aye haud ohn +dune what ye tell’t me no to.”</p> + +<p>The words of the boy pleased Malcolm more than he judged it wise to +manifest. He looked hard at Davy. There was little to be seen in his +face except the best and only thing—truth. It shone from his round +pale blue eyes; it conquered the self-assertion of his unhappy nose; it +seemed to glow in every freckle of his sunburnt cheeks, as earnestly he +returned Malcolm’s gaze.</p> + +<p>“But,” said Malcolm, almost satisfied, “how is this, Travers? I never +gave you any instructions about the boy.”</p> + +<p>“There’s where it is, sir,” answered Travers. “I seed the boy aboard +before, and when he come aboard again, jest arter you left, I never as +much as said to myself, It’s all right. I axed him no questions, and he +told me no lies.”</p> + +<p>“Gien ye please, sir,” struck in Davy, “Maister Trahvers gied me my +mait, an’ I tuik it, ’cause I hed no sil’er to buy ony: I houp it wasna +stealin’, sir. An’ gien ye wad keep me, ye cud tak it aff o’ my wauges +for three days.”</p> + +<p>“Look here, Davy,” said Malcolm, turning sharp upon him, “can you swim?”</p> + +<p>“Ay can I, sir,—weel that,” answered Davy.</p> + +<p>“Jump overboard then, and swim ashore,” said Malcolm, pointing to the +Chelsea bank.</p> + +<p>The boy made two strides to the larboard gunwale, and would have been +over the next instant, but Malcolm caught him by the shoulder.</p> + +<p>“That’ll do, Davy; I’ll give you a chance, Davy,” he said, “and if I +get a good account of you from Travers, I’ll rig you out like myself +here.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir,” said Davy. “I s’ du what I can to please ye, sir. An’ +gien ye wad sen’ my wauges hame to my mither, sir, ye wad ken ’at I +cudna be gauin’ stravaguin’, and drinkin’ whan yer back was turn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll write to your mother, and see what she says,” said Malcolm. +“Now I want to tell you, both of you, that this yacht belongs to the +Marchioness of Lossie, and I have the command of her, and I must have +everything on board ship-shape, and as clean, Travers, as if she were +a seventy-four. If there’s the head of a nail visible, it must be +as bright as silver. And everything must be at the word. The least +hesitation, and I have done with that man. If Davy here had grumbled +one mouthful, even on his way overboard, I wouldn’t have kept him.”</p> + +<p>He then arranged that Travers was to go home that night, and bring with +him the next morning an old carpenter friend of his. He would himself +be down by seven o’clock to set him to work.</p> + +<p>The result was that, before a fortnight was over, he had the cabin +thoroughly fitted up, with all the luxuries it had formerly possessed, +and as many more as he could think of—to compensate for the loss of +the space occupied by the daintiest little stateroom —a very jewel box +for softness and richness and comfort. In the cabin, amongst the rest +of his additions, he had fixed in a corner a set of tiny bookshelves, +and filled them with what books he knew his sister liked, and some that +he liked for her. It was not probable she would read in them much, he +said to himself, but they wouldn’t make the boat heel, and who could +tell when a drop of celestial nepenthe might ooze from one or another +of them! So there they stood, in their lovely colours, of morocco, +russia, calf or vellum —types of the infinite rest in the midst of the +ever restless— the types for ever tossed, but the rest remaining.</p> + +<p>By that time also he had arranged with Travers and Davy a code of +signals.</p> + +<p>The day after Malcolm had his new hack, he rode him behind his mistress +in the park, and nothing could be more decorous than the behaviour of +both horse and groom. It was early, and in Rotten Row, to his delight, +they met the lady of rebuke. She and Florimel pulled up simultaneously, +greeted, and had a little talk. When they parted, and the lady came to +pass Malcolm, whom she had not suspected, sitting a civilised horse +in all serenity behind his mistress, she cast a quick second glance +at him, and her fair face flushed with the red reflex of yesterday’s +anger. He expected her to turn at once and complain of him to her +mistress, but to his disappointment, she rode on.</p> + +<p>When they left the park, Florimel went down Constitution Hill, and +turning westward, rode to Chelsea. As they approached Mr Lenorme’s +house, she stopped and said to Malcolm—</p> + +<p>“I am going to run in and thank Mr Lenorme for the trouble he has been +at about the horse. Which is the house?”</p> + +<p>She pulled up at the gate. Malcolm dismounted, but before he could get +near to assist her, she was already halfway up the walk— flying, and +he was but in time to catch the rein of Abbot, already moving off, +curious to know whether he was actually trusted alone. In about five +minutes she came again, glancing about her all ways but behind, with a +scared look, Malcolm thought. But she walked more slowly and statelily +than usual down the path. In a moment Malcolm had her in the saddle, +and she cantered away—past the hospital into Sloane Street, and across +the park home. He said to himself, “She knows the way.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.<br><span class="small">THE SCHOOLMASTER.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Alexander Graham, the schoolmaster, was the son of a grieve, or +farm-overseer, in the North of Scotland. By straining every nerve, +his parents had succeeded in giving him a university education, the +narrowness of whose scope was possibly favourable to the development +of what genius, rare and shy, might lurk among the students. He had +laboured well, and had gathered a good deal from books and lectures, +but far more from the mines they guided him to discover in his own +nature. In common with so many Scotch parents, his had cherished the +most wretched as well as hopeless of all ambitions, seeing it presumes +to work in a region into which <i>no</i> ambition can enter—I mean that +of seeing their son a clergyman. In presbyter, curate, bishop, or +cardinal, ambition can fare but as that of the creeping thing to build +its nest in the topmost boughs of the cedar. Worse than that; my simile +is a poor one; for the moment a thought of ambition is <i>cherished</i>, +that moment the man is out of the kingdom. Their son with already a +few glimmering insights, which had not yet begun to interfere with +his acceptance of the doctrines of his church, made no opposition to +their wish, but having qualified himself to the satisfaction of his +superiors, at length ascended the pulpit to preach his first sermon.</p> + +<p>The custom of the time as to preaching was a sort of compromise +between reading a sermon and speaking extempore, a mode morally as +well as artistically false: the preacher learned his sermon by rote, +and repeated it—as much like the man he therein was not, and as +little like the parrot he was, as he could. It is no wonder, in such +an attempt, either that memory should fail a shy man, or assurance +an honest man. In Mr Graham’s case it was probably the former: +the practice was universal, and he could hardly yet have begun to +question it, so as to have had any conscience of evil. Blessedly, +however, for his dawning truth and well-being, he failed —failed +utterly—pitifully. His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth; his +lips moved, but shaped no sound; a deathly dew bathed his forehead; +his knees shook; and he sank at last to the bottom of the chamber +of his torture, whence, while his mother wept below, and his father +clenched hands of despair beneath the tails of his Sunday coat, he +was half led, half dragged down the steps by the bedral, shrunken +together like one caught in a shameful deed, and with the ghastly look +of him who has but just revived from the faint supervening on the +agonies of the rack. Home they crept together, speechless and hopeless +all three, to be thenceforth the contempt and not the envy of their +fellow-parishioners. For if the vulgar feeling towards the home-born +prophet is superciliousness, what must the sentence upon failure be in +ungenerous natures, to which every downfall of another is an uplifting +of themselves! But Mr Graham’s worth had gained him friends in the +presbytery, and he was that same week appointed to the vacant school of +another parish.</p> + +<p>There it was not long before he made the acquaintance of Griselda +Campbell, who was governess in the great house of the neighbourhood, +and a love, not the less fine that it was hopeless from the first, +soon began to consume the chagrin of his failure, and substitute for +it a more elevating sorrow;—for how could an embodied failure, to +offer whose miserable self would be an insult, dare speak of love to +one before whom his whole being sank worshipping. Silence was the sole +armour of his privilege. So long as he was silent, the terrible arrow +would never part from the bow of those sweet lips; he might love on, +love ever, nor be grudged the bliss of such visions as to him, seated +on its outer steps, might come from any chance opening of the heavenly +gate. And Miss Campbell thought of him more kindly than he knew. But +before long she accepted the offered situation of governess to Lady +Annabel, the only child of the late marquis’s elder brother, at that +time himself marquis, and removed to Lossie House. There the late +marquis fell in love with her, and persuaded her to a secret marriage. +There also she became, in the absence of her husband, the mother of +Malcolm. But the marquis of the time, jealous for the succession of his +daughter, and fearing his brother might yet marry the mother of his +child, contrived, with the assistance of the midwife, to remove the +infant and persuade the mother that he was dead, and also to persuade +his brother of the death of both mother and child; after which, +imagining herself wilfully deserted by her husband, yet determined to +endure shame rather than break the promise of secrecy she had given +him, the poor lady accepted the hospitality of her distant relative, +Miss Horn, and continued with her till she died.</p> + +<p>When he learned where she had gone, Mr Graham seized a chance of +change to Portlossie that occurred soon after, and when she became her +cousin’s guest, went to see her, was kindly received, and for twenty +years lived in friendly relations with the two. It was not until after +her death that he came to know the strange fact that the object of his +calm unalterable devotion had been a wife all those years, and was the +mother of his favourite pupil. About the same time he was dismissed +from the school on the charge of heretical teaching, founded on certain +religious conversations he had had with some of the fisher-people +who sought his advice; and thereupon he had left the place, and gone +to London, knowing it would be next to impossible to find or gather +another school in Scotland after being thus branded. In London he +hoped, one way or another, to avoid dying of cold or hunger, or in +debt: that was very nearly the limit of his earthly ambition.</p> + +<p>He had just one acquaintance in the whole mighty city, and no more. Him +he had known in the days of his sojourn at King’s College, where he +had grown with him from bejan to magistrand. He was the son of a linen +draper in Aberdeen, and was a decent, good humoured fellow, who, if he +had not distinguished, had never disgraced himself. His father, having +somewhat influential business relations, and finding in him no leanings +to a profession, bespoke the good offices of a certain large retail +house in London, and sent him thither to learn the business. The result +was that he had married a daughter of one of the partners, and become +a partner himself. His old friend wrote to him at his shop in Oxford +Street, and then went to see him at his house in Haverstock Hill.</p> + +<p>He was shown into the library—in which were two mahogany cases with +plate-glass doors, full of books, well cared for as to clothing and +condition, and perfectly placid, as if never disturbed from one week’s +end to another. In a minute Mr Marshal entered—so changed that he +could never have recognized him—still, however, a kind-hearted, genial +man. He received his classfellow cordially and respectfully—referred +merrily to old times, and begged to know how he was getting on, asked +whether he had come to London with any special object, and invited +him to dine with them on Sunday. He accepted the invitation, met him, +according to agreement, at a certain chapel in Kentish Town, of which +he was a deacon, and walked home with him and his wife.</p> + +<p>They had but one of their family at home—the youngest son, whom his +father was having educated for the dissenting ministry, in the full +conviction that he was doing not a little for the truth, and justifying +its cause before men, by devoting to its service the son of a man of +standing and worldly means, whom he might have easily placed in a +position to make money. The youth was of simple character and good +inclination—ready to do what he saw to be right, but slow in putting +to the question anything that interfered with his notions of laudable +ambition, or justifiable self-interest. He was attending lectures at a +dissenting college in the neighbourhood, for his father feared Oxford +or Cambridge, not for his morals, but his opinions in regard to church +and state.</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster spent a few days in the house. His friend was +generally in town, and his wife, regarding him as very primitive and +hardly fit for what she counted society—the class, namely, that she +herself represented, was patronising and condescending; but the young +fellow, finding, to his surprise, that he knew a great deal more about +his studies than he did himself, was first somewhat attracted and then +somewhat influenced by him, so that at length an intimacy tending to +friendship arose between them.</p> + +<p>Mr Graham was not a little shocked to discover that his ideas in +respect of the preacher’s calling were of a very worldly kind. The +notions of this fledgling of dissent differed from those of a clergyman +of the same stamp in this:—the latter regards the church as a society +with accumulated property for the use of its officers; the former +regarded it as a community of communities, each possessing a preaching +house which ought to be made commercially successful. Saving influences +must emanate from it of course— but dissenting saving influences.</p> + +<p>His mother was a partisan to a hideous extent. To hear her talk you +would have thought she imagined the apostles the first dissenters, +and that the main duty of every Christian soul was to battle for +the victory of Congregationalism over Episcopacy, and Voluntaryism +over State Endowment. Her every mode of thinking and acting was of +a levelling common-place. With her, love was liking, duty something +unpleasant—generally to other people, and kindness patronage. But she +was just in money-matters, and her son too had every intention of being +worthy of his hire, though wherein lay the value of the labour with +which he thought to counterpoise that hire, it were hard to say.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.<br><span class="small">THE PREACHER.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The sermon Mr Graham heard at the chapel that Sunday morning in +Kentish Town was not of an elevating, therefore not of a strengthening +description. The pulpit was at that time in offer to the highest +bidder—in orthodoxy, that is, combined with popular talent. The first +object of the chapel’s existence—I do not say in the minds of those +who built it, for it was an old place, but certainly in the minds +of those who now directed its affairs—was not to save its present +congregation, but to gather a larger—ultimately that they might be +saved, let us hope, but primarily that the drain upon the purses of +those who were responsible for its rent and other outlays, might be +lessened. Mr Masquar, therefore, to whom the post was a desirable +one, had been mainly anxious that morning to prove his orthodoxy, and +so commend his services. Not that in those days one heard so much of +the dangers of heterodoxy: that monster was as yet but growling far +off in the jungles of Germany; but certain whispers had been abroad +concerning the preacher which he thought desirable to hush, especially +as they were founded in truth. He had tested the power of heterodoxy to +attract attention, but having found that the attention it did attract +was not of a kind favourable to his wishes, had so skilfully remodelled +his theories that, although to his former friends he declared them in +substance unaltered, it was impossible any longer to distinguish them +from the most uncompromising orthodoxy; and his sermon of that morning +had tended neither to the love of God, the love of man, nor a hungering +after righteousness—its aim being to disprove the reported heterodoxy +of Jacob Masquar.</p> + +<p>As they walked home, Mrs Marshal, addressing her husband in a tone of +conjugal disapproval, said, with more force than delicacy,</p> + +<p>“The pulpit is not the place to give a man to wash his dirty linen in.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you see, my love,” answered her husband in a tone of apology, +“people won’t submit to be told their duty by mere students, and just +at present there seems nobody else to be had. There’s none in the +market but old stagers and young colts—eh, Fred? But Mr Masquar is at +least a man of experience.”</p> + +<p>“Of more than enough, perhaps,” suggested his wife. “And the young ones +must have their chance, else how are they to learn? You should have +given the principal a hint. It is a most desirable thing that Frederick +should preach a little oftener.”</p> + +<p>“They have it in turn, and it wouldn’t do to favour one more than +another.”</p> + +<p>“He could hand his guinea, or whatever they gave him, to the one whose +turn it ought to have been, and that would set it all right.”</p> + +<p>At this point the silk-mercer, fearing that the dominie, as he called +him, was silently disapproving, and willing therefore to change the +subject, turned to him and said,</p> + +<p>“Why shouldn’t <i>you</i> give us a sermon, Graham?”</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster laughed.</p> + +<p>“Did you never hear,” he said, “how I fell like Dagon on the threshold +of the church, and have lain there ever since.”</p> + +<p>“What has that to do with it?” returned his friend, sorry that his +forgetfulness should have caused a painful recollection. “That is +ages ago, when you were little more than a boy. Seriously,” he added, +chiefly to cover his little indiscretion, “will you preach for us the +Sunday after next?”</p> + +<p>Deacons generally ask a man to preach <i>for</i> them.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Mr Graham.</p> + +<p>But even as he said it, a something began to move in his heart— +a something half of jealousy for God, half of pity for poor souls +buffeted by such winds as had that morning been roaring, chaff-laden, +about the church, while the grain fell all to the bottom of the pulpit. +Something burned in him: was it the word that was as a fire in his +bones, or was it a mere lust of talk? He thought for a moment.</p> + +<p>“Have you any gatherings between Sundays?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes; every Wednesday evening,” replied Mr Marshal. “And if you won’t +preach on Sunday, we shall announce to-night that next Wednesday a +clergyman of the Church of Scotland will address the prayer meeting.”</p> + +<p>He was glad to get out of it so, for he was uneasy about his friend, +both as to his nerve, which might fail him, and his Scotch oddities, +which would not.</p> + +<p>“That would be hardly true,” said Mr Graham, “seeing I never got beyond +a licence.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody here knows the difference between a licentiate and a placed +minister; and if they did they would not care a straw. So we’ll just +say <i>clergyman</i>.”</p> + +<p>“But I won’t have it announced in any terms. Leave that alone, and I +will try to speak at the prayer meeting.”</p> + +<p>“It won’t be in the least worth your while except we announce it. You +won’t have a soul to hear you but the pew-openers, the woman that +cleans the chapel, Mrs Marshal’s washerwoman, and the old greengrocer +we buy our vegetables from. We must really announce it.”</p> + +<p>“Then I won’t do it. Just tell me—what would our Lord have said to +Peter or John if they had told Him that they had been to synagogue +and had been asked to speak, but had declined because there were only +the pew-openers, the chapel-cleaner, a washerwoman, and a greengrocer +present?”</p> + +<p>“I said it only for your sake, Graham; you needn’t take me up so +sharply.”</p> + +<p>“And ra-a-ther irreverently—don’t you think—excuse me, sir?” said Mrs +Marshal very softly. But the very softness had a kind of jelly-fish +sting in it.</p> + +<p>“I think,” rejoined the schoolmaster, indirectly replying, “we must be +careful to show our reverence in a manner pleasing to our Lord. Now I +cannot discover that he cares for any reverences but the shaping of our +ways after his; and if you will show me a single instance of respect of +persons in our Lord, I will press my petition no farther to be allowed +to speak a word to your pew-openers, washerwoman, and greengrocer.”</p> + +<p>His entertainers were silent—the gentleman in the consciousness of +deserved rebuke, the lady in offence.</p> + +<p>Just then the latter bethought herself that their guest, belonging to +the Scotch Church, was, if no Episcopalian, yet no dissenter, and that +seemed to clear up to her the spirit of his disapproval.</p> + +<p>“By all means, Mr Marshal,” she said, “let your friend speak on the +Wednesday evening. It would not be to his advantage to have it said +that he occupied a dissenting pulpit. It will not be nearly such +an exertion either; and if he is unaccustomed to speak to large +congregations, he will find himself more comfortable with our usual +week-evening one.”</p> + +<p>“I have never attempted to speak in public but once,” rejoined Mr +Graham, “and then I failed.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! that accounts for it,” said his friend’s wife, and the simplicity +of his confession, while it proved him a simpleton, mollified her.</p> + +<p>Thus it came that he spent the days between Sunday and Thursday in +their house, and so made the acquaintance of young Marshal.</p> + +<p>When his mother perceived their growing intimacy, she warned her son +that their visitor belonged to an unscriptural and worldly community, +and that notwithstanding his apparent guilelessness— deficiency +indeed—he might yet use cunning arguments to draw him aside from the +faith of his fathers. But the youth replied that, although in the +firmness of his own position as a Congregationalist, he had tried to +get the Scotchman into a conversation upon church government, he had +failed; the man smiled queerly and said nothing. But when a question of +New Testament criticism arose, he came awake at once, and his little +blue eyes gleamed like glow-worms.</p> + +<p>“Take care, Frederick,” said his mother. “The Scriptures are not to be +treated like common books and subjected to human criticism.”</p> + +<p>“We must find out what they mean, I suppose, mother,” said the youth.</p> + +<p>“You’re to take just the plain meaning that he that runneth may +read,” answered his mother.—“More than that no one has any business +with. You’ve got to save your own soul first, and then the souls of +your neighbours if they will let you; and for that reason you must +cultivate, not a spirit of criticism, but the talents that attract +people to the hearing of the Word. You have got a fine voice, and it +will improve with judicious use. Your father is now on the outlook for +a teacher of elocution to instruct you how to make the best of it, and +speak with power on God’s behalf.”</p> + +<p>When the afternoon of Wednesday began to draw towards the evening, +there came on a mist, not a London fog, but a low wet cloud, which +kept slowly condensing into rain; and as the hour of meeting drew nigh +with the darkness, it grew worse. Mrs Marshal had forgotten all about +the meeting and the schoolmaster: her husband was late, and she wanted +her dinner. At twenty minutes past six, she came upon her guest in the +hall, kneeling on the door-mat, first on one knee, then on the other, +turning up the feet of his trousers.</p> + +<p>“Why, Mr Graham,” she said kindly, as he rose and proceeded to look for +his cotton umbrella, easily discernible in the stand among the silk +ones of the house, “you’re never going out on a night like this?”</p> + +<p>“I am going to the prayer-meeting, ma’am,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense! You’ll be wet to the skin before you get half way.”</p> + +<p>“I promised, you may remember, ma’am, to talk a little to them.”</p> + +<p>“You only said so to my husband. You may be very glad, seeing it has +turned out so wet, that I would not allow him to have it announced +from the pulpit. There is not the slightest occasion for your going. +Besides, you have not had your dinner.”</p> + +<p>“That’s not of the slightest consequence, ma’am. A bit of bread and +cheese before I go to bed is all I need to sustain nature, and fit me +for understanding my proposition in Euclid. I have been in the habit, +for the last few years, of reading one every night before I go to bed.”</p> + +<p>“We dissenters consider a chapter of the Bible the best thing to read +before going to bed,” said the lady, with a sustained voice.</p> + +<p>“I keep that for the noontide of my perceptions—for mental high +water,” said the schoolmaster. “Euclid is good enough after supper. Not +that I deny myself a small portion of the Word,” he added with a smile, +as he proceeded to open the door—“when I feel very hungry for it.”</p> + +<p>“There is no one expecting you,” persisted the lady, who could ill +endure not to have her own way, even when she did not care for the +matter concerned. “Who will be the wiser or the worse if you stay at +home?”</p> + +<p>“My dear lady,” returned the schoolmaster, “when I have on good grounds +made up my mind to a thing, I always feel as if I had promised God to +do it; and indeed it amounts to the same thing very nearly. Such a +resolve then is not to be unmade except on equally good grounds with +those upon which it was made. Having resolved to try whether I could +not draw a little water of refreshment for souls which if not thirsting +are but fainting the more, shall I allow a few drops of rain to prevent +me?”</p> + +<p>“Pray don’t let me persuade you against your will,” said his hostess, +with a stately bend of her neck over her shoulder, as she turned into +the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Her guest went out into the rain, asking himself by what theory of the +will his hostess could justify such a phrase—-too simple to see that +she had only thrown it out, as the cuttlefish its ink, to cover her +retreat.</p> + +<p>But the weather had got a little into his brain: into his soul it was +seldom allowed to intrude. He felt depressed and feeble and dull. But +at the first corner he turned, he met a little breath of wind. It blew +the rain in his face, and revived him a little, reminding him at the +same time that he had not yet opened his umbrella. As he put it up he +laughed.</p> + +<p>“Here I am,” he said to himself, “lance in hand, spurring to meet my +dragon!”</p> + +<p>Once when he used a similar expression, Malcolm had asked him what he +meant by his dragon; “I mean,” replied the schoolmaster, “that huge +slug, <i>The Commonplace</i>. It is the wearifulest dragon to fight in the +whole miscreation. Wound it as you may, the jelly-mass of the monster +closes, and the dull one is himself again—feeding all the time so +cunningly that scarce one of the victims whom he has swallowed suspects +that he is but pabulum slowly digesting in the belly of the monster.”</p> + +<p>If the schoolmaster’s dragon, spread abroad as he lies, a vague +dilution, everywhere throughout human haunts, has yet any +<i>head</i>-quarters, where else can they be than in such places as that to +which he was now making his way to fight him? What can be fuller of the +wearisome, depressing, beauty-blasting commonplace than a dissenting +chapel in London, on the night of the weekly prayer meeting, and +that night a drizzly one? The few lights fill the lower part with a +dull, yellow, steamy glare, while the vast galleries, possessed by an +ugly twilight, yawn above like the dreary openings of a disconsolate +eternity. The pulpit rises into the dim damp air, covered with brown +holland, reminding one of desertion and charwomen, if not of a chamber +of death and spiritual undertakers, who have shrouded and coffined the +truth. Gaping, empty, unsightly, the place is the very skull of the +monster himself—the fittest place of all wherein to encounter the +great slug, and deal him one of those death blows which every sunrise, +every repentance, every child-birth, every true love deals him. Every +hour he receives the blow that kills, but he takes long to die, for +every hour he is right carefully fed and cherished by a whole army of +purveyors, including every trade and profession, but officered chiefly +by divines and men of science.</p> + +<p>When the dominie entered, all was still, and every light had a nimbus +of illuminated vapour. There were hardly more than three present beyond +the number Mr Marshal had given him to expect; and their faces, some +grim, some grimy, most of them troubled, and none blissful, seemed +the nervous ganglions of the monster whose faintly gelatinous bulk +filled the place. He seated himself in a pew near the pulpit, communed +with his own heart and was still. Presently the ministering deacon, +a humbler one in the worldly sense than Mr Marshal, for he kept a +small ironmongery shop in the next street to the chapel, entered, +twirling the wet from his umbrella as he came along one of the passages +intersecting the pews. Stepping up into the desk which cowered humbly +at the foot of the pulpit, he stood erect, and cast his eyes around the +small assembly. Discovering there no one that could lead in singing, he +chose out and read one of the monster’s favourite hymns, in which never +a sparkle of thought or a glow of worship gave reason wherefore the +holy words should have been carpentered together. Then he prayed aloud, +and then first the monster found tongue, voice, articulation. If this +was worship, surely it was the monster’s own worship of itself! No God +were better than one to whom such were fitting words of prayer. What +passed in the man’s soul, God forbid I should judge: I speak but of the +words that reached the ears of men.</p> + +<p>And over all the vast of London lay the monster, filling it like the +night—not in churches and chapels only—in almost all theatres, and +most houses—most of all in rich houses: everywhere he had a foot, a +tail, a tentacle or two—everywhere suckers that drew the life-blood +from the sickening and somnolent soul.</p> + +<p>When the deacon, a little brown man, about five-and-thirty, had ended +his prayer, he read another hymn of the same sort—one of such as form +the bulk of most collections, and then looked meaningly at Mr Graham, +whom he had seen in the chapel on Sunday with his brother deacon, +and therefore judged one of consequence, who had come to the meeting +with an object, and ought to be propitiated: he had intended speaking +himself. After having thus for a moment regarded him,</p> + +<p>“Would you favour us with a word of exhortation, sir?” he said, in a +stage-like whisper.</p> + +<p>Now the monster had by this time insinuated a hair-like sucker into +the heart of the schoolmaster, and was busy. But at the word, as the +Red-Cross Knight when he heard Orgoglio in the wood staggered to meet +him, he rose at once, and although his umbrella slipped and fell with +a loud discomposing clatter, calmly approached the reading desk. To +look at his outer man, this knight of the truth might have been the +very high priest of the monster which, while he was sitting there, had +been twisting his slimy, semi-electric, benumbing tendrils around his +heart. His business was nevertheless to fight him, though to fight him +in his own heart and that of other people at one and the same moment, +he might well find hard work. And the loathly worm had this advantage +over the knight, that it was the first time he had stood up to speak in +public since his failure thirty years ago. That hour again for a moment +overshadowed his spirit. It was a wavy harvest morning in a village of +the north. A golden wind was blowing, and little white clouds flying +aloft in the sunny blue. The church was full of well-known faces, +upturned, listening, expectant, critical. The hour vanished in a slow +mist of abject misery and shame. But had he not learned to rejoice over +all dead hopes, and write <i>Te Deums</i> on their coffin-lids? And now he +stood in dim light, in the vapour from damp garments, in dinginess and +ugliness, with a sense of spiritual squalor and destitution in his very +soul. He had tried to pray his own prayer while the deacon prayed his; +but there had come to him no reviving—no message for this handful of +dull souls—there were nine of them in all —and his own soul crouched +hard and dull within his bosom. How to give them one deeper breath? How +to make them know they were alive? Whence was his aid to come?</p> + +<p>His aid was nearer than he knew. There were no hills to which he could +lift his eyes, but help may hide in the valley as well as come down +from the mountain, and he found his under the coal-scuttle bonnet of +the woman that swept out and dusted the chapel. She was no interesting +young widow. A life of labour and vanished children lay behind as well +as before her. She was sixty years of age, seamed with the small-pox, +and in every seam the dust and smoke of London had left a stain. She +had a troubled eye, and a gaze that seemed to ask of the universe +why it had given birth to her. But it was only her face that asked +the question; her mind was too busy with the ever recurring enigma, +which, answered this week, was still an enigma for the next—how she +was to pay her rent—too busy to have any other question to ask. Or +would she not rather have gone to sleep altogether, under the dreary +fascination of the slug monster, had she not had a severe landlady, +who <i>would</i> be paid punctually, or turn her out? Anyhow, every time +and all the time she sat in the chapel, she was brooding over ways +and means, calculating pence and shillings—the day’s charing she had +promised her, and the chances of more—mingling faint regrets over past +indulgences —the extra half-pint of beer she drank on Saturday—the +bit of cheese she bought on Monday. Of this face of care, revealing a +spirit which Satan had bound, the schoolmaster caught sight,— caught +from its commonness, its grimness, its defeature, inspiration and +uplifting, for there he beheld the oppressed, down-trodden, mire-fouled +humanity which the man in whom he believed had loved because it was +his father’s humanity divided into brothers, and had died straining to +lift back to the bosom of that Father. Oh tale of horror and dreary +monstrosity, if it be such indeed as the bulk of its priests on the one +hand, and its enemies on the other represent it! Oh story of splendrous +fate, of infinite resurrection and uplifting, of sun and breeze, of +organ-blasts and exultation, for the heart of every man and woman, +whatsoever the bitterness of its care or the weight of its care, if it +be such as the Book itself has held it from age to age!</p> + +<p>It was the mere humanity of the woman, I say, and nothing in her +individuality of what is commonly called the interesting, that +ministered to the breaking of the schoolmaster’s trance. “_Oh ye of +little faith!_” were the first words that flew from his lips—he knew +not whether uttered concerning himself or the charwoman the more; and +at once he fell to speaking of him who said the words, and of the +people that came to him and heard him gladly;—how this one, whom he +described, must have felt, <i>Oh, if that be true!</i> how that one, whom +also he described, must have said, <i>Now he means me!</i> and so laid bare +the secrets of many hearts, until he had concluded all in the misery of +being without a helper in the world, a prey to fear and selfishness and +dismay. Then he told them how the Lord pledged himself for all their +needs—meat and drink and clothes for the body, and God and love and +truth for the soul, if only they would put them in the right order and +seek the best first.</p> + +<p>Next he spoke a parable to them—of a house and a father and his +children. The children would not do what their father told them, and +therefore began to keep out of his sight. After a while they began to +say to each other that he must have gone out, it was so long since they +had seen him—only they never went to look. And again after a time some +of them began to say to each other that they did not believe they had +ever had any father. But there were some who dared not say that—who +thought they had a father somewhere in the house, and yet crept about +in misery, sometimes hungry and often cold, fancying he was not +friendly to them, when all the time it was they who were not friendly +to him, and said to themselves he would not give them anything. They +never went to knock at his door, or call to know if he were inside and +would speak to them. And all the time there he was sitting sorrowful, +listening and listening for some little hand to come knocking, and some +little voice to come gently calling through the key-hole; for sorely +did he long to take them to his bosom and give them everything. Only +if he did that without their coming to him, they would not care for +his love or him, would only care for the things he gave them, and soon +would come to hate their brothers and sisters, and turn their own souls +into hells, and the earth into a charnel of murder.</p> + +<p>Ere he ended he was pleading with the charwoman to seek her father in +his own room, tell him her troubles, do what he told her, and fear +nothing. And while he spoke, lo! the dragon-slug had vanished; the +ugly chapel was no longer the den of the hideous monster; it was but +the dusky bottom of a glory shaft, adown which gazed the stars of the +coming resurrection.</p> + +<p>“The whole trouble is that we won’t let God help us,” said the +preacher, and sat down.</p> + +<p>A prayer from the greengrocer followed, in which he did seem to be +feeling after God a little; and then the ironmonger pronounced the +benediction, and all went—among the rest, Frederick Marshal, who +had followed the schoolmaster, and now walked back with him to his +father’s, where he was to spend one night more.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.<br><span class="small">THE PORTRAIT.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Florimel had found her daring visit to Lenorme stranger and more +fearful than she had expected: her courage was not quite so masterful +as she had thought. The next day she got Mrs Barnardiston to meet her +at the studio. But she contrived to be there first by some minutes, +and her friend found her seated, and the painter looking as if he had +fairly begun his morning’s work. When she apologised for being late, +Florimel said she supposed her groom had brought round the horses +before his time; being ready, she had not looked at her watch. She was +sharp on other people for telling stories —but had of late ceased to +see any great harm in telling one to protect herself. The fact however +had begun to present itself in those awful morning hours that seem a +mingling of time and eternity, and she did not like the discovery that, +since her intimacy with Lenorme, she had begun to tell lies: what would +he say if he knew?</p> + +<p>Malcolm found it dreary waiting in the street while she sat to the +painter. He would not have minded it on Kelpie, for she was always +occupation enough, but with only a couple of quiet horses to hold, it +was dreary. He took to scrutinizing the faces that passed him, trying +to understand them. To his surprise he found that almost everyone +reminded him of somebody he had known before, though he could not +always identify the likeness.</p> + +<p>It was a pleasure to see his yacht lying so near him, and Davy on the +deck, and to hear the blows of the hammer and the <i>swish</i> of the plane +as the carpenter went on with the alterations to which he had set +him, but he got tired of sharing in activity only with his ears and +eyes. One thing he had by it, however, and that was—a good lesson in +quiescent waiting—a grand thing for any man, and most of all for those +in whom the active is strong.</p> + +<p>The next day Florimel did not ride until after lunch, but took her maid +with her to the studio, and Malcolm had a long morning with Kelpie. +Once again he passed the beautiful lady in Rotten Row, but Kelpie was +behaving in a most exemplary manner, and he could not tell whether +she even saw him. I believe she thought her lecture had done him +good. The day after that Lord Liftore was able to ride, and for some +days Florimel and he rode in the park before dinner, when, as Malcolm +followed on the new horse, he had to see his lordship make love to his +sister, without being able to find the least colourable pretext of +involuntary interference.</p> + +<p>At length the parcel he had sent for from Lossie House arrived. He had +explained to Mrs Courthope what he wanted the things for, and she had +made no difficulty of sending them to the address he gave her. Lenorme +had already begun the portrait, had indeed been working at it very +busily, and was now quite ready for him to sit. The early morning being +the only time a groom could contrive to spare—and that involved yet +earlier attention to his horses, they arranged that Malcolm should be +at the study every day by seven o’clock, until the painter’s object was +gained. So he mounted Kelpie at half-past six of a fine breezy spring +morning, rode across Hyde Park and down Grosvenor Place, and so reached +Chelsea, where he put up his mare in Lenorme’s stable—fortunately +large enough to admit of an empty stall between her and the painter’s +grand screw, else a battle frightful to relate might have fallen to my +lot.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have been more to Malcolm’s mind than such a surpassing +opportunity of learning with assurance what sort of man Lenorme was; +and the relation that arose between them extended the sittings far +beyond the number necessary for the object proposed. How the first of +them passed I must recount with some detail.</p> + +<p>As soon as he arrived, he was shown into the painter’s bedroom, where +lay the portmanteau he had carried thither himself the night before: +out of it, with a strange mingling of pleasure and sadness, he now +took the garments of his father’s vanished state—the filibeg of the +dark tartan of his clan, in which green predominated; the French coat +of black velvet of Genoa, with silver buttons; the bonnet, which ought +to have had an eagle’s feather, but had only an aigrette of diamonds; +the black sporran of long goat’s hair, with the silver clasp; the +silver-mounted dirk, with its appendages, set all with pale cairngorms +nearly as good as oriental topazes; and the claymore of the renowned +Andrew’s forging, with its basket hilt of silver, and its black, +silver-mounted sheath. He handled each with the reverence of a son. +Having dressed in them, he drew himself up with not a little of the +Celt’s pleasure in fine clothes, and walked into the painting-room. +Lenorme started with admiration of his figure, and wonder at the +dignity of his carriage, while, mingled with these feelings, he was +aware of an indescribable doubt, something to which he could give no +name. He almost sprang at his palette and brushes: whether he succeeded +with the likeness of the late marquis or not, it would be his own fault +if he did not make a good picture! He painted eagerly, and they talked +little, and only about things indifferent.</p> + +<p>At length the painter said,</p> + +<p>“Thank you. Now walk about the room while I spread a spadeful of paint: +you must be tired standing.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm did as he was told, and walked straight up to the Temple of +Isis, in which the painter had now long been at work on the goddess. He +recognised his sister at once, but a sudden pinch of prudence checked +the exclamation that had almost burst from his lips.</p> + +<p>“What a beautiful picture!” he said. “What does it mean?— Surely it is +Hermione coming to life, and Leontes dying of joy! But no; that would +not fit. They are both too young, and——”</p> + +<p>“You read Shakspere, I see,” said Lenorme, “as well as Epictetus.”</p> + +<p>“I do—a good deal,” answered Malcolm. “But please tell me what you +painted this for.”</p> + +<p>Then Lenorme told him the parable of Novalis, and Malcolm saw what the +poet meant. He stood staring at the picture, and Lenorme sat working +away, but a little anxious—he hardly knew why: had he bethought +himself he would have put the picture out of sight before Malcolm came.</p> + +<p>“You wouldn’t be offended if I made a remark, would you, Mr Lenorme?” +said Malcolm at length.</p> + +<p>“Certainly not,” replied Lenorme, something afraid nevertheless of what +might be coming.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know whether I can express what I mean,” said Malcolm, “but +I’ll try. I could do it better in Scotch, I believe, but then you +wouldn’t understand me.”</p> + +<p>“I think I should,” said Lenorme. “I spent six months in Edinburgh +once.”</p> + +<p>“Ow ay! but ye see they dinna thraw the words there jist the same gait +they du at Portlossie. Na, na! I maunna attemp’ it.”</p> + +<p>“Hold, hold!” cried Lenorme. “I want to have your criticism. I don’t +understand a word you are saying. You must make the best you can of the +English.”</p> + +<p>“I was only telling you in Scotch that I wouldn’t try the Scotch,” +returned Malcolm. “Now I will try the English.—In the first place, +then—but really it’s very presumptuous of me, Mr Lenorme; and it may +be that I am blind to something in the picture.——”</p> + +<p>“Go on,” said Lenorme impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think then, that one of the first things you would look for +in a goddess would be—what shall I call it?—an air of mystery?”</p> + +<p>“That was so much involved in the very idea of Isis, in her especially, +that they said she was always veiled, and no man had ever seen her +face.”</p> + +<p>“That would greatly interfere with my notion of mystery,” said Malcolm. +“There must be revelation before mystery. I take it that mystery is +what lies behind revelation; that which as yet revelation has not +reached. You must see something—a part of something, before you can +feel any sense of mystery about it. The Isis for ever veiled is the +absolutely Unknown, not the Mysterious.”</p> + +<p>“But, you observe, the idea of the parable is different. According to +that, Isis is for ever unveiling, that is, revealing herself, in her +works, chiefly in the women she creates, and then chiefly in each of +them to the man who loves her.”</p> + +<p>“I see what you mean well enough; but not the less she remains the +goddess, does she not?”</p> + +<p>“Surely she does.”</p> + +<p>“And can a goddess ever reveal all she is and has?”</p> + +<p>“Never.”</p> + +<p>“Then ought there not to be mystery about the face and form of your +Isis on her pedestal?”</p> + +<p>“Is it not there? Is there not mystery in the face and form of every +woman that walks the earth?”</p> + +<p>“Doubtless; but you desire—do you not?—to show—that although this is +the very lady the young man loved before ever he sought the shrine of +the goddess, not the less is she the goddess Isis herself?”</p> + +<p>“I do—or at least I ought; only—by Jove! you have already looked +deeper into the whole thing than I!”</p> + +<p>“There may be things to account for that on both sides,” said Malcolm. +“But one word more to relieve my brain:—if you would embody the full +meaning of the parable, you must not be content that the mystery is +there; you must show in your painting that you feel it there; you must +paint the invisible veil that no hand can lift, for there it is, and +there it ever will be, though Isis herself raise it from morning to +morning.”</p> + +<p>“How am I to do that?” said Lenorme, not that he did not see what +Malcolm meant, or agree with it: he wanted to make him talk.</p> + +<p>“How can I, who never drew a stroke, or painted anything but the gunnel +of a boat, tell you that?” rejoined Malcolm. “It is your business. You +must paint that veil, that mystery in the forehead, and in the eyes, +and in the lips—yes, in the cheeks and the chin and the eyebrows and +everywhere. You must make her say without saying it, that she knows oh! +so much, if only she could make you understand it!—that she is all +there for you, but the all is infinitely more than you can know. As she +stands there now,——”</p> + +<p>“I must interrupt you,” cried Lenorme, “just to say that the picture is +not finished yet.”</p> + +<p>“And yet I will finish my sentence, if you will allow me,” returned +Malcolm. “—As she stands there—the goddess—she looks only a +beautiful young woman, with whom the young man spreading out his arms +to her is very absolutely in love. There is the glow and the mystery of +love in both their faces, and nothing more.”</p> + +<p>“And is not that enough?” said Lenorme.</p> + +<p>“No,” answered Malcolm. “And yet it may be too much,” he added, “if you +are going to hang it up where people will see it.”</p> + +<p>As he said this, he looked hard at the painter for a moment. The dark +hue of Lenorme’s cheek deepened; his brows lowered a little farther +over the black wells of his eyes; and he painted on without answer.</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” he said at length.</p> + +<p>“Don’t swear, Mr Lenorme,” said Malcolm. “—Besides, that’s my Lord +Liftore’s oath.—If <i>you</i> do, you will teach my lady to swear.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?” asked Lenorme, with offence plain enough in +his tone.</p> + +<p>Thereupon Malcolm told him how on one occasion, himself being present, +the marquis her father happening to utter an imprecation, Lady Florimel +took the first possible opportunity of using the very same words +on her own account, much to the marquis’s amusement and Malcolm’s +astonishment. But upon reflection he had come to see that she only +wanted to cure her father of the bad habit.</p> + +<p>The painter laughed heartily, but stopped all at once and said, “It’s +enough to make any fellow swear though, to hear a—groom talk as you do +about art.”</p> + +<p>“Have I the impudence? I didn’t know it,” said Malcolm, with some +dismay. “I seemed to myself merely saying the obvious thing, the common +sense, about the picture, on the ground of your own statement of your +meaning in it. I am annoyed with myself if I have been talking of +things I know nothing about.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, MacPhail, you are so entirely right in what you say, +that I cannot for the life of me understand where or how you can have +got it.”</p> + +<p>“Mr Graham used to talk to me about everything.”</p> + +<p>“Well, but he was only a country schoolmaster.”</p> + +<p>“A good deal more than that, sir,” said Malcolm, solemnly. “He is a +disciple of him that knows everything. And now I think of it, I do +believe that what I’ve been saying about your picture, I must have got +from hearing him talk about <i>the</i> revelation, in which is included Isis +herself, with her brother and all their train.”</p> + +<p>Lenorme held his peace. Malcolm had taken his place again +unconsciously, and the painter was working hard, and looking very +thoughtful. Malcolm went again to the picture.</p> + +<p>“Hillo!” cried Lenorme, looking up and finding no object in the focus +of his eyes.</p> + +<p>Malcolm returned directly.</p> + +<p>“There was just one thing I wanted to see,” he said, “—whether the +youth worshipping his goddess, had come into her presence <i>clean</i>.”</p> + +<p>“And what is your impression of him?” half murmured Lenorme, without +lifting his head.</p> + +<p>“The one that’s painted <i>there</i>,” answered Malcolm, “does look as if +he might know that the least a goddess may claim of a worshipper is, +that he should come into her presence pure enough to understand her +purity. I came upon a fine phrase the other evening in your English +prayer-book. I never looked into it before, but I found one lying on +a book-stall, and it happened to open at the marriage service. There, +amongst other good things, the bridegroom says: ‘With my body I thee +worship.’—‘That’s grand,’ I said to myself. ‘That’s as it should be. +The man whose body does not worship the woman he weds, should marry a +harlot.’ God bless Mr William Shakspere!—<i>he</i> knew that. I remember Mr +Graham telling me once, before I had read the play, that the critics +condemn <i>Measure for Measure</i> as failing in poetic justice. I know +little about the critics, and care less, for a man who has to earn +his bread and feed his soul as well, has enough to do with the books +themselves without what people say about them; and Mr Graham would +not tell me whether he thought the critics right or wrong; he wanted +me to judge for myself. But when I came to read the play, I found, to +my mind, a most absolute and splendid justice in it. They think, I +suppose, that my lord Angelo should have been put to death. It just +reveals the low breed of them; they think death the worst thing, +therefore the greatest punishment. But Angelo prays for death, that it +may hide him from his shame: it is too good for him, and he shall <i>not</i> +have it. He must live to remove the shame from Mariana. And then see +how Lucio is served!”</p> + +<p>While Malcolm talked, Lenorme went on painting diligently, listening +and saying nothing. When he had thus ended, a pause of some duration +followed.</p> + +<p>“A goddess has a right to claim that one thing—has she not, Mr +Lenorme?” said Malcolm at length, winding up a silent train of thought +aloud.</p> + +<p>“What thing?” asked Lenorme, still without lifting his head.</p> + +<p>“Purity in the arms a man holds out to her,” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” replied Lenorme, with a sort of mechanical absoluteness.</p> + +<p>“And according to your picture, every woman whom a man loves is a +goddess—<i>the</i> goddess of nature?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly;—but what <i>are</i> you driving at? I can’t paint for you. +There you stand,” he went on, half angrily, “as if you were Socrates +himself, driving some poor Athenian buck into the corner of his +deserts! <i>I</i> don’t deserve any such insinuations, I would have you +know.”</p> + +<p>“I am making none, sir. I dare never insinuate except I were prepared +to charge. But I have told you I was bred up a fisher-lad, and partly +among the fishers, to begin with. I half learned, half discovered +things that tended to give me what some would count severe notions: I +count them common sense. Then, as you know, I went into service, and in +that position it is easy enough to gather that many people hold very +loose and very nasty notions about some things; so I just wanted to see +how you felt about such. If I had a sister now, and saw a man coming +to woo her, all beclotted with puddle-filth—or if I knew that he had +just left some woman as good as she, crying eyes and heart out over his +child—I don’t know that I could keep my hands off him—at least if +I feared she might take him. What do you think now? Mightn’t it be a +righteous thing to throttle the scum and be hanged for it?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Lenorme, “I don’t know why I should justify myself, +especially where no charge is made, MacPhail; and I don’t know why +to you any more than another man; but at this moment I am weak, or +egotistic, or sympathetic enough to wish you to understand that, so far +as the poor matter of one virtue goes, I might without remorse act Sir +Galahad in a play.”</p> + +<p>“Now you are beyond me,” said Malcolm. “I don’t know what you mean.”</p> + +<p>So Lenorme had to tell him the old Armoric tale which Tennyson has +since rendered so lovelily, for, amongst artists at least, he was one +of the earlier borrowers in the British legends. And as he told it, in +a half sullen kind of way, the heart of the young marquis glowed within +him, and he vowed to himself that Lenorme and no other should marry +his sister. But, lest he should reveal more emotion than the obvious +occasion justified, he restrained speech, and again silence fell, +during which Lenorme was painting furiously.</p> + +<p>“Confound it!” he cried at last, and sprang to his feet, but without +taking his eyes from his picture, “what have I been doing all this +time but making a portrait of you, MacPhail, and forgetting what you +were there for! And yet,” he went on, hesitating and catching up the +miniature, “I <i>have</i> got a certain likeness! Yes, it must be so, for +I see in it also a certain look of Lady Lossie. Well! I suppose a man +can’t altogether help what he paints any more than what he dreams. That +will do for this morning, anyhow, I think, MacPhail. Make haste and put +on your own clothes, and come into the next room to breakfast. You must +be tired with standing so long.”</p> + +<p>“It <i>is</i> about the hardest work I ever tried,” answered Malcolm; “but I +doubt if I am as tired as Kelpie. I’ve been listening for the last half +hour to hear the stalls flying.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.<br><span class="small">AN EVIL OMEN.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Florimel was beginning to understand that the shield of the portrait +was not large enough to cover many more visits to the studio. Still she +must and would venture; and should anything be said, there at least was +the portrait. For some weeks it had been all but finished, was never +off its easel, and always showed a touch of wet paint somewhere—he +kept the last of it lingering, ready to prove itself almost yet not +altogether finished. What was to follow its absolute completion, +neither of them could tell. The worst of it was that their thoughts +about it differed discordantly. Florimel not unfrequently regarded the +rupture of their intimacy as a thing not undesirable—this chiefly +after such a talk with Lady Bellair as had been illustrated by some +tale of misalliance or scandal between high or low, of which kind of +provision for age the bold-faced countess had a large store: her memory +was little better than an ashpit of scandal. Amongst other biographical +scraps one day she produced the case of a certain earl’s daughter, +who, having disgraced herself by marrying a low fellow—an artist, +she believed—was as a matter of course neglected by the man whom, in +accepting him, she had taught to despise her, and, before a twelvemonth +was over—her family finding it impossible to hold communication with +her—was actually seen by her late maid scrubbing her own floor.</p> + +<p>“Why couldn’t she leave it dirty?” said Florimel.</p> + +<p>“Why indeed,” returned Lady Bellair, “but that people sink to their +fortunes! Blue blood won’t keep them out of the gutter.”</p> + +<p>The remark was true, but of more general application than she intended, +seeing she herself was in the gutter and did not know it. She spoke +only of what followed on marriage beneath one’s natal position, than +which she declared there was nothing worse a woman of rank could do.</p> + +<p>“She may get over anything but that,” she would say, believing, but not +saying, that she spoke from experience.</p> + +<p>Was it part of the late marquis’s purgatory to see now, as the natural +result of the sins of his youth, the daughter whose innocence was dear +to him exposed to all the undermining influences of this good natured +but low-moralled woman, whose ideas of the most mysterious relations of +humanity were in no respect higher than those of a class which must not +even be mentioned in my pages? At such tales the high-born heart would +flutter in Florimel’s bosom, beat itself against its bars, turn sick at +the sight of its danger, imagine it had been cherishing a crime, and +resolve—soon—before very long—at length—finally—to break so far at +least with the painter as to limit their intercourse to the radiation +of her power across a dinner-table, the rhythmic heaving of their two +hearts at a dance, or the quiet occasional talk in a corner, when the +looks of each would reveal to the other that they knew themselves the +martyrs of a cruel and inexorable law. It must be remembered that she +had had no mother since her childhood, that she was now but a girl, +and that the passion of a girl to that of a woman is “as moonlight +unto sunlight, and as water unto wine.” Of genuine love she had little +more than enough to serve as salt to the passion; and passion, however +bewitching, yea, entrancing a condition, may yet be of more worth +than that induced by opium or hashish, and a capacity for it may be +conjoined with anything or everything contemptible and unmanly or +unwomanly. In Florimel’s case, however, there was chiefly much of the +childish in it. Definitely separated from Lenorme, she would have been +merry again in a fortnight; and yet, though she half knew this herself, +and at the same time was more than half ashamed of the whole affair, +she did not give it up —would not—only intended by and by to let it +go, and meantime gave—occasionally—pretty free flutter to the half +grown wings of her fancy.</p> + +<p>Her liking for the painter had therefore, not unnaturally, its fits. +It was subject in a measure to the nature of the engagements she +had—that is, to the degree of pleasure she expected from them; it +was subject, as we have seen, to skilful battery from the guns of +her chaperon’s entrenchment; and more than to either was it subject +to those delicate changes of condition which in the microcosm are as +frequent, and as varied both in kind and degree, as in the macrocosm. +The spirit has its risings and settings of sun and moon, its seasons, +its clouds and stars, its solstices, its tides, its winds, its storms, +its earthquakes—infinite vitality in endless fluctuation. To rule +these changes, Florimel had neither the power that comes of love, +nor the strength that comes of obedience. What of conscience she had +was not yet conscience toward God, which is the guide to freedom, +but conscience toward society, which is the slave of a fool. It was +no wonder then that Lenorme, believing—hoping she loved him, should +find her hard to understand. He said <i>hard</i>; but sometimes he meant +<i>impossible</i>. He loved as a man loves who has thought seriously, +speculated, tried to understand; whose love therefore is consistent +with itself, harmonious with its nature and history, changing only +in form and growth, never in substance and character. Hence the idea +of Florimel became in his mind the centre of perplexing thought; the +unrest of her being metamorphosed on the way, passed over into his, +and troubled him sorely. Neither was his mind altogether free of the +dread of reproach. For self-reproach he could find little or no ground, +seeing that to pity her much for the loss of consideration her marriage +with him would involve, would be to undervalue the honesty of his love +and the worth of his art; and indeed her position was so independently +based that she could not lose it even by marrying one who had not the +social standing of a brewer or a stockbroker; but his pride was uneasy +under the foreseen criticism that his selfishness had taken advantage +of her youth and inexperience to work on the mind of an ignorant +girl—a criticism not likely to be the less indignant that those who +passed it would, without a shadow of compunction, have handed her over, +body, soul, and goods, to one of their own order, had he belonged to +the very canaille of the race.</p> + +<p>The painter was not merely in love with Florimel: he loved her. I +will not say that he was in no degree dazzled by her rank, or that he +felt no triumph, as a social nomad camping on the No-Man’s-Land of +society, at the thought of the justification of the human against the +conventional, in his scaling of the giddy heights of superiority, and, +on one of its topmost peaks, taking from her nest that rare bird in the +earth, a landed and titled marchioness. But such thoughts were only +changing hues on the feathers of his love, which itself was a mighty +bird with great and yet growing wings.</p> + +<p>A day or two passed before Florimel went again to the studio +accompanied, notwithstanding Lenorme’s warning and her own doubt, yet +again by her maid, a woman, unhappily, of Lady Bellair’s finding. At +Lossie House, Malcolm had felt a repugnance to her, both moral and +physical. When first he heard her name, one of the servants speaking of +her as Miss Caley, he took it for Scaley, and if that was not her name, +yet scaly was her nature.</p> + +<p>This time Florimel rode to Chelsea with Malcolm, having directed Caley +to meet her there; and, the one designing to be a little early, and the +other to be a little late, two results naturally followed —first, that +the lovers had a few minutes alone; and second, that when Caley crept +in, noiseless and unannounced as a cat, she had her desire, and saw +the painter’s arm round Florimel’s waist, and her head on his bosom. +Still more to her contentment, not hearing, they did not see her, and +she crept out again quietly as she had entered: it would of course be +to her advantage to let them know that she had seen, and that they were +in her power, but it might be still more to her advantage to conceal +the fact so long as there was a chance of additional discovery in the +same direction. Through the success of her trick it came about that +Malcolm, chancing to look up from Honour’s back to the room where he +always breakfasted with his new friend, saw in one of the windows, as +in a picture, a face radiant with such an expression as that of the +woman-headed snake might have worn when he saw Adam take the apple from +the hand of Eve.</p> + +<p>Caley was of the common class of servants in this, that she considered +service servitude, and took her amends in selfishness; she was unlike +them in this, that while false to her employers, she made no common +cause with her fellows against them—regarded and sought none but +her own ends. Her one thought was to make the most of her position; +for that, to gain influence with, and, if it might be, power over +her mistress; and, thereto, first of all, to find out whether she +had a secret: she had now discovered not merely that she had one, +but the secret itself! She was clever, greedy, cunning; equally +capable, according to the faculty with which she might be matched, +of duping or of being duped. She rather liked her mistress, but +watched her in the interests of Lady Bellair. She had a fancy for the +earl, a natural dislike for Malcolm which she concealed in distant +politeness, and for all the rest of the house, indifference. As to +her person, she had a neat oval face, thin and sallow, in expression +subacid; a lithe, rather graceful figure, and hands too long, with +fingers almost too tapering—of which hands and fingers she was very +careful, contemplating them in secret with a regard amounting almost +to reverence: they were her sole witnesses to a descent in which she +believed, but of which she had no other shadow of proof.</p> + +<p>Caley’s face, then, with its unsaintly illumination, gave Malcolm +something to think about as he sat there upon Honour, the new horse. +Clearly she had had a triumph: what could it be? The nature of the +woman was not altogether unknown to him even from the first, and he +could not for months go on meeting her occasionally in passages and on +stairs without learning to understand his own instinctive dislike: it +was plain the triumph was not in good. It was plain too that it was +in something which had that very moment occurred, and could hardly +have to do with anyone but her mistress. Then her being in that room +revealed more. They would never have sent her out of the study, and so +put themselves in her power. She had gone into the house but a moment +before, a minute or two behind her mistress, and he knew with what +a cat-like step she went about: she had surprised them—-discovered +how matters stood between her mistress and the painter! He saw +everything—almost as it had taken place. She had seen without being +seen, and had retreated with her prize! Florimel was then in the +woman’s power: what was he to do? He must at least let her gather what +warning she could from the tale of what he had seen.</p> + +<p>Once arrived at a resolve, Malcolm never lost time. They had turned but +one corner on their way home, when he rode up to her.</p> + +<p>“Please, my lady,” he began.</p> + +<p>But the same instant Florimel was pulling up.</p> + +<p>“Malcolm,” she said, “I have left my pocket-handkerchief. I must go +back for it.”</p> + +<p>As she spoke, she turned her horse’s head. But Malcolm, dreading lest +Caley should yet be lingering, would not allow her to expose herself to +a greater danger than she knew.</p> + +<p>“Before you go, my lady, I must tell you something I happened to see +while I waited with the horses,” he said.</p> + +<p>The earnestness of his tone struck Florimel. She looked at him with +eyes a little wider, and waited to hear.</p> + +<p>“I happened to look up at the drawing-room windows, my lady, and Caley +came to one of them with <i>such</i> a look on her face! I can’t exactly +describe it to you, my lady, but——”</p> + +<p>“Why do you tell me?” interrupted his mistress, with absolute +composure, and hard, questioning eyes.</p> + +<p>But she had drawn herself up in the saddle. Then, before he could +reply, a flash of thought seemed to cross her face with a quick single +motion of her eyebrows, and it was instantly altered and thoughtful. +She seemed to have suddenly perceived some cause for taking a mild +interest in his communication.</p> + +<p>“But it cannot be, Malcolm,” she said, in quite a changed tone. “You +must have taken some one else for her. She never left the studio all +the time I was there.”</p> + +<p>“It was immediately after her arrival, my lady. She went in about two +minutes after your ladyship, and could not have had <i>much</i> more than +time to go upstairs when I saw her come to the window. I felt bound to +tell your ladyship.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Malcolm,” returned Florimel kindly. “You did right to tell +me,—but—it’s of no consequence. Mr Lenorme’s housekeeper and she must +have been talking about something.”</p> + +<p>But her eyebrows were now thoughtfully contracted over her eyes.</p> + +<p>“There had been no time for that, I think, my lady,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Florimel turned again and rode on, saying no more about the +handkerchief. Malcolm saw that he had succeeded in warning her, and was +glad. But had he foreseen to what it would lead, he would hardly have +done it.</p> + +<p>Florimel was indeed very uneasy. She could not help strongly suspecting +that she had betrayed herself to one who, if not an intentional spy, +would yet be ready enough to make a spy’s use of anything she might +have picked up. What was to be done? It was now too late to think of +getting rid of her: that would be but her signal to disclose whatever +she had seen, and so not merely enjoy a sweet revenge, but account with +clear satisfactoriness for her dismissal. What would not Florimel now +have given for some one who could sympathise with her and yet counsel +her! She was afraid to venture another meeting with Lenorme, and +besides was not a little shy of the advantage the discovery would give +him in pressing her to marry him. And now first she began to feel as if +her sins were going to find her out.</p> + +<p>A day or two passed in alternating psychical flaws and fogs— with +poor glints of sunshine between. She watched her maid, but her maid +knew it, and discovered no change in her manner or behaviour. Weary of +observation she was gradually settling into her former security, when +Caley began to drop hints that alarmed her. Might it not be altogether +the safest thing to take her into confidence? It would be such a +relief, she thought, to have a woman she could talk to! The result was +that she began to lift a corner of the veil that hid her trouble; the +woman encouraged her, and at length the silly girl threw her arms round +the scaly one’s neck, much to that person’s satisfaction, and told her +that she loved Mr Lenorme. She knew of course, she said, that she could +not marry him. She was only waiting a fit opportunity to free herself +from a connection which, however delightful, she was unable to justify. +How the maid interpreted her confession, I do not care to enquire +very closely, but anyhow it was in a manner that promised much to her +after influence. I hasten over this part of Florimel’s history, for +that confession to Caley was perhaps the one thing in her life she had +most reason to be ashamed of, for she was therein false to the being +she thought she loved best in the world. Could Lenorme have known her +capable of unbosoming herself to such a woman, it would almost have +slain the love he bore her. The notions of that odd-and-end sort of +person, who made his livelihood by spreading paint, would have been too +hideously shocked by the shadow of an intimacy between his love and +such as she.</p> + +<p>Caley first comforted the weeping girl, and then began to insinuate +encouragement. She must indeed give him up—there was no help for +that; but neither was there any necessity for doing so all at once. Mr +Lenorme was a beautiful man, and any woman might be proud to be loved +by him. She must take her time to it. She might trust her. And so on +and on—for she was as vulgar-minded as the worst of those whom ladies +endure about their persons, handling their hair, and having access to +more of their lock-fast places than they would willingly imagine.</p> + +<p>The first result was that, on the pretext of bidding him farewell, and +convincing him that he and she must meet no more, fate and fortune, +society and duty being all alike against their happiness —I mean on +that pretext to herself, the only one to be deceived by it—Florimel +arranged with her woman one evening to go the next morning to the +studio: she knew the painter to be an early riser, and always at his +work before eight o’clock. But although she tried to imagine she had +persuaded herself to say farewell, certainly she had not yet brought +her mind to any ripeness of resolve in the matter.</p> + +<p>At seven o’clock in the morning, the marchioness habited like a +housemaid, they slipped out by the front door, turned the corners of +two streets, found a hackney coach waiting for them, and arrived in due +time at the painter’s abode.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.<br><span class="small">A QUARREL.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When the door opened and Florimel glided in, the painter sprang to his +feet to welcome her, and she flew softly, soundless as a moth, into his +arms; for the study being large and full of things, she was not aware +of the presence of Malcolm. From behind a picture on an easel, he saw +them meet, but shrinking from being an open witness to their secret, +and also from being discovered in his father’s clothes by the sister +who knew him only as a servant, he instantly sought escape. Nor was it +hard to find, for near where he stood was a door opening into a small +intermediate chamber, communicating with the drawing-room, and by it +he fled, intending to pass through to Lenorme’s bedroom, and change +his clothes. With noiseless stride he hurried away, but could not help +hearing a few passionate words that escaped his sister’s lips before +Lenorme could warn her that they were not alone—words which, it seemed +to him, could come only from a heart whose very pulse was devotion.</p> + +<p>“How <i>can</i> I live without you, Raoul?” said the girl as she clung to +him.</p> + +<p>Lenorme gave an uneasy glance behind him, saw Malcolm disappear, and +answered,</p> + +<p>“I hope you will never try, my darling.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, but you know this can’t last,” she returned, with playfully +affected authority. “It must come to an end. They will interfere.”</p> + +<p>“Who can? Who will dare?” said the painter with confidence.</p> + +<p>“People will. We had better stop it ourselves—before it all comes out, +and we are shamed,” said Florimel, now with perfect seriousness.</p> + +<p>“Shamed!” cried Lenorme. “—Well, if you can’t help being ashamed of +me—and perhaps, as you have been brought up, you can’t— do you not +then love me enough to encounter a little shame for my sake? I should +welcome worlds of such for yours!”</p> + +<p>Florimel was silent. She kept her face hidden on his shoulder, but was +already halfway to a quarrel.</p> + +<p>“You don’t love me, Florimel!” he said, after a pause, little thinking +how nearly true were the words.</p> + +<p>“Well, suppose I don’t!” she cried, half defiantly, half merrily; and +drawing herself from him, she stepped back two paces, and looked at +him with saucy eyes, in which burned two little flames of displeasure, +that seemed to shoot up from the red spots glowing upon her cheeks. +Lenorme looked at her. He had often seen her like this before, and +knew that the shell was charged and the fuse lighted. But within lay a +mixture even more explosive than he suspected; for not merely was there +more of shame and fear and perplexity mingled with her love than he +understood, but she was conscious of having now been false to him, and +that rendered her temper dangerous.</p> + +<p>Lenorme had already suffered severely from the fluctuations of her +moods. They had been almost too much for him. He could endure them, +he thought, to all eternity, if he had her to himself, safe and sure; +but the confidence to which he rose every now and then that she would +one day be his, just as often failed him, rudely shaken by some new +symptom of what almost seemed like cherished inconstancy. If after all +she should forsake him! It was impossible, but she might. If even that +should come, he was too much of a man to imagine anything but a stern +encounter of the inevitable, and he knew he would survive it; but he +knew also that life could never be the same again; that for a season +work would be impossible— the kind of work he had hitherto believed +his own rendered for ever impossible perhaps, and his art degraded +to the mere earning of a living. At best he would have to die and be +buried and rise again before existence could become endurable under the +new squalid condition of life without her. It was no wonder then if her +behaviour sometimes angered him; for even against a Will o’ the Wisp +that has enticed us into a swamp, a glow of foolish indignation will +spring up. And now a black fire in his eyes answered the blue flash in +hers; and the difference suggests the diversity of their loves: hers +might vanish in fierce explosion, his would go on burning like a coal +mine. A word of indignant expostulation rose to his lips, but a thought +came that repressed it. He took her hand, and led her—the wonder +was that she yielded, for she had seen the glow in his eyes, and the +fuse of her own anger burned faster; but she did yield, partly from +curiosity, and followed where he pleased —her hand lying dead in his. +It was but to the other end of the room he led her, to the picture of +her father, now all but finished. Why he did so, he would have found +it hard to say. Perhaps the Genius that lies under the consciousness +forefelt a catastrophe, and urged him to give his gift ere giving +should be impossible.</p> + +<p>Malcolm stepped into the drawing-room, where the table was laid as +usual for breakfast: there stood Caley, helping herself to a spoonful +of honey from Hymettus. At his entrance she started violently, and her +sallow face grew earthy. For some seconds she stood motionless, unable +to take her eyes off the apparition, as it seemed to her, of the late +marquis, in wrath at her encouragement of his daughter in disgraceful +courses. Malcolm, supposing only she was ashamed of herself, took no +farther notice of her, and walked deliberately towards the other door. +Ere he reached it she knew him. Burning with the combined ires of +fright and shame, conscious also that, by the one little contemptible +act of greed in which he had surprised her, she had justified the +aversion which her woman-instinct had from the first recognized in him, +she darted to the door, stood with her back against it, and faced him +flaming.</p> + +<p>“So!” she cried, “this is how my lady’s kindness is abused! The +insolence! Her groom goes and sits for his portrait in her father’s +court dress!”</p> + +<p>As she ceased, all the latent vulgarity of her nature broke loose, +and with a contracted <i>pff</i> she seized her thin nose between her +thumb and fore-finger, to the indication that an evil odour of fish +interpenetrated her atmosphere, and must at the moment be defiling the +garments of the dead marquis.</p> + +<p>“My lady shall know of this,” she concluded, with a vicious clenching +of her teeth, and two or three nods of her neat head.</p> + +<p>Malcolm stood regarding her with a coolness that yet inflamed +her wrath. He could not help smiling at the reaction of shame in +indignation. Had her anger been but a passing flame, that smile would +have turned it into enduring hate. She hissed in his face.</p> + +<p>“Go and have the first word,” he said; “only leave the door and let me +pass.”</p> + +<p>“Let you pass indeed! What would you pass for?—The bastard of old +Lord James and a married woman!—I don’t care <i>that</i> for you.” And she +snapped her fingers in his face.</p> + +<p>Malcolm turned from her and went to the window, taking a newspaper from +the breakfast-table as he passed, and there sat down to read until the +way should be clear. Carried beyond herself by his utter indifference, +Caley darted from the room and went straight into the study.</p> + +<p>Lenorme led Florimel in front of the picture. She gave a great start, +and turned and stared pallid at the painter. The effect upon her was +such as he had not foreseen, and the words she uttered were not such as +he could have hoped to hear.</p> + +<p>“What would <i>he</i> think of me if he knew?” she cried, clasping her hands +in agony.</p> + +<p>That moment Caley burst into the room, her eyes lamping like a cat’s.</p> + +<p>“My lady!” she shrieked, “there’s MacPhail, the groom, my lady, dressed +up in your honoured father’s bee-utiful clo’es as he always wore when +he went to dine with the Prince! And, please, my lady, he’s that rude I +could ’ardly keep my ’ands off him.”</p> + +<p>Florimel flashed a dagger of question in Lenorme’s eyes. The painter +drew himself up.</p> + +<p>“It was at my request, Lady Lossie,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Indeed!” returned Florimel, in high scorn, and glanced again at the +picture.</p> + +<p>“I see!” she went on. “How could I be such an idiot! It was my groom’s, +not my father’s likeness you meant to surprise me with!”</p> + +<p>Her eyes flashed as if she would annihilate him.</p> + +<p>“I have worked hard in the hope of giving you pleasure, Lady Lossie,” +said the painter, with wounded dignity.</p> + +<p>“And you have failed,” she adjoined cruelly.</p> + +<p>The painter took the miniature after which he had been working, from +a table near, handed it to her with a proud obeisance, and the same +moment dashed a brushful of dark paint across the face of the picture.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir,” said Florimel, and for a moment felt as if she hated +him.</p> + +<p>She turned away and walked from the study. The door of the drawing-room +was open, and Caley stood by the side of it. Florimel, too angry to +consider what she was about, walked in: there sat Malcolm in the +window, in her father’s clothes, and his very attitude, reading the +newspaper. He did not hear her enter. He had been waiting till he could +reach the bedroom unseen by her, for he knew from the sound of the +voices that the study door was open. Her anger rose yet higher at the +sight.</p> + +<p>“Leave the room,” she said.</p> + +<p>He started to his feet, and now perceived that his sister was in the +dress of a servant. He took one step forward and stood—a little +mazed—gorgeous in dress and arms of price, before his mistress in the +cotton gown of a housemaid.</p> + +<p>“Take those clothes off instantly,” said Florimel slowly, replacing +wrath with haughtiness as well as she might. Malcolm turned to the door +without a word. He saw that things had gone wrong where most he would +have wished them go right.</p> + +<p>“I’ll see to them being well aired, my lady,” said Caley, with sibilant +indignation.</p> + +<p>Malcolm went to the study. The painter sat before the picture of the +marquis, with his elbows on his knees, and his head between his hands.</p> + +<p>“Mr Lenorme,” said Malcolm, approaching him gently.</p> + +<p>“Oh, go away,” said Lenorme, without raising his head. “I can’t bear +the sight of you yet.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm obeyed, a little smile playing about the corners of his mouth. +Caley saw it as he passed, and hated him yet worse. He was in his own +clothes, booted and belted, in two minutes. Three sufficed to replace +his father’s garments in the portmanteau, and in three more he and +Kelpie went plunging past his mistress and her maid as they drove home +in their lumbering vehicle.</p> + +<p>“The insolence of the fellow!” said Caley, loud enough for her mistress +to hear notwithstanding the noise of the rattling windows. “A pretty +pass we are come to!”</p> + +<p>But already Florimel’s mood had begun to change. She felt that she had +done her best to alienate men on whom she could depend, and that she +had chosen for a confidante one whom she had no ground for trusting.</p> + +<p>She got safe and unseen to her room; and Caley believed she had only to +improve the advantage she had now gained.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.<br><span class="small">THE TWO DAIMONS.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Things had taken a turn that was not to Malcolm’s satisfaction, and +his thoughts were as busy all the way home as Kelpie would allow. He +had ardently desired that his sister should be thoroughly in love +with Lenorme, for that seemed to open a clear path out of his worst +difficulties; now they had quarrelled; and besides were both angry +with him. The main fear was that Liftore would now make some progress +with her. Things looked dangerous. Even his warning against Caley had +led to a result the very opposite of his intent and desire. And now it +recurred to him that he had once come upon Liftore talking to Caley, +and giving her something that shone like a sovereign.</p> + +<p>Earlier on the same morning of her visit to the studio, Florimel had +awaked and found herself in the presence of the spiritual Vehmgericht. +Every member of the tribunal seemed against her. All her thoughts were +busy accusing, none of them excusing one another. So hard were they +upon her that she fancied she had nearly come to the conclusion that, +if only she could do it pleasantly, without pain or fear, the best +thing would be to swallow something and fall asleep; for like most +people she was practically an atheist, and therefore always thought of +death as the refuge from the ills of life. But although she was often +very uncomfortable, Florimel knew nothing of such genuine downright +misery as drives some people to what can be no more to their purpose +than if a man should strip himself naked because he is cold. When she +returned from her unhappy visit, and had sent her attendant to get her +some tea, she threw herself upon her bed, and found herself yet again +in the dark chambers of the spiritual police. But already even their +company was preferable to that of Caley, whose officiousness began +to enrage her. She was yet tossing in the Nessus-tunic of her own +disharmony, when Malcolm came for orders. To get rid of herself and +Caley both, she desired him to bring the horses round at once.</p> + +<p>It was more than Malcolm had expected. He ran: he might yet have a +chance of trying to turn her in the right direction. He knew that +Liftore was neither in the house nor at the stable. With the help of +the earl’s groom, he was round in ten minutes. Florimel was all but +ready: like some other ladies she could dress quickly when she had +good reason. She sprang from Malcolm’s hand to the saddle, and led +as straight northward as she could go, never looking behind her till +she drew rein on the top of Hampstead Heath. When he rode up to her, +“Malcolm,” she said, looking at him half ashamed, “I don’t think my +father <i>would</i> have minded you wearing his clothes.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, my lady,” said Malcolm. “At least he would have forgiven +anything meant for your pleasure.”</p> + +<p>“I was too hasty,” she said. “But the fact was, Mr Lenorme had +irritated me, and I foolishly mixed you up with him.”</p> + +<p>“When I went into the studio, after you left it, this morning my lady,” +Malcolm ventured, “he had his head between his hands and would not even +look at me.”</p> + +<p>Florimel turned her face aside, and Malcolm thought she was sorry; but +she was only hiding a smile: she had not yet got beyond the kitten +stage of love, and was pleased to find she gave pain.</p> + +<p>“If your ladyship never had another true friend, Mr Lenorme is one,” +added Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“What opportunity can you have had for knowing?” said Florimel.</p> + +<p>“I have been sitting to him every morning for a good many days,” +answered Malcolm. “<i>He</i> is something like a man!”</p> + +<p>Florimel’s face flushed with pleasure. She liked to hear him praised, +for he loved her.</p> + +<p>“You should have seen, my lady, the pains he took with that portrait! +He would stare at the little picture you lent him of my lord for +minutes, as if he were looking through it at something behind it; then +he would get up and go and gaze at your ladyship on the pedestal, as +if you were the goddess herself able to tell him everything about your +father; and then he would hurry back to his easel, and give a touch or +two to the face, looking at it all the time as if he loved it. It must +have been a cruel pain that drove him to smear it as he did!”</p> + +<p>Florimel began to feel a little motion of shame somewhere in the +mystery of her being. But to show that to her servant, would be to +betray herself—the more that he seemed the painter’s friend.</p> + +<p>“I will ask Lord Liftore to go and see the portrait, and if he thinks +it like, I will buy it,” she said. “Mr Lenorme is certainly very clever +with his brush.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm saw that she said this not to insult Lenorme, but to blind her +groom, and made no answer.</p> + +<p>“I will ride there with you to-morrow morning,” she added in +conclusion, and moved on.</p> + +<p>Malcolm touched his hat, and dropped behind. But the next moment he was +by her side again.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, my lady, but would you allow me to say one word +more?”</p> + +<p>She bowed her head.</p> + +<p>“That woman Caley, I am certain, is not to be trusted. She does not +love you, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know that?” asked Florimel, speaking steadily, but writhing +inwardly with the knowledge that the warning was too late.</p> + +<p>“I have tried her spirit,” answered Malcolm, “and know that it is of +the devil. She loves herself too much to be true.”</p> + +<p>After a little pause Florimel said,</p> + +<p>“I know you mean well, Malcolm; but it is nothing to me whether she +loves me or not. We don’t look for that now-a-days from servants.”</p> + +<p>“It is because I love you, my lady,” said Malcolm, “that I know Caley +does not. If she should get hold of anything your ladyship would not +wish talked about,—”</p> + +<p>“That she cannot,” said Florimel, but with an inward shudder. “She may +tell the whole world all she can discover.”</p> + +<p>She would have cantered on as the words left her lips, but something +in Malcolm’s looks held her. She turned pale; she trembled: her father +was looking at her as only once had she seen him—in doubt whether his +child lied. The illusion was terrible. She shook in her saddle. The +next moment she was galloping along the grassy border of the heath +in wild flight from her worst enemy, whom yet she could never by the +wildest of flights escape; for when, coming a little to herself as she +approached a sand pit, she pulled up, there was her enemy—neither +before nor behind, neither above nor beneath nor within her: it was the +self which had just told a lie to the servant of whom she had so lately +boasted that he never told one in his life. Then she grew angry. What +had she done to be thus tormented? <i>She</i> a marchioness, thus pestered +by her own menials —pulled in opposing directions by a groom and a +maid. She would turn them both away, and have nobody about her, either +to trust or suspect.</p> + +<p>She might have called them her good and her evil demon; for she +knew—that is, she had it somewhere about her, but did not look it +out—that it was her own cowardice and concealment, her own falseness +to the traditional, never failing courage of her house, her ignobility, +and unfitness to represent the Colonsays—her double dealing in short, +that had made the marchioness in her own right the slave of her woman, +the rebuked of her groom!</p> + +<p>She turned and rode back, looking the other way as she passed Malcolm.</p> + +<p>When they reached the top of the heath, riding along to meet them +came Liftore—this time to Florimel’s consolation and comfort: she +did not like riding unprotected with a good angel at her heels. So +glad was she that she did not even take the trouble to wonder how he +had discovered the road she went. She never suspected that Caley had +sent his lordship’s groom to follow her until the direction of her +ride should be evident, but took his appearance without question, as a +loverlike attention, and rode home with him, talking the whole way, and +cherishing a feeling of triumph over both Malcolm and Lenorme. Had she +not a protector of her own kind? Could she not, when they troubled her, +pass from their sphere into one beyond their ken? For the poor moment, +the weak lord who rode beside her seemed to her foolish heart a tower +of refuge. She was particularly gracious to her lover as they rode, and +fancied again and again that perhaps the best way out of her troubles +would be to encourage and at last accept him, so getting rid of honeyed +delights and rankling stings together, of good and evil angels and +low-bred lover at one sweep. Quiet would console for dulness, innocence +for weariness. She would fain have a good conscience toward Society— +that image whose feet are of gold and its head a bag of chaff and +sawdust.</p> + +<p>Malcolm followed, sick at heart that she should prove herself so +shallow. Riding Honour, he had plenty of leisure to brood.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.<br><span class="small">A CHASTISEMENT.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When she went to her room, there was Caley taking from a portmanteau +the Highland dress which had occasioned so much. A note fell, and she +handed it to her mistress. Florimel opened it, grew pale as she read +it, and asked Caley to bring her a glass of water. No sooner had her +maid left the room than she sprang to the door and bolted it. Then the +tears burst from her eyes, she sobbed despairingly, and but for the +help of her handkerchief would have wailed aloud. When Caley returned, +she answered to her knock that she was lying down, and wanted to sleep. +She was, however, trying to force further communication from the note. +In it the painter told her that he was going to set out the next +morning for Italy, and that her portrait was at the shop of certain +carvers and gliders, being fitted with a frame for which he had made +drawings. Three times she read it, searching for some hidden message to +her heart; she held it up between her and the light; then before the +fire till it crackled like a bit of old parchment; but all was in vain: +by no device, intellectual or physical, could she coax the shadow of a +meaning out of it, beyond what lay plain on the surface. She must, she +<i>would</i> see him again.</p> + +<p>That night she was merrier than usual at dinner; after it, sang +ballad after ballad to please Liftore; then went to her room and told +Caley to arrange for yet a visit, the next morning, to Mr Lenorme’s +studio. She positively must, she said, secure her father’s portrait +ere the ill-tempered painter—all men of genius were hasty and +unreasonable—should have destroyed it utterly, as he was certain to do +before leaving—and with that she showed her Lenorme’s letter. Caley +was all service, only said that this time she thought they had better +go openly. She would see Lady Bellair as soon as Lady Lossie was in +bed, and explain the thing to her.</p> + +<p>The next morning therefore they drove to Chelsea in the carriage. When +the door opened, Florimel walked straight up to the study. There she +saw no one, and her heart, which had been fluttering strangely, sank, +and was painfully still, while her gaze went wandering about the room. +It fell upon the pictured temple of Isis: a thick dark veil had fallen +and shrouded the whole figure of the goddess, leaving only the outline; +and the form of the worshipping youth had vanished utterly: where he +had stood, the tesselated pavement, with the serpent of life twining +through it, and the sculptured walls of the temple, shone out clear +and bare, as if Hyacinth had walked out into the desert to return no +more. Again the tears gushed from the heart of Florimel: she had sinned +against her own fame—had blotted out a fair memorial record that might +have outlasted the knight of stone under the Norman canopy in Lossie +church. Again she sobbed, again she choked down a cry that had else +become a scream.</p> + +<p>Arms were around her. Never doubting whose the embrace, she leaned her +head against his bosom, stayed her sobs with the one word “<i>Cruel!</i>” +and slowly opening her tearful eyes, lifted them to the face that bent +over hers. It was Liftore’s. She was dumb with disappointment and +dismay. It was a hateful moment. He kissed her forehead and eyes, and +sought her mouth. She shrieked aloud. In her very agony at the loss +of one to be kissed by another!—and there! It was too degrading! too +horrid!</p> + +<p>At the sound of her cry someone started up at the other end of the +room. An easel with a large canvas on it fell, and a man came forward +with great strides. Liftore let her go, with a muttered curse on the +intruder, and she darted from the room into the arms of Caley, who +had had her ear against the other side of the door. The same instant +Malcolm received from his lordship a well planted blow between the +eyes, which filled them with flashes and darkness. The next, the earl +was on the floor. The ancient fury of the Celt had burst up into the +nineteenth century, and mastered a noble spirit. All Malcolm could +afterwards remember was that he came to himself dealing Liftore +merciless blows, his foot on his back, and his weapon the earl’s whip. +His lordship, struggling to rise, turned up a face white with hate and +impotent fury.</p> + +<p>“You damned flunkie!” he panted. “I’ll have you shot like a mangy dog.”</p> + +<p>“Meanwhile I will chastise you like an insolent nobleman,” said +Malcolm, who had already almost recovered his self-possession. “You +dare to touch my mistress!”</p> + +<p>And with the words he gave him one more stinging cut with the whip.</p> + +<p>“Stand off, and let it be man to man,” cried Liftore, with a fierce +oath, clenching his teeth in agony and rage.</p> + +<p>“That it cannot be, my lord; but I have had enough, and so I hope has +your lordship,” said Malcolm; and as he spoke he threw the whip to the +other end of the room, and stood back. Liftore sprang to his feet, and +rushed at him. Malcolm caught him by the wrist with a fisherman’s grasp.</p> + +<p>“My lord, I don’t want to kill you. Take a warning, and let ill be, for +fear of worse,” he said, and threw his hand from him with a swing that +nearly dislocated his shoulder.</p> + +<p>The warning sufficed. His lordship cast him one scowl of concentrated +hate and revenge, and leaving the room hurried also from the house.</p> + +<p>At the usual morning hour, Malcolm had ridden to Chelsea, hoping to +find his friend in a less despairing and more companionable mood than +when he left him. To his surprise and disappointment he learned that +Lenorme had sailed by the packet to Ostend the night before. He asked +leave to go into the study. There on its easel stood the portrait of +his father as he had last seen it—disfigured with a great smear of +brown paint across the face. He knew that the face was dry, and he +saw that the smear was wet: he would see whether he could not, with +turpentine and a soft brush, remove the insult. In this endeavour he +was so absorbed, and by the picture itself was so divided from the rest +of the room, that he neither saw nor heard anything until Florimel +cried out.</p> + +<p>Naturally, those events made him yet more dissatisfied with his +sister’s position. Evil influences and dangers were on all sides +of her—the worst possible outcome being that, loving one man, she +should marry another, and him such a man as Liftore. Whatever he heard +in the servants’ hall, both tone and substance, only confirmed the +unfavourable impression he had had from the first of the bold-faced +countess. The oldest of her servants had, he found, the least respect +for their mistress, although all had a certain liking for her, which +gave their disrespect the heavier import. He <i>must</i> get Florimel away +somehow. While all was right between her and the painter he had been +less anxious about her immediate surroundings, trusting that Lenorme +would ere long deliver her. But now she had driven him from the very +country, and he had left no clue to follow him up by. His housekeeper +could tell nothing of his purposes. The gardener and she were left in +charge as a matter of course. He might be back in a week, or a year; +she could not even conjecture.</p> + +<p>Seeming possibilities, in varied mingling with rank absurdities passing +through Malcolm’s mind, as, after Liftore’s punishment, he lifted the +portrait, set it again upon its easel, and went on trying to clean the +face of it—with no small promise of success. But as he made progress +he grew anxious—lest with the defilement, he should remove some of +the colour as well: the painter alone, he concluded at length could be +trusted to restore the work he had ruined.</p> + +<p>He left the house, walked across the road to the river-bank, and gave +a short sharp whistle. In an instant Davy was in the dinghy, pulling +for the shore. Malcolm went on board the yacht, saw that all was right, +gave some orders, went ashore again, and mounted Kelpie.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.<br><span class="small">LIES.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>In pain, wrath, and mortification, Liftore rode home. What would +the men at his club say if they knew that he had been thrashed by a +scoundrel of a groom for kissing his mistress? The fact would soon +be out: he must do his best to have it taken for what it ought to +be—namely, fiction. It was the harder upon him that he knew himself +no coward. He must punish the rascal somehow—he owed it to society +to punish him; but at present he did not see how, and the first thing +was to have the first word with Florimel; he must see her before she +saw the ruffian. He rode as hard as he dared to Curzon Street, sent +his groom to the stables, telling him he should want the horses again +before lunch, had a hot bath, of which he stood in dire need, and some +brandy with his breakfast, and then, all unfit for exercise as he was, +walked to Portland Place.</p> + +<p>Mistress and maid rode home together in silence. The moment Florimel +heard Malcolm’s voice she had left the house. Caley following had +heard enough to know that there was a scuffle at least going on in +the study, and her eye witnessed against her heart that Liftore could +have no chance with the detested groom if the respect of the latter +gave way: would MacPhail thrash his lordship? If he did, it would be +well she should know it. In the hoped event of his lordship’s marrying +her mistress, it was desirable, not only that she should be in favour +with both of them, but that she should have some hold upon each of a +more certainly enduring nature: if she held secrets with husband and +wife separately, she would be in clover for the period of her natural +existence. As to Florimel, she was enraged at the liberties Liftore +had taken with her. But alas! was she not in some degree in his power? +He had found her there, and in tears! How did he come to be there? If +Malcolm’s judgment of her was correct, Caley might have told him. Was +she already false? She pondered within herself, and cast no look upon +her maid until she had concluded how best to carry herself towards the +earl. Then glancing at the hooded cobra beside her—</p> + +<p>“What an awkward thing that Lord Liftore, of all moments, should appear +just then!” she said. “How could it be?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I haven’t an idea, my lady,” returned Caley. “My lord has +been always kind to Mr Lenorme, and I suppose he has been in the way of +going to see him at work. Who would have thought my lord had been such +an early riser! There are not many gentlemen like him now-a-days, my +lady! Did your ladyship hear the noise in the studio after you left it?”</p> + +<p>“I heard high words,” answered her mistress, “—nothing more. How on +earth did MacPhail come to be there as well?—From you, Caley, I will +not conceal that his lordship behaved indiscreetly; in fact he was +rude; and I can quite imagine that MacPhail thought it his duty to +defend me. It is all very awkward for me. Who could have imagined <i>him</i> +there, and sitting behind amongst the pictures! It almost makes me +doubt whether Mr Lenorme be really gone.”</p> + +<p>“It seems to me, my lady,” returned Caley, “that the man is always +just where he ought not to be, always meddling with something he has +no business with. I beg your pardon, my lady,” she went on, “but +wouldn’t it be better to get some staid elderly man for a groom, one +who has been properly bred up to his duties and taught his manners in a +gentleman’s stable? It is so odd to have a groom from a rough seafaring +set—one who behaves like the rude fisherman he is, never having had +to obey orders of lord or lady! The worst of it is, your ladyship will +soon be the town’s talk if you have such a groom on such a horse after +you everywhere.”</p> + +<p>Florimel’s face flushed. Caley saw she was angry, and held her peace.</p> + +<p>Breakfast was hardly over, when Liftore walked in, looking pale, and, +in spite of his faultless <i>get-up</i>, somewhat disreputable: for shame, +secret pain, and anger do not favour a good carriage or honest mien. +Florimel threw herself back in her chair—an action characteristic +of the bold-faced countess, and held out her left hand to him in an +expansive, benevolent sort of way.</p> + +<p>“How dare you come into my presence, looking so well pleased with +yourself, my lord, after giving me such a fright this morning?” she +said. “You might at least have made sure that there was—that we +were——” She could not bring herself to complete the sentence.</p> + +<p>“My dearest girl!” said his lordship, not only delighted to get off so +pleasantly, but profoundly flattered by the implied understanding, “I +found you in tears, and how could I think of anything else? It may have +been stupid, but I trust you will think it pardonable.”</p> + +<p>Caley had not fully betrayed her mistress to his lordship, and he had, +entirely to his own satisfaction, explained the liking of Florimel +for the society of the painter as the mere fancy of a girl for the +admiration of one whose employment, although nothing above the +servile, yet gave him a claim something beyond that of a milliner or +hair-dresser, to be considered a judge in matters of appearance. As to +anything more in the affair—and with <i>him</i> in the field—of such a +notion he was simply incapable: he could not have wronged the lady he +meant to honour with his hand, by regarding it as within the bounds of +the possible.</p> + +<p>“It was no wonder I was crying,” said Florimel. “A seraph would have +cried to see the state my father’s portrait was in.”</p> + +<p>“Your father’s portrait!”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Did you not know? Mr Lenorme has been painting one from a +miniature I lent him—under my supervision, of course; and just because +I let fall a word that showed I was not altogether satisfied with the +likeness, what should the wretched man do but catch up a brush full of +filthy black paint, and smudge the face all over!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lenorme will soon set it to rights again. He’s not a bad fellow +though he does belong to the <i>genus irritabile</i>. I will go about it +this very day.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll not find him, I’m sorry to say. There’s a note I had from him +yesterday. And the picture’s quite unfit to be seen—utterly ruined. +But I <i>can’t</i> think how you could miss it!”</p> + +<p>“To tell you the truth, Florimel, I had a bit of a scrimmage after +you left me in the studio.” Here his lordship did his best to imitate +a laugh. “Who should come rushing upon me out of the back regions of +paint and canvas but that mad groom of yours! I don’t suppose you knew +he was there?”</p> + +<p>“Not I. I saw a man’s feet—that was all.”</p> + +<p>“Well, there he was, for what reason the devil knows, perdu amongst +the painter’s litter; and when he heard your little startled cry +—most musical, most melancholy—what should he fancy but that you +were frightened, and he must rush to the rescue! And so he did with a +vengeance: I don’t know when I shall quite forget the blow he gave me.” +And again Liftore laughed, or thought he did.</p> + +<p>“He struck you!” exclaimed Florimel, rather astonished, but hardly able +for inward satisfaction to put enough of indignation into her tone.</p> + +<p>“He did, the fellow!—But don’t say a word about it, for I thrashed him +so unmercifully that, to tell the truth, I had to stop because I grew +sorry for him. I am sorry now. So I hope you will take no notice of it. +In fact, I begin to like the rascal: you know I was never favourably +impressed with him. By Jove! it is not every mistress that can have +such a devoted attendant. I only hope his over-zeal in your service may +never get you into some compromising position. He is hardly, with all +his virtues, the proper servant for a young lady to have about her; +he has had no training—no <i>proper</i> training at all, you see. But you +must let the villain nurse himself for a day or two anyhow. It would be +torture to make him ride, after what I gave him.”</p> + +<p>His lordship spoke feelingly, with heroic endurance indeed; and if +Malcolm should dare give <i>his</i> account of the fracas, he trusted to the +word of a gentleman to outweigh that of a groom.</p> + +<p>Not all to whom it may seem incredible that a nobleman should thus lie, +are themselves incapable of doing likewise. Any man may put himself in +training for a liar by doing things he would be ashamed to have known. +The art is easily learned, and to practise it well is a great advantage +to people with <i>designs</i>. Men of ability, indeed, if they take care +not to try hard to speak the truth, will soon become able to lie as +truthfully as any sneak that sells grease for butter to the poverty of +the New Cut.</p> + +<p>It is worth remarking to him who can from the lie factual carry his +thought deeper to the lie essential, that all the power of a lie comes +from the truth; it has none in itself. So strong is the truth that a +mere resemblance to it is the source of strength to its opposite—until +it be found that <i>like</i> is not <i>the same</i>.</p> + +<p>Florimel had already made considerable progress in the art, but +proficiency in lying does not always develop the power of detecting it. +She knew that her father had on one occasion struck Malcolm, and that +he had taken it with the utmost gentleness, confessing himself in the +wrong. Also she had the impression that for a menial to lift his hand +against a gentleman, even in self-defence, was a thing unheard of. The +blow Malcolm had struck Liftore was for her, not himself. Therefore, +while her confidence in Malcolm’s courage and prowess remained +unshaken, she was yet able to believe that Liftore had done as he +said, and supposed that Malcolm had submitted. In her heart she pitied +without despising him.</p> + +<p>Caley herself took him the message that he would not be wanted. As she +delivered it, she smiled an evil smile and dropped a mocking courtesy, +with her gaze well fixed on his two black eyes and the great bruise +between them.</p> + +<p>When Liftore mounted to accompany Lady Lossie, it took all the pluck +that belonged to his high breed to enable him to smile and smile, with +twenty counsellors in different parts of his body feelingly persuading +him that he was at least a liar. As they rode, Florimel asked him how +he came to be at the studio that morning. He told her that he had +wanted very much to see her portrait before the final touches were +given it. He could have made certain suggestions, he believed, that +no one else could. He had indeed, he confessed— and felt absolutely +virtuous in doing so, because here he spoke a fact—heard from his +aunt that Florimel was to be there that morning for the last time: it +was therefore his only chance; but he had expected to be there hours +before she was out of bed. For the rest, be hoped he had been punished +enough, seeing her rascally groom—and once more his lordship laughed +peculiarly—had but just failed of breaking his arm; it was all he +could do to hold the reins.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.<br><span class="small">AN OLD ENEMY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>One Sunday evening—it must have been just while Malcolm and Blue Peter +stood in the Strand listening to a voluntary that filled and overflowed +an otherwise empty church—a short, stout, elderly woman was walking +lightly along the pavement of a street of small houses, not far from a +thoroughfare which, crowded like a market the night before, had now two +lively borders only—of holiday-makers mingled with church-goers. The +bells for evening prayers were ringing. The sun had vanished behind the +smoke and steam of London; indeed he might have set—it was hard to say +without consulting the almanac: but it was not dark yet. The lamps in +the street were lighted, however, and also in the church she passed. +She carried a small Bible in her hand, folded in a pocket-handkerchief, +and looked a decent woman from the country. Her quest was a place where +the minister said his prayers and did not read them out of a book: she +had been brought up a Presbyterian, and had prejudices in favour of +what she took for the simpler form of worship. Nor had she gone much +farther before she came upon a chapel which seemed to promise all she +wanted. She entered, and a sad-looking woman showed her to a seat. +She sat down square, fixing her eyes at once on the pulpit, rather +dimly visible over many pews, as if it were one of the mountains that +surrounded her Jerusalem. The place was but scantily lighted, for +the community at present could ill afford to burn daylight. When the +worship commenced, and the congregation rose to sing, she got up with +a jerk that showed the duty as unwelcome as unexpected, but seemed by +the way she settled herself in her seat for the prayer, already thereby +reconciled to the differences between Scotch church-customs and English +chapel-customs. She went to sleep softly, and woke warily as the prayer +came to a close.</p> + +<p>While the congregation again sang, the minister who had officiated +hitherto left the pulpit, and another ascended to preach. When he began +to read the text, the woman gave a little start, and leaning forward, +peered very hard to gain a satisfactory sight of his face between the +candles on each side of it, but without success; she soon gave up her +attempted scrutiny, and thence-forward seemed to listen with marked +attention. The sermon was a simple, earnest, at times impassioned +appeal to the hearts and consciences of the congregation. There was +little attempt in it at the communication of knowledge of any kind, but +the most indifferent hearer must have been aware that the speaker was +earnestly straining after something. To those who understood, it was as +if he would force his way through every stockade of prejudice, ditch +of habit, rampart of indifference, moat of sin, wall of stupidity, and +curtain of ignorance, until he stood face to face with the conscience +of his hearer.</p> + +<p>“Rank Arminianism!” murmured the woman. “Whaur’s the gospel o’ that?” +But still she listened with seeming intentness, while something of +wonder mingled with the something else that set in motion every live +wrinkle in her forehead, and made her eyebrows undulate like writhing +snakes.</p> + +<p>At length the preacher rose to eloquence, an eloquence inspired by +the hunger of his soul after truth eternal, and the love he bore to +his brethren who fed on husks—an eloquence innocent of the tricks of +elocution or the arts of rhetoric: to have discovered himself using one +of them would have sent him home to his knees in shame and fear—an +eloquence not devoid of discords, the strings of his instrument being +now slack with emotion, now tense with vision, yet even in those +discords shrouding the essence of all harmony. When he ceased, the +silence that followed seemed instinct with thought, with that speech of +the spirit which no longer needs the articulating voice.</p> + +<p>“It <i>canna</i> be the stickit minister!” said the woman to herself.</p> + +<p>The congregation slowly dispersed, but she sat motionless until all +were gone, and the sad-faced woman was putting out the lights. Then +she rose, drew near through the gloom, and asked her the name of the +gentleman who had given them such a grand sermon. The woman told her, +adding that, although he had two or three times spoken to them at the +prayer meeting—such words of comfort, the poor soul added, as she had +never in her life heard before—this was the first time he had occupied +the pulpit. The woman thanked her, and went out into the street.</p> + +<p>“God bless me!” she said to herself, as she walked away; “it <i>is</i> the +stickit minister! Weel, won’ers ’ill never cease. The age o’ mirracles +’ill be come back, I’m thinkin’!” And she laughed an oily contemptuous +laugh in the depths of her profuse person.</p> + +<p>What caused her astonishment need cause none to the thoughtful mind. +The man was no longer burdened with any anxiety as to his reception +by his hearers; he was hampered by no necromantic agony to raise the +dead letter of the sermon buried in the tail-pocket of his coat; he had +thirty years more of life, and a whole granary filled with such truths +as grow for him who is ever breaking up the clods of his being to the +spiritual sun and wind and dew; and above all, he had an absolute yet +expanding confidence in his Father in heaven, and a tender love for +everything human. The tongue of the dumb had been in training for song. +And first of all he had learned to be silent while he had nought to +reveal. He had been trained to babble about religion, but through God’s +grace had failed in his babble, and that was in itself a success. He +would have made one of the swarm that year after year cast themselves +like flies on the burning sacrifice that they may live on its flesh, +with evil odours extinguishing the fire that should have gone up in +flame; but a burning coal from off the altar had been laid on his lips, +and had silenced them in torture. For thirty years he had held his +peace, until the word of God had become as a fire in his bones: it was +now breaking forth in flashes.</p> + +<p>On the Monday, Mrs Catanach sought the shop of the deacon that was an +ironmonger, secured for herself a sitting in the chapel for the next +half-year, and prepaid the sitting.</p> + +<p>“Wha kens,” she said to herself, “what birds may come to gether worms +an’ golachs (<i>beetles</i>) aboot the boody-craw (<i>scarecrow</i>), Sanny +Grame!”</p> + +<p>She was one to whom intrigue, founded on the knowledge of private +history, was as the very breath of her being: she could not exist in +composure without it. Wherever she went, therefore—and her changes +of residence had not been few—it was one of her first cares to enter +into connection with some religious community, first that she might +have scope for her calling—that of a midwife, which in London would +probably be straightened towards that of mere monthly nurse—and next +that thereby she might have good chances for the finding of certain +weeds of occult power that spring mostly in walled gardens, and are +rare on the roadside—poisonous things mostly, called generically +<i>secrets</i>.</p> + +<p>At this time she had been for some painful months in possession of a +most important one—painful, I say, because all those months she had +discovered no possibility of making use of it. The trial had been +hard. Her one passion was to drive the dark horses of society, and +here she had been sitting week after week on the coach-box over the +finest team she had ever handled, ramping and “foming tarre,” unable +to give them their heads because the demon-grooms had disappeared and +left the looped traces dangling from their collars. She had followed +Florimel from Portlossie—to Edinburgh, and then to London, but not yet +had seen how to approach her with probable advantage. In the meantime +she had renewed old relations with a certain herb-doctor in Kentish +Town, at whose house she was now accommodated. There she had already +begun to entice the confidences of maid-servants, by use of what evil +knowledge she had, and pretence to more, giving herself out as a wise +woman. Her faith never failed her that, if she but kept handling the +fowls of circumstance, one or other of them must at length drop an egg +of opportunity in her lap. When she stumbled upon the schoolmaster, +preaching in a chapel near her own haunts, she felt something more like +a gust of gratitude to the dark power that sat behind and pulled the +strings of events—for thus she saw through her own projected phantom +the heart of the universe—than she had ever yet experienced. If there +were such things as special providences, here, she said, was one; if +not, then it was better luck than she had looked for. The main point in +it was that the dominie seemed likely after all to turn out a popular +preacher; then beyond a doubt other Scotch people would gather to him; +this or that person might turn up, and anyone might turn out useful; +one thread might be knotted to another, until all together had made a +clue to guide her straight through the labyrinth to the centre, to lay +her hand on the collar of the demon of the house of Lossie. It was the +biggest game of her life, and had been its game long before the opening +of my narrative.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.<br><span class="small">THE EVIL GENIUS.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When Malcolm first visited Mr Graham, the schoolmaster had already +preached two or three times in the pulpit of Hope Chapel. His +ministrations at the prayer-meetings had led to this. For every night +on which he was expected to speak, there were more people present than +on the last; and when the deacons saw this, they asked him to preach on +the Sundays. After two Sundays they came to him in a body, and besought +him to become a candidate for the vacant pulpit, assuring him of +success if he did so. He gave a decided refusal, however, nor mentioned +his reasons. His friend Marshal urged him, pledging himself for his +income to an amount which would have been riches to the dominie, but in +vain. Thereupon the silk mercer concluded that he must have money, and, +kind man as he was, grew kinder in consequence, and congratulated him +on his independence.</p> + +<p>“I depend more on the fewness of my wants than on any earthly store for +supplying them,” said the dominie.</p> + +<p>Marshal’s thermometer fell a little, but not his anxiety to secure +services which, he insisted, would be for the glory of God and the +everlasting good of perishing souls. The schoolmaster only smiled +queerly and held his peace.</p> + +<p>He consented, however, to preach the next Sunday, and on the Monday, +consented to preach the next again. For several weeks the same thing +occurred. But he would never promise on a Sunday, or allow the briefest +advertisement to be given concerning him. All said he was feeling his +way.</p> + +<p>Neither had he, up to this time, said a word to Malcolm about the +manner in which his Sundays were employed, while yet he talked much +about a school he had opened in a room occupied in the evenings by a +debating club, where he was teaching such children of small shopkeepers +and artisans as found their way to him—in part through his connection +with the chapel-folk. When Malcolm had called on a Sunday, his landlady +had been able to tell him nothing more than that Mr Graham had gone out +at such and such an hour—she presumed to church; and when he had once +or twice expressed a wish to accompany him wherever he went to worship, +Mr Graham had managed somehow to let him go without having made any +arrangement for his doing so.</p> + +<p>On the evening after his encounter with Liftore, Malcolm visited the +schoolmaster, and told him everything about the affair. He concluded +by saying that Lizzie’s wrongs had loaded the whip far more than his +sister’s insult; but that he was very doubtful whether he had had any +right to constitute himself the avenger of either after such a fashion. +Mr Graham replied that a man ought never to be carried away by wrath, +as he had so often sought to impress upon him, and not without success: +but that, in the present case, as the rascal deserved it so well, he +did not think he need trouble himself much. At the same time he ought +to remind himself that the rightness or wrongness of any particular act +was of far less consequence than the rightness or wrongness of the will +whence sprang the act; and that, while no man could be too anxious as +to whether a contemplated action ought or ought not to be done, at the +same time no man <i>could</i> do anything absolutely right until he was one +with him whose was the only absolute self-generated purity —that is, +until God dwelt in him and he in God.</p> + +<p>Before he left, the schoolmaster had acquainted him with all that +portion of his London history which he had hitherto kept from him, and +told him where he was preaching.</p> + +<p>When Caley returned to her mistress after giving Malcolm the message +that she did not require his services, and reported the condition of +his face, Florimel informed her of the chastisement he had received +from Liftore, and desired her to find out for her how he was, for she +was anxious about him. Somehow Florimel felt sorrier for him than she +could well understand, seeing he was but a groom —a great lumbering +fellow, all his life used to hard knocks, which probably never hurt +him. That her mistress should care so much about him added yet an acrid +touch to Caley’s spite; but she put on her bonnet and went to the +mews, to confer with the wife of his lordship’s groom, who, although +an honest woman, had not yet come within her dislike. She went to +make her inquiries, however, full of grave doubt as to his lordship’s +statement to her mistress; and the result of them was a conviction +that, beyond his facial bruises, of which Mrs Merton had heard no +explanation, Malcolm had had no hurt. This confirmed her suspicion +that his lordship had received what he professed to have given: from +a window she had seen him mount his horse; and her woman’s-fancy for +him; while it added to her hate of Malcolm, did not prevent her from +thinking of the advantage the discovery might bring in the prosecution +of her own schemes. But now she began to fear Malcolm a little as well +as hate him. And indeed he was rather a dangerous person to have about, +where all but himself had secrets more or less bad, and one at least +had dangerous ones—as Caley’s conscience, or what poor monkey-rudiment +in her did duty for one, in private asserted. Notwithstanding her hold +upon her mistress, she would not have felt it quite safe to let her +know all her secrets. She would not have liked to say, for instance, +how often she woke suddenly with a little feeble wail sounding in the +ears that fingers cannot stop, or to confess that it cried out against +a double injustice, that of life and that of death: she had crossed the +border of the region of horror, and went about with a worm coiled in +her heart, like a centipede in the stone of a peach.</p> + +<p>“Merton’s wife knows nothing, my lady,” she said on her return. “I +saw the fellow in the yard going about much as usual. He will stand a +good deal of punishing, I fancy, my lady—like that brute of a horse +he makes such a fuss with. I can’t help wishing, for your ladyship’s +sake, we had never set eyes on him. He’ll do us all a mischief yet +before we get rid of him. I’ve had a hinstinc’ of it, my lady, from the +first moment I set eyes on him;”—Caley’s speech was never classic. +When she was excited it was low.—“And when I ’ave a hinstinc’ of +anythink, he’s not a dog as barks for nothink. Mark my words—and I’m +sure I beg your pardon, my lady —but that man will bring shame on the +house. He’s that arrergant an’ interferin’ as is certain sure to bring +your ladyship into public speech an’ a scandal: things will come to be +spoke, my lady, that hadn’t ought to be mentioned. Why, my lady, he +must ha’ struck his lordship, afore he’d ha’ give him two such black +eyes as them! And him that good-natured an’ condescendin’!—I’m sure I +don’t know what’s to come on it, but your ladyship might cast a thought +on the rest of us females as can’t take the liberties of born ladies +without sufferin’ for it. Think what the world will say of <i>us</i>. It’s +hard, my lady, on the likes of us.”</p> + +<p>But Florimel was not one to be talked into doing what she did not +choose. Neither would she to her maid render her reasons for not +choosing. She had repaired her fortifications, strengthened herself +with Liftore, and was confident.</p> + +<p>“The fact is, Caley,” she said, “I have fallen in love with Kelpie, +and never mean to part with her—at least till I can ride her —or she +kills me. So I can’t do without MacPhail. And I hope she won’t kill him +before he has persuaded her to let me mount her. The man must go with +the mare. Besides, he is such a strange fellow, if I turned him away I +should quite expect him to poison her before he left.”</p> + +<p>The maid’s face grew darker. That her mistress had the slightest +intention of ever mounting that mare she did not find herself fool +enough to believe, but of other reasons she could spy plenty behind. +And such there truly were, though none of the sort which Caley’s +imagination, swift to evil, now supplied. The kind of confidence she +reposed in her groom, Caley had no faculty for understanding, and was +the last person to whom her mistress could impart the fact of her +father’s leaving her in charge to his young henchman. To the memory of +her father she clung, and so far faithfully that, even now when Malcolm +had begun to occasion her a feeling of awe and rebuke, she did not the +less confidently regard him as her good genius that he was in danger of +becoming an unpleasant one.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.<br><span class="small">CONJUNCTIONS.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>As the days passed on, and Florimel heard nothing of Lenorme, the +uneasiness that came with the thought of him gradually diminished, and +all the associations of opposite complexion returned. Untrammelled +by fear, the path into a scaring future seeming to be cut off, her +imagination began to work in the quarry of her late experience, shaping +its dazzling material into gorgeous castles, with foundations deep-dug +in the air, wherein lorded the person and gifts and devotion of the +painter. When lost in such blissful reveries, not seldom moments +arrived in which she imagined herself—even felt as if she were +capable, if not of marrying Lenorme in the flushed face of outraged +society, yet of fleeing with him from the judgment of the all but +all-potent divinity to the friendly bosom of some blessed isle of the +southern seas, whose empty luxuriance they might change into luxury, +and there living a long harmonious idyll of wedded love, in which +old age and death should be provided against by never taking them +into account. This mere fancy, which, poor in courage as it was in +invention, she was far from capable of carrying into effect, yet seemed +to herself the outcome and sign of a whole world of devotion in her +bosom. If one of the meanest of human conditions is conscious heroism, +paltrier yet is heroism before the fact, incapable of self-realization! +But even the poorest dreaming has its influences, and the result of +hers was that the attentions of Liftore became again distasteful to +her. And no wonder, for indeed his lordship’s presence in the actual +world made a poor show beside that of the painter in the ideal world +of the woman who, if she could not with truth be said to love him, yet +certainly had a powerful fancy for him: the mean phrase is good enough, +even although the phantom of Lenorme roused in her all the twilight +poetry of her nature, and the presence of Liftore set her whole +consciousness in the perpendicular shadowless gas-light of prudence and +self-protection.</p> + +<p>The pleasure of her castle-building was but seldom interrupted by any +thought of the shamefulness of her behaviour to him. That did not +matter much! She could so easily make up for all he had suffered! Her +selfishness closed her eyes to her own falsehood. Had she meant it +truly she would have been right both for him and for herself. To have +repented and become as noble a creature as Lenorme was capable of +imagining her—not to say as God had designed her, would indeed have +been to make up for all he had suffered. But the poor blandishment +she contemplated as amends, could render him blessed only while its +intoxication blinded him to the fact that it meant nothing of what +it ought to mean, that behind it was no entire, heart-filled woman. +Meantime, as the past, with its delightful imprudences, its trembling +joys, glided away, swiftly widening the space between her and her +false fears and shames, and seeming to draw with it the very facts +themselves, promising to obliterate at length all traces of them, +she gathered courage; and as the feeling of exposure that had made +the covert of Liftore’s attentions acceptable, began to yield, her +variableness began to re-appear, and his lordship to find her uncertain +as ever. Assuredly, as his aunt said, she was yet but a girl incapable +of knowing her own mind, and he must not press his suit. Nor had he +the spur of jealousy or fear to urge him: society regarded her as his; +and the shadowy repute of the bold-faced countess intercepted some +favourable rays which would otherwise have fallen upon the young and +beautiful marchioness from fairer luminaries even than Liftore.</p> + +<p>But there was one good process, by herself little regarded, going on +in Florimel: notwithstanding the moral discomfort oftener than once +occasioned her by Malcolm, her confidence in him was increasing; +and now that the kind of danger threatening her seemed altered, she +leaned her mind upon him not a little—and more than she could well +have accounted for to herself on the only grounds she could have +adduced—namely that he was an attendant authorized by her father, and, +like herself loyal to his memory and will; and that, faithful as a dog, +he would fly at the throat of anyone who dared touch her—of which she +had had late proof, supplemented by his silent endurance of consequent +suffering. Demon sometimes looked angry—when she teased him—had even +gone so far as to bare his teeth; but Malcolm had never shown temper. +In a matter of imagined duty, he might presume—but that was a small +thing beside the sense of safety his very presence brought with it. She +shuddered indeed at the remembrance of one look he had given her, but +that had been for no behaviour to himself; and now that the painter +was gone, she was clear of all temptation to the sort of thing that +had caused it; and never, never more would she permit herself to be +drawn into circumstances the least equivocal!—If only Lenorme would +come back, and allow her to be his friend—his <i>best</i> friend —his only +young lady friend, leaving her at perfect liberty to do just as she +liked, then all would be well—absolutely comfortable! In the meantime, +life was endurable without him—and would be, provided Liftore did not +make himself disagreeable. If he did, there were other gentlemen who +might be induced to keep him in check: she would punish him—she knew +how. She liked him better, however, than any of those.</p> + +<p>It was out of pure kindness to Malcolm, upon Liftore’s representation +of how he had punished him, that for the rest of the week she dispensed +with his attendance upon herself. But he, unaware of the lies Liftore +had told her, and knowing nothing, therefore, of her reason for doing +so, supposed she resented the liberty he had taken in warning her +against Caley, feared the breach would go on widening, and went about, +if not quite downcast, yet less hopeful still. Everything seemed going +counter to his desires. A whole world of work lay before him:—a +harbour to build; a numerous fisher-clan to house as they ought to be +housed; justice to do on all sides; righteous servants to appoint in +place of oppressors; and, all over, to show the heavens more just than +his family had in the past allowed them to appear; he had mortgages +and other debts to pay off—clearing his feet from fetters and his +hands from manacles, that he might be the true lord of his people; he +had Miss Horn to thank, and the schoolmaster to restore to the souls +and hearts of Portlossie; and, next of all to his sister, he had old +Duncan, his first friend and father, to find and minister to. Not a day +passed, not a night did he lay down his head, without thinking of him. +But the old man, whatever his hardships, and even the fishermen, with +no harbour to run home to from the wild elements, were in no dangers +to compare with such as threatened his sister. To set her free was his +first business, and that business as yet refused to be done. Hence he +was hemmed in, shut up, incarcerated in stubborn circumstance, from a +long-reaching range of duties, calling aloud upon his conscience and +heart to hasten with the first, that he might reach the second. What +rendered it the more disheartening was, that, having discovered, as he +hoped, how to compass his first end, the whole possibility had by his +sister’s behaviour, and the consequent disappearance of Lenorme, been +swept from him, leaving him more resourceless than ever.</p> + +<p>When Sunday evening came, he found his way to Hope Chapel, and walking +in, was shown to a seat by a grimy-faced pew-opener. It was with +strange feelings he sat there, thinking of the past, and looking for +the appearance of his friend on the pulpit-stair. But his feelings +would have been stranger still had he seen who sat immediately in +the pew behind him, watching him like a cat watching a mouse, or +rather like a half-grown kitten watching a rat, for she was a little +frightened at him, even while resolved to have him. But how could she +doubt her final success, when her plans were already affording her so +much more than she had expected? Who would have looked for the great +red stag himself to come browsing so soon about the scarecrow! He was +too large game, however, to be stalked without due foresight.</p> + +<p>When the congregation was dismissed, after a sermon the power of +whose utterance astonished Malcolm, accustomed as he was to the +schoolmaster’s best moods, he waited until the preacher was at liberty +from the unwelcome attentions and vulgar congratulations of the richer +and more forward of his hearers, and then joined him to walk home +with him.—He was followed to the schoolmaster’s lodging, and thence, +an hour after, to his own, by a little boy far too little to excite +suspicion, the grandson of Mrs Catanach’s friend, the herb-doctor.</p> + +<p>Until now the woman had not known that Malcolm was in London. When she +learned that he was lodged so near Portland Place, she concluded that +he was watching his sister, and chuckled over the idea of his being +watched in turn by herself.</p> + +<p>Every day for weeks after her declaration concerning the birth of +Malcolm, had the mind of Mrs Catanach been exercised to the utmost to +invent some mode of undoing her own testimony. She would have had no +scruples, no sense of moral disgust, in eating every one of her words; +but a magistrate and a lawyer had both been present at the uttering of +them, and she feared the risk. Malcolm’s behaviour to her after his +father’s death had embittered the unfriendly feelings she had cherished +towards him for many years. While she believed him base-born, and was +even ignorant as to his father, she had thought to secure power over +him for the annoyance of the blind old man to whom she had committed +him, and whom she hated with the hatred of a wife with whom for the +best of reasons he had refused to live; but she had found in the boy a +rectitude over which although she had assailed it from his childhood, +she could gain no influence. Either a blind repugnance in Malcolm’s +soul, or a childish instinct of and revulsion from embodied evil, had +held them apart. Even then it had added to her vile indignation that +she regarded him as owing her gratitude for not having murdered him +at the instigation of his uncle; and when at length, to her endless +chagrin, she had herself unwittingly supplied the only lacking link in +the testimony that should raise him to rank and wealth, she imagined, +that by making affidavit to the facts she had already divulged, she +enlarged the obligation infinitely, and might henceforth hold him in +her hand a tool for further operations. When, therefore, he banished +her from Lossie House, and sought to bind her to silence as to his +rank by the conditional promise of a small annuity, she hated him +with her whole huge power of hating. And now she must make speed, for +his incognito in a great city afforded a thousandfold facility for +doing him a mischief. And first she must draw closer a certain loose +tie she had already looped betwixt herself and the household of Lady +Bellair. This tie was the conjunction of her lying influence with the +credulous confidence of a certain very ignorant and rather wickedly +romantic scullery-maid with whom, having in espial seen her come from +the house she had scraped acquaintance, and to whom, for the securing +of power over her through her imagination, she had made the strangest +and most appalling disclosures. Amongst other secret favours, she +had promised to compound for her a horrible mixture—some of whose +disgusting ingredients, as potent as hard to procure, she named in her +awe-stricken hearing—which, administered under certain conditions +and with certain precautions, one of which was absolute secrecy in +regard to the person who provided it, must infallibly secure for her +the affections of any man on whom she might cast a loving eye, and +whom she could, either with or without his consent, contrive to cause +partake of the same. This girl she now sought, and from her learned +all she knew about Malcolm. Pursuing her enquiries into the nature and +composition of the household, however, Mrs Catanach soon discovered a +far more capable and indeed less scrupulous associate and instrument in +Caley. I will not introduce my reader to any of their evil councils, +although, for the sake of my own credit, it might be well to be less +considerate, seeing that many, notwithstanding the super-abundant +evidence of history, find it all but impossible to believe in the +existence of such moral abandonment as theirs. I will merely state +concerning them, and all the relations of the two women, that Mrs +Catanach assumed and retained the upper hand, in virtue of her superior +knowledge, invention, and experience, gathering from Caley, as she had +hoped, much valuable information, full of reactions, and tending to +organic development of scheme in the brain of the arch-plotter. But +their designs were so mutually favourable as to promise from the first +a final coalescence in some common plan for their attainment.</p> + +<p>Those who knew that Miss Campbell, as Portlossie regarded her, had +been in reality Lady Lossie, and was the mother of Malcolm, knew as +well that Florimel had no legal title even to the family cognomen; but +if his mother, and therefore the time of his mother’s death, remained +unknown, the legitimacy of his sister would remain unsuspected even +upon his appearance as the heir. Now there were but three besides Mrs +Catanach and Malcolm who did know who was his mother, namely, Miss +Horn, Mr Graham, and a certain Mr Morrison, a laird and magistrate near +Portlossie, an elderly man, and of late in feeble health. The lawyers +the marquis had employed on his death-bed did not know: he had, for +Florimel’s sake taken care that they should not. Upon what she knew +and what she guessed of these facts regarded in all their relations +according to her own theories of human nature the midwife would found a +scheme of action.</p> + +<p>Doubtless she saw, and prepared for it, that after a certain point +should be reached the very similarity of their designs must cause a +rupture between her and Caley; neither could expect the other to endure +such a rival near her hidden throne of influence; for the aim of both +was power in a great family, with consequent money, and consideration, +and midnight councils, and the wielding of all the weapons of hint +and threat and insinuation. There was one difference, indeed, that +in Caley’s eye money was the chief thing, while power itself was the +Swedenborgian hell of the midwife’s bliss.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII.<br><span class="small">AN INNOCENT PLOT.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Florimel and Lady Clementina Thornicroft, the same who in the park +rebuked Malcolm for his treatment of Kelpie, had met several times +during the spring, and had been mutually attracted—Florimel as to a +nature larger, more developed, more self-supporting than her own, and +Lady Clementina as to one who, it was plain, stood in sore need of what +countenance and encouragement to good and free action the friendship +of one more experienced might afford her. Lady Clementina was but a +few years older than Florimel, it is true, but had shown a courage +which had already wrought her an unquestionable influence, and that +chiefly with the best. The root of this courage was compassion. Her +rare humanity of heart would, at the slightest appearance of injustice, +drive her like an angel with a flaming sword against customs regarded, +consciously or unconsciously, as the very buttresses of social +distinction. Anything but a wise woman, she had yet so much in her of +what is essential to all wisdom— love to her kind—that, if as yet she +had done little but blunder, she had at least blundered beautifully. On +every society that had for its declared end the setting right of wrong +or the alleviation of misery, she lavished, and mostly wasted, her +money. Every misery took to her the shape of a wrong. Hence to every +mendicant that could trump up a plausible story, she offered herself a +willing prey. Even when the barest-faced imposition was brought home to +one of the race parasitical, her first care was to find all possible +excuse for his conduct: it was matter of pleasure to her friends when +she stopped there, and made no attempt at absolute justification.</p> + +<p>Left like Florimel an orphan, but at a yet earlier age, she had been +brought up with a care that had gone over into severity, against which +her nature had revolted with an energy that gathered strength from her +own repression of its signs; and when she came of age, and took things +into her own hands, she carried herself in its eyes so oddly, yet with +such sweetness and dignity and consistency in her oddest extravagances, +that society honoured her even when it laughed at her, loved her, +listened to her, applauded, approved—did everything except imitate +her—which indeed was just as well, for else confusion would have +been worse confounded. She was always rushing to defence—with money, +with indignation, with refuge. It would look like a caricature did I +record the number of charities to which she belonged, and the various +societies which, in the exuberance of her passionate benevolence, she +had projected and of necessity abandoned. Yet still the fire burned, +for her changes were from no changeableness: through them all the +fundamental operation of her character remained the same. The case was +that, for all her headlong passion for deliverance, she could not help +discovering now and then, through an occasional self-assertion of that +real good sense which her rampant and unsubjected benevolence could but +overlay, not finally smother, that she was either doing nothing at all, +or more evil than good.</p> + +<p>The lack of discipline in her goodness came out in this, at times +amusingly, that she would always at first side with the lower or weaker +or worse. If a dog had torn a child, and was going to be killed in +consequence, she would not only intercede for the dog, but absolutely +side with him, mentioning this and that provocation which the naughty +child must have given him ere he could have been goaded to the deed. +Once when the schoolmaster in her village was going to cane a boy +for cruelty to a cripple, she pleaded for his pardon on the ground +that it was worse to be cruel than to be a cripple, and therefore +more to be pitied. Everything painful was to her cruel, and softness +and indulgence, moral honey and sugar and nuts to all alike, was the +panacea for human ills. She could not understand that infliction might +be loving kindness. On one occasion when a boy was caught in the act of +picking her pocket, she told the policeman he was doing nothing of the +sort—he was only searching for a lozenge for his terrible cough; and +in proof of her asserted conviction, she carried him home with her, but +lost him before morning, as well as the spoon with which he had eaten +his gruel.</p> + +<p>As to her person I have already made a poor attempt at describing it. +She might have been grand but for loveliness. When she drew herself up +in indignation, however, she would look grand for the one moment ere +the blood rose to her cheek, and the water to her eyes. She would have +taken the whole world to her infinite heart, and in unwisdom coddled it +into corruption. Praised be the grandeur of the God who can endure to +make and see his children suffer. Thanks be to him for his north winds +and his poverty, and his bitterness that falls upon the spirit that +errs: let those who know him thus praise the Lord for his goodness. But +Lady Clementina had not yet descried the face of the Son of Man through +the mists of Mount Sinai, and she was not one to justify the ways of +God to men. Not the less was it the heart of God in her that drew her +to the young marchioness, over whom was cast the shadow of a tree +that gave but baneful shelter. She liked her frankness, her activity, +her daring, and fancied that, like herself she was at noble feud with +that infernal parody of the kingdom of heaven, called Society. She did +not well understand her relation to Lady Bellair, concerning whom she +was in doubt whether or not she was her legal guardian, but she saw +plainly enough that the countess wanted to secure her for her nephew, +and this nephew had about him a certain air of perdition, which even +the catholic heart of Lady Clementina could not brook. She saw too +that, being a mere girl, and having no scope of choice in the limited +circle of their visitors, she was in great danger of yielding without +a struggle, and she longed to take her in charge like a poor little +persecuted kitten, for the possession of which each of a family of +children was contending. What if her father had belonged to a rowdy +set, was that any reason why his innocent daughter should be devoured, +body and soul and possessions, by those of the same set who had not +yet perished in their sins? Lady Clementina thanked Heaven that she +came herself of decent people, who paid their debts, dared acknowledge +themselves in the wrong, and were as honest as if they had been born +peasants; and she hoped a shred of the mantle of their good name had +dropped upon her, big enough to cover also this poor little thing +who had come of no such parentage. With her passion for redemption +therefore, she seized every chance of improving her acquaintance with +Florimel, and it was her anxiety to gain such a standing in her favour +as might further her coveted ministration, that had prevented her +from bringing her charge of brutality against Malcolm as soon as she +discovered whose groom he was: when she had secured her footing on the +peak of her friendship, she would unburden her soul, and meantime the +horse must suffer for his mistress—a conclusion in itself a great +step in advance, for it went dead against one of her most confidently +argued principles, namely, that the pain of any animal is, in every +sense, of just as much consequence as the pain of any other, human or +inferior: pain is pain, she said; and equal pains are equal wherever +they sting;—in which she would have been right, I think, if pain and +suffering were the same thing; but, knowing well that the same degree +and even the same kind of pain means two very different things in the +foot and in the head, I refuse the proposition.</p> + +<p>Happily for Florimel, she had by this time made progress enough to +venture a proposal—namely, that she should accompany her to a small +estate she had on the south coast, with a little ancient house upon +it—a strange place altogether, she said—to spend a week or two in +absolute quiet—only she must come alone— without even a maid: she +would take none herself. This she said because, with the instinct, if +not quite insight, of a true nature, she could not endure the woman +Caley.</p> + +<p>“Will you come with me there for a fortnight?” she concluded.</p> + +<p>“I shall be delighted,” returned Florimel, without a moment’s +hesitation. “I am getting quite sick of London. There’s no room in it. +And there’s the spring all outside, and can’t get in here! I shall be +only too glad to go with you, you dear creature!”</p> + +<p>“And on those hard terms—no maid, you know?” insisted Clementina.</p> + +<p>“The only thing wanted to make the pleasure complete! I shall be +charmed to be rid of her.”</p> + +<p>“I am glad to see you so independent.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t imagine me such a baby as not to be able to get on without a +maid! You should have seen me in Scotland! I hated having a woman about +me then. And indeed I don’t like it a bit better now —only everybody +has one, and your clothes want looking after,” added Florimel, thinking +what a weight it would be off her if she could get rid of Caley +altogether. “—But I <i>should</i> like to take my horse,” she said. “I +don’t know what I should do in the country without Abbot.”</p> + +<p>“Of course; we must have our horses,” returned Clementina. “And— +yes—you had better bring your groom.”</p> + +<p>“Please. You will find him very useful. He can do anything and +everything—-and is so kind and helpful!”</p> + +<p>“Except to his horse,” Clementina was on the point of saying, but +thought again she would first secure the mistress, and bide her time to +attack the man.</p> + +<p>Before they parted, the two ladies had talked themselves into ecstasies +over the anticipated enjoyments of their scheme. It must be carried out +at once.</p> + +<p>“Let us tell nobody,” said Lady Clementina, “and set off to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Enchanting!” cried Florimel, in full response.</p> + +<p>Then her brow clouded.</p> + +<p>“There is one difficulty, though,” she said. “—No man could ride +Kelpie with a led horse; and if we had to employ another, Liftore would +be sure to hear where we had gone.”</p> + +<p>“That would spoil all,” said Clementina. “But how much better it would +be to give that poor creature a rest, and bring the other I see him on +sometimes!”</p> + +<p>“And by the time we came back, there would not be a living creature, +horse or man, anything bigger than a rat, about the stable. Kelpie +herself would be dead of hunger, if she hadn’t been shot. No, no; where +Malcolm goes Kelpie must go. Besides, she’s such fun—you can’t think!”</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll tell you what!” cried Clementina, after a moment’s pause of +perplexity: “we’ll <i>ride</i> down! It’s not a hundred miles, and we can +take as many days on the road as we please.”</p> + +<p>“Better and better!” cried Florimel. “We’ll run away with each +other.—But what will dear old Bellair say?”</p> + +<p>“Never mind her,” rejoined Clementina. “She will have nothing to say. +You can write and tell her as much as will keep her from being really +alarmed. Order your man to get everything ready, and I will instruct +mine. He is such a staid old fellow, you know, he will be quite +protection. To-morrow morning we shall set out together for a ride in +Richmond Park—that lying in our way. You can leave a letter on the +breakfast-table, saying you are gone with me for a little quiet. You’re +not in chancery—are you?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” answered Florimel. “I suppose I’m all right.— Any how, +whether I’m in chancery or not, here I am, and going with you; and if +chancery don’t like it, chancery may come and fetch me.”</p> + +<p>“Send anything you think you may want to my house. I shall get a box +ready, and we will write from some town on our way to have it sent +there, and then we can write for it from The Gloom. We shall find all +mere <i>necessaries</i> there.”</p> + +<p>So the thing was arranged: they would start quite early the next +morning; and that there might be no trouble in the streets, Malcolm +should go before with Kelpie, and wait them in the park.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII.<br><span class="small">THE JOURNEY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Malcolm was overjoyed at the prospect of an escape to the country —and +yet more to find that his mistress wanted to have him with her—more +still to understand, that the journey was to be kept a secret. Perhaps +now, far from both Caley and Liftore, he might say something to open +her eyes; yet how should he avoid the appearance of a tale-bearer?</p> + +<p>It was a sweet fresh morning, late in the spring—those loveliest of +hours that unite the seasons, like the shimmering question of green +or blue in the feathers of a peacock. He had set out an hour before +the rest, and now, a little way within the park, was coaxing Kelpie +to stand, that he might taste the morning in peace. The sun was but +a few degrees above the horizon, shining with all his heart, and the +earth was taking the shine with all hers. “I too am light,” she was +saying, “although I can but receive it.” The trees were covered with +baby-leaves, half wrapped in their swaddling clothes, and their breath +was a warm aromatic odour in the glittering air. The air and the light +seemed one, and Malcolm felt as if his soul were breathing the light +into its very depths, while his body was drinking the soft spicy wind. +For Kelpie, she was as full of life as if she had been meant for a +winged horse, but by some accident of nature the wing-cases had never +opened, and the wing-life was for ever trying to get out at her feet. +The consequent restlessness, where there was plenty of space as here, +caused Malcolm no more discomposure than, in his old fishing-days, +a gale with plenty of sea-room. And the song of the larks was one +with the light and the air. The budding of the trees was their way +of singing; but the larks beat them at that. “What a power of joy,” +thought Malcolm, “there must be in God, to be able to keep so many +larks so full of bliss!” He was going to say—“without getting tired;” +but he saw that it was the eternal joy itself that bubbled from their +little fountains: weariness there would be the silence of all song, +would be death, utter vanishment to the gladness of the universe. The +sun would go out like a spark upon burnt paper, and the heart of man +would forget the sound of laughter. Then he said to himself: “The larks +do not make their own singing; do mortals make their own sighing?” And +he saw that at least they might open wider the doors of their hearts +to the Perseus Joy that comes to slay the grief-monsters. Then he +thought how his life had been widening out with the years. He could not +say that it was now more pleasant than it had been; he had Stoicism +enough to doubt whether it would ever become so from any mere change +of circumstances. Dangers and sufferings that one is able for, are not +misfortunes or even hardships—so far from such, that youth delights +in them. Indeed he sorely missed the adventure of the herring fishing. +Kelpie, however, was as good as a stiff gale. If only all were well +with his sister! Then he would go back to Portlossie and have fishing +enough. But he must be patient and follow as he was led. At three and +twenty, he reflected, Milton was content to seem to himself but a poor +creature, and was careful only to be ready for whatever work should +hereafter be required of him: such contentment, with such hope and +resolve at the back of it, he saw to be the right and the duty both of +every man. He whose ambition is to be ready when he is wanted, whatever +the work may be, may wait not the less watchful that he is content. His +heart grew lighter, his head clearer, and by the time the two ladies +with their attendant appeared, he felt such a masterdom over Kelpie as +he had never felt before.</p> + +<p>They rode twenty miles that day with ease, putting up at the first +town. The next day they rode about the same distance. They next day +they rode nearly thirty miles. On the fourth, with an early start, and +a good rest in the middle, they accomplished a yet greater distance, +and at night arrived at The Gloom, Wastbeach—after a journey of +continuous delight to three at least of the party, Florimel and Malcolm +having especially enjoyed that portion of it which led through Surrey, +where England and Scotland meet and mingle in waste, heathery moor, and +rich valley. Much talk had passed between the ladies, and Florimel had +been set thinking about many things, though certainly about none after +the wisest fashion.</p> + +<p>A young half-moon was still up when, after riding miles through pine +woods, they at length drew near the house. Long before they reached it, +however, a confused noise of dogs met them in the forest. Clementina +had written to the housekeeper, and every dog about the place, and the +dogs were multitudinous, had been expecting her all day, had heard +the sound of their horses’ hoofs miles off and had at once begun +to announce her approach. Nor were the dogs the only cognisant or +expectant animals. Most of the creatures about the place understood +that something was happening, and probably associated it with their +mistress; for almost every live thing knew her—from the rheumatic +cart-horse, forty years of age, and every whit as respectable in +Clementina’s eyes as her father’s old butler, to the wild cats that +haunted the lofts and garrets of the old Elizabethan hunting-lodge.</p> + +<p>When they dismounted, the ladies could hardly get into the house for +dogs; those which could not reach their mistress, turned to Florimel, +and came swarming about her and leaping upon her, until, much as she +liked animal favour, she would gladly have used her whip—but dared +not, because of the presence of their mistress. If the theories of that +mistress allowed them anything of a moral nature, she was certainly +culpable in refusing them their right to a few cuts of the whip.</p> + +<p>Mingled with all the noises of dogs and horses, came a soft nestling +murmur that filled up the interspaces of sound which even their +tumult could not help leaving. Florimel was too tired to hear it, but +Malcolm heard it, and it filled all the interspaces of his soul with a +speechless delight. He knew it for the still small voice of the awful +sea.</p> + +<p>Florimel scarcely cast a glance around the dark old-fashioned room +into which she was shown, but went at once to bed, and when the old +housekeeper carried her something from the supper-table at which she +had been expected, she found her already fast asleep. By the time +Malcolm had put Kelpie to rest, he also was a little tired, and lay +awake no moment longer than his sister.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX.<br><span class="small">DISCIPLINE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>What with rats and mice, and cats and owls, and creaks and cracks, +there was no quiet about the place from night to morning; and what with +swallows and rooks, and cocks and kine, and horses and foals, and dogs +and pigeons and peacocks, and guinea-fowls and turkeys and geese, and +every farm creature but pigs, which, with all her zootrophy, Clementina +did not like, no quiet from morning to night. But if there was no +quiet, there was plenty of calm, and the sleep of neither brother nor +sister was disturbed.</p> + +<p>Florimel awoke in the sweetest concert of pigeon-murmuring, +duck-diplomacy, fowl-foraging, foal-whinnering—the word wants an <i>r</i> +in it—and all the noises of rural life. The sun was shining into the +room by a window far off at the further end, bringing with him strange +sylvan shadows, not at once to be interpreted. He must have been +shining for hours, so bright and steady did he shine. She sprang out of +bed—with no lazy London resurrection of the old buried, half-sodden +corpse, sleepy and ashamed, but with the new birth of the new day, +refreshed and strong, like a Hercules-baby. A few aching remnants of +stiffness was all that was left of the old fatigue. It was a heavenly +joy to think that no Caley would come knocking at her door. She glided +down the long room to the sunny window, drew aside the rich old faded +curtain, and peeped out. Nothing but pines and pines—Scotch firs all +about and everywhere! They came within a few yards of the window. She +threw it open. The air was still, the morning sun shone hot upon them, +and the resinous odour exhaled from their bark and their needles and +their fresh buds, filled the room—sweet and clean. There was nothing, +not even a fence, between this wing of the house and the wood.</p> + +<p>All through his deep sleep, Malcolm heard the sound of the sea +—whether of the phantom sea in his soul, or of the world-sea to whose +murmurs he had listened with such soft delight as he fell asleep, +matters little: the sea was with him in his dreams. But when he awoke +it was to no musical crushing of water-drops, no half-articulated tones +of animal speech, but to tumult and out-cry from the stables. It was +but too plain that he was wanted. Either Kelpie had waked too soon, +or he had overslept himself: she was kicking furiously. Hurriedly +induing a portion of his clothing, he rushed down and across the yard, +shouting to her as he ran, like a nurse as she runs up the stair to a +screaming child. She stopped once to give an eager whinny, and then +fell to again. Griffiths, the groom, and the few other men about the +place, were looking on appalled. He darted to the corn-bin, got a +great pottleful of oats, and shot into her stall. She buried her nose +in them like the very demon of hunger, and he left her for the few +moments of peace that would follow. He must finish his dressing as +fast as he could: already, after four days of travel, which with her +meant anything but a straight-forward jog-trot struggle with space, she +needed a good gallop! When he returned, he found her just finishing +her oats, and beginning to grow angry with her own nose for getting +so near the bottom of the manger. While yet there was no worse sign, +however, than the fidgetting of her hind quarters, and she was still +busy, he made haste to saddle her. But her unusually obstinate refusal +of the bit, and his difficulty in making her open her unwilling jaws, +gave unmistakable indication of coming conflict. Anxiously he asked the +bystanders after some open place where he might let her go—fields or +tolerably smooth heath, or sandy beach. He dared not take her through +the trees, he said, while she was in such a humour; she would dash +herself to pieces. They told him there was a road straight from the +stables to the shore, and there miles of pure sand without a pebble. +Nothing could be better. He mounted and rode away.</p> + +<p>Florimel was yet but half-dressed, when the door of her room opened +suddenly, and Lady Clementina darted in—the lovely chaos of her night +not more than half as far reduced to order as that of Florimel’s. +Her moonlight hair, nearly as long as that of the fabled Godiva, was +flung wildly about her in heavy masses. Her eyes were wild also; she +looked like a holy Maenad. With a glide like the swoop of an avenging +angel, she pounced upon Florimel, caught her by the wrist and pulled +her towards the door. Florimel was startled, but made no resistance. +She half led, half dragged her up a stair that rose from a corner of +the hall gallery to the battlements of a little square tower, whence +a few yards of the beach, through a chain of slight openings amongst +the pines, was visible. Upon that spot of beach, a strange thing was +going on—at which afresh Clementina gazed with indignant horror, but +Florimel eagerly stared with the forward-borne eyes of a spectator of +the Roman arena. She saw Kelpie reared on end, striking out at Malcolm +with her fore-hoofs, and snapping with angry teeth—then upon those +teeth receive such a blow from his fist that she swerved, and wheeling, +flung her hind hoofs at his head. But Malcolm was too quick for her; +she spent her heels in the air, and he had her by the bit. Again she +reared, and would have struck at him, but he kept well by her side, and +with the powerful bit forced her to rear to her full height. Just as +she was falling backwards, he pushed her head from him, and bearing her +down sideways, seated himself on it the moment it touched the ground. +Then first the two women turned to each other. An arch of victory bowed +Florimel’s lip; her eyebrows were uplifted; the blood flushed her +cheek, and darkened the blue in her wide opened eyes. Lady Clementina’s +forehead was gathered in vertical wrinkles over her nose, and all +about her eyes was contracted as if squeezing from them the flame of +indignation, while her teeth and lips were firmly closed. The two made +a splendid contrast. When Clementina’s gaze fell on her visitor, the +fire in her eyes burned more angry still: her soul was stirred by the +presence of wrong and cruelty, and here, her guest, and looking her +straight in the eyes, was a young woman, one word from whom would stop +it all, actually enjoying the sight!</p> + +<p>“Lady Lossie, I am ashamed of you!” she said, with severest reproof; +and turning from her, she ran down the stair.</p> + +<p>Florimel turned again towards the sea. Presently she caught sight +of Clementina glimpsing though the pines, “now in glimmer and now +in gloom,” as she sped swiftly to the shore, and, after a few short +minutes of disappearance, saw her emerge upon the space of sand where +sat Malcolm on the head of the demoness. But alas! she could only see. +She could hardly even hear the sound of the tide.</p> + +<p>“MacPhail, are you a man?” cried Clementina, startling him so that in +another instant the floundering mare would have been on her feet. With +a right noble anger in her face, and her hair flying like a wind-torn +cloud, she rushed out of the wood upon him, where he sat quietly +tracing a proposition of Euclid on the sand with his whip.</p> + +<p>“Ay, and a bold one,” was on Malcolm’s lips for reply, but he bethought +himself in time.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry what I am compelled to do should annoy your ladyship,” he +said.</p> + +<p>What with indignation and breathlessness—she had run so fast— +Clementina had exhausted herself in that one exclamation, and stood +panting and staring. The black bulk of Kelpie lay outstretched on +the yellow sand, giving now and then a sprawling kick or a wamble +like a lumpy snake, and her soul commiserated each movement as if it +had been the last throe of dissolution, while the grey fire of the +mare’s one-visible fierce eye, turned up from the shadow of Malcolm’s +superimposed bulk, seemed to her tender heart a mute appeal for woman’s +help.</p> + +<p>As Malcolm spoke, he cautiously shifted his position, and, half-rising, +knelt with one knee where he had sat before, looking observant at Lady +Clementina. The champion of oppressed animality soon recovered speech.</p> + +<p>“Get off the poor creature’s head instantly,” she said, with dignified +command. “I will permit no such usage of living thing on my ground.”</p> + +<p>“I am very sorry to seem rude, my lady,” answered Malcolm, “but to obey +you would perhaps be to ruin my mistress’s property. If the mare were +to break away, she would dash herself to pieces in the wood.”</p> + +<p>“You have goaded her to madness.”</p> + +<p>“I’m the more bound to take care of her then,” said Malcolm. “But +indeed it is only temper—such temper, however, that I almost believe +she is at times possessed of a demon.”</p> + +<p>“The demon is in yourself. There is nothing in her but what your +cruelty has put there. Let her up, I command you.”</p> + +<p>“I dare not, my lady. If she were to get loose she would tear your +ladyship to pieces.”</p> + +<p>“I will take my chance.”</p> + +<p>“But I will not my lady. I know the danger, and have to take care of +you who do not. There is no occasion to be uneasy about the mare. She +is tolerably comfortable. I am not hurting her—not much. Your ladyship +does not reflect how strong a horse’s skull is. And you see what great +powerful breaths she draws!”</p> + +<p>“She is in agony,” cried Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Not in the least, my lady. She is only balked of her own way, and does +not like it.”</p> + +<p>“And what right have you to balk her of her own way? Has she no right +to a mind of her own?”</p> + +<p>“She may of course have her mind, but she can’t have her way. She has +got a master.”</p> + +<p>“And what right have you to be her master?”</p> + +<p>“That my master, my Lord Lossie, gave me the charge of her.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mean that sort of right; that goes for nothing. What right in +the nature of things can you have to tyrannize over any creature?”</p> + +<p>“None, my lady. But the higher nature has the right to rule the lower +in righteousness. Even you can’t have your own way always, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“I certainly cannot now, so long as you keep in that position. Pray, is +it in virtue of <i>your</i> being the higher nature that you keep <i>my</i> way +from <i>me</i>?”</p> + +<p>“No, my lady. But it is in virtue of right. If I wanted to take your +ladyship’s property, your dogs would be justified in refusing me my +way.—I do not think I exaggerate when I say that, if my mare here had +<i>her</i> way, there would not be a living creature about your house by +this day week.”</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina had never yet felt upon her the power of a stronger +nature than her own. She had had to yield to authority, but never to +superiority. Hence her self-will had been abnormally developed. Her +very compassion was self-willed. Now for the first time, she continuing +altogether unaware of it, the presence of such a nature began to +operate upon her. The calmness of Malcolm’s speech and the immovable +decision of his behaviour told.</p> + +<p>“But,” she said, more calmly, “your mare has had four long journeys, +and she should have rested to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Rest is just the one thing beyond her, my lady. There is a volcano of +life and strength in her you have no conception of. I could not have +dreamed of horse like her. She has never in her life had enough to do. +I believe that is the chief trouble with her. What we all want, my +lady, is a master—a real right master. I’ve got one myself; and—”</p> + +<p>“You mean you want one yourself,” said Lady Clementina. “You’ve only +got a mistress, and she spoils you.”</p> + +<p>“That is not what I meant, my lady,” returned Malcolm. “But one thing +I know, is that Kelpie would soon come to grief without me. I shall +keep her here till her half-hour is out, and then let her take another +gallop.”</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina turned away. She was defeated. Malcolm knelt there +on one knee, with a hand on the mare’s shoulder, so calm, so +imperturbable, so ridiculously full of argument, that there was nothing +more for her to do or say. Indignation, expostulation, were powerless +upon him as mist upon a rock. He was the oddest, most incomprehensible +of grooms.</p> + +<p>Going back to the house, she met Florimel, and turned again with her to +the scene of discipline. Ere they reached it, Florimel’s delight with +all around her had done something to restore Clementina’s composure: +the place was precious to her, for there she had passed nearly the +whole of her childhood. But to anyone with a heart open to the +expressions of Nature’s countenance, the place could not but have a +strange as well as peculiar charm.</p> + +<p>Florimel had lost her way. I would rather it had been in the moonlight, +but slant sunlight was next best. It shone through a slender multitude +of mast-like stems, whose shadows complicated the wonder, while the +light seemed amongst them to have gathered to itself properties +appreciable by other organs besides the eyes, and to dwell bodily +with the trees. The soil was mainly of sand, the soil to delight the +long tap-roots of the fir-trees, covered above with a thick layer of +slow-forming mould, in the gradual odoriferous decay of needles and +cones and flakes of bark and knots of resinous exudation. It grew +looser and sandier, and its upper coat thinner, as she approached +the shore. The trees shrunk in size, stood farther apart, and grew +more individual, sending out knarled boughs on all sides of them, and +asserting themselves as the tall slender branchless ones in the social +restraint of the thicker wood dared not do. They thinned and thinned, +and the sea and the shore came shining through, for the ground sloped +to the beach without any intervening abruption of cliff or even bank; +they thinned and thinned until all were gone, and the bare long yellow +sands lay stretched out on both sides for miles, gleaming and sparkling +in the sun, especially at one spot where the water of a little stream +wandered about over them, as if it had at length found its home, but +was too weary to enter and lose its weariness, and must wait for the +tide to come up and take it. But when Florimel reached the strand, she +could see nothing of the group she sought: the shore took a little +bend, and a tongue of forest came in between.</p> + +<p>She was on her way back to the house when she met Clementina, also +returning discomfited. Pleased as she was with them, her hostess soon +interrupted her ecstasies by breaking out in accusation of Malcolm, not +untempered, however, with a touch of dawning respect. At the same time +her report of his words was anything but accurate, for as no one can be +just without love, so no one can truly report without understanding. +But they had not time to discuss him now, as Clementina insisted on +Florimel’s putting an immediate stop to his cruelty.</p> + +<p>When they reached the spot, there was the groom again seated on his +animal’s head, with a new proposition in the sand before him.</p> + +<p>“Malcolm,” said his mistress, “let the mare get up. You must let her +off the rest of her punishment this time.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm rose again to his knee.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady,” he said. “But perhaps your ladyship wouldn’t mind +helping me to unbuckle her girths before she gets to her feet. I want +to give her a bath.—Come to this side,” he went on, as Florimel +advanced to his request, “—round here by her head. If your ladyship +would kneel upon it, that would be best. But you mustn’t move till I +tell you.”</p> + +<p>“I will do anything you bid me—exactly as you say, Malcolm,” responded +Florimel.</p> + +<p>“There’s the Colonsay blood! I can trust that!” cried Malcolm, with +a pardonable outbreak of pride in his family. Whether most of his +ancestors could so well have appreciated the courage of obedience, is +not very doubtful.</p> + +<p>Clementina was shocked at the insolent familiarity of her poor little +friend’s groom, but Florimel saw none, and kneeled, as if she had been +in church, on the head of the mare, with the fierce crater of her fiery +brain blazing at her knee. Then Malcolm lifted the flap of the saddle, +undid the buckles of the girths, and drawing them a little from under +her, laid the saddle on the sand, talking all the time to Florimel, +lest a sudden word might seem a direction, and she should rise before +the right moment had come.</p> + +<p>“Please, my lady Clementina, will you go to the edge of the wood. +I can’t tell what she may do when she gets up. And please, my lady +Florimel, will you run there too, the moment you get off her head.”</p> + +<p>When he got her rid of the saddle, he gathered the reins together in +his bridle hand, took his whip in the other, and softly and carefully +straddled across her huge barrel without touching her.</p> + +<p>“Now, my lady!” he said. “Run for the wood.”</p> + +<p>Florimel rose and fled, heard a great scrambling behind her, and +turning at the first tree, which was only a few yards off, saw Kelpie +on her hind legs, and Malcolm, whom she had lifted with her, sticking +by his knees on her bare back. The moment her fore feet touched the +ground, he gave her the spur severely, and after one plunging kick, +off they went westward over the sands, away from the sun; nor did they +turn before they had dwindled to such a speck that the ladies could not +have told by their eyes whether it was moving or not. At length they +saw it swerve a little; by and by it began to grow larger; and after +another moment or two they could distinguish what it was, tearing along +towards them like a whirlwind, the lumps of wet sand flying behind like +an upward storm of clods. What a picture it was!—only neither of the +ladies was calm enough to see it picturewise: the still sea before, +type of the infinite always, and now of its repose; the still straight +solemn wood behind, like a past world that had gone to sleep—out of +which the sand seemed to come flowing down, to settle in the long +sand-lake of the beach; that flameless furnace of life tearing along +the shore, betwixt the sea and the land, between time and eternity, +guided, but only half controlled, by the strength of a higher will; +and the two angels that had issued—whether out of the forest of the +past or the sea of the future, who could tell?—and now stood, with +hand-shaded eyes, gazing upon that fierce apparition of terrene life.</p> + +<p>As he came in front of them, Malcolm suddenly wheeled Kelpie, so +suddenly and in so sharp a curve that he made her “turne close to the +ground, like a cat, when scratchingly she wheeles about after a mouse,” +as Sir Philip Sidney says, and dashed her straight into the sea. The +two ladies gave a cry, Florimel of delight, Clementina of dismay, for +she knew the coast, and that there it shelved suddenly into deep water. +But that was only the better to Malcolm: it was the deep water he +sought, though he got it with a little pitch sooner than he expected. +He had often ridden Kelpie into the sea at Portlossie, even in the cold +autumn weather when first she came into his charge, and nothing pleased +her better or quieted her more. He was a heavy weight to swim with, but +she displaced much water. She carried her head bravely, he balanced +sideways, and they swam splendidly. To the eyes of Clementina the mare +seemed to be labouring for her life.</p> + +<p>When Malcolm thought she had had enough of it, he turned her head to +the shore. But then came the difficulty. So steeply did the shore +shelve that Kelpie could not get a hold with her hind hoofs to scramble +up into the shallow water. The ladies saw the struggle, and Clementina, +understanding it, was running in an agony right into the water, with +the vain idea of helping them, when Malcolm threw himself off, drawing +the reins over Kelpie’s head as he fell, and swimming but the length +of them shorewards, felt the ground with his feet, and stood, Kelpie, +relieved of his weight, floated a little farther on to the shelf, got +a better hold with her fore feet, some hold with her hind ones, and +was beside him in a moment. The same moment Malcolm was on her back +again, and they were tearing off eastward at full stretch. So far did +the lessening point recede in the narrowing distance, that the two +ladies sat down on the sand, and fell a-talking about Florimel’s most +uncategorical groom, as Clementina, herself the most uncategorical of +women, to use her own scarcely justifiable epithet, called him. She +asked if such persons abounded in Scotland. Florimel could but answer +that this was the only one she had met with. Then she told her about +Richmond Park and Lord Liftore and Epictetus.</p> + +<p>“Ah, that accounts for him!” said Clementina. “Epictetus was a Cynic, a +very cruel man: he broke his slave’s leg once, I remember.”</p> + +<p>“Mr Lenorme told me that <i>he</i> was the slave, and that his master broke +<i>his</i> leg,” said Florimel.</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes! I daresay.—That <i>was</i> it. But it is of little consequence: +his principles were severe, and your groom has been his too ready +pupil. It is a pity he is such a savage: he might be quite an +interesting character.—Can he read?”</p> + +<p>“I have just told you of his reading Greek over Kelpie’s head,” said +Florimel, laughing.</p> + +<p>“Ah! but I meant English,” said Clementina, whose thoughts were a +little astray. Then laughing at herself she explained:—“I mean, can he +read aloud? I put the last of the Waverley novels in the box we shall +have to-morrow, or the next day at latest, I hope: and I was wondering +whether he could read the Scotch—as it ought to be read. I have never +heard it spoken, and I don’t know how to imagine it.”</p> + +<p>“We can try him,” said Florimel. “It will be great fun anyhow. He is +<i>such</i> a character! You will be <i>so</i> amused with the remarks he will +make!”</p> + +<p>“But can you venture to let him talk to you?”</p> + +<p>“If you ask him to read, how will you prevent him? Unfortunately he has +thoughts, and they <i>will</i> out.”</p> + +<p>“Is there no danger of his being rude?”</p> + +<p>“If speaking his mind about anything in the book be rudeness, he will +most likely be rude. Any other kind of rudeness is as impossible to +Malcolm as to any gentleman in the land.”</p> + +<p>“How can you be so sure of him?” said Clementina, a little anxious as +to the way in which her friend regarded the young man.</p> + +<p>“My father was—yes, I may say so—attached to him—so much so that +he—I can’t quite say what—but something like made him promise never +to leave my service. And this I know for myself, that not once, ever +since that man came to us, has he done a selfish thing or one to be +ashamed of. I could give you proof after proof of his devotion.”</p> + +<p>Florimel’s warmth did not reassure Clementina; and her uneasiness +wrought to the prejudice of Malcolm. She was never quite so generous +towards human beings as towards animals. She could not be depended on +for justice except to people in trouble, and then she was very apt to +be unjust to those who troubled them.</p> + +<p>“I would not have you place too much confidence in your Admirable +Crichton of menials, Florimel,” she said. “There is something about him +I cannot get at the bottom of. Depend upon it, a man who can be cruel +would betray on the least provocation.”</p> + +<p>Florimel smiled superior—as she had good reason to do; but Clementina +did not understand the smile, and therefore did not like it. She +feared the young fellow had already gained too much influence over his +mistress.</p> + +<p>“Florimel, my love,” she said, “listen to me. Your experience is not so +ripe as mine. That man is not what you think him. One day or other he +will, I fear, make himself worse than disagreeable. How <i>can</i> a cruel +man be unselfish?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think him cruel at all. But then I haven’t such a soft heart +for animals as you. We should think it silly in Scotland. You wouldn’t +teach a dog manners at the expense of a howl. You would let him be a +nuisance rather than give him a cut with a whip. What a nice mother of +children you will make, Clementina! That’s how the children of good +people are so often a disgrace to them.”</p> + +<p>“You are like all the rest of the Scotch I ever knew,” said Lady +Clementina: “the Scotch are always preaching! I believe it is in their +blood. You are a nation of parsons. Thank goodness! my morals go no +farther than doing as I would be done by. I want to see creatures happy +about me. For my own sake even, I would never cause pang to person—it +gives me such a pang myself.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the way you are made, I suppose, Clementina,” returned +Florimel. “For me, my clay must be coarser. I don’t mind a little pain +myself, and I can’t break my heart for it when I see it— except it +be very bad—such as I should care about myself.—But here comes the +tyrant.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm was pulling up his mare some hundred yards off. Even now she +was unwilling to stop—but it was at last only from pure original +objection to whatever was wanted of her. When she did stand she stood +stock still, breathing hard.</p> + +<p>“I have actually succeeded in taking a little out of her at last, my +lady,” said Malcolm as he dismounted. “Have you got a bit of sugar in +your pocket, my lady? She would take it quite gently now.”</p> + +<p>Florimel had none, but Clementina had, for she always carried sugar for +her horse. Malcolm held the demoness very watchfully, but she took the +sugar from Florimel’s palm as neatly as an elephant, and let her stroke +her nose over her wide red nostrils without showing the least of her +usual inclination to punish a liberty with death. Then Malcolm rode +her home, and she was at peace till the evening —when he took her out +again.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL.<br><span class="small">MOONLIGHT.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>And now followed a pleasant time. Wastbeach was the quietest of all +quiet neighbourhoods; it was the loveliest of spring-summer weather; +and the variety of scenery on moor, in woodland, and on coast, within +easy reach of such good horse-women, was wonderful. The first day they +rested the horses that would rest, but the next day were in the saddle +immediately after an early breakfast. They took the forest way. In many +directions were tolerably smooth rides cut, and along them they had +good gallops, to the great delight of Florimel after the restraints +of Rotten Row, where riding had seemed like dancing a minuet with a +waltz in her heart. Malcolm, so far as human companionship went, found +it dull, for Lady Clementina’s groom regarded him with the contempt +of superior age, the most contemptible contempt of all, seeing years +are not the wisdom they ought to bring, and the first sign of that is +modesty. Again and again his remarks tempted Malcolm to incite him to +ride Kelpie, but conscience, the thought of the man’s family, and the +remembrance that it required all his youthful strength, and that it +would therefore be the challenge of the strong to the weak, saved him +from the sin, and he schooled himself to the endurance of middle-aged +arrogance. For the learning of the lesson he had practice enough: they +rode every day, and Griffith did not thaw; but the one thundering +gallop he had every morning along the sands with Kelpie, whom<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +no ordinary day’s work was enough to save from the heart-burning +ferment of repressed activity, was both preparation and amends for the +annoyance.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> According to the grammars, I ought to have written +<i>which</i>, but it will not do. I could, I think, tell why, but prefer +leaving the question to the reader.</p> + +</div> + +<p>When his mistress mentioned the proposal of her friend with regard +to the new novel, he at once expressed his willingness to attempt +compliance, fearing only, he said, that his English would prove +offensive and his Scotch unintelligible. The task was nowise alarming +to him, for he had read aloud much to the schoolmaster, who had also +insisted that he should read aloud when alone, especially verse, +in order that he might get all the good of its outside as well as +inside—its sound as well as thought, the one being the ethereal body +of the other. And he had the best primary qualifications for the art, +namely, a delight in the sounds of human speech, a value for the true +embodiment of thought, and a good ear, mental as well as vocal, for the +assimilation of sound to sense. After these came the quite secondary, +yet valuable gift of a pleasant voice, manageable for reflection; and +with such an outfit, the peculiarities of his country’s utterance, the +long-drawn vowels, and the outbreak of feeling in chant-like tones +and modulations, might be forgiven, and certainly were forgiven by +Lady Clementina, who, even in his presence, took his part against the +objections of his mistress. On the whole, they were so much pleased +with his first reading, which took place the very day the box arrived, +that they concluded to restrain the curiosity of their interest in +persons and events, for the sake of the pleasure of meeting them always +in the final fulness of local colour afforded them by his utterance. +While he read, they busied their fingers with their embroidery; for +as yet that graceful work, so lovelily described by Cowper in his +<i>Task</i>, had not begun to vanish before the crude colours and mechanical +vulgarity of Berlin wool, now happily in its turn vanishing like a dry +dust-cloud into the limbo of the art universe:</p> + +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">The well-depicted flower,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Follow the nimble finger of the fair;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A wreath, that cannot fade, of flowers that blow</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With most success when all besides decay.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span><br> +</p> +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> “The Winter Evening.”</p> + +</div> + +<p>There was not much of a garden about the place, but there was a +little lawn amongst the pines, in the midst of which stood a huge old +patriarch, with red stem and grotesquely contorted branches: beneath +it was a bench, and there, after their return from their two hours’ +ride, the ladies sat, while the sun was at its warmest, on the mornings +of their first and second readings: Malcolm sat on a wheelbarrow. +After lunch on the second day, which they had agreed from the first, +as ladies so often do, when free of the more devouring sex, should be +their dinner, and after due visits paid to a multitude of animals, the +desire awoke simultaneously in them for another portion of “St Ronan’s +Well.” They resolved therefore to send for their reader as soon as they +had had tea. But when they sent he was nowhere to be found, and they +concluded on a stroll.</p> + +<p>Anticipating no further requirement of his service that day, Malcolm +had gone out. Drawn by the sea, he took his way through the dim solemn +boughless wood, as if to keep a moonlight tryst with his early love. +But the sun was not yet down, and among the dark trees, shot through +by the level radiance, he wandered, his heart swelling in his bosom +with the glory and the mystery. Again the sun was <i>in</i> the wood, its +burning centre, the marvel of the home which he left in the morning +only to return thither at night, and it was now a temple of red light, +more gorgeous, more dream-woven than the morning. How he glowed on the +red stems of the bare pines, fit pillars for that which seemed temple +and rite, organ and anthem in one—the worship of the earth, uplifted +to its Hyperion! It was a world of faery; anything might happen in it. +Who, in that region of marvel, would start to see suddenly a knight +on a great sober war-horse come slowly pacing down the torrent of +carmine splendour, flashing it, like the Knight of the Sun himself, in +a flood from every hollow, a gleam from every flat, and a star from +every round and knob of his armour? As the trees thinned away, and his +feet sank deeper in the looser sand, and the sea broke blue out of the +infinite, talking quietly to itself of its own solemn swell into being +out of the infinite thought unseen, Malcolm felt as if the world with +its loveliness and splendour were sinking behind him, and the cool +entrancing sweetness of the eternal dreamland of the soul, where the +dreams are more real than any sights of the world, were opening wide +before his entering feet.</p> + +<p>“Shall not death be like this?” he said, and threw himself upon the +sand, and hid his face and his eyes from it all. For there is this +strange thing about all glory embodied in the material, that, when the +passion of it rises to its height, we hurry from its presence that its +idea may perfect itself in silent and dark and deaf delight. Of its +material self we want no more: its real self we have, and it sits at +the fountain of our tears. Malcolm hid his face from the source of his +gladness, and worshipped the source of that source.</p> + +<p>Rare as they are at any given time, there have been, I think, such +youths in all ages of the world—youths capable of glorying in the +fountain whence issues the torrent of their youthful might. Nor is +the reality of their early worship blasted for us by any mistral of +doubt that may blow upon their spirit from the icy region of the +understanding. The cold fevers, the vital agues that such winds breed, +can but prove that not yet has the sun of the perfect arisen upon them; +that the Eternal has not yet manifested himself in all regions of +their being; that a grander, more obedient, therefore more blissful, +more absorbing worship yet, is possible, nay, is essential to them. +These chills are but the shivers of the divine nature, unsatisfied, +half-starved, banished from its home, divided from its origin, after +which it calls in groanings it knows not how to shape into sounds +articulate. They are the spirit-wail of the holy infant after the bosom +of its mother. Let no man long back to the bliss of his youth—but +forward to a bliss that shall swallow even that, and contain it, and be +more than it. Our history moves in cycles, it is true, ever returning +toward the point whence it started; but it is in the imperfect circles +of a spiral it moves; it returns—but ever to a point above the former: +even the second childhood, at which the fool jeers, is the better, the +truer, the fuller childhood, growing strong to cast off altogether, +with the husk of its own enveloping age, that of its family, its +country, its world as well. Age is not all decay: it is the ripening, +the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.</p> + +<p>When Malcolm lifted his head, the sun had gone down. He rose and +wandered along the sand towards the moon—at length blooming out of +the darkening sky, where she had hung all day like a washed-out rag of +light, to revive as the sunlight faded. He watched the banished life of +her day-swoon returning, until, gathering courage, she that had been +no one, shone out fair and clear, in conscious queendom of the night. +Then, in the friendly infolding of her dreamlight and the dreamland it +created, Malcolm’s soul revived as in the comfort of the lesser, the +mitigated glory, and, as the moon into radiance from the darkened air, +and the nightingale into music from the sleep-stilled world of birds, +blossomed from the speechlessness of thought and feeling into a strange +kind of brooding song. If the words were half nonsense, the feeling was +not the less real. Such as they were, they came almost of themselves, +and the tune came with them.</p> + +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rose o’ my hert,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Open yer leaves to the lampin’ mune;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Into the curls lat her keek an’ dert;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She’ll tak the colour but gi’e ye tune.</span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Buik o’ my brain,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Open yer neuks to the starry signs;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lat the een o’ the holy luik an’ strain</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An’ glimmer an’ score atween the lines.</span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cup o’ my sowl,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gowd an’ diamond an’ ruby cup,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ye’re noucht ava but a toom dry bowl,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Till the wine o’ the kingdom fill ye up,</span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Conscience-glass,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mirror the infinite all in thee;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Melt the bounded and make it pass</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Into the tideless, shoreless sea.</span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">World of my life,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Swing thee round thy sunny track;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fire and wind and water and strife—</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Carry them all to the glory back.</span><br> +</p> +<p>Ever as he halted for a word, the moonlight, and the low sweet waves +on the sands, filled up the pauses to his ear; and there he lay, +looking up to the sky and the moon and the rose-diamond stars, his +thoughts half-dissolved in feeling, and his feeling half-crystallised +to thought.</p> + +<p>Out of the dim wood came two lovely forms into the moonlight, and +softly approached him—so softly that he knew nothing of their +nearness until Florimel spoke.</p> + +<p>“Is that MacPhail?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady,” answered Malcolm, and bounded to his feet</p> + +<p>“What were you singing?”</p> + +<p>“You could hardly call it singing, my lady. We should call it +crooning in Scotland.”</p> + +<p>“Croon it again then.”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t, my lady. It’s gone.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean to pretend that you were extemporising?”</p> + +<p>“I was crooning what came—like the birds, my lady. I couldn’t +have done it if I had thought anyone was near.”</p> + +<p>Then, half ashamed, and anxious to turn the talk from the threshold +of his secret chamber, he said, “Did you ever see a lovelier night, +ladies?”</p> + +<p>“Not often, certainly,” answered Clementina.</p> + +<p>She was not quite pleased and not altogether offended at his +addressing them dually. A curious sense of impropriety in the state +of things bewildered her—she and her friend talking thus, in +the moonlight, on the sea-shore, doing nothing, with her friend’s +groom—and such a groom, his mistress asking him to sing again, +and he addressing them both with a remark on the beauty of the +night! She had braved the world a good deal, but she did not choose +to brave it where nothing was to be had, and she was too honest to +say to herself that the world would never know—that there was +nothing to brave: she was not one to do that in secret to which she +would not hold her face. Yet all the time she had a doubt whether +this young man, whom it would certainly be improper to encourage +by addressing from any level but one of lofty superiority, did +not belong to a higher sphere than theirs; while certainly no man +could be more unpresuming, or less forward even when opposing his +opinion to theirs. Still—if an angel were to come down and take +charge of their horses, would ladies be justified in treating him +as other than a servant?</p> + +<p>“This is just the sort of night,” Malcolm resumed, “when I could +almost persuade myself I was not quite sure I wasn’t dreaming. It +makes a kind of border land betwixt waking and sleeping, knowing +and dreaming, in our brain. In a night like this I fancy we feel +something like the colour of what God feels when he is making the +lovely chaos of a new world, a new kind of world, such as has never +been before.”</p> + +<p>“I think we had better go in,” said Clementina to Florimel, and +turned away.</p> + +<p>Florimel made no objection, and they walked towards the wood.</p> + +<p>“You really must get rid of him as soon as you can,” said Clementina, +when again the moonless night of the pines had received them: “he +is certainly more than half a lunatic. It is almost full moon now,” +she added, looking up. “I have never seen him so bad.”</p> + +<p>Florimel’s clear laugh rang through the wood.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be alarmed, Clementina,” she said. “He has talked like that +ever since I knew him; and if he is mad, at least he is no worse +than he has always been. It is nothing but poetry—yeast on the +brain, my father used to say. We should have a fish-poet of him— +a new thing in the world, he said. He would never be cured till he +broke out in a book of poetry. I should be afraid my father would +break the catechism and not rest in his grave till the resurrection, +if I were to send Malcolm away.”</p> + +<p>For Malcolm, he was at first not a little mazed at the utter blankness +of the wall against which his words had dashed themselves. Then he +smiled queerly to himself, and said:</p> + +<p>“I used to think ilka bonny lassie bude to be a poetess—for hoo +sud she be bonnie but by the informin’ hermony o’ her bein’?—an’ +what’s that but the poetry o’ <i>the</i> Poet, the Makar, as they ca’d a +poet i’ the auld Scots tongue?—but haith! I ken better an’ waur +noo! There’s gane the twa bonniest <i>I</i> ever saw, an’ I s’ lay my heid +there’s mair poetry in auld man-faced Miss Horn nor in a dizzin +like them. Ech! but it’s some sair to bide. It’s sair upon a man to +see a bonny wuman ’at has nae poetry, nae inward lichtsome hermony +in her. But it’s dooms sairer yet to come upo’ ane wantin’ cowmon +sense! Saw onybody ever sic a gran’ sicht as my Leddy Clementina! +—an’ wha can say but she’s weel named frae the hert oot?—as +guid at the hert, I’ll sweir, as at the een! but eh me! to hear +the blether o’ nonsense ’at comes oot atween thae twa bonny yetts +o’ music—an’ a’ cause she winna gi’e her hert rist an’ time +eneuch to grow bigger, but maun aye be settin’ a’ things richt afore +their time, an’ her ain fitness for the job! It’s sic a faithless +kin’ o’ a w’y that! I could jist fancy I saw her gaein’ a’ roon’ +the trees o’ a simmer nicht, pittin’ hiney upo’ the peers an’ the +peaches, ’cause she cudna lippen to natur’ to ripe them sweet eneuch +—only ’at she wad never tak the hiney frae the bees. She’s jist +the pictur o’ Natur’ hersel’ turnt some dementit. I cud jist fancy +I saw her gaein’ aboot amo’ the ripe corn, on sic a nicht as this +o’ the mune, happin’ ’t frae the frost. An’ I s’ warran’ no ae +mesh in oor nets wad she lea’ ohn clippit open gien the twine had +a herrin’ by the gills. She’s e’en sae pitifu’ owre the sinner ’at +she winna gi’e him a chance o’ growin’ better. I won’er gien she +believes ’at there’s ae great thoucht abune a’, an’ aneth a’, an’ +roon’ a’, an’ in a’thing. She cudna be in sic a mist o’ benevolence +and parritch-hertitness gien she cud lippen till a wiser. It’s nae +won’er she kens naething aboot poetry but the meeserable sids an’ +sawdist an’ leavin’s the gran’ leddies sing an’ ca’ sangs! Nae mair +is ’t ony won’er she sud tak me for dementit, gien she h’ard what +I was singin’! only I canna think she did that, for I was but croonin’ +till mysel’.”—Malcolm was wrong there, for he was singing out +loud and clear.—“That was but a kin’ o’ an unknown tongue atween +Him an’ me an’ no anither.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI.<br><span class="small">THE SWIFT.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Florimel succeeded so far in reassuring her friend as to the safety +if not sanity of her groom, that she made no objection to yet another +reading from “St Ronan’s Well”—upon which occasion an incident +occurred that did far more to reassure her than all the attestations of +his mistress.</p> + +<p>Clementina, in consenting, had proposed, it being a warm sunny +afternoon, that they should that time go down to the lake, and sit +with their work on the bank, while Malcolm read. This lake, like the +whole place, and some of the people in it, was rather strange —not +resembling any piece of water that Malcolm at least had ever seen. More +than a mile in length, but quite narrow, it lay on the sea-shore—a +lake of deep fresh water, with nothing between it and the sea but a +bank of sand, up which the great waves came rolling in south-westerly +winds, one now and then toppling over—to the disconcerting no doubt of +the pikey multitude within.</p> + +<p>The head only of the mere came into Clementina’s property, and they sat +on the landward side of it, on a sandy bank, among the half-exposed +roots of a few ancient firs, where a little stream that fed the lake +had made a small gully, and was now trotting over a bed of pebbles +in the bottom of it. Clementina was describing to Florimel the +peculiarities of the place, how there was no outlet to the lake, how +the water went filtering through the sand into the sea, how in some +parts it was very deep, and what large pike there were in it. Malcolm +sat a little aside as usual, with his face towards the ladies, and the +book open in his hand, waiting a sign to begin, but looking at the +lake, which here was some fifty yards broad, reedy at the edge, dark +and deep in the centre. All at once he sprang to his feet, dropping the +book, ran down to the brink of the water, undoing his buckled belt and +pulling off his coat as he ran, threw himself over the bordering reeds +into the pool, and disappeared with a great plash.</p> + +<p>Clementina gave a scream, and started up with distraction in her face: +she made no doubt that in the sudden ripeness of his insanity he had +committed suicide. But Florimel, though startled by her friend’s cry, +laughed, and crowded out assurances that Malcolm knew well enough what +he was about. It was longer, however, than she found pleasant, before +a black head appeared—yards away, for he had risen at a great slope, +swimming towards the other side. What <i>could</i> he be after? Near the +middle he swam more softly, and almost stopped. Then first they spied a +small dark object on the surface. Almost the same moment it rose into +the air. They thought Malcolm had flung it up. Instantly they perceived +that it was a bird—a swift. Somehow it had dropped into the water, but +a lift from Malcolm’s hand had restored it to the air of its bliss.</p> + +<p>But instead of turning and swimming back, Malcolm held on, and getting +out on the farther side, ran down the beach and rushed into the sea, +rousing once more the apprehensions of Clementina. The shore sloped +rapidly, and in a moment he was in deep water. He swam a few yards out, +swam ashore again, ran round the end of the lake, found his coat, and +got from it his pocket-handkerchief. Having therewith dried his hands +and face, he wrang out the sleeves of his shirt a little, put on his +coat, returned to his place, and said, as he took up the book and sat +down,</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, my ladies; but just as I heard my Lady Clementina +say <i>pikes</i>, I saw the little swift in the water. There was no time to +lose. Swiftie had but a poor chance.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke he proceeded to find the place in the book.</p> + +<p>“You don’t imagine we are going to have you read in such a plight as +that!” cried Clementina.</p> + +<p>“I will take good care, my lady. I have books of my own, and I handle +them like babies.”</p> + +<p>“You foolish man! It is of you in your wet clothes, not of the book I +am thinking,” said Clementina indignantly.</p> + +<p>“I’m much obliged to you, my lady, but there’s no fear of me. You saw +me wash the fresh water out. Salt water never hurts.”</p> + +<p>“You must go and change nevertheless,” said Clementina.</p> + +<p>Malcolm looked to his mistress. She gave him a sign to obey, and he +rose. He had taken three steps towards the house when Clementina +recalled him.</p> + +<p>“One word, if you please,” she said. “How is it that a man who risks +his life for that of a little bird, can be so heartless to a great +noble creature like that horse of yours? I cannot understand it!”</p> + +<p>“My lady,” returned Malcolm with a smile, “I was no more risking my +life than you would be in taking a fly out of the milk-jug. And for +your question, if your ladyship will only think, you cannot fail to +see the difference. Indeed I explained my treatment of Kelpie to your +ladyship that first morning in the park, when you so kindly rebuked me +for it, but I don’t think your ladyship listened to a word I said.”</p> + +<p>Clementina’s face flushed, and she turned to her friend with a “Well!” +in her eyes. But Florimel kept her head bent over her embroidery; and +Malcolm, no further notice being taken of him walked away.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII.<br><span class="small">ST RONAN’S WELL.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The next day the reading was resumed, and for several days was +regularly continued. Each day, as their interest grew, longer time was +devoted to it. They were all simple enough to accept what the author +gave them, nor, had a critic of the time been present to instruct them +that in this last he had fallen off, would they have heeded him much: +for Malcolm, it was the first story by the Great Unknown he had seen. A +question however occurring, not of art but of morals, he was at once on +the alert. It arose when they reached that portion of the tale in which +the true heir to an earldom and its wealth offers to leave all in the +possession of the usurper, on the one condition of his ceasing to annoy +a certain lady, whom, by villainy of the worst, he had gained the power +of rendering unspeakably miserable. Naturally enough, at this point +Malcolm’s personal interest was suddenly excited: here were elements +strangely correspondent with the circumstances of his present position. +Tyrrel’s offer of acquiescence in things as they were, and abandonment +of his rights, which, in the story, is so amazing to the man of the +world to whom it is first propounded, drew an exclamation of delight +from both ladies—from Clementina because of its unselfishness, from +Florimel because of its devotion: neither of them was at any time ready +to raise a moral question, and least of all where the heart approved. +But Malcolm was interested after a different fashion from theirs. Often +during the reading he had made remarks and given explanations—not so +much to the annoyance of Lady Clementina as she had feared, for since +his rescue of the swift, she had been more favourably disposed towards +him, and had judged him a little more justly—not that she understood +him, but that the gulf between them had contracted. He paused a moment, +then said:</p> + +<p>“Do you think it was right, my ladies? Ought Mr Tyrrel to have made +such an offer?”</p> + +<p>“It was most generous of him,” said Clementina, not without indignation +—and with the tone of one whose answer should decide the question.</p> + +<p>“Splendidly generous,” replied Malcolm; “—but—I so well remember when +Mr Graham first made me see that the question of duty does not always +lie between a good thing and a bad thing: there would be no room for +casuistry then, he said. A man has very often to decide between one +good thing and another. But indeed I can hardly tell without more time +to think, whether that comes in here. If a man wants to be generous, it +must at least be at his own expense.”</p> + +<p>“But surely,” said Florimel, not in the least aware that she was +changing sides, “a man ought to hold by the rights that birth and +inheritance give him.”</p> + +<p>“That is by no means so clear, my lady,” returned Malcolm, “as you +seem to think. A man <i>may</i> be bound to hold by things that are his +rights, but certainly not because they are rights. One of the grandest +things in having rights is that, being your rights, you may give them +up—except, of course, they involve duties with the performance of +which the abnegation would interfere.”</p> + +<p>“I have been trying to think,” said Lady Clementina, “what can be the +two good things here to choose between.”</p> + +<p>“That is the right question, and logically put, my lady,” rejoined +Malcolm, who, from his early training, could not help sometimes putting +on the schoolmaster. “The two good things are—let me see—yes—on +the one hand the protection of the lady to whom he owed all possible +devotion of man to woman, and on the other what he owed to his tenants, +and perhaps to society in general—yes —as the owner of wealth and +position. There is generosity on the one side and dry duty on the +other.”</p> + +<p>“But this was no case of mere love to the lady, I think,” said +Clementina. “Did Mr Tyrrel not owe Miss Mowbray what reparation lay in +his power? Was it not his tempting of her to a secret marriage, while +yet she was nothing more than a girl, that brought the mischief upon +her?”</p> + +<p>“That is the point,” said Malcolm, “that makes the one difficulty. +Still, I do not see how there can be much of a question. He could have +no right to do fresh wrong for the mitigation of the consequences of +preceding wrong—to sacrifice others to atone for injuries done by +himself.”</p> + +<p>“Where would be the wrong to others?” said Florimel, now back to her +former position. “Why could it matter to tenants or society which of +the brothers happened to be an earl?”</p> + +<p>“Only this, that, in the one case, the landlord of his tenants, the +earl in society, would be an honourable man, in the other, a villain—a +difference which might have consequences.”</p> + +<p>“But,” said Lady Clementina, “is not generosity something more than +duty—something higher, something beyond it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” answered Malcolm, “so long as it does not go against duty, but +keeps in the same direction, is in harmony with it. I doubt much, +though, whether, as we grow in what is good, we shall not come soon to +see that generosity is but our duty, and nothing very grand and beyond +it. But the man who chooses to be generous at the expense of justice, +even if he give up at the same time everything of his own, is but a +poor creature beside him who, for the sake of the right, will not only +consent to appear selfish in the eyes of men, but will go against his +own heart and the comfort of those dearest to him. The man who accepts +a crown <i>may be</i> more noble than he who lays one down and retires to +the desert. Of the worthies who do things by faith, some are sawn +asunder, and some subdue kingdoms. The look of the thing is nothing.”</p> + +<p>Florimel made a neat little yawn over her work. Clementina’s hands +rested a moment in her lap, and she looked thoughtful. But she resumed +her work, and said no more. Malcolm began to read again. Presently +Clementina interrupted him. She had not been listening.</p> + +<p>“Why should a man want to be better than his neighbours, any more than +to be richer?” she said, as if uttering her thoughts aloud.</p> + +<p>“Why, indeed,” responded Malcolm, “except he wants to become a +hypocrite?”</p> + +<p>“Then, why do you talk for duty against generosity?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Malcolm, for a moment perplexed. He did not at once catch +the relation of her ideas. “Does a man ever do his duty,” he rejoined +at length, “in order to be better than his neighbours.” If he does, he +won’t do it long. A man does his duty because he must. He has no choice +but do it.”</p> + +<p>“If a man has no choice, how is it that so many men choose to do +wrong?” asked Clementina.</p> + +<p>“In virtue of being slaves and stealing the choice,” replied Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“You are playing with words,” said Clementina.</p> + +<p>“If I am, at least I am not playing with things,” returned Malcolm. “If +you like it better, my lady, I will say that, in declaring he has no +choice, the man with all his soul chooses the good, recognizing it as +the very necessity of his nature.”</p> + +<p>“If I know in myself that I have a choice, all you say goes for +nothing,” persisted Clementina. “I am not at all sure I would not do +wrong for the sake of another. The more one preferred what was right, +the greater would be the sacrifice.”</p> + +<p>“If it was for the grandeur of it, my lady, that would be for the man’s +own sake, not his friend’s.”</p> + +<p>“Leave that out then,” said Clementina.</p> + +<p>“The more a man loved another—say a woman, as here in the story—then +it seems to me, the more willing would he be that she should continue +to suffer rather than cease by wrong. Think, my lady: the essence of +wrong is injustice: to help another by wrong is to do injustice to +somebody you do not know well enough to love for the sake of one you do +know well enough to love. What honest man could think of that twice? +The woman capable of accepting such a sacrifice would be contemptible.”</p> + +<p>“She need not know of it.”</p> + +<p>“He would know that she needed but to know of it to despise him.”</p> + +<p>“Then might it not be noble in him to consent for her sake to be +contemptible in her eyes?”</p> + +<p>“If no others were concerned. And then there would be no injustice, +therefore nothing wrong, and nothing contemptible.”</p> + +<p>“Might not what he did be wrong in the abstract, without having +reference to any person?”</p> + +<p>“There is no wrong man can do but is a thwarting of the living Right. +Surely you believe, my lady, that there is a living Power of right, +whose justice is the soul of our justice, who <i>will</i> have right done, +and causes even our own souls to take up arms against us when we do +wrong.”</p> + +<p>“In plain language, I suppose you mean—Do I believe in a God?”</p> + +<p>“That is what I mean, if by a God you mean a being who cares about us, +and loves justice—that is, fair play—one whom therefore we wrong to +the very heart when we do a thing that is not just.”</p> + +<p>“I would gladly believe in such a being, if things were so that I +could. As they are, I confess it seems to me the best thing to doubt +it. I do doubt it very much. How can I help doubting it, when I see so +much suffering, oppression, and cruelty in the world? If there were +such a being as you say, would he permit the horrible things we hear of +on every hand?”</p> + +<p>“I used to find that a difficulty. Indeed it troubled me sorely until +I came to understand things better. I remember Mr Graham saying once +something like this—I did not understand it for months after: ‘Every +kind-hearted person who thinks a great deal of being comfortable, and +takes prosperity to consist in being well-off, must be tempted to doubt +the existence of a God.—And perhaps it is well they should be so +tempted,’ he added.”</p> + +<p>“Why did he add that?”</p> + +<p>“I think because such are in danger of believing in an evil God. And +if men believed in an evil God, and had not the courage to defy him, +they must sink to the very depths of savagery. At least that is what I +ventured to suppose he meant.”</p> + +<p>Clementina opened her eyes wide, but said nothing. Religious people, +she found, could think as boldly as she.</p> + +<p>“I remember all about it so well!” Malcolm added, thoughtfully. “We had +been talking about the Prometheus of Æschylus—how he would not give in +to Jupiter.”</p> + +<p>“I am trying to understand,” said Clementina, and ceased—and a silence +fell which for a few moments Malcolm could not break. For suddenly he +felt as if he had fallen under the power of a spell. Something seemed +to radiate from her silence which invaded his consciousness. It was as +if the wind which dwells in the tree of life had waked in the twilight +of heaven, and blew upon his spirit. It was not that now first he saw +that she was beautiful; the moment his eyes fell upon her that morning +in the park, he saw her beautiful as he had never seen woman before. +Neither was it that now first he saw her good; even in that first +interview her heart had revealed itself to him as very lovely. But +the foolishness which flowed from her lips, noble and unselfish as it +was, had barred the way betwixt his feelings and her individuality as +effectually as if she had been the loveliest of Venuses lying uncarved +in the lunar marble of Carrara. There <i>are</i> men to whom silliness is +an absolute freezing mixture; to whose hearts a plain, sensible woman +at once appeals as a woman, while no amount of beauty can serve as +sweet oblivious antidote to counteract the nausea produced by folly. +Malcolm had found Clementina irritating, and the more irritating +that she was so beautiful. But at the first sound from her lips that +indicated genuine and truthful thought, the atmosphere had begun to +change; and at the first troubled gleam in her eyes, revealing that she +pursued some dim-seen thing of the world of reality, a nameless potency +throbbed into the spiritual space betwixt her and him, and embraced +them in an aether of entrancing relation. All that had been needed to +awake love to her was, that her soul, her self, should look out of its +windows—and now he had caught a glimpse of it. Not all her beauty, +not all her heart, not all her courage, could draw him while she would +ride only a hobby-horse, however tight its skin might be stuffed with +emotions. But now who could tell how soon she might be charging in the +front line of the Amazons of the Lord—on as real a horse as any in the +heavenly army? For was she not thinking—the rarest human operation in +the world?</p> + +<p>“I will try to speak a little more clearly, my lady,” said Malcolm. “If +ease and comfort, and the pleasures of animal and intellectual being, +were the best things to be had, as they are the only things most people +desire, then that maker who did not care that his creatures should +possess or were deprived of such, could not be a good God. But if the +need with the lack of such things should be the means, the only means, +of their gaining something in its very nature so much better that——”</p> + +<p>“But,” interrupted Clementina, “if they don’t care about anything +better—if they are content as they are?”</p> + +<p>“Should he then who called them into existence be limited in his +further intents for the perfecting of their creation, by their notions +concerning themselves who cannot add to their life one cubit?—such +notions being often consciously dishonest? If he knows them worthless +without something that he can give, shall he withhold his hand because +they do not care that he should stretch it forth? Should a child not be +taught to ride because he is content to run on foot?”</p> + +<p>“But the means, according to your own theory, are so frightful!” said +Clementina.</p> + +<p>“But suppose he knows that the barest beginnings of the good he intends +them would not merely reconcile them to those means, but cause them +to choose his will at any expense of suffering! I tell you, Lady +Clementina,” continued Malcolm, rising, and approaching her a step or +two, “if I had not the hope of one day being good like God himself, +if I thought there was no escape out of the wrong and badness I feel +within me and know I am not able to rid myself of without supreme help, +not all the wealth and honours of the world could reconcile me to life.”</p> + +<p>“You do not know what you are talking of,” said Clementina, coldly and +softly, without lifting her head.</p> + +<p>“I do,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“You mean you would kill yourself but for your belief in God?”</p> + +<p>“By life, I meant <i>being</i>, my lady. If there were no God, I dared +not kill myself, lest worse should be waiting me in the awful voids +beyond. If there be a God, living or dying is all one—so it be what he +pleases.”</p> + +<p>“I have read of saints,” said Clementina, with cool dissatisfaction in +her tone, “uttering such sentiments,”——“<i>Sentiments!</i>” said Malcolm +to himself——“—and I do not doubt such were felt or at least imagined +by them; but I fail to understand how, even supposing these things +true, a young man like yourself should, in the midst of a busy world, +and with an occupation which, to say the least,——”</p> + + +<p>Here she paused. After a moment Malcolm ventured to help her.</p> + +<p>“Is so far from an ideal one—would you say, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“Something like that,” answered Clementina, and concluded,—“I wonder +how <i>you</i> can have arrived at such ideas.”</p> + +<p>“There is nothing wonderful in it, my lady,” returned Malcolm. “Why +should not a youth, a boy, a child—for as a child I thought about what +the kingdom of heaven could mean—desire with all his might that his +heart and mind should be clean, his will strong, his thoughts just, his +head clear, his soul dwelling in the place of life? Why should I not +desire that my life should be a complete thing, and an outgoing of life +to my neighbour? Some people are content not to do mean actions: I want +to become incapable of a mean thought or feeling; and so I shall be +before all is done.”</p> + +<p>“Still, how did you come to begin so much earlier than others?”</p> + +<p>“All I know as to that, my lady, is that I had the best man in the +world to teach me.”</p> + +<p>“And why did not I have such a man to teach me? I could have learned of +such a man too.”</p> + +<p>“If you are able now, my lady, it does not follow that it would have +been the best thing for you sooner. Some children learn far better for +not being begun early, and will get before others who have been at it +for years. As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find +what is needful for you—in a book, or a friend, or, best of all in +your own thoughts—the eternal thought speaking in your thought.”</p> + +<p>It flashed through her mind, “Can it be that I have found it now —on +the lips of a groom?”</p> + +<p>Was it her own spirit or another that laughed strangely within her?</p> + +<p>“Well, as you seem to know so much better than other people,” she said, +“I want you to explain to me how the God in whom you profess to believe +can make use of such cruelties. It seems to me more like the revelling +of a demon.”</p> + +<p>“My lady!” remonstrated Malcolm, “I never pretended to explain. All +I say is, that, if I had reason for hoping there was a God, and if +I found, from my own experience and the testimony of others, that +suffering led to valued good, I should think, hope, expect to find that +he caused suffering for reasons of the highest, purest and kindest +import, such as when understood must be absolutely satisfactory to the +sufferers themselves. If a man cannot believe that, and if he thinks +the pain the worst evil of all, then of course he cannot believe there +is a good God. Still, even then, if he would lay claim to being a lover +of truth, he ought to give the idea—the mere <i>idea</i> of God fair play, +lest there should be a good God after all, and he all his life doing +him the injustice of refusing him his trust and obedience.”</p> + +<p>“And how are we to give the mere idea of him fair play?” asked +Clementina, rather contemptuously. But I think she was fighting +emotion, confused and troublesome.</p> + +<p>“By looking to the heart of whatever claims to be a revelation of him.”</p> + +<p>“It would take a lifetime to read the half of such.”</p> + +<p>“I will correct myself, and say—whatever of the sort has best claims +on <i>your</i> regard—whatever any person you look upon as good, believes +and would have you believe—at the same time doing diligently what you +<i>know</i> to be right; for, if there be a God, that must be his will, and, +if there be not, it remains our duty.”</p> + +<p>All this time, Florimel was working away at her embroidery, a little +smile of satisfaction flickering on her face. She was pleased to hear +her clever friend talking so with her strange vassal. As to what they +were saying, she had no doubt it was all right, but to her it was not +interesting. She was mildly debating with herself whether she should +tell her friend about Lenorme.</p> + +<p>Clementina’s work now lay on her lap and her hands on her work, while +her eyes at one time gazed on the grass at her feet, at another +searched Malcolm’s face with a troubled look. The light of Malcolm’s +candle was beginning to penetrate into her dusky room, the power of +his faith to tell upon the weakness of her unbelief. There is no +strength in unbelief. Even the unbelief of what is false is no source +of might. It is the truth shining from behind that gives the strength +to disbelieve. But into the house where the refusal of the bad is +followed by no embracing of the good— the house empty and swept and +garnished—the bad will return, bringing with it seven evils that are +worse.</p> + +<p>If something of that sacred mystery, holy in the heart of the Father, +which draws together the souls of man and woman, was at work between +them, let those scoff at the mingling of love and religion who know +nothing of either; but man or woman who, loving woman or man, has +never in that love lifted the heart to the Father, and everyone +whose divine love has not yet cast at least an arm round the human +love, must take heed what they think of themselves, for they are yet +but paddlers in the tide of the eternal ocean. Love is a lifting no +less than a swelling of the heart. What changes, what metamorphoses, +transformations, purifications, glorifications, this or that love must +undergo ere it take its eternal place in the kingdom of heaven, through +all its changes yet remaining, in its one essential root, the same, let +the coming redemption reveal. The hope of all honest lovers will lead +them to the vision. Only let them remember that love must dwell in the +will as well as in the heart.</p> + +<p>But whatever the nature of Malcolm’s influence upon Lady Clementina, +she resented it, thinking towards and speaking to him repellently. +Something in her did not like him. She knew he did not approve of her, +and she did not like being disapproved of. Neither did she approve of +him. He was pedantic—and far too good for an honest and brave youth: +not that she could say she had seen dishonesty or cowardice in him, +or that she could have told which vice she would prefer to season his +goodness withal, and bring him to the level of her ideal. And then, +for all her theories of equality, he was a groom—therefore to a lady +ought to be repulsive—at least when she found him intruding into the +chambers of her thoughts —personally intruding—yes, and met there +by some traitorous feelings whose behaviour she could not understand. +She resented it all, and felt towards Malcolm as if he were guilty of +forcing himself into the sacred presence of her bosom’s queen—whereas +it was his angel that did so, his Idea, over which he had no control. +Clementina would have turned that Idea out, and when she found she +could not, her soul started up wrathful, in maidenly disgust with her +heart, and cast resentment upon everything in him whereon it would +hang. She had not yet, however, come to ask herself any questions; she +had only begun to fear that a woman to whom a person from the stables +could be interesting, even in the form of an unexplained riddle, +must be herself a person of low tastes; and that, for all her pride +in coming of honest people, there must be a drop of bad blood in her +somewhere.</p> + +<p>For a time her eyes had been fixed on her work, and there had been +silence in the little group.</p> + +<p>“My lady!” said Malcolm, and drew a step nearer to Clementina.</p> + +<p>She looked up. How lovely she was with the trouble in her eyes! Thought +Malcolm, “If only she were what she might be! If the form were but +filled with the spirit! the body with life!”</p> + +<p>“My lady!” he repeated, just a little embarrassed, “I should like +to tell you one thing that came to me only lately—came to me when +thinking over the hard words you spoke to me that day in the park. But +it is something so awful that I dare not speak of it except you will +make your heart solemn to hear it.”</p> + +<p>He stopped, with his eyes questioning hers. Clementina’s first thought +once more was madness, but as she steadily returned his look, her face +grew pale, and she gently bowed her head in consent.</p> + +<p>“I will try then,” said Malcolm. “—Everybody knows what few think +about, that once there lived a man who, in the broad face of prejudiced +respectability, truth-hating hypocrisy, common-place religion, and +dull book-learning, affirmed that he knew the secret of life, and +understood the heart and history of men—who wept over their sorrows, +yet worshipped the God of the whole earth, saying that he had known him +from eternal days. The same said that he came to do what the Father +did, and that he did nothing but what he had learned of the Father. +They killed him, you know, my lady, in a terrible way that one is +afraid even to think of. But he insisted that he laid down his life; +that he allowed them to take it. Now I ask whether that grandest thing, +crowning his life, the yielding of it to the hand of violence, he had +not learned also from his Father. Was his death the only thing he had +not so learned? If I am right, and I do not say <i>if</i> in doubt, then the +suffering of those three terrible hours was a type of the suffering of +the Father himself in bringing sons and daughters through the cleansing +and glorifying fires, without which the created cannot be made the very +children of God, partakers of the divine nature and peace. Then from +the lowest, weakest tone of suffering, up to the loftiest pitch, the +divinest acme of pain, there is not one pang to which the sensorium of +the universe does not respond; never an untuneful vibration of nerve +or spirit but thrills beyond the brain or the heart of the sufferer to +the brain, the heart of the universe; and God, in the simplest, most +literal, fullest sense, and not by sympathy alone, suffers <i>with</i> his +creatures.”</p> + +<p>“Well, but he is able to bear it; they are not: I cannot bring myself +to see the right of it.”</p> + +<p>“Nor will you, my lady, so long as you cannot bring yourself to see +the good they get by it.—My lady, when I was trying my best with poor +Kelpie, you would not listen to me.”</p> + +<p>“You are ungenerous,” said Clementina, flushing.</p> + +<p>“My lady,” persisted Malcolm, “you would not understand me. You +denied me a heart because of what seemed in your eyes cruelty. I +knew that I was saving her from death at the least, probably from a +life of torture: God may be good, though to you his government may +seem to deny it. There is but one way God cares to govern—the way +of the Father-king—and that way is at hand.—But I have yet given +you only the one half of my theory: If God feels pain, then he puts +forth his will to bear and subject that pain; if the pain comes to +him from his creature, living in him, will the endurance of God be +confined to himself, and not, in its turn, pass beyond the bounds of +his individuality, and react upon the sufferer to his sustaining? I +do not mean that sustaining which a man feels from knowing his will +one with God’s and God <i>with</i> him, but such sustaining as those his +creatures also may have who do not or cannot know whence the sustaining +comes. I believe that the endurance of God goes forth to uphold, that +his patience is strength to his creatures, and that, while the whole +creation may well groan, its suffering is more bearable therefore than +it seems to the repugnance of our regard.”</p> + +<p>“That is a dangerous doctrine,” said Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Will it then make the cruel man more cruel to be told that God is +caring for the tortured creature from the citadel of whose life he +would force an answer to save his own from the sphinx that must at last +devour him, let him answer ever so wisely? Or will it make the tender +less pitiful to be consoled a little in the agony of beholding what +they cannot alleviate? Many hearts are from sympathy as sorely in need +of comfort as those with whom they suffer. And to such I have one word +more—to your heart, my lady, if it will consent to be consoled: The +animals, I believe, suffer less than we, because they scarcely think of +the past, and not at all of the future. It is the same with children, +Mr Graham says; they suffer less than grown people, and for the same +reason. To get back something of this privilege of theirs, we have to +be obedient and take no thought for the morrow.”</p> + +<p>Clementina took up her work. Malcolm walked away.</p> + +<p>“Malcolm,” cried his mistress, “are you not going on with the book?”</p> + +<p>“I hope your ladyship will excuse me,” said Malcolm. “I would rather +not read more just at present.”</p> + +<p>It may seem incredible that one so young as Malcolm should have been +able to talk thus, and indeed my report may have given words more +formal and systematic than his really were. For the <i>matter</i> of them, +it must be remembered that he was not young in the effort to do and +understand; and that the advantage to such a pupil of such a teacher as +Mr Graham is illimitable.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII.<br><span class="small">A PERPLEXITY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>After Malcolm’s departure, Clementina attempted to find what Florimel +thought of the things her strange groom had been saying: she found +only that she neither thought at all about them, nor had a single true +notion concerning the matter of their conversation. Seeking to interest +her in it and failing, she found however that she had greatly deepened +its impression upon herself.</p> + +<p>Florimel had not yet quite made up her mind whether or not she should +open her heart to Clementina, but she approached the door of it in +requesting her opinion upon the matter of marriage between persons of +social conditions widely parted—“frightfully sundered,” she said. Now +Clementina was a radical of her day, a reformer, a leveller—one who +complained bitterly that some should be so rich, and some so poor. In +this she was perfectly honest. Her own wealth, from a vague sense of +unrighteousness in the possession of it, was such a burden to her, +that she threw it away where often it made other people stumble if +not fall. She professed to regard all men as equal, and believed that +she did so. She was powerful in her contempt of the distinctions made +between certain of the classes, but had signally failed in some bold +endeavours to act as if they had no existence except in the whims +of society. As yet no man had sought her nearer regard for whom she +would deign to cherish even friendship. As to marriage, she professed, +right honestly, an entire disinclination, even aversion to it, saying +to herself that if ever she should marry it must be, for the sake of +protest and example, one notably beneath her in social condition. He +must be a gentleman, but his claims to that rare distinction should lie +only in himself, not his position—in what he was, not what he had. But +it is one thing to have opinions, and another to be called upon to show +them beliefs; it is one thing to declare all men equal, and another to +tell the girl who looks up to you for advice, that she ought to feel +herself at perfect liberty to marry—say a groom; and when Florimel +proposed the general question, Clementina might well have hesitated. +And indeed she did hesitate—but in vain she tried to persuade herself +that it was solely for the sake of her young and inexperienced friend +that she did so. As little could she honestly say that it was from +doubt of the principles she had so long advocated. Had Florimel been +open with her, and told her what sort of inferior was in her thoughts, +instead of representing the gulf between them as big enough to swallow +the city of Rome; had she told her that he was a gentleman, a man of +genius and gifts, noble and large-hearted, and indeed better-bred than +any other man she knew, the fact of his profession would only have +clenched Lady Clementina’s decision in his favour; and if Florimel had +been honest enough to confess the encouragement she had given him—nay, +the absolute love-passages there had been, Clementina would at once +have insisted that her friend should write an apology for her behaviour +to him, should dare the dastard world, and offer to marry him when +he would. But, Florimel putting the question as she did, how should +Clementina imagine anything other than that it referred to Malcolm? +and a strange confusion of feeling was the consequence. Her thoughts +heaved in her like the half-shaped monsters of a spiritual chaos, and +amongst them was one she could not at all identify. A direct answer +she found impossible. She found also that in presence of Florimel, so +much younger than herself, and looking up to her for advice, she dared +not even let the questions now pressing for entrance appear before her +consciousness. She therefore declined giving an answer of any sort—was +not prepared with one, she said; much was to be considered; no two +cases were just alike.</p> + +<p>They were summoned to tea, after which she retired to her room, shut +the door, and began to think—an operation which, seldom easy if worth +anything, was in the present case peculiarly difficult, both because +Clementina was not used to it, and the subject-object of it was +herself. I suspect that self-examination is seldom the most profitable, +certainly it is sometimes the most unpleasant, and always the most +difficult of moral actions—that is, to perform after a genuine +fashion. I know that very little of what passes for it has the remotest +claim to reality; and I will not say it has never to be done; but I am +certain that a good deal of the energy spent by some devout and upright +people on trying to understand themselves and their own motives, would +be expended to better purpose, and with far fuller attainment even in +regard to that object itself, in the endeavour to understand God, and +what he would have us to do.</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina’s attempt was as honest as she dared make it. It went +something after this fashion:</p> + +<p>“How is it possible I should counsel a young creature like that, with +all her gifts and privileges, to marry a groom—to bring the stable +into her chamber? If I did—if she did, has she the strength to hold +her face to it?—Yes, I know how different he is from any other groom +that ever rode behind a lady! but does she understand him? Is she +capable of such a regard for him as could outlast a week of closer +intimacy? At her age it is impossible she should know what she was +doing in daring such a thing. It would be absolute ruin to her. And how +could I advise her to do what I could not do myself?—But then if she’s +in love with him?”</p> + +<p>She rose and paced the room—not hurriedly—she never did anything +hurriedly—but yet with unleisurely steps, until, catching sight +of herself in the glass, she turned away as from an intruding and +unwelcome presence, and threw herself on her couch, burying her face +in the pillow. Presently, however, she rose again, her face glowing, +and again walked up and down the room—almost swiftly now. I can but +indicate the course of her thoughts.</p> + +<p>“If what he says be true!—It opens another and higher life. —What +a man he is! and so young!—Has he not convicted me of feebleness +and folly, and made me ashamed of myself?—What better thing could +man or woman do for another than lower her in her own haughty eyes, +and give her a chance of becoming such as she had but dreamed of the +shadow of?—He is a gentleman—every inch! Hear him talk!—Scotch, no +doubt,—and—well—a <i>little</i> long-winded—a bad fault at his age! +But see him ride!—see him swim!—and to save a bird!—But then he is +hard—severe at best! All religious people are so severe! They think +they are safe themselves, and so can afford to be hard on others! He +would serve his wife the same as his mare if he thought she required +it!—And I <i>have</i> known women for whom it might be the best thing. I am +a fool! a soft-hearted idiot! He told me I would give a baby a lighted +candle if it cried for it.—Or didn’t he? I believe he never uttered a +word of the sort; he only thought it.”—As she said this, there came +a strange light in her eyes, and the light seemed to shine from all +around them as well as from the orbs themselves.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she stood still as a statue in the middle of the room, and +her face grew white as the marble of one. For a minute she stood +thus—without a definite thought in her brain. The first that came +was something like this: “Then Florimel <i>does</i> love him!—and wants +help to decide whether she shall marry him or not! Poor weak little +wretch!—Then if I were in love with him, I would marry him—would +I?—It is well, perhaps, that I’m not!—But she! he is ten times too +good for her! He would be utterly thrown away on her! But I am <i>her</i> +counsel, not his; and what better could come to her than have such +a man for a husband; and instead of that contemptible Liftore, with +his grand earldom ways and proud nose! He has little to be proud of +that must take to his rank for it! Fancy a right man condescending to +be proud of his own rank! Pooh! But this groom is a man! all a man! +grand from the centre out, as the great God made him!—Yes, it must +be a great God that made such a man as that!—that is, if he <i>is</i> the +same he looks—the same all through!—Perhaps there are more Gods than +one, and one of them is the devil, and made Liftore! But am I bound to +give her advice? Surely not! I may refuse. And rightly too! A woman +that marries from advice, instead of from a mighty love, is wrong. I +need <i>not</i> speak. I shall just tell her to consult her own heart— and +conscience, and follow them.—But, gracious me! Am <i>I</i> then going to +fall in love with the fellow?—this stable-man who pretends to know his +maker! Certainly not. There is <i>nothing</i> of the kind in my thoughts. +Besides, how should <i>I</i> know what falling in love means? I never was in +love in my life, and don’t mean to be. If I were so foolish as imagine +myself in any danger, would I be such a fool as be caught in it? I +should think not indeed! What if I <i>do</i> think of this man in a way I +never thought of anyone before, is there anything odd in that? How +should I help it when he is unlike anyone I ever saw before? One must +think of people as one finds them. Does it follow that I have power +over myself no longer, and must go where any chance feeling may choose +to lead me?”</p> + +<p>Here came a pause. Then she started, and once more began walking up and +down the room, now hurriedly indeed.</p> + +<p>“I will <i>not</i> have it!” she cried aloud—and checked herself, dashed at +the sound of her own voice. But her soul went on loud enough for the +thought-universe to hear. “There <i>can’t</i> be a God, or he would never +subject his women to what they don’t choose. If a God had made them, +he would have them queens over themselves at least— and I <i>will</i> be +queen, and then perhaps a God did make me. A slave to things inside +myself!—thoughts and feelings I refuse, and which I <i>ought</i> to have +control over! I don’t want this in me, yet I can’t drive it out! I +<i>will</i> drive it out. It is not me. A slave on my own ground! worst +slavery of all!—It will not go.—That must be because I do not will +it strong enough. And if I don’t <i>will</i> it —my God!—what does that +mean?—That I am a slave already?”</p> + +<p>Again she threw herself on her couch, but only to rise and yet again +pace the room.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense! it is <i>not</i> love. It is merely that nobody could help +thinking about one who had been so much before her mind for so long +—one too who had made her think. Ah! there, I do believe, lies the +real secret of it all!—There’s the main cause of my trouble —and +nothing worse! I must not be foolhardy though, and remain in danger, +especially as, for anything I can tell, he may be in love with that +foolish child. People, they say, like people that are not at all like +themselves. Then I am sure he might like me!—She <i>seems</i> to be in love +with him! I know she cannot be half a quarter in real love with him: +it’s not in her.”</p> + +<p>She did not rejoin Florimel that evening: it was part of the +understanding between the ladies that each should be at absolute +liberty. She slept little during the night, starting awake as often +as she began to slumber, and before the morning came was a good deal +humbled. All sorts of means are kept at work to make the children +obedient and simple and noble. Joy and sorrow are servants in God’s +nursery; pain and delight, ecstasy and despair minister in it; but +amongst them there is none more marvellous in its potency than that +mingling of all pains and pleasures to which we specially give the name +of Love.</p> + +<p>When she appeared at breakfast, her countenance bore traces of her +suffering, but a headache, real enough, though little heeded in the +commotion upon whose surface it floated, gave answer to the not very +sympathetic solicitude of Florimel. Happily the day of their return +was near at hand. Some talk there had been of protracting their stay, +but to that Clementina avoided any farther allusion. She must put an +end to an intercourse which she was compelled to admit was, at least, +in danger of becoming dangerous. This much she had with certainty +discovered concerning her own feelings, that her heart grew hot and +cold at the thought of the young man belonging more to the mistress who +could not understand him than to herself who imagined she could; and it +wanted no experience in love to see that it was therefore time to be on +her guard against herself, for to herself she was growing perilous.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV.<br><span class="small">THE MIND OF THE AUTHOR.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The next was the last day of the reading. They must finish the tale +that morning, and on the following set out to return home, travelling +as they had come. Clementina had not the strength of mind to deny +herself that last indulgence—a long four days’ ride in the company of +this strangest of attendants. After that, if not the deluge, yet a few +miles of Sahara.</p> + +<p>“‘It is the opinion of many that he has entered into a Moravian +mission, for the use of which he had previously drawn considerable +sums,’” read Malcolm, and paused, with book half closed.</p> + +<p>“Is that all?” asked Florimel.</p> + +<p>“Not quite, my lady,” he answered. “There isn’t much more, but I was +just thinking whether we hadn’t come upon something worth a little +reflection—whether we haven’t here a window into the mind of the +author of Waverley, whoever he may be, Mr Scott, or another.”</p> + +<p>“You mean?” said Clementina, interrogatively, and looked up from her +work, but not at the speaker.</p> + +<p>“I mean, my lady, that perhaps we here get a glimpse of the author’s +own opinions, or feelings rather, perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“I do not see what of the sort you can find there,” returned Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Neither should I, my lady, if Mr Graham had not taught me how to find +Shakspere in his plays. A man’s own nature, he used to say, must lie +at the heart of what he does, even though not another man should be +sharp enough to find him there. Not a hypocrite, the most consummate, +he would say, but has his hypocrisy written in every line of his +countenance and motion of his fingers. The heavenly Lavaters can read +it, though the earthly may not be able.”</p> + +<p>“And you think you can find him out?” said Clementina, dryly.</p> + +<p>“Not the hypocrite, my lady, but Mr Scott here. He is only round a +single corner. And one thing is—he believes in a God.”</p> + +<p>“How do you make that out?”</p> + +<p>“He means this Mr Tyrrel for a fine fellow, and on the whole approves +of him—does he not, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly.”</p> + +<p>“Of course all that duelling is wrong. But then Mr Scott only half +disapproves of it.—And it is almost a pity it is wrong,” remarked +Malcolm with a laugh; “it is such an easy way of settling some +difficult things. Yet I hate it. It’s so cowardly. I may be a better +shot than the other, and know it all the time. He may know it too, +and have twice my courage. And I may think him in the wrong, when he +<i>knows</i> himself in the right.—There <i>is</i> one man I have felt as if I +should like to kill. When I was a boy I killed the cats that ate my +pigeons.”</p> + +<p>A look of horror almost distorted Lady Clementina’s countenance.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what to say next, my lady,” he went on, with a smile, +“because I have no way of telling whether you looked shocked for the +cats I killed, or the pigeons they killed, or the man I would rather +see killed than have him devour more of my—white doves,” he concluded +sadly, with a little shake of the head.—“But, please God,” he resumed, +“I shall manage to keep them from him, and let him live to be as old as +Methuselah if he can, even if he should grow in cunning and wickedness +all the time. I wonder how he will feel when he comes to see what a +sneaking cat he is. But this is not what we set out for.—Mr Tyrrel, +then, the author’s hero, joins the Moravians at last.”</p> + +<p>“What are they?” questioned Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Simple, good, practical Christians, I believe,” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“But he only does it when disappointed in love.”</p> + +<p>“No, my lady; he is not disappointed. The lady is only dead.”</p> + +<p>Clementina stared a moment—then dropped her head as if she understood. +Presently she raised it again and said,</p> + +<p>“But, according to what you said the other day, in doing so he was +forsaking altogether the duties of the station in which God had called +him.”</p> + +<p>“That is true. It would have been a far grander thing to do his duty +where he was, than to find another place and another duty. An earldom +allotted is better than a mission preferred.”</p> + +<p>“And at least you must confess,” interrupted Clementina, “that he only +took to religion because he was unhappy.”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, my lady, it is the nobler thing to seek God in the days of +gladness, to look up to him in trustful bliss when the sun is shining. +But if a man be miserable, if the storm is coming down on him, what is +he to do? There is nothing mean in seeking God then, though it would +have been nobler to seek him before.—But to return to the matter +in hand: the author of Waverley makes his noble-hearted hero, whom +assuredly he had no intention of disgracing, turn Moravian; and my +conclusion from it is that, in his judgment, nobleness leads in the +direction of religion; that he considers it natural for a noble mind to +seek comfort there for its deepest sorrows.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it may be so; but what is religion without consistency in +action?” said Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Then how can you, professing to believe as you do, cherish such +feelings towards any man as you have just been confessing?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t cherish them, my lady. But I succeed in avoiding hate better +than suppressing contempt, which perhaps is the worse of the two. There +may be some respect in hate.”</p> + +<p>Here he paused, for here was a chance that was not likely to recur. +He might say before two ladies what he could not say before one. If +he could but rouse Florimel’s indignation! Then at any suitable time +only a word more would be needful to direct it upon the villain. +Clementina’s eyes continued fixed upon him. At length he spoke.</p> + +<p>“I will try to make two pictures in your mind, my lady, if you will +help me to paint them. In <i>my</i> mind they are not <i>painted</i> pictures. +—A long sea-coast, my lady, and a stormy night;—the sea-horses +rushing in from the north-east, and the snow-flakes beginning to fall. +On the margin of the sea a long dune or sand-bank, and on the top of +it, her head bare, and her thin cotton dress nearly torn from her by +the wind, a young woman, worn and white, with an old faded tartan shawl +tight about her shoulders, and the shape of a baby inside it, upon her +arm.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! she doesn’t mind the cold,” said Florimel. “When I was there, I +didn’t mind it a bit.”</p> + +<p>“She does not mind the cold,” answered Malcolm; “she is far too +miserable for that.”</p> + +<p>“But she has no business to take the baby out on such a night,” +continued Florimel, carelessly critical. “You ought to have painted her +by the fireside. They have all of them firesides to sit at. I have seen +them through the windows many a time.”</p> + +<p>“Shame or cruelty had driven her from it,” said Malcolm, “and there she +was.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean you saw her yourself wandering about?” asked Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Twenty times, my lady.”</p> + +<p>Clementina was silent.</p> + +<p>“Well, what comes next?” said Florimel.</p> + +<p>“Next comes a young gentleman;—but this is a picture in another frame, +although of the same night;—a young gentleman in evening dress, +sipping his madeira, warm and comfortable, in the bland temper that +should follow the best of dinners, his face beaming with satisfaction +after some boast concerning himself, or with silent success in the +concoction of one or two compliments to have at hand when he joins the +ladies in the drawing-room.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody can help such differences,” said Florimel. “If there were +nobody rich, who would there be to do anything for the poor? It’s not +the young gentleman’s fault that he is better born and has more money +than the poor girl.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Malcolm; “but what if the poor girl has the young +gentleman’s child to carry about from morning to night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, well! I suppose she’s paid for it,” said Florimel, whose innocence +must surely have been supplemented by some stupidity, born of her +flippancy.</p> + +<p>“Do be quiet, Florimel,” said Clementina. “You don’t know what you are +talking about.”</p> + +<p>Her face was in a glow, and one glance at it set Florimel’s in a flame. +She rose without a word, but with a look of mingled confusion and +offence, and walked away. Clementina gathered her work together. But +ere she followed her, she turned to Malcolm, looked him calmly in the +face, and said,</p> + +<p>“No one can blame you for hating such a man.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, my lady, but some one would—the only one for whose praise or +blame we ought to care more than a straw or two. He tells us we are +neither to judge nor to hate. But—”</p> + +<p>“I cannot stay and talk with you,” said Clementina. “You must pardon me +if I follow your mistress.”</p> + +<p>Another moment and he would have told her all, in the hope of her +warning Florimel. But she was gone.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV.<br><span class="small">THE RIDE HOME.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Florimel was offended with Malcolm: he had put her confidence in him +to shame, speaking of things to which he ought not once to have even +alluded. But Clementina was not only older than Florimel, but in her +loving endeavours for her kind, had heard many a pitiful story, and was +now saddened by the tale, not shocked at the teller. Indeed, Malcolm’s +mode of acquainting her with the grounds of the feeling she had +challenged pleased both her heart and her sense of what was becoming; +while, as a partisan of women, finding a man also of their part, she +was ready to offer him the gratitude of all womankind—in her one +typical self.</p> + +<p>“What a rough diamond is here!” she thought.</p> + +<p>“Rough!” echoed her heart: “how is he rough? What fault could the +most fastidious find with his manners? True, he speaks as a servant +—and where would be his manners if he did not? But neither in tone, +expression, nor way of thinking, is he in the smallest degree servile. +He is like a great pearl, clean out of the sea—bred, it is true, in +the midst of strange surroundings, but pure as the moonlight; and if +a man, so environed, yet has grown so grand, what might he not become +with such privileges as——!”</p> + +<p>Good Clementina—what did she mean? Did she imagine that such mere +gifts as she might give him, could do more for him than the great sea, +with the torment and conquest of its winds and tempests? more than his +own ministrations of love, and victories over passion and pride? What +the final touches of the shark-skin are to the marble that stands lord +of the flaming bow, that only can wealth and position be to the man +who has yielded neither to the judgments of the world nor the drawing +of his own inclinations, and so has submitted himself to the chisel +and mallet of his maker. Society is the barber who trims a man’s hair, +often very badly too—and pretends he made it grow. If her owner should +take her, body and soul, and make of her being a gift to his—ah, then, +indeed! But Clementina was not yet capable of perceiving that, while +what she had in her thought to offer <i>might</i> hurt him, it <i>could</i> do +him little good. Her feeling concerning him, however, was all the time +far indeed from folly. Not for a moment did she imagine him in love +with her. Possibly she admired him too much to attribute to him such +an intolerable and insolent presumption as that would have appeared to +her own inferior self. Still, she was far indeed from certain, were +she, as befits the woman so immeasurably beyond even the aspiration of +the man, to make him offer implicit of hand and havings, that he would +reach out his to take them. And certainly that she was not going to +do—in which determination, whether she knew it or not, there was as +much modesty and gracious doubt of her own worth as there was pride and +maidenly recoil. In one resolve she was confident, that her behaviour +towards him should be such as to keep him just where he was, affording +him no smallest excuse for taking one step nearer: and they would soon +be in London, where she would see nothing, or next to nothing more of +him. But should she ever cease to thank God, that was, if ever she came +to find him, that in this groom he had shown her what he could do in +the way of making a man! Heartily she wished she knew a nobleman or two +like him. In the meantime she meant to enjoy—with carefulness —the +ride to London, after which things should be as before.</p> + +<p>The morning arrived; they finished breakfast; the horses came round +and stood at the door—all but Kelpie. The ladies mounted. Ah, what a +morning to leave the country and go back to London! The sun shone clear +on the dark pine-woods; the birds were radiant in song; all under the +trees the ferns were unrolling each its mystery of ever generating +life; the soul of the summer was there whose mere idea sends the heart +into the eyes, while itself flits mocking from the cage of words. A +gracious mystery it was—in the air, in the sun, in the earth, in their +own hearts. The lights of heaven mingled and played with the shadows +of the earth, which looked like the souls of the trees that had been +out wandering all night, and had been overtaken by the sun ere they +could re-enter their dark cells. Every motion of the horses under them +was like a throb of the heart of the earth, every bound like a sigh +of her bliss. Florimel shouted almost like a boy with ecstasy, and +Clementina’s moonlight went very near changing into sunlight as she +gazed, and breathed, and knew that she was alive.</p> + +<p>They started without Malcolm, for he must always put his mistress up, +and then go back to the stable for Kelpie. In a moment they were in the +wood, crossing its shadows. It was like swimming their horses through +a sea of shadows. Then came a little stream and the horses splashed it +about like children from very gamesomeness. Half a mile more and there +was a saw-mill, with a mossy wheel, a pond behind, dappled with sun and +shade, a dark rush of water along a brown trough, and the air full of +the sweet smell of sawn wood. Clementina had not once looked behind, +and did not know whether Malcolm had yet joined them or not. All at +once the wild vitality of Kelpie filled the space beside her, and the +voice of Malcolm was in her ears. She turned her head. He was looking +very solemn.</p> + +<p>“Will you let me tell you, my lady, what this always makes me think +of?” he said.</p> + +<p>“What in particular do you mean?” returned Clementina coldly.</p> + +<p>“This smell of new-sawn wood that fills the air, my lady.”</p> + +<p>She bowed her head.</p> + +<p>“It makes me think of Jesus in his father’s workshop,” said Malcolm +“—how he must have smelled the same sweet scent of the trees of the +world broken for the uses of men, that is now so sweet to me. Oh, my +lady! it makes the earth very holy and very lovely to think that as +we are in the world, so was he in the world. Oh, my lady! think:—if +God should be so nearly one with us that it was nothing strange to him +thus to visit his people! that we are not the offspring of the soulless +tyranny of law that knows not even its own self, but the children of an +unfathomable wonder, of which science gathers only the foambells on the +shore—children in the house of a living Father, so entirely our Father +that he cares even to death that we should understand and love him!”</p> + +<p>He reined Kelpie back, and as she passed on, his eyes caught a glimmer +of emotion in Clementina’s. He fell behind, and all that day did not +come near her again.</p> + +<p>Florimel asked her what he had been saying, and she compelled herself +to repeat a part of it.</p> + +<p>“He is always saying such odd out-of-the-way things!” remarked +Florimel. “I used sometimes, like you, to fancy him a little astray, +but I soon found I was wrong. I wish you could have heard him tell a +story he once told my father and me. It was one of the wildest you ever +heard. I can’t tell to this day whether he believed it himself or not. +He told it quite as if he did.”</p> + +<p>“Could you not make him tell it again, as we ride along? It would +shorten the way.”</p> + +<p>“Do you want the way shortened?—I don’t. But indeed it would not do to +tell it so. It ought to be heard just where I heard it—at the foot of +the ruined castle where the dreadful things in it took place. You must +come and see me at Lossie House in the autumn, and then he shall tell +it you. Besides, it ought to be told in Scotch, and there you will soon +learn enough to follow it: half the charm depends on that.”</p> + +<p>Although Malcolm did not again approach Clementina that day, he +watched almost her every motion as she rode. Her lithe graceful back +and shoulders—for she was a rebel against the fashion of the day in +dress as well as in morals, and, believing in the natural stay of the +muscles, had found them responsive to her trust— the noble poise of +her head, and the motions of her arms, easy yet decided, were ever +present to him, though sometimes he could hardly have told whether his +sight or his mind—now in the radiance of the sun, now in the shadow of +the wood, now against the green of the meadow, now against the blue of +the sky, and now in the faint moonlight, through which he followed, as +a ghost in the realms of Hades might follow the ever flitting phantom +of his love. Day glided after day. Adventure came not near them. Soft +and lovely as a dream the morning dawned, the noon flowed past, the +evening came and the death that followed was yet sweeter than the life +that had gone before. Through it all, day-dream and nightly trance, +radiant air and moony mist, before him glode the shape of Clementina, +its every motion a charm. After that shape he could have been content, +oh, how content! to ride on and on through the ever unfolding vistas of +an eternal succession. Occasionally his mistress would call him to her, +and then he would have one glance of the day-side of the wondrous world +he had been following. Somewhere within it must be the word of the +living One. Little he thought that all the time she was thinking more +of him who had spoken that word in her hearing. That he was the object +of her thoughts not a suspicion crossed the mind of the simple youth. +How could he imagine a lady like her taking a fancy to what, for all +his marquisate, he was still in his own eyes, a raw young fisherman, +only just learning how to behave himself decently! No doubt, ever since +she began to listen to reason, the idea of her had been spreading like +a sweet odour in his heart, but not because she had listened to <i>him</i>. +The very fulness of his admiration had made him wrathful with the +intellectual dishonesty—for in her it could not be stupidity—that +quenched his worship, and the first dawning sign of a <i>reasonable</i> +soul drew him to her feet, where, like Pygmalion before his statue, he +could have poured out his heart in thanks, that she consented to be a +woman. But even the intellectual phantom, nay, even the very phrase +of being in love with her, had never risen upon the dimmest verge of +his consciousness—and that although her being had now become to him +of all but absorbing interest. I say <i>all but</i>, because Malcolm knew +something of One whose idea she was, who had uttered her from the +immortal depths of his imagination. The man to whom no window into the +treasures of the Godhead has yet been opened, may well scoff at the +notion of such a love, for he has this advantage, that, while one like +Malcolm can never cease to love, he, gifted being, can love to-day and +forget to-morrow—or next year—where is the difference? Malcolm’s +main thought was—what a grand thing it would be to rouse a woman like +Clementina to lift her head into the</p> + +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">regions mild of calm and serene air,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which men call Earth.</span><br> +</p> + +<p>If anyone think that love has no right to talk religion, I answer for +Malcolm at least, asking, Whereof shall a man speak, if not out of the +abundance of his heart? That man knows little either of love or of +religion who imagines they ought to be kept apart. Of what sort, I ask, +is either, if unfit to approach the other? Has God decreed, created a +love that must separate from himself? Is Love then divided? Or shall +not love to the heart created, lift up the heart to the Heart creating? +Alas for the love that is not treasured in heaven! for the moth and the +rust will devour it. Ah, these pitiful old moth-eaten loves!</p> + +<p>All the journey then Malcolm was thinking how to urge the beautiful +lady into finding for herself whether she had a father in heaven or +not. A pupil of Mr Graham, he placed little value in argument that ran +in any groove but that of persuasion, or any value in persuasion that +had any end but action.</p> + +<p>On the second day of the journey, he rode up to his mistress, and told +her, taking care that Lady Clementina should hear, that Mr Graham +was now preaching in London, adding that for his part he had never +before heard anything fit to call preaching. Florimel did not show +much interest, but asked where, and Malcolm fancied he could see Lady +Clementina make a mental note of the place.</p> + +<p>“If only,” he thought, “she would let the power of that man’s faith +have a chance of influencing her, all would be well.”</p> + +<p>The ladies talked a good deal, but Florimel was not in earnest about +anything, and for Clementina to have turned the conversation upon those +possibilities, dim-dawning through the chaos of her world, which had +begun to interest her, would have been absurd—especially since such +was her confusion and uncertainty, that she could not tell whether +they were clouds or mountains, shadows or continents. Besides, why +give a child sovereigns to play with when counters or dominoes would +do as well? Clementina’s thoughts could not have passed into Florimel, +and become her thoughts. Their hearts, their natures must come nearer +first. Advise Florimel to disregard rank, and marry the man she loved! +As well counsel the child to give away the cake he would cry for with +intensified selfishness the moment he had parted with it! Still, there +was that in her feeling for Malcolm which rendered her doubtful in +Florimel’s presence.</p> + +<p>Between the grooms little passed. Griffith’s contempt for Malcolm found +its least offensive expression in silence, its most offensive in the +shape of his countenance. He could not make him the simplest reply +without a sneer. Malcolm was driven to keep mostly behind. If by any +chance he got in front of his fellow-groom, Griffith would instantly +cross his direction and ride between him and the ladies. His look +seemed to say he had to protect them.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI.<br><span class="small">PORTLAND PLACE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The latter part of the journey was not so pleasant: it rained. It was +not cold, however, and the ladies did not mind it much. It accorded +with Clementina’s mood; and as to Florimel, but for the thought of +meeting Caley, her fine spirits would have laughed the weather to +scorn. Malcolm was merry. His spirits always rose at the appearance +of bad weather, as indeed with every show of misfortune a response +antagonistic invariably awoke in him. On the present occasion he had +even to repress the constantly recurring impulse to break out in +song. His bosom’s lord sat lightly in his throne. Griffith was the +only miserable one of the party. He was tired, and did not relish the +thought of the work to be done before getting home. They entered London +in a wet fog, streaked with rain, and dyed with smoke. Florimel went +with Clementina for the night, and Malcolm carried a note from her to +Lady Bellair, after which, having made Kelpie comfortable, he went to +his lodgings.</p> + +<p>When he entered the curiosity-shop, the woman received him with evident +surprise, and when he would have passed through to the stair, stopped +him with the unwelcome information that, finding he did not return, and +knowing nothing about himself or his occupation, she had, as soon as +the week for which he had paid in advance was out, let the room to an +old lady from the country.</p> + +<p>“It is no great matter to me,” said Malcolm, thoughtful over the +woman’s want of confidence in him, for he had rather liked her, “only I +am sorry you could not trust me a little.”</p> + +<p>“It’s all you know, young man,” she returned. “People as lives in +London must take care of theirselves—not wait for other people to do +it. They’d soon find theirselves nowheres in partic’lar. I’ve took care +on your things, an’ laid ’em all together, an’ the sooner you find +another place for ’em the better, for they do take up a deal o’ room.”</p> + +<p>His personal property was not so bulky, however, but that in ten +minutes he had it all in his carpet-bag and a paper parcel, carrying +which he re-entered the shop.</p> + +<p>“Would you oblige me by allowing these to lie here till I come for +them?” he said.</p> + +<p>The woman was silent for a moment.</p> + +<p>“I’d rather see the last on ’em,” she answered. “To tell the truth, +I don’t like the look on ’em. You acts a part, young man. I’m on the +square myself. But you’ll find plenty to take you in.—No, I can’t do +it. Take ’em with you.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm turned from her, and with his bag in one hand and the parcel +under the other arm, stepped from the shop into the dreary night. There +he stood in the drizzle. It was a by-street into which gas had not +yet penetrated, and the oil lamps shone red and dull through the fog. +He concluded to leave the things with Merton, while he went to find a +lodging.</p> + +<p>Merton was a decent sort of fellow—<i>not</i> in his master’s confidence, +and Malcolm found him quite as sympathetic as the small occasion +demanded.</p> + +<p>“It ain’t no sort o’ night,” he said, “to go lookin’ for a bed. Let’s +go an’ speak to my old woman: she’s a oner at contrivin’.”</p> + +<p>He lived over the stable, and they had but to go up the stair. Mrs +Merton sat by the fire. A cradle with a baby was in front of it. On the +other side sat Caley, in suppressed exultation, for here came what she +had been waiting for—the first fruits of certain arrangements between +her and Mrs Catanach. She greeted Malcolm distantly, but neither +disdainfully nor spitefully.</p> + +<p>“I trust you’ve brought me back my lady, MacPhail,” she said; then +added, thawing into something like jocularity, “I shouldn’t have looked +to you to go running away with her.”</p> + +<p>“I left my lady at Lady Clementina Thornicroft’s an hour ago,” answered +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course! Lady Clem’s everything now.”</p> + +<p>“I believe my lady’s not coming home till to-morrow,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“All the better for us,” returned Caley. “Her room ain’t ready for +her.—But I didn’t know you lodged with Mrs Merton, MacPhail,” she +said, with a look at the luggage he had placed on the floor.</p> + +<p>“Lawks, miss!” cried the good woman, “wherever should we put him up, as +has but the next room?”</p> + +<p>“You’ll have to find that out, mother,” said Merton. “Sure you’ve got +enough to shake down for him! With a truss of straw to help, you’ll +manage it somehow—eh, old lady?—I’ll be bound!” And with that he told +Malcolm’s condition.</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose we must manage it somehow,” answered his wife, “but +I’m afraid we can’t make him over-comfortable.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see but we <i>could</i> take him in at the house,” said Caley, +reflectively. “There is a small room empty in the garret, I know. It +ain’t much more than a closet, to be sure, but if he could put up with +it for a night or two, just till he found a better, I would run across +and see what they say.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm wondered at the change in her, but could not hesitate. The +least chance of getting settled in the house was a thing not to be +thrown away. He thanked her heartily. She rose and went, and they sat +and talked till her return. She had been delayed, she said, by the +housekeeper; “the cross old patch” had objected to taking in anyone +from the stables.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure,” she went on, “there ain’t the ghost of a reason why you +shouldn’t have the room, except that it ain’t good enough. Nobody else +wants it, or is likely to. But it’s all right now, and if you’ll come +across in about an hour, you’ll find it ready for you. One of the +girls in the kitchen—I forget her name—offered to make it tidy for +you. Only take care—I give you warning: she’s a great admirer of Mr +MacPhail.”</p> + +<p>Therewith she took her departure, and at the appointed time Malcolm +followed her. The door was opened to him by one of the maids whom +he knew by sight, and in her guidance he soon found himself in that +part of a house he liked best—immediately under the roof. The room +was indeed little more than a closet in the slope of the roof with +only a sky-light. But just outside the door was a storm-window, from +which, over the top of a lower range of houses, he had a glimpse +of the mews-yard. The place smelt rather badly of mice, while, as +the sky-light was immediately above his bed, and he had no fancy +for drenching that with an infusion of soot, he could not open it. +These, however, were the sole faults he had to find with the place. +Everything looked nice and clean, and his education had not tended to +fastidiousness. He took a book from his bag, and read a good while; +then went to bed, and fell fast asleep.</p> + +<p>In the morning he woke early, as was his habit, sprang at once on +the floor, dressed, and went quietly down. The household was yet +motionless. He had begun to descend the last stair, when all at once +he turned deadly sick, and had to sit down, grasping the balusters. In +a few minutes he recovered, and made the best speed he could to the +stable, where Kelpie was now beginning to demand her breakfast.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm had never in his life before felt sick, and it seemed awful +to him. Something that had appeared his own, a portion —hardly a +portion, rather an essential element of himself—had suddenly deserted +him, left him a prey to the inroad of something that was not of +himself, bringing with it faintness of heart, fear and dismay. He found +himself for the first time in his life trembling; and it was to him a +thing as appalling as strange. While he sat on the stair he could not +think; but as he walked to the mews he said to himself:</p> + +<p>“Am I then the slave of something that is not myself—something to +which my fancied freedom and strength are a mockery? Was my courage, +my peace, all the time dependent on something not me, which could be +separated from me, and but a moment ago was separated from me, and +left me as helplessly dismayed as the veriest coward in creation? I +wonder what Alexander would have thought if, as he swung himself on +Bucephalus, he had been taken as I was on the stair.”</p> + +<p>Afterwards, talking the thing over with Mr Graham, he said:</p> + +<p>“I saw that I had no hand in my own courage. If I had any courage, it +was simply that I was born with it. If it left me, I could not help +it: I could neither prevent nor recall it; I could only wait until it +returned. Why, then, I asked myself, should I feel ashamed that, for +five minutes, as I sat on the stair, Kelpie was a terror to me, and I +felt as if I dared not go near her? I had almost reached the stable +before I saw into it a little. Then I did see that if I had had nothing +to do with my own courage, it was quite time I had something to do with +it. If a man had no hand in his own nature, character, being, what +could he be better than a divine puppet—a happy creature, possibly—a +heavenly animal, like the grand horses and lions of the book of the +Revelation—but not one of the gods that the sons of God, the partakers +of the divine nature, are? For this end came the breach in my natural +courage— that I might repair it from the will and power God had given +me, that I might have a hand in the making of my own courage, in the +creating of myself. Therefore I must see to it.”</p> + +<p>Nor had he to wait for his next lesson, namely, the opportunity of +doing what he had been taught in the first. For just as he reached +the stable, where he heard Kelpie clamouring with hoofs and teeth, +after her usual manner when she judged herself neglected, the sickness +returned, and with it such a fear of the animal he heard thundering and +clashing on the other side of the door, as amounted to nothing less +than horror. She was a man-eating horse!—a creature with bloody teeth, +brain-spattered hoofs, and eyes of hate! A flesh-loving devil had +possessed her and was now crying out for her groom that he might devour +him.</p> + +<p>He gathered, with agonized effort, every power within him to an awful +council, and thus he said to himself:</p> + +<p>“Better a thousand times my brain plastered the stable-wall than I +should hold them in the head of a dastard. How can God look at me with +any content if I quail in the face of his four-footed creature! Does +he not demand of me action according to what I <i>know</i>, not what I may +chance at any moment to <i>feel</i>? God is my strength, and I will lay hold +of that strength and use it, or I have none, and Kelpie may take me and +welcome.”</p> + +<p>Therewith the sickness abated so far that he was able to open the +stable-door; and, having brought them once into the presence of their +terror, his will arose and lorded it over his shrinking quivering +nerves, and like slaves they obeyed him. Surely the Father of his +spirit was most in that will when most that will was Malcolm’s own! +It is when a man is most a man, that the cause of the man, the God +of his life, the very Life himself, the original life-creating Life, +is closest to him, is most within him. The individual, that his +individuality may blossom, and not soon be “massed into the common +clay,” must have the vital indwelling of the primary Individuality +which is its origin. The fire that is the hidden life of the bush will +not consume it.</p> + +<p>Malcolm tottered to the corn-bin, staggered up to Kelpie, fell up +against her hind quarters as they dropped from a great kick, but got +into the stall beside her. She turned eagerly, darted at her food, +swallowed it greedily, and was quiet as a lamb while he dressed her.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII.<br><span class="small">PORTLOSSIE AND SCAURNOSE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Meantime things were going rather badly at Portlossie and Scaurnose; +and the factor was the devil of them. Those who had known him longest +said he must be <i>fey</i>, that is <i>doomed</i>, so strangely altered was +his behaviour. Others said he took more counsel with his bottle than +had been his wont, and got no good from it. Almost all the fishers +found him surly, and upon some he broke out in violent rage, while +to certain whom he regarded as Malcolm’s special friends, he carried +himself with cruel oppression. The notice to leave at midsummer clouded +the destiny of Joseph Mair and his family, and every householder in +the two villages believed that to take them in would be to call down +the like fate upon himself. But Meg Partan at least was not to be +intimidated. Her outbursts of temper were but the hurricanes of a +tropical heart—not much the less true and good and steadfast that +it was fierce. Let the factor rage as he would, Meg was absolute in +her determination that, if the cruel sentence was carried out, which +she hardly expected, her house should be the shelter of those who had +received her daughter when her severity had driven her from her home. +That would leave her own family and theirs three months to look out +for another abode. Certain of Blue Peter’s friends ventured a visit +of intercession to the factor, and were received with composure and +treated with consideration until their object appeared, when his wrath +burst forth so wildly that they were glad to escape without having +to defend their persons: only the day before had he learned with +certainty from Miss Horn that Malcolm was still in the service of the +marchioness, and in constant attendance upon her when she rode. It +almost maddened him. He had for some time taken to drinking more toddy +after his dinner, and it was fast ruining his temper: his wife, who had +from the first excited his indignation against Malcolm, was now reaping +her reward. To complete the troubles of the fisher-folk, the harbour at +Portlossie had, by a severe equinoctial storm, been so filled with sand +as to be now inaccessible at lower than half tide, nobody as yet having +made it his business to see it attended to.</p> + +<p>But, in the midst of his anxieties about Florimel and his interest in +Clementina, Malcolm had not been forgetting them. As soon as he was +a little settled in London, he had written to Mr Soutar, and he to +architects and contractors, on the subject of a harbour at Scaurnose. +But there were difficulties, and the matter had been making but slow +progress. Malcolm, however, had insisted, and in consequence of his +determination to have the possibilities of the thing thoroughly +understood, three men appeared one morning on the rocks at the bottom +of the cliff on the west side of the Nose. The children of the village +discovered them, and carried the news; whereupon, the men being all +out in the bay, the women left their work and went to see what the +strangers were about. The moment they were satisfied that they could +make nothing of their proceedings, they naturally became suspicious. +To whom the fancy first occurred, nobody ever knew, but such was the +unhealthiness of the moral atmosphere of the place, caused by the +injustice and severity of Mr Crathie, that, once suggested, it was +universally received that they were sent by the factor—and that for +a purpose only too consistent with the treatment Scaurnose, they +said, had invariably received ever since first it was the dwelling of +fishers! Had not their fathers told them how unwelcome they were to the +lords of the land? And what rents had they not to pay! and how poor was +the shelter for which they did so much—without a foot of land to grow +a potato in! To crown all, the factor was at length about to drive them +in a body from the place—Blue Peter first, one of the best as well as +the most considerable men among them! His notice to quit was but the +beginning of a clearance. It was easy to see what those villains were +about—on that precious rock, their only friend, the one that did its +best to give them the sole shadow of harbourage they had, cutting off +the wind from the north-east a little, and breaking the eddy round the +point of the Nose! What <i>could</i> they be about but marking the spots +where to bore the holes for the blasting-powder that should scatter it +to the winds, and let death and destruction, and the wild sea howling +in upon Scaurnose, that the cormorant and the bittern might possess +it, the owl and the raven dwell in it? But it would be seen what their +husbands and fathers would say to it when they came home! In the +meantime they must themselves do what they could. What were they men’s +wives for, if not to act for their husbands when they happened to be +away?</p> + +<p>The result was a shower of stones upon the unsuspecting surveyors, +who forthwith fled, and carried the report of their reception to Mr +Soutar at Duff Harbour. He wrote to Mr Crathie, who till then had heard +nothing of the business; and the news increased both his discontent +with his superiors, and his wrath with those whom he had come to regard +as his rebellious subjects. The stiff-necked people of the Bible was to +him always now, as often he heard the words, the people of Scaurnose +and the Seaton of Portlossie. And having at length committed this +overt outrage, would he not be justified by all in taking more active +measures against them?</p> + +<p>When the fishermen came home and heard how their women had conducted +themselves, they accepted their conjectures, and approved of their +defence of the settlement. It was well for the land-loupers, they said, +that they had only the women to deal with.</p> + +<p>Blue Peter did not so soon hear of the affair as the rest, for his +Annie had not been one of the assailants. But when the hurried retreat +of the surveyors was described to him in somewhat graphic language by +one of those concerned in causing it, he struck his clenched fist in +the palm of his other hand, and cried,</p> + +<p>“Weel saired! There! that’s what comes o’ yer new——”</p> + +<p>He had all but broken his promise, as he had already broken his faith +to Malcolm, when his wife laid her hand on his mouth and stopped the +issuing word. He started with sudden conviction and stood for a moment +in absolute terror at sight of the precipice down which he had been +on the point of falling, then straightway excusing himself to his +conscience on the ground of non intent, was instantly angrier with +Malcolm than before. He could not reflect that the disregarded cause +of the threatened sin was the greater sin of the two. The breach of +that charity which thinketh no evil may be a graver fault than a hasty +breach of promise.</p> + +<p>Peter had not been improving since his return from London. He found +less satisfaction in his <i>religious exercises</i>; was not unfrequently +clouded in temper, occasionally even to sullenness; referred things +oftener than formerly to the vileness of the human nature, but was far +less willing than before to allow that he might himself be wrong; while +somehow the Bible had no more the same plenitude of relation to the +wants of his being, and he rose from the reading of it unrefreshed. Men +asked each other what had come to Blue Peter, but no one could answer +the question. For himself, he attributed the change, which he could not +but recognise, although he did not understand it, to the withdrawing +of the spirit of God, in displeasure that he had not merely allowed +himself to be inveigled into a playhouse, but, far worse, had enjoyed +the wickedness he saw there. When his wife reasoned that God knew he +had gone in ignorance, trusting his friend, he cried,</p> + +<p>“What’s that to him wha judges richteous judgment? What’s a’ oor puir +meeserable excuzes i’ the een ’at can see throu’ the wa’s o’ the hert! +Ignorance is no innocence.”</p> + +<p>Thus he lied for God, pleading his cause on the principles of hell. But +the eye of his wife was single, and her body full of light; therefore +to her it was plain that neither the theatre nor his conscience +concerning it was the cause of the change: it had to do with his +feelings towards Malcolm. He wronged his friend in his heart, half knew +it, but would not own it. Fearing to search himself, he took refuge +in resentment, and to support his hard judgment, put false and cruel +interpretations on whatever befell. So that, with love and anger and +wrong acknowledged, his heart was full of bitterness.</p> + +<p>“It’s a’ the drumblet (<i>muddied, troubled</i>) luve o’ ’im!” said Annie +to herself. “Puir fallow! gien only Ma’colm wad come hame, an’ lat him +ken he’s no the villain he taks him for. I’ll no believe mysel’ ’at the +laad I kissed like my ain mither’s son afore he gaed awa’ wad turn like +that upo’ ’s ’maist the meenute he was oot o’ sicht, an’ a’ for a feow +words aboot a fulish play-actin’. Lord bliss us a’! markises is men!”</p> + +<p>“We’ll see, Peter, my man,” she said, when the neighbour took her +leave, “whether the wife, though she hasna been to the ill place, an’ +that’s surely Lon’on, canna tell the true frae the fause full better +nor her man, ’at kens sae muckle mair nor she wants to ken? Lat sit an’ +lat see.”</p> + +<p>Blue Peter made no reply; but perhaps the deepest depth in his fall +was that he <i>feared</i> his wife might be right, and he have one day to +stand ashamed before both her and his friend. But there are marvellous +differences in the <i>quality</i> of the sins of different men, and a +noble nature like Peter’s would have to sink far indeed to be beyond +redemption. Still there was one element mingling with his wrongness +whose very triviality increased the difficulty of long-delaying +repentance: he had been not a little proud at finding himself the +friend of a marquis. From the first they had been friends, when the one +was a youth and the other a child, and had been out together in many +a stormy and dangerous sea. More than once or twice, driven from the +churlish ocean to the scarce less inhospitable shore, they had lain all +night in each other’s arms to keep the life awake within their frozen +garments. And now this marquis spoke English to him! It rankled!</p> + +<p>All the time Blue Peter was careful to say nothing to injure Malcolm +in the eyes of his former comrades. His manner when his name was +mentioned, however, he could not honestly school to the conveyance of +the impression that things were as they had been betwixt them. Folk +marked the difference, and it went to swell the general feeling that +Malcolm had done ill to forsake a seafaring life for one upon which all +fishermen must look down with contempt. Some in the Seaton went so far +in their enmity as even to hint at an explanation of his conduct in the +truth of the discarded scandal which had laid Lizzy’s child at his door.</p> + +<p>But amongst them was one who, having wronged him thus, and been +convinced of her error, was now so fiercely his partisan as to be +ready to wrong the whole town in his defence: that was Meg Partan, +properly Mistress Findlay, Lizzy’s mother. Although the daughter had +never confessed, the mother had yet arrived at the right conclusion +concerning the father of her child—how, she could hardly herself have +told, for the conviction had grown by accretion; a sign here and a sign +there, impalpable save to maternal sense, had led her to the truth; and +now, if anyone had a word to say against Malcolm, he had better not say +it in the hearing of the Partaness.</p> + +<p>One day Blue Peter was walking home from the upper town of +Portlossie, not with the lazy gait of the fisherman off work, poised +backwards, with hands in trouser-pocket, but stooping care-laden +with listless-swinging arms. Thus Meg Partan met him—and of course +attributed his dejection to the factor.</p> + +<p>“Deil ha’e ’im for an upsettin’ rascal ’at hasna pride eneuch to haud +him ohn lickit the gentry’s shune! The man maun be fey! I houp he may, +an’ I wuss I saw the beerial o’ ’im makin’ for the kirkyaird. It’s nae +ill to wuss weel to a’ body ’at wad be left! His nose is turnt twise +the colour i’ the last twa month. He’ll be drinkin’ byous. Gien only +Ma’colm MacPhail had been at hame to haud him in order!”</p> + +<p>Peter said nothing, and his silence, to one who spake out whatever +came, seemed fuller of restraints and meanings than it was. She +challenged it at once.</p> + +<p>“Noo, what mean ye by sayin’ naething, Peter? Guid kens it’s the warst +thing man or woman can say o’ onybody to haud their tongue. It’s a +thing I never was blamed wi’ mysel’, an’ I wadna du ’t.”</p> + +<p>“That’s verra true,” said Peter.</p> + +<p>“The mair weicht’s intill ’t whan I lay ’t to the door o’ anither,” +persisted Meg. “Peter, gien ye ha’e onything again’ my freen’ Ma’colm +MacPhail, oot wi’ ’t like a man, an’ no playac’ the gunpoother-plot +ower again. Ill wull’s the warst poother ye can lay i’ the boddom o’ +ony man’s boat. But say ’at ye like, I s’ uphaud Ma’colm again’ the +haill poustie o’ ye. Gien he was but here! I say ’t again, honest laad!”</p> + +<p>But she could not rouse Peter to utterance, and losing what little +temper she had, she rated him soundly, and sent him home saying with +the prophet Jonah, “Do I not well to be angry?” for that also he placed +to Malcolm’s account. Nor was his home any more a harbour for his riven +boat, seeing his wife only longed for the return of him with whom his +spirit chode: she regarded him as an exiled king, one day to reappear, +and justify himself in the eyes of all, friends and enemies.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII.<br><span class="small">TORTURE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Though unable to eat any breakfast, Malcolm persuaded himself that he +felt nearly as well as usual when he went to receive his mistress’s +orders. Florimel had had enough of horseback—for several days to come +indeed—and would not ride. So he saddled Kelpie, and rode to Chelsea +to look after his boat. To get rid of the mare, he rang the stable-bell +at Mr Lenorme’s, and the gardener let him in. As he was putting her +up, the man told him that the housekeeper had heard from his master. +Malcolm went to the house to learn what he might, and found to his +surprise that, if he had gone on the continent, he was there no longer, +for the letter, which contained only directions concerning some of his +pictures, was dated from Newcastle, and bore the Durham postmark of a +week ago. Malcolm remembered that he had heard Lenorme speak of Durham +cathedral, and in the hope that he might be spending some time there, +begged the housekeeper to allow him to go to the study to write to her +master. When he entered, however, he saw something that made him change +his plan, and, having written, instead of sending the letter, as he +had intended, inclosed to the postmaster at Durham, he left it upon +an easel. It contained merely an earnest entreaty to be made and kept +acquainted with his movements, that he might at once let him know if +anything should occur that he ought to be informed concerning.</p> + +<p>He found all on board the yacht in ship-shape, only Davy was absent. +Travers explained that he sent him on shore for a few hours every day. +He was a sharp boy, he said, and the more he saw, the more useful he +would be, and as he never gave him any money, there was no risk of his +mistaking his hours.</p> + +<p>“When do you expect him?” asked Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“At four o’clock,” answered Travers.</p> + +<p>“It is four now,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>A shrill whistle came from the Chelsea shore.</p> + +<p>“And there’s Davy,” said Travers.</p> + +<p>Malcolm got into the dinghy and rowed ashore.</p> + +<p>“Davy,” he said, “I don’t want you to be all day on board, but I can’t +have you be longer away than an hour at a time.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, ay, sir,” said Davy.</p> + +<p>“Now attend to me.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, ay, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know Lady Lossie’s house?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir; but I ken hersel’.”</p> + +<p>“How is that?”</p> + +<p>“I ha’e seen her mair nor twa or three times, ridin’ wi’ yersel’, to +yon hoose yon’er.”</p> + +<p>“Would you know her again?”</p> + +<p>“Ay wad I—fine that. What for no, sir?”</p> + +<p>“It’s a good way to see a lady across the Thames and know her again.”</p> + +<p>“Ow! but I tuik the spy-glaiss till her,” answered Davy, reddening.</p> + +<p>“You are sure of her, then?”</p> + +<p>“I <i>am</i> that, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Then come with me, and I will show you where she lives. I will not +ride faster than you can run. But mind you don’t look as if you +belonged to me.”</p> + +<p>“Na, na, sir. There’s fowk takin’ nottice.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?”</p> + +<p>“There’s a wee laddie been efter mysel’ twise or thrice.”</p> + +<p>“Did you do anything?”</p> + +<p>“He wasna big eneuch to lick, sae I jist got him the last time an’ pu’d +his niz, an’ I dinna think he’ll come efter me again.”</p> + +<p>To see what the boy could do, Malcolm let Kelpie go at a good trot: but +Davy kept up without effort, now shooting ahead, now falling behind, +now stopping to look in at a window, and now to cast a glance at a +game of pitch and toss. No mere passer-by could have suspected that +the sailor-boy belonged to the horseman. He dropped him not far from +Portland Place, telling him to go and look at the number, but not stare +at the house.</p> + +<p>All the time he had had no return of the sickness, but, although thus +actively occupied, had felt greatly depressed. One main cause of +this was, however, that he had not found his religion stand him in +such stead as he might have hoped. It was not yet what it must be to +prove its reality. And now his eyes were afresh opened to see that +in his nature and thoughts lay large spaces wherein God ruled not +supreme—desert places, where who could tell what might appear? For +in such regions wild beasts range, evil herbs flourish, and demons go +about. If in very deed he lived and moved and had his being in God, +then assuredly there ought not to be one cranny in his nature, one +realm of his consciousness, one well-spring of thought, where the will +of God was a stranger. If all were as it should be, then surely there +would be no moment, looking back on which he could not at least say,</p> + +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet like some sweet beguiling melody,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, with my life and life’s own secret joy.</span><br> +</p> + +<p>“In that agony o’ sickness, as I sat upo’ the stair,” he said to +himself, for still in his own thoughts he spoke his native tongue, +“whaur was my God in a’ my thouchts? I did cry till ’im, I min’ weel, +but it was my reelin’ brain an’ no my trustin’ hert ’at cried. Aih me! +I doobt gien the Lord war to come to me noo, he wadna fin’ muckle faith +i’ my pairt o’ the yerth. Aih! I wad like to lat him see something like +lippenin’! I wad fain trust him till his hert’s content. But I doobt +it’s only speeritual ambeetion, or better wad hae come o’ ’t by this +time. Gien that sickness come again, I maun see, noo ’at I’m forewarned +o’ my ain wakeness, what I can du. It maun be something better nor last +time, or I’ll tine hert a’thegither. Weel, maybe I need to be heumblet. +The Lord help me!”</p> + +<p>In the evening he went to the schoolmaster, and gave him a pretty full +account of where he had been and what had taken place since last he saw +him, dwelling chiefly on his endeavours with Lady Clementina.</p> + +<p>From Mr Graham’s lodging to the north-eastern gate of the Regent’s +Park, the nearest way led through a certain passage, which, although a +thoroughfare to persons on foot, was little known. Malcolm had early +discovered it, and always used it. Part of this short cut was the +yard and back-premises of a small public-house. It was between eleven +and twelve as he entered it for the second time that night. Sunk in +thought and suspecting no evil, he was struck down from behind, and +lost his consciousness. When he came to himself he was lying in the +public house, with his head bound up, and a doctor standing over him, +who asked him if he had been robbed. He searched his pockets, and +found that his old watch was gone, but his money left. One of the +men standing about said he would see him home. He half thought he +had seen him before, and did not like the look of him, but accepted +the offer, hoping to get on the track of something thereby. As soon +as they entered the comparative solitude of the park he begged his +companion, who had scarcely spoken all the way, to give him his arm, +and leaned upon it as if still suffering, but watched him closely. +About the middle of the park, where not a creature was in sight, he +felt him begin to fumble in his coat-pocket, and draw something from +it. But when, unresisted, he snatched away his other arm, Malcolm’s +fist followed it, and the man fell, nor made any resistance while he +took from him a short stick, loaded with lead, and his own watch, which +he found in his waistcoat-pocket. Then the fellow rose with apparent +difficulty, but the moment he was on his legs, ran like a hare, and +Malcolm let him run, for he felt unable to follow him.</p> + +<p>As soon as he reached home, he went to bed, for his head ached +severely; but he slept pretty well, and in the morning flattered +himself he felt much as usual. But it was as if all the night that +horrible sickness had been lying in wait on the stair to spring upon +him, for, the moment he reached the same spot on his way down, he +almost fainted. It was worse than before. His very soul seemed to turn +sick. But although his heart died within him, somehow, in the confusion +of thought and feeling occasioned by intense suffering, it seemed while +he clung to the balusters as if with both hands he were clinging to the +skirts of God’s garment; and through the black smoke of his fainting, +his soul seemed to be struggling up towards the light of his being. +Presently the horrible sense subsided as before, and again he sought +to descend the stair and go to Kelpie. But immediately the sickness +returned, and all he could do after a long and vain struggle, was to +crawl on hands and knees up the stairs and back to his room. There he +crept upon his bed, and was feebly committing Kelpie to the care of her +maker, when consciousness forsook him.</p> + +<p>It returned, heralded by frightful pains all over his body, which by +and by subsiding, he sank again to the bottom of the black Lethe.</p> + +<p>Meantime Kelpie had got so wildly uproarious that Merton tossed her +half a truss of hay, which she attacked like an enemy, and ran to the +house to get somebody to call Malcolm. After what seemed endless delay, +the door was opened by his admirer, the scullery-maid, who, as soon as +she heard what was the matter, hastened to his room.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XLIX">CHAPTER XLIX.<br><span class="small">THE PHILTRE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Before he again came to himself, Malcolm had a dream, which, although +very confused, was in parts more vivid than any he had ever had. His +surroundings in it were those in which he actually lay, and he was ill, +but he thought it the one illness he had before. His head ached, and he +could rest in no position he tried. Suddenly he heard a step he knew +better than any other approaching the door of his chamber: it opened, +and his grandfather in great agitation entered, not following his +hands, however, in the fashion usual to blindness, but carrying himself +like any sight-gifted man. He went straight to the wash-stand, took up +the water-bottle, and with a look of mingled wrath and horror dashed it +on the floor. The same instant a cold shiver ran through the dreamer, +and his dream vanished. But instead of waking in his bed, he found +himself standing in the middle of the floor, his feet wet, the bottle +in shivers about them, and, strangest of all, the neck of the bottle in +his hand. He lay down again, grew delirious, and tossed about in the +remorseless persecution of centuries. But at length his tormentors left +him, and when he came to himself, he knew he was in his right mind.</p> + +<p>It was evening, and some one was sitting near his bed. By the light of +the long-snuffed tallow candle, he saw the glitter of two great black +eyes watching him, and recognised the young woman who had admitted him +to the house the night of his return, and whom he had since met once or +twice as he came and went. The moment she perceived that he was aware +of her presence, she threw herself on her knees at his bedside, hid her +face, and began to weep. The sympathy of his nature rendered yet more +sensitive by weakness and suffering, Malcolm laid his hand on her head, +and sought to comfort her.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be alarmed about me,” he said, “I shall soon be all right again.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t bear it,” she sobbed. “I can’t bear to see you like that, and +all my fault.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Your</i> fault! What <i>can</i> you mean?” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“But I did go for the doctor, for all it may be the hanging of me,” she +sobbed. “Miss Caley said I wasn’t to, but I would and I did. They can’t +say I meant it—can they?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand,” said Malcolm, feebly.</p> + +<p>“The doctor says somebody’s been an’ p’isoned you,” said the girl, with +a cry that sounded like a mingled sob and howl; “an’ he’s been a-pokin’ +of all sorts of things down your poor throat.”</p> + +<p>And again she cried aloud in her agony.</p> + +<p>“Well, never mind; I’m not dead you see; and I’ll take better care of +myself after this. Thank you for being so good to me; you’ve saved my +life.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! you won’t be so kind to me when you know all, Mr MacPhail,” sobbed +the girl. “It was myself gave you the horrid stuff, but God knows I +didn’t mean to do you no harm no more than your own mother.”</p> + +<p>“What made you do it then?” asked Malcolm:</p> + +<p>“The witch-woman told me to. She said that—that—if I gave it you—you +would—you would——”</p> + +<p>She buried her face in the bed, and so stifled a fresh howl of pain and +shame.</p> + +<p>“And it was all lies—lies!” she resumed, lifting her face again, which +now flashed with rage, “for I know you’ll hate me worse than ever now.”</p> + +<p>“My poor girl, I never hated you,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“No, but you did as bad: you never looked at me. And now you’ll hate me +out and out. And the doctor says if you die, he’ll have it all searched +into, and Miss Caley she look at me as if she suspect me of a hand in +it; and they won’t let alone till they’ve got me hanged for it; and +it’s all along of love of you; and I tell you the truth, Mr MacPhail, +and you can do anything with me you like —I don’t care—only you won’t +let them hang me—will you?—Oh, please don’t.”</p> + +<p>She said all this with clasped hands, and the tears streaming down her +face.</p> + +<p>Malcolm’s impulse was of course to draw her to him and comfort her, but +something warned him.</p> + +<p>“Well, you see I’m not going to die just yet,” he said as merrily as he +could; “and if I find myself going, I shall take care the blame falls +on the right person. What was the witch-woman like? Sit down on the +chair there, and tell me all about her.”</p> + +<p>She obeyed with a sigh, and gave him such a description as he could +not mistake. He asked where she lived, but the girl had never met her +anywhere but in the street, she said.</p> + +<p>Questioning her very carefully as to Caley’s behaviour to her, Malcolm +was convinced that she had a hand in the affair. Indeed, she had +happily more to do with it than even Mrs Catanach knew, for she had +traversed her treatment to the advantage of Malcolm. The mid-wife had +meant the potion to work slowly, but the lady’s-maid had added to the +pretended philtre a certain ingredient in whose efficacy she had reason +to trust; and the combination, while it wrought more rapidly, had yet +apparently set up a counteraction favourable to the efforts of the +struggling vitality which it stung to an agonised resistance.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm’s strength was now exhausted. He turned faint, and the +girl had the sense to run to the kitchen and get him some soup. As he +took it, her demeanour and regards made him anxious, uncomfortable, +embarrassed. It is to any true man a hateful thing to repel a woman +—it is such a reflection upon her.</p> + +<p>“I’ve told you everything, Mr MacPhail, and it’s gospel truth I’ve told +you,” said the girl, after a long pause.—It was a relief when first +she spoke, but the comfort vanished as she went on, and with slow, +perhaps unconscious movements approached him.—“I would have died for +you, and here that devil of a woman has been making me kill you! Oh, +how I hate her! Now you will never love me a bit—-not one tiny little +bit for ever and ever!”</p> + +<p>There was a tone of despairful entreaty in her words that touched +Malcolm deeply.</p> + +<p>“I am more indebted to you than I can speak or you imagine,” he said. +“You have saved me from my worst enemy. Do not tell any other what you +have told me, or let anyone know that we have talked together. The day +will come when I shall be able to show you my gratitude.”</p> + +<p>Something in his tone struck her, even through the folds of her +passion. She looked at him a little amazed, and for a moment the tide +ebbed. Then came a rush that overmastered her. She flung her hands +above her head, and cried,</p> + +<p>“That means you will do anything but love me!”</p> + +<p>“I cannot love you as you mean,” said Malcolm. “I promise to be your +friend, but more is out of my power.”</p> + +<p>A fierce light came into the girl’s eyes. But that instant a terrible +cry, such as Malcolm had never heard, but which he knew must be +Kelpie’s, rang through the air, followed by the shouts of men, the +tones of fierce execration, and the clash and clang of hoofs.</p> + +<p>“Good God!” he exclaimed, and forgetting everything else, sprang from +the bed, and ran to the window outside his door.</p> + +<p>The light of their lanterns dimly showed a confused crowd in the yard +of the mews, and amidst the hellish uproar of their coarse voices he +could hear Kelpie plunging and kicking. Again she uttered the same +ringing scream. He threw the window open and cried to her that he +was coming, but the noise was far too great for his enfeebled voice. +Hurriedly he added a garment or two to his half-dress, rushed to the +stair, passing his new friend, who watched anxiously at the head of it, +without seeing her, and shot from the house.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_L">CHAPTER L.<br><span class="small">THE DEMONESS AT BAY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When he reached the yard of the mews, the uproar had nothing abated. +But when he cried out to Kelpie, through it all came a whinny of +appeal, instantly followed by a scream. When he got up to the lanterns, +he found a group of wrathful men with stable-forks surrounding the poor +animal, from whom the blood was streaming before and behind. Fierce as +she was, she dared not move, but stood trembling, with the sweat of +terror pouring from her. Yet her eye showed that not even terror had +cowed her. She was but biding her time. Her master’s first impulse was +to scatter the men right and left, but on second thoughts, of which +he was even then capable, he saw that they might have been driven to +apparent brutality in defence of their lives, and besides he could not +tell what Kelpie might do if suddenly released. So he caught her by the +broken halter, and told them to fall back. They did so carefully—it +seemed unwillingly. But the mare had eyes and ears only for her master. +What she had never done before, she nosed him over face and shoulders, +trembling all the time. Suddenly one of her tormentors darted forward, +and gave her a terrible prod in the off hind quarter. But he paid +dearly for it. Ere he could draw back, she lashed out, and shot him +half across the yard with his knee joint broken. The whole set of them +rushed at her.</p> + +<p>“Leave her alone,” shouted Malcolm, “or I will take her part. Between +us we’ll do for a dozen of you.”</p> + +<p>“The devil’s in her,” said one of them.</p> + +<p>“You’ll find more of him in that rascal groaning yonder. You had better +see to him. He’ll never do such a thing again, I fancy. Where is +Merton?”</p> + +<p>They drew off and went to help their comrade, who lay senseless.</p> + +<p>When Malcolm would have led Kelpie in, she stopped suddenly at the +stable-door, and started back shuddering, as if the memory of what +she had endured there overcame her. Every fibre of her trembled. He +saw that she must have been pitifully used before she broke loose and +got out. But she yielded to his coaxing, and he led her to her stall +without difficulty. He wished Lady Clementina herself could have been +his witness how she knew her friend and trusted him. Had she seen how +the poor bleeding thing rejoiced over him, she could not have doubted +that his treatment had been in part at least a success.</p> + +<p>Kelpie had many enemies amongst the men of the mews. Merton had gone +out for the evening, and they had taken the opportunity of getting into +her stable and tormenting her. At length she broke her fastenings; they +fled, and she rushed out after them.</p> + +<p>They carried the maimed man to the hospital, where his leg was +immediately amputated.</p> + +<p>Malcolm washed and dried his poor animal, handling her as gently as +possible, for she was in a sad plight. It was plain he must not have +her here any longer: worse to her at least was sure to follow. He went +up, trembling himself now, to Mrs Merton. She told him she was just +running to fetch him when he arrived: she had no idea how ill he was. +But he felt all the better for the excitement, and after he had taken +a cup of strong tea, wrote to Mr Soutar to provide men on whom he +could depend, if possible the same who had taken her there before, to +await Kelpie’s arrival at Aberdeen. There he must also find suitable +housing and attention for her at any expense until further directions, +or until, more probably, he should claim her himself. He added many +instructions to be given as to her treatment.</p> + +<p>Until Merton returned he kept watch, then went back to the chamber of +his torture, which, like Kelpie, he shuddered to enter. The cook let +him in, and gave him his candle, but hardly had he closed his door when +a tap came to it, and there stood Rose, his preserver. He could not +help feeling embarrassed when he saw her.</p> + +<p>“I see you don’t trust me,” she said.</p> + +<p>“I do trust you,” he answered. “Will you bring me some water. I dare +not drink anything that has been standing.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him with inquiring eyes, nodded her head, and went. When +she returned, he drank the water.</p> + +<p>“There! you see I trust you,” he said with a laugh. “But there are +people about who for certain reasons want to get rid of me: will you be +on my side?”</p> + +<p>“That I will,” she answered eagerly.</p> + +<p>“I have not got my plans laid yet; but will you meet me somewhere near +this to-morrow night? I shall not be at home, perhaps, all day.”</p> + +<p>She stared at him with great eyes, but agreed at once, and they +appointed time and place. He then bade her good night, and the moment +she left him lay down on the bed to think. But he did not trouble +himself yet to unravel the plot against him, or determine whether the +violence he had suffered had the same origin with the poisoning. Nor +was the question merely how to continue to serve his sister without +danger to his life; for he had just learned what rendered it absolutely +imperative that she should be removed from her present position. Mrs +Merton had told him that Lady Lossie was about to accompany Lady +Bellair and Lord Liftore to the continent. That must not be, whatever +means might be necessary to prevent it. Before he went to sleep things +had cleared themselves up considerably.</p> + +<p>He woke much better, and rose at his usual hour. Kelpie rejoiced him by +affording little other sign of the cruelty she had suffered than the +angry twitching of her skin when hand or brush approached a wound. The +worst fear was that some few white hairs might by and by in consequence +fleck her spotless black. Having urgently committed her to Merton’s +care, he mounted Honour, and rode to the Aberdeen wharf. There to +his relief, time growing precious, he learned that the same smack in +which Kelpie had come was to sail the next morning for Aberdeen. He +arranged at once for her passage, and, before he left, saw to every +contrivance he could think of for her safety and comfort. He warned the +crew concerning her temper, but at the same time prejudiced them in her +favour by the argument of a few sovereigns. He then rode to the Chelsea +Reach, where the Psyche had now grown to be a feature of the river in +the eyes of the dwellers upon its banks.</p> + +<p>At his whistle, Davy tumbled into the dinghy like a round ball over +the gunwale, and was rowing for the shore ere his whistle had ceased +ringing in Malcolm’s own ears. He left him with his horse, went on +board, and gave various directions to Travers; then took Davy with +him, and bought many things at different shops, which he ordered to be +delivered to Davy when he should call for them. Having next instructed +him to get everything on board as soon as possible, and appointed to +meet him at the same place and hour he had arranged with Rose, he went +home.</p> + +<p>A little anxious lest Florimel might have wanted him, for it was now +past the hour at which he usually waited her orders, he learned to his +relief that she was gone shopping with Lady Bellair, upon which he set +out for the hospital, whither they had carried the man Kelpie had so +terribly mauled. He went, not merely led by sympathy, but urged by a +suspicion also which he desired to verify or remove. On the plea of +identification, he was permitted to look at him for a moment, but not +to speak to him. It was enough: he recognised him at once as the same +whose second attack he had foiled in the Regent’s Park. He remembered +having seen him about the stable, but had never spoken to him. Giving +the nurse a sovereign, and Mr Soutar’s address, he requested her to let +that gentleman know as soon as it was possible to conjecture the time +of his leaving. Returning, he gave Merton a hint to keep his eye on the +man, and some money to spend for him as he judged best. He then took +Kelpie for an airing. To his surprise she fatigued him so much that +when he had put her up again he was glad to go and lie down.</p> + +<p>When it came near the time for meeting Rose and Davy, he got his +things together in the old carpet-bag, which held all he cared for, +and carried it with him. As he drew near the spot, he saw Davy already +there, keeping a sharp look out on all sides. Presently Rose appeared, +but drew back when she saw Davy. Malcolm went to her.</p> + +<p>“Rose,” he said, “I am going to ask you to do me a great favour. But +you cannot except you are able to trust me.”</p> + +<p>“I do trust you,” she answered.</p> + +<p>“All I can tell you now is that you must go with that boy to-morrow. +Before night you shall know more. Will you do it?”</p> + +<p>“I will,” answered Rose. “I dearly love a secret.”</p> + +<p>“I promise to let you understand it, if you do just as I tell you.”</p> + +<p>“I will.”</p> + +<p>“Be at this very spot then to-morrow morning, at six o’clock. Come +here, Davy. This boy will take you where I shall tell him.”</p> + +<p>She looked from the one to the other.</p> + +<p>“I’ll risk it,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Put on a clean frock, and take a change of linen with you and your +dressing things. No harm shall come to you.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not afraid,” she answered, but looked as if she would cry.</p> + +<p>“Of course you will not tell anyone.”</p> + +<p>“I will not, Mr MacPhail.”</p> + +<p>“You are trusting me a great deal, Rose; but I am trusting you too +—more than you think.—Be off with that bag, Davy, and be here at six +to-morrow morning, to carry this young woman’s for her.”</p> + +<p>Davy vanished.</p> + +<p>“Now, Rose,” continued Malcolm, “you had better go and make your +preparations.”</p> + +<p>“Is that all, sir?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes. I shall see you to-morrow. Be brave.”</p> + +<p>Something in Malcolm’s tone and manner seemed to work strangely on the +girl. She gazed up at him half frightened, but submissive, and went at +once, looking, however, sadly disappointed.</p> + +<p>Malcolm had intended to go and tell Mr Graham of his plans that same +night, but he found himself too much exhausted to walk to Camden Town. +And thinking over it, he saw that it might be as well if he took the +bold measure he contemplated without revealing it to his friend, to +whom the knowledge might be the cause of inconvenience. He therefore +went home and to bed, that he might be strong for the next day.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LI">CHAPTER LI.<br><span class="small">THE PSYCHE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>He rose early the next morning, and having fed and dressed Kelpie, +strapped her blanket behind her saddle, and, by all the macadamized +ways he could find, rode her to the wharf—near where the Thames-tunnel +had just been commenced. He had no great difficulty with her on the +way, though it was rather nervous work at times. But of late her +submission to her master had been decidedly growing. When he reached +the wharf he rode her straight along the gangway on to the deck of the +smack, as the easiest if not perhaps the safest way of getting her +on board. As soon as she was properly secured, and he had satisfied +himself as to the provision they had made for her, impressed upon the +captain the necessity of being bountiful to her, and brought a loaf of +sugar on board for her use, he left her with a lighter heart than he +had had ever since first he fetched her from the same deck.</p> + +<p>It was a long way to walk home, but he felt much better, and thought +nothing of it. And all the way, to his delight, the wind met him in the +face. A steady westerly breeze was blowing. If God makes his angels +winds, as the Psalmist says, here was one sent to wait upon him. He +reached Portland Place in time to present himself for orders at the +usual hour. On these occasions, his mistress not unfrequently saw him +herself; but to make sure, he sent up the request that she would speak +with him.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry to hear that you have been ill, Malcolm,” she said kindly, +as he entered the room, where happily he found her alone.</p> + +<p>“I am quite well now, thank you, my lady,” he returned. “I thought +your ladyship would like to hear something I happened to come to the +knowledge of the other day.”</p> + +<p>“Yes? What was that?”</p> + +<p>“I called at Mr Lenorme’s to learn what news there might be of him. The +housekeeper let me go up to his painting-room; and what should I see +there, my lady, but the portrait of my lord marquis more beautiful than +ever, the brown smear all gone, and the likeness, to my mind, greater +than before!”</p> + +<p>“Then Mr Lenorme is come home!” cried Florimel, scarce attempting to +conceal the pleasure his report gave her.</p> + +<p>“That I cannot say,” said Malcolm. “His housekeeper had a letter from +him a few days ago from Newcastle. If he is come back, I do not think +she knows it. It seems strange, for who would touch one of his pictures +but himself?—except, indeed, he got some friend to set it to rights +for your ladyship. Anyhow, I thought you would like to see it again.”</p> + +<p>“I will go at once,” Florimel said, rising hastily. “Get the horses, +Malcolm, as fast as you can.”</p> + +<p>“If my Lord Liftore should come before we start?” he suggested.</p> + +<p>“Make haste,” returned his mistress, impatiently.</p> + +<p>Malcolm did make haste, and so did Florimel. What precisely was in +her thoughts who shall say, when she could not have told herself? But +doubtless the chance of seeing Lenorme urged her more than the desire +to see her father’s portrait. Within twenty minutes they were riding +down Grosvenor Place, and happily heard no following hoof-beats. When +they came near the river, Malcolm rode up to her and said,</p> + +<p>“Would your ladyship allow me to put up the horses in Mr Lenorme’s +stable? I think I could show your ladyship a point or two that may have +escaped you.”</p> + +<p>Florimel thought for a moment, and concluded it would be less awkward, +would indeed tend rather to her advantage with Lenorme, should he +really be there, to have Malcolm with her.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” she answered. “I see no objection. I will ride round with +you to the stable, and we can go in the back way.”</p> + +<p>They did so. The gardener took the horses, and they went up to the +study. Lenorme was not there, and everything was just as when Malcolm +was last in the room. Florimel was much disappointed, but Malcolm +talked to her about the portrait, and did all he could to bring back +vivid the memory of her father. At length with a little sigh she made a +movement to go.</p> + +<p>“Has your ladyship ever seen the river from the next room?” said +Malcolm, and, as he spoke, threw open the door of communication, near +which they stood.</p> + +<p>Florimel, who was always ready to <i>see</i>, walked straight into the +drawing-room, and went to a window.</p> + +<p>“There is that yacht lying there still!” remarked Malcolm. “Does she +not remind you of the Psyche, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“Every boat does that,” answered his mistress. “I dream about her. But +I couldn’t tell her from many another.”</p> + +<p>“People used to boats, my lady, learn to know them like the faces of +their friends.—What a day for a sail!”</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose that one is for hire?” said Florimel.</p> + +<p>“We can ask,” replied Malcolm; and with that went to another window, +raised the sash, put his head out, and whistled. Over tumbled Davy into +the dinghy at the Psyche’s stern, unloosed the painter, and was rowing +for the shore ere the minute was out.</p> + +<p>“Why, they’re answering your whistle already!” said Florimel.</p> + +<p>“A whistle goes farther, and perhaps is more imperative than any other +call,” returned Malcolm evasively. “Will your ladyship come down and +hear what they say?”</p> + +<p>A wave from the slow-silting lagoon of her girlhood came washing over +the sands between, and Florimel flew merrily down the stair and across +hall and garden and road to the river-bank, where was a little wooden +stage or landing place, with a few steps, at which the dinghy was just +arriving.</p> + +<p>“Will you take us on board and show us your boat?” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Davy.</p> + +<p>Without a moment’s hesitation, Florimel took Malcolm’s offered hand, +and stepped into the boat. Malcolm took the oars, and shot the little +tub across the river. When they got alongside the cutter, Travers +reached down both his hands for hers, and Malcolm held one of his for +her foot, and Florimel sprang on deck.</p> + +<p>“Young woman on board, Davy?” whispered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Ay, ay, sir—doon i’ the fore,” answered Davy, and Malcolm stood by +his mistress.</p> + +<p>“She <i>is</i> like the Psyche,” said Florimel, turning to him, “only the +mast is not so tall.”</p> + +<p>“Her topmast is struck, you see my lady—to make sure of her passing +clear under the bridges.”</p> + +<p>“Ask them if we couldn’t go down the river a little way,” said +Florimel. “I should so like to see the houses from it!”</p> + +<p>Malcolm conferred a moment with Travers and returned.</p> + +<p>“They are quite willing, my lady,” he said.</p> + +<p>“What fun!” cried Florimel, her girlish spirit all at the surface. “How +I should like to run away from horrid London altogether, and never hear +of it again!—Dear old Lossie House! and the boats! and the fishermen!” +she added meditatively.</p> + +<p>The anchor was already up, and the yacht drifting with the falling +tide. A moment more and she spread a low treble-reefed main-sail +behind, a little jib before, and the western breeze filled and swelled +and made them alive, and with wind and tide she went swiftly down the +smooth stream. Florimel clapped her hands with delight. The shores and +all their houses fled up the river. They slid past row-boats, and great +heavy barges loaded to the lip, with huge red sails and yellow, glowing +and gleaming in the hot sun. For one moment the shadow of Vauxhall +Bridge gloomed like a death-cloud, chill and cavernous, over their +heads; then out again they shot into the lovely light and heat of the +summer world.</p> + +<p>“It’s well we ain’t got to shoot Putney or Battersea,” said Travers +with a grim smile, as he stood shaping her course by inches with his +magic-like steering, in the midst of a little covey of pleasure-boats: +“with this wind we might ha’ brought either on ’em about our ears like +an old barn.”</p> + +<p>“This <i>is</i> life!” cried Florimel, as the river bore them nearer and +nearer to the vortex—deeper and deeper into the tumult of London.</p> + +<p>How solemn the silent yet never resting highway!—almost majestic +in the stillness of its hurrying might as it rolled heedless past +houses and wharfs that crowded its brinks. They darted through under +Westminster Bridge, and boats and barges more and more numerous covered +the stream. Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars’ Bridge they passed. Sunlight +all, and flashing water, and gleaming oars, and gay boats, and endless +motion! out of which rose calm, solemn, reposeful, the resting yet +hovering dome of St Paul’s, with its satellite spires, glittering in +the tremulous hot air that swathed in multitudinous ripples the mighty +city.</p> + +<p>Southwark Bridge—and only London Bridge lay between them and the open +river, still widening as it flowed to the aged ocean. Through the +centre arch they shot, and lo! a world of masts, waiting to woo with +white sails the winds that should bear them across deserts of water to +lands of wealth and mystery. Through the labyrinth led the highway of +the stream, and downward they still swept—past the Tower, and past the +wharf where that morning Malcolm had said good-bye for a time to his +four-footed subject and friend. The smack’s place was empty. With her +hugest of sails, she was tearing and flashing away, out of their sight, +far down the river before them.</p> + +<p>Through dingy dreary Limehouse they sank, and coasted the melancholy, +houseless Isle of Dogs; but on all sides were ships and ships, and when +they thinned at last, Greenwich rose before them. London and the parks +looked unendurable from this more varied life, more plentiful air, +and above all more abundant space. The very spirit of freedom seemed +to wave his wings about the yacht, fanning full her sails. Florimel +breathed as if she never could have enough of the sweet wind; each +breath gave her all the boundless region whence it blew; she gazed +as if she would fill her soul with the sparkling gray of the water, +the sun-melted blue of the sky, and the incredible green of the flat +shores. For minutes she would be silent, her parted lips revealing +her absorbed delight, then break out in a volley of questions, now +addressing Malcolm, now Travers. She tried Davy too, but Davy knew +nothing except his duty here. The Thames was like an unknown eternity +to the creature of the Wan Water— about which, however, he could have +told her a thousand things. Down and down the river they flew, and not +until miles and miles of meadows had come between her and London, not +indeed until Gravesend appeared, did it occur to Florimel that perhaps +it might be well to think by-and-by of returning. But she trusted +everything to Malcolm, who of course would see that everything was as +it ought to be.</p> + +<p>Her excitement began to flag a little. She was getting tired. The +bottle had been strained by the ferment of the wine. She turned to +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Had we not better be putting about?” she said. “I should like to go +on for ever—but we must come another day, better provided. We shall +hardly be in time for lunch.”</p> + +<p>It was nearly four o’clock, but she rarely looked at her watch, and +indeed wound it up only now and then.</p> + +<p>“Will you go below and have some lunch, my lady?” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“There can’t be anything on board!” she answered.</p> + +<p>“Come and see, my lady,” rejoined Malcolm, and led the way to the +companion.</p> + +<p>When she saw the little cabin, she gave a cry of delight.</p> + +<p>“Why, it is just like our own cabin in the Psyche,” she said, “only +smaller! Is it not, Malcolm?”</p> + +<p>“It is smaller, my lady,” returned Malcolm, “but then there is a little +state-room beyond.”</p> + +<p>On the table was a nice meal—cold, but not the less agreeable in the +summer weather. Everything looked charming. There were flowers; the +linen was snowy; and the bread was the very sort Florimel liked best.</p> + +<p>“It is a perfect fairy-tale!” she cried. “And I declare here is our +crest on the forks and spoons!—What does it all mean, Malcolm?”</p> + +<p>But Malcolm had slipped away, and gone on deck again, leaving her to +food and conjecture, while he brought Rose up from the fore-cabin for a +little air. Finding her fast asleep, however, he left her undisturbed.</p> + +<p>Florimel finished her meal, and set about examining the cabin more +closely. The result was bewilderment. How could a yacht, fitted with +such completeness, such luxury, be lying for hire in the Thames? As for +the crest on the plate, that was a curious coincidence: many people had +the same crest. But both materials and colours were like those of the +Pysche! Then the pretty bindings on the book-shelves attracted her: +every book was either one she knew or one of which Malcolm had spoken +to her! He must have had a hand in the business! Next she opened the +door of the state-room; but when she saw the lovely little white berth, +and the indications of every comfort belonging to a lady’s chamber, +she could keep her pleasure to herself no longer. She hastened to the +companion-way, and called Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“What does it all mean?” she said, her eyes and cheeks glowing with +delight.</p> + +<p>“It means, my lady, that you are on board your own yacht, the Pysche. +I brought her with me from Portlossie, and have had her fitted up +according to the wish you once expressed to my lord, your father, that +you could sleep on board. Now you might make a voyage of many days in +her.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Malcolm!” was all Florimel could answer. She was too pleased to +think as yet of any of the thousand questions that might naturally have +followed.</p> + +<p>“Why, you’ve got the Arabian Nights, and all my favourite books there!” +she said at length.—“How long shall we have before we get among the +ships again?”</p> + +<p>She fancied she had given orders to return, and that the boat had been +put about.</p> + +<p>“A good many hours, my lady,” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Ah, of course!” she returned; “it takes much longer against wind and +tide.—But my time is my own,” she added, rather in the manner of one +asserting a freedom she did not feel, “and I don’t see why I should +trouble myself. It will make some to-do, I daresay, if I don’t appear +at dinner; but it won’t do anybody any harm. They wouldn’t break their +hearts if they never saw me again.”</p> + +<p>“Not one of them, my lady,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>She lifted her head sharply, but took no farther notice of his remark.</p> + +<p>“I won’t be plagued any more,” she said, holding counsel with herself, +but intending Malcolm to hear. “I will break with them rather. Why +should I not be as free as Clementina? She comes and goes when and +where she likes, and does what she pleases.”</p> + +<p>“Why, indeed?” said Malcolm; and a pause followed, during which +Florimel stood apparently thinking, but in reality growing sleepy.</p> + +<p>“I will lie down a little,” she said, “with one of those lovely books.”</p> + +<p>The excitement, the air, and the pleasure generally had wearied her. +Nothing could have suited Malcolm better. He left her. She went to her +berth, and fell fast asleep.</p> + +<p>When she awoke, it was some time before she could think where she was. +A strange ghostly light was about her, in which she could see nothing +plain; but the motion helped her to understand. She rose, and crept +to the companion ladder, and up on deck. Wonder upon wonder! A clear +full moon reigned high in the heavens, and below there was nothing +but water, gleaming with her molten face, or rushing past the boat +lead-coloured, gray, and white. Here and there a vessel —a snow-cloud +of sails—would glide between them and the moon, and turn black from +truck to water-line. The mast of the Psyche had shot up to its full +height; the reef-points of the main-sail were loose, and the gaff was +crowned with its topsail; foresail and jib were full; and she was +flying as if her soul thirsted within her after infinite spaces. Yet +what more could she want? All around her was wave rushing upon wave, +and above her blue heaven and regnant moon. Florimel gave a great sigh +of delight.</p> + +<p>But what did it—what could it mean? What was Malcolm about? Where was +he taking her? What would London say to such an escapade extraordinary? +Lady Bellair would be the first to believe she had run away with her +groom—she knew so many instances of that sort of thing! and Lord +Liftore would be the next. It was too bad of Malcolm! But she did not +feel very angry with him, notwithstanding, for had he not done it to +give her pleasure? And assuredly he had not failed. He knew better than +anyone how to please her—better even than Lenorme.</p> + +<p>She looked around her. No one was to be seen but Davie, who was +steering. The main-sail hid the men, and Rose, having been on deck for +two or three hours, was again below. She turned to Davy. But the boy +had been schooled, and only answered,</p> + +<p>“I maunna say naething sae lang ’s I’m steerin’, mem.”</p> + +<p>She called Malcolm. He was beside her ere his name had left her lips. +The boy’s reply had irritated her, and, coming upon this sudden and +utter change in her circumstances, made her feel as one no longer lady +of herself and her people, but a prisoner.</p> + +<p>“Once more, what does this mean, Malcolm?” she said, in high +displeasure. “You have deceived me shamefully! You left me to believe +we were on our way back to London—and here we are out at sea! Am I no +longer your mistress? Am I a child, to be taken where you please?—And +what, pray, is to become of the horses you left at Mr Lenorme’s?”</p> + +<p>Malcolm was glad of a question he was prepared to answer.</p> + +<p>“They are in their own stalls by this time, my lady. I took care of +that.”</p> + +<p>“Then it was all a trick to carry me off against my will!” she cried, +with growing indignation.</p> + +<p>“Hardly against your will, my lady,” said Malcolm, embarrassed and +thoughtful, in a tone deprecating and apologetic.</p> + +<p>“Utterly against my will!” insisted Florimel. “Could I ever have +consented to go to sea with a boatful of men, and not a woman on board? +You have disgraced me, Malcolm.”</p> + +<p>Between anger and annoyance she was on the point of crying.</p> + +<p>“It’s not so bad as that, my lady.—Here, Rose!”</p> + +<p>At his word, Rose appeared.</p> + +<p>“I’ve brought one of Lady Bellair’s maids for your service, my lady,” +Malcolm went on. “She will do the best she can to wait on you.”</p> + +<p>Florimel gave her a look.</p> + +<p>“I don’t remember you,” she said.</p> + +<p>“No, my lady. I was in the kitchen.”</p> + +<p>“Then you can’t be of much use to me.”</p> + +<p>“A willing heart goes a long way, my lady,” said Rose, prettily.</p> + +<p>“That is fine,” returned Florimel, rather pleased. “Can you get me some +tea?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady.”</p> + +<p>Florimel turned, and, much to Malcolm’s content vouchsafing him not a +word more, went below.</p> + +<p>Presently a little silver lamp appeared in the roof of the cabin, and +in a few minutes Davy came, carrying the tea-tray, and followed by Rose +with the teapot. As soon as they were alone, Florimel began to question +Rose; but the girl soon satisfied her that she knew little or nothing. +When Florimel pressed her how she could go she knew not where at the +desire of a fellow-servant, she gave such confused and apparently +contradictory answers, that Florimel began to think ill of both her and +Malcolm, and to feel more uncomfortable and indignant; and the more she +dwelt upon Malcolm’s presumption, and speculated as to his possible +design in it, she grew the angrier.</p> + +<p>She went again on deck. By this time she was in a passion—little +mollified by the sense of her helplessness.</p> + +<p>“MacPhail,” she said, laying the restraint of dignified utterance +upon her words, “I desire you to give me a good reason for your most +unaccountable behaviour. Where are you taking me?”</p> + +<p>“To Lossie House, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed!” she returned with scornful and contemptuous surprise. “Then I +order you to change your course at once and return to London.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Cannot!</i> Whose orders but mine are you under, pray?”</p> + +<p>“Your father’s, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“I have heard more than enough of that unfortunate—statement, and the +measureless assumptions founded on it. I shall heed it no longer.”</p> + +<p>“I am only doing my best to take care of you, my lady, as I promised +<i>him</i>. You will know it one day if you will but trust me.”</p> + +<p>“I have trusted you ten times too much, and have gained nothing in +return but reasons for repenting it. Like all other servants made too +much of you have grown insolent. But I shall put a stop to it. I cannot +possibly keep you in my service after this. Am I to pay a master where +I want a servant?”</p> + +<p>Malcolm was silent.</p> + +<p>“You must have some reason for this strange conduct,” she went on. “How +can your supposed duty to my father justify you in treating me with +such disrespect. Let me know your reasons. I have a right to know them.”</p> + +<p>“I will answer you, my lady,” said Malcolm. “—Davy, go forward; I will +take the helm.—Now, my lady, if you will sit on that cushion.—Rose, +bring my lady a fur-cloak you will find in the cabin.—Now, my lady, if +you will speak low that neither Davy nor Rose shall hear us—Travers is +deaf—I will answer you.”</p> + +<p>“I ask you,” said Florimel, “why you have dared to bring me away like +this. Nothing but some danger threatening me could justify it.”</p> + +<p>“There you say it, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“And what is the danger, pray?”</p> + +<p>“You were going on the continent with Lady Bellair and Lord Liftore +—and without me to do as I had promised.”</p> + +<p>“You insult me!” cried Florimel. “Are my movements to be subject to +the approbation of my groom? Is it possible my father could give his +henchman such authority over his daughter? I ask you again, where was +the danger?”</p> + +<p>“In your company, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“So!” exclaimed Florimel, attempting to rise in sarcasm as she rose in +wrath, lest she should fall into undignified rage. “And what may be +your objection to my companions?”</p> + +<p>“That Lady Bellair is not respected in any circle where her history is +known; and that her nephew is a scoundrel.”</p> + +<p>“It but adds to the wrong you heap on me, that you compel me to hear +such wicked abuse of my father’s friends,” said Florimel, struggling +with tears of anger. But for regard to her dignity she would have +broken out in fierce and voluble rage.</p> + +<p>“If your father knew Lord Liftore as I do, he would be the last man my +lord marquis would see in your company.”</p> + +<p>“Because he gave you a beating, you have no right to slander him,” said +Florimel spitefully.</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed. He must either laugh or be angry.</p> + +<p>“May I ask how your ladyship came to hear of that?”</p> + +<p>“He told me himself,” she answered.</p> + +<p>“Then, my lady, he is a liar, as well as worse. It was I who gave <i>him</i> +the drubbing he deserved for his insolence to my—mistress. I am sorry +to mention the disagreeable fact, but it is absolutely necessary you +should know what sort of man he is.”</p> + +<p>“And, if there be a lie, which of the two is more likely to tell it?”</p> + +<p>“That question is for you, my lady, to answer.”</p> + +<p>“I never knew a servant who would not tell a lie,” said Florimel.</p> + +<p>“I was brought up a fisherman,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“And,” Florimel went on, “I have heard my father say no gentleman ever +told a lie.”</p> + +<p>“Then Lord Liftore is no gentleman,” said Malcolm. “But I am not going +to plead my own cause even to you, my lady. If you can doubt me, do. +I have only one thing more to say:—that when I told you and my Lady +Clementina about the fisher-girl and the gentleman——”</p> + +<p>“How dare you refer to that again? Even you ought to know there are +things a lady cannot hear. It is enough you affronted me with that +before Lady Clementina—and after foolish boasts on my part of your +good breeding! Now you bring it up again, when I cannot escape your low +talk!”</p> + +<p>“My lady, I am sorrier than you think; but which is worse—that you +should hear such a thing spoken of, or make a friend of the man who did +it—and that is Lord Liftore?”</p> + +<p>Florimel turned away, and gave her seeming attention to the moonlit +waters, sweeping past the swift-sailing cutter. Malcolm’s heart ached +for her: he thought she was deeply troubled. But she was not half so +shocked as he imagined. Infinitely worse would have been the shock +to him could he have seen how little the charge against Liftore had +touched her. Alas! evil communications had already in no small degree +corrupted her good manners. Lady Bellair had uttered no bad words in +her hearing: had softened to decency every story that required it; +had not unfrequently tacked a worldly-wise moral to the end of one; +and yet, and yet, such had been the tone of her telling, such the +allotment of laughter and lamentation, such the acceptance of things as +necessary, and such the repudiation of things as Quixotic, puritanical, +impossible, that the girl’s natural notions of the lovely and the clean +had got dismally shaken and confused. Happily it was as yet more her +judgment than her heart that was perverted. But had she spoken out +what was in her thoughts as she looked over the great wallowing water, +she would have merely said that for all that Liftore was no worse +than other men. They were all the same. It was very unpleasant; but +how could a lady help it? If men would behave so, were by nature like +that, women must not make themselves miserable about it. They need ask +no questions. They were not supposed to be acquainted with the least +fragment of the facts, and they must cleave to their ignorance, and +lay what blame there might be on the women concerned. The thing was +too indecent even to think about. Ostrich-like they must hide their +heads—close their eyes and take the vice in their arms—to love, +honour, and obey, as if it were virtue’s self, and men as pure as their +demands on their wives.</p> + +<p>There are thousands that virtually reason thus: Only ignore the thing +effectually, and for you it is not. Lie right thoroughly to yourself, +and the thing is gone. The lie destroys the fact. So reasoned Lady +Macbeth—until conscience at last awoke, and she could no longer keep +even the smell of the blood from her. What need Lady Lossie care about +the fisher-girl, or any other concerned with his past, so long as he +behaved like a gentleman to her! Malcolm was a foolish meddling fellow, +whose interference was the more troublesome that it was honest.</p> + +<p>She stood thus gazing on the waters that heaved and swept astern, but +without knowing that she saw them, her mind full of such nebulous +matter as, condensed, would have made such thoughts as I have set down. +And still and ever the water rolled and tossed away behind in the +moonlight.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my lady!” said Malcolm, “what it would be to have a soul as big +and as clean as all this!”</p> + +<p>She made no reply, did not turn her head, or acknowledge that she heard +him, a few minutes more she stood, then went below in silence, and +Malcolm saw no more of her that night.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LII">CHAPTER LII.<br><span class="small">HOPE CHAPEL.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>It was Sunday, during which Malcolm lay at the point of death some +three stories above his sister’s room. There, in the morning, while +he was at the worst, she was talking with Clementina, who had called +to see whether she would not go and hear the preacher of whom he had +spoken with such fervour. Florimel laughed.</p> + +<p>“You seem to take everything for gospel Malcolm says, Clementina!”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not,” returned Clementina, rather annoyed. “Gospel +now-a-days is what nobody disputes and nobody heeds; but I do heed what +Malcolm says, and intend to find out, if I <i>can</i>, whether there is any +reality in it. I thought you had a high opinion of your groom!”</p> + +<p>“I would take his word for anything a man’s word can be taken for,” +said Florimel.</p> + +<p>“But you don’t set much store by his judgment?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I daresay he’s right. But I don’t care for the things you like so +much to talk with him about. He’s a sort of poet, anyhow, and poets +must be absurd. They are always either dreaming or talking about their +dreams. They care nothing for the realities of life. No—if you want +advice, you must go to your lawyer or clergyman, or some man of common +sense, neither groom nor poet.”</p> + +<p>“Then, Florimel, it comes to this—that this groom of yours is one of +the truest of men, and one who possessed your father’s confidence, but +you are so much his superior that you are capable of judging him, and +justified in despising his judgment.”</p> + +<p>“Only in practical matters, Clementina.”</p> + +<p>“And duty towards God is with you such a practical matter that you +cannot listen to anything he has got to say about it.”</p> + +<p>Florimel shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>“For my part, I would give all I have to know there was a God worth +believing in.”</p> + +<p>“Clementina!”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Of course there is a God. It is very horrible to deny it.”</p> + +<p>“Which is worse—to deny <i>it</i>, or to deny <i>him</i>? Now, I confess to +doubting <i>it</i>—that is, the fact of a God; but you seem to me to deny +God himself, for you admit there is a God—think it very wicked to deny +that, and yet you don’t take interest enough in him to wish to learn +anything about him. You won’t <i>think</i>, Florimel. I don’t fancy you ever +really <i>think</i>.”</p> + +<p>Florimel again laughed.</p> + +<p>“I am glad,” she said, “that you don’t judge me <i>incapable</i> of that +high art. But it is not so very long since Malcolm used to hint +something much the same about yourself, my lady!”</p> + +<p>“Then he was quite right,” returned Clementina. “I am only just +beginning to think, and if I can find a teacher, here I am, his pupil.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose I can spare my groom quite enough to teach you all he +knows,” Florimel said, with what Clementina took for a marked absence +of expression. She reddened. But she was not one to defend herself +before her principles.</p> + +<p>“If he can, why should he not?” she said. “But it was of his friend Mr +Graham I was thinking—-not himself.”</p> + +<p>“You cannot tell whether he has got anything to teach you.”</p> + +<p>“Your groom’s testimony gives likelihood enough to make it my duty to +go and see. I intend to find the place this evening.”</p> + +<p>“It must be some little ranting methodist conventicle. He would not be +allowed to preach in a church, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not! The church of England is like the apostle that forbade +the man casting out devils, and got forbid himself for it —with this +difference, that she won’t be forbid. Well, she chooses her portion +with Dives and not Lazarus. She is the most arrant respecter of persons +I know, and her Christianity is worse than a farce. It was that first +of all that drove me to doubt. If I could find a place where everything +was just the opposite, the poorer it was the better I should like +it. It makes me feel quite wicked to hear a smug parson reading the +gold ring and the goodly apparel, while the pew-openers beneath are +illustrating in dumb show the very thing the apostle is pouring out +the vial of his indignation upon over their heads;—doing it calmly +and without a suspicion, for the parson, while he reads, is rejoicing +in his heart over the increasing aristocracy of his congregation. The +farce is fit to make a devil in torment laugh.”</p> + +<p>Once more, Florimel laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>“Another revolution, Clementina, and we shall have you heading the +canaille to destroy Westminster Abbey.”</p> + +<p>“I would follow any leader to destroy falsehood,” said Clementina. “No +canaille will take that up until it meddles with their stomachs or +their pew-rents.”</p> + +<p>“Really, Clementina, you are the worst Jacobin I ever heard talk. My +groom is quite an aristocrat beside you.”</p> + +<p>“Not an atom more than I am. I do acknowledge an aristocracy— but it +is one neither of birth nor of intellect nor of wealth.”</p> + +<p>“What is there besides to make one?”</p> + +<p>“Something I hope to find before long. What if there be indeed a +kingdom and an aristocracy of life and truth!—Will you or will you not +go with me to hear this schoolmaster?”</p> + +<p>“I will go anywhere with you, if it were only to be seen with such a +beauty,” said Florimel, throwing her arms round her neck and kissing +her.</p> + +<p>Clementina gently returned the embrace, and the thing was settled.</p> + +<p>The sound of their wheels, pausing in swift revolution with the clangor +of iron hoofs on rough stones at the door of the chapel, refreshed the +diaconal heart like the sound of water in the desert. For the first +time in the memory of the oldest, the day-spring of success seemed on +the point of breaking over Hope Chapel. The ladies were ushered in by +Mr Marshal himself, to Clementina’s disgust and Florimel’s amusement, +with much the same attention as his own shop-walker would have shown +to carriage-customers.—How could a man who taught light and truth be +found in such a mean <i>entourage</i>? But the setting was not the jewel. +A real stone <i>might</i> be found in a copper ring. So said Clementina to +herself as she sat waiting her hoped for instructor.</p> + +<p>Mrs Catanach settled her broad back into its corner, chuckling over her +own wisdom and foresight. Her seat was at the pulpit end of the chapel, +at right angles to almost all the rest of the pews —chosen because +thence, if indeed she could not well see the preacher, she could get +a good glimpse of nearly everyone that entered. Keen-sighted both +physically and intellectually, she recognized Florimel the moment she +saw her.</p> + +<p>“Twa doos mair to the boody-craw!” she laughed to herself. “Ae man +thrashin’, an’ twa birdies pickin’!” she went on, quoting the old +nursery nonsense. Then she stooped, and let down her veil. Florimel +hated her, and therefore might know her.</p> + +<p>“It’s the day o’ the Lord wi’ auld Sanny Grame!” she resumed to +herself, as she lifted her head. “He’s stickit nae mair, but a chosen +trumpet at last! Foul fa’ ’im for a wearifu’ cratur for a’ that! He +has nowther balm o’ grace nor pith o’ damnation. Yon laad Flemin’, ’at +preached i’ the Baillies’ Barn aboot the dowgs gaein’ roon’ an’ roon’ +the wa’s o’ the New Jeroozlem, gien he had but hauden thegither an’ +no gane to the worms sae sune, wad hae dung a score o’ ’im. But Sanny +angers me to that degree ’at but for rizons—like yon twa—I wad gang +oot i’ the mids o’ ane o’ ’s palahvers, an’ never come back, though I +ha’e a haill quarter o’ my sittin’ to sit oot yet, an’ it cost me dear, +an’ fits the auld back o’ me no that ill.”</p> + +<p>When Mr Graham rose to read the psalm, great was Clementina’s +disappointment: he looked altogether, as she thought, of a sort with +the place—mean and dreary—of the chapel very chapelly, and she +did not believe it could be the man of whom Malcolm had spoken. By +a strange coincidence however, a kind of occurrence as frequent as +strange, he read for his text that same passage about the gold ring and +the vile raiment, in which we learn how exactly the behaviour of the +early Jewish churches corresponded to that of the later English ones, +and Clementina soon began to alter her involuntary judgment of him +when she found herself listening to an utterance beside which her most +voluble indignation would have been but as the babble of a child.</p> + +<p>Sweeping, incisive, withering, blasting denunciation, logic and poetry +combining in one torrent of genuine eloquence, poured confusion and +dismay upon head and heart of all who set themselves up for pillars of +the church without practising the first principles of the doctrine of +Christ—men who, professing to gather their fellows together in the +name of Christ, conducted the affairs of the church on the principles +of hell—men so blind and dull and slow of heart, that they would never +know what the outer darkness meant until it had closed around them—men +who paid court to the rich for their money, and to the poor for their +numbers—men who sought gain first, safety next, and the will of God +not at all —men whose presentation of Christianity was enough to drive +the world to a preferable infidelity.</p> + +<p>Clementina listened with her very soul. All doubt as to whether this +was Malcolm’s friend, vanished within two minutes of his commencement. +If she rejoiced a little more than was humble or healthful in +finding that such a man thought as she thought, she gained this +good notwithstanding—the presence and power of a man who believed +in righteousness the doctrine he taught. Also she perceived that +the principles of equality he held, were founded on the infinite +possibilities of the individual—and of the race only through the +individual; and that he held these principles with an absoluteness, an +earnestness, a simplicity, that dwarfed her loudest objurgation to the +uneasy murmuring of a sleeper. She could not but trust him, and her +hope grew great that perhaps for her he held the key of the kingdom of +heaven. She saw that if what this man said was true, then the gospel +was represented by men who knew nothing of its real nature, and by such +she had been led into a false judgment of it.</p> + +<p>“If such a man,” said the schoolmaster in conclusion, “would but once +represent to himself that the man whom he regards as beneath him, <i>may</i> +nevertheless be immeasurably above him—and <i>that</i> after no arbitrary +judgment, but according to the absolute facts of creation, the scale +of the kingdom of God, in which <i>being</i> is rank; if he could persuade +himself of the possibility that he may yet have to worship before the +feet of those on whom he looks down as on the creatures of another and +meaner order of creation, would it not sting him to rise, and, lest +this should be one of such, make offer of his chair to the poor man in +the vile raiment? Would he ever more, all his life long, dare to say, +‘Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool?’”</p> + +<p>During the week that followed, Clementina reflected with growing +delight on what she had heard, and looked forward to hearing more of a +kind correspondent on the approaching Sunday. Nor did the shock of the +disappearance of Florimel with Malcolm abate her desire to be taught by +Malcolm’s friend.</p> + +<p>Lady Bellair was astounded, mortified, enraged. Liftore turned grey +with passion, then livid with mortification, at the news. Not one of +all their circle, as Florimel had herself foreseen, doubted for a +moment that she had run away with that groom of hers. Indeed, upon +examination, it became evident that the scheme had been for some time +in hand: the yacht they had gone on board had been lying there for +months; and although she was her own mistress, and might marry whom she +pleased, it was no wonder she had run away, for how could she have held +her face to it, or up after it?</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina accepted the general conclusion, but judged it +individually. She had more reason to be distressed at what seemed to +have taken place than anyone else; indeed it stung her to the heart, +wounding her worse than in its first stunning effects she was able to +know; yet she thought better rather than worse of Florimel because +of it. What she did not like in her with reference to the affair was +the depreciatory manner in which she had always spoken of Malcolm. If +genuine, it was quite inconsistent with due regard for the man for +whom she was yet prepared to sacrifice so much; if, on the other hand, +her slight opinion of his judgment was a pretence, then she had been +disloyal to the just prerogatives of friendship.</p> + +<p>The latter part of that week was the sorest time Clementina had ever +passed. But, like a true woman, she fought her own misery and sense +of loss, as well as her annoyance and anxiety,—constantly saying to +herself that, be the thing as it might, she could never cease to be +glad that she had known Malcolm MacPhail.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LIII">CHAPTER LIII.<br><span class="small">A NEW PUPIL.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The sermon Lady Clementina heard with such delight had followed one +levelled at the common and right worldly idea of success harboured +by each, and unquestioned by one of the chief men of the community: +together they caused a strange uncertain sense of discomfort in the +mind diaconal. Slow to perceive that that idea, nauseous in his +presentment of it, was the very same cherished and justified by +themselves; unwilling also to believe that in his denunciation of +respecters of persons they themselves had a full share, they yet felt +a little uneasy from the vague whispers of their consciences on the +side of the neglected principles enounced, clashing with the less vague +conviction that if those whispers were encouraged and listened to, the +ruin of their hopes for their chapel, and their influence in connection +with it, must follow. They eyed each other doubtfully, and there +appeared a general tendency amongst them to close-pressed lips and +single shakes of the head. But there were other forces at work—tending +in the same direction.</p> + +<p>Whatever may have been the influence of the schoolmaster upon the +congregation gathered in Hope Chapel, there was one on whom his +converse, supplemented by his preaching, had taken genuine hold. +Frederick Marshal had begun to open his eyes to the fact that, regarded +as a profession, the ministry, as they called it in their communion, +was the meanest way of making a living in the whole creation, one +deserving the contempt of every man honest enough to give honourable +work, that is, work worth the money, for the money paid him. Also he +had a glimmering insight, on the other hand, into the truth of what the +dominie said—that it was the noblest of martyrdoms to the man who, +sent by God, loved the truth with his whole soul, and was never happier +than when bearing witness of it, except, indeed, in those blessed +moments when receiving it of the Father. In consequence of this opening +of his eyes the youth recoiled with dismay from the sacrilegious +mockery of which he had been guilty in meditating the presumption of +teaching holy things of which the sole sign that he knew anything was +now afforded by this same recoil. At last he was not far from the +kingdom of heaven, though whether he was to be sent to persuade men +that that kingdom was amongst them, and must be in them, remained a +question.</p> + +<p>On the morning after the latter of those two sermons, Frederick, as +they sat at breakfast, succeeded, with no small effort, for he feared +his mother, in blurting out to his father the request that he might be +taken into the counting house; and when indignantly requested, over +the top of the teapot, to explain himself, declared that he found it +impossible to give his mind to a course of education which could only +end in the disappointment of his parents, seeing he was at length +satisfied that he had no call to the ministry. His father was not +displeased at the thought of having him at the shop; but his mother +was for some moments speechless with angry tribulation. Recovering +herself, with scornful bitterness she requested to know to what tempter +he had been giving ear—for tempted he must have been ere son of hers +would have been guilty of backsliding from <i>the cause</i>, of taking his +hand from the plough and looking behind him. The youth returned such +answers as, while they satisfied his father he was right, served only +to convince his mother, where yet conviction was hardly needed, that +she had to thank the dominie for his defection, his apostasy from the +church to the world.</p> + +<p>Incapable of perceiving that now first there was hope of a genuine +disciple in the child of her affection, she was filled with the gall +of disappointment, and with spite against the man who had taught her +son how worse than foolish it is to aspire to teach before one has +learned; nor did she fail to cast scathing reflections on her husband, +in that he had brought home a viper in his bosom, a wolf into his +fold, the wretched minion of a worldly church to lead her son away +captive at his will; and partly no doubt from his last uncomfortable +sermons, but mainly from the play of Mrs Marshal’s tongue on her +husband’s tympanum, the deacons in full conclave agreed that no further +renewal of the invitation to preach “for them” should be made to the +schoolmaster—just the end of the business Mr Graham had expected, and +for which he had provided. On Tuesday morning he smiled to himself, and +wondered whether, if he were to preach in his own schoolroom the next +Sunday evening, anyone would come to hear him. On Saturday he received +a cool letter of thanks for his services, written by the ironmonger in +the name of the deacons, enclosing a cheque, tolerably liberal as ideas +went, in acknowledgment of them. The cheque Mr Graham returned, saying +that, as he was not a preacher by profession, he had no right to take +fees. It was a half-holiday: he walked up to Hampstead Heath, and was +paid for everything, in sky and cloud, fresh air, and a glorious sunset.</p> + +<p>When the end of her troubled week came, and the Sunday of her +expectation brought lovely weather, with a certain vague suspicion of +peace, into the regions of Mayfair and Spitalfields, Clementina walked +across the Regent’s Park to Hope Chapel, and its morning observances; +but thought herself poorly repaid for her exertions by having to listen +to a dreadful sermon and worse prayers from Mr Masquar—one of the +chief priests of Commonplace—a comfortable idol to serve, seeing he +accepts as homage to himself all that any man offers to his own person, +opinions, or history. But Clementina contrived to endure it, comforting +herself that she had made a mistake in supposing Mr Graham preached in +the morning.</p> + +<p>In the evening her carriage once again drew up with clang and clatter +at the door of the chapel. But her coachman was out of temper at having +to leave the bosom of his family circle—as he styled the table that +upheld his pot of beer and jar of tobacco—of a Sunday, and sought +relief to his feelings in giving his horses a lesson in crawling; the +result of which was fortunate for his mistress: when she entered, the +obnoxious Mr Masquar was already reading the hymn. She turned at once +and made for the door.</p> + +<p>But her carriage was already gone. A strange sense of loneliness and +desolation seized her. The place had grown hateful to her, and she +would have fled from it. Yet she lingered in the porch. The eyes +of the man in the pulpit, with his face of false solemnity and low +importance—she seemed to feel the look of them on her back, yet she +lingered. Now that Malcolm was gone, how was she to learn when Mr +Graham would be preaching?</p> + +<p>“If you please, ma’am,” said a humble and dejected voice.</p> + +<p>She turned and saw the seamed and smoky face of the pew-opener, who +had been watching her from the lobby, and had crept out after her. She +dropped a courtesy, and went on hurriedly, with an anxious look now and +then over her shoulder—</p> + +<p>“Oh, ma’am! we shan’t see <i>him</i> no more. Our people here—they’re very +good people, but they don’t like to be told the truth. It seems to me +as if they knowed it so well they thought as how there was no need for +them to mind it.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean that Mr Graham has given up preaching here?”</p> + +<p>“They’ve given up astin’ of ’im to preach, lady. But if ever there was +a good man in that pulpit, Mr Graham he do be that man!”</p> + +<p>“Do you know where he lives?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, ma’am; but it would be hard to direct you.” Here she looked in +at the door of the chapel with a curious half-frightened glance, as if +to satisfy herself that the inner door was closed. “But,” she went on, +“they won’t miss me now the service is begun, and I can be back before +it’s over. I’ll show you where, ma’am.”</p> + +<p>“I should be greatly obliged to you,” said Clementina, “only I am sorry +to give you the trouble.”</p> + +<p>“To tell the truth, I’m only too glad to get away,” she returned, “for +the place it do look like a cementery, now <i>he’s</i> out of it.”</p> + +<p>“Was he so kind to you?”</p> + +<p>“He never spoke word to me, as to myself like, no, nor never gave me +sixpence, like Mr Masquar do; but he give me strength in my heart to +bear up, and that’s better than meat or money.”</p> + +<p>It was a good half-hour’s walk, and during it Clementina held what +conversation she might with her companion. It was not much the woman +had to say of a general sort. She knew little beyond her own troubles +and the help that met them, but what else are the two main forces whose +composition results in upward motion? Her world was very limited—the +houses in which she went charing, the chapel she swept and dusted, the +neighbours with whom she gossipped, the little shops where she bought +the barest needs of her bare life; but it was at least large enough to +leave behind her; and if she was not one to take the kingdom of heaven +by force, she was yet one to creep quietly into it. The earthly life of +such as she— immeasurably less sordid than that of the poet who will +not work for his daily bread, or that of the speculator who, having +settled money on his wife, risks that of his neighbour—passing away +like a cloud, will hang in their west, stained indeed, but with gold, +blotted, but with roses. Dull as it all was now, Clementina yet gained +from her unfoldings a new out-look upon life, its needs, its sorrows, +its consolations, and its hopes; nor was there any vulgar pity in the +smile of the one, or of degrading acknowledgment in the tears of the +other, when a piece of gold passed from hand to hand, as they parted.</p> + +<p>The Sunday-sealed door of the stationer’s shop—for there was no +private entrance to the house—was opened by another sad-faced woman. +What a place to seek the secret of life in! Lovelily enfolds the husk +its kernel; but what the human eye turns from as squalid and unclean +may enfold the seed that clasps, couched in infinite withdrawment, the +vital germ of all that is lovely and graceful, harmonious and strong, +all without which no poet would sing, no martyr burn, no king rule in +righteousness, no geometrician pore over the marvellous <i>must</i>.</p> + +<p>The woman led her through the counter into a little dingy room behind +the shop, looking out on a yard a few feet square, with a water-butt, +half-a-dozen flower-pots, and a maimed plaster Cupid perched on the +window-sill. There sat the schoolmaster, in conversation with a lady, +whom the woman of the house, awed by her sternness and grandeur, had, +out of regard to her lodger’s feelings, shown into her parlour and not +into his bedroom.</p> + +<p>Cherishing the hope that the patent consequences of his line of action +might have already taught him moderation, Mrs Marshal, instead of +going to chapel to hear Mr Masquar, had paid Mr Graham a visit, with +the object of enlisting his sympathies if she could, at all events his +services, in the combating of the scruples he had himself aroused in +the bosom of her son. What had passed between them I do not care to +record, but when Lady Clementina—unannounced of the landlady—entered, +there was light enough, notwithstanding the non-reflective properties +of the water-butt, to reveal Mrs Marshal flushed and flashing, Mr +Graham grave and luminous, and to enable the chapel-business-eye of +Mrs Marshal, which saw every stranger that entered “Hope,” at once to +recognise her as having made one of the congregation the last Sunday +evening.</p> + +<p>Evidently one of Mr Graham’s party, she was not prejudiced in her +favour. But there was that in her manner which impressed her— that +something ethereal and indescribable which she herself was constantly +aping, and, almost involuntarily, she took upon herself such honours +as the place, despicable in her eyes, would admit of. She rose, made a +sweeping courtesy, and addressed Lady Clementina with such a manner as +people of Mrs Marshal’s ambitions put off and on like their clothes.</p> + +<p>“Pray, take a seat, ma’am, such as it is,” she said, with a wave of her +hand. “I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing you at our place.”</p> + +<p>Lady Clementina sat down: the room was too small to stand in, and Mrs +Marshal seemed to take the half of it.</p> + +<p>“I am not aware of the honour,” she returned, doubtful what the woman +meant—perhaps some shop or dress-maker’s. Clementina was not one who +delighted in freezing her humbler fellow-creatures, as we know; but +there was something altogether repulsive in the would-be-grand but +really arrogant behaviour of her fellow-visitor.</p> + +<p>“I mean,” said Mrs Marshal, a little abashed, for ambition is not +strength, “at our little Bethel in Kentish Town! Not that <i>we</i> live +there!” she explained with a superior smile.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I think I understand. You must mean the chapel where this +gentleman was preaching.”</p> + +<p>“That <i>is</i> my meaning,” assented Mrs Marshal.</p> + +<p>“I went there to-night,” said Clementina, turning with some timidity +to Mr Graham. “That I did not find you there, sir, will, I hope, +explain——” Here she paused, and turned again to Mrs Marshal. “I see +you think with me, ma’am, that a true teacher is worth following.”</p> + +<p>As she said this she turned once more to Mr Graham, who sat listening +with a queer, amused, but right courteous smile.</p> + +<p>“I hope you will pardon me,” she continued, “for venturing to call upon +you, and, as I have the misfortune to find you occupied, allow me to +call another day. If you would set me a time, I should be more obliged +than I can tell you,” she concluded, her voice trembling a little.</p> + +<p>“Stay now, if you will, madam,” returned the schoolmaster, with a bow +of oldest-fashioned courtesy. “This lady has done laying her commands +upon me, I believe.”</p> + +<p>“As you think proper to call them commands, Mr Graham, I conclude you +intend to obey them,” said Mrs Marshal, with a forced smile and an +attempt at pleasantry.</p> + +<p>“Not for the world, madam,” he answered. “Your son is acting the part +of a gentleman—yes, I make bold to say, of one who is very nigh the +kingdom of heaven, if not indeed within its gate, and before I would +check him I would be burnt at the stake—even were your displeasure the +fire, madam,” he added, with a kindly bow. “Your son is a line fellow.”</p> + +<p>“He would be, if he were left to himself. Good evening, Mr Graham. +Good-bye, rather, for I <i>think</i> we are not likely to meet again.”</p> + +<p>“In heaven, I hope, madam; for by that time we shall be able to +understand each other,” said the schoolmaster, still kindly.</p> + +<p>Mrs Marshal made no answer beyond a facial flash as she turned to +Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Good evening, ma’am,” she said. “To pay court to the earthen vessel +because of the treasure it may happen to hold, is to be a respecter of +persons as bad as any.”</p> + +<p>An answering flash broke from Clementina’s blue orbs, but her speech +was more than calm as she returned,</p> + +<p>“I learned something of that lesson last Sunday evening, I hope, +ma’am. But you have left me far behind, for you seem to have learned +disrespect even to the worthiest of persons. Good evening, ma’am.”</p> + +<p>She looked the angry matron full in the face, with an icy regard, from +which, as from the Gorgon eye, she fled.</p> + +<p>The victor turned to the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, “for presuming to take your part, +but a gentleman is helpless with a vulgar woman.”</p> + +<p>“I thank you, madam. I hope the sharpness of your rebuke——but indeed +the poor woman can hardly help her rudeness, for she is very worldly, +and believes herself very pious. It is the old story— hard for the +rich.”</p> + +<p>Clementina was struck.</p> + +<p>“I too am rich and worldly,” she said. “But I know that I am not pious, +and if you would but satisfy me that religion is common sense, I would +try to be religious with all my heart and soul.”</p> + +<p>“I willingly undertake the task. But let us know each other a little +first. And lest I should afterwards seem to have taken an advantage +of you, I hope you have no wish to be nameless to me, for my friend +Malcolm MacPhail had so described you that I recognized your ladyship +at once.”</p> + +<p>Clementina said that, on the contrary, she had given her name to the +woman who opened the door.</p> + +<p>“It is because of what Malcolm said of you that I ventured to come to +you,” she added.</p> + +<p>“Have you seen Malcolm lately?” he asked, his brow clouding a little. +“It is more than a week since he has been to me.”</p> + +<p>Thereupon, with embarrassment, such as she would never have felt except +in the presence of pure simplicity, she told of his disappearance with +his mistress.</p> + +<p>“And you think they have run away together?” said the schoolmaster, his +face beaming with what, to Clementina’s surprise, looked almost like +merriment.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think so,” she answered. “Why not, if they choose?”</p> + +<p>“I will say this for my friend Malcolm,” returned Mr Graham composedly, +“that whatever he did I should expect to find not only all right in +intention, but prudent and well-devised also. The present may well seem +a rash, ill-considered affair for both of them, but——”</p> + +<p>“I see no necessity either for explanation or excuse,” said Clementina, +too eager to mark that she interrupted Mr Graham. “In making up her +mind to marry him, Lady Lossie has shown greater wisdom and courage +than, I confess, I had given her credit for.”</p> + +<p>“And Malcolm?” rejoined the schoolmaster softly. “Should you say of him +that he showed equal wisdom?”</p> + +<p>“I decline to give an opinion upon the gentleman’s part in the +business,” answered Clementina, laughing, but glad there was so little +light in the room, for she was painfully conscious of the burning of +her cheeks. “Besides, I have no measure to apply to Malcolm,” she went +on, a little hurriedly. “He is like no one else I have ever talked +with, and I confess there is something about him I cannot understand. +Indeed, he is beyond me altogether.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps, having known him from infancy, I might be able to explain +him,” returned Mr Graham, in a tone that invited questioning.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps, then,” said Clementina, “I may be permitted, in jealousy +for the teaching I have received of him, to confess my bewilderment +that one so young should be capable of dealing with such things as he +delights in. The youth of the prophet makes me doubt his prophecy.”</p> + +<p>“At least,” rejoined Mr Graham, “the phenomenon coincides with what the +master of these things said of them—that they were revealed to babes +and not to the wise and prudent. As to Malcolm’s wonderful facility +in giving them form and utterance, that depends so immediately on +the clear sight of them, that, granted a little of the gift poetic, +developed through reading and talk, we need not wonder much at it.”</p> + +<p>“You consider your friend a genius?” suggested Clementina.</p> + +<p>“I consider him possessed of a kind of heavenly common sense, equally +at home in the truths of divine relation, and the facts of the human +struggle with nature and her forces. I should never have discovered +my own ignorance in certain points of the mathematics but for the +questions that boy put to me before he was twelve years of age. A thing +not understood lay in his mind like a fretting foreign body. But there +is a far more important factor concerned than this exceptional degree +of insight. Understanding is the reward of obedience. Peter says, ‘the +Holy Ghost, whom God hath given them that <i>obey</i> him.’ Obedience is +the key to every door. I am perplexed at the stupidity of the ordinary +religious being. In the most practical of all matters, he will talk, +and speculate, and try to feel, but he will not set himself to <i>do</i>. +It is different with Malcolm. From the first he has been trying to +obey. Nor do I see why it should be strange that even a child should +understand these things, if they are the very elements of the region +for which we were created and to which our being holds essential +relations, as a bird to the air, or a fish to the sea. If a man may not +understand the things of God whence he came, what shall he understand?”</p> + +<p>“How, then, is it that so few do understand?”</p> + +<p>“Because where they know, so few obey. This boy, I say, did. If you +had seen, as I have, the almost superhuman struggles of his will to +master the fierce temper his ancestors gave him, you would marvel less +at what he has so early become. I have seen him, white with passion, +cast himself on his face on the shore, and cling with his hands to +the earth as if in a paroxysm of bodily suffering; then after a few +moments rise and do a service to the man who had wronged him. Were it +any wonder if the light should have soon gone up in a soul like that? +When I was a younger man I used to go out with the fishing-boats now +and then, drawn chiefly by my love for the boy, who earned his own +bread that way before he was in his teens. One night we were caught in +a terrible storm, and had to stand out to sea in the pitch dark. He was +then not fourteen. ‘Can you let a boy like that steer?’ I said to the +captain of the boat. ‘Yes; just a boy like that,’ he answered. ‘Ma’colm +’ill steer as straucht ’s a porpus.’ When he was relieved, he crept +over the thwarts to where I sat. ‘<i>Is</i> there any true definition of a +straight line, sir?’ he said. ‘I can’t take the one in my Euclid.’—‘So +you’re not afraid, Malcolm?’ I returned, heedless of his question, for +I wanted to see what he would answer. ‘Afraid, sir!’ he rejoined with +some surprise, ‘I wad ill like to hear the Lord say, _O thou o’ little +faith!_’—‘But,’ I persisted, ‘God may mean to drown you!’—‘An’ what +for no?’ he returned. ‘Gien ye war to tell me ’at I micht be droon’t +ohn him meant it, I wad be fleyt eneuch.’ I see your ladyship does not +understand: I will interpret the dark saying: ‘And why should he not +drown me? If you were to tell me I might be drowned without his meaning +it, I should be frightened enough.’ Believe me, my lady, the right way +is simple to find, though only they that seek it <i>first</i> can find it. +But I have allowed myself,” concluded the schoolmaster, “to be carried +adrift in my laudation of Malcolm. You did not come to hear praises of +him, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“I owe him much,” said Clementina. “—But tell me then, Mr Graham, how +is it that you know there is a God, and one—one—fit to be trusted as +you trust him?”</p> + +<p>“In no way that I can bring to bear on the reason of another so as to +produce conviction.”</p> + +<p>“Then what is to become of me?”</p> + +<p>“I can do for you what is far better. I can persuade you to look and +see whether before your own door stands not a gate—lies not a path +to walk in. Entering by that gate, walking in that path, you shall +yourself arrive at the conviction, which no man can give you, that +there is a living Love and Truth at the heart of your being, and +pervading all that surrounds you. The man who seeks the truth in any +other manner will never find it. Listen to me a moment, my lady. I +loved that boy’s mother. Naturally she did not love me—how could she? +I was very unhappy. I sought comfort from the unknown source of my +life. He gave me to understand his Son, and so I understood himself, +knew that I came of God, and was comforted.”</p> + +<p>“But how do you know that it was not all a delusion—the product of +your own fervid imagination? Do not mistake me; I want to find it true.”</p> + +<p>“It is a right and honest question, my lady. I will tell you. Not to +mention the conviction which a truth beheld must carry with itself and +concerning which there can be no argument either with him who does or +him who does not see it, this experience goes far with me, and would +with you if you had it, as you may—namely, that all my difficulties +and confusions have gone on clearing themselves up ever since I set +out to walk in that way. My consciousness of life is threefold what it +was; my perception of what is lovely around me, and my delight in it, +threefold; my power of understanding things and of ordering my way, +threefold also; the same with my hope and my courage, my love to my +kind, my power of forgiveness. In short, I cannot but believe that my +whole being and its whole world are in process of rectification for +me. Is not that something to set against the doubt born of the eye +and ear, and the questions of an intellect that can neither grasp nor +disprove? I say nothing of better things still. To the man who receives +such as I mean, they are the heart of life; to the man who does not, +they exist not. But I say—if I thus find my whole being enlightened +and redeemed, and know that therein I fare according to the word of +the man of whom the old story tells: if I find that his word, and the +result of action founded upon that word, correspond and agree, opening +a heaven within and beyond me, in which I see myself delivered from +all that now in myself is to myself despicable and unlovely; if I can +reasonably—reasonably to myself, not to another —cherish hopes of a +glory of conscious being, divinely better than all my imagination when +most daring could invent—a glory springing from absolute unity with my +creator, and therefore with my neighbour; if the Lord of the ancient +tale, I say, has thus held word with me, am I likely to doubt much or +long whether there be such a lord or no?”</p> + +<p>“What, then, is the way that lies before my own door? Help me to see +it.”</p> + +<p>“It is just the old way—as old as the conscience—that of obedience +to any and every law of personal duty. But if you have ever seen the +Lord, if only from afar—if you have any vaguest suspicion that the +Jew Jesus, who professed to have come from God, was a better man than +other men, one of your first duties must be to open your ears to his +words, and see whether they commend themselves to you as true; then, if +they do, to obey them with your whole strength and might, upheld by the +hope of the vision promised in them to the obedient. This is the way +of life, which will lead a man out of the miseries of the nineteenth +century, as it led Paul out of the miseries of the first.”</p> + +<p>There followed a little pause, and then a long talk about what the +schoolmaster had called the old story; in which he spoke with such +fervid delight of this and that point in the tale; removing this +and that stumbling-block by giving the true reading—or the right +interpretation; showing the what and why and how—the very intent of +our Lord in the thing he said or did, that, for the first time in +her life, Clementina began to feel as if such a man must really have +lived, that his blessed feet must really have walked over the acres +of Palestine, that his human heart must indeed have thought and felt, +worshipped and borne, right humanly. Even in the presence of her new +teacher, and with his words in her ears, she began to desire her own +chamber that she might sit down with the neglected story and read for +herself.</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster walked with her to the chapel door. There her carriage +was already waiting. He put her in, and, while the Reverend Jacob +Masquar was still holding forth upon the difference between adoption +and justification, Clementina drove away, never more to delight the +hearts of the deacons with the noise of the hoofs of her horses, +staying the wheels of her yellow chariot.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LIV">CHAPTER LIV.<br><span class="small">THE FEY FACTOR.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When Mr Crathie heard of the outrage the people of Scaurnose had +committed upon the surveyors, he vowed he would empty every house in +the place at Michaelmas. His wife warned him that such a wholesale +proceeding must put him in the wrong with the country, seeing they +could not <i>all</i> have been guilty. He replied it would be impossible, +the rascals hung so together, to find out the ringleaders even. She +returned that they all deserved it, and that a correct discrimination +was of no consequence; it would be enough to the purpose if he made a +difference. People would then say he had done his best to distinguish. +The factor was persuaded and made out a list of those who were to +leave, in which he took care to include all the principal men, to whom +he gave warning forthwith to quit their houses at Michaelmas. I do not +know whether the notice was in law sufficient, but exception was not +taken on that score.</p> + +<p>Scaurnose, on the receipt of the papers, all at the same time, by the +hand of the bellman of Portlossie, was like a hive about to swarm. +Endless and complicated were the comings and goings between the houses, +the dialogues, confabulations, and consultations, in the one street +and its many closes. In the middle of it, in front of the little +public-house, stood, all that day and the next, a group of men and +women, for no five minutes in its component parts the same, but, like +a cloud, ever slow-dissolving, and as continuously re-forming, some +dropping away, others falling to. Such nid-nodding, such uplifting and +fanning of palms among the women, such semi-revolving side-shakes of +the head, such demonstration of fists, and such cursing among the men, +had never before been seen and heard in Scaurnose. The result was a +conclusion to make common cause with the first victim of the factor’s +tyranny, namely Blue Peter, whose expulsion would arrive three months +before theirs, and was unquestionably head and front of the same cruel +scheme for putting down the fisher-folk altogether.</p> + +<p>Three of them, therefore, repaired to Joseph’s house, commissioned with +the following proposal and condition of compact: that Joseph should +defy the notice given him to quit, they pledging themselves that he +should not be expelled. Whether he agreed or not, they were equally +determined, they said, when their turn came, to defend the village; but +if he would cast in his lot with them, they would, in defending him, +gain the advantage of having the question settled three months sooner +for themselves. Blue Peter sought to dissuade them, specially insisting +on the danger of bloodshed. They laughed. They had anticipated +objection, but being of the youngest and roughest in the place, +the idea of a scrimmage was, neither in itself nor in its probable +consequences, at all repulsive to them. They answered that a little +blood-letting would do nobody any harm, neither would there be much +of that, for they scorned to use any weapon sharper than their fists +or a good thick <i>rung</i>: the women and children would take stones of +course. Nobody would be killed, but every meddlesome authority taught +to let Scaurnose and fishers alone. Peter objected that their enemies +could easily starve them out. Dubs rejoined that, if they took care to +keep the sea-door open, their friends at Portlossie would not let them +starve. Grosert said he made no doubt the factor would have the Seaton +to fight as well as Scaurnose, for they must see plainly enough that +their turn would come next. Joseph said the factor would apply to the +magistrates, and they would call out the militia.</p> + +<p>“An’ we’ll call out Buckie,” answered Dubs.</p> + +<p>“Man,” said Fite Folp, the eldest of the three, “the haill shore, frae +the Brough to Fort George, ’ll be up in a jiffie, an’ a’ the cuintry, +frae John o’ Groat’s to Berwick, ’ill hear hoo the fisher-fowk’s +misguidit; an’ at last it’ll come to the king, an’ <i>syne</i> we’ll get oor +richts, for he’ll no stan’ to see ’t, an’ maitters ’ll sane be set upon +a better futtin’ for puir fowk ’at has no freen’ but God an’ the sea.”</p> + +<p>The greatness of the result represented laid hold of Peter’s +imagination, and the resistance to injustice necessary to reach it +stirred the old tar in him. When they took their leave, he walked +halfway up the street with them, and then returned to tell his wife +what they had been saying, all the way murmuring to himself as he went, +“The Lord is a man of war.” And ever as he said the words, he saw as +in a vision the great man-of-war in which he had served, sweeping +across the bows of a Frenchman, and raking him, gun after gun, from +stem to stern. Nor did the warlike mood abate until he reached home +and looked his wife in the eyes. He told her all, ending with the half +repudiatory, half-tentative words.</p> + +<p>“That’s what they say, ye see, Annie.”</p> + +<p>“And what say ye, Joseph?” returned his wife.</p> + +<p>“Ow! I’m no sayin’,” he answered.</p> + +<p>“What are ye thinkin’ than, Joseph?” she pursued. “Ye canna say ye’re +no thinkin’.”</p> + +<p>“Na; I’ll no say that, lass,” he replied, but said no more.</p> + +<p>“Weel, gien ye winna say,” resumed Annie, “I wull; an’ my say is, ’at +it luiks to me unco like takin’ things intill yer ain han’.”</p> + +<p>“An’ whase han’ sud we tak them intill but oor ain?” said Peter, with a +falseness which in another would have roused his righteous indignation.</p> + +<p>“That’s no the p’int. It’s whase han’ ye’re takin’ them oot o’,” +returned she, and spoke with solemnity and significance.</p> + +<p>Peter made no answer, but the words <i>Vengeance is mine</i> began to ring +in his mental ears instead of <i>The Lord is a man of war</i>.</p> + +<p>Before Mr Graham left them, and while Peter’s soul was flourishing, +he would have simply said that it was their part to endure, and leave +the rest to the God of the sparrows. But now the words of men whose +judgment had no weight with him, threw him back upon the instinct of +self-defence—driven from which by the words of his wife, he betook +himself, not alas! to the protection, but to the vengeance of the Lord!</p> + +<p>The next day he told the three commissioners that he was sorry to +disappoint them, but he could not make common cause with them, for +he could not see it his duty to resist, much as it would gratify the +natural man. They must therefore excuse him if he left Scaurnose at the +time appointed. He hoped he should leave friends behind him.</p> + +<p>They listened respectfully, showed no offence, and did not even attempt +to argue the matter with him. But certain looks passed between them.</p> + +<p>After this Blue Peter was a little happier in his mind, and went more +briskly about his affairs.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LV">CHAPTER LV.<br><span class="small">THE WANDERER.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>It was a lovely summer evening, and the sun, going down just beyond +the point of the Scaurnose, shone straight upon the Partan’s door. +That it was closed in such weather had a significance—general as +well as individual. Doors were oftener closed in the Seaton now. +The spiritual atmosphere of the place was less clear and open than +hitherto. The behaviour of the factor, the trouble of their neighbours, +the conviction that the man who depopulated Scaurnose would at least +raise the rents upon them, had brought a cloud over the feelings and +prospects of its inhabitants—which their special quarrel with the +oppressor for Malcolm’s sake, had drawn deeper around the Findlays; and +hence it was that the setting sun shone upon the closed door of their +cottage.</p> + +<p>But a shadow darkened it, cutting off the level stream of rosy red. An +aged man, in Highland garments, stood and knocked. His overworn dress +looked fresher and brighter in the friendly rays, but they shone very +yellow on the bare hollows of his old knees. It was Duncan MacPhail, +the supposed grandfather of Malcolm. He was older and feebler—I +had almost said blinder, but that could not be— certainly shabbier +than ever. The glitter of dirk and broadsword at his sides, and the +many-coloured ribbons adorning the old bagpipes under his arms, somehow +enhanced the look of more than autumnal, of wintry desolation in his +appearance.</p> + +<p>Before he left the Seaton, the staff he carried was for show rather +than use, but now he was bent over it, as if but for it he would fall +into his grave. His knock was feeble and doubtful, as if unsure of a +welcoming response. He was broken, sad, and uncomforted.</p> + +<p>A moment passed. The door was unlatched, and within stood the +Partaness, wiping her hands in her apron, and looking thunderous. But +when she saw who it was, her countenance and manner changed utterly.</p> + +<p>“Preserve ’s a’! Ye’re a sicht for sair e’en, Maister MacPhail!” she +cried, holding out her hand, which the blind man took as if he saw as +well as she. “Come awa’ but the hoose. Wow! but ye’re walcome.”</p> + +<p>“She thanks your own self, Mistress Partan,” said Duncan, as he +followed her in; “and her heart will pe thanking you for ta coot +welcome; and it will pe a long time since she’ll saw you howefer.”</p> + +<p>“Noo, noo!” exclaimed Meg, stopping in the middle of her little +kitchen, as she was getting a chair for the old man, and turning upon +him to revive on the first possible chance what had been a standing +quarrel between them, “what <i>can</i> be the rizon ’at gars ane like you, +’at never saw man or wuman i’ yer lang life, the verra meenute ye open +yer mou’, say it’s lang sin’ ye <i>saw</i> me. A mensefu’ body like you, +Maister MacPhail, sud speyk mair to the p’int.”</p> + +<p>“Ton’t you’ll pe preaking her heart with ta one hand while you’ll pe +clapping her head with ta other,” said the piper. “Ton’t be taking her +into your house to pe telling her she can’t see. Is it that old Tuncan +is not a man as much as any woman in ta world, tat you’ll pe telling +her she can’t see? I tell you she <i>can</i> see, and more tan you’ll pe +think. And I will tell it to you, tere iss a pape in this house, and +tere was pe none when Tuncan she’ll co away.”</p> + +<p>“We a’ ken ye ha’e the <i>second</i> sicht,” said Mrs Findlay, who had not +expected such a reply; “an’ it was only o’ the first I spak. Haith! it +wad be ill set o’ me to anger ye the moment ye come back to yer ain. +Sit ye doon there by the chimla-neuk, till I mak ye a dish o’ tay. Or +maybe ye wad prefar a drap o’ parritch an’ milk? It’s no muckle I ha’e +to offer ye, but ye cudna be mair walcome.”</p> + +<p>As easily appeased as irritated, the old man sat down with a grateful, +placid look, and while the tea was <i>drawing</i>, Mrs Findlay, by judicious +questions, gathered from him the history of his adventures.</p> + +<p>Unable to rise above the disappointment and chagrin of finding that +the boy he loved as his own soul, and had brought up as his own son +was actually the child of a Campbell woman, one of the race to which +belonged the murderer of his people in Glencoe, and which therefore +he hated with an absolute passion of hatred; unable also to endure +the terrible schism in his being occasioned by the conflict between +horror at the Campbell blood, and ineffaceable affection for the +youth in whose veins it ran, and who so fully deserved all the love +he had lavished upon him, he had concluded to rid himself of all the +associations of place and people and event now grown so painful, +to make his way back to his native Glencoe, and there endure his +humiliation as best he might, beheld of the mountains which had beheld +the ruin of his race. He would end the few and miserable days of his +pilgrimage amid the rushing of the old torrents, and the calling of +the old winds about the crags and precipices that had hung over his +darksome yet blessed childhood. These were still his friends. But he +had not gone many days’ journey before a farmer found him on the road +insensible, and took him home. As he recovered, his longing after +his boy Malcolm grew, until it rose to agony, but he fought with his +heart, and believed he had overcome it. The boy was a good boy, he +said to himself; the boy had been to him as the son of his own heart; +there was no fault to find with him or in him; he was as brave as he +was kind, as sincere as he was clever, as strong as he was gentle; he +could play on the bagpipes, and very nearly talk Gaelic, but his mother +was a Campbell, and for that there was no help. To be on loving terms +with one in whose veins ran a single drop of the black pollution was +a thing no MacDhonuill must dream of. He had lived a man of honour, +and he would die a man of honour, hating the Campbells to their last +generation. How should the bard of his clan ever talk to his own soul +if he knew himself false to the name of his fathers! Hard fate for him! +As if it were not enough that he had been doomed to save and rear a +child of the brood abominable, he was yet further doomed, worst fate of +all, to love the evil thing! he could not tear the lovely youth from +his heart. But he could go further and further from him.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was able, he resumed his journey westward, and at length +reached his native glen, the wildest spot in all the island. There +he found indeed the rush of the torrents and the call of the winds +unchanged, but when his soul cried out in its agonies, they went on +with the same song that had soothed his childhood; for the heart of the +suffering man they had no response. Days passed before he came upon +a creature who remembered him; for more than twenty years were gone, +and a new generation had come up since he forsook the glen. Worst of +all, the clan-spirit was dying out, the family type of government all +but extinct, the patriarchal vanishing in a low form of the feudal, +itself already in abject decay. The hour of the Celt was gone by, and +the long-wandering raven, returning at last, found the ark it had left +afloat on the waters dry and deserted and rotting to dust. There was +not even a cottage in which he could hide his head. The one he had +forsaken when cruelty and crime drove him out, had fallen to ruins, +and now there was nothing of it left but its foundations. The people +of the inn at the mouth of the valley did their best for him, but he +learned by accident that they had Campbell connections, and, rising +that instant, walked from it for ever. He wandered about for a time, +playing his pipes, and everywhere hospitably treated; but at length +his heart could endure its hunger no more: he <i>must</i> see his boy, or +die. He walked therefore straight to the cottage of his quarrelsome but +true friend, Mrs Partan—to learn that his benefactor, the marquis, +was dead, and Malcolm gone. But here alone could he hope ever to see +him again, and the same night he sought his cottage in the grounds of +Lossie House, never doubting his right to re-occupy it. But the door +was locked, and he could find no entrance. He went to the House, and +there was referred to the factor. But when he knocked at his door, and +requested the key of the cottage, Mr Crathie, who was in the middle +of his third tumbler, came raging out of his dining-room, cursed him +for an old Highland goat, and heaped insults on him and his grandson +indiscriminately. It was well he kept the door between him and the +old man, for otherwise he would never have finished the said third +tumbler. That door carried in it thenceforth the marks of every weapon +that Duncan bore, and indeed the half of his sgian dhu<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> was the next +morning found sticking in it, like the sting which the bee is doomed to +leave behind her. He returned to Mistress Partan white and trembling, +in a mountainous rage with “ta low-pred hount of a factor.” Her +sympathy was enthusiastic, for they shared a common wrath. And now came +the tale of the factor’s cruelty to the fishers, his hatred of Malcolm, +and his general wildness of behaviour. The piper vowed to shed the +last drop of his blood in defence of his Mistress Partan. But when, to +strengthen the force of his asseveration, he drew the dangerous-looking +dirk from its sheath, she threw herself upon him, wrenched it from +his hand, and testified that “fules sudna hae chappin’-sticks, nor +yet teylors guns.” It was days before Duncan discovered where she had +hidden it. But not the less heartily did she insist on his taking up +his abode with her; and the very next day he resumed his old profession +of lamp-cleaner to the community.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> or <i>skene dhu</i></p> + +</div> + +<p>When Miss Horn heard that he had come and where he was, old feud with +Meg Partan rendering it imprudent to call upon him, she watched for him +in the street, and welcomed him home, assuring him that, if ever he +should wish to change his quarters, her house was at his service.</p> + +<p>“I’m nae Cam’ell, ye ken, Duncan,” she concluded, “an’ what an auld +wuman like mysel’ can du to mak ye coamfortable sall no fail, an’ that +I promise ye.”</p> + +<p>The old man thanked her with the perfect courtesy of the Celt, +confessed that he was not altogether at ease where he was, but said he +must not hurt the feelings of Mistress Partan, “for she’ll not pe a +paad womans,” he added, “but her house will pe aalways in ta flames, +howefer.”</p> + +<p>So he remained where he was, and the general heart of the Seaton was +not a little revived by the return of one whose presence reminded them +of a better time, when no such cloud as now threatened them heaved its +ragged sides above their horizon.</p> + +<p>The factor was foolish enough to attempt inducing Meg to send her guest +away.</p> + +<p>“We want no landloupin’ knaves, old or young, about Lossie,” he +said. “If the place is no keepit dacent, we’ll never get the young +marchioness to come near ’s again.”</p> + +<p>“’Deed, factor,” returned Meg, enhancing the force of her utterance by +a composure marvellous from it’s rarity, “the first thing to mak the +place—I’ll no say dacent, sae lang ’s there’s sae mony claverin’ wives +in ’t, but mair dacent nor it has been for the last ten year, wad be to +sen’ factors back whaur they cam frae.”</p> + +<p>“And whaur may that be?” asked Mr Crathie.</p> + +<p>“That’s mair nor I richtly can say,” answered Meg Partan, “but +auld-farand fouk threepit it was somewhaur ’ithin the swing o’ Sawtan’s +tail.”</p> + +<p>The reply on the factor’s lips as he left the house, tended to justify +the rude sarcasm.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LVI">CHAPTER LVI.<br><span class="small">MID-OCEAN.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>There came a breath of something in the east. It was neither wind nor +warmth. It was light before it is light to the eyes of men. Slowly +and slowly it grew, until, like the dawning soul in the face of one +who lies in a faint, the life of light came back to the world, and at +last the whole huge hollow hemisphere of rushing sea and cloud-flecked +sky lay like a great empty heart, waiting, in conscious glory of the +light, for the central glory, the coming lord of day. And in the whole +crystalline hollow, gleaming and flowing with delight, yet waiting for +more, the Psyche was the only lonely life-bearing thing—the one cloudy +germ-spot afloat in the bosom of the great roc-egg of sea and sky, +whose sheltering nest was the universe with its walls of flame.</p> + +<p>Florimel woke, rose, went on deck, and for a moment was fresh born. It +was a fore-scent—even this could not be called a foretaste, of the +kingdom of heaven; but Florimel never thought of the kingdom of heaven, +the ideal of her own existence. She could however half appreciate this +earthly outbreak of its glory, this incarnation of truth invisible. +Round her, like a thousand doves, clamoured with greeting wings the +joyous sea-wind. Up came a thousand dancing billows, to shout their +good morning. Like a petted animal, importunate for play, the breeze +tossed her hair and dragged at her fluttering garments, then rushed +in the Psyche’s sails, swelled them yet deeper, and sent her dancing +over the dancers. The sun peered up like a mother waking and looking +out on her frolicking children. Black shadows fell from sail to sail, +slipping and shifting, and one long shadow of the Psyche herself +shot over the world to the very gates of the west, but held her not, +for she danced and leaned and flew as if she had but just begun her +corantolavolta fresh with the morning, and had not been dancing all the +livelong night over the same floor. Lively as any new-born butterfly, +not like a butterfly’s, flitting and hovering, was her flight, for +still, like one that longed, she sped and strained and flew. The joy +of bare life swelled in Florimel’s bosom. She looked up, she looked +around, she breathed deep. The cloudy anger that had rushed upon her +like a watching tiger the moment she waked, fell back, and left her +soul a clear mirror to reflect God’s dream of a world. She turned, and +saw Malcolm at the tiller, and the cloudy wrath sprang upon her. He +stood composed and clear and cool as the morning, without sign of doubt +or conscience of wrong, now peeping into the binnacle, now glancing +at the sunny sails, where swayed across and back the dark shadows of +the rigging, as the cutter leaned and rose, like a child running and +staggering over the multitudinous and unstable hillocks. She turned +from him.</p> + +<p>“Good morning, my lady! What a good morning it is!” As in all his +address to his mistress, the freedom of the words did not infect the +tone; that was resonant of essential honour. “Strange to think,” he +went on, “that the sun himself there is only a great fire, and knows +nothing about it! There must be a sun to that sun, or the whole thing +is a vain show. There must be one to whom each is itself, yet the all +makes a whole—one who is at once both centre and circumference to all.”</p> + +<p>Florimel cast on him a scornful look. For not merely was he talking his +usual unintelligible rubbish of poetry, but he had the impertinence to +speak as if he had done nothing amiss, and she had no ground for being +offended with him. She made him no answer. A cloud came over Malcolm’s +face; and until she went again below, he gave his attention to his +steering.</p> + +<p>In the meantime Rose, who happily had turned out as good a sailor as +her new mistress, had tidied the little cabin; and Florimel found, if +not quite such a sumptuous breakfast laid as at Portland Place, yet a +far better appetite than usual to meet what there was; and when she had +finished, her temper was better, and she was inclined to think less +indignantly of Malcolm’s share in causing her so great a pleasure. She +was not yet quite spoiled. She was still such a lover of the visible +world and of personal freedom, that the thought of returning to London +and its leaden-footed hours, would now have been unendurable. At this +moment she could have imagined no better thing than thus to go tearing +through the water—home to her home. For although she had spent little +of her life at Lossie House, she could not but prefer it unspeakably to +the schools in which she had passed almost the whole of the preceding +portion of it. There was little or nothing in the affair she could have +wished otherwise except its origin. She was mischievous enough to enjoy +even the thought of the consternation it would cause at Portland Place. +She did not realize all its awkwardness. A letter to Lady Bellair when +she reached home would, she said to herself, set everything right; +and if Malcolm had now repented and put about, she would instantly +have ordered him to hold on for Lossie. But it was mortifying that she +should have come at the will of Malcolm, and not by her own—worse than +mortifying that perhaps she would have to say so. If she were going to +say so, she must turn him away as soon as she arrived. There was no +help for it. She dared not keep him after that in the face of society. +But she might take the bold, and perhaps a little dangerous measure of +adopting the flight as altogether her own madcap idea. Her thoughts +went floundering in the bog of expediency, until she was tired, and +declined from thought to reverie.</p> + +<p>Then dawning out of the dreamland of her past, appeared the image of +Lenorme. Pure pleasure, glorious delight, such as she now felt, could +not long possess her mind, without raising in its charmed circle the +vision of the only man except her father whom she had ever—something +like loved. Her behaviour to him had not yet roused in her shame or +sorrow or sense of wrong. She had driven him from her; she was ashamed +of her relation to him; she had caused him bitter suffering; she had +all but promised to marry another man; yet she had not the slightest +wish for that man’s company there and then: with no one of her +acquaintance but Lenorme could she have shared this conscious splendour +of life.</p> + +<p>“Would to God he had been born a gentleman instead of a painter!” she +said to herself when her imagination had brought him from the past, and +set him in the midst of the present.</p> + +<p>“Rank,” she said, “I am above caring about. In that he might be ever so +far my inferior, and welcome, if only he had been of a good family, a +gentleman born!”</p> + +<p>She was generosity, magnanimity itself in her own eyes! Yet he was of +far better family than she knew, for she had never taken the trouble to +inquire into his history. And now she was so much easier in her mind +since she had so cruelly broken with him, that she felt positively +virtuous because she had done it, and he was not at that moment by her +side. And yet if he had that moment stepped from behind the main-sail, +she would in all probability have thrown herself into his arms.</p> + +<p>The day passed on: Florimel grew tired and went to sleep; woke and had +her dinner; took a volume of the “Arabian Nights,” and read herself +again to sleep; woke again; went on deck; saw the sun growing weary +in the west. And still the unwearied wind blew, and still the Psyche +danced on, as unwearied as the wind.</p> + +<p>The sun-set was rather an assumption than a decease, a reception of him +out of their sight into an eternity of gold and crimson; and when he +was gone, and the gorgeous bliss had withered into a dove-hued grief, +then the cool, soft twilight, thoughtful of the past and its love, +crept out of the western caves over the breast of the water, and filled +the dome and made of itself a great lens royal, through which the stars +and their motions were visible; and the ghost of Aurora with both +hands lifted her shroud above her head and made a dawn for the moon on +the verge of the watery horizon— a dawn as of the past, the hour of +inverted hope.</p> + +<p>Not a word all day had been uttered between Malcolm and his mistress: +when the moon appeared, with the waves sweeping up against her face, he +approached Florimel where she sat in the stern. Davy was steering.</p> + +<p>“Will your ladyship come forward and see how the Psyche goes?” he said. +“At the stern, you can see only the passive part of her motion. It is +quite another thing to see the will of her at work in the bows.”</p> + +<p>At first she was going to refuse; but she changed her mind, or her mind +changed her: she was not much more of a living and acting creature yet +than the Psyche herself. She said nothing, but rose, and permitted +Malcolm to help her forward.</p> + +<p>It was the moon’s turn now to be level with the water, and as Florimel +stood on the larboard side, leaning over and gazing down, she saw her +shine through the little feather of spray the cutwater sent curling up +before it, and turn it into pearls and semiopals.</p> + +<p>“She’s got a bone in her mouth, you see, my lady,” said old Travers.</p> + +<p>“Go aft till I call you, Travers,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Rose was in Florimel’s cabin, and they were now quite alone.</p> + +<p>“My lady,” said Malcolm, “I can’t bear to have you angry with me.”</p> + +<p>“Then you ought not to deserve it,” returned Florimel.</p> + +<p>“My lady, if you knew all, you would not say I deserved it.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me all then, and let me judge.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot tell you all yet, but I will tell you something which may +perhaps incline you to feel merciful. Did your ladyship ever think what +could make me so much attached to your father?”</p> + +<p>“No indeed. I never saw anything peculiar in it. Even now-a-days there +are servants to be found who love their masters. It seems to me natural +enough. Besides he was very kind to you.”</p> + +<p>“It was natural indeed, my lady—more natural than you think. Kind to +me he was, and that was natural too.”</p> + +<p>“Natural to him, no doubt, for he was kind to everybody.”</p> + +<p>“My grandfather told you something of my early history—did he not, my +lady?”</p> + +<p>“Yes—at least I think I remember his doing so.”</p> + +<p>“Will you recall it, and see whether it suggests nothing?”</p> + +<p>But Florimel could remember nothing in particular, she said. She had in +truth, for as much as she was interested at the time, forgotten almost +everything of the story.</p> + +<p>“I really cannot think what you mean,” she added. “If you are going to +be mysterious, I shall resume my place by the tiller. Travers is deaf, +and Davy is dumb: I prefer either.”</p> + +<p>“My lady,” said Malcolm, “your father knew my mother, and persuaded her +that he loved her.”</p> + +<p>Florimel drew herself up, and would have looked him to ashes if wrath +could burn. Malcolm saw he must come to the point at once or the parley +would cease.</p> + +<p>“My lady,” he said, “your father was my father too. I am a son of the +Marquis of Lossie, and your brother—your ladyship’s half-brother, that +is.”</p> + +<p>She looked a little stunned. The gleam died out of her eyes, and the +glow out of her cheek. She turned and leaned over the bulwark. He said +no more, but stood watching her. She raised herself suddenly, looked at +him, and said,</p> + +<p>“Do I understand you?”</p> + +<p>“I am your brother,” Malcolm repeated.</p> + +<p>She made a step forward, and held out her hand. He took the little +thing in his great grasp tenderly. Her lip trembled. She gazed at him +for an instant, full in the face, with a womanly, believing expression.</p> + +<p>“My poor Malcolm!” she said, “I am sorry for you.”</p> + +<p>She withdrew her hand, and again leaned over the bulwark. Her heart was +softened towards her groom-brother, and for a moment it seemed to her +that some wrong had been done. Why should the one be a marchioness and +the other a groom? Then came the thought that now all was explained. +Every peculiarity of the young man, every gift extraordinary of body, +mind, or spirit, his strength, his beauty, his courage, and honesty, +his simplicity, nobleness, and affection, yes, even what in <i>him</i> was +mere doggedness and presumption, all, everything explained itself to +Florimel in the fact that the incomprehensible fisherman-groom, that +talked like a parson, was the son of her father. She never thought of +the woman that was his mother, and what share she might happen to have +in the phenomenon —thought only of her father, and a little pitifully +of the half-honour and more than half-disgrace infolding the very +existence of her attendant. As usual her thoughts were confused. The +one moment the poor fellow seemed to exist only on sufferance, having +no right to be there at all, for as fine a fellow as he was; the next +she thought how immeasurably he was indebted to the family of the +Colonsays. Then arose the remembrance of his arrogance and presumption +in assuming on such a ground something more than guardianship— +absolute tyranny over her, and with the thought pride and injury at +once got the upper hand. Was <i>she</i> to be dictated to by a low-born, +low-bred fellow like that—a fellow whose hands were harder than any +leather, not with doing things for his amusement but actually with +earning his daily bread—one that used to smell so of fish —on the +ground of right too—and such a right as ought to exclude him for ever +from her presence!—She turned to him again.</p> + +<p>“How long have you known this—this—painful—indeed I must confess to +finding it an awkward and embarrassing fact? I presume you <i>do</i> know +it?” she said, coldly and searchingly.</p> + +<p>“My father confessed it on his death-bed.”</p> + +<p>“Confessed!” echoed Florimel’s pride, but she restrained her tongue.</p> + +<p>“It explains much,” she said, with a sort of judicial relief. +“There has been a great change upon you since then. Mind I only say +<i>explains</i>. It could never justify such behaviour as yours— no, not if +you had been my true brother. There is some excuse, I daresay, to be +made for your ignorance and inexperience. No doubt the discovery turned +your head. Still I am at a loss to understand how you could imagine +that sort of—of—that sort of thing gave you any right over me!”</p> + +<p>“Love has its rights, my lady,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Again her eyes flashed and her cheek flushed. “I cannot permit you to +talk so to me. You must not fancy such things are looked upon in our +position with the same indifference as in yours. You must not flatter +yourself that you can be allowed to cherish the same feelings towards +me as if—as if—you were really my brother. I am sorry for you, +Malcolm, as I said already; but you have altogether missed your mark if +you think that can alter facts, or shelter you from the consequences of +presumption.”</p> + +<p>Again she turned away. Malcolm’s heart was sore for her. How grievously +she had sunk from the Lady Florimel of the old days! It was all from +being so constantly with that wretched woman and her vile nephew. Had +he been able to foresee such a rapid declension, he would have taken +her away long ago, and let come of her feelings what might. He had been +too careful over them.</p> + +<p>“Indeed,” Florimel resumed, but this time without turning towards +him, “I do not see how things can possibly, after what you have told +me, remain as they are. I should not feel at all comfortable in +having one about me who would be constantly supposing he had rights, +and reflecting on my father for fancied injustice, and whom I fear +nothing could prevent from taking liberties. It is very awkward +indeed, Malcolm—very awkward! But it is your own fault that you are +so changed, and I must say I should not have expected it of you. I +should have thought you had more good sense and regard for me. If I +were to tell the world why I wanted to keep you, people would but shrug +their shoulders and tell me to get rid of you; and if I said nothing, +there would always be something coming up that required explanation. +Besides, you would for ever be trying to convert me to one or other +of your foolish notions. I hardly know what to do. I will consult—my +friends on the subject. And yet I would rather they knew nothing of it. +My father you see——” She paused. “If you had been my real brother it +would have been different.”</p> + +<p>“I <i>am</i> your real brother, my lady, and I have tried to behave like one +ever since I knew it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; you have been troublesome. I have always understood that brothers +were troublesome. I am told they are given to taking upon them the +charge of their sisters’ conduct. But I would not have even you think +me heartless. If you had been a <i>real</i> brother, of course I should have +treated you differently.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t doubt it, my lady, for everything would have been different +then. I should have been the Marquis of Lossie, and you would have been +Lady Florimel Colonsay. But it would have made little difference in one +thing: I could not have loved you better than I do now— if only you +would believe it, my lady!”</p> + +<p>The emotion of Malcolm, evident in his voice as he said this, seemed to +touch her a little.</p> + +<p>“I believe it, my poor Malcolm,” she returned, “quite as much as I +want, or as it is pleasant to believe it. I think you would do a great +deal for me, Malcolm. But then you are so rude! take things into your +hands, and do things for me I don’t want done! You <i>will</i> judge, not +only for yourself, but for me! How <i>can</i> a man of your training and +position judge for a lady of mine! Don’t you see the absurdity of it? +At times it has been very awkward indeed. Perhaps when I am married +it might be arranged; but I don’t know.” Here Malcolm ground his +teeth, but was otherwise irresponsive as block of stone. “How would a +gamekeeper’s place suit you? That is a half-gentlemanly kind of post. I +will speak to the factor, and see what can be done.—But on the whole I +<i>think</i>, Malcolm, it will be better you should go. I am <i>very</i> sorry. +I wish you had not told me. It is very painful to me. You <i>should</i> not +have told me. These things are not intended to be talked of.—Suppose +you were to marry—say——”</p> + +<p>She stopped abruptly, and it was well both for herself and Malcolm that +she caught back the name that was on her lips.</p> + +<p>The poor girl must not be judged as if she had been more than a girl, +or other than one with every disadvantage of evil training. Had she +been four or five years older, she might have been a good deal worse, +and have seemed better, for she would have kept much of what she had +now said to herself, and would perhaps have treated her brother more +kindly while she cared even less for him.</p> + +<p>“What will you do with Kelpie, my lady?” asked Malcolm quietly.</p> + +<p>“There it is, you see!” she returned. “So awkward! If you had not told +me, things could have gone on as before, and for your sake I could have +pretended I came this voyage of my own will and pleasure. Now, I don’t +know what I can do—except indeed you—let me see —if you were to hold +your tongue, and tell nobody what you have just told me—I don’t know +but you might stay till you got her so far trained that another man +could manage her. I might even be able to ride her myself.—Will you +promise?”</p> + +<p>“I will promise not to let the fact come out so long as I am in your +service, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“After all that has passed, I think you might promise me a little more! +But I will not press it.”</p> + +<p>“May I ask what it is, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“I am not going to press it, for I do not choose to make a favour +of it. Still, I do not see that it would be such a mighty favour to +ask—of one who owes respect at least to the house of Lossie. But I +will not ask. I will only <i>suggest</i>, Malcolm, that you should leave +this part of the country—say this country altogether, and go to +America, or New South Wales, or the Cape of Good Hope. If you will take +the hint, and promise never to speak a word of this unfortunate—yes, +I must be honest, and allow there is a <i>sort</i> of relationship between +us; but if you will keep it secret, I will take care that something is +done for you—something, I mean, more than you could have any right to +expect. And mind, I am not asking you to conceal anything that could +reflect honour upon you or dishonour upon us.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“I scarcely thought you would. Only you hold such grand ideas about +self-denial, that I thought it might be agreeable to you to have an +opportunity of exercising the virtue at a small expense and a great +advantage.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm was miserable. Who could have dreamed to find in her such a +woman of the world! He must break off the hopeless interview.</p> + +<p>“Then, my lady,” he said, “I suppose I am to give my chief attention to +Kelpie, and things are to be as they have been.”</p> + +<p>“For the present. And as to this last piece of presumption, I will so +far forgive you as to take the proceeding on myself—mainly because +it would have been my very choice had you submitted it to me. There +is nothing I should have preferred to a sea-voyage and returning to +Lossie at this time of the year. But you also must be silent on your +insufferable share in the business. And for the other matter, the least +arrogance or assumption I shall consider to absolve me at once from +all obligation towards you of any sort. Such relationships are <i>never</i> +acknowledged.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you—sister,” said Malcolm—a last forlorn experiment; and as he +said the word he looked lovingly in her eyes.</p> + +<p>She drew herself up like the princess Lucifera, “with loftie eyes, +halfe loth to looke so lowe,” and said, cold as ice,</p> + +<p>“If once I hear that word on your lips again, as between you and me, +Malcolm, I shall that very moment discharge you from my service, as for +a misdemeanour. You have <i>no</i> claim upon me, and the world will not +blame me.”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not, my lady. I beg your pardon. But there is one who +perhaps will blame you a little.”</p> + +<p>“I know what you mean; but I don’t pretend to any of your religious +motives. When I do, then you may bring them to bear upon me.”</p> + +<p>“I was not so foolish as you think me, my lady. I merely imagined you +might be as far on as a Chinaman,” said Malcolm, with a poor attempt at +a smile.</p> + +<p>“What insolence do you intend now?”</p> + +<p>“The Chinese, my lady, pay the highest respect to their departed +parents. When I said there was one who would blame you a little, I +meant your father.”</p> + +<p>He touched his cap, and withdrew.</p> + +<p>“Send Rose to me,” Florimel called after him, and presently with her +went down to the cabin.</p> + +<p>And still the Psyche soul-like flew. Her earthly birth held her to the +earth, but the ocean upbore her, and the breath of God drove her on. +Little thought Florimel to what she hurried her! A queen in her own +self-sufficiency and condescension, she could not suspect how little +of real queendom, noble and self-sustaining, there was in her being; +for not a soul of man or woman whose every atom leans not upon its +father-fact in God, can sustain itself when the outer wall of things +begins to tumble towards the centre, crushing it in on every side.</p> + +<p>During the voyage no further allusion was made by either to what had +passed. By the next morning Florimel had yet again recovered her +temper, and, nothing fresh occurring to irritate her, kept it and was +kind.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was only too glad to accept whatever parings of heart she might +offer. By the time their flight was over, Florimel almost felt as if it +had indeed been undertaken at her own desire and motion, and was quite +prepared to assert that such was the fact.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LVII">CHAPTER LVII.<br><span class="small">THE SHORE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>It was two days after the longest day of the year, when there is no +night in those regions, only a long twilight, in which many dream and +do not know it. There had been a week of variable weather, with sudden +changes of wind to east and north, and round again by south to west, +and then there had been a calm for several days. But now the little +wind there was blew from the north-east; and the fervour of June was +rendered more delicious by the films of flavouring cold that floated +through the mass of heat. All Portlossie more and less, the Seaton +especially, was in a state of excitement, for its little neighbour, +Scaurnose, was more excited still. There the man most threatened, and +with greatest injustice, was the only one calm amongst the men, and +amongst the women his wife was the only one that was calmer than he. +Blue Peter was resolved to abide the stroke of wrong, and not resist +the powers that were, believing them in some true sense, which he found +it hard to understand when he thought of the factor as the individual +instance, ordained of God. He had a dim perception too that it was +better that one, that one he, should suffer, than that order should be +destroyed and law defied. Suffering, he might still in patience possess +his soul, and all be well with him; but what would become of the +country if everyone wronged were to take the law into his own hands? +Thousands more would be wronged by the lawless in a week than by unjust +powers in a year. But the young men were determined to pursue their +plan of resistance, and those of the older and soberer who saw the +uselessness of it, gave themselves little trouble to change the minds +of the rest.</p> + +<p>Peter, although he knew they were not for peace, neither inquired +what their purpose might be, nor allowed any conjecture or suspicion +concerning it to influence him in his preparations for departure. Not +that he had found a new home. Indeed he had not heartily set about +searching for one; in part because, unconsciously to himself he was +buoyed up by the hope he read so clear in the face of his more trusting +wife—that Malcolm would come to deliver them. His plan was to leave +her and his children with certain friends at Port Gordon; he would +not hear of going to the Partans to bring them into trouble. He would +himself set out immediately after for the Lewis fishing.</p> + +<p>Few had gone to the Hebrides that year from Scaurnose or Portlossie. +The magnitude of the events that were about to take place, yet more +the excitement and interest they occasioned, kept the most of the men +at home—to content themselves with fishing the waters of the Moray +Frith. And they had notable success. But what was success with such a +tyrant over them as the factor, threatening to harry their nests, and +turn the sea birds and their young out of their heritage of rock and +sand and shingle? They could not keep house on the waves, any more than +the gulls! Those who still held their religious assemblies in the cave +called the Baillies’ Barn, met often, read and sang the comminatory +psalms more than any others, and prayed much against the wiles and +force of their enemies both temporal and spiritual; while Mr Crathie +went every Sunday to Church, grew redder in the nose, and hotter in the +temper.</p> + +<p>Miss Horn was growing more and more uncomfortable concerning events, +and dissatisfied with Malcolm. She had not for some time heard from +him, and here was his most important duty unattended to— she would +not yet say neglected—the well being of his tenantry, namely, left +in the hands of an unsympathetic, self-important underling, who was +fast losing all the good sense he had once possessed! Was the life and +history of all these brave fishermen and their wives and children to be +postponed to the pampered feelings of one girl, and that because she +was what she had no right to be, his half-sister forsooth? said Miss +Horn to herself—that bosom friend to whom some people, and those not +the worst, say oftener what they do not mean than what they do. She had +written to him within the last month a very hot letter indeed, which +had afforded no end of amusement to Mrs Catanach, as she sat in his +old lodging over the curiosity shop, but, I need hardly say, had not +reached Malcolm: and now there was but one night, and the best of all +the fisher-families would have nowhere to lie down! Miss Horn, with +Joseph Mair, thought she did well to be angry with Malcolm.</p> + +<p>The blind piper had been very restless all day. Questioned again and +again by Meg Partan as to what was amiss with him, he had always +returned her odd and evasive answers. Every few minutes he got up +—even from cleaning her lamp—to go to the shore. He had but to cross +the threshold, and take a few steps through the <i>close</i>, to reach the +road that ran along the sea-front of the village: on the one side were +the cottages, scattered and huddled, on the other the shore and ocean +wide outstretched. He would walk straight across this road until he +felt the sand under his feet; there stand for a few moments facing +the sea, and, with nostrils distended, breathing deep breaths of the +air from the north-east; then turn and walk back to Meg Partan’s +kitchen, to resume his ministration of light. These his sallies were +so frequent, and his absences so short, that a more serene temper than +hers might have been fretted by them. But there was something about +his look and behaviour that, while it perplexed, restrained her; and +instead of breaking out upon him, she eyed him curiously.</p> + +<p>She had found that it would not do to stare at him. The instant she +began to do so, he began to fidget, and turned his back to her. It +had made her lose her temper for a moment, and declare aloud as her +conviction that he was after all an impostor, and saw as well as any of +them.</p> + +<p>“She has told you so, Mistress Partan, one hundred thousand times,” +replied Duncan with an odd smile: “and perhaps she will pe see a little +petter as any of you, no matter.”</p> + +<p>Thereupon she murmured to herself, “The cratur ’ill be seein’ +something!” and with mingled awe and curiosity sought to lay restraint +upon her unwelcome observation of him.</p> + +<p>Thus it went on the whole day, and as the evening approached, he grew +still more excited. The sun went down, and the twilight began; and, +as the twilight deepened, still his excitement grew. Straightway it +seemed as if the whole Seaton had come to share in it. Men and women +were all out of doors; and, late as it was when the sun set, to judge +by the number of red legs and feet that trotted in and out with a +little shadowy flash, with a dull patter-pat on earthen floor and hard +road, and a scratching and hustling among the pebbles, there could +not have been one older than a baby in bed; while of the babies even +not a few were awake in their mothers’ arms, and out with them on the +sea front. The men, with their hands in their trouser-pockets, were +lazily smoking pigtail, in short-clay pipes with tin covers fastened +to the stems by little chains, and some of the women, in short blue +petticoats and worsted stockings, doing the same. Some stood in their +doors, talking with neighbours standing in their doors; but these were +mostly the elder women: the younger ones— all but Lizzy Findlay—were +out in the road. One man half leaned, half sat on the window sill of +Duncan’s former abode, and round him were two or three more, and some +women, talking about Scaurnose, and the factor, and what the lads would +do to-morrow; while the hush of the sea on the pebbles mingled with +their talk, like an unknown tongue of the infinite—never articulating, +only suggesting— uttering in song and not in speech—dealing not with +thoughts, but with feelings and foretastes. No one listened: what to +them was the Infinite with Scaurnose in the near distance! It was now +almost as dark as it would be throughout the night if it kept as clear.</p> + +<p>Once more there was Duncan, standing as if looking out to sea, and +shading his brows with his hand as if to protect his eyes from the +glare of the sun, and enable his sight!</p> + +<p>“There’s the auld piper again!” said one of the group, a young woman. +“He’s unco fule like to be stan’in that gait (<i>way</i>), makin’ as gien he +cudna weel see for the sun in ’s e’en.”</p> + +<p>“Haud ye yer tongue, lass,” rejoined an elderly woman beside her. +“There’s mair things nor ye ken, as the Beuk says. There’s een ’at can +see an’ een ’at canna, an’ een ’at can see twise ower, an’ een ’at can +see steikit what nane can see open.”</p> + +<p>“Ta poat! ta poat of my chief!” cried the seer. “She is coming like a +tream of ta night, put one tat will not tepart with ta morning.”</p> + +<p>He spoke as one suppressing a wild joy.</p> + +<p>“Wha’ll that be, lucky-deddy (<i>grandfather</i>)?” inquired, in a +respectful voice, the woman who had last spoken, while those within +hearing hushed each other and stood in silence. And all the time the +ghost of the day was creeping round from west to east to put on its +resurrection body, and rise new born. It gleamed faint like a cold ashy +fire in the north.</p> + +<p>“And who will it pe than her own son, Mistress Reekie?” answered the +piper, calling her by her husband’s nickname, as was usual, but, as was +his sole wont, prefixing the title of respect, where custom would have +employed but her Christian name.</p> + +<p>“Who’ll should it pe put her own Malcolm?” he went on. “I see his poat +come round ta Tead Head. She flits over the water like a pale ghost +over Morven. But it’s ta young and ta strong she is pringing home to +Tuncan. O m’anam, beannuich!”</p> + +<p>Involuntarily all eyes turned towards the point called the Death’s +Head, which bounded the bay on the east.</p> + +<p>“It’s ower dark to see onything,” said the man on the window sill. +“There’s a bit haar (<i>fog</i>) come up.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Duncan, “it’ll pe too tark for you who haf cot no eyes +only to speak of. Put your’ll wait a few, and you’ll pe seeing as well +as herself. Och, her poy! her poy! O m’anam! Ta Lort pe praised! and +she’ll tie in peace, for he’ll pe only ta one half of him a Cam’ell, +and he’ll pe safed at last, as sure as there’s a heafen to co to and a +hell to co from. For ta half tat’s not a Cam’ell must pe ta strong half +and it will trag ta other half into heafen— where it will not pe ta +welcome, howefer.”</p> + +<p>As if to get rid of the unpleasant thought that his Malcolm could not +enter heaven without taking half a Campbell with him, he turned from +the sea and hurried into the house—but only to catch up his pipes and +hasten out again, filling the bag as he went. Arrived once more on the +verge of the sand, he stood again facing the north-east, and began to +blow a pibroch loud and clear.</p> + +<p>Meantime the Partan had joined the same group, and they were talking in +a low tone about the piper’s claim to the second sight, for, although +all were more or less inclined to put faith in Duncan, there was +here no such unquestioning belief in the marvel as would have been +found on the west coast in every glen from the Mull of Cantyre to +Loch Eribol—when suddenly Meg Partan, almost the only one hitherto +remaining in the house, appeared rushing from the close.</p> + +<p>“Hech, sirs!” she cried, addressing the Seaton in general, “gien the +auld man be i’ the richt,——”</p> + +<p>“She’ll pe aal in ta right, Mistress Partan, and tat you’ll pe seeing,” +said Duncan, who, hearing her first cry, had stopped his drone, and +played softly, listening.</p> + +<p>But Meg went on without heeding him any more than was implied in the +repetition of her exordium.</p> + +<p>“Gien the auld man be i’ the richt, it’ll be the marchioness hersel’ +’at’s h’ard o’ the ill duin’s o’ her factor, an’s comin’ to see efter +her fowk! An’ it’ll be Ma’colm’s duin’, an’ that’ll be seen. But the +bonny laad winna ken the state o’ the herbour, an’ he’ll be makin’ for +the moo’ o’ ’t, an’ he’ll jist rin ’s bonny boatie agrun’ ’atween the +twa piers, an’ that’ll no be a richt hame-comin’ for the leddy o’ the +lan’, an’ what’s mair, Ma’colm ’ill get the wyte (<i>blame</i>) o’ ’t, an’ +that’ll be seen. Sae ye maun some o’ ye to the pier-heid, an’ luik oot +to gie ’im warnin’.”</p> + +<p>Her own husband was the first to start, proud of the foresight of his +wife.</p> + +<p>“Haith, Meg!” he cried, “ye’re maist as guid at the lang sicht as the +piper himsel’!”</p> + +<p>Several followed him, and as they ran, Meg cried after them, giving her +orders as if she had been vice-admiral of the red, in a voice shrill +enough to pierce the worst gale that ever blew on northern shore.</p> + +<p>“Ye’ll jist tell the bonnie laad to haud wast a bit an’ rin her ashore, +an’ we’ll a’ be there an’ hae her as dry ’s Noah’s ark in a jiffie. +Tell her leddyship we’ll cairry the boat, an’ her intill ’t, to the tap +o’ the Boar’s Tail, gien she’ll gie ’s her orders.— Winna we, laads?”</p> + +<p>“We can but try!” said one. “—But the Fisky ’ill be waur to get a grip +o’ nor Nancy here,” he added, turning suddenly upon the plumpest girl +in the place, who stood next to him. She foiled him however of the kiss +he had thought to snatch, and turned the laugh from herself upon him, +so cleverly avoiding his clutch that he staggered into the road, and +nearly fell upon his nose.</p> + +<p>By the time the Partan and his companions reached the pier-head, +something was dawning in the vague of sea and sky that might be a +sloop and standing for the harbour. Thereupon the Partan and Jamie +Ladle jumped into a small boat and pulled out. Dubs, who had come from +Scaurnose on the business of the conjuration, had stepped into the +stern, not to steer but to show a white ensign—somebody’s Sunday shirt +he had gathered, as they ran, from a furze-bush, where it hung to dry, +between the Seaton and the harbour.</p> + +<p>“Hoots! ye’ll affront the marchioness,” objected the Partan.</p> + +<p>“Man, i’ the gloamin’ she’ll no ken ’t frae buntin’,” said Dubs, and at +once displayed it, holding it by the two sleeves.</p> + +<p>The wind had now fallen to the softest breath, and the little vessel +came on slowly. The men rowed hard, shouting, and waving their flag, +and soon heard a hail which none of them could mistake for other +than Malcolm’s. In a few minutes they were on board, greeting their +old friend with jubilation, but talking in a subdued tone, for they +perceived by Malcolm’s that the cutter bore their lady.</p> + +<p>Briefly the Partan communicated the state of the harbour, and +recommended porting his helm, and running the Fisky ashore about +opposite the brass swivel.</p> + +<p>“A’ the men an’ women i’ the Seaton,” he said, “’ill be there to haul +her up.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm took the helm, gave his orders, and steered further westward. +By this time the people on shore had caught sight of the cutter. They +saw her come stealing out of the thin dark like a thought half thought, +and go gliding along the shore like a sea-ghost over the dusky water, +faint, uncertain, noiseless, glimmering. It could be no other than +the Fisky! Both their lady and their friend Malcolm must be on board, +they were certain, for how could the one of them come without the +other? and doubtless the marchioness, whom they all remembered as a +good-humoured handsome young lady, never shy of speaking to anybody, +had come to deliver them from the hateful red-nosed ogre, her factor! +Out at once they all set, along the shore to greet her arrival, each +running regardless of the rest, so that from the Seaton to the middle +of the Boar’s Tail there was a long, straggling broken string of +hurrying fisher-folk, men and women, old and young, followed by all the +current children, tapering to one or two toddlers, who felt themselves +neglected and wept their way along. The piper, too asthmatic to run, +but not too asthmatic to walk and play his bagpipes, delighting the +heart of Malcolm, who could not mistake the style, believed he brought +up the rear, but was wrong; for the very last came Mrs Findlay and +Lizzy, carrying between them their little deal kitchen-table, for her +ladyship to step out of the boat upon, and Lizzy’s child fast asleep on +the top of it.</p> + +<p>The foremost ran and ran until they saw that the Psyche had chosen +her couch, and was turning her head to the shore, when they stopped +and stood ready with greased planks and ropes to draw her up. In a +few moments the whole population was gathered, darkening, in the June +midnight, the yellow sands between the tide and dune. The Psyche was +well manned now with a crew of six. On she came under full sail till +within a few yards of the beach, when, in one and the same moment, +every sheet was let go, and she swept softly up like a summer wave, +and lay still on the shore. The butterfly was asleep. But ere she came +to rest, the instant indeed that her canvas went fluttering away, +thirty strong men had rushed into the water and laid hold of the now +broken-winged thing. In a few minutes she was high and dry.</p> + +<p>Malcolm leaped on the sand just as the Partaness came bustling up with +her kitchen-table between her two hands like a tray. She set it down, +and across it shook hands with him violently; then caught it up and +deposited it firm on its four legs beneath the cutter’s waist.</p> + +<p>“Noo, my leddy,” said Meg, looking up at the marchioness, “set ye yer +bit fut upo’ my table, an’ we’ll think the mair o’ ’t efter, whan we +tak oor denner aff o’ ’t.”</p> + +<p>Florimel thanked her, stepped lightly upon it, and sprang to the sand, +where she was received with words of welcome from many, and shouts +which rendered them inaudible from the rest. The men, their bonnets in +their hands, and the women courtesying, made a lane for her to pass +through, while the young fellows would gladly have begged leave to +carry her, could they have extemporised any suitable sort of palanquin +or triumphal litter.</p> + +<p>Followed by Malcolm, she led the way over the Boar’s Tail—nor would +accept any help in climbing it—straight for the tunnel: Malcolm had +never laid aside the key to the private doors his father had given +him while he was yet a servant. They crossed by the embrasure of the +brass swivel. That implement had now long been silent, but they had +not gone many paces from the bottom of the dune when it went off with +a roar. The shouts of the people drowned the startled cry with which +Florimel, involuntarily mindful of old and for her better times, +turned to Malcolm. She had not looked for such a reception, and was +both flattered and touched by it. For a brief space the spirit of +her girlhood came back. Possibly, had she then understood that hope +rather than faith or love was at the heart of their enthusiasm, that +her tenants looked upon her as their saviour from the factor, and +sorely needed the exercise of her sovereignty, she might have better +understood her position, and her duty towards them.</p> + +<p>Malcolm unlocked the door of the tunnel, and she entered, followed by +Rose, who felt as if she were walking in a dream. As he stepped in +after them, he was seized from behind, and clasped close in an embrace +he knew at once.</p> + +<p>“Daddy, daddy!” he said, and turning threw his arms round the piper.</p> + +<p>“My poy! my poy! Her nain son Malcolm!” cried the old man in a whisper +of intense satisfaction and suppression. “You’ll must pe forgifing her +for coming pack to you. She cannot help lofing you, and you must forget +tat you are a Cam’ell.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm kissed his cheek, and said, also in a whisper:</p> + +<p>“My ain daddy! I ha’e a heap to tell ye, but I maun see my leddy hame +first.”</p> + +<p>“Co, co, this moment co,” cried the old man, pushing him away. “To your +tuties to my leddyship first, and then come to her old daddy.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be wi’ ye in half an hoor or less.”</p> + +<p>“Coot poy! coot poy! Come to Mistress Partan’s.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, ay, daddy!” said Malcolm, and hurried through the tunnel.</p> + +<p>As Florimel approached the ancient dwelling of her race, now her own to +do with as she would, her pleasure grew. Whether it was the twilight, +or the breach in dulling custom, everything looked strange, the +grounds wider, the trees larger, the house grander and more anciently +venerable. And all the way the burn sang in the hollow. The spirit of +her father seemed to hover about the place, and while the thought that +her father’s voice would not greet her when she entered the hall, cast +a solemn funereal state over her simple return, her heart yet swelled +with satisfaction and far-derived pride. All this was hers to work her +pleasure with, to confer as she pleased! No thought of her tenants, +fishers or farmers, who did their strong part in supporting the ancient +dignity of her house, had even an associated share in the bliss of the +moment. She had forgotten her reception already, or regarded it only as +the natural homage to such a position and power as hers. As to owing +anything in return, the idea had indeed been presented to her when with +Clementina and Malcolm she talked over “St Ronan’s Well,” but it had +never entered her mind.</p> + +<p>The drawing-room and the hall were lighted. Mrs Courthope was at +the door as if she expected her, and Florimel was careful to take +everything as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>“When will your ladyship please to want me?” asked Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“At the usual hour, Malcolm,” she answered.</p> + +<p>He turned, and ran to the Seaton.</p> + +<p>His first business was the accommodation of Travers and Davy, but he +found them already housed at the Salmon, with Jamie Ladle teaching +Travers to drink toddy. They had left the Psyche snug: she was high +above high-water mark, and there were no tramps about; they had furled +her sails, locked the companion-door, and left her.</p> + +<p>Mrs Findlay rejoiced over Malcolm as if he had been her own son from a +far country; but the poor piper between politeness and gratitude on the +one hand, and the urging of his heart on the other, was sorely tried +by her loquacity: he could hardly get in a word. Malcolm perceived his +suffering, and, as soon as seemed prudent, proposed that he should walk +with him to Miss Horn’s, where he was going to sleep, he said, that +night. Mrs Partan snuffed, but held her peace. For the third or fourth +time that day, wonderful to tell, she restrained herself!</p> + +<p>As soon as they were out of the house, Malcolm assured Duncan, to the +old man’s great satisfaction, that, had he not found him there, he +would, within another month, have set out to roam Scotland in search of +him.</p> + +<p>Miss Horn had heard of their arrival, and was wandering about the +house, unable even to sit down until she saw the marquis. To herself +she always called him the marquis; to his face he was always <i>Ma’colm</i>. +If he had not come, she declared she could not have gone to bed—yet +she received him with an edge to her welcome: he had to answer for +his behaviour. They sat down, and Duncan told a long sad story; which +finished, with the toddy that had sustained him during the telling, the +old man thought it better, for fear of annoying his Mistress Partan, to +go home. As it was past one o’clock, they both agreed.</p> + +<p>“And if she’ll tie to-night, my poy,” said Duncan, “she’ll pe lie awake +in her crave all ta long tarkness, to pe waiting to hear ta voice of +your worrts in ta morning. And nefer you mind, Malcolm, she’ll has +learned to forgife you for peing only ta one half of yourself a cursed +Cam’ell.”</p> + +<p>Miss Horn gave Malcolm a wink, as much as to say, “Let the old +man talk. It will hurt no Campbell,” and showed him out with much +attention. And then at last Malcolm poured forth his whole story, +and his heart with it, to Miss Horn, who heard and received it with +understanding, and a sympathy which grew ever as she listened. At +length she declared herself perfectly satisfied, for not only had he +done his best, but she did not see what else he could have done. She +hoped, however, that now he would contrive to get this part over as +quickly as possible, for which, in the morning, she would, she said, +show him cogent reasons.</p> + +<p>“I ha’e no feelin’s mysel’, as ye weel ken, laddie,” she remarked in +conclusion, “an’ I doobt, gien I had been i’ your place, I wadna hae +luikit to a’ sides o’ the thing at ance as ye hae dune.— An’ it was a +man like you ’at sae near lost yer life for the hizzy!” she exclaimed. +“I maunna think aboot it, or I winna sleep a wink. But we maun get that +deevil Catanach (an’ cat eneuch!) hangt. Weel, my man, ye may haud +up yer heid afore the father o’ ye, for ye’re the first o’ the race, +I’m thinkin’, ’at ever was near-han’ deein’ for anither. But mak ye a +speedy en’ till ’t noo, laad, an’ fa’ to the lave o’ yer wark. There’s +a terrible heap to be dune. But I maun haud my tongue the nicht, for +I wad fain ye had a guid sleep, an’ I’m needin’ ane sair mysel’, for +I’m no sae yoong as I ance was, an’ I ha’e been that anxious aboot +ye, Ma’colm, ’at though I never hed ony feelin’s, yet, noo ’at a’ ’s +gaein’ richt, an’ ye’re a’ richt, and like to be richt for ever mair, +my heid’s jist like to split. Gang yer wa’s to yer bed, and soon may +ye sleep. It’s the bed yer bonny mither got a soon’ sleep in at last, +and muckle was she i’ the need o’ ’t! An’ jist tak tent the morn what +ye say whan Jean’s i’ the room, or maybe o’ the ither side o’ the door, +for she’s no mowse. I dinna ken what gars me keep the jaud. I believe +’at gien the verra deevil himsel’ had been wi’ me sae lang, I wadna +ha’e the hert to turn him aboot his ill business. That’s what comes o’ +haein’ no feelin’s. Ither fowk wad ha’e gotten rid o’ her half a score +years sin’ syne.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LVIII">CHAPTER LVIII.<br><span class="small">THE TRENCH.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Malcolm had not yet, after all the health-giving of the voyage, +entirely recovered from the effects of the ill-compounded potion. +Indeed, sometimes the fear crossed his mind that never would he be the +same man again, that the slow furnace of the grave alone would destroy +the vile deposit left in his house of life. Hence it came that he was +weary, and overslept himself the next day—but it was no great matter; +he had yet time enough. He swallowed his breakfast as a working man +alone can, and set out for Duff Harbour. At Leith, where they had put +in for provisions, he had posted a letter to Mr Soutar, directing him +to have Kelpie brought on to his own town, whence he would fetch her +himself. The distance was about ten miles, the hour eight, and he was a +good enough walker, although boats and horses had combined to prevent +him, he confessed, from getting over-fond of Shanks’ mare. To men +who delight in the motions of a horse under them, the legs of a man +are a tame, dull means of progression, although they too have their +superiorities; and one of the disciplines of this world is to have to +get out of the saddle and walk afoot. He who can do so with perfect +serenity, must very nearly have learned with St Paul in whatsoever +state he is therein to be content. It was the loveliest of mornings, +however, to be abroad in upon any terms, and Malcolm hardly needed +the resources of one who knew both how to be abased and how to abound +—enviable perfection—-for the enjoyment of even a long walk. Heaven +and earth were just settling to the work of the day after their morning +prayer, and the whole face of things yet wore something of that look +of expectation which one who mingled the vision of the poet with the +faith of the Christian might well imagine to be their upward look of +hope after a night of groaning and travailing —the earnest gaze of +the creature waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God; and +for himself, though the hardest thing was yet to come, there was a +satisfaction in finding himself almost up to his last fence, with the +heavy ploughed land through which he had been floundering nearly all +behind him—which figure means that he had almost made up his mind what +to do.</p> + +<p>When he reached the Duff Arms, he walked straight into the yard, where +the first thing he saw was a stable boy in the air, hanging on to a +twitch on the nose of the rearing Kelpie. In another instant he would +have been killed or maimed for life, and Kelpie loose, and scouring +the streets of Duff Harbour. When she heard Malcolm’s voice and the +sound of his running feet, she stopped as if to listen. He flung the +boy aside and caught her halter. Once or twice more she reared, in the +vain hope of so ridding herself of the pain that clung to her lip and +nose, nor did she, through the mist of her anger and suffering, quite +recognize her master in his yacht uniform. But the torture decreasing, +she grew able to scent his presence, welcomed him with her usual glad +whinny, and allowed him to do with her as he would.</p> + +<p>Having fed her, found Mr Soutar, and arranged several matters with him, +he set out for home.</p> + +<p>That was a ride! Kelpie was mad with life. Every available field he +jumped her into, and she tore its element of space at least to shreds +with her spurning hoofs. But the distance was not great enough to +quiet her before they got to hard turnpike and young plantations. He +would have entered at the grand gate, but found no one at the lodge, +for the factor, to save a little, had dismissed the old keeper. He had +therefore to go on, and through the town, where, to the awe-stricken +eyes of the population peeping from doors and windows, it seemed as +if the terrible horse would carry him right over the roofs of the +fisher-cottages below, and out to sea.</p> + +<p>“Eh, but he’s a terrible cratur that Ma’colm MacPhail!” said the old +wives to each other, for they felt there must be something wicked in +him to ride like that. But he turned her aside from the steep hill, and +passed along the street that led to the town-gate of the House.—Whom +should he see, as he turned into it, but Mrs Catanach!—standing on her +own doorstep, opposite the descent to the Seaton, shading her eyes with +her hand, and looking far out over the water through the green smoke of +the village below. As long as he could remember her, it had been her +wont to gaze thus; though what she could at such times be looking for, +except it were the devil in person, he found it hard to conjecture.</p> + +<p>At the sound of his approach she turned; and such an expression crossed +her face in a momentary flash ere she disappeared in the house, as +added considerably to his knowledge of fallen humanity. Before he +reached her door she was out again, tying on a clean white apron as she +came, and smiling like a dark pool in sunshine. She dropped him a low +courtesy, and looked as if she had been occupying her house for months +of his absence. But Malcolm would not meet even cunning with its own +weapons, and therefore turned away his head, and took no notice of her. +She ground her teeth with the fury of hate, and swore that she would +yet disappoint him of his purpose, whatever it were, in this masquerade +of service. Her heart being scarcely of the calibre to comprehend one +like Malcolm’s, her theories for the interpretation of the mystery were +somewhat wild, and altogether of a character unfit to see the light.</p> + +<p>The keeper of the town-gate greeted Malcolm, as he let him in, with a +pleased old face and words of welcome; but added instantly, as if it +was no time for the indulgence of friendship, that it was a terrible +business going on at the Nose.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” asked Malcolm, in alarm.</p> + +<p>“Ye ha’e been ower lang awa’, I doobt,” answered the man, “to ken hoo +the factor——But, Lord save ye! haud yer tongue,” he interjected, +looking fearfully around him. “Gien he kenned ’at I said sic a thing, +he wad turn me oot o’ hoose an’ ha’.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve said nothing yet,” rejoined Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“I said <i>factor</i>, an’ that same’s ’maist eneuch, for he’s like a +roarin’ lion an’ a ragin’ bear amang the people, an’ that sin’ ever ye +gaed. Bow-o’-meal said i’ the meetin’ the ither nicht ’at he bude to +be the verra man, the wickit ruler propheseed o’ sae lang sin’ syne i’ +the beuk o’ the Proverbs. Eh! it’s an awfu’ thing to be foreordeent to +oonrichteousness!”</p> + +<p>“But you haven’t told me what is the matter at Scaurnose,” said Malcolm +impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Ow, it’s jist this—at this same ’s midsimmer-day, an’ Blew Peter, +honest fallow! he’s been for the last three month un’er nottice frae +the factor to quit. An’ sae, ye see,——”</p> + +<p>“To quit!” exclaimed Malcolm. “Sic a thing was never h’ard tell o’!”</p> + +<p>“Haith! it’s h’ard tell o’ noo,” returned the gatekeeper. “Quittin’ +’s as plenty as quicken (<i>couch-grass</i>). ’Deed there’s maist naething +ither h’ard tell o’ <i>bit</i> quittin’; for the full half o’ Scaurnose is +un’er like nottice for Michaelmas, an’ the Lord kens what it’ll a’ en’ +in!”</p> + +<p>“But what’s it for? Blue Peter’s no the man to misbehave himsel’.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, ye ken mair yersel’ nor ony ither as to the warst fau’t there is +to lay till ’s chairge; for they say—that is, <i>some</i> say, it’s a’ yer +ain wyte, Ma’colm.”</p> + +<p>“What mean ye, man? Speyk oot,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“They say it’s a’ anent the abduckin’ o’ the markis’s boat, ’at you an’ +him gaed aff wi’ thegither.”</p> + +<p>“That’ll hardly haud, seeing the marchioness hersel’ cam hame in her +the last nicht.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, but ye see the decree’s gane oot, an’ what the factor says is +like the laws o’ the Medes an’ the Prussians, ’at they say’s no to be +altert; I kenna mysel’.”</p> + +<p>“Ow weel! gien that be a’, I’ll see efter that wi’ the marchioness.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, but ye see there’s a lot o’ the laads there, as I’m tellt, ’at +has vooed ’at factor nor factor’s man sall ever set fut in Scaurnose +frae this day furth. Gang ye doon to the Seaton, an’ see hoo mony o’ +yer auld freen’s ye’ll fin’ there. Man, they’re a’ oot to Scaurnose to +see the plisky! The factor he’s there, I ken, an’ some constables wi’ +’im—to see ’at his order’s cairried oot. An’ the laads they ha’e been +fortifeein’ the place—as they ca’ ’t—for the last oor. They’ve howkit +a trenk, they tell me, ’at nane but a hunter on ’s horse cud win ower, +an’ they’re postit alang the toon side o’ ’t wi’ sticks an’ stanes, +an’ boat-heuks, an’ guns an’ pistils. An’ gien there bena a man or twa +killt a’ready,——”</p> + +<p>Before he finished his sentence, Kelpie was levelling herself for the +sea-gate.</p> + +<p>Johnny Bykes was locking it on the other side, in haste to secure his +eye-share of what was going on, when he caught sight of Malcolm tearing +up. Mindful of the old grudge, also that there was no marquis now +to favour his foe, he finished the arrested act of turning the key, +drew it from the lock, and to Malcolm’s orders, threats, and appeals, +returned for all answer that he had no time to attend to <i>him</i>, and +so left him looking through the bars. Malcolm dashed across the burn, +and round the base of the hill on which stood the little windgod +blowing his horn, dismounted, unlocked the door in the wall, got Kelpie +through, and was in the saddle again before Johnny was half-way from +the gate. When the churl saw him, he trembled, turned, and ran for its +shelter again in terror—nor perceived until he reached it, that the +insulted groom had gone off like the wind in the opposite direction.</p> + +<p>Malcolm soon left the high road and cut across the fields—over which +the wind bore cries and shouts, mingled with laughter and the animal +sounds of coarse jeering. When he came nigh the cart-road which led +into the village, he saw at the entrance of the street a crowd, and +rising from it the well-known shape of the factor on his horse. +Nearer the sea, where was another entrance through the back-yards of +some cottages, was a smaller crowd. Both were now pretty silent, for +the attention of all was fixed on Malcolm’s approach. As he drew up +Kelpie foaming and prancing, and the group made way for her, he saw +a deep wide ditch across the road, on whose opposite side was ranged +irregularly the flower of Scaurnose’s younger manhood, calmly, even +merrily prepared to defend their entrenchment. They had been chaffing +the factor, and loudly challenging the constables to come on, when they +recognised Malcolm in the distance, and expectancy stayed the rush of +their bruising wit. For they regarded him as beyond a doubt come from +the marchioness with messages of goodwill. When he rode up, therefore, +they raised a great shout, everyone welcoming him by name. But the +factor, who, to judge by appearances, had had his forenoon dram ere +he left home, burning with wrath, moved his horse in between Malcolm +and the assembled Scaurnoseans on the other side of the ditch. He had +self-command enough left, however, to make one attempt at the loftily +superior.</p> + +<p>“Pray what is your business?” he said, as if he had never seen Malcolm +in his life before, “I presume you come with a message.”</p> + +<p>“I come to beg you, sir, not to go further with this business. Surely +the punishment is already enough!” said Malcolm respectfully.</p> + +<p>“Who sends me the message?” asked the factor, his teeth clenched, and +his eyes flaming.</p> + +<p>“One,” answered Malcolm, “who has some influence for justice, and will +use it, upon whichever side the justice may lie.”</p> + +<p>“Go to hell,” cried the Factor, losing utterly his slender +self-command, and raising his whip.</p> + +<p>Malcolm took no heed of the gesture, for he was at the moment beyond +his reach.</p> + +<p>“Mr Crathie,” he said calmly, “you are banishing the best man in the +place.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt! no doubt! seeing he’s a crony of yours,” laughed the factor +in mighty scorn. “A canting, prayer-meeting rascal!” he added.</p> + +<p>“Is that ony waur nor a drucken elyer o’ the kirk?” cried Dubs from the +other side of the ditch, raising a roar of laughter.</p> + +<p>The very purple forsook the factor’s face, and left it a corpse-like +grey in the fire of his fury.</p> + +<p>“Come, come, my men! that’s going too far,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“An’ wha ir ye for a fudgie (<i>truant</i>) fisher, to gi’e coonsel ohn +speired?” shouted Dubs, altogether disappointed in the poor part +Malcolm seemed taking. “Haud to the factor there wi’ yer coonsel.”</p> + +<p>“Get out of my way,” said Mr Crathie, still speaking through his set +teeth, and came straight upon Malcolm. “Home with you! or—r—r——”</p> + +<p>Again he raised his whip, this time plainly with intent.</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake, factor, min’ the mere,” cried Malcolm. “Ribs an’ legs +an’ a’ ’ill be to crack, gien ye anger her wi’ yer whuppin’.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he drew a little aside that the factor might pass if he +pleased. A noise arose in the smaller crowd, and Malcolm turned to see +what it meant: off his guard, he received a stinging cut over the head +from the factor’s whip. Simultaneously, Kelpie stood up on end, and +Malcolm tore the weapon from the treacherous hand.</p> + +<p>“If I gave you what you deserve, Mr Crathie, I should knock you and +your horse together into that ditch. A touch of the spur would do +it. I am not quite sure that I ought not. A nature like yours takes +forbearance for fear.”</p> + +<p>While he spoke, his mare was ramping and kicking, making a clean sweep +all about her. Mr Crathie’s horse turned restive from sympathy, and it +was all his rider could do to keep his seat. As soon as he got Kelpie +a little quieter, Malcolm drew near and returned him his whip. He +snatched it from his outstretched hand, and essayed a second cut at +him, which Malcolm rendered powerless by pushing Kelpie close up to +him. Then suddenly wheeling, he left him.</p> + +<p>On the other side of the trench the fellows were shouting and roaring +with laughter.</p> + +<p>“Men,” cried Malcolm, “you have no right to stop up this road. I want +to go and see Blue Peter.”</p> + +<p>“Come on,” cried one of the young men, emulous of Dubs’s humour, and +spread out his arms as if to receive Kelpie to his bosom.</p> + +<p>“Stand out of the way then,” said Malcolm, “I <i>am</i> coming.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he took Kelpie a little round, keeping out of the way of +the factor, who sat trembling with rage on his still excited animal, +and sent her at the trench.</p> + +<p>The Deevil’s Jock, as they called him, kept jumping, with his arms +outspread, from one place to another, as if to receive Kelpie’s charge, +but when he saw her actually coming, in short, quick bounds, straight +to the trench, he was seized with terror, and, half-paralysed, slipped +as he turned to flee, and rolled into the ditch, just in time to let +Kelpie fly over his head. His comrades scampered right and left, and +Malcolm, rather disgusted, took no notice of them.</p> + +<p>A cart, loaded with their little all, the horse in the shafts, was +standing at Peter’s door, but nobody was near it. Hardly was Malcolm +well into the close, however, when out rushed Annie, and, heedless of +Kelpie’s demonstrative repellence, reached up her hands like a child, +caught him by the arm, while yet he was busied with his troublesome +charge, drew him down towards her, and held him till, in spite of +Kelpie, she had kissed him again and again.</p> + +<p>“Eh, Ma’colm! eh, my lord!” she said, “ye ha’e saved my faith. I kenned +ye wad come!”</p> + +<p>“Haud yer tongue, Annie. I mauna be kenned,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“There’s nae danger. They’ll tak it for sweirin’,” answered Annie, +laughing and crying both at once.</p> + +<p>Out next came Blue Peter, his youngest child in his arms.</p> + +<p>“Eh, Peter man! I’m blythe to see ye,” cried Malcolm. “Gie ’s a grup o’ +yer honest han’.”</p> + +<p>More than even the sight of his face beaming with pleasure, more than +that grasp of the hand that would have squeezed the life out of a +pole-cat, was the sound of the mother-tongue from his lips. The cloud +of Peter’s long distrust broke and vanished, and the sky of his soul +was straightway a celestial blue. He snatched his hand from Malcolm’s, +walked back into the empty house, ran into the little closet off +the kitchen, bolted the door, fell on his knees in the void little +sanctuary that had of late been the scene of so many foiled attempts to +lift up his heart, and poured out speechless thanksgiving to the God of +all grace and consolation, who had given him back his friend, and that +in the time of his sore need. So true was his heart in its love, that, +giving thanks for his friend, he forgot that friend was the Marquis of +Lossie, before whom his enemy was but as a snail in the sun.</p> + +<p>When he rose from his knees, and went out again, his face shining and +his eyes misty, his wife was on the top of the cart, tying a rope +across the cradle.</p> + +<p>“Peter,” said Malcolm, “ye was quite richt to gang, but I’m glaid they +didna lat ye.”</p> + +<p>“I wad ha’e been half w’y to Port Gordon or noo,” said Peter.</p> + +<p>“But noo ye’ll no gang to Port Gordon,” said Malcolm. “Ye’ll jist gang +to the Salmon for a feow days, till we see hoo things gang.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll du onything ye like, Ma’colm,” said Peter, and went into the +house to fetch his bonnet.</p> + +<p>In the street arose the cry of a woman, and into the close rushed one +of the fisher-wives, followed by the factor. He had found a place on +the eastern side of the village, where, jumping a low earth wall, he +got into a little back yard, and was trampling over its few stocks of +kail, and its one dusty miller and double daisy, when the woman to +whose cottage it belonged caught sight of him through the window, and +running out fell to abusing him in no measured language. He rode at her +in his rage, and she fled shrieking into Peter’s close, where she took +refuge behind the cart, never ceasing her vituperation, but calling him +every choice name in her vocabulary. Beside himself with the rage of +murdered dignity, he rode up, and struck at her over the corner of the +cart, whereupon, from the top of it, Annie Mair ventured to expostulate.</p> + +<p>“Hoot, sir! It’s no mainners to lat at a wuman like that.”</p> + +<p>He turned upon her, and gave her a cut on the arm and hand, so stinging +that she cried out, and nearly fell from the cart. Out rushed Peter and +flew at the factor, who from his seat of vantage began to ply his whip +about his head. But Malcolm, who, when the factor appeared, had moved +aside to keep Kelpie out of mischief, and saw only the second of the +two assaults, came forward with a scramble and a bound.</p> + +<p>“Haud awa’, Peter,” he cried. “This belangs to me. I ga’e him back ’s +whup, an’ sae I’m accoontable.—Mr Crathie,”—and as he spoke he edged +his mare up to the panting factor, “the man who strikes a woman must be +taught that he is a scoundrel, and that office I take. I would do the +same if you were the lord of Lossie instead of his factor.”</p> + +<p>Mr Crathie, knowing himself now in the wrong, was a little frightened +at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, but the swift +descent of Malcolm’s heavy riding whip on his shoulders and back made +him voluble in curses. Then began a battle that could not last long +with such odds on the side of justice. It was gazed at from the mouth +of the close by many spectators, but none dared enter because of the +capering and plunging and kicking of the horses. In less than a minute +the factor turned to flee, and spurring out of the court, galloped up +the street at full stretch.</p> + +<p>“Haud oot o’ the gait,” cried Malcolm, and rode after him. But more +careful of the people, he did not get a good start, and the factor +was over the trench and into the fields before he caught him up. Then +again the stinging switch buckled about the shoulders of the oppressor, +driven with all the force of Malcolm’s brawny arm. The factor yelled +and cursed and swore, and still Malcolm plied the whip, and still the +horses flew—over fields and fences and ditches. At length in the last +field, from which they must turn into the high road, the factor groaned +out—</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake, Ma’colm, ha’e mercy!”</p> + +<p>The youth’s uplifted arm fell by his side. He turned his mare’s head, +and when the factor turned his, he saw the avenger already halfway back +to Scaurnose, and the constables in full flight meeting him.</p> + +<p>While Malcolm was thus occupied, his sister was writing to Lady +Bellair. She told her that, having gone out for a sail in her yacht, +which she had sent for from Scotland, the desire to see her home had +overpowered her to such a degree that of the intended sail she had +made a voyage, and here she was, longing just as much now to see Lady +Bellair; and if she thought proper to bring a gentleman to take care +of her, he also should be welcomed for her sake. It was a long way for +her to come, she said, and Lady Bellair knew what sort of a place it +was; but there was nobody in London now, and if she had nothing more +enticing on her tablets, &c., &c. She ended with begging her, if she +was mercifully inclined to make her happy with her presence, to bring +to her Caley and her hound Demon. She had hardly finished when Malcolm +presented himself.</p> + +<p>She received him very coldly, and declined to listen to anything about +the fishers. She insisted that, being one of their party, he was +prejudiced in their favour; and that of course a man of Mr Crathie’s +experience must know better than he what ought to be done with such +people, in view of protecting her rights, and keeping them in order. +She declared that she was not going to disturb the old way of things +to please him; and said that he had now done her all the mischief he +could, except, indeed, he were to head the fishers and sack Lossie +House.</p> + +<p>Malcolm found that, by making himself known to her as her brother, +he had but given her confidence in speaking her mind to him, and set +her free from considerations of personal dignity when she desired +to humiliate him. But he was a good deal surprised at the ability +with which she set forth and defended her own view of her affairs, +for she did not tell him that the Rev. Mr Cairns had been with her +all the morning, flattering her vanity, worshipping her power, and +generally instructing her in her own greatness—also putting in a +word or two anent his friend Mr Crathie and his troubles with her +ladyship’s fisher-tenants. She was still, however, so far afraid of her +brother—which state of feeling was, perhaps, the main cause of her +insulting behaviour to him—that she sat in some dread lest he might +chance to see the address of the letter she had been writing.</p> + +<p>I may mention here that Lady Bellair accepted the invitation with +pleasure for herself and Liftore, promised to bring Caley, but utterly +declined to take charge of Demon, or allow him to be of the party. +Thereupon Florimel, who was fond of the animal, and feared much, as +he was no favourite, that something would <i>happen</i> to him, wrote to +Clementina, praying her to visit her in her lovely loneliness —good +as The Gloom in its way, though not quite so dark—and to add a hair +to the weight of her obligations if she complied, by allowing her +deerhound to accompany her. Clementina was the only one, she said, of +her friends for whom the animal had ever shown a preference.</p> + +<p>Malcolm retired from his sister’s presence much depressed, saw Mrs +Courthope, who was kind as ever, and betook himself to his own room, +next to that in which his strange history began. There he sat down +and wrote urgently to Lenorme, stating that he had an important +communication to make, and begging him to start for the north the +moment he received the letter. A messenger from Duff Harbour well +mounted, he said, would ensure his presence within a couple of hours.</p> + +<p>He found the behaviour of his old acquaintances and friends in the +Seaton much what he had expected: the few were as cordial as ever, +while the many still resented, with a mingling of the jealousy of +affection, his forsaking of the old life for a calling they regarded +as unworthy of one bred at least if not born a fisherman. A few there +were besides who always had been, for reasons perhaps best known to +themselves, less than friendly. The women were all cordial.</p> + +<p>“Sic a mad-like thing,” said old Futtocks, who was now the leader of +the assembly at the barn, “to gang scoorin’ the cuintry on that mad +brute o’ a mere! What guid, think ye, can come o’ sic like?”</p> + +<p>“H’ard ye him ever tell the story aboot Colonsay Castel yon’er?”</p> + +<p>“Ay hev I.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, isna his mere ’at they ca’ Kelpie jist the pictur o’ the deil’s +ain horse ’at lay at the door an’ watched, whan he flaw oot an’ tuik +the wa’ wi’ ’im ?”</p> + +<p>“I cudna say till I saw whether the deil himsel’ cud gar her lie still.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LIX">CHAPTER LIX.<br><span class="small">THE PEACEMAKER.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The heroes of Scaurnose expected a renewal of the attack, and in +greater force, the next day, and made their preparations accordingly, +strengthening every weak point around the village. They were put in +great heart by Malcolm’s espousal of their cause, as they considered +his punishment of the factor; but most of them set it down in their +wisdom as resulting from the popular condemnation of his previous +supineness. It did not therefore add greatly to his influence with +them. When he would have prevailed upon them to allow Blue Peter to +depart, arguing that they had less right to prevent than the factor +had to compel him, they once more turned upon him: what right had he +to dictate to them? he did not belong to Scaurnose! He reasoned with +them that the factor, although he had not justice, had law on his side, +and could turn out whom he pleased. They said—“Let him try it!” He +told them that they had given great provocation, for he knew that the +men they had assaulted came surveying for a harbour, and that they +ought at least to make some apology for having maltreated them. It was +all useless: that was the women’s doing, they said; besides they did +not believe him; and if what he said was true, what was the thing to +them, seeing they were all under notice to leave? Malcolm said that +perhaps an apology would be accepted. They told him, if he did not take +himself off, they would serve him as he had served the factor. Finding +expostulation a failure, therefore, he begged Joseph and Annie to +settle themselves again as comfortably as they could, and left them.</p> + +<p>Contrary to the expectation of all, however, and considerably to the +disappointment of the party of Dubs, Fite Folp, and the rest, the next +day was as peaceful as if Scaurnose had been a halcyon nest floating +on the summer waves; and it was soon reported that, in consequence of +the punishment he had received from Malcolm, the factor was far too +ill to be troublesome to any but his wife. This was true, but, severe +as his chastisement was, it was not severe enough to have had any such +consequences but for his late growing habit of drinking whisky. As +it was, fever had followed upon the combination of bodily and mental +suffering. But already it had wrought this good in him, that he was far +more keenly aware of the brutality of the offence of which he had been +guilty than he would otherwise have been all his life through. To his +wife, who first learned the reason of Malcolm’s treatment of him from +his delirious talk in the night, it did not, circumstances considered, +appear an enormity, and her indignation with the avenger of it, whom +she had all but hated before, was furious. Malcolm, on his part, was +greatly concerned to hear the result of his severity. He refrained, +however, from calling to inquire, knowing it would be interpreted as +an insult, not accepted as a sign of sympathy. He went to the doctor +instead—who, to his consternation, looked very serious at first. But +when he learned all about the affair, he changed his view considerably, +and condescended to give good hopes of his coming through, even adding +that it would lengthen his life by twenty years if it broke him of his +habits of whisky-drinking and rage.</p> + +<p>And now Malcolm had a little time of leisure, which he put to the best +possible use in strengthening his relations with the fishers. For +he had nothing to do about the House, except look after Kelpie; and +Florimel, as if determined to make him feel that he was less to her +than before, much as she used to enjoy seeing him sit his mare, never +took him out with her—always Stoat. He resolved therefore, seeing he +must yet delay action a while in the hope of the appearance of Lenorme, +to go out as in the old days after the herring, both for the sake of +splicing, if possible, what strands had been broken between him and +the fishers, and of renewing for himself the delights of elemental +conflict. With these views, he hired himself to the Partan, whose +boat’s crew was short-handed. And now, night after night, he revelled +in the old pleasure, enhanced by so many months of deprivation. Joy +itself seemed embodied in the wind blowing on him out of the misty +infinite while his boat rocked and swung on the waters, hanging between +two worlds, that in which the wind blew, and that other dark-swaying +mystery whereinto the nets to which it was tied went away down and +down, gathering the harvest of the ocean. It was as if nature called +up all her motherhood to greet and embrace her long absent son. +When it came on to blow hard, as it did once and again during those +summer nights, instead of making him feel small and weak in the midst +of the storming forces, it gave him a glorious sense of power and +unconquerable life. And when his watch was out, and the boat lay quiet, +like a horse tethered and asleep in his clover-field, he too would fall +asleep with a sense of simultaneously deepening and vanishing delight +such as he had not at all in other conditions experienced. Ever since +the poison had got into his system, and crept where it yet lay lurking +in hidden corners and crannies, a noise at night would on shore startle +him awake, and set his heart beating hard; but no loudest sea-noise +ever woke him; the stronger the wind flapped its wings around him, the +deeper he slept. When a comrade called him by name, he was up at once +and wide awake.</p> + +<p>It answered also all his hopes in regard to his companions and the +fisher-folk generally. Those who had really known him found the same +old Malcolm, and those who had doubted him soon began to see that at +least he had lost nothing in courage or skill or goodwill: ere long +he was even a greater favourite than before. On his part, he learned +to understand far better the nature of his people, as well as the +individual characters of them, for his long (but not too long) absence +and return enabled him to regard them with unaccustomed, and therefore +in some respects more discriminating eyes.</p> + +<p>Duncan’s former dwelling happening to be then occupied by a lonely +woman, Malcolm made arrangements with her to take them both in; so +that in relation to his grandfather too something very much like the +old life returned for a time—with this difference, that Duncan soon +began to check himself as often as the name of his hate, with its +accompanying curse, rose to his lips.</p> + +<p>The factor continued very ill. He had sunk into a low state, in which +his former indulgence was greatly against him. Every night the fever +returned, and at length his wife was worn out with watching and waiting +upon him.</p> + +<p>And every morning Lizzy Findlay, without fail, called to inquire how Mr +Crathie had spent the night. To the last, while quarrelling with every +one of her neighbours with whom he had anything to do, he had continued +kind to her, and she was more grateful than one in other trouble than +hers could have understood. But she did not know that an element in the +origination of his kindness was the belief that it was by Malcolm she +had been wronged and forsaken.</p> + +<p>Again and again she had offered, in the humblest manner, to ease his +wife’s burden by sitting with him at night; and at last, finding she +could hold up no longer, Mrs Crathie consented. But even after a week +she found herself still unable to resume the watching, and so, night +after night, resting at home during a part of the day, Lizzy sat by the +sleeping factor, and when he woke, ministered to him like a daughter. +Nor did even her mother object, for sickness is a wondrous reconciler.</p> + +<p>Little did the factor suspect, however, that it was partly for +Malcolm’s sake she nursed him, anxious to shield the youth from any +possible consequences of his righteous vengeance.</p> + +<p>While their persecutor lay thus, gradually everything at Scaurnose, +and consequently at the Seaton, lapsed into its old way, and the +summer of such content as before they had possessed, returned to the +fishers. I fear it would have proved hard for some of them, had they +made effort in that direction, to join in the prayer, if prayer it +may be called, put up in church for him every Sunday. What a fearful +canopy the prayers that do not get beyond the atmosphere would make +if they turned brown with age! Having so lately seen the factor going +about like a maniac, raving at this piece of damage and that heap +of dirt, the few fishers present could never help smiling when Mr +Cairns prayed for him as “the servant of God and his church now lying +grievously afflicted—persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not +destroyed;”—having found the fitting phrases he seldom varied them.</p> + +<p>Through her sorrow, Lizzy had grown tender, as through her shame +she had grown wise. That the factor had been much in the wrong only +rendered her anxious sympathy the more eager to serve him. Knowing so +well what it was to have done wrong, she was pitiful over him, and her +ministrations were none the less devoted that she knew exactly how +Malcolm thought and felt about him; for the affair, having taken place +in open village and wide field and in the light of mid-day, and having +been reported by eye-witnesses many, was everywhere perfectly known, +and Malcolm therefore talked of it freely to his friends, amongst them +both to Lizzy and her mother.</p> + +<p>Sickness sometimes works marvellous changes, and the most marvellous on +persons who to the ordinary observer seem the least liable to change. +Much apparent steadfastness of nature, however, is but sluggishness, +and comes from incapacity to generate change or contribute towards +personal growth; and it follows that those whose nature is such can +as little prevent or retard any change that has its initiative beyond +them. The men who impress the world as the mightiest are those often +who <i>can</i> the least—never those who can the most in their natural +kingdom; generally those whose frontiers lie openest to the inroads +of temptation, whose atmosphere is most subject to moody changes and +passionate convulsions, who, while perhaps they can whisper laws +to a hemisphere, can utter no decree of smallest potency as to how +things shall be within themselves. Place Alexander ille Magnus beside +Malcolm’s friend Epictetus, ille servorum servus; take his crutch +from the slave and set the hero upon his Bucephalus—but set them +alone and in a desert: which will prove the great man? which the +unchangeable? The question being what the man himself shall or shall +not be, shall or shall not feel, shall or shall not recognize as of +himself and troubling the motions of his being, Alexander will prove a +mere earth-bubble, Epictetus a cavern in which pulses the tide of the +eternal and infinite Sea.</p> + +<p>But then first, when the false strength of the self-imagined great man +is gone, when the want or the sickness has weakened the self-assertion +which is so often mistaken for strength of individuality, when the +occupations in which he formerly found a comfortable consciousness +of being have lost their interest, his ambitions their glow, and his +consolations their colour, when suffering has wasted away those upper +strata of his factitious consciousness, and laid bare the lower, +simpler, truer deeps, of which he has never known or has forgotten +the existence, then there is a hope of his commencing a new and real +life. Powers then, even powers within himself of which he knew nothing, +begin to assert themselves, and the man commonly reported to possess a +strong will, is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. +This factor, this man of business, this despiser of humbug, to whom +the scruples of a sensitive conscience were a contempt, would now lie +awake in the night and weep. “Ah!” I hear it answered, “but that was +the weakness caused by his illness.” True: but what then had become +of his strength? And was it all weakness? What if this weakness was +itself a sign of returning life, not of advancing death—of the dawn +of a new and genuine strength! For he wept because, in the visions of +his troubled brain, he saw once more the cottage of his father the +shepherd, with all its store of lovely nothings round which the nimbus +of sanctity had gathered while he thought not of them; wept over the +memory of that moment of delight when his mother kissed him for parting +with his willow whistle to the sister who cried for it: he cried now in +his turn, after five and fifty years, for not yet had the little fact +done with him, not yet had the kiss of his mother lost its power on the +man: wept over the sale of the pet-lamb, though he had himself sold +thousands of lambs, since; wept over even that bush of dusty miller +by the door, like the one he trampled under his horse’s feet in the +little yard at Scaurnose that horrible day. And oh, that nest of wild +bees with its combs of honey unspeakable! He used to laugh and sing +then: he laughed still sometimes—he could hear how he laughed, and +it sounded frightful—but he never sang! Were the tears that honoured +such childish memories all of weakness? Was it cause of regret that he +had not been wicked enough to have become impregnable to such foolish +trifles? Unable to mount a horse, unable to give an order, not caring +even for his toddy, he was left at the mercy of his fundamentals; his +childhood came up and claimed him, and he found the childish things +he had put away better than the manly things he had adopted. It is +one thing for St Paul and another for Mr Worldly Wiseman to put away +childish things. The ways they do it, and the things they substitute, +are both so different. And now first to me, whose weakness it is to +love life more than manners, and men more than their portraits, the man +begins to grow interesting. Picture the dawn of innocence on a dull, +whisky-drinking, common-place soul, stained by self-indulgence, and +distorted by injustice! Unspeakably more interesting and lovely is to +me such a dawn than the honeymoon of the most passionate of lovers, +except indeed I know them such lovers that their love will outlast all +the moons.</p> + +<p>“I’m a poor creature, Lizzy,” he said, turning his heavy face one +midnight towards the girl, as she sat half-dozing, ready to start awake.</p> + +<p>“God comfort ye, sir!” said the girl.</p> + +<p>“He’ll take good care of that!” returned the factor. “What did I ever +do to deserve it?—There’s that MacPhail, now—to think of <i>him</i>! +Didn’t I do what man could for him? Didn’t I keep him about the place +when all the rest were dismissed? Didn’t I give him the key of the +library, that he might read and improve his mind? And look what comes +of it!”</p> + +<p>“Ye mean, sir,” said Lizzy, quite innocently, “’at that’s the w’y ye +ha’e dune wi’ God, an’ sae he winna heed ye?”</p> + +<p>The factor had meant nothing in the least like it. He had merely been +talking as the imps of suggestion tossed up. His logic was as sick and +helpless as himself. So at that he held his peace— stung in his pride +at least—perhaps in his conscience too, only he was not prepared to be +rebuked by a girl like her, who had—— Well, he must let it pass: how +much better was he himself?</p> + +<p>But Lizzy was loyal: she could not hear him speak so of Malcolm and +hold her peace as if she agreed in his condemnation.</p> + +<p>“Ye’ll ken Ma’colm better some day, sir,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Well, Lizzy,” returned the sick man, in a tone that but for feebleness +would have been indignant, “I have heard a good deal of the way women +<i>will</i> stand up for men that have treated them cruelly, but you to +stand up for <i>him</i> passes!”</p> + +<p>“He’s been the best friend I ever had,” said Lizzy.</p> + +<p>“Girl! how can you sit there, and tell me so to my face?” cried the +factor, his voice strengthened by the righteousness of the reproof it +bore. “If it were not the dead of the night——”</p> + +<p>“I tell ye naething but the trowth, sir,” said Lizzy, as the contingent +threat died away. “But ye maun lie still or I maun gang for the +mistress. Gien ye be the waur the morn, it’ll be a’ my wyte, ’cause I +cudna bide to hear sic things said o’ Ma’colm.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to tell me,” persisted her charge, heedless of her +expostulation, “that the fellow who brought you to disgrace, and left +you with a child you could ill provide for—and I well know never sent +you a penny all the time he was away, whatever he may have done now—is +the best friend you ever had?”</p> + +<p>“Noo God forgi’e ye, Maister Craithie, for threepin’ sic a thing!” +cried Lizzy, rising as if she would leave him; “Ma’colm MacPhail’s as +clear o’ ony sin like mine as my wee bairnie itsel’.”</p> + +<p>“Do ye daur tell me he’s no the father o’ that same, lass?”</p> + +<p>“<i>No</i>, nor never will be the father o’ ony bairn whase mither’s no his +wife!” said Lizzy, with burning cheeks and resolute voice.</p> + +<p>The factor, who had risen on his elbow to look her in the face, fell +back in silence; and neither of them spoke for what seemed to the +watcher a long time. When she ventured to look at him, he was asleep.</p> + +<p>He lay in one of those troubled slumbers into which weakness and +exhaustion will sometimes pass very suddenly; and in that slumber he +had a dream which he never forgot. He thought he had risen from his +grave with an awful sound in his ears, and knew he was wanted at the +judgment seat. But he did not want to go, therefore crept into the +porch of the church, and hoped to be forgotten. But suddenly an angel +appeared with a flaming sword and drove him out of the churchyard away +to Scaurnose where the judge was sitting. And as he fled in terror +before the angel, he fell, and the angel came and stood over him, and +his sword flashed torture into his bones, but he could not and dared +not rise. At last, summoning all his strength, he looked up at him, and +cried out, “Sir, ha’e mercy, for God’s sake.” Instantly all the flames +drew back into the sword, and the blade dropped, burning like a brand, +from the hilt, which the angel threw away.—And lo! it was Malcolm +MacPhail, and he was stooping to raise him. With that he awoke, and +there was Lizzy looking down on him anxiously.</p> + +<p>“What are you looking like that for?” he asked crossly.</p> + +<p>She did not like to tell him that she had been alarmed by his dropping +asleep: and in her confusion she fell back on the last subject.</p> + +<p>“There maun be some mistak, Mr Craithie,” she said. “I wuss ye wad tell +me what gars ye hate Ma’colm MacPhail as ye du.”</p> + +<p>The factor, although he seemed to himself to know well enough, was yet +a little puzzled how to commence his reply; and therewith a process +began that presently turned into something with which never in his life +before had his inward parts been acquainted—a sort of self-examination +to wit. He said to himself, partly in the desire to justify his present +dislike—he would not call it hate, as Lizzy did—that he used to +get on with the lad well enough, and had never taken offence at his +freedoms, making no doubt his manner came of his blood, and he could +not help it, being a chip of the old block; but when he ran away with +the marquis’s boat, and went to the marchioness and told her lies +against him—then what could he do but dislike him?</p> + +<p>Arrived at this point, he opened his mouth and gave the substance of +what preceded it for answer to Lizzy’s question. But she replied at +once.</p> + +<p>“Nobody ’ill gar me believe, sir, ’at Ma’colm MacPhail ever tellt a lee +again’ you or onybody. I dinna believe he ever tellt a lee in ’s life. +Jist ye exem’ him weel anent it, sir. An’ for the boat, nae doobt it +was makin’ free to tak it; but ye ken, sir, ’at hoo he was maister o’ +the same. It was in his chairge, an’ ye ken little aboot boats yersel’, +or the sailin’ o’ them, sir.”</p> + +<p>“But it was me that engaged him again, after all the servants at the +House had been dismissed: he was <i>my</i> servant.”</p> + +<p>“That maks the thing luik waur, nae doobt,” allowed Lizzy, with +something of cunning. “Hoo was ’t ’at he cam to du ’t ava’ (_of all; at +all_), sir? Can ye min’?” she pursued.</p> + +<p>“I discharged him.”</p> + +<p>“An’ what for, gien I may mak bold to speir, sir?” she went on.</p> + +<p>“For insolence.”</p> + +<p>“Wad ye tell me hoo he answert ye? Dinna think me meddlin’, sir. I’m +clear certain there’s been some mistak. Ye cudna be sae guid to me, an’ +be ill to him, ohn some mistak.”</p> + +<p>It was consoling to the conscience of the factor, in regard of his +behaviour to the two women, to hear his own praise for kindness +from a woman’s lips. He took no offence therefore at her persistent +questioning, but told her as well and as truly as he could remember, +with no more than the all but unavoidable exaggeration with which +feeling <i>will</i> colour fact, the whole passage between Malcolm and +himself concerning the sale of Kelpie, and closed with an appeal to +the judgment of his listener, in which he confidently anticipated her +verdict.</p> + +<p>“A most ridic’lous thing! ye can see yersel’ as weel ’s onybody, Lizzy! +An’ sic a thing to ca’ an honest man like mysel’ a hypocrete for! ha! +ha! ha! There’s no a bairn ’atween John o’ Groat’s an’ the Lan’s En’ +disna ken ’at the seller o’ a horse is b’un’ to reese (<i>extol</i>) him, +an’ the buyer to tak care o’ himsel’. I’ll no say it’s jist allooable +to tell a doonricht lee, but ye may come full nearer till ’t in +horse-dealin’, ohn sinned, nor in ony ither kin’ o’ merchandeze. It’s +like luve an’ war, in baith which, it’s weel kenned, a’ thing’s fair. +The saw sud rin—<i>Luve an’ war an’ horse dealin’</i>.—Divna ye see, +Lizzy?”</p> + +<p>But Lizzy did not answer, and the factor, hearing a stifled sob, +started to his elbow.</p> + +<p>“Lie still, sir,” said Lizzy. “It’s naething. I was only jist thinkin’ +’at that wad be the w’y ’at the father o’ my bairn rizoned wi’ himsel’ +whan he lee’d to me.”</p> + +<p>“Hey!” said the astonished factor, and in his turn held his peace, +trying to think.</p> + +<p>Now Lizzy, for the last few months, had been going to school, the same +school with Malcolm, open to all comers, the only school where one +is sure to be led in the direction of wisdom, and there she had been +learning to some purpose—as plainly appeared before she had done with +the factor.</p> + +<p>“Whase kirk are ye elder o’, Maister Craithie?” she asked presently.</p> + +<p>“Ow, the kirk o’ Scotlan’, of coorse!” answered the patient, in some +surprise at her ignorance.</p> + +<p>“Ay, ay,” returned Lizzy; “but whase aucht (<i>owning, property</i>) is ’t?”</p> + +<p>“Ow, whase but the Redeemer’s!”</p> + +<p>“An’ div ye think, Mr Craithie, ’at gien Jesus Christ had had a horse +to sell, he wad ha’e hidden frae him ’at wad buy, ae hair a fau’t ’at +the beast hed? Wad he no ha’e dune till ’s neiper as he wad ha’e his +neiper du to him?”</p> + +<p>“Lassie! lassie! tak care hoo ye even <i>him</i> to sic like as hiz (<i>us</i>). +What wad <i>he</i> hae to du wi’ horse-flesh?”</p> + +<p>Lizzy held her peace. Here was no room for argument. He had flung the +door of his conscience in the face of her who woke it. But it was too +late, for the word was in already. Oh! that false reverence which +men substitute for adoring obedience, and wherewith they reprove the +childlike spirit that does not know another kingdom than that of God +and that of Mammon! God never gave man thing to do concerning which it +were irreverent to ponder how the son of God would have done it.</p> + +<p>But, I say, the word was in, and, partly no doubt from its following so +close upon the dream the factor had had, was potent in its operation. +He fell a-thinking, and a-thinking more honestly than he had thought +for many a day. And presently it was revealed to him that, if he were +in the horse market wanting to buy, and a man there who had to sell +said to him—“He wadna du for you, sir; ye wad be tired o’ ’im in a +week,” he would never remark, “What a fool the fellow is!” but—“Weel +noo, I ca’ that neibourly!” He did not get quite so far just then as to +see that every man to whom he might want to sell a horse was as much +his neighbour as his own brother; nor, indeed, if he had got as far, +would it have indicated much progress in honesty, seeing he would at +any time, when needful and possible, have cheated that brother in the +matter of a horse, as certainly as he would a Patagonian or a Chinaman. +But the warped glass of a bad maxim had at least been cracked in his +window.</p> + +<p>The peacemaker sat in silence the rest of the night, but the factor’s +sleep was broken, and at times he wandered. He was not so well the next +day, and his wife, gathering that Lizzy had been talking, and herself +feeling better, would not allow her to sit up with him any more.</p> + +<p>Days and days passed, and still Malcolm had no word from Lenorme, and +was getting hopeless in respect of that quarter of possible aid. But +so long as Florimel could content herself with the quiet of Lossie +House, there was time to wait, he said to himself. She was not idle, +and that was promising. Every day she rode out with Stoat. Now and then +she would make a call in the neighbourhood, and, apparently to trouble +Malcolm, took care to let him know that on one of these occasions +her call had been upon Mrs Stewart. One thing he did feel was that +she made no renewal of her friendship with his grandfather: she had, +alas! outgrown the girlish fancy. Poor Duncan took it much to heart. +She saw more of the minister and his wife, who both flattered her, +than anybody else, and was expecting the arrival of Lady Bellair and +Lord Liftore with the utmost impatience. They, for their part, were +making the journey by the easiest possible stages, tacking and veering, +and visiting everyone of their friends that lay between London and +Lossie: they thought to give Florimel the little lesson, that, though +they accepted her invitation, they had plenty of friends in the world +besides her ladyship, and were not dying to see her.</p> + +<p>One evening, Malcolm, as he left the grounds of Mr Morrison, on whom he +had been calling, saw a travelling carriage pass towards Portlossie; +and something liker fear laid hold of his heart than he had ever felt +except when Florimel and he on the night of the storm took her father +for Lord Gernon the wizard. As soon as he reached certain available +fields, he sent Kelpie tearing across them, dodged through a fir-wood, +and came out on the road half a mile in front of the carriage: as again +it passed him he saw that his fears were facts, for in it sat the +bold-faced countess, and the mean-hearted lord. Something <i>must</i> be +done at last, and until it was done good watch must be kept.</p> + +<p>I must here note that, during this time of hoping and waiting, Malcolm +had attended to another matter of importance. Over every element +influencing his life, his family, his dependents, his property, he +desired to possess a lawful, honest command: where he had to render +account, he would be head. Therefore, through Mr Soutar’s London agent, +to whom he sent up Davy, and whom he brought acquainted with Merton, +and his former landlady at the curiosity shop, he had discovered a +good deal about Mrs Catanach from her London associates, among them +the herb-doctor, and his little boy who had watched Davy, and he had +now almost completed an outline of evidence, which, grounded on that +of Rose, might be used against Mrs Catanach at any moment. He had also +set inquiries on foot in the track of Caley’s antecedents, and had +discovered more than the acquaintance between her and Mrs Catanach. +Also he had arranged that Hodges, the man who had lost his leg through +his cruelty to Kelpie, should leave for Duff Harbour as soon as +possible after his discharge from the hospital. He was determined to +crush the evil powers which had been ravaging his little world.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LX">CHAPTER LX.<br><span class="small">AN OFFERING.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Clementina was always ready to accord any reasonable request Florimel +could make of her; but her letter lifted such a weight from her heart +and life that she would now have done whatever she desired, reasonable +or unreasonable, provided only it was honest. She had no difficulty in +accepting Florimel’s explanation that her sudden disappearance was but +a breaking of the social gaol, the flight of the weary bird from its +foreign cage back to the country of its nest; and that same morning she +called upon Demon. The hound, feared and neglected, was rejoiced to see +her, came when she called him, and received her caresses: there was +no ground for dreading his company. It was a long journey, but if it +had been across a desert instead of through her own country, the hope +that lay at the end of it would have made it more than pleasant. She, +as well as Lady Bellair, had friends upon the way, but no desire to +lengthen the journey or shorten its tedium by visiting them.</p> + +<p>The letter would have found her at Wastbeach instead of London, had not +the society and instructions of the schoolmaster detained her a willing +prisoner to its heat and glare and dust. Him only in all London must +she see to bid good-bye. To Camden Town therefore she went that same +evening, when his work would be over for the day. As usual now, she was +shown into his room—his only one. As usual also, she found him poring +over his Greek Testament. The gracious, graceful woman looked lovelily +strange in that mean chamber—like an opal in a brass ring. There was +no such contrast between the room and its occupant. His bodily presence +was too weak to “stick fiery off” from its surroundings, and to the +eye that saw through the bodily presence to the inherent grandeur, +that grandeur suggested no discrepancy, being of the kind that lifts +everything to its own level, casts the mantle of its own radiance +around its surroundings. Still to the eye of love and reverence it was +not pleasant to see him in such <i>entourage</i>, and now that Clementina +was going to leave him, the ministering spirit that dwelt in the woman +was troubled.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” he said, and rose as she entered; “this is then the angel of my +deliverance!” But with such a smile he did not look as if he had much +to be delivered from. “You see,” he went on, “old man as I am, and +peaceful, the summer will lay hold upon me. She stretches out a long +arm into this desert of houses and stones, and sets me longing after +the green fields and the living air—it seems dead here—and the face +of God—as much as one may behold of the Infinite through the revealing +veil of earth and sky and sea. Shall I confess my weakness, my poverty +of spirit, my covetousness after the visual? I was even getting a +little tired of that glorious God-and-man-lover, Saul of Tarsus—no, +not of him, never of <i>him</i>, only of his shadow in his words. Yet +perhaps—yes, I think so—it is God alone of whom a man can never get +tired. Well, no matter; tired I was; when lo! here comes my pupil, with +more of God in her face than all the worlds and their skies he ever +made!”</p> + +<p>“I would my heart were as full of him, too, then, sir!” answered +Clementina. “But if I am anything of a comfort to you, I am more than +glad,—therefore the more sorry to tell you that I am going to leave +you—though for a little while only, I trust.”</p> + +<p>“You do not take me by surprise, my lady. I have of course been looking +forward for some time to my loss and your gain. The world is full of +little deaths—deaths of all sorts and sizes, rather let me say. For +this one I was prepared. The good summer land calls you to its bosom, +and you must go.”</p> + +<p>“Come with me,” cried Clementina, her eyes eager with the light of the +sudden thought, while her heart reproached her grievously that only now +first had it come to her.</p> + +<p>“A man must not leave the most irksome work for the most peaceful +pleasure,” answered the schoolmaster. “I am able to live—yes, and do +my work, without you, my lady,” he added with a smile, “though I shall +miss you sorely.”</p> + +<p>“But you do not know where I want you to come,” she said.</p> + +<p>“What difference can that make, my lady, except indeed in the amount of +pleasure to be refused, seeing this is not a matter of choice? I must +be with the children whom I have engaged to teach, and whose parents +pay me for my labour—not with those who, besides, can do well without +me.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot, sir—not for long, at least.”</p> + +<p>“What! not with Malcolm to supply my place?”</p> + +<p>Clementina blushed, but only like a white rose. She did not turn her +head aside; she did not lower their lids to veil the light she felt +mount into her eyes; she looked him gently in the face as before, and +her aspect of entreaty did not change.</p> + +<p>“Ah! do not be unkind, master,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Unkind!” he repeated. “You know I am not. I have more kindness in my +heart than my lips can tell. You do not know, you could not yet imagine +the half of what I hope of and for and from you.”</p> + +<p>“I <i>am</i> going to see Malcolm,” she said, with a little sigh. “That is, +I am going to visit Lady Lossie at her place in Scotland— your own +old home, where so many must love you.—<i>Can’t</i> you come? I shall be +travelling alone, quite alone, except my servants.”</p> + +<p>A shadow came over the schoolmaster’s face.</p> + +<p>“You do not <i>think</i>, my lady, or you would not press me. It pains me +that you do not see at once it would be dishonest to go without timely +notice to my pupils, and to the public too. But, beyond that quite, +I never do anything of myself. I go, not where I wish, but where I +seem to be called or sent. I never even wish much—except when I pray +to him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. +After what he wants to give me I am wishing all day long. I used to +build many castles, not without a beauty of their own—that was when +I had less understanding: now I leave them to God to build for me—he +does it better, and they last longer. See now, this very hour, when I +needed help—could I have contrived a more lovely annihilation of the +monotony that threatened to invade my weary spirit, than this inroad +of light in the person of my lady Clementina? Nor will he allow me to +get over-wearied with vain efforts. I do not think he will keep me here +long, for I find I cannot do much for these children. They are but +some of his many pagans—not yet quite ready to receive Christianity, +I think— not like children with some of the old seeds of the truth +buried in them, that want to be turned up nearer to the light. This +ministration I take to be more for my good than theirs—a little trial +of faith and patience for me—a stony corner of the lovely valley of +humiliation to cross. True, I <i>might</i> be happier where I could hear the +larks, but I do not know that anywhere have I been more peaceful than +in this little room, on which I see you so often cast round your eyes +curiously—perhaps pitifully, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“It is not at all a fit place for <i>you</i>,” said Clementina, with a touch +of indignation.</p> + +<p>“Softly, my lady—lest, without knowing it, your love should make +you sin! Who set thee, I pray, for a guardian angel over my welfare? +I could scarce have a lovelier—true! but where is thy brevet? No, +my lady! it is a greater than thou that sets me the bounds of my +habitation. Perhaps he may give me a palace one day. If I might choose, +it would be the things that belong to a cottage —the whiteness and +the greenness and the sweet odours of cleanliness. But the father has +decreed for his children that they shall know the thing that is neither +their ideal nor his. Who can imagine how in this respect things looked +to our Lord when he came and found so little faith on the earth! But, +perhaps, my lady, you would not pity my present condition so much, if +you had seen the cottage in which I was born, and where my father and +my mother loved each other, and died happier than on their wedding day. +There I was happy too until their loving ambition decreed that I should +be a scholar and a clergyman. Not before then did I ever know anything +worthy of the name of trouble. A little cold and a little hunger at +times, and not a little restlessness always was all. But then —ah +then, my troubles began! Yet God, who bringeth light out of darkness, +hath brought good even out of my weakness and presumption and half +unconscious falsehood!—When do you go?”</p> + +<p>“To-morrow morning—as I purpose.”</p> + +<p>“Then God be with thee. He <i>is</i> with thee, only my prayer is that thou +mayest know it. He is with me and I know it. He does not find this +chamber too mean or dingy or unclean to let me know him near me in it.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me one thing before I go,” said Clementina: “are we not commanded +to bear each other’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ? I read it +to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Then why ask me?”</p> + +<p>“For another question: does not that involve the command to those who +have burdens that they should allow others to bear them?”</p> + +<p>“Surely, my lady. But <i>I</i> have no burden to let you bear.”</p> + +<p>“Why should I have everything, and you nothing?—Answer me that?”</p> + +<p>“My lady, I have millions more than you, for I have been gathering the +crumbs under my master’s table for thirty years.”</p> + +<p>“You are a king,” answered Clementina. “But a king needs a handmaiden +somewhere in his house: that let <i>me</i> be in yours. No, I will be proud, +and assert my rights. I am your daughter. If I am not, why am I here? +Do you not remember telling me that the adoption of God meant a closer +relation than any other fatherhood, even his own first fatherhood could +signify? You cannot cast me off if you would. Why should you be poor +when I am rich?—You <i>are</i> poor. You cannot deny it,” she concluded +with a serious playfulness.</p> + +<p>“I will not deny my privileges,” said the schoolmaster, with a smile +such as might have acknowledged the possession of some exquisite and +envied rarity.</p> + +<p>“I believe,” insisted Clementina, “you are just as poor as the apostle +Paul when he sat down to make a tent—or as our Lord himself after he +gave up carpentering.”</p> + +<p>“You are wrong there, my lady. I am not so poor as they must often have +been.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t know how long I may be away, and you may fall ill, +or—or—see some—some book you want very much, or——”</p> + +<p>“I never do,” said the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>“What! never see a book you want to have?”</p> + +<p>“No; not now. I have my Greek Testament, my Plato, and my Shakspere +—and one or two little books besides, whose wisdom I have not yet +quite exhausted.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t bear it!” cried Clementina, almost on the point of weeping. +“You will not let me near you. You put out an arm as long as the +summer’s and push me away from you. <i>Let</i> me be your servant.”</p> + +<p>As she spoke, she rose, and walking softly up to him where he sat +kneeled at his knees, held out suppliantly a little bag of white silk, +tied with crimson.</p> + +<p>“Take it—father,” she said, hesitating, and bringing the word out with +an effort; “take your daughter’s offering—a poor thing to show her +love, but something to ease her heart.”</p> + +<p>He took it, and weighed it up and down in his hand with an amused +smile, but his eyes full of tears. It was heavy. He opened it. A chair +was within his reach, he emptied it on the seat of it, and laughed with +merry delight as its contents came tumbling out.</p> + +<p>“I never saw so much gold in my life, if it were all taken together,” +he said. “What beautiful stuff it is! But I don’t want it, my dear. It +would but trouble me.” And as he spoke, he began to put it in the bag +again. “You will want it for your journey,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I have plenty in my reticule,” she answered. “That is a mere nothing +to what I could have to-morrow morning for writing a cheque. I am +afraid I am very rich. It is such a shame! But I can’t well help it. +You must teach me how to become poor.—Tell me true: how much money +have you?”</p> + +<p>She said this with such an earnest look of simple love that the +schoolmaster made haste to rise, that he might conceal his growing +emotion.</p> + +<p>“Rise, my dear lady,” he said, as he rose himself, “and I will show +you.”</p> + +<p>He gave her his hand, and she obeyed, but troubled and disappointed, +and so stood looking after him, while he went to a drawer. Thence, +searching in a corner of it, he brought a half sovereign, a few +shillings, and some coppers, and held them out to her on his hand, with +the smile of one who has proved his point.</p> + +<p>“There!” he said; “do you think Paul would have stopped preaching to +make a tent so long as he had as much as that in his pocket? I shall +have more on Saturday, and I always carry a month’s rent in my good old +watch, for which I never had much use, and now have less than ever.”</p> + +<p>Clementina had been struggling with herself; now she burst into tears.</p> + +<p>“Why, what a misspending of precious sorrow!” exclaimed the +schoolmaster. “Do you think because a man has not a gold mine he must +die of hunger? I once heard of a sparrow that never had a worm left for +the morrow, and died a happy death notwithstanding.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke he took her handkerchief from her hand and dried her tears +with it. But he had enough ado to keep his own back.</p> + +<p>“Because I won’t take a bagful of gold from you when I don’t want it,” +he went on, “do you think I should let myself starve without coming +to you? I promise you I will let you know—come to you if I can, the +moment I get too hungry to do my work well, and have no money left. +Should I think it a disgrace to take money from <i>you</i>? That would show +a poverty of spirit such as I hope never to fall into. My <i>sole</i> reason +for refusing it now is that I do not need it.”</p> + +<p>But for all his loving words and assurances Clementina could not stay +her tears. She was not ready to weep, but now her eyes were as a +fountain.</p> + +<p>“See, then, for your tears are hard to bear, my daughter,” he said, “I +will take one of these golden ministers, and if it has flown from me +ere you come, seeing that, like the raven, it will not return if once I +let it go, I will ask you for another. It <i>may</i> be God’s will that you +should feed me for a time.”</p> + +<p>“Like one of Elijah’s ravens,” said Clementina, with an attempted laugh +that was really a sob.</p> + +<p>“Like a dove whose wings are covered with silver, and her feathers with +yellow gold,” said the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>A moment of silence followed, broken only by Clementina’s failures in +quieting herself.</p> + +<p>“To me,” he resumed, “the sweetest fountain of money is the hand of +love, but a man has no right to take it from that fountain except he is +in want of it. I am not. True, I go somewhat bare, my lady; but what is +that when my Lord would have it so?”</p> + +<p>He opened again the bag, and slowly, reverentially indeed, drew from it +one of the new sovereigns with which it was filled. He put it into a +waistcoat pocket, and laid the bag on the table.</p> + +<p>“But your clothes are shabby, sir,” said Clementina, looking at him +with a sad little shake of the head.</p> + +<p>“Are they?” he returned, and looked down at his lower garments, +reddening and anxious. “—I did not think they were more than a little +rubbed, but they shine somewhat,” he said. “—They are indeed polished +by use,” he went on, with a troubled little laugh; “but they have no +holes yet—at least none that are visible,” he corrected. “If you tell +me, my lady, if you honestly tell me that my garments”—and he looked +at the sleeve of his coat, drawing back his head from it to see it +better—“are unsightly, I will take of your money and buy me a new +suit.”</p> + +<p>Over his coat-sleeve he regarded her, questioning.</p> + +<p>“Everything about you is beautiful!” she burst out. “You want nothing +but a body that lets the light through!”</p> + +<p>She took the hand still raised in his survey of his sleeve, pressed it +to her lips, and walked, with even more than her wonted state, slowly +from the room. He took the bag of gold from the table, and followed her +down the stair. Her chariot was waiting her at the door. He handed her +in, and laid the bag on the little seat in front.</p> + +<p>“Will you tell him to drive home,” she said, with a firm voice, and +a smile which if anyone care to understand, let him read Spenser’s +fortieth sonnet. And so they parted. The coachman took the queer shabby +un-London-like man for a fortune-teller his lady was in the habit of +consulting, and paid homage to his power with the handle of his whip as +he drove away. The schoolmaster returned to his room, not to his Plato, +not even to Saul of Tarsus, but to the Lord himself.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXI">CHAPTER LXI.<br><span class="small">THOUGHTS.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When Malcolm took Kelpie to her stall the night of the arrival of +Lady Bellair and her nephew, he was rushed upon by Demon, and nearly +prostrated between his immoderate welcome and the startled rearing of +the mare. The hound had arrived a couple of hours before, while Malcolm +was out. He wondered he had not seen him with the carriage he had +passed, never suspecting he had had another conductress, or dreaming +what his presence there signified for him.</p> + +<p>I have not said much concerning Malcolm’s feelings with regard to Lady +Clementina, but all this time the sense of her existence had been like +an atmosphere surrounding and pervading his thought. He saw in her the +promise of all he could desire to see in woman. His love was not of +the blind-little-boy sort, but of a deeper, more exacting, keen-eyed +kind, that sees faults where even a true mother will not, so jealous +is it of the perfection of the beloved. But one thing was plain even +to this seraphic dragon that dwelt sleepless in him, and there was +eternal content in the thought, that such a woman, once started on +the right way, would soon leave fault and weakness behind her, and +become as one of the grand women of old, whose religion was simply what +religion is—life —neither more nor less than life. She would be a +saint without knowing it, the only grand kind of sainthood. Whoever can +think of religion as an addition to life, however glorious —a starry +crown, say, set upon the head of humanity—is not yet the least in the +kingdom of heaven. Whoever thinks of life as a something that could be +without religion, is in deathly ignorance of both. Life and religion +are one, or neither is anything: I will not say neither is growing to +be anything. Religion is no way of life, no show of life, no observance +of any sort. It is neither the food nor the medicine of being. It is +life essential. To think otherwise is as if a man should pride himself +on his honesty, or his parental kindness, or hold up his head amongst +men because he never killed one: were he less than honest or kind or +free from blood, he would yet think something of himself! The man to +whom virtue is but the ornament of character, something over and above, +not essential to it, is not yet a man.</p> + +<p>If I say then, that Malcolm was always thinking about Lady Clementina +when he was not thinking about something he <i>had</i> to think about, +have I not said nearly enough on the matter? Should I ever dream of +attempting to set forth what love is, in such a man for such a woman? +There are comparatively few that have more than the glimmer of a notion +of what love means. God only knows how grandly, how passionately yet +how calmly, how divinely the man and the woman he has made, might, may, +shall love each other. One thing only I will dare to say: that the love +that belonged to Malcolm’s nature was one through the very nerves of +which the love of God must rise and flow and return, as its essential +life. If any man think that such a love could no longer be the love of +the man for the woman, he knows his own nature, and that of the woman +he pretends or thinks he adores, but in the darkest of glasses.</p> + +<p>Malcolm’s lowly idea of himself did not at all interfere with his +loving Clementina, for at first his love was entirely dissociated from +any thought of hers. When the idea—the mere idea of her loving him +presented itself, from whatever quarter suggested, he turned from it +with shame and self-reproof: the thought was in its own nature too +unfit! That splendour regard him!</p> + +<p>From a social point of view there was of course little presumption +in it. The Marquis of Lossie bore a name that might pair itself with +any in the land; but Malcolm did not yet feel that the title made +much difference to the fisherman. He was what he was, and that was +something very lowly indeed. Yet the thought would at times dawn up +from somewhere in the infinite matrix of thought, that perhaps, if he +went to college, and graduated, and dressed like a gentleman, and did +everything as gentlemen do, in short, claimed his rank, and lived as +a marquis should, as well as a fisherman might,—then —then—was it +not—might it not be within the bounds of possibility—just within +them—that the great hearted, generous, liberty-loving Lady Clementina, +groom as he had been, <i>menial</i> as he had heard himself called, and +as, ere yet he knew his birth, he had laughed to hear, knowing that +his service was true,—that she, who despised nothing human, would be +neither disgusted nor contemptuous nor wrathful, if, from a great way +off, at an awful remove of humility and worship, he were to wake in her +a surmise that he dared feel towards her as he had never felt and never +could feel towards any other? For would it not be altogether counter +to the principles he had so often heard her announce and defend, +to despise him because he had earned his bread by doing honourable +work—work hearty, and up to the worth of his wages? Was she one to +say and not see—to opine and not believe? or was she one to hold and +not practise— to believe for the heart and not for the hand—to say +<i>I go</i>, and not go—<i>I love</i>, and not help? If such she were, then +there were for him no further searchings of the heart upon her account; +he could but hold up her name in the common prayer for all men, only +praying besides not to dream about her when he slept.</p> + +<p>At length, such thoughts rising again and again, and ever accompanied +by such reflections concerning the truth of her character, and by the +growing certainty that her convictions were the souls of actions to +be born them, his daring of belief in her strengthened until he began +to think that perhaps it would be neither his early history, nor his +defective education, nor his clumsiness, that would prevent her from +listening to such words wherewith he burned to throw open the gates of +his world, and pray her to enter and sit upon its loftiest throne—its +loftiest throne but one. And with the thought he felt as if he must +run to her, calling aloud that he was the Marquis of Lossie, and throw +himself at her feet.</p> + +<p>But the wheels of his thought-chariot, self-moved, were rushing, and +here was no goal at which to halt or turn!—for, feeling thus, where +was his faith in her principles? How now was he treating the truth +of her nature? where now were his convictions of the genuineness +of her professions? Where were those principles, that truth, those +professions, if after all she would listen to a marquis and would not +listen to a groom? To suppose such a thing was to wrong her grievously. +To herald his suit with his rank would be to insult her, declaring that +he regarded her theories of humanity as wordy froth. And what a chance +of proving her truth would he not deprive her of, if, as he approached +her, he called on the marquis to supplement the man!—But what then was +the man, fisherman or marquis, to dare <i>even himself</i> to such a glory +as the Lady Clementina? —This much of a man at least, answered his +waking dignity, that he could not condescend to be accepted as Malcolm, +Marquis of Lossie, knowing he would have been rejected as Malcolm +MacPhail, fisherman and groom. Accepted as marquis, he would for ever +be haunted with the <i>channering</i> question whether she would have +accepted him as groom? And if in his pain he were one day to utter it, +and she in her honesty were to confess she would not, must she not then +fall prone from her pedestal in his imagination? Could he then, in love +for the woman herself condescend as marquis to marry one who <i>might</i> +not have married him as any something else he could honestly have been, +under the all enlightening sun?—Ah, but again! was that fair to her +yet? Might she not see in the marquis the truth and worth which the +blinding falsehoods of society prevented her from seeing in the groom? +Might not a lady—he tried to think of a lady in the abstract— might +not a lady, in marrying a marquis, a lady to whom from her own position +a marquis was just a man on the level, marry in him the man he was, +and not the marquis he seemed? Most certainly, he answered: he must +not be unfair.—Not the less however did he shrink from the thought of +taking her prisoner under the shield of his marquisate, beclouding her +nobility, and depriving her of the rare chance of shining forth as the +sun in the splendour of womanly truth. No; he would choose the greater +risk of losing her, for the chance of winning her greater.</p> + +<p>So far Malcolm got with his theories; but the moment he began to think +in the least practically, he recoiled altogether from the presumption. +Under no circumstances could he ever have the courage to approach +Lady Clementina with a thought of himself in his mind. How could he +have dared even to raise her imagined eidolon for his thoughts to +deal withal! She had never shown him personal favour. He could not +tell whether she had listened to what he had tried to lay before her. +He did not know that she had gone to hear his master; Florimel had +never referred to their visit to Hope Chapel; his surprise would have +equalled his delight at the news that she had already become as a +daughter to the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>And what had been Clementina’s thoughts since learning that Florimel +had not run away with her groom? It were hard to say with completeness. +Accuracy however may not be equally unattainable. Her first feeling was +an utterly inarticulate, undefined pleasure that Malcolm was free to be +thought about. She was clear next that it would be matter for honest +rejoicing if the truest man she had ever met except his master, was +not going to marry such an unreality as Florimel—one concerning whom, +as things had been going of late, it was impossible to say that she +was not more likely to turn to evil than to good. Clementina with all +her generosity could not help being doubtful of a woman who could make +a companion of such a man as Liftore, a man to whom every individual +particle of Clementina’s nature seemed for itself to object. But she +was not yet past befriending.</p> + +<p>Then she began to grow more <i>curious</i> about Malcolm. She had already +much real knowledge of him, gathered both from himself and from Mr +Graham;—as to what went to make the man, she knew him indeed, not +thoroughly, but well; and just therefore, she said to herself, there +were some points in his history and condition concerning which she +had <i>curiosity</i>. The principal of these was whether he might not be +engaged to some young woman in his own station of life. It was not +merely possible, but was it likely he could have escaped it? In the +lower ranks of society, men married younger—they had no false aims +to prevent them that implied earlier engagements. On the other hand, +was it likely that in a fishing village there would be any choice of +girls who could understand him when he talked about Plato and the New +Testament? If there was <i>one</i> however, that might be—<i>worse?</i>—Yes, +<i>worse</i>; she accepted the word. Neither was it absolutely necessary +in a wife that she should understand more of a husband than his +heart. Many learned men had had mere housekeepers for wives, and been +satisfied, at least never complained. And what did she know about the +fishers, men or women?—there were none at Wastbeach. For anything she +knew to the contrary, they might all be philosophers together, and a +fitting match for Malcolm might be far more easy to find amongst them +than in the society to which she herself belonged, where in truth the +philosophical element was rare enough. Then arose in her mind, she +could not have told how, the vision, half logical, half pictorial, +of a whole family of brave, believing, daring, saving fisher-folk, +father, mother, boys and girls, each sacrificing to the rest, each +sacrificed to by all, and all devoted to their neighbours. Grand it was +and blissful, and the borders of the great sea alone seemed fit place +for such beings amphibious of time and eternity! Their very toils and +dangers were but additional atmospheres to press their souls together! +It was glorious! Why had she been born an earl’s daughter,—never to +look a danger in the face—never to have a chance of a true life—that +is, a grand, simple, noble one?—Who then denied her the chance? Had +she <i>no</i> power to order her own steps, to determine her own being? +Was she nailed to her rank? Or who was there that could part her +from it? Was she a prisoner in the dungeons of the House of Pride? +When the gates of paradise closed behind Adam and Eve, they had this +consolation left, that “the world was all before them where to choose.” +Was she not a free woman—without even a guardian to trouble her with +advice? She had no excuse to act ignobly!—But had she any for being +unmaidenly?—Would it then be—would it be a <i>very</i> unmaidenly thing +if——? The rest of the sentence did not take even the shape of words. +But she answered it nevertheless in the words: “Not so unmaidenly as +presumptuous.” And alas there was little hope that <i>he</i> would ever +presume to——? He was such a modest youth, with all his directness +and fearlessness! If he had no respect for rank,—and that was—yes, +she would say the word, <i>hopeful</i> —he had, on the other hand, the +profoundest respect for the human, and she could not tell how that +might, in the individual matter, operate.</p> + +<p>Then she fell a-thinking of the difference between Malcolm and any +other servant she had ever known. She hated the <i>servile</i>. She knew +that it was false as well as low: she had not got so far as to see +that it was low through its being false. She knew that most servants, +while they spoke with the appearance of respect in presence, altered +their tone entirely when beyond the circle of the eye—theirs was +eye-service—they were men-pleasers—they were servile. She had +overheard her maid speak of her as Lady Clem, and that not without +a streak of contempt in the tone. But here was a man who touched no +imaginary hat while he stood in the presence of his mistress, neither +swore at her in the stable-yard. He looked her straight in the face, +and would upon occasion speak—not his <i>mind</i>—but the truth to her. +Even his slight mistress had the conviction that if one dared in his +presence but utter her name lightly, whoever he were he would have to +answer to him for it. What a lovely thing was true service!—Absolutely +divine! But, alas, such a youth would never, could never dare offer +other than such service! Were she even to encourage him as a maiden +might, he would but serve her the better—would but embody his +recognition of her favour, in fervour of ministering devotion.— Was +it not a recognized law, however, in the relation of superiors and +inferiors, that with regard to such matters as well as others of +no moment, the lady—?——Ah, but! for her to take the initiative, +would provoke the conclusion —as revolting to her as unavoidable to +him—that she judged herself his superior—so greatly his superior as +to be absolved from the necessity of behaving to him on the ordinary +footing of man and woman. What a ground to start from with a husband! +The idea was hateful to her. She tried the argument that such a +procedure arrogated merely a superiority in social standing; but it +made her recoil from it the more. He was so immeasurably her superior, +that the poor little advantage on her side vanished like a candle in +the sunlight, and she laughed herself to scorn. “Fancy,” she laughed, +“a midge, on the strength of having wings, condescending to offer +marriage to a horse!” It would argue the assumption of equality in +other and more important things than rank, or at least the confidence +that her social superiority not only counter-balanced the difference, +but left enough over to her credit to justify her initiative. And +what a miserable fiction, that money and position had a right to +the first move before greatness of living fact! that <i>having</i> had +the precedence of <i>being</i>! That Malcolm should imagine such <i>her</i> +judgment—No—let all go— let himself go rather! And then, he might +not choose to accept her munificent offer! Or worse—far worse!—what +if he should be tempted by rank and wealth, and, accepting her, be +shorn of his glory and proved of the ordinary human type after all! A +thousand times rather would she see the bright particular star blazing +unreachable above her! What! would she carry it about, a cinder in her +pocket?—And yet if he <i>could</i> be “turned to a coal,” why should she go +on worshipping him?—alas! the offer itself was the only test severe +enough to try him withal, and if he proved a cinder, she would by the +very use of the test be bound to love, honour, and obey her cinder. She +could not well reject him for accepting her—neither could she marry +him if he rose grandly superior to her temptations. No; he could be +nothing to her nearer than the bright particular star.</p> + +<p>Thus went the thoughts to and fro in the minds of each. Neither could +see the way. Both feared the risk of loss. Neither could hope greatly +for gain.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXII">CHAPTER LXII.<br><span class="small">THE DUNE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Having put Kelpie up, and fed and bedded her, Malcolm took his way to +the Seaton, full of busily anxious thought. Things had taken a bad +turn, and he was worse off for counsel than before. The enemy was in +the house with his sister, and he had no longer any chance of judging +how matters were going, as now he never rode out with her. But at least +he could haunt the house. He would run therefore to his grandfather, +and tell him that he was going to occupy his old quarters at the House +that night.</p> + +<p>Returning directly and passing, as had been his custom, through the +kitchen to ascend the small corkscrew stair the servants generally +used, he encountered Mrs Courthope, who told him that her ladyship had +given orders that her maid, who had come with Lady Bellair, should have +his room. He was at once convinced that Florimel had done so with the +intention of banishing him from the house, for there were dozens of +rooms vacant, and many of them more suitable. It was a hard blow! How +he wished for Mr Graham to consult! And yet Mr Graham was not of much +use where any sort of plotting was wanted. He asked Mrs Courthope to +let him have another room; but she looked so doubtful that he withdrew +his request, and went back to his grandfather.</p> + +<p>It was Saturday, and not many of the boats would go fishing. Findlay’s +would not leave the harbour till Sunday was over, and therefore Malcolm +was free. But he could not rest, and would go line-fishing.</p> + +<p>“Daddy,” he said, “I’m gaein oot to catch a haddick or sae to oor +denner the morn. Ye micht jist sit doon upo’ ane o’ the Boar’s Taes, +an’ tak a play o’ yer pipes. I’ll hear ye fine, an’ it’ll du me guid.”</p> + +<p>The Boar’s Toes were two or three small rocks that rose out of the sand +near the end of the dune. Duncan agreed right willingly, and Malcolm, +borrowing some lines, and taking the Psyche’s dinghy, rowed out into +the bay.</p> + +<p>The sun was down, the moon was up, and he had caught more fish than he +wanted. His grandfather had got tired, and gone home, and the fountain +of his anxious thoughts began to flow more rapidly. He must go ashore. +He must go up to the House: who could tell what might not be going on +there? He drew in his line, purposing to take the best of the fish to +Miss Horn, and some to Mrs Courthope, as in the old days.</p> + +<p>The Psyche still lay on the sands, and he was rowing the dinghy towards +her, when, looking round to direct his course, he thought he caught +a glimpse of some one seated on the slope of the dune. Yes, there +was some one there, sure enough. The old times rushed back on his +memory: could it be Florimel? Alas! it was not likely she would now be +wandering about alone! But if it were? Then for one endeavour more to +rouse her slumbering conscience! He would call up all the associations +of the last few months she had spent in the place, and, with the spirit +of her father, as it were, hovering over her, conjure her, in his name, +to break with Liftore.</p> + +<p>He rowed swiftly to the Psyche—beached and drew up the dinghy, and +climbed the dune. Plainly enough it was a lady who sat there. It might +be one from the upper town, enjoying the lovely night; it <i>might</i> be +Florimel, but how could she have got away, or wished to get away from +her newly arrived guests? The voices of several groups of walkers came +from the high road behind the dune, but there was no other figure to be +seen all along the sands. He drew nearer. The lady did not move. If it +were Florimel, would she not know him as he came, and would she wait +for him?</p> + +<p>He drew nearer still. His heart gave a throb. Could it be? Or was the +moon weaving some hallucination in his troubled brain? If it was a +phantom, it was that of Lady Clementina; if but modelled of the filmy +vapours of the moonlight, and the artist his own brain, the phantom was +welcome as joy! His spirit seemed to soar aloft in the yellow air, and +hang hovering over and around her, while his body stood rooted to the +spot, like one who fears by moving nigher to lose the lovely vision of +a mirage. She sat motionless, her gaze on the sea. Malcolm bethought +himself that she could not know him in his fisher-dress, and must take +him for some rude fisherman staring at her. He must go at once, or +approach and address her. He came forward at once.</p> + +<p>“My lady!” he said.</p> + +<p>She did not start. Neither did she speak. She did not even turn her +face. She rose first, then turned, and held out her hand. Three steps +more, and he had it in his, and his eyes looked straight into hers. +Neither spoke. The moon shone full on Clementina’s face. There was no +illumination fitter for that face than the moonlight, and to Malcolm it +was lovelier than ever. Nor was it any wonder it should seem so to him, +for certainly never had the eyes in it rested on his with such a lovely +and trusting light in them.</p> + +<p>A moment she stood, then slowly sank upon the sand, and drew her skirts +about her with a dumb show of invitation. The place where she sat was a +little terraced hollow in the slope, forming a convenient seat. Malcolm +saw but could not believe she actually made room for him to sit beside +her—alone with her in the universe. It was too much; he dared not +believe it. And now by one of those wondrous duplications which are not +always at least born of the fancy, the same scene in which he had found +Florimel thus seated on the slope of the dune, appeared to be passing +again through Malcolm’s consciousness, only instead of Florimel was +Clementina, and instead of the sun was the moon. And creature of the +sunlight as Florimel was, bright and gay and beautiful, she paled into +a creature of the cloud beside this maiden of the moonlight, tall and +stately, silent and soft and grand.</p> + +<p>Again she made a movement. This time he could not doubt her invitation. +It was as if her soul made room in her unseen world for him to enter +and sit beside her. But who could enter heaven in his work-day garments?</p> + +<p>“Won’t you sit by me, Malcolm?” seeing his more than hesitation, she +said at last, with a slight tremble in the voice that was music itself +in his ears.</p> + +<p>“I have been catching fish, my lady,” he answered, “and my clothes must +be unpleasant. I will sit here.”</p> + +<p>He went a little lower on the slope, and laid himself down, leaning on +his elbow.</p> + +<p>“Do fresh water fishes smell the same as the sea-fishes, Malcolm?” she +asked.</p> + +<p>“Indeed I am not certain, my lady. Why?”</p> + +<p>“Because if they do,——You remember what you said to me as we passed +the saw-mill in the wood?”</p> + +<p>It was by silence Malcolm showed he did remember.</p> + +<p>“Does not this night remind you of that one at Wastbeach when we came +upon you singing?” said Clementina.</p> + +<p>“It <i>is</i> like it, my lady—now. But a little ago, before I saw you, I +was thinking of that night, and thinking how different this was.”</p> + +<p>Again a moon-filled silence fell; and once more it was the lady who +broke it.</p> + +<p>“Do you know who are at the house?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I do, my lady,” he replied.</p> + +<p>“I had not been there more than an hour or two,” she went on, “when +they arrived. I suppose Florimel—Lady Lossie—thought I would not come +if she told me she expected them.”</p> + +<p>“And would you have come, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot endure the earl.”</p> + +<p>“Neither can I. But then I know more about him than your ladyship does, +and I am miserable for my mistress.”</p> + +<p>It stung Clementina as if her heart had taken a beat backward. But her +voice was steadier than it had yet been as she returned—</p> + +<p>“Why should you be miserable for Lady Lossie?”</p> + +<p>“I would die rather than see her marry that wretch,” he answered.</p> + +<p>Again her blood stung her in the left side.</p> + +<p>“You do not want her to marry, then?” she said.</p> + +<p>“I do,” answered Malcolm, emphatically, “but not <i>that</i> fellow.”</p> + +<p>“Whom then, if I may ask?” ventured Clementina, trembling.</p> + +<p>But Malcolm was silent. He did not feel it would be right to say. +Clementina turned sick at heart.</p> + +<p>“I have heard there is something dangerous about the moonlight,” she +said. “I think it does not suit me to-night. I will go—home.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm sprung to his feet and offered his hand. She did not take it, +but rose more lightly, though more slowly than he.</p> + +<p>“How did you come from the park, my lady?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“By a gate over there,” she answered, pointing. “I wandered out after +dinner, and the sea drew me.”</p> + +<p>“If your ladyship will allow me, I will take you a much nearer way +back,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Do then,” she returned.</p> + +<p>He thought she spoke a little sadly, and set it down to her hating +to go back to her fellow-guests. What if she should leave to-morrow +morning! he thought. He could never then be sure she had really been +with him that night. He must then sometimes think it a dream. But oh, +what a dream! He could thank God for it all his life, if he should +never dream so again.</p> + +<p>They walked across the grassy sand towards the tunnel in silence, he +pondering what he could say that might comfort her and keep her from +going so soon.</p> + +<p>“My lady never takes me out with her now,” he said at length.</p> + +<p>He was going to add that, if she pleased, he could wait upon her with +Kelpie, and show her the country. But then he saw that, if she were +not with Florimel, his sister would be riding everywhere alone with +Liftore. Therefore he stopped short.</p> + +<p>“And you feel forsaken—deserted?” returned Clementina, sadly still.</p> + +<p>“Rather, my lady.”</p> + +<p>They had reached the tunnel. It looked very black when he opened the +door, but there was just a glimmer through the trees at the other end.</p> + +<p>“This is the valley of the shadow of death,” she said. “Do I walk +straight through?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady. You will soon come out in the light again,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Are there no steps to fall down?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“None, my lady. But I will go first if you wish.”</p> + +<p>“No, that would but cut off the little light I have,” she said. “Come +beside me.”</p> + +<p>They passed through in silence, save for the rustle of her dress, and +the dull echo that haunted their steps. In a few moments they came +out among the trees, but both continued silent. The still, thoughtful +moon-night seemed to press them close together, but neither knew that +the other felt the same.</p> + +<p>They reached a point in the road where another step would bring them in +sight of the house.</p> + +<p>“You cannot go wrong now, my lady,” said Malcolm. “If you please I will +go no farther.”</p> + +<p>“Do you not live in the house?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I used to do as I liked, and could be there or with my grandfather. I +did mean to be at the House to-night, but my lady has given my room to +her maid.”</p> + +<p>“What! that woman Caley?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose so, my lady. I must sleep to-night in the village. If you +could, my lady,” he added, after a pause, and faltered, hesitating. +She did not help him, but waited. “If you could—if you would not be +displeased at my asking you,” he resumed, “—if you <i>could</i> keep my +lady from going farther with that—I shall call him names if I go on!”</p> + +<p>“It is a strange request,” Clementina replied, after a moment’s +reflection. “I hardly know, as the guest of Lady Lossie, what answer +I ought to make to it. One thing I will say, however, that, though +you may know more of the man than I, you can hardly dislike him more. +Whether I can interfere is another matter. Honestly, I do not think it +would be of any use. But I do not say I will not. Good night.”</p> + +<p>She hurried away, and did not again offer her hand.</p> + +<p>Malcolm walked back through the tunnel, his heart singing and making +melody. Oh how lovely, how more than lovely, how divinely beautiful +she was! And so kind and friendly! Yet she seemed just the least bit +fitful too. Something troubled her, he said to himself. But he little +thought that he, and no one else, had spoiled the moonlight for her. He +went home to glorious dreams—she to a troubled half wakeful night. Not +until she had made up her mind to do her utmost to rescue Florimel from +Liftore, even if it gave her to Malcolm, did she find a moment’s quiet. +It was morning then, but she fell fast asleep, slept late, and woke +refreshed.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXIII">CHAPTER LXIII.<br><span class="small">CONFESSION OF SIN.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Mr Crathie was slowly recovering, but still very weak. He did not, +after having turned the corner, get well so fast as his medical +minister judged he ought, and the reason was plain to Lizzy, dimly +perceptible to his wife: he was ill at ease. A man may have more mind +and more conscience, and more discomfort in both or either, than his +neighbours give him credit for. They may be in the right about him +up to a certain point in his history, but then a crisis, by them +unperceived, perhaps to them inappreciable, arrived, after which the +man to all eternity could never be the same as they had known him. +Such a change must appear improbable, and save on the theory of a +higher operative power, is improbable because impossible. But a man who +has not created himself can never secure himself against the inroad +of the glorious terror of that Goodness which was able to utter him +into being, with all its possible wrongs and repentances. The fact +that a man has never, up to any point yet, been aware of aught beyond +himself, cannot shut him out who is beyond him, when at last he means +to enter. Not even the soul-benumbing visits of his clerical minister +could repress the swell of the slow-mounting dayspring in the soul +of the hard, commonplace, business-worshipping man, Hector Crathie. +The hireling would talk to him kindly enough—of his illness, or of +events of the day, especially those of the town and neighbourhood, and +encourage him with reiterated expression of the hope that ere many days +they would enjoy a tumbler together as of old, but as to wrong done, +apology to make, forgiveness to be sought, or consolation to be found, +the dumb dog had not uttered a bark.</p> + +<p>The sources of the factor’s restless discomfort were now two; the +first, that he had lifted his hand to women; the second, the old ground +of his quarrel with Malcolm, brought up by Lizzy.</p> + +<p>All his life, since ever he had had business, Mr Crathie had prided +himself on his honesty, and was therefore in one of the most dangerous +moral positions a man could occupy—ruinous even to the honesty itself. +Asleep in the mud, he dreamed himself awake on a pedestal. At best such +a man is but perched on a needle point when he thinketh he standeth. Of +him who prided himself on his honour I should expect that one day, in +the long run it might be, he would do some vile thing. Not, probably, +within the small circle of illumination around his wretched rushlight, +but in the great region beyond it, of what to him is a moral darkness, +or twilight vague, he may be or may become capable of doing a deed +that will stink in the nostrils of the universe—and in his own when +he knows it as it is. The honesty in which a man can pride himself +must be a small one, for more honesty will ever reveal more defect, +while perfect honesty will never think of itself at all. The limited +honesty of the factor clave to the interests of his employers, and let +the rights he encountered take care of themselves. Those he dealt with +were to him rather as enemies than friends, not enemies to be prayed +for, but to be spoiled. Malcolm’s doctrine of honesty in horse-dealing +was to him ludicrously new. His notion of honesty in that kind was to +cheat the buyer for his master if he could, proud to write in his book +a large sum against the name of the animal. He would have scorned in +his very soul the idea of making a farthing by it himself through any +business quirk whatever, but he would not have been the least ashamed +if, having sold Kelpie, he had heard—let me say, after a week of +possession—that she had dashed out her purchaser’s brains. He would +have been a little shocked, a little sorry perhaps, but nowise ashamed. +“By this time,” he would have said, “the man ought to have been up to +her, and either taken care of himself—or <i>sold her again</i>,”—to dash +out another man’s brains instead!</p> + +<p>That the bastard Malcolm, or the ignorant and indeed fallen fisher-girl +Lizzy, should judge differently, nowise troubled him: what could they +know about the rights and wrongs of business? The fact which Lizzy +sought to bring to bear upon him, that our Lord would not have done +such a thing, was to him no argument at all. He said to himself with +the superior smile of arrogated common-sense, that “no mere man since +the fall” could be expected to do like him; that he was divine, and had +not to fight for a living; that he set us an example that we might see +what sinners we were; that religion was one thing, and a very proper +thing, but business was another, and a very proper thing also—with +customs and indeed laws of its own far more determinate, at least +definite, than those of religion, and that to mingle the one with the +other was not merely absurd—it was irreverent and wrong, and certainly +never intended in the Bible, which must surely be common sense. It was +<i>the Bible</i> always with him,—never <i>the will of Christ</i>. But although +he could dispose of the question thus satisfactorily, yet, as he lay +ill, supine, without any distracting occupation, the thing haunted him.</p> + +<p>Now in his father’s cottage had lain, much dabbled in of the children, +a certain boardless copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress, round in the face +and hollow in the back, in which, amongst other pictures was one of +the Wicket-gate. This scripture of his childhood, given by inspiration +of God, threw out, in one of his troubled and feverish nights, a +dream-bud in the brain of the man. He saw the face of Jesus looking +on him over the top of the Wicket-gate, at which he had been for some +time knocking in vain, while the cruel dog barked loud from the enemy’s +yard. But that face, when at last it came, was full of sorrowful +displeasure. And in his heart he knew that it was because of a certain +transaction in horse-dealing, wherein he had hitherto lauded his own +cunning—adroitness, he considered it—and success. One word only he +heard from the lips of the Man —“Worker of iniquity,”—and woke with +a great start. From that moment truths <i>began</i> to be facts to him. The +beginning of the change was indeed very small, but every beginning is +small, and every beginning is a creation. Monad, molecule, protoplasm, +whatever word may be attached to it when it becomes appreciable by +men, being then, however many stages, I believe, upon its journey, +<i>beginning</i> is an irrepressible fact; and however far from good or +humble even after many days, the man here began to grow good and +humble. His dull unimaginative nature, a perfect lumber-room of the +world and its rusting affairs, had received a gift in a dream—a truth +from the lips of the Lord, remodelled in the brain and heart of the +tinker of Elstow, and sent forth in his wondrous parable to be pictured +and printed, and lie in old Hector Crathie’s cottage, that it might +enter and lie in young Hector Crathie’s brain until he grew old and had +done wrong enough to heed it, when it rose upon him in a dream, and +had its way. Henceforth the claims of his neighbour began to reveal +themselves, and his mind to breed conscientious doubts and scruples, +with which, struggle as he might against it, a certain respect for +Malcolm would keep coming and mingling—a feeling which grew with its +returns, until, by slow changes, he began at length to regard him as +the minister of God’s vengeance—for his punishment,—and perhaps +salvation— who could tell?</p> + +<p>Lizzy’s nightly ministrations had not been resumed, but she often +called, and was a good deal with him; for Mrs Crathie had learned to +like the humble, helpful girl still better when she found she had taken +no offence at being deprived of her post of honour by his bedside. +One day, when Malcolm was seated, mending a net, among the thin grass +and great red daisies of the links by the bank of the burn, where it +crossed the sands from the Lossie grounds to the sea, Lizzy came up to +him and said,</p> + +<p>“The factor wad like to see ye, Ma’colm, as sune ’s ye can gang till +’im.”</p> + +<p>She waited no reply. Malcolm rose and went.</p> + +<p>At the factor’s, the door was opened by Mrs Crathie herself, who, +looking mysterious, led him to the dining-room, where she plunged at +once into business, doing her best to keep down all manifestation of +the profound resentment she cherished against him. Her manner was +confidential, almost coaxing.</p> + +<p>“Ye see, Ma’colm,” she said, as if pursuing instead of commencing a +conversation, “he’s some sore about the little <i>fraicass</i> between him +’an you. Jist make your apoalogies till ’im and tell ’im you had a drop +too much, and you’re soary for misbehavin’ yersel’ to wann sae much +your shuperrior. Tell him that, Ma’colm, an’ there’s a half-croon to +ye.”</p> + +<p>She wished much to speak English, and I have tried to represent the +thing she did speak, which was neither honest Scotch nor anything +like English. Alas! the good, pithy, old Anglo-saxon dialect is fast +perishing, and a jargon of corrupt English taking its place.</p> + +<p>“But, mem,” said Malcolm, taking no notice either of the coin or the +words that accompanied the offer of it, “I canna lee. I wasna in drink, +an’ I’m no sorry.”</p> + +<p>“Hoot!” returned Mrs Crathie, blurting out her Scotch fast enough now, +“I s’ warran’ ye can lee weel eneuch whan ye ha’e occasion. Tak yer +siller, an’ du as I tell ye.”</p> + +<p>“Wad ye ha’e me damned, mem?”</p> + +<p>Mrs Crathie gave a cry and held up her hands. She was too well +accustomed to imprecations from the lips of her husband for any but +an affected horror, but, regarding the honest word as a bad one, she +assumed an air of injury.</p> + +<p>“Wad ye daur to sweir afore a leddy,” she exclaimed, shaking her +uplifted hands in pretence of ghasted astonishment.</p> + +<p>“If Mr Crathie wishes to see me, ma’am,” rejoined Malcolm, taking up +the shield of English, “I am ready. If not, please allow me to go.”</p> + +<p>The same moment the bell whose rope was at the head of the factor’s +bed, rang violently, and Mrs Crathie’s importance collapsed.</p> + +<p>“Come this w’y,” she said, and turning, led him up the stair to the +room where her husband lay.</p> + +<p>Entering, Malcolm stood astonished at the change he saw upon the strong +man of rubicund countenance, and his heart filled with compassion. +The factor was sitting up in bed, looking very white and worn and +troubled. Even his nose had grown thin and white. He held out his hand +to him, and said to his wife, “Tak the door to ye, Mistress Crathie,” +indicating which side he wished it closed from.</p> + +<p>“Ye was some sair upo’ me, Ma’colm,” he went on, grasping the youth’s +hand.</p> + +<p>“I doobt I was <i>ower</i> sair,” said Malcolm, who could hardly speak for a +lump in his throat.</p> + +<p>“Weel, I deserved it. But eh, Ma’colm! I canna believe it was me: it +bude to be the drink.”</p> + +<p>“It <i>was</i> the drink,” rejoined Malcolm; “an’ eh sir! afore ye rise frae +that bed, sweir to the great God ’at ye’ll never drink nae mair drams, +nor onything ’ayont ae tum’ler at a sittin’.”</p> + +<p>“I sweir ’t; I sweir ’t, Ma’colm!” cried the factor.</p> + +<p>“It’s easy to sweir ’t noo, sir, but whan ye’re up again it’ll be hard +to keep yer aith.—O Lord!” spoke the youth, breaking out into almost +involuntary prayer, “help this man to haud troth wi’ thee.—An’ noo, +Maister Crathie,” he resumed, “I’m yer servan’, ready to do onything I +can. Forgi’e me, sir, for layin’ on ower sair.”</p> + +<p>“I forgi’e ye wi’ a’ my hert,” returned the factor, inly delighted to +have something to forgive.</p> + +<p>“I thank ye frae mine,” answered Malcolm, and again they shook hands.</p> + +<p>“But eh, Ma’colm, my man!” said the factor, “hoo will I ever shaw my +face again?”</p> + +<p>“Fine that!” returned Malcolm, eagerly. “Fowk’s terrible guid-natur’d +whan ye alloo ’at ye’re i’ the wrang. I do believe ’at whan a man +confesses till ’s neebour, an’ says he’s sorry, he thinks mair o’ ’im +nor afore he did it. Ye see we a’ ken we ha’e dune wrang, but we ha’ena +a’ confessed. An’ it’s a queer thing, but a man’ll think it gran’ o’ ’s +neebour to confess, whan a’ the time there’s something he winna repent +o’ himsel’ for fear o’ the <i>shame</i> o’ ha’ein’ to confess ’t. To me, +the shame lies in <i>no</i> confessin’ efter ye ken ye’re wrang. Ye’ll see, +sir—the fisher-fowk’ll min’ what ye say to them a heap better noo.”</p> + +<p>“Div ye railly think it, Ma’colm?” sighed the factor with a flush.</p> + +<p>“I div that, sir. Only whan ye grow better, gien ye’ll alloo me to +say ’t, sir, ye maunna lat Sawtan temp’ ye to think ’at this same +repentin’ was but a wakeness o’ the flesh, an’ no an enlichtenment o’ +the speerit.”</p> + +<p>“I s’ tie mysel’ up till ’t,” cried the factor, eagerly. “Gang an’ tell +them i’ my name, ’at I tak back ilka scart o’ a nottice I ever ga’e +ane o’ them to quit, only we maun ha’e nae mair stane’in’ o’ honest +fowk ’at comes to bigg herbours till them.—Div ye think it wad be weel +ta’en gien ye tuik a poun’-nott the piece to the twa women?”</p> + +<p>“I wadna du that, sir, gien I was you,” answered Malcolm. “For yer ain +sake, I wadna to Mistress Mair, for naething wad gar her tak it—it +wad only affront her; an’ for Nancy Tacket’s sake, I wadna to her, for +as her name, so’s her natur’: she wad not only tak it, but she wad lat +ye play the same as aften ’s ye likit for less siller. Ye’ll ha’e mony +a chance o’ makin’ ’t up to them baith, ten times ower, afore you an’ +them pairt, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I maun lea’ the cuintry, Ma’colm.”</p> + +<p>“’Deed, sir, ye’ll du naething o’ the kin’. The fishers themsels wad +rise, no to lat ye, as they did wi’ Blew Peter! As sune ’s ye’re able +to be aboot again, ye’ll see plain eneuch ’at there’s no occasion for +onything like that, sir. Portlossie wadna ken ’tsel’ wantin’ ye. Jist +gie me a commission to say to the twa honest women ’at ye’re sorry for +what ye did, an’ that’s a’ ’at need be said ’atween you an them, or +their men aither.”</p> + +<p>The result showed that Malcolm was right; for, the very next day, +instead of looking for gifts from him, the two injured women came to +the factor’s door, first Annie Mair, with the offering of a few fresh +eggs, scarce at the season, and after her Nancy Tacket, with a great +lobster.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXIV">CHAPTER LXIV.<br><span class="small">A VISITATION.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Malcolm’s custom was, first, immediately after breakfast, to give +Kelpie her airing—and a tremendous amount of air she wanted for the +huge animal furnace of her frame, and the fiery spirit that kept it +alight; then, returning to the Seaton, to change the dress of the +groom, in which he always appeared about the house, lest by any chance +his mistress should want him, for that of the fisherman, and help +with the nets, or the boats, or in whatever was going on. As often as +he might he did what seldom a man would—went to the long shed where +the women prepared the fish for salting, took a knife, and wrought as +deftly as any of them, throwing a marvellously rapid succession of +cleaned herrings into the preserving brine. It was no wonder he was a +favourite with the women. Although, however, the place was malodorous +and the work dirty, I cannot claim so much for Malcolm as may at first +appear to belong to him, for he had been accustomed to the sight and +smell from earliest childhood. Still, as I say, it was work the men +would not do. He had such a chivalrous humanity that it was misery to +him to see man or woman at anything scorned, except he bore a hand +himself. He did it half in love, half in terror of being unjust.</p> + +<p>He had gone to Mr Crathie in his fisher-clothes, thinking it better +the sick man should not be reminded of the cause of his illness more +forcibly than could not be helped. The nearest way led past a corner of +the house overlooked by one of the drawing-room windows, Clementina saw +him, and, judging by his garb that he would probably return presently, +went out in the hope of meeting him; and as he was going back to his +net by the sea-gate, he caught sight of her on the opposite side of the +burn, accompanied only by a book. He walked through the burn, climbed +the bank, and approached her.</p> + +<p>It was a hot summer afternoon. The burn ran dark and brown and cool +in deep shade, but the sea beyond was glowing in light, and the +laburnum-blossoms hung like cocoons of sunbeams. No breath of air +was stirring; no bird sang; the sun was burning high in the west. +Clementina stood waiting him, like a moon that could hold her own in +the face of the sun.</p> + +<p>“Malcolm,” she said, “I have been watching all day, but have not found +a single opportunity of speaking to your mistress as you wished. But to +tell the truth, I am not sorry, for the more I think about it, the less +I see what to say. That another does not like a person, can have little +weight with one who does, and I <i>know</i> nothing against him. I wish you +would release me from my promise. It is such an ugly thing to speak to +one’s hostess to the disadvantage of a fellow-guest!”</p> + +<p>“I understand,” said Malcolm. “It was not a right thing to ask of you. +I beg your pardon, my lady, and give you back your promise, if such you +count it. But indeed I do not think you promised.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, I would rather be free. Had it been before you left +London—. —Lady Lossie is very kind, but does not seem to put the same +confidence in me as formerly. She and Lady Bellair and that man make a +trio, and I am left outside. I almost think I ought to go. Even Caley +is more of a friend than I am. I cannot get rid of the suspicion that +something not right is going on. There seems a bad air about the place. +Those two are playing their game with the inexperience of that poor +child, your mistress.”</p> + +<p>“I know that very well, my lady, but I hope yet they will not win,” +said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>By this time they were near the tunnel.</p> + +<p>“Could you let me through to the shore?” asked Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Certainly, my lady.—I wish you could see the boats go out. From the +Boar’s Tail it is a pretty sight. They will all be starting together as +soon as the tide turns.”</p> + +<p>Thereupon Clementina began questioning him about the night-fishing, +and Malcolm described its pleasures and dangers, and the pleasures of +its dangers, in such fashion that Clementina listened with delight. He +dwelt especially on the feeling almost of disembodiment, and existence +as pure thought, arising from the all-pervading clarity and fluidity, +the suspension, and the unceasing motion.</p> + +<p>“I wish I could once feel like that,” exclaimed Clementina. “Could I +not go with you—for one night—just for once, Malcolm?”</p> + +<p>“My lady, it would hardly do, I am afraid. If you knew the discomforts +that must assail one unaccustomed—I cannot tell—but I doubt if you +would go. All the doors to bliss have their defences of swamps and +thorny thickets through which alone they can be gained. You would need +to be a fisherman’s sister—or wife, I fear, my lady, to get through to +this one.”</p> + +<p>Clementina smiled gravely, but did not reply, and Malcolm too was +silent, thinking.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said at last, “I see how we can manage it. You shall have a +boat for your own use, my lady, and——”</p> + +<p>“But I want to see just what you see, and to feel, as nearly as I may, +what you feel. I don’t want a downy, rose-leaf notion of the thing. I +want to understand what you fishermen encounter and experience.”</p> + +<p>“We <i>must</i> make a difference though, my lady. Look what clothes, what +boots we fishers must wear to be fit for our work! But you shall have +a true idea as far as it reaches, and one that will go a long way +towards enabling you to understand the rest. You shall go in a real +fishing-boat, with a full crew and all the nets, and you shall catch +real herrings; only you shall not be out longer than you please.—But +there is hardly time to arrange for it to-night, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“To-morrow then?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I have no doubt I can manage it then.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, thank you!” said Clementina. “It will be a great delight.”</p> + +<p>“And now,” suggested Malcolm, “would you like to go through the +village, and see some of the cottages, and how the fishers live?”</p> + +<p>“If they would not think me inquisitive, or intrusive,” answered +Clementina.</p> + +<p>“There is no danger of that,” rejoined Malcolm. “If it were my Lady +Bellair, to patronize, and deal praise and blame, as if what she calls +poverty were fault and childishness, and she their spiritual as well +as social superior, they might very likely be what she would call +rude. She was here once before, and we have some notion of her about +the Seaton. I venture to say there is not a woman in it who is not her +moral superior, and many of them are her superiors in intellect and +true knowledge, if they are not so familiar with London scandal. Mr +Graham says that in the kingdom of heaven every superior is a ruler, +for there to rule is to raise, and a man’s rank is his power to uplift.”</p> + +<p>“I would I were in the kingdom of heaven, if it be such as you and Mr +Graham take it for,” said Clementina.</p> + +<p>“You must be in it, my lady, or you couldn’t wish it to be such as it +is.”</p> + +<p>“Can one then be in it, and yet seem to be out of it, Malcolm?”</p> + +<p>“So many are out of it that seem to be in it, my lady, that one might +well imagine it the other way with some.”</p> + +<p>“Are you not uncharitable, Malcolm?”</p> + +<p>“Our Lord speaks of many coming up to his door confident of admission, +whom yet he sends from him. Faith is obedience, not confidence.”</p> + +<p>“Then I do well to fear.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady, so long as your fear makes you knock the louder.”</p> + +<p>“But if I be in, as you say, how can I go on knocking?”</p> + +<p>“There are a thousand more doors to knock at after you are in, my lady. +No one content to stand just inside the gate will be inside it long. +But it is one thing to be in, and another to be satisfied that we are +in. Such a satisfying as comes from our own feelings may, you see from +what our Lord says, be a false one. It is one thing to gather the +conviction for ourselves, and another to have it from God. What wise +man would have it before he gives it? He who does what his Lord tells +him, is in the kingdom, if every feeling of heart or brain told him he +was out. And his Lord will see that he knows it one day. But I do not +think, my lady, one can ever be quite sure, until the king himself has +come in to sup with him, and has let him know that he is altogether one +with him.”</p> + +<p>During the talk of which this is the substance, they reached the +Seaton, and Malcolm took her to see his grandfather.</p> + +<p>“Taal and faer and chentle and coot!” murmured the old man as he held +her hand for a moment in his. With a start of suspicion he dropped it, +and cried out in alarm—“She’ll not pe a Cam’ell, Malcolm?”</p> + +<p>“Na, na, daddy—far frae that,” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Then my laty will pe right welcome to Tuncan’s heart,” he replied, and +taking her hand again led her to a chair.</p> + +<p>When they left, she expressed herself charmed with the piper, but when +she learned the cause of his peculiar behaviour at first, she looked +grave, and found his feeling difficult to understand.</p> + +<p>They next visited the Partaness, with whom she was far more amused +than puzzled. But her heart was drawn to the young woman who sat in +a corner, rocking her child in its wooden cradle, and never lifting +her eyes from her needle-work: she knew her for the fisher-girl of +Malcolm’s picture.</p> + +<p>From house to house he took her, and where they went, they were +welcomed. If the man was smoking, he put away his pipe, and the woman +left her work and sat down to talk with her. They did the honours of +their poor houses in a homely and dignified fashion. Clementina was +delighted. But Malcolm told her he had taken her only to the best +houses in the place to begin with. The village, though a fair sample of +fishing villages, was no ex-sample, he said: there were all kinds of +people in it as in every other. It was a class in the big life-school +of the world, whose special masters were the sea and the herrings.</p> + +<p>“What would you do now, if you were lord of the place?” asked +Clementina, as they were walking back by the sea-gate; “—I mean, what +would be the first thing you would do?”</p> + +<p>“As it would be my business to know my tenants that I might rule them,” +he answered, “I would first court the society and confidence of the +best men among them. I should be in no hurry to make changes, but +would talk openly with them, and try to be worthy of their confidence. +Of course I would see a little better to their houses, and improve +their harbour: and I would build a boat for myself that would show +them a better kind; but my main hope for them would be the same as for +myself—the knowledge of him whose is the sea and all its store, who +cares for every fish in its bosom, but for the fisher more than many +herrings. I would spend my best efforts to make them follow him whose +first servants were the fishermen of Galilee, for with all my heart I +believe that that Man holds the secret of life, and that only the man +who obeys him can ever come to know the God who is the root and crown +of our being, and whom to know is freedom and bliss.”</p> + +<p>A pause followed.</p> + +<p>“But do you not sometimes find it hard to remember God all through your +work?” asked Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Not very hard, my lady. Sometimes I wake up to find that I have been +in an evil mood and forgetting him, and then life is hard until I get +near him again. But it is not my work that makes me forget him. When +I go a-fishing, I go to catch God’s fish; when I take Kelpie out, I +am teaching one of God’s wild creatures; when I read the Bible or +Shakspere, I am listening to the word of God, uttered in each after +its kind. When the wind blows on my face, what matter that the chymist +pulls it to pieces! He cannot hurt it, for his knowledge of it cannot +make my feeling of it a folly, so long as he cannot pull that to pieces +with his retorts and crucibles: it is to me the wind of him who makes +it blow, the sign of something in him, the fit emblem of his spirit, +that breathes into my spirit the breath of life. When Mr Graham talks +to me, it is a prophet come from God that teaches me, as certainly as +if his fiery chariot were waiting to carry him back when he had spoken; +for the word he utters at once humbles and uplifts my soul, telling it +that God is all in all and my God—that the Lord Christ is the truth +and the life, and the way home to the Father.”</p> + +<p>After a little pause,</p> + +<p>“And when you are talking to a rich, ignorant, proud lady?” said +Clementina, “—what do you feel then?”</p> + +<p>“That I would it were my lady Clementina instead,” answered Malcolm +with a smile.</p> + +<p>She held her peace.</p> + +<p>When he left her, Malcolm hurried to Scaurnose and arranged with +Blue Peter for his boat and crew the next night. Returning to his +grandfather, he found a note waiting him from Mrs Courthope, to the +effect that, as Miss Caley, her ladyship’s maid, had preferred another +room, there was no reason why, if he pleased, he should not re-occupy +his own.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXV">CHAPTER LXV.<br><span class="small">THE EVE OF THE CRISIS.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>It was late in the sweetest of summer mornings when the Partan’s boat +slipped slowly back with a light wind to the harbour of Portlossie. +Malcolm did not wait to land the fish, but having changed his clothes +and taken breakfast with Duncan, who was always up early, went to +look after Kelpie. When he had done with her, finding some of the +household already in motion, he went through the kitchen, and up the +old cork-screw stone stair to his room to have the sleep he generally +had before his breakfast. Presently came a knock at his door, and there +was Rose.</p> + +<p>The girl’s behaviour to Malcolm was much changed. The conviction had +been strengthened in her that he was not what he seemed, and she +regarded him now with a vague awe. She looked this way and that along +the passage, with fear in her eyes, then stepped timidly inside the +room to tell him, in a hurried whisper, that she had seen the woman who +gave her the poisonous philtre, talking to Caley the night before, at +the foot of the bridge, after everybody else was in bed. She had been +miserable till she could warn him. He thanked her heartily, and said he +would be on his guard; he would neither eat nor drink in the house. She +crept softly away. He secured the door, lay down, and trying to think +fell asleep.</p> + +<p>When he woke his brain was clear. The very next day, whether Lenorme +came or not, he would declare himself. That night he would go fishing +with Lady Clementina, but not one day longer would he allow those +people to be about his sister. Who could tell what might not be +brewing, or into what abyss, with the help of her <i>friends</i>, the woman +Catanach might not plunge Florimel?</p> + +<p>He rose, took Kelpie out, and had a good gallop. On his way back he +saw in the distance Florimel riding with Liftore. The earl was on his +father’s bay mare. He could not endure the sight, and dashed home at +full speed.</p> + +<p>Learning from Rose that Lady Clementina was in the flower-garden, he +found her at the swan-basin, feeding the gold and silver fishes. An +under-gardener who had been about the place for thirty years, was at +work not far off. The light splash of the falling column which the +marble swan spouted from its upturned beak, prevented her from hearing +his approach until he was close behind her. She turned, and her fair +face took the flush of a white rose.</p> + +<p>“My lady,” he said, “I have got everything arranged for to-night.”</p> + +<p>“And when shall we go?” she asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>“At the turn of the tide, about half-past seven. But seven is your +dinner hour.”</p> + +<p>“It is of no consequence.—But could you not make it half an hour +later, and then I should not seem rude?”</p> + +<p>“Make it any hour you please, my lady, so long as the tide is falling.”</p> + +<p>“Let it be eight then, and dinner will be almost over. They will not +miss me after that. Mr Cairns is going to dine with them. I think, +except Liftore, I never disliked a man so much. Shall I tell them where +I am going?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady. It will be better.—They will look amazed—for all their +breeding!”</p> + +<p>“Whose boat is it, that I may be able to tell them if they should ask +me?”</p> + +<p>“Joseph Mair’s. He and his wife will come and fetch you. Annie Mair +will go with us—if I may say <i>us</i>: will you allow me to go in your +boat, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t go without you, Malcolm.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, my lady. Indeed I don’t know how I could let you go without +me! Not that there is anything to fear, or that I could make it the +least safer; but somehow it seems my business to take care of you.”</p> + +<p>“Like Kelpie?” said Clementina, with a merrier smile than he had ever +seen on her face before.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady,” answered Malcolm; “—if to do for you all and the best +you will permit me to do, be to take care of you like Kelpie, then so +it is.”</p> + +<p>Clementina gave a little sigh.</p> + +<p>“Mind you don’t scruple, my lady, to give what orders you please. It +will be <i>your</i> fishing-boat for to-night.”</p> + +<p>Clementina bowed her head in acknowledgment.</p> + +<p>“And now, my lady,” Malcolm went on, “just look about you for a moment. +See this great vault of heaven, full of golden light raining on trees +and flowers—every atom of air shining. Take the whole into your heart, +that you may feel the difference at night, my lady —when the stars, +and neither sun nor moon, will be in the sky, and all the flowers they +shine on will be their own flitting, blinking, swinging, shutting and +opening reflections in the swaying floor of the ocean,—when the heat +will be gone, and the air clean and clear as the thoughts of a saint.”</p> + +<p>Clementina did as he said, and gazed above and around her on the glory +of the summer day overhanging the sweet garden, and on the flowers that +had just before been making her heart ache with their unattainable +secret. But she thought with herself that if Malcolm and she but shared +it with a common heart as well as neighboured eyes, gorgeous day and +ethereal night, or snow-clad wild and sky of stormy blackness, were +alike welcome to her spirit.</p> + +<p>As they talked they wandered up the garden, and had drawn near the +spot where, in the side of the glen, was hollowed the cave of the +hermit. They now turned towards the pretty arbour of moss that covered +its entrance, each thinking the other led, but Malcolm not without +reluctance. For how horribly and unaccountably had he not been shaken, +the only time he ever entered it, at the sight of the hermit! The thing +was a foolish wooden figure, no doubt, but the thought that it still +sat over its book in the darkest corner of the cave, ready to rise and +advance with outstretched hand to welcome its visitor, had, ever since +then, sufficed to make him shudder. He was on the point of warning +Clementina lest she too should be worse than startled, when he was +arrested by the voice of John Jack, the old gardener, who came stooping +after them, looking a sexton of flowers.</p> + +<p>“Ma’colm, Ma’colm!” he cried, and crept up wheezing. “—I beg yer +leddyship’s pardon, my leddy, but I wadna ha’e Ma’colm lat ye gang in +there ohn tellt ye what there is inside.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, John. I was just going to tell my lady,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Because, ye see,” pursued John, “I was ae day here i’ the gairden +—an’ I was jist graftin’ a bonny wull rose-buss wi’ a Hector o’ +France—an’ it grew to be the bonniest rose-buss in a’ the haill +gairden—whan the markis, no the auld markis, but my leddy’s father, +cam up the walk there, an’ a bonny yoong leddy wi’ his lordship, as it +micht be yersels twa—an’ I beg yer pardon, my leddy, but I’m an auld +man noo, an’ whiles forgets the differs ’atween fowk—an’ this yoong +leddy ’at they ca’d Miss Cam’ell— ye kenned her yersel’ efterhin’, +I daursay, Ma’colm—he was unco ta’en wi’ her, the markis, as ilka +body cud see ohn luikit that near, sae ’at some saich ’at hoo he hed +no richt to gang on wi’ her that gait, garrin’ her believe, gien he +wasna gaein’ to merry her. That’s naither here nor there, hooever, +seein’ it a’ cam to jist naething ava’. Sae up they gaed to the cave +yon’er, as I was tellin’ ye; an’ hoo it was, was a won’er, for I s’ +warran’ she had been aboot the place near a towmon (<i>twelvemonth</i>), +but never had she been intill that cave, and kenned no more nor the +bairn unborn what there was in ’t. An’ sae whan the airemite, as the +auld minister ca’d him, though what for he ca’d a muckle block like +yon an <i>airy-mite</i>, I’m sure I never cud fathom—whan he gat up, as I +was sayin’, an’ cam foret wi’ his han’ oot, she gae a scraich ’at jist +garred my lugs dirl, an’ doon she drappit, an’ there, whan I ran up, +was she lyin’ i’ the markis his airms, as white ’s a cauk eemege, an’ +it was lang or he broucht her till hersel’, for he wadna lat me rin for +the hoosekeeper, but sent me fleein’ to the f’untain for watter, an’ +gied me a gowd guinea to haud my tongue aboot it a’. Sae noo, my leddy, +ye’re fore-warnt, an’ no ill can come to ye, for there’s naething to be +fleyt at whan ye ken what’s gauin’ to meet ye.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm had turned his head aside, and now moved on without remark. +Struck by his silence, Clementina looked up, and saw his face very +pale, and the tears standing in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“You must tell me the sad story, Malcolm,” she murmured. “I could +scarcely understand a word the old man said.”</p> + +<p>He continued silent, and seemed struggling with some emotion. But when +they were within a few paces of the arbour, he stopped short, and said—</p> + +<p>“I would rather not go in there to-day. You would oblige me, my lady, +if you would not go.”</p> + +<p>She looked up at him again, with wonder but more concern in her lovely +face, put her hand on his arm, gently turned him away, and walked back +with him to the fountain. Not a word more did she say about the matter.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXVI">CHAPTER LXVI.<br><span class="small">SEA.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>The evening came; and the company at Lossie House was still seated at +table, Clementina heartily weary of the vapid talk that had been going +on all through the dinner, when she was informed that a fisherman of +the name of Mair was at the door, accompanied by his wife, saying they +had an appointment with her. She had already acquainted her hostess, +when first they sat down, with her arrangements for going a-fishing +that night, and much foolish talk and would-be wit had followed; now, +when she rose and excused herself, they all wished her a pleasant +evening, in a tone indicating the conviction that she little knew what +she was about, and would soon be longing heartily enough to be back +with them in the drawing-room, whose lighted windows she would see from +the boat. But Clementina hoped otherwise, hurriedly changed her dress, +hastened to join Malcolm’s messengers, and almost in a moment had made +the two child-like people at home with her, by the simplicity and truth +of her manner, and the directness of her utterance. They had not talked +with her five minutes before they said in their hearts that here was +the wife for the marquis if he could get her.</p> + +<p>“She’s jist like ane o’ oorsels,” whispered Annie to her husband on the +first opportunity, “only a hantle better an’ bonnier.”</p> + +<p>They took the nearest way to the harbour—through the town, and Lady +Clementina and Blue Peter kept up a constant talk as they went. All in +the streets and at the windows stared to see the grand lady from the +House walking between a Scaurnose fisherman and his wife, and chatting +away with them as if they were all fishers together.</p> + +<p>“What’s the wordle comin’ till!” cried Mrs Mellis, the draper’s wife, +as she saw them pass.</p> + +<p>“I’m glaid to see the yoong wuman—an’ a bonny lass she is!—in sic +guid company,” said Miss Horn, looking down from the opposite side of +the way. “I’m thinkin’ the han’ o’ the markis ’ill be i’ this, no’!”</p> + +<p>All was ready to receive her, but in the present bad state of the +harbour, and the tide having now ebbed a little way, the boat could +not get close either to quay or shore. Six of the crew were on board, +seated on the thwarts with their oars shipped, for Peter had insisted +on a certain approximation to man-of-war manners and discipline for the +evening, or at least until they got to the fishing ground. The shore +itself formed one side of the harbour, and sloped down into it, and on +the sand stood Malcolm with a young woman, whom Clementina recognised +at once as the girl she had seen at the Findlays’.</p> + +<p>“My lady,” he said, approaching, “would you do me the favour to let +Lizzy go with you. She would like to attend your ladyship, because, +being a fisherman’s daughter, she is used to the sea, and Mrs Mair is +not so much at home upon it, being a farmer’s daughter from inland.”</p> + +<p>Receiving Clementina’s thankful assent, he turned to Lizzy and said—</p> + +<p>“Min’ ye tell my leddy what rizon ye ken whaurfor my mistress at the +Hoose sudna be merried upo’ Lord Liftore—him ’at was Lord Meikleham. +Ye may speyk to my leddy there as ye wad to mysel’— an’ better, haein’ +the hert o’ a wuman.”</p> + +<p>Lizzy blushed a deep red, and dared but the glimmer of a glance at +Clementina, but there was only shame, no annoyance in her face.</p> + +<p>“Ye winna repent it, Lizzy,” concluded Malcolm, and turned away.</p> + +<p>He cherished a faint hope that, if she heard or guessed Lizzy’s story, +Clementina might yet find some way of bringing her influence to bear +on his sister even at the last hour of her chance—from which, for +her sake, he shrunk the more the nearer it drew. Clementina held out +her hand to Lizzy, and again accepted her offered service with kindly +thanks.</p> + +<p>Now Blue Peter, having been ship’s-carpenter in his day, had +constructed a little poop in the stern of his craft; thereon Malcolm +had laid cushions and pillows and furs and blankets from the Psyche,—a +grafting of Cleopatra’s galley upon the rude fishing-boat—and there +Clementina was to repose in state. Malcolm gave a sign: Peter took his +wife in his arms, and walking through the few yards of water between, +lifted her into the boat, which lay with its stern to the shore. +Malcolm and Clementina turned to each other: he was about to ask leave +to do her the same service, but she spoke before him.</p> + +<p>“Put Lizzy on board first,” she said.</p> + +<p>He obeyed, and when, returning, he again approached her—</p> + +<p>“Are you able, Malcolm?” she asked. “I am very heavy.”</p> + +<p>He smiled for all reply, took her in his arms like a child, and had +placed her on the cushions before she had time to realize the mode +of her transference. Then taking a stride deeper into the water, he +scrambled on board. The same instant the men gave way. They pulled +carefully through the narrow jaws of the little harbour, and away with +quivering oar and falling tide, went the boat, gliding out into the +measureless north, where the horizon was now dotted with the sails that +had preceded it.</p> + +<p>No sooner were they afloat than a kind of enchantment enwrapped and +possessed the soul of Clementina. Everything seemed all at once changed +utterly. The very ends of the harbour piers might have stood in the +Divina Commedia instead of the Moray Frith. Oh that wonderful look +everything wears when beheld from the other side! Wonderful surely will +this world appear—strangely <i>more</i>, when, become children again by +being gathered to our fathers—joyous day! we turn and gaze back upon +it from the other side! I imagine that, to him who has overcome it, the +world, in very virtue of his victory, will show itself the lovely and +pure thing it was created— for he will see through the cloudy envelope +of his battle to the living kernel below. The cliffs, the rocks, the +sands, the dune, the town, the very clouds that hung over the hill +above Lossie House, were in strange fashion transfigured. To think of +people sitting behind those windows while the splendour and freedom of +space with all its divine shows invited them—lay bare and empty to +them! Out and still out they rowed and drifted, till the coast began +to open up beyond the headlands on either side. There a light breeze +was waiting them. Up then went three short masts, and three dark brown +sails shone red in the sun, and Malcolm came aft, over the great heap +of brown nets, crept with apology across the poop, and got down into a +little well behind, there to sit and steer the boat; for now, obedient +to the wind in its sails, it went frolicking over the sea.</p> + +<p>The bonnie Annie bore a picked crew; for Peter’s boat was to him a sort +of church, in which he would not with his will carry any Jonah fleeing +from the will of the lord of the sea. And that boat’s crew did not look +the less merrily out of their blue eyes, or carry themselves the less +manfully in danger, that they believed a lord of the earth and the sea +and the fountains of water cared for his children and would have them +honest and fearless.</p> + +<p>And now came a scattering of rubies and topazes over the slow waves, +as the sun reached the edge of the horizon, and shone with a glory of +blinding red along the heaving level of green, dashed with the foam of +their flight. Could such a descent as this be intended for a type of +death? Clementina asked. Was it not rather as if, from a corner of the +tomb behind, she saw the back parts of a resurrection and ascension: +warmth, out-shining, splendour; departure from the door of the tomb; +exultant memory; tarnishing gold, red fading to russet; fainting +of spirit, loneliness; deepening blue and green; pallor, grayness, +coldness; out-creeping stars; further-reaching memory; the dawn of +infinite hope and foresight; the assurance that under passion itself +lay a better and holier mystery? Here was God’s naughty child, the +world, laid asleep and dreaming—if not merrily, yet contentedly; and +there was the sky with all the day gathered and hidden up in its blue, +ready to break forth again in laughter on the morrow, bending over its +skyey cradle like a mother! and there was the aurora, the secret of +life, creeping away round to the north to be ready! Then first, when +the slow twilight had fairly settled into night, did Clementina begin +to know the deepest marvel of this facet of the rose-diamond life! +God’s night and sky and sea were hers now, as they had been Malcolm’s +from childhood! And when the nets had been paid out, and sank straight +into the deep, stretched betwixt leads below and floats and buoys +above, extending a screen of meshes against the rush of the watery +herd; when the sails were down, and the whole vault of stars laid bare +to her eyes as she lay; when the boat was still, fast to the nets, +anchored as it were by hanging acres of curtain, and all was silent as +a church, waiting, and she might dream or sleep or pray as she would, +with nothing about her but peace and love and the deep sea, and over +her but still peace and love and the deeper sky, then the soul of +Clementina rose and worshipped the soul of the universe; her spirit +clave to the Life of her life, the Thought of her thought, the Heart of +her heart; her will bowed itself to the creator of will, worshipping +the supreme, original, only Freedom—the Father of her love, the Father +of Jesus Christ, the God of the hearts of the universe, the Thinker of +all thoughts, the Beginner of all beginnings, the All-in-all. It was +her first experience of speechless adoration.</p> + +<p>Most of the men were asleep in the bows of the boat; all were lying +down but one. That one was Malcolm. He had come aft, and seated himself +under the platform, leaning against it.</p> + +<p>The boat rose and sank a little, just enough to rock the sleeping +children a little deeper into their sleep; Malcolm thought all slept. +He did not see how Clementina’s eyes shone back to the heavens—no star +in them to be named beside those eyes. She knew that Malcolm was near +her, but she would not speak; she would not break the peace of the +presence. A minute or two passed. Then softly woke a murmur of sound, +that strengthened and grew, and swelled at last into a song. She feared +to stir lest she should interrupt its flow. And thus it flowed:</p> + +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The stars are steady abune;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I’ the water they flichter an’ flee;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But steady aye luikin’ doon,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They ken themsels i’ the sea.</span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A’ licht, an’ clear, an’ free,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">God, thou shinest abune;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet luik, an’ see thysel’ in me,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">God, whan thou luikest doon.</span><br> +</p> + +<p>A silence followed, but a silence that seemed about to be broken. +And again Malcolm sang:</p> + +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There was an auld fisher—he sat by the wa’,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An’ luikit oot ower the sea;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The bairnies war playin’, he smilit on them a’,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But the tear stude in his e’e.</span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">_An’ it’s oh to win awa’, awa’!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">An’ it’s oh to win awa’</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Whaur the bairns come hame, an’ the wives they bide,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">An’ God is the Father o’ a’!_</span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jocky an’ Jeamy an’ Tammy oot there,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A’ i’ the boatie gaed doon;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An’ I’m ower auld to fish ony mair,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An’ I hinna the chance to droon.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>An’ it’s oh to win awa’, awa’! &c.</i></span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An’ Jeanie she grat to ease her hert,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An’ she easit hersel’ awa’;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But I’m ower auld for the tears to stert,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An’ sae the sighs maun blaw.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>An’ it’s oh to win awa’, awa’! &c.</i></span><br> +<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lord, steer me hame whaur my Lord has steerit,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For I’m tired o’ life’s rockin’ sea;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An’ dinna be lang, for I’m nearhan’ fearit</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">’At I’m ’maist ower auld to dee.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>An’ it’s oh to win awa’, awa’! &c.</i></span><br> +</p> + +<p>Again the stars and the sky were all, and there was no sound but the +slight murmurous lipping of the low swell against the edges of the +planks. Then Clementina said:</p> + +<p>“Did you make that song, Malcolm?”</p> + +<p>“Whilk o’ them, my leddy?—But it’s a’ ane—they’re baith mine, sic as +they are.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” she returned.</p> + +<p>“What for, my leddy?”</p> + +<p>“For speaking Scotch to me.”</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, my lady. I forgot your ladyship was English.”</p> + +<p>“Please forget it,” she said. “But I thank you for your songs too. It +was the second I wanted to know about; the first I was certain was your +own. I did not know you could enter like that into the feelings of an +old man.”</p> + +<p>“Why not, my lady? I never can see living thing without asking it how +it feels. Often and often, out here at such a time as this, have I +tried to fancy myself a herring caught by the gills in the net down +below, instead of the fisherman in the boat above going to haul him +out.”</p> + +<p>“And did you succeed?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I fancy I came to understand as much of him as he does himself. +It’s a merry enough life down there. The flukes—plaice, you call them, +my lady,—bother me, I confess. I never contemplate one without feeling +as if I had been sat upon when I was a baby. But for an old man!—Why, +that’s what I shall be myself one day most likely, and it would be a +shame not to know pretty nearly how <i>he</i> felt—near enough at least to +make a song about him.”</p> + +<p>“And shan’t you mind being an old man, then, Malcolm?”</p> + +<p>“Not in the least, my lady. I shall mind nothing so long as I can trust +in the maker of me. If my faith should give way—why then there would +be nothing worth minding either! I don’t know but I should kill myself.”</p> + +<p>“Malcolm!”</p> + +<p>“Which is worse, my lady—to distrust God, or to think life worth +having without him?”</p> + +<p>“But one may hope in the midst of doubt—at least that is what Mr +Graham—and you—have taught me to do.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, surely, my lady. I won’t let anyone beat me at that, if I can +help it. And I think that so long as I kept my reason, I should be +able to cry out, as that grandest and most human of all the prophets +did—‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.’ But would you not +like to sleep, my lady?”</p> + +<p>“No, Malcolm. I would much rather hear you talk.—Could you not tell me +a story now? Lady Lossie mentioned one you once told her about an old +castle somewhere not far from here——”</p> + +<p>“Eh, my leddy!” broke in Annie Mair, who had waked up while they were +speaking, “I wuss ye wad gar him tell ye that story, for my man he’s +h’ard ’im tell ’t, an’ he says it’s unco gruesome: I wad fain hear +’t.—Wauk up, Lizzy,” she went on, in her eagerness waiting for no +answer; “Ma’colm’s gauin’ to tell ’s the tale o’ the auld castel o’ +Colonsay.—It’s oot by yon’er, my leddy— no that far frae the Deid +Heid.—Wauk up, Lizzy.”</p> + +<p>“I’m no sleepin’, Annie,” said Lizzy, “—though like Ma’colm’s auld +man,” she added with a sigh, “I wad whiles fain be.”</p> + +<p>Now there were reasons why Malcolm should not be unwilling to tell the +strange wild story requested of him, and he commenced it at once, but +modified the Scotch of it considerably for the sake of the unaccustomed +ears. When it was ended Clementina said nothing; Annie Mair said “Hech, +sirs!” and Lizzy with a great sigh, remarked,</p> + +<p>“The deil maun be in a’thing whaur God hasna a han’, I’m thinkin’.”</p> + +<p>“Ye may tak yer aith upo’ that,” rejoined Malcolm.</p> + +<p>It was a custom in Peter’s boat never to draw the nets without a +prayer, uttered now by one and now by another of the crew. Upon +this occasion, whether it was in deference to Malcolm, who, as he +well understood, did not like long prayers, or that the presence of +Clementina exercised some restraint upon his spirit, out of the bows of +the boat came now the solemn voice of its master, bearing only this one +sentence:</p> + +<p>“Oh Thoo, wha didst tell thy dissiples to cast the net upo’ the side +whaur swam the fish, gien it be thy wull ’at we catch the nicht, lat ’s +catch; gien it binna thy wull, lat ’s no catch.—Haul awa’, my laads.”</p> + +<p>Up sprang the men, and went each to his place, and straight a torrent +of gleaming fish was pouring in over the gunwale of the boat. Such a +take it was ere the last of the nets was drawn, as the oldest of them +had seldom seen. Thousands of fish there were that had never got into +the meshes at all.</p> + +<p>“I cannot understand it,” said Clementina. “There are multitudes more +fish than there are meshes in the nets to catch them: if they are not +caught, why do they not swim away?”</p> + +<p>“Because they are drowned, my lady,” answered Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that? How can you drown a fish?”</p> + +<p>“You may call it <i>suffocated</i> if you like, my lady; it is all the same. +You have read of panic-stricken people, when a church or a theatre is +on fire, rushing to the door all in a heap, and crowding each other to +death? It is something like that with the fish. They are swimming along +in a great shoal, yards thick; and when the first can get no farther, +that does not at once stop the rest, any more than it would in a crowd +of people; those that are behind come pressing up into every corner, +where there is room, till they are one dense mass. Then they push and +push to get forward, and can’t get through, and the rest come still +crowding on behind and above and below, till a multitude of them are +jammed so tight against each other that they can’t open their gills; +and even if they could, there would not be air enough for them. You’ve +seen the goldfish in the swan-basin, my lady, how they open and shut +their gills constantly: that’s their way of getting air out of the +water by some wonderful contrivance nobody understands, for they need +breath just as much as we do: and to close their gills is to them the +same as closing a man’s mouth and nose. That’s how the most of those +herrings are taken.”</p> + +<p>All were now ready to seek the harbour. A light westerly wind was still +blowing, with the aid of which, heavy-laden, they crept slowly to the +land. As she lay snug and warm, with the cool breath of the sea on her +face, a half sleep came over Clementina, and she half dreamed that she +was voyaging in a ship of the air, through infinite regions of space, +with a destination too glorious to be known. The herring-boat was a +living splendour of strength and speed, its sails were as the wings of +a will, in place of the instruments of a force, and softly as mightily +it bore them through the charmed realms of dreamland towards the ideal +of the soul. And yet the herring-boat but crawled over the still waters +with its load of fish, as the harvest waggon creeps over the field with +its piled up sheaves; and she who imagined its wondrous speed was the +only one who did not desire it should move faster.</p> + +<p>No word passed between her and Malcolm all their homeward way. Each was +brooding over the night and its joy that enclosed them together, and +hoping for that which was yet to be shaken from the lap of the coming +time.</p> + +<p>Also Clementina had in her mind a scheme for attempting what Malcolm +had requested of her; the next day must see it carried into effect; +and ever and anon, like a cold blast of doubt invading the bliss of +confidence, into the heart of that sea-borne peace darted the thought, +that, if she failed, she must leave at once for England, for she would +not again meet Liftore.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXVII">CHAPTER LXVII.<br><span class="small">SHORE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>At last they glided once more through the stony jaws of the harbour, +as if returning again to the earth from a sojourn in the land of the +disembodied. When Clementina’s foot touched the shore she felt like one +waked out of a dream, from whom yet the dream has not departed—but +keeps floating about him, waved in thinner and yet thinner streams from +the wings of the vanishing sleep. It seemed almost as if her spirit, +instead of having come back to the world of its former abode, had +been borne across the parting waters and landed on the shore of the +immortals. There was the ghost-like harbour of the spirit land, the +water gleaming betwixt its dark walls, one solitary boat motionless +upon it, the men moving about like shadows in the star twilight! Here +stood three women and a man on the shore, and save the stars no light +shone, and from the land came no sound of life. Was it the dead of the +night, or a day that had no sun? It was not dark, but the light was +rayless. Or, rather, it was as if she had gained the power of seeing in +the dark. Suppressed sleep wove the stuff of a dream around her, and +the stir at her heart kept it alive with dream-forms. Even the voice of +Peter’s Annie, saying, “I s’ bide for my man. Gude nicht, my leddy,” +did not break the charm. Her heart shaped that also into the dream. +Turning away with Malcolm and Lizzy, she passed along the front of the +Seaton. How still, how dead, how empty like cenotaphs, all the cottages +looked! How the sea which lay like a watcher at their doors, murmured +in its sleep! Arrived at the entrance to her own close, Lizzy next bade +them good night, and Clementina and Malcolm were left.</p> + +<p>And now drew near the full power, the culmination of the mounting +enchantment of the night for Malcolm. When once the Scaurnose people +should have passed them, they would be alone—alone as in the spaces +between the stars. There would not be a living soul on the shore +for hours. From the harbour the nearest way to the House was by the +sea-gate, but where was the haste—with the lovely night around them, +private as a dream shared only by two? Besides, to get in by that, they +would have had to rouse the cantankerous Bykes, and what a jar would +not that bring into the music of the silence! Instead, therefore, of +turning up by the side of the stream where it crossed the shore, he +took Clementina once again in his arms unforbidden, and carried her +over. Then the long sands lay open to their feet. Presently they heard +the Scaurnose party behind them, coming audibly, merrily on. As by a +common resolve they turned to the left, and crossing the end of the +Boar’s Tail, resumed their former direction, with the dune now between +them and the sea. The voices passed on the other side, and they heard +them slowly merge into the inaudible. At length, after an interval of +silence, on the westerly air came one quiver of laughter—by which +Malcolm knew his friends were winding up the red path to the top of the +cliff. And now the shore was bare of presence, bare of sound save the +soft fitful rush of the rising tide. But behind the long sandhill, for +all they could see of the sea, they might have been in the heart of a +continent.</p> + +<p>“Who would imagine the ocean so near us, my lady!” said Malcolm, after +they had walked for some time without word spoken.</p> + +<p>“Who can tell what may be near us?” she returned.</p> + +<p>“True, my lady. Our future is near us, holding thousands of things +unknown. Hosts of thinking beings with endless-myriads of thoughts may +be around us. What a joy t’ know that, of all things and all thoughts, +God is nearest to us—<i>so</i> near that we cannot see him, but, far beyond +seeing him, can know of him infinitely!”</p> + +<p>As he spoke they came opposite the tunnel, but he turned from it and +they ascended the dune. As their heads rose over the top, and the +sky-night above and the sea-night beneath rolled themselves out and +rushed silently together, Malcolm said, as if thinking aloud:</p> + +<p>“Thus shall we meet death and the unknown, and the new that breaks from +the bosom of the invisible will be better than the old upon which the +gates close behind us. The Son of man is content with my future, and I +am content.”</p> + +<p>There was a peace in the words that troubled Clementina: he wanted +no more than he had—this cold, imperturbable, devout fisherman! She +did not see that it was the confidence of having all things that held +his peace rooted. From the platform of the swivel, they looked abroad +over the sea. Far north in the east lurked a suspicion of dawn, which +seemed, while they gazed upon it, to “languish into life,” and the sea +was a shade less dark than when they turned from it to go behind the +dune. They descended a few paces, and halted again.</p> + +<p>“Did your ladyship ever see the sun rise?” asked Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Never in open country,” she answered.</p> + +<p>“Then stay and see it now, my lady. He’ll rise just over yonder, a +little nearer this way than that light from under his eyelids. A more +glorious chance you could not have. And when he rises, just observe, +one minute after he is up, how like a dream all you have been in +to-night will look. It is to me strange even to awfulness how many +different phases of things, and feelings about them, and moods of life +and consciousness, God can tie up in the bundle of one world with one +human soul to carry it.”</p> + +<p>Clementina slowly sank on the sand of the slope, and like lovely sphinx +of northern desert, gazed in immovable silence out on the yet more +northern sea. Malcolm took his place a little below, leaning on his +elbow, for the slope was steep, and looking up at her. Thus they waited +the sunrise.</p> + +<p>Was it minutes or only moments passed in that silence—whose speech was +the soft ripple of the sea on the sand? Neither could have answered the +question. At length said Malcolm,</p> + +<p>“I think of changing my service, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, Malcolm!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady. My—mistress does not like to turn me away, but she is +tired of me, and does not want me any longer.”</p> + +<p>“But you would never think of finally forsaking a fisherman’s life for +that of a servant, surely, Malcolm?”</p> + +<p>“What would become of Kelpie, my lady?” rejoined Malcolm, smiling to +himself.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said Clementina, bewildered; “I had not thought of her.— But you +cannot take her with you,” she added, coming a little to her senses.</p> + +<p>“There is nobody about the place who could, or rather, who would do +anything with her. They would sell her. I have enough to buy her, and +perhaps somebody might not object to the encumbrance, but hire me and +her together.—<i>Your</i> groom wants a coachman’s place, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“O Malcolm! do you mean you would be <i>my</i> groom?” cried Clementina, +pressing her palms together.</p> + +<p>“If you would have me, my lady; but I have heard you say you would have +none but a married man.”</p> + +<p>“But—Malcolm—don’t you know anybody that would—?—Could you not find +some one—some lady—that—?—I mean, why shouldn’t you be a married +man?”</p> + +<p>“For a very good and to me rather sad reason, my lady; the only woman I +could marry, or should ever be able to marry,—would not have me. She +is very kind and very noble, but—it is preposterous —the thing is too +preposterous. I dare not have the presumption to ask her.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm’s voice trembled as he spoke, and a few moments’ pause +followed, during which he could not lift his eyes. The whole heaven +seemed pressing down their lids. The breath which he modelled into +words seemed to come in little billows.</p> + +<p>But his words had raised a storm in Clementina’s bosom. A cry broke +from her, as if driven forth by pain. She called up all the energy +of her nature, and stilled herself to speak. The voice that came was +little more than a sob-scattered whisper, but to her it seemed as if +all the world must hear.</p> + +<p>“Oh Malcolm!” she panted, “I <i>will</i> try to be good and wise. Don’t +marry anybody else—<i>anybody</i>, I mean; but come with Kelpie and be my +groom, and wait and see if I don’t grow better.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm leaped to his feet and threw himself at hers. He had heard but +in part, and he <i>must</i> know all.</p> + +<p>“My lady,” he said, with intense quiet, “Kelpie and I will be your +slaves. Take me for fisherman—groom—what you will. I offer the whole +sum of service that is in me.” He kissed her feet.</p> + +<p>“My lady, I would put your feet on my head,” he went on, “only then +what should I do when I see my Lord, and cast myself before <i>him</i>?”</p> + +<p>But Clementina, again her own to give, rose quickly, and said with all +the dignity born of her inward grandeur,</p> + +<p>“Rise, Malcolm; you misunderstand me.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm rose abashed, but stood erect before her, save that his head +was bowed, for his heart was sunk in dismay. Then slowly, gently, +Clementina knelt before him. He was bewildered, and thought she was +going to pray. In sweet, clear, unshaken tones, for she feared nothing +now, she said,</p> + +<p>“Malcolm, I am not worthy of you. But take me—take my very soul if you +will, for it is yours.”</p> + +<p>Now Malcolm saw that he had no right to raise a kneeling lady; all he +could do was to kneel beside her. When people kneel, they lift up their +hearts; and the creating heart of their joy was forgotten of neither. +And well for them, for the love where God is not, be the lady lovely as +Cordelia, the man gentle as Philip Sidney, will fare as the overkept +manna.</p> + +<p>When the huge tidal wave from the ocean of infinite delight had broken +at last upon the shore of the finite, and withdrawn again into the +deeps, leaving every cistern brimming, every fountain overflowing, the +two entranced souls opened their bodily eyes, looked at each other, +rose, and stood hand in hand, speechless.</p> + +<p>“Ah, my lady!” said Malcolm at length, “what is to become of this +delicate smoothness in my great rough hand? Will it not be hurt?”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know how strong it is, Malcolm. There!”</p> + +<p>“I can scarcely feel it with my hand, my lady; it all goes through to +my heart. It shall lie in mine as the diamond in the rock.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, Malcolm! Now that I am going to be a fisherman’s wife, it must +be a strong hand—it must work. What homage shall you require of me, +Malcolm? What will you have me do to rise a little nearer your level? +Shall I give away lands and money? And shall I live with you in the +Seaton? or will you come and fish at Wastbeach?”</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, my lady; I can’t think about things now—even with you in +them. There is neither past nor future to me now—only this one eternal +morning. Sit here, and look up, Lady Clementina: —see all those +worlds:—something in me constantly says that I shall know every one of +them one day; that they are all but rooms in the house of my spirit, +that is, the house of our Father. Let us not now, when your love makes +me twice eternal, talk of time and places. Come, let us fancy ourselves +two blessed spirits, lying full in the sight and light of our God,—as +indeed what else are we?—warming our hearts in his presence and peace; +and that we have but to rise and spread our wings to soar aloft and +find—what shall it be, my lady? Worlds upon worlds? No, no. What are +worlds upon worlds in infinite show until we have seen the face of the +Son of Man?”</p> + +<p>A silence fell. But he resumed.</p> + +<p>“Let us imagine our earthly life behind us, our hearts clean, love all +in all.—But that sends me back to the now. My lady, I know I shall +never love you aright until you have helped me perfect. When the face +of the least lovely of my neighbours needs but appear to rouse in +my heart a divine tenderness, then it must be that I shall love you +better than now. Now, alas! I am so pervious to wrong! so fertile of +resentments and indignations! You must cure me, my divine Clemency.—Am +I a poor lover to talk, this first glorious hour, of anything but my +lady love? Ah! but let it excuse me that this love is no new thing +to me. It is a very old love. I have loved you a thousand years. I +love every atom of your being, every thought that can harbour in your +soul, and I am jealous of hurting your blossoms with the over-jubilant +winds of that very love. I would therefore behold you folded in the +atmosphere of the Love eternal. My lady, if I were to talk of your +beauty, I should but offend you, for you would think I raved, and spoke +not the words of truth and soberness. But how often have I not cried +to the God who breathed the beauty into you that it might shine out +of you, to save my soul from the tempest of its own delight therein. +And now I am like one that has caught an angel in his net, and fears +to come too nigh, lest fire should flash from the eyes of the startled +splendour, and consume the net and him who holds it. But I will not +rave, because I would possess in grand peace that which I lay at your +feet. I am yours, and would be worthy of your moonlight calm.”</p> + +<p>“Alas! I am beside you but a block of marble!” said Clementina. “You +are so eloquent, my——”</p> + +<p>“New groom,” suggested Malcolm gently.</p> + +<p>Clementina smiled.</p> + +<p>“But my heart is so full,” she went on, “that I cannot think the +filmiest thought. I hardly know that I feel. I only know that I want to +weep.”</p> + +<p>“Weep then, my word ineffable!” cried Malcolm, and laid himself again +at her feet, kissed them, and was silent.</p> + +<p>He was but a fisher-poet; no courtier, no darling of society, no dealer +in the fine speeches, no clerk of compliments. All the words he had +were the living blossoms of thought rooted in feeling. His pure clear +heart was as a crystal cup, through which shone the red wine of his +love. To himself Malcolm stammered as a dumb man, the string of whose +tongue has but just been loosed; to Clementina his speech was as the +song of the Lady to Comus, “divine enchanting ravishment.” The God of +truth is surely present at every such marriage feast of two radiant +spirits. Their joy was that neither had fooled the hope of the other.</p> + +<p>And so the herring boat had indeed carried Clementina over into +paradise, and this night of the world was to her a twilight of heaven. +God alone can tell what delights it is possible for him to give to the +pure in heart who shall one day behold him. Like two that had died and +found each other, they talked until speech rose into silence, they +smiled until the dews which the smiles had sublimed claimed their turn +and descended in tears.</p> + +<p>All at once they became aware that an eye was upon them. It was the +sun. He was ten degrees up the slope of the sky, and they had never +seen him rise.</p> + +<p>With the sun came a troublous thought, for with the sun came “a world +of men.” Neither they nor the simple fisher-folk, their friends, had +thought of the thing, but now at length it occurred to Clementina that +she would rather not walk up to the door of Lossie House with Malcolm +at this hour of the morning. Yet neither could she well appear alone. +Ere she had spoken Malcolm rose.</p> + +<p>“You won’t mind being left, my lady,” he said, “for a quarter of an +hour or so—will you? I want to bring Lizzy to walk home with you.”</p> + +<p>He went, and Clementina sat alone on the dune in a reposeful rapture, +to which the sleeplessness of the night gave a certain additional +intensity and richness and strangeness. She watched the great strides +of her fisherman as he walked along the sands, and she seemed not to be +left behind, but to go with him every step. The tide was again falling, +and the sea shone and sparkled and danced with life, and the wet sand +gleamed, and a soft air blew on her cheek, and the lordly sun was +mounting higher and higher, and a lark over her head was sacrificing +all nature in his song; and it seemed as if Malcolm were still speaking +strange, half intelligible, altogether lovely things in her ears. She +felt a little weary, and laid her head down upon her arm to listen more +at her ease.</p> + +<p>Now the lark had seen all and heard all, and was telling it again to +the universe, only in dark sayings which none but themselves could +understand; therefore it is no wonder that, as she listened, his song +melted into a dream, and she slept. And the dream was lovely as dream +needs be, but not lovelier than the wakeful night. She opened her eyes, +calm as any cradled child, and there stood her fisherman!</p> + +<p>“I have been explaining to Lizzy, my lady,” he said, “that your +ladyship would rather have her company up to the door than mine. Lizzy +is to be trusted, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“’Deed, my leddy,” said Lizzy, “Ma’colm’s been ower guid to me, no to +gar me du onything he wad ha’e o’ me. I can haud my tongue whan I like, +my leddy. An’ dinna doobt my thouchts, my leddy, for I ken Ma’colm as +weel ’s ye du yersel’, my leddy.”</p> + +<p>While she was speaking, Clementina rose, and they went straight to the +door in the bank. Through the tunnel and the young wood and the dew +and the morning odours, along the lovely paths the three walked to the +house together. And oh, how the larks of the earth and the larks of the +soul sang for two of them! And how the burn rang with music, and the +air throbbed with sweetest life! while the breath of God made a little +sound as of a going now and then in the tops of the fir trees, and the +sun shone his brightest and best, and all nature knew that the heart of +God is the home of his creatures.</p> + +<p>When they drew near the house Malcolm left them. After they had rung a +good many times, the door was opened by the housekeeper, looking very +proper and just a little scandalized.</p> + +<p>“Please, Mrs Courthope,” said Lady Clementina, “will you give orders +that when this young woman comes to see me to-day she shall be shown up +to my room?”</p> + +<p>Then she turned to Lizzy and thanked her for her kindness, and they +parted—Lizzy to her baby, and Clementina to yet a dream or two. Long +before her dreams were sleeping ones, however, Malcolm was out in the +bay in the Psyche’s dinghy, catching mackerel: some should be for his +grandfather, some for Miss Horn, some for Mrs Courthope, and some for +Mrs Crathie.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXVIII">CHAPTER LXVIII.<br><span class="small">THE CREW OF THE BONNIE ANNIE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Having caught as many fish as he wanted, Malcolm rowed to the other +side of the Scaurnose. There he landed and left the dinghy in the +shelter of the rocks, the fish covered with long broad-leaved +<i>tangles</i>, climbed the steep cliff, and sought Blue Peter. The brown +village was quiet as a churchyard, although the sun was now growing +hot. Of the men some were not yet returned from the night’s fishing, +and some were asleep in their beds after it. Not a chimney smoked. But +Malcolm seemed to have in his own single being life and joy enough for +a world; such an intense consciousness of bliss burned within him, +that, in the sightless, motionless village, he seemed to himself to +stand like an altar blazing in the midst of desert Carnac. But he was +not the only one awake: on the threshold of Peter’s cottage sat his +little Phemy, trying to polish a bit of serpentine marble upon the +doorstep, with the help of water, which stood by her side in a broken +tea-cup.</p> + +<p>She lifted her sweet gray eyes, and smiled him a welcome.</p> + +<p>“Are ye up a’ready, Phemy?” he said.</p> + +<p>“I ha’ena been doon yet,” she answered. “My mither was oot last nicht +wi’ the boat, an’ Auntie Jinse was wi’ the bairn, an’ sae I cud du as I +likit.”</p> + +<p>“An’ what did ye like, Phemy?”</p> + +<p>“A’body kens what I like,” answered the child: “I was oot an’ aboot a’ +nicht. An’ eh, Ma’colm! I hed a veesion.”</p> + +<p>“What was that, Phemy?”</p> + +<p>“I was upo’ the tap o’ the Nose, jist as the sun rase, luikin’ aboot +me, an’ awa’ upo’ the Boar’s Tail. I saw twa angels sayin’ their +prayers. Nae doobt they war prayin’ for the haill warl’, i’ the quaiet +o’ the mornin’ afore the din begud. Maybe ane o’ them was that auld +priest wi’ the lang name i’ the buik o’ Genesis, ’at hed naither father +nor mither—puir man!—him ’at gaed aboot blissin’ fowk.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm thought he might take his own time to set the child right, and +asked her to go and tell her father that he wanted to see him. In a few +minutes Blue Peter appeared, rubbing his eyes—one of the dead called +too early from the tomb of sleep.</p> + +<p>“Freen’ Peter,” said Malcolm, “I’m gaein’ to speak oot the day.”</p> + +<p>Peter woke up. “Weel,” he said, “I <i>am</i> glaid o’ that, Ma’colm,—I beg +yer pardon—my lord, I sud say.—Annie!”</p> + +<p>“Haud a quaiet sough, man. I wadna hae ’t come oot at Scaurnose first. +I’m come noo ’cause I want ye to stan’ by me.”</p> + +<p>“I wull that, my lord.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, gang an’ gether yer boat’s crew, an’ fess them doon to the cove, +an’ I’ll tell them, an’ maybe they’ll stan’ by me as weel.”</p> + +<p>“There’s little fear o’ that, gien I ken my men,” answered Peter, and +went off, rather less than half-clothed, the sun burning hot upon his +back, through the sleeping village, to call them, while Malcolm went +and waited beside the dinghy.</p> + +<p>At length six men in a body, and one lagging behind, appeared coming +down the winding path—all but Peter no doubt wondering why they were +called so soon from their beds, on such a peaceful morning, after being +out the night before. Malcolm went to meet them.</p> + +<p>“Freen’s,” he said, “I’m in want o’ yer help.”</p> + +<p>“Onything ye like, Ma’colm, sae far ’s I’m concernt, ’cep’ it be to +ride yer mere. That I wull no tak in han’,” said Jeames Gentle.</p> + +<p>“It’s no that,” returned Malcolm. “It’s naething freely sae hard ’s +that, I’m thinkin’. The hard’ll be to believe what I’m gaein’ to tell +ye.”</p> + +<p>“Ye’ll no be gaein’ to set up for a proaphet?” said Girnel, with +something approaching a sneer.</p> + +<p>Girnel was the one who came down behind the rest.</p> + +<p>“Na, na; naething like it,” said Blue Peter.</p> + +<p>“But first ye’ll promise to haud yer tongues for half a day?” said +Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Ay, ay; we’ll no clype.”—“We s’ haud ower tongues,” cried one and +another and another, and all seemed to assent.</p> + +<p>“Weel,” said Malcolm, “My name’s no Ma’colm MacPhail, but——”</p> + +<p>“We a’ ken that,” said Girnel.</p> + +<p>“An’ what mair du ye ken?” asked Blue Peter, with some anger at his +interruption.</p> + +<p>“Ow, naething.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, ye ken little,” said Peter, and the rest laughed.</p> + +<p>“I’m the Markis o’ Lossie,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>Every man but Peter laughed again: all took it for a joke precursive +of some serious announcement. That which it would have least surprised +them to hear, would have been that he was a natural son of the late +marquis.</p> + +<p>“My name’s Ma’colm Colonsay,” resumed Malcolm, quietly; “an’ I’m the +saxt Markis o’ Lossie.”</p> + +<p>A dead silence followed, and in doubt, astonishment, bewilderment, +and vague awe, accompanied in the case of two or three by a strong +inclination to laugh, with which they struggled, belief began. Always a +curious observer of humanity, Malcolm calmly watched them. From discord +of expression, most of their faces had grown idiotic. But after a few +moments of stupefaction, first one and then another turned his eyes +upon Blue Peter, and perceiving that the matter was to him not only +serious but evidently no news, each began to come to his senses, the +chaos within him slowly arranged itself, and his face gradually settled +into an expression of sanity—the foolishness disappearing while the +wonder and pleasure remained.</p> + +<p>“Ye mauna tak it ill, my lord,” said Peter, “gien the laads be ta’en +aback wi’ the news. It’s a some suddent shift o’ the win, ye see, my +lord.”</p> + +<p>“I wuss yer lordship weel,” thereupon said one, and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>“Lang life to yer lordship,” said another.</p> + +<p>Each spoke a hearty word, and shook hands with him—all except Girnel, +who held back, looking on, with his right hand in his trouser-pocket.</p> + +<p>He was one who always took the opposite side— a tolerably honest and +trustworthy soul, with a good many knots and pieces of cross grain in +the timber of him. His old Adam was the most essential and thorough of +dissenters, always arguing and disputing, especially on theological +questions.</p> + +<p>“Na,” said Girnel; “ye maun saitisfee me first wha ye are, an’ what ye +want o’ me. I’m no to be drawn into onything ’at I dinna ken a’ aboot +aforehan’. I s’ no tie mysel’ up wi’ ony promises. Them ’at gangs whaur +they kenna, may lan’ at the widdie (<i>gallows</i>).”</p> + +<p>“Nae doobt,” said Malcolm, “yer ain jeedgement’s mair to ye nor my +word, Girnel; but saw ye ever onything in me ’at wad justifee ye in no +lippenin’ to that sae far ’s it gaed?”</p> + +<p>“Ow na! I’m no sayin’ that naither. But what ha’e ye to shaw anent the +privin’ o’ ’t?”</p> + +<p>“I have papers signed by my father, the late marquis, and sealed and +witnessed by well-known gentlemen of the neighbourhood.”</p> + +<p>“Whaur are they?” said Girnel, holding out his hand.</p> + +<p>“I don’t carry such valuable things about me,” answered Malcolm. “But +if you go with the rest, you shall see them afterwards.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll du naething i’ the dark,” persisted Girnel. “Whan I see the +peppers, I’ll ken what to du.”</p> + +<p>With a nod of the head as self-important as decisive, he turned his +back.</p> + +<p>“At all events,” said Malcolm, “you will say nothing about it before +you hear from one of us again?”</p> + +<p>“I mak nae promises,” answered Girnel, from behind his own back.</p> + +<p>A howl arose from the rest.</p> + +<p>“Ye promised a’ready,” said Blue Peter.</p> + +<p>“Na, I didna that. I said never a word.”</p> + +<p>“What right then had you to remain and listen to my disclosure?” said +Malcolm. “If you be guilty of such a mean trick as betray me and ruin +my plans, no honest man in Portlossie or Scaurnose but will scorn you.”</p> + +<p>“There! tak ye that!” said Peter. “An’ I s’ promise ye, ye s’ never lay +leg ower the gunnel o’ <i>my</i> boat again. I s’ hae nane but Christi-an +men i’ <i>my</i> pey.”</p> + +<p>“Ye hired me for the sizon, Blew Peter,” said Girnel, turning defiantly.</p> + +<p>“Oh! ye s’ ha’e yer wauges. I’m no ane to creep oot o’ a bargain, or +say ’at I didna promise. Ye s’ get yer reward, never fear. But into my +boat ye s’ no come. We’ll ha’e nae Auchans i’ oor camp. Eh, Girnel, +man, but ye ha’e lost yersel’ the day! He’ll never loup far ’at winna +lippen. The auld worthies tuik their life i’ their han’, but ye tak yer +fit (<i>foot</i>) i’ yours. I’m clean affrontit ’at ever I hed ye amo’ my +men.”</p> + +<p>But with that there rushed over Peter the recollection of how he had +himself mistrusted, not Malcolm’s word indeed, but his heart. He +turned, and clasping his hands in sudden self-reproach,</p> + +<p>“My lord, I saired ye ill mysel’ ance,” he cried; “for I misdoobted ’at +ye wasna the same to me efter ye cam to yer ain. I beg yer pardon, my +lord, here i’ the face o’ my freen’s. It was ill-temper an’ pride i’ +me, jist the same as it’s noo in Girnel there; an’ ye maun forgi’e him, +as ye forga’e me, my lord, as sune ’s ye can.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll du that, my Peter, the verra moment he wants to be forgi’en,” +said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>But Girnel turned with a grunt, and moved away towards the cliff.</p> + +<p>“This’ll never du,” said Peter. “A man ’at’s honest i’ the main may +play the verra dog afore he gets the deevil oot o’ ’im ance he’s in +like that. Gang efter ’im, laads, an’ kep (<i>intercept</i>) ’im an’ keep +’im. We’ll ha’e to cast a k-not or twa aboot ’im, an’ lay ’im i’ the +boddom o’ the boat.”</p> + +<p>The six had already started after him like one man. But Malcolm cried,</p> + +<p>“Let him go: he has done me no wrong yet, and I don’t believe will do +me any. But for no risk must we prevent wrong with wrong.”</p> + +<p>So Girnel was allowed to depart—scarcely in peace, for he was already +ashamed of himself. With the understanding that they were to be ready +to his call, and that they should hear from him in the course of the +day, Malcolm left them, and rowed back to the Psyche. There he took +his basket of fish on his arm, which he went and distributed according +to his purpose, ending with Mrs Courthope at the House. Then he fed +and dressed Kelpie, saddled her and galloped to Duff Harbour, where he +found Mr Soutar at breakfast, and arranged with him to be at Lossie +House at two o’clock. On his way back he called on Mr Morrison, and +requested his presence at the same hour. Skirting the back of the +House, and riding as straight as he could, he then made for Scaurnose, +and appointed his friends to be near the House at noon, so placed as +not to attract observation and yet be within hearing of his whistle +from door or window in the front. Returning to the House, he put up +Kelpie, rubbed her down and fed her; then, as there was yet some time +to spare, paid a visit to the factor. He found his lady, for all his +present of fish in the earlier morning, anything but friendly. She did +all she could to humble him; insisted on paying him for the fish; and +ordered him, because they smelt of the stable, to take off his boots +before he went upstairs—to his master’s room, as she phrased it. But +Mr Crathie was cordial, and, to Malcolm’s great satisfaction, much +recovered. He had better than pleasant talk with him.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXIX">CHAPTER LXIX.<br><span class="small">LIZZY’S BABY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>While they were out in the fishing-boat together, Clementina had, with +less difficulty than she had anticipated, persuaded Lizzy to tell Lady +Lossie her secret. It was in the hope of an interview with her false +lover that the poor girl had consented so easily.</p> + +<p>A great longing had risen within her to have the father of her child +acknowledge him—only to her, taking him once in his arms. That was +all. She had no hope, thought indeed she had no desire for herself. +But a kind word to him would be welcome as light. The love that covers +sins had covered the multitude of his, and although hopelessness had +put desire to sleep, she would gladly have given her life for a loving +smile from him. But mingled with this longing to see him once with +his child in his arms, a certain loyalty to the house of Lossie also +influenced her to listen to the solicitation of Lady Clementina, and +tell the marchioness the truth. She cherished no resentment against +Liftore, but not therefore was she willing to allow a poor young thing +like Lady Lossie, whom they all liked, to be sacrificed to such a man, +who would doubtless at length behave badly enough to her also.</p> + +<p>With trembling hands, and heart now beating wildly, now failing for +fear, she dressed her baby and herself as well as she could, and, about +one o’clock, went to the House.</p> + +<p>Now nothing would have better pleased Lady Clementina than that +Liftore and Lizzy should meet in Florimel’s presence, but she recoiled +altogether from the small stratagems, not to mention the lies, +necessary to the effecting of such a confrontation. So she had to +content herself with bringing the two girls together, and, when Lizzy +was a little rested, and had had a glass of wine, went to look for +Florimel.</p> + +<p>She found her in a little room adjoining the library, which, on her +first coming to Lossie, she had chosen for her waking nest. Liftore +had, if not quite the freedom of the spot, yet privileges there; but +at that moment Florimel was alone in it. Clementina informed her that +a fisher-girl, with a sad story which she wanted to tell her, had come +to the house; and Florimel, who was not only kind-hearted, but relished +the position she imagined herself to occupy as lady of the place, at +once assented to her proposal to bring the young woman to her there.</p> + +<p>Now Florimel and the earl had had a small quarrel the night before, +after Clementina left the dinner-table, and for the pleasure of keeping +it up Florimel had not appeared at breakfast, and had declined to ride +with his lordship, who had therefore been all the morning on the watch +for an opportunity of reconciling himself. It so happened that from the +end of one of the long narrow passages in which the house abounded, he +caught a glimpse of Clementina’s dress vanishing through the library +door, and took the lady for Florimel on her way to her boudoir.</p> + +<p>When Clementina entered with Lizzy carrying her child, Florimel +instantly suspected the truth, both as to who she was and as to the +design of her appearance. Her face flushed, for her heart filled with +anger, chiefly indeed against Malcolm, but against the two women as +well, who, she did not doubt, had lent themselves to his designs, +whatever they might be. She rose, drew herself up, and stood prepared +to act for both Liftore and herself.</p> + +<p>Scarcely however had the poor girl, trembling at the evident +displeasure the sight of her caused in Florimel, opened her mouth to +answer her haughty inquiry as to her business, when Lord Liftore, +daring an entrance without warning, opened the door behind her, +and, almost as he opened it, began his apology. At the sound of +his voice Lizzy turned with a cry, and her small remaining modicum +of self-possession vanished at sight of him round whose phantom in +her bosom whirred the leaves of her withered life on the stinging +blasts of her shame and sorrow. As much from inability to stand as +in supplication for the coveted favour, she dropped on her knees +before him, incapable of uttering a word, but holding up her child +imploringly. Taken altogether by surprise, and not knowing what to say +or do, the earl stood and stared for a moment, then, moved by a dull +spirit of subterfuge, fell back on the pretence of knowing nothing +about her.</p> + +<p>“Well, young woman,” he said, affecting cheerfulness, “what do you want +with me? I didn’t advertise for a baby. Pretty child, though!”</p> + +<p>Lizzy turned white as death, and her whole body seemed to give a heave +of agony. Clementina had just taken the child from her arms when she +sunk motionless at his feet. Florimel went to the bell. But Clementina +prevented her from ringing.</p> + +<p>“I will take her away,” she said. “Do not expose her to your servants. +Lady Lossie, my Lord Liftore is the father of this child: and if you +can marry him after the way you have seen him use its mother, you are +not too good for him, and I will trouble myself no more about you.”</p> + +<p>“I know the author of this calumny!” cried Florimel, panting and +flushed. “You have been listening to the inventions of an ungrateful +dependent! You slander my guest.”</p> + +<p>“Is it a calumny, my lord? Do I slander you?” said Lady Clementina, +turning sharply upon the earl.</p> + +<p>His lordship made her a cool obeisance.</p> + +<p>Clementina ran into the library, laid the child in a big chair, and +returned for the mother. She was already coming a little to herself; +and feeling about blindly for her baby, while Florimel and Liftore were +looking out of the window, with their backs towards her. Clementina +raised and led her from the room. But in the doorway she turned and +said—</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, Lady Lossie. I thank you for your hospitality, but I can of +course be your guest no longer.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not. There is no occasion for prolonged leave taking,” +returned Florimel, with the air of a woman of forty.</p> + +<p>“Florimel, you will curse the day you marry that man!” cried +Clementina, and closed the door.</p> + +<p>She hurried Lizzy to the library, put the baby in her arms, and clasped +them both in her own. A gush of tears lightened the oppressed heart of +the mother.</p> + +<p>“Lat me oot o’ the hoose, for God’s sake!” she cried; and Clementina, +almost as anxious to leave it as she, helped her down to the hall. When +she saw the open door, she rushed out of it as if escaping from the pit.</p> + +<p>Now Malcolm, as he came from the factor’s, had seen her go in with +her baby in her arms, and suspected the hand of Clementina. Wondering +and anxious, but not very hopeful as to what might come of it, he +waited close by; and when now he saw Lizzy dart from the house in wild +perturbation, he ran from the cover of the surrounding trees into the +open drive to meet her.</p> + +<p>“Ma’colm!” groaned the poor girl, holding out her baby, “he winna own +till ’t. He winna alloo ’at he kens oucht aboot me or the bairn aither!”</p> + +<p>Malcolm had taken the child from her, and was clasping him to his bosom.</p> + +<p>“He’s the warst rascal, Lizzy,” he said, “’at ever God made an’ the +deevil blaudit.”</p> + +<p>“Na, na,” cried Lizzy; “the likes o’ him whiles kills the wuman, but he +wadna du that. Na, he’s nae the warst; there’s a heap waur nor him.”</p> + +<p>“Did ye see my mistress?” asked Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Ow ay; but she luikit sae angry at me, I cudna speyk. Him an’ her ’s +ower thrang for her to believe onything again’ him. An’ what ever the +bairn’s to du wantin’ a father!”</p> + +<p>“Lizzy,” said Malcolm, clasping the child again to his bosom. “I s’ be +a father to yer bairn—that is, as weel ’s ane ’at’s no yer man can be.”</p> + +<p>And he kissed the child tenderly.</p> + +<p>The same moment an undefined impulse—the drawing of eyes probably +—made him lift his towards the house: half leaning from the open +window of the boudoir above him, stood Florimel and Liftore; and just +as he looked up, Liftore was turning to Florimel with a smile that +seemed to say—“There! I told you so! He is the father himself.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm replaced the infant in his mother’s arm, and strode towards the +house. Imagining he went to avenge her wrongs, Lizzy ran after him.</p> + +<p>“Ma’colm! Ma’colm!” she cried; “—for my sake!—He’s the father o’ my +bairn!”</p> + +<p>Malcolm turned.</p> + +<p>“Lizzy,” he said solemnly, “I winna lay han’ upon ’im.”</p> + +<p>Lizzy pressed her child closer with a throb of relief.</p> + +<p>“Come in yersel’ an’ see,” he added.</p> + +<p>“I daurna! I daurna!” she said. But she lingered about the door.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXX">CHAPTER LXX.<br><span class="small">THE DISCLOSURE.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>When the earl saw Malcolm coming, although he was no coward, and had +reason to trust his skill, yet knowing himself both in the wrong and +vastly inferior in strength to his enemy, it may be pardoned him that +for the next few seconds his heart doubled its beats. But of all things +he must not show fear before Florimel!</p> + +<p>“What can the fellow be after now?” he said. “I must go down to him.”</p> + +<p>“No, no; don’t go near him—he may be violent,” objected Florimel, and +laid her hand on his arm with a beseeching look in her face. “He is a +dangerous man.”</p> + +<p>Liftore laughed.</p> + +<p>“Stop here till I return,” he said, and left the room.</p> + +<p>But Florimel followed, fearful of what might happen, and enraged with +her brother.</p> + +<p>Malcolm’s brief detention by Lizzy gave Liftore a little advantage, +for just as Malcolm approached the top of the great staircase, +Liftore gained it. Hastening to secure the command of the position, +and resolved to shun all parley, he stood ready to strike. Malcolm, +however, caught sight of him and his attitude in time, and, fearful of +breaking his word to Lizzy, pulled himself up abruptly a few steps from +the top—just as Florimel appeared.</p> + +<p>“MacPhail,” she said, sweeping to the stair like an indignant goddess, +“I discharge you from my service. Leave the house instantly.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm turned, flew down, and ran to the servants’ stair half the +length of the house away. As he crossed the servants’ hall he saw Rose. +She was the only one in the house except Clementina to whom he could +look for help.</p> + +<p>“Come after me, Rose,” he said without stopping.</p> + +<p>She followed instantly, as fast as she could run, and saw him enter the +drawing-room. Florimel and Liftore were there. The earl had Florimel’s +hand in his.</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake, my lady!” cried Malcolm, “hear me one word before you +promise that man anything.”</p> + +<p>His lordship started back from Florimel, and turned upon Malcolm in a +fury. But he had not now the advantage of the stair, and hesitated. +Florimel’s eyes dilated with wrath.</p> + +<p>“I tell you for the last time, my lady,” said Malcolm, “if you marry +that man, you will marry a liar and a scoundrel.”</p> + +<p>Liftore laughed, and his imitation of scorn was wonderfully successful, +for he felt sure of Florimel, now that she had thus taken his part.</p> + +<p>“Shall I ring for the servants, Lady Lossie, to put the fellow out?” he +said. “The man is as mad as a March hare.”</p> + +<p>Meantime Lady Clementina, her maid having gone to send her man to get +horses for her at once, was alone in her room, which was close to the +drawing-room: hearing Malcolm’s voice, she ran to the door, and saw +Rose in a listening attitude at that of the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing there?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Mr MacPhail told me to follow him, my lady, and I am waiting here till +he wants me.”</p> + +<p>Clementina went into the drawing-room, and was present during all +that now follows. Lizzy also, hearing loud voices and still afraid of +mischief, had come peering up the stair, and now approached the other +door, behind Florimel and the earl.</p> + +<p>“So!” cried Florimel, “this is the way you keep your promise to my +father!”</p> + +<p>“It is, my lady. To associate the name of Liftore with his would be to +blot the scutcheon of Lossie. He is not fit to walk the street with +men: his touch is to you an utter degradation. My lady, in the name of +your father, I beg a word with you in private.”</p> + +<p>“You insult me.”</p> + +<p>“I beg of you, my lady—for your own dear sake.”</p> + +<p>“Once more I order you to leave my house, and never set foot in it +again.”</p> + +<p>“You hear her ladyship?” cried Liftore. “Get out.”</p> + +<p>He approached threateningly.</p> + +<p>“Stand back,” said Malcolm. “If it were not that I promised the poor +girl carrying your baby out there, I should soon——”</p> + +<p>It was unwisely said: the earl came on the bolder. For all Malcolm +could do to parry, evade, or stop his blows, he had soon taken several +pretty severe ones. Then came the voice of Lizzy in an agony from the +door—</p> + +<p>“Haud aff o’ yersel’, Ma’colm. I canna bide it. I gi’e ye back yer +word.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll manage yet Lizzy,” answered Malcolm, and kept warily retreating +towards a window. Suddenly he dashed his elbow through a pane, and gave +a loud shrill whistle, the same instant receiving a blow over the eye +which the blood followed. Lizzy made a rush forward, but the terror +that the father would strike the child he had disowned, seized her, and +she stood trembling. Already, however, Clementina and Rose had darted +between, and, full of rage as he was, Liftore was compelled to restrain +himself.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” he said, “if ladies want a share in the row, I must yield my +place,” and drew back.</p> + +<p>The few men servants now came hurrying all together into the room.</p> + +<p>“Take that rascal there, and put him under the pump,” said Liftore. “He +is mad.”</p> + +<p>“My fellow-servants know better than touch me,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>The men looked to their mistress.</p> + +<p>“Do as my lord tells you,” she said, “—and instantly.”</p> + +<p>“Men,” said Malcolm, “I have spared that foolish lord there for the +sake of this fisher-girl and his child, but don’t one of <i>you</i> touch +me.”</p> + +<p>Stoat was a brave enough man, and not a little jealous of Malcolm, but +he dared not obey his mistress.</p> + +<p>And now came the tramp of many feet along the landing from the +stair-head, and the six fisherman entered, two and two. Florimel +started forward.</p> + +<p>“My brave fisherman!” she cried. “Take that bad man MacPhail, and put +him out of my grounds.”</p> + +<p>“I canna du ’t, my leddy,” answered their leader.</p> + +<p>“Take Lord Liftore,” said Malcolm, “and hold him, while I make him +acquainted with a fact or two which he may judge of consequence to him.”</p> + +<p>The men walked straight up to the earl. He struck right and left, but +was overpowered in a moment, and held fast.</p> + +<p>“Stan’ still,” said Peter, “or I ha’e a han’-fu’ o’ twine i’ my pooch +’at I’ll jist cast a k-not aboot yer airms wi’ in a jiffey.”</p> + +<p>His lordship stood still, muttering curses.</p> + +<p>Then Malcolm stepped into the middle of the room approaching his sister.</p> + +<p>“I tell you to leave the house,” Florimel shrieked, beside herself with +fury, yet pale as marble with a growing terror for which she could ill +have accounted.</p> + +<p>“Florimel!” said Malcolm solemnly, calling his sister by name for the +first time.</p> + +<p>“You insolent wretch!” she cried, panting. “What right have you, if you +<i>be</i>, as you say, my base-born brother, to call me by my name.”</p> + +<p>“Florimel!” repeated Malcolm, and the voice was like the voice of her +father, “I have done what I could to serve you.”</p> + +<p>“And I want no more such service!” she returned, beginning to tremble.</p> + +<p>“But you have driven me almost to extremities,” he went on, heedless of +her interruption. “Beware of doing so quite.”</p> + +<p>“Will nobody take pity on me?” said Florimel, and looked round +imploringly. Then, finding herself ready to burst into tears, she +gathered all her pride, and stepping up to Malcolm, looked him in the +face, and said,</p> + +<p>“Pray, sir! is this house yours or mine?”</p> + +<p>“Mine,” answered Malcolm. “I am the Marquis of Lossie, and while I am +your elder brother and the head of the family, you shall never with my +consent marry that base man—a man it would blast me to the soul to +call brother.”</p> + +<p>Liftore uttered a fierce imprecation.</p> + +<p>“If you dare give breath to another such word in my sister’s presence, +I will have you gagged,” said Malcolm. “If my sister marries him,” he +continued, turning again to Florimel, “not one shilling shall she take +with her beyond what she may happen to have in her purse at the moment. +She is in my power, and I will use it to the utmost to protect her from +that man.”</p> + +<p>“Proof!” cried Liftore sullenly. But Florimel gazed with pale dilated +eyes in the face of the speaker. She knew his words were true. Her soul +assured her of it.</p> + +<p>“To my sister,” answered Malcolm, “I will give all the proof she may +please to require; to Lord Liftore I will not even repeat my assertion. +To him I will give no shadow of proof. I will but cast him out of my +house. Stoat, order horses for Lady Bellair.”</p> + +<p>“Gien ye please, sir, my Lord,” replied Stoat, “the Lossie Airms horses +is ordered a’ready for Lady Clementina.”</p> + +<p>“Will my Lady Clementina oblige me by yielding her horses to Lady +Bellair?” said Malcolm, turning to her.</p> + +<p>“Certainly, my lord,” answered Clementina.</p> + +<p>“You, I trust, my lady,” said Malcolm, “will stay a little longer with +my sister.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bellair came up.</p> + +<p>“My lord,” she said, “is this the marquis or the fisherman’s way of +treating a lady?”</p> + +<p>“Neither. But do not drive me to give the rein to my tongue. Let it be +enough to say that my house shall never be what your presence would +make it.”</p> + +<p>He turned to the fishermen.</p> + +<p>“Three of you take that lord to the town-gate, and leave him on the +other side of it. His servant shall follow as soon as the horses come.”</p> + +<p>“I will go with you,” said Florimel, crossing to Lady Bellair.</p> + +<p>Malcolm took her by the arm. For one moment she struggled, but finding +no one dared interfere, submitted, and was led from the room like a +naughty child.</p> + +<p>“Keep my lord there till I return,” he said as he went.</p> + +<p>He led her into the room which had been her mother’s boudoir, and when +he had shut the door,</p> + +<p>“Florimel,” he said, “I have striven to serve you the best way I knew. +Your father, when he confessed me his heir, begged me to be good to +you, and I promised him. Would I have given all these months of my life +to the poor labour of a groom, allowed my people to be wronged and +oppressed, my grandfather to be a wanderer, and my best friend to sit +with his lips of wisdom sealed, but for your sake? I can hardly say it +was for my father’s sake, for I should have done the same had he never +said a word about you. Florimel, I loved my sister, and longed for her +goodness. But she has foiled all my endeavours. She has not loved or +followed the truth. She has been proud and disdainful, and careless of +right. Yourself young and pure, and naturally recoiling from evil, you +have yet cast from you the devotion of a noble, gifted, large-hearted, +and great-souled man, for the miserable preference of the smallest, +meanest, vilest of men. Nor that only! for with him you have sided +against the woman he most bitterly wrongs: and therein you wrong the +nature and the God of women. Once more, I pray you to give up this man; +to let your true self speak and send him away.”</p> + +<p>“Sir, I go with my Lady Bellair, driven from her father’s house by one +who calls himself my brother. My lawyer shall make inquiries.”</p> + +<p>She would have left the room, but he intercepted her.</p> + +<p>“Florimel,” he said, “you are casting the pearl of your womanhood +before a swine. He will trample it under his feet and turn again and +rend you. He will treat you worse still than poor Lizzy, whom he +troubles no more with his presence.”</p> + +<p>He had again taken her arm in his great grasp.</p> + +<p>“Let me go. You are brutal. I shall scream.”</p> + +<p>“You shall not go until you have heard all the truth.”</p> + +<p>“What! more truth still? Your truth is anything but pleasant.”</p> + +<p>“It is more unpleasant yet than you surmise. Florimel, you have driven +me to it. I would have prepared you a shield against the shock which +must come, but you compel me to wound you to the quick. I would have +had you receive the bitter truth from lips you loved, but you drove +those lips of honour from you, and now there are left to utter it only +the lips you hate; yet the truth you shall receive: it may help to save +you from weakness, arrogance, and falsehood.—Sister, your mother was +never Lady Lossie.”</p> + +<p>“You lie. I know you lie. Because you wrong me, you would brand me with +dishonour, to take from me as well the sympathy of the world. But I +defy you.”</p> + +<p>“Alas! there is no help, sister. Your mother indeed passed as Lady +Lossie, but my mother, the true Lady Lossie, was alive all the time, +and in truth, died only last year. For twenty years my mother suffered +for yours in the eye of the law. You are no better than the little +child his father denied in your presence. Give that man his dismissal, +or he will give you yours. Never doubt it. Refuse again, and I go from +this room to publish in the next the fact that you are neither Lady +Lossie nor Lady Florimel Colonsay. You have no right to any name but +your mother’s. You are Miss Gordon.”</p> + +<p>She gave a great gasp at the word, but bravely fought the horror that +was taking possession of her. She stood with one hand on the back of a +chair, her face white, her eyes starting, her mouth a little open and +rigid—her whole appearance, except for the breath that came short and +quick, that of one who had died in sore pain.</p> + +<p>“All that is now left you,” concluded Malcolm, “is the choice between +sending Liftore away, and being abandoned by him. That choice you must +now make.”</p> + +<p>The poor girl tried to speak, but could not. Her fire was burning out, +her forced strength fast failing her.</p> + +<p>“Florimel,” said Malcolm, and knelt on one knee and took her hand. It +gave a flutter as if it would fly like a bird; but the net of his love +held it, and it lay passive and cold. “Florimel, I will be your true +brother. I <i>am</i> your brother, your very own brother, to live for you, +love you, fight for you, watch and ward you, till a true man takes you +for his wife.” Her hand quivered like a leaf. “Sister, when you and I +appear before our father, I shall hold up my face before him: will you?”</p> + +<p>“Send him away,” she breathed rather than said, and sank on the floor. +He lifted her, laid her on a couch, and returned to the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>“My lady Clementina,” he said, “will you oblige me by going to my +sister in the room at the top of the stair?”</p> + +<p>“I will, my lord,” she answered, and went.</p> + +<p>Malcolm walked up to Liftore.</p> + +<p>“My lord,” he said, “my sister takes leave of you.”</p> + +<p>“I must have my dismissal from her own lips.”</p> + +<p>“You shall have it from the hands of my fishermen. Take him away.”</p> + +<p>“You shall hear from me, my lord marquis, if such you be,” said Liftore.</p> + +<p>“Let it be of your repentance, then, my lord,” said Malcolm. “That I +shall be glad to hear of.”</p> + +<p>As he turned from him, he saw Caley gliding through the little group of +servants towards the door. He walked after her, laid his hand on her +shoulder, and whispered a word in her ear, she grew gray rather than +white, and stood still.</p> + +<p>Turning again to go to Florimel, he saw the fishermen stopped with +their charge in the doorway by Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, entering +together.</p> + +<p>“My lord! my lord!” said the lawyer, coming hastily up to him, “there +can be surely no occasion for such—such—measures!”</p> + +<p>Catching sight of Malcolm’s wounded forehead, however, he supplemented +the remark with a low exclamation of astonishment and dismay— the tone +saying almost as clearly as words, “How ill and foolishly everything is +managed without a lawyer!”</p> + +<p>Malcolm only smiled, and went up to the magistrate, whom he led into +the middle of the room, saying,</p> + +<p>“Mr Morrison, every one here knows you: tell them who I am.”</p> + +<p>“The Marquis of Lossie, my lord,” answered Mr Morrison; “and from my +heart I congratulate your people that at length you assume the rights +and honours of your position.”</p> + +<p>A murmur of pleasure arose in response. Ere it ceased, Malcolm started +and sprung to the door. There stood Lenorme! He seized him by the arm, +and, without a word of explanation, hurried him to the room where his +sister was. He called Clementina, drew her from the room, half pushed +Lenorme in, and closed the door.</p> + +<p>“Will you meet me on the sand-hill at sunset, my lady?” he said.</p> + +<p>She smiled assent. He gave her the key of the tunnel, hinted that she +might leave the two to themselves for awhile, and returned to his +friends in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Having begged them to excuse him for a little while, and desired Mrs +Courthope to serve luncheon for them, he ran to his grandfather, +dreading lest any other tongue than his own should yield him the opened +secret. He was but just in time, for already the town was in a tumult, +and the spreading ripples of the news were fast approaching Duncan’s +ears.</p> + +<p>Malcolm found him, expectant and restless. When he disclosed himself, +he manifested little astonishment, only took him in his arms and +pressed him to his bosom, saying, “Ta Lort pe praised, my son! and +she wouldn’t pe at aal surprised.” Then he broke out in a fervent +ejaculation of Gaelic, during which he turned instinctively to his +pipes, for through them lay the final and only sure escape for the +prisoned waters of the overcharged reservoir of his feelings. While he +played, Malcolm slipped out, and hurried to Miss Horn.</p> + +<p>One word to her was enough. The stern old woman burst into tears, +crying,</p> + +<p>“Oh, my Grisel! my Grisel! Luik doon frae yer bonny hoose amo’ the +stars, an’ see the braw laad left ahint ye, an’ praise the lord ’at ye +ha’e sic a son o’ yer boady to come hame to ye whan a’ ’s ower.”</p> + +<p>She sobbed and wept for a while without restraint. Then suddenly she +rose, dabbed her eyes indignantly, and cried,</p> + +<p>“Hoot! I’m an auld fule. A body wad think I hed feelin’s efter a’!”</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed, and she could not help joining him.</p> + +<p>“Ye maun come the morn an’ chise yer ain room i’ the Hoose,” he said.</p> + +<p>“What mean ye by that, laddie?”</p> + +<p>“At ye’ll ha’e to come an’ bide wi’ me noo.”</p> + +<p>“’Deed an’ I s’ du naething o’ the kin’, Ma’colm! H’ard ever onybody +sic nonsense! What wad I du wi’ Jean? An’ I cudna thole men-fowk to +wait upo’ me. I wad be clean affrontit.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, weel! we’ll see,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>On his way back to the House, he knocked at Mrs Catanach’s door, and +said a few words to her which had a remarkable effect on the expression +of her plump countenance and deep-set black eyes.</p> + +<p>When he reached home, he ran up the main staircase, knocked at the +first door, opened it, and peeped in. There sat Lenorme on the couch, +with Florimel on his knees, nestling her head against his shoulder, +like a child that had been very naughty but was fully forgiven. Her +face was blotted with her tears, and her hair was everywhere; but there +was a light of dawning goodness all about her, such as had never shone +in her atmosphere before. By what stormy-sweet process the fountain of +this light had been unsealed, no one ever knew but themselves.</p> + +<p>She did not move when Malcolm entered—more than just to bring the +palms of her hands together, and look up in his face.</p> + +<p>“Have you told him <i>all</i>, Florimel?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Malcolm,” she answered. “Tell him again yourself.”</p> + +<p>“No, Florimel. Once is enough.”</p> + +<p>“I told him <i>all</i>,” she said with a gasp; then gave a wild little cry, +and, with subdued exultation, added, “and he <i>loves</i> me yet! He has +taken the girl without a name to his heart!”</p> + +<p>“No wonder,” said Malcolm, “when she brought it with her.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Lenorme, “I but took the diamond casket that held my bliss, +and now I could dare the angel Gabriel to match happinesses with me.”</p> + +<p>Poor Florimel, for all her worldly ways, was but a child. Bad +associates had filled her with worldly maxims and words and thoughts +and judgments. She had never loved Liftore, she had only taken +delight in his flatteries. And now had come the shock of a terrible +disclosure, whose significance she read in remembered looks and tones +and behaviours of the world. Her insolence to Malcolm when she supposed +his the nameless fate, had recoiled in lurid interpretation of her +own. She was a pariah—without root, without descent, without fathers +to whom to be gathered. She was nobody. From the courted and flattered +and high-seated and powerful, she was a nobody! Then suddenly to this +poor houseless, wind-beaten, rain-wet nobody, a house—no, a home +she had once looked into with longing, had opened, and received her +to its heart, that it might be fulfilled which was written of old, +“A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from +the tempest.” Knowing herself a nobody, she now first began to be a +somebody. She had been dreaming pleasant but bad dreams: she woke, and +here was a lovely, unspeakably blessed and good reality, which had been +waiting for her all the time on the threshold of her sleep! She was +baptized into it with the tears of sorrow and shame. She had been a +fool, but now she knew it, and was going to be wise.</p> + +<p>“Will you come to your brother, Florimel?” said Malcolm tenderly, +holding out his arms.</p> + +<p>Lenorme raised her. She went softly to him, and laid herself on his +bosom.</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, brother,” she said, and held up her face.</p> + +<p>He kissed her forehead and lips, took her in his arms, and laid her +again on Lenorme’s knees.</p> + +<p>“I give her to <i>you</i>,” he said, “for you are good.”</p> + +<p>With that he left them, and sought Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, who were +waiting him over a glass of wine after their lunch. An hour of business +followed, in which, amongst other matters, they talked about the +needful arrangements for a dinner to his people, fishers and farmers +and all.</p> + +<p>After the gentlemen took their leave, nobody saw him for hours. Till +sunset approached he remained alone, shut up in the Wizard’s Chamber, +the room in which he was born. Part of the time he occupied in writing +to Mr Graham.</p> + +<p>As the sun’s orbed furnace fell behind the tumbling waters, Malcolm +turned his face inland from the wet strip of shining shore on which he +had been pacing, and ascended the sandhill.</p> + +<p>From the other side Clementina, but a moment later, ascended also. On +the top they met, in the red light of the sunset. They clasped each the +other’s hand, and stood for a moment in silence.</p> + +<p>“Ah, my lord!” said the lady, “how shall I thank you that you kept your +secret from me! But my heart is sore to lose my fisherman.”</p> + +<p>“My lady,” returned Malcolm, “you have not lost your fisherman; you +have only found your groom.”</p> + +<p>And the sun went down, and the twilight came, and the night followed, +and the world of sea and land and wind and vapour was around them, and +the universe of stars and spaces over and under them, and eternity +within them, and the heart of each for a chamber to the other, and God +filling all—nay, nay—God’s heart containing, infolding, cherishing +all—saving all, from height to height of intensest being, by the bliss +of that love whose absolute devotion could utter itself only in death.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXXI">CHAPTER LXXI.<br><span class="small">THE ASSEMBLY.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>That same evening, Duncan, in full dress, claymore and dirk at his +sides, and carrying the great Lossie pipes, marched first through +the streets of the upper, then through the closes of the lower +town, followed by the bellman who had been appointed crier upon his +disappearance. At the proper stations, Duncan blew a rousing pibroch, +after which the bellman, who, for the dignity of his calling, insisted +on a prelude of three strokes of his clapper, proclaimed aloud that +Malcolm, Marquis of Lossie, desired the presence of each and every of +his tenants in the royal burgh of Portlossie, Newton and Seaton, in +the town-hall of the same, at seven of the clock upon the evening next +following. The proclamation ended, the piper sounded one note three +times, and they passed to the next station. When they had gone through +the Seaton, they entered a carriage waiting for them at the sea-gate, +and were driven to Scaurnose, and thence again to the several other +villages on the coast belonging to the marquis, making at each in like +manner the same announcement.</p> + +<p>Portlossie was in a ferment of wonder, satisfaction, and pleasure. +There were few in it who were not glad at the accession of Malcolm, +and with every one of those few the cause lay in himself. In the +shops, among the nets, in the curing-sheds, in the houses and +cottages, nothing else was talked about; and stories and reminiscences +innumerable were brought out, chiefly to prove that Malcolm had always +appeared likely to turn out somebody, the narrator not seldom modestly +hinting at a glimmering foresight on his own part of what had now +been at length revealed to the world. His friends were jubilant as +revellers. For Meg Partan, she ran from house to house like a maniac, +laughing and crying. It was as if the whole Seaton had suddenly been +translated. The men came crowding about Duncan, congratulating him and +asking him a hundred questions. But the old man maintained a reticence +whose dignity was strangely mingled of pomp and grace; sat calm and +stately as feeling the glow of reflected honour; would not, by word, +gesture, tone, or exclamation, confess to any surprise; behaved as if +he had known it all the time; made no pretence however of having known +it, merely treated the fact as not a whit more than might have been +looked for by one who had known Malcolm as he had known him.</p> + +<p>Davy, in his yacht uniform, was the next morning appointed the +marquis’s personal attendant, and a running time he had of it for a +fortnight.</p> + +<p>Almost the first thing that fell to him in his office was to show into +the room on the ground floor where his master sat—the same in which +for ages the lords of Lossie had been wont to transact what little +business any of them ever attended to—a pale, feeble man, bowed by the +weight of a huge brass-clasped volume under each arm. His lordship rose +and met him with out-stretched hand.</p> + +<p>“I am glad indeed to see you, Mr Crathie,” he said, “but I fear you are +out too soon.”</p> + +<p>“I am quite well since yesterday, my lord,” returned the factor, his +face shining with pleasure. “Your lordship’s accession has made a young +man of me again. Here I am to render account of my stewardship.”</p> + +<p>“I want none, Mr Crathie—nothing, that is, beyond a summary statement +of how things stand with me.”</p> + +<p>“I should like to satisfy your lordship that I have dealt honestly”— +here the factor paused for a moment, then with an effort added —“by +<i>you</i>, my lord.”</p> + +<p>“One word,” said Malcolm “—the last of the sort, I believe, that +will ever pass between us. Thank God! we had made it up before +yesterday.—If you have ever been hard upon any of my tenants, not to +say unfair, you have wronged me infinitely more than if you had taken +from me. God be with me as I prefer ruin to wrong. Remember, besides, +that my tenants are my charge and care. For you, my representative, +therefore, to do one of them an injury is to do me a double injury—to +wrong my tenant, and to wrong him in my name.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, my lord! you don’t know how they would take advantage of you, if +there were nobody to look after your interests.”</p> + +<p>“Then do look after them, sir. It would be bad for them to succeed, +as well as crippling to me. Only be sure, with the thought of the +righteous God to elevate your sense of justice, that you are in the +right. If doubtful, then give in.—And now, if any man thinks he has +cause of complaint, I leave it to you, with the help of the new light +that has been given you, to reconsider the matter, and, where needful, +to make reparation. You must be the friend of my tenant as much as of +his landlord. I have no interests inimical to those of my tenants. If +any man comes to me with complaint, I will send him to restate his case +to you, with the understanding that, if you will not listen to him, he +is to come to me again, when I shall hear both sides and judge between. +If after six months you should desire me to go over the books with you, +I will do so. As to your loyalty to my family and its affairs, of that +I never had a shadow of suspicion.”</p> + +<p>As he ended, Malcolm held out his hand. The factor’s trembled in his +strong grasp.</p> + +<p>“Mistress Crathie is sorely vexed, my lord,” he said, rising to take +his leave, “at things both said and done in the dark.”</p> + +<p>Malcolm laughed.</p> + +<p>“Give Mrs Crathie my compliments,” he said, “and tell her a man is more +than a marquis. If she will after this treat every honest fisherman +as if he might possibly turn out a lord, she and I shall be more than +quits.”</p> + +<p>The next morning he carried her again a few mackerel he had just +caught, and she never forgot the lesson given her. That morning, I may +mention, he did not go fishing alone, but had a lady with him in the +dinghy; and indeed they were together, in one place and another, the +most of the day—at one time flying along the fields, she on the bay +mare, and he on Kelpie.</p> + +<p>When the evening came, the town-hall was crammed—men standing on all +the window-sills; and so many could not get in that Malcolm proposed +they should occupy the square in front. A fisherman in garb and +gesture, not the less a gentleman and a marquis, he stood on the steps +of the town-hall and spoke to his people. They received him with wild +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>“The open air is better for everything,” he began. “Fishers, I have +called you first, because you are my own people. I am, and shall be +a fisherman, after such fashion, I trust, as will content my old +comrades. How things have come about, I shall not now tell you. Come +all of you and dine with me, and you shall hear enough to satisfy +at least lawful curiosity. At present my care is that you should +understand the terms upon which it is possible for us to live together +as friends. I make no allusion to personal friendships. A true friend +is for ever a friend. And I venture to say my old friends know best +both what I am and what I shall be. As to them I have no shadow +of anxiety. But I would gladly be a friend to all, and will do my +endeavour to that end.</p> + +<p>“You of Portlossie shall have your harbour cleared without delay.”</p> + +<p>In justice to the fishers I here interrupt my report to state that the +very next day they set about clearing the harbour themselves. It was +their business—in part at least, they said, and they were ashamed of +having left it so long. This did much towards starting well for a new +order of things.</p> + +<p>“You of Scaurnose shall hear the blasting necessary for your harbour +commence within a fortnight; and every house shall ere long have a +small piece of land at a reasonable rate allotted to it. But I feel +bound to mention that there are some among you upon whom, until I see +that they carry themselves differently, I must keep an eye. That they +have shown themselves unfriendly to myself in my attempts to persuade +them to what they knew to be right, I shall endeavour to forget, but +I give them warning that whoever shall hereafter disturb the peace or +interfere with the liberty of my people, shall assuredly be cast out of +my borders, and that as soon as the law will permit.</p> + +<p>“I shall take measures that all complaints shall be heard, and all save +foolish ones heeded; for, as much as in me lies, I will to execute +justice and judgment and righteousness in the land. Whoever oppresses +or wrongs his neighbour shall have to do with me. And to aid me in +doing justice, I pray the help of every honest man. I have not been so +long among you without having in some measure distinguished between +the men who have heart and brain, and the men who have merely a sense +of their own importance—which latter class, unhappily, always takes +itself for the former. I will deal with every man as I find him. I am +set to rule, and rule I will. He who loves righteousness, will help me +to rule; he who loves it not, shall be ruled, or depart.”</p> + +<p>The address had been every now and then interrupted by a hearty cheer; +at this point the cheering was greatly prolonged; after it there was no +more. For thus he went on:</p> + +<p>“And now I am about to give you proof that I mean what I say, and that +evil shall not come to the light without being noted and dealt with.</p> + +<p>“There are in this company two women—my eyes are at this moment upon +them where they stand together. One of them is already well-known to +you all by sight: now you shall know, not what she looks, but what she +is. Her name, or at least that by which she goes among you, is Barbara +Catanach. The other is an Englishwoman of whom you know nothing. Her +name is Caley.”</p> + +<p>All eyes were turned upon the two. Even Mrs Catanach was cowed by the +consciousness of the universal stare, and a kind of numb thrill went +through her from head to foot.</p> + +<p>“Well assured that, if I brought a criminal action against them, it +would hang them both, I trust you will not imagine it revenge that +moves me thus to expose them. In refraining from prosecuting them, +I bind myself of necessity to see that they work no more evil. In +giving them time for repentance, I take the consequences upon myself. +I am bound to take care that they do not employ the respite in doing +mischief to their neighbours. Without precaution I could not be +justified in sparing them. Therefore those women shall not go forth +to pass for harmless members of society, and see the life and honour +of others lie bare to their secret attack. They shall live <i>here</i>, in +this town, thoroughly known; and absolutely distrusted. And that they +may thus be known and distrusted, I publicly declare that I hold proof +against these women of having conspired to kill me. From the effects of +the poison they succeeded in giving me, I fear I shall never altogether +recover. I can prove also, to the extreme of circumstantial evidence, +that there is the blood of one child at least upon the hands of each; +and that there are mischiefs innumerable upon their lying tongues, it +were an easy task to convince you. If I wrong them, let them accuse +me; and whether they lose or gain their suit, I promise before you for +witnesses, I will pay all; only thereby they will compel me to bring my +actions for murder and conspiracy. Let them choose.</p> + +<p>“Hear what I have determined concerning them. The woman Catanach shall +take to her cottage the woman Caley. That cottage they shall have rent +free: who could receive money from such hands? I will appoint them also +a sufficiency for life and maintenance, bare indeed, for I would not +have them comfortable. But they shall be free to work if they can find +any to employ them. If, however, either shall go beyond the bounds I +set, she shall be followed the moment she is missed, and that with a +warrant for her apprehension. And I beg all honest people to keep an +eye upon them. According as they live shall their life be. If they come +to repentance, they will bless the day I resolved upon such severe +measures on their behalf. Let them go to their place.”</p> + +<p>I will not try to describe the devilish look, mingled of contempt and +hate, that possessed the countenance of the midwife, as, with head +erect, and eyes looking straight before her, she obeyed the command. +Caley, white as death, trembled and tottered, nor dared once look up +as she followed her companion to their appointed hell. Whether they +made it pleasant for each other my reader may debate with himself. +Before many months had gone by, stared at and shunned by all, even by +Miss Horn’s Jean, driven back upon her own memories, and the pictures +that rose out of them, and deprived of every chance of indulging her +dominant passion for mischievous influence, the midwife’s face told +such a different tale, that the schoolmaster began to cherish a feeble +hope that within a few years Mrs Catanach might get so far as to begin +to suspect she was a sinner—that she had actually done things she +ought not to have done. One of those things that same night Malcolm +heard from the lips of Duncan, a tale of horror and dismay. Not until +then did he know, after all he knew concerning her, what the woman was +capable of.</p> + +<p>At his own entreaty, Duncan was formally recognized as piper to the +Marquis of Lossie. His ambition reached no higher. Malcolm himself saw +to his perfect equipment, heedful specially that his kilt and plaid +should be of Duncan’s own tartan of red and blue and green. His dirk +and broadsword he had new sheathed, with silver mountings. A great +silver brooch with a big cairngorm in the centre, took the place of +the brass one, which henceforth was laid up among the precious things +in the little armoury, and the badge of his clan in gold, with rubies +and amethysts for the bells of the heather, glowed on his bonnet. And +Malcolm’s guests, as long as Duncan continued able to fill the bag, +had to endure as best they might, between each course of every dinner +without fail, two or three minutes of uproar and outcry from the treble +throat of the powerful Lossie pipes. By his own desire, the piper had a +chair and small table set for him behind and to the right of his chief, +as he called him; there he ate with the family and guests, waited upon +by Davy, part of whose business it was to hand him the pipes at the +proper moment, whereupon he rose to his feet, for even he with all +his experience and habitude was unable in a sitting posture to keep +that stand of pipes full of wind, and raised such a storm of sound as +made the windows tremble. A lady guest would now and then venture to +hint that the custom was rather a trying one for English ears; but +Clementina would never listen to a breath against Duncan’s music. Her +respect and affection for the old man were unbounded.</p> + +<p>Malcolm was one of the few who understand the shelter of light, the +protection to be gained against lying tongues by the discarding of +needless reticence, and the open presentation of the truth. Many men +who would not tell a lie, yet seem to have faith in concealment: +they would rather not reveal the truth; darkness seems to offer them +the cover of a friendly wing. But there is no veil like light —no +adamantine armour against hurt like the truth. To Malcolm it was one of +the promises of the kingdom that there is nothing covered that shall +not be revealed. He was anxious, therefore, to tell his people, at the +coming dinner, the main points of his story, and certain that such +openness would also help to lay the foundation of confidence between +him and his people. The one difficulty in the way was the position of +Florimel. But that could not fail to appear in any case, and he was +satisfied that even for her sake it was far better to speak openly; for +then the common heart would take her in and cover her. He consulted, +therefore, with Lenorme, who went to find her. She came, threw her arms +round his neck and begged him to say whatever he thought best.</p> + +<p>To add the final tinge to the rainbow of Malcolm’s joy, on the morning +of the dinner the schoolmaster arrived. It would be hard to say whether +Malcolm or Clementina was the more delighted to see him. He said little +with his tongue, but much with his eyes and face and presence.</p> + +<p>This time the tables were not set in different parts of the grounds, +but gathered upon the level of the drive and the adjacent lawny spaces +between the house and the trees. Malcolm, in full highland dress as +chief of his clan, took the head of the central table, with Florimel +in the place of honour at his right hand, and Clementina on his left. +Lenorme sat next to Florimel, and Annie Mair next to Lenorme. On +the other side, Mr Graham sat next to Clementina, Miss Horn next to +Mr Graham, and Blue Peter next to Miss Horn. Except Mr Morrison, he +had asked none who were not his tenants or servants or in some way +connected with the estates, except indeed a few whom he counted old +friends, amongst them some aged beggar-folk, waiting their summons to +Abraham’s bosom—in which there was no such exceptional virtue on the +marquis’s part, for, the poor law not having yet invaded Scotland, a +man was not without the respect of his neighbours merely because he was +a beggar. He set Mr Morrison to preside at the farmers’ tables, and had +all the fisher-folk about himself.</p> + +<p>When the main part of the dinner was over, he rose, and with as much +circumstance as he thought desirable, told his story, beginning with +the parts in it his uncle and Mrs Catanach had taken. It was, however, +he said, a principle in the history of the world, that evil should +bring forth good, and his poor little cock-boat had been set adrift +upon an ocean of blessing. For had he not been taken to the heart of +one of the noblest and simplest of men, who had brought him up in +honourable poverty and rectitude? When he had said this, he turned to +Duncan, who sat at his own table behind him, with his pipe on a stool +covered with a rich cloth by his side.</p> + +<p>“You all know my grandfather,” he went on, “and you all respect him.”</p> + +<p>At this rose a great shout.</p> + +<p>“I thank you, my friends,” he continued. “My desire is that every soul +upon land of mine should carry himself to Duncan MacPhail as if he were +in blood that which he is in deed and in truth, my grandfather.”</p> + +<p>A second great shout arose, which wavered and sank when they saw the +old man bow his head upon his hands.</p> + +<p>He went on to speak of the privileges he alone of all his race had ever +enjoyed—the privileges of toil and danger, with all their experiences +of human dependence and divine aid; the privilege of the confidence +and companionship of honourable labouring men, and the understanding +of their ways and thoughts and feelings; and, above all, the privilege +of the friendship and instruction of the schoolmaster, to whom he owed +more than eternity could reveal.</p> + +<p>Then he turned again to his narrative, and told how his father, falsely +informed that his wife and child were dead, married Florimel’s mother; +how his mother, out of compassion for both of them, held her peace; +how for twenty years she had lived with her cousin Miss Horn, and held +her peace even from her; how at last, when, having succeeded to the +property, she heard he was coming to the House, the thought of his +nearness yet unapproachableness—in this way at least he, the child +of both, interpreted the result—so worked upon a worn and enfeebled +frame, that she died.</p> + +<p>Then he told how Miss Horn, after his mother’s death, came upon letters +revealing the secret which she had all along known must exist, but +after which, from love and respect for her cousin, she had never +inquired.</p> + +<p>Last of all he told how, in a paroxysm of rage, Mrs Catanach had +let the secret of his birth escape her; how she had afterwards made +affidavit concerning it; and how his father had upon his death-bed, +with all necessary legal observances, acknowledged him his son and heir.</p> + +<p>“And now, to the mighty gladness of my soul,” he said, looking on +Florimel at his side, “my dearly loved and honoured sister, loved +and honoured long before I knew she was my own, has accepted me as +her brother, and I do not think she greatly regrets the loss of the +headship of the house which she has passed over to me. She will lose +little else. And of all women it may well be to her a small matter to +lose a mere title, seeing she is so soon to change her name for one who +will bring her honour of a more enduring reality. For he who is about +to become her husband is not only one of the noblest of men, but a man +of genius whose praises she will hear on all sides. One of his works, +the labour and gift of love, you shall see when we rise from the table. +It is a portrait of your late landlord, my father, painted partly +from a miniature, partly from my sister, partly from the portraits of +the family, and partly, I am happy to think, from myself. You must +yourselves judge of the truth of it. And you will remember that Mr +Lenorme never saw my father. I say this, not to excuse, but to enhance +his work.</p> + +<p>“My tenants, I will do my best to give you fair play. My friend and +factor, Mr Crathie, has confided to me his doubts whether he may not +have been a little hard: he is prepared to reconsider some of your +cases. Do not imagine that I am going to be a careless man of business. +I want money, for I have enough to do with it, if only to set right +much that is wrong. But let God judge between you and me.</p> + +<p>“My fishermen, every honest man of you is my friend, and you shall know +it. Between you and me that is enough. But for the sake of harmony, and +right, and order, and that I may keep near you, I shall appoint three +men of yourselves in each village, to whom any man or woman may go with +request or complaint. If two of those three men judge the matter fit to +refer to me, the probability is that I shall see it as they do. If any +man think them scant of justice towards him, let him come to me. Should +I find myself in doubt, I have here at my side my beloved and honoured +master to whom to apply for counsel, knowing that what oracle he may +utter I shall receive straight from the innermost parts of a temple of +the Holy Ghost. Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be +honest with each other.</p> + +<p>“And, in conclusion, why should you hear from any lips but my own, +that this lady beside me, the daughter of an English earl of ancient +house, has honoured the house of Lossie by consenting to become its +marchioness? Lady Clementina Thornicroft possesses large estates in +the south of England, but not for them did I seek her favour—as you +will be convinced when you reflect what the fact involves which she has +herself desired me to make known to you— namely, that it was while yet +she was unacquainted with my birth and position, and had never dreamed +that I was other than only a fisherman and a groom, that she accepted +me for her husband.— I thank my God.”</p> + +<p>With that he took his seat, and after hearty cheering, a glass or +two of wine, and several speeches, all rose, and went to look at the +portrait of the late marquis.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_LXXII">CHAPTER LXXII.<br><span class="small">KNOTTED STRANDS.</span></h2></div> + + +<p>Lady Clementina had to return to England to see her lawyers, and +arrange her affairs. Before she went, she would gladly have gone with +Malcolm over every spot where had passed any portion of his history, +and at each heard its own chapter or paragraph; but Malcolm obstinately +refused to begin such a narration before Clementina was mistress of the +region to which it mainly belonged. After that, he said, he would, even +more gladly, he believed, than she, occupy all the time that could be +spared from the duties of the present in piecing together the broken +reflections of the past in the pools of memory, until they had lived +both their lives over again together, from earliest recollection to the +time when the two streams flowed into one, thenceforth to mingle more +and more inwardly to endless ages.</p> + +<p>So the Psyche was launched. Lady Clementina, Florimel, and Lenorme were +the passengers, and Malcolm, Blue Peter, and Davy the crew. There was +no room for servants, yet was there no lack of service. They had rough +weather a part of the time, and neither Clementina nor Lenorme was +altogether comfortable, but they made a rapid voyage, and were all well +when they landed at Greenwich.</p> + +<p>Knowing nothing of Lady Bellair’s proceedings, they sent Davy to +reconnoitre in Portland Place. He brought back word that there was no +one in the house but an old woman. So Malcolm took Florimel there. +Everything belonging to their late visitors had vanished, and nobody +knew where they had gone.</p> + +<p>Searching the drawers and cabinets, Malcolm, to his unspeakable +delight, found a miniature of his mother, along with one of his +father—a younger likeness than he had yet seen. Also he found a few +letters of his mother—mostly mere notes in pencil; but neither these +nor those of his father which Miss Horn had given him, would he read:</p> + +<p>“What right has life over the secrets of death?” he said. “Or rather, +what right have we who sleep over the secrets of those who have waked +from their sleep and left the fragments of their dreams behind them?”</p> + +<p>Lovingly he laid them together, and burned them to dust flakes.</p> + +<p>“My mother shall tell me what she pleases, when I find her,” he said. +“She shall not reprove me for reading her letters to my father.”</p> + +<p>They were married, at Wastbeach, both couples in the same ceremony. +Immediately after the wedding, the painter and his bride set out for +Rome, and the marquis and marchioness went on board the Psyche. For +nothing would content Clementina, troubled at the experience of her +first voyage, but she must get herself accustomed to the sea, as became +the wife of a fisherman; therefore in no way would she journey but +on board the Psyche; and as it was the desire of each to begin their +married life at home, they sailed direct for Portlossie. After a good +voyage, however, they landed, in order to reach home quietly, at Duff +Harbour, took horses from there, and arrived at Lossie House late in +the evening.</p> + +<p>Malcolm had written to the housekeeper to prepare for them the Wizard’s +Chamber, but to alter nothing on walls or in furniture. That room, +he had resolved, should be the first he occupied with his bride. Mrs +Courthope was scandalized at the idea of taking an earl’s daughter to +sleep in the garret, not to mention that the room had for centuries had +an ill name; but she had no choice, and therefore contented herself +with doing all that lay in the power of woman, under such severe +restrictions, to make the dingy old room cheerful.</p> + +<p>Alone at length in their somewhat strange quarters, concerning which +Malcolm had merely told her that the room was that in which he was +born—what place fitter, thought Clementina, wherein to commence the +long and wonderful story she hungered to hear. Malcolm would still +have delayed it, but she asked question upon question till she had him +fairly afloat. He had not gone far, however, before he had to make +mention of the stair in the wall, which led from the place where they +sat, straight from the house.</p> + +<p>“Can there be such a stair in this room?” she asked in surprise.</p> + +<p>He rose, took a candle, opened a door, then another, and showed her +the first of the steps down which the midwife had carried him, and +descending which, twenty years after, his father had come by his death.</p> + +<p>“Let us go down,” said Clementina.</p> + +<p>“Are you not afraid? Look,” said Malcolm.</p> + +<p>“Afraid, and you with me!” she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“But it is dark, and the steps are broken.”</p> + +<p>“If it led to Hades, I would go with my fisherman. The only horror +would be to be left behind.”</p> + +<p>“Come then,” said Malcolm, “Only you must be very careful.” He laid +a shawl on her shoulders, and down they went, Malcolm a few steps in +front, holding the candle to every step for her, many being broken.</p> + +<p>They came at length where the stair ceased in ruin. He leaped down; she +stooped, put her hands on his shoulder, and dropped into his arms. Then +over the fallen rubbish, out by the groaning door, they went into the +moonlight.</p> + +<p>Clementina was merry as a child. All was so safe and peaceful with +her fisherman! She would not hear of returning. They must have a walk +in the moonlight first! So down the steps and the winding path into +the valley of the burn, and up to the flower garden they wandered, +Clementina telling him how sick the moonlight had made her feel that +night she met him first on the Boar’s Tail, when his words concerning +her revived the conviction that he loved Florimel. At the great stone +basin Malcolm set the swan spouting, but the sweet musical jargon of +the falling water seemed almost coarse in the soundless diapason of the +moonlight. So he stopped it again, and they strolled farther up the +garden.</p> + +<p>Clementina venturing to remind him of the sexton-like gardener’s story +of the lady and the hermit’s cave, which because of its Scotch, she was +unable to follow, Malcolm told her now what John Jack had narrated, +adding that the lady was his own mother, and that from the gardener’s +tale he learned that morning at length how to account for the horror +which had seized him on his first entering the cave, as also for his +father’s peculiar carriage on that occasion: doubtless he then caught +a likeness in him to his mother. He then recounted the occurrence +circumstantially.</p> + +<p>“I have ever since felt ashamed of the weakness,” he concluded: “but at +this moment I believe I could walk in with perfect coolness.”</p> + +<p>“We won’t try it to-night,” said Clementina, and once more turned him +from the place, reverencing the shadow he had brought with him from the +spirit of his mother.</p> + +<p>They walked and sat and talked in the moonlight, for how long neither +knew; and when the moon went behind the trees on the cliff, and the +valley was left in darkness, but a darkness that seemed alive with the +new day soon to be born, they sat yet, lost in a peaceful unveiling of +hearts, till a sudden gust of wind roused Malcolm, and looking up he +saw that the stars were clouded, and knew that the chill of the morning +was drawing near.</p> + +<p>He kept that chamber just as it was ever after, and often retired to it +for meditation. He never restored the ruinous parts of the stair, and +he kept the door at the top carefully closed. But he cleared out the +rubbish that choked the place where the stair had led lower down, came +upon it again in tolerable preservation a little beneath, and followed +it into a passage that ran under the burn, appearing to lead in the +direction of the cave behind the Baillies’ Barn. Doubtless there was +some foundation for the legend of Lord Gernon.</p> + +<p>There however, he abandoned the work, thinking of the possibility of a +time when employment would be scarce, and his people in want of all he +could give them. And when such a time arrived, as arrive it did before +they had been two years married, a far more important undertaking was +found needful to employ the many who must earn or starve. Then it was +that Clementina had the desire of her heart, and began to lay out the +money she had been saving for the purpose, in rebuilding the ancient +Castle of Colonsay. Its vaults were emptied of rubbish and ruin, the +rock faced afresh, walls and towers and battlements raised, until at +last, when the loftiest tower seemed to have reached its height, it +rose yet higher, and blossomed in radiance; for, topmost crown of all, +there, flaming far into the northern night, shone a splendid beacon +lamp, to guide the fisherman when his way was hid.</p> + +<p>Every summer for years, Florimel and her husband spent weeks in the +castle, and many a study the painter made there of the ever changing +face of the sea.</p> + +<p>Malcolm, as he well might, had such a strong feeling of the power for +good of every high-souled schoolmaster, that nothing would serve him +but Mr Graham must be reinstated. He told the presbytery that if it +were not done, he would himself build a school-house for him, and the +consequence, he said, needed no prediction. Finding, at the same time, +that the young man they had put in his place was willing to act as his +assistant, he proposed that he should keep the cottage, and all other +emoluments of the office, on the sole condition that, when he found he +could no longer conscientiously and heartily further the endeavours of +Mr Graham, he should say so; whereupon the marquis would endeavour to +procure him another appointment; and on these understandings the thing +was arranged.</p> + +<p>Mr Graham thenceforward lived in the House, a spiritual father to the +whole family, reverenced by all, ever greeted with gladness, ever +obeyed. The spiritual dignity and simplicity, the fine sense and +delicate feeling of the man, rendered him a saving presence in the +place; and Clementina felt as if one of the ancient prophets, blossomed +into a Christian, was the glory of their family and house. Like a +perfect daughter, she watched him, tried to discover preferences of +which he might not himself be aware, and often waited upon him with her +own hands.</p> + +<p>There was an ancient building connected with the house, divided now +for many years into barn and dairy, but evidently the chapel of +the monastery: this Malcolm soon set about reconverting. It made a +lovely chapel—too large for the household, but not too large for +its congregation upon Wednesday evenings, when many of the fishermen +and their families, and not a few of the inhabitants of the upper +town, with occasionally several farm servants from the neighbourhood, +assembled to listen devoutly to the fervent and loving expostulations +and rousings, or the tender consolings and wise instructions of the +<i>master</i>, as every one called him. The hold he had of their hearts was +firm, and his influence on their consciences far reaching.</p> + +<p>When there was need of conference, or ground for any wide +expostulation, the marquis would call a meeting in the chapel; but this +occurred very seldom. Now and then the master, sometimes the marquis +himself, would use it for a course of lectures or a succession of +readings from some specially interesting book; and in what had been the +sacristy they gathered a small library for the use of the neighbourhood.</p> + +<p>No meeting was held there of a Sunday, for although the clergyman was +the one person to whom all his life the marquis never came any nearer, +he was not the less careful to avoid everything that might rouse +contention or encourage division.</p> + +<p>“I find the doing of the will of God,” he would say, “leaves me no time +for disputing about his plans—I do not say for thinking about them.”</p> + +<p>Not therefore, however, would he waive the exercise of the inborn right +of teaching, and anybody might come to the house and see the master on +Sunday evenings. As to whether people went to church or stayed away, he +never troubled himself in the least; and no more did the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>The chapel had not been long finished when he had an organ built in +it. Lady Lossie played upon it. Almost every evening, at a certain +hour, she played for a while; the door was always open, and any one who +pleased might sit down and listen.</p> + +<p>Gradually the feeling of the community, from the strengthening and +concentrating influence of the House, began to bear upon offenders; +and any whose conduct had become in the least flagrant soon felt that +the general eye was upon them, and that gradually the human tide was +falling from them, and leaving them prisoned in a rocky basin on a +barren shore. But at the same time, all three of the powers at the +House were watching to come in the moment there was a chance; and +what with the marquis’s warnings, his wife’s encouragements, and the +master’s expostulations, there was no little hope of the final recovery +of several who would otherwise most likely have sunk deeper and deeper.</p> + +<p>The marchioness took Lizzy for her personal attendant, and had her boy +much about her; so that by the time she had children of her own, she +had some genuine and worthy notion of what a child was, and what could +and ought to be done for the development of the divine germ that lay in +the human egg; and had found that the best she could do for any child, +or indeed anybody, was to be good herself.</p> + +<p>Rose married a young fisherman, and made a brave wife and mother. To +the end of her days she regarded the marquis almost as a being higher +than human, an angel that had found and saved her.</p> + +<p>Kelpie had a foal, and, apparently in consequence, grew so much more +gentle that at length Malcolm consented that Clementina, who was +an excellent horsewoman, should mount her. After a few attempts to +unseat her, not of the most determined kind however, Kelpie, on her +part, consented to carry her, and ever after seemed proud of having +a mistress that could ride. Her foal turned out a magnificent horse. +Malcolm did not allow him to do anything that could be called work +before he was eight years old, and had the return at the other end, for +when Goblin was thirty he rode him still, and to judge by appearances, +might but for an accident have ridden him ten years more.</p> + +<p>It was not long ere people began to remark that no one now ever heard +the piper utter the name <i>Campbell</i>. An ill-bred youth once —it was +well for him that Malcolm was not near—dared the evil word in his +presence: a cloud swept across the old man’s face, but he held his +peace; and to the day of his death, which arrived in his ninety-first +year, it never crossed his lips. He died with the Lossie pipes on his +bed, Malcolm on one side of him, and Clementina on the other.</p> + +<p>Some of my readers may care to know that Phemy and Davy were married, +and made the quaintest, oldest-fashioned little couple, with hearts +which king or beggar might equally have trusted.</p> + +<p>Malcolm’s relations with the fisher-folk, founded as they were in +truth and open uprightness, were not in the least injured by his +change of position. He made it a point to be always at home during the +herring-fishing. Whatever might be going on in London, the marquis +and marchioness, their family and household, were sure to leave in +time for the commencement of that. Those who admired Malcolm, of whom +there were not a few even in Vanity Fair, called him the fisher-king: +the wags called him the king-fisher, and laughed at the oddity of his +taste in preferring what he called his duty to the pleasures of the +season. But the marquis found even the hen-pecked Partan a nobler and +more elevating presence than any strutting platitude of Bond-street. +And when he was at home, he was always about amongst the people. Almost +every day he would look in at some door in the Seaton, and call out +a salutation to the busy housewife—perhaps go in and sit down for +a minute. Now he would be walking with this one, now talking with +that—oftenest with Blue Peter; and sometimes both their wives would be +with them, upon the shore, or in the grounds. Nor was there a family +meal to which any one or all together of the six men whom he had set +over the Seaton and Scaurnose would not have been welcomed by the +marquis and his Clemency. The House was head and heart of the whole +district.</p> + +<p>A conventional visitor was certain to feel very shruggish at first +sight of the terms on which the marquis was with “persons of that +sort;” but often such a one came to allow that it was no great matter: +the persons did not seem to presume unpleasantly, and, notwithstanding +his atrocious training, the marquis was after all a very good sort of +fellow—considering.</p> + +<p>In the third year he launched a strange vessel. Her tonnage was two +hundred, but she was built like a fishing-boat. She had great stowage +forward and below: if there was a large take, boat after boat could +empty its load into her, and go back and draw its nets again. But this +was not the original design in her.</p> + +<p>The after half of her deck was parted off with a light rope-rail, +was kept as white as holystone could make it, and had a brass-railed +bulwark. She was steered with a wheel, for more room; the top of the +binnacle was made sloping, to serve as a lectern; there were seats all +round the bulwarks; and she was called the Clemency.</p> + +<p>For more than two years he had provided training for the fittest youths +he could find amongst the fishers, and now he had a pretty good band +playing on wind instruments, able to give back to God a shadow of +his own music. The same formed the Clemency’s crew. And every Sunday +evening the great fishing-boat with the marquis, and almost always the +marchioness on board, and the latter never without a child or children, +led out from the harbour such of the boats as were going to spend the +night on the water.</p> + +<p>When they reached the ground, all the other boats gathered about the +great boat, and the chief men came on board, and Malcolm stood up +betwixt the wheel and the binnacle, and read—always from the gospel, +and generally words of Jesus, and talked to them, striving earnestly to +get the truth alive into their hearts. Then he would pray aloud to the +living God, as one so living that they could not see him, so one with +them that they could not behold him. When they rose from their knees; +man after man dropped into his boat, and the fleet scattered wide over +the waters to search them for their treasure.</p> + +<p>Then the little ones were put to bed; and Malcolm and Clementina would +sit on the deck, reading and talking, till the night fell, when they +too went below, and slept in peace. But if ever a boat wanted help, or +the slightest danger arose, the first thing was to call the marquis, +and he was on deck in a moment.</p> + +<p>In the morning, when a few of the boats had gathered, they would make +for the harbour again, but now with full blast of praising trumpets and +horns, the waves seeming to dance to the well-ordered noise divine. +Or if the wind was contrary, or no wind blew, the lightest-laden of +the boats would take the Clemency in tow, and, with frequent change of +rowers, draw her softly back to the harbour.</p> + +<p>For such Monday mornings, the marquis wrote a little song, and his +Clemency made an air to it, and harmonized it for the band. Here is the +last stanza of it:—</p> + +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like the fish that brought the coin,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We in ministry will join—</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bring what pleases thee the best;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Help from each to all the rest.</span><br> +</p> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Marquis of Lossie + +Author: George MacDonald + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7174] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 21, 2003] +Last Updated: August 7, 2016 + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE *** + + + + +This etext was produced by Martin Robb + + + + +THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE. by George MacDonald + + + +CHAPTER I: THE STABLE YARD + + +It was one of those exquisite days that come in every winter, in +which it seems no longer the dead body, but the lovely ghost of +summer. Such a day bears to its sister of the happier time something +of the relation the marble statue bears to the living form; the +sense it awakes of beauty is more abstract, more ethereal; it lifts +the soul into a higher region than will summer day of lordliest +splendour. It is like the love that loss has purified. + +Such, however, were not the thoughts that at the moment occupied +the mind of Malcolm Colonsay. Indeed, the loveliness of the morning +was but partially visible from the spot where he stood--the stable +yard of Lossie House, ancient and roughly paved. It was a hundred +years since the stones had been last relaid and levelled: none of +the horses of the late Marquis minded it but one--her whom the +young man in Highland dress was now grooming--and she would have +fidgeted had it been an oak floor. The yard was a long and wide +space, with two storied buildings on all sides of it. In the centre +of one of them rose the clock, and the morning sun shone red on +its tarnished gold. It was an ancient clock, but still capable of +keeping good time--good enough, at least, for all the requirements +of the house, even when the family was at home, seeing it never +stopped, and the church clock was always ordered by it. + +It not only set the time, but seemed also to set the fashion of +the place, for the whole aspect of it was one of wholesome, weather +beaten, time worn existence. One of the good things that accompany +good blood is that its possessor does not much mind a shabby coat. +Tarnish and lichens and water wearing, a wavy house ridge, and +a few families of worms in the wainscot do not annoy the marquis +as they do the city man who has just bought a little place in the +country. When an old family ceases to go lovingly with nature, I +see no reason why it should go any longer. An old tree is venerable, +and an old picture precious to the soul, but an old house, on which +has been laid none but loving and respectful hands, is dear to the +very heart. Even an old barn door, with the carved initials of hinds +and maidens of vanished centuries, has a place of honour in the +cabinet of the poet's brain. It was centuries since Lossie House +had begun to grow shabby--and beautiful; and he to whom it now +belonged was not one to discard the reverend for the neat, or let +the vanity of possession interfere with the grandeur of inheritance. + +Beneath the tarnished gold of the clock, flushed with the red +winter sun, he was at this moment grooming the coat of a powerful +black mare. That he had not been brought up a groom was pretty +evident from the fact that he was not hissing; but that he was +Marquis of Lossie there was nothing about him to show. The mare +looked dangerous. Every now and then she cast back a white glance +of the one visible eye. But the youth was on his guard, and as wary +as fearless in his handling of her. When at length he had finished +the toilet which her restlessness--for her four feet were never +all still at once upon the stones--had considerably protracted, +he took from his pocket a lump of sugar, and held it for her to +bite at with her angry looking teeth. + +It was a keen frost, but in the sun the icicles had begun to drop. +The roofs in the shadow were covered with hoar frost; wherever +there was shadow there was whiteness. But for all the cold, there +was keen life in the air, and yet keener life in the two animals, +biped and quadruped. + +As they thus stood, the one trying to sweeten the other's relation +to himself, if he could not hope much for her general temper, a +man, who looked half farmer, half lawyer, appeared on the opposite +side of the court in the shadow. + +"You are spoiling that mare, MacPhail," he cried. + +"I canna weel du that, sir; she canna be muckle waur," said the +youth. + +"It's whip and spur she wants, not sugar." + +"She has had, and sail have baith, time aboot (in turn); and I houp +they'll du something for her in time, sir." + +"Her time shall be short here, anyhow. She's not worth the sugar +you give her." + +"Eh, sir! luik at her," said Malcolm, in a tone of expostulation, +as he stepped back a few paces and regarded her with admiring eyes. +"Saw ye ever sic legs? an' sic a neck? an' sic a heid? an' sic fore +an' hin' quarters? She's a' bonny but the temper o' her, an' that +she canna help like the likes o' you an me." + +"She'll be the death o' somebody some day. The sooner we get rid +of her the better. Just look at that," he added, as the mare laid +back her ears and made a vicious snap at nothing in particular. + +"She was a favourite o' my--maister, the marquis," returned the +youth, "an' I wad ill like to pairt wi' her." + +"I'll take any offer in reason for her," said the factor. "You'll +just ride her to Forres market next week, and see what you can get +for her. I do think she's quieter since you took her in hand." + +"I'm sure she is--but it winna laist a day. The moment I lea' +her, she'll be as ill's ever," said the youth. "She has a kin' a +likin' to me, 'cause I gi'e her sugar, an' she canna cast me; but +she's no a bit better i' the hert o' her yet. She's an oonsanctifeed +brute. I cudna think o' sellin' her like this." + +"Lat them 'at buys tak' tent (beware)," said the factor. + +"Ow ay! lat them; I dinna objec'; gien only they ken what she's +like afore they buy her," rejoined Malcolm. + +The factor burst out laughing. To his judgment the youth had spoken +like an idiot. + +"We'll not send you to sell," he said. "Stoat shall go with you, +and you shall have nothing to do but hold the mare and your own +tongue." + +"Sir," said Malcolm, seriously, "ye dinna mean what ye say? Ye +said yersel' she wad be the deith o' somebody, an' to sell her ohn +tell't what she's like wad be to caw the saxt comman'ment clean to +shivers." + +"That may be good doctrine i' the kirk, my lad, but it's pure heresy +i' the horse market. No, no! You buy a horse as you take a wife-- +for better for worse, as the case may be. A woman's not bound to +tell her faults when a man wants to marry her. If she keeps off +the worst of them afterwards, it's all he has a right to look for." + +"Hoot, sir! there's no a pair o' parallel lines in a' the +compairison," returned Malcolm. "Mistress Kelpie here 's e'en ower +ready to confess her fauts, an' that by giein' a taste o' them; +she winna bide to be speired; but for haudin' aff o' them efter the +bargain's made--ye ken she's no even responsible for the bargain. +An' gien ye expec' me to haud my tongue aboot them--faith, +Maister Crathie, I wad as sune think o' sellin' a rotten boat to +Blue Peter. Gien the man 'at has her to see tilt dinna ken to luik +oot for a storm o' iron shune or lang teeth ony moment, his wife +may be a widow that same market nicht: An' forbye, it's again' the +aucht comman'ment as weel's the saxt. There's nae exception there +in regaird o' horse flesh. We maun be honest i' that as weel's i' +corn or herrin', or onything ither 'at 's coft an' sell't atween +man an' his neibor." + +"There's one commandment, my lad," said Mr Crathie, with the dignity +of intended rebuke, "you seem to find hard to learn, and that is, +to mind your own business." + +"Gien ye mean catchin' the herrin', maybe ye're richt," said the +youth. "I ken muir aboot that nor the horse coupin', and it's full +cleaner." + +"None of your impudence!" returned the factor. "The marquis is +not here to uphold you in your follies. That they amused him is no +reason why I should put up with them. So keep your tongue between +your teeth, or you'll find it the worse for you." + +The youth smiled a little oddly, and held his peace. + +"You're here to do what I tell you, and make no remarks," added +the factor. + +"I'm awaur o' that, sir--within certain leemits," returned Malcolm. + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean within the leemits o' duin' by yer neibor as ye wad ha'e +yer neibor du by you--that's what I mean, sir." + +"I've told you already that doesn't apply in horse dealing. +Every man has to take care of himself in the horse market: that's +understood. If you had been brought up amongst horses instead of +herring, you would have known that as well as any other man." + +"I doobt I'll ha'e to gang back to the herrin' than, sir, for they're +like to pruv' the honester o' the twa; But there's nae hypocrisy +in Kelpie, an' she maun ha'e her day's denner, come o' the morn's +what may." + +At the word hypocrisy, Mr Crathie's face grew red as the sun in +a fog. He was an elder of the kirk, and had family worship every +night as regularly as his toddy. So the word was as offensive and +insolent as it was foolish and inapplicable. He would have turned +Malcolm adrift on the spot, but that he remembered--not the favour +of the late marquis for the lad--that was nothing to the factor +now: his lord under the mould was to him as if he had never been +above it--but the favour of the present marchioness, for all in +the house knew that she was interested in him. Choking down therefore +his rage and indignation, he said sternly; + +"Malcolm, you have two enemies--a long tongue, and a strong +conceit. You have little enough to be proud of, my man, and the +less said the better. I advise you to mind what you're about, and +show suitable respect to your superiors, or as sure as judgment +you'll go back to fish guts." + +While he spoke, Malcolm had been smoothing Kelpie all over with his +palms; the moment the factor ceased talking, he ceased stroking, +and with one arm thrown over the mare's back, looked him full in +the face. + +"Gien ye imaigine, Maister Crathie," he said, "'at I coont it ony +rise i' the warl' 'at brings me un'er the orders o' a man less +honest than he micht be, ye're mista'en. I dinna think it's pride +this time; I wad ile Blue Peter's lang butes till him, but I winna +lee for ony factor atween this an' Davy Jones." + +It was too much. Mr Crathie's feelings overcame him, and he was +a wrathful man to see, as he strode up to the youth with clenched +fist. + +"Haud frae the mere, for God's sake, Maister Crathie," cried Malcolm. +But even as he spoke, two reversed Moorish arches of gleaming +iron opened on the terror quickened imagination of the factor +a threatened descent from which his most potent instinct, that of +self preservation, shrank in horror. He started back white with +dismay, having by a bare inch of space and a bare moment of time, +escaped what he called Eternity. Dazed with fear he turned and +had staggered halfway across the yard, as if going home, before he +recovered himself. Then he turned again, and with what dignity he +could scrape together said--"MacPhail, you go about your business." + +In his foolish heart he believed Malcolm had made the brute strike +out. + +"I canna weel gang till Stoat comes hame," answered Malcolm. + +"If I see you about the place after sunset, I'll horsewhip you," +said the factor, and walked away, showing the crown of his hat. + +Malcolm again smiled oddly, but made no reply. He undid the mare's +halter, and took her into the stable. There he fed her, standing +by her all the time she ate, and not once taking his eyes off her. +His father, the late marquis, had bought her at the sale of the +stud of a neighbouring laird, whose whole being had been devoted +to horses, till the pale one came to fetch himself: the men about +the stable had drugged her, and, taken with the splendid lines of +the animal, nor seeing cause to doubt her temper as she quietly +obeyed the halter, he had bid for her, and, as he thought, had her +a great bargain. The accident that finally caused his death followed +immediately after, and while he was ill no one cared to vex him +by saying what she had turned out. But Malcolm had even then taken +her in hand in the hope of taming her a little before his master, +who often spoke of his latest purchase, should see her again. In +this he had very partially succeeded; but if only for the sake of +him whom he now knew for his father, nothing would have made him +part with the animal. Besides, he had been compelled to use her with +so much severity at times that he had grown attached to her from +the reaction of pity as well as from admiration of her physical +qualities, and the habitude of ministering to her wants and comforts. +The factor, who knew Malcolm only as a servant, had afterwards +allowed her to remain in his charge, merely in the hope, through +his treatment, of by and by selling her, as she had been bought, +for a faultless animal, but at a far better price. + + + +CHAPTER II: THE LIBRARY + + +When she had finished her oats, Malcolm left her busy with her hay, +for she was a huge eater, and went into the house, passing through +the kitchen and ascending a spiral stone stair to the library--the +only room not now dismantled. As he went along the narrow passage +on the second floor leading to it from the head of the stair, the +housekeeper, Mrs Courthope, peeped after him from one of the many +bedrooms opening upon it, and watched him as he went, nodding her +head two or three times with decision: he reminded her so strongly +--not of his father, the last marquis, but the brother who had +preceded him, that she felt all but certain, whoever might be his +mother, he had as much of the Colonsay blood in his veins as any +marquis of them all. It was in consideration of this likeness that +Mr Crathie had permitted the youth, when his services were not +required, to read in the library. + +Malcolm went straight to a certain corner, and from amongst a dingy +set of old classics took down a small Greek book, in large type. +It was the manual of that slave among slaves, that noble among the +free, Epictetus. He was no great Greek scholar, but, with the help +of the Latin translation, and the gloss of his own rath experience, +he could lay hold of the mind of that slave of a slave, whose very +slavery was his slave to carry him to the heights of freedom. It was +not Greek he cared for, but Epictetus. It was but little he read, +however, for the occurrence of the morning demanded, compelled +thought. Mr Crathie's behaviour caused him neither anger nor +uneasiness, but it rendered necessary some decision with regard to +the ordering of his future. + +I can hardly say he recalled how, on his deathbed, the late marquis, +about three months before, having, with all needful observances, +acknowledged him his son, had committed to his trust the welfare +of his sister; for the memory of this charge was never absent from +his feeling even when not immediately present to his thought. But +although a charge which he would have taken upon him all the same +had his father not committed it to him, it was none the less a +source of perplexity upon which as yet all his thinking had let in +but little light. For to appear as Marquis of Lossie was not merely +to take from his sister the title she supposed her own, but to +declare her illegitimate, seeing that, unknown to the marquis, the +youth's mother, his first wife, was still alive when Florimel was +born. How to act so that as little evil as possible might befall +the favourite of his father, and one whom he had himself loved with +the devotion almost of a dog, before he knew she was his sister, +was the main problem. + +For himself, he had had a rough education, and had enjoyed it: his +thoughts were not troubled about his own prospects. Mysteriously +committed to the care of a poor blind Highland piper, a stranger +from inland regions, settled amongst a fishing people, he had, as +he grew up, naturally fallen into their ways of life and labour, +and but lately abandoned the calling of a fisherman to take charge +of the marquis's yacht, whence, by degrees, he had, in his helpfulness, +grown indispensable to him and his daughter, and had come to live +in the house of Lossie as a privileged servant. His book education, +which he owed mainly to the friendship of the parish schoolmaster, +although nothing marvellous, or in Scotland very peculiar, had +opened for him in all directions doors of thought and inquiry, but +the desire of knowledge was in his case, again through the influences +of Mr Graham, subservient to an almost restless yearning after +the truth of things, a passion so rare that the ordinary mind can +hardly master even the fact of its existence. + +The Marchioness of Lossie, as she was now called, for the family +was one of the two or three in Scotland in which the title descends +to an heiress, had left Lossie House almost immediately upon her +father's death, under the guardianship of a certain dowager countess. +Lady Bellair had taken her first to Edinburgh, and then to London. +Tidings of her Malcolm occasionally received through Mr Soutar of +Duff Harbour, the lawyer the marquis had employed to draw up the +papers substantiating the youth's claim. The last amounted to this, +that, as rapidly as the proprieties of mourning would permit, she +was circling the vortex of the London season; and Malcolm was now +almost in despair of ever being of the least service to her as +a brother to whom as a servant he had seemed at one time of daily +necessity. If he might but once be her skipper, her groom, her +attendant, he might then at least learn how to discover to her +the bond between them, without breaking it in the very act, and so +ruining the hope of service to follow. + + + +CHAPTER III: MISS HORN + + +The door opened, and in walked a tall, gaunt, hard featured woman, +in a huge bonnet, trimmed with black ribbons, and a long black net +veil, worked over with sprigs, coming down almost to her waist. She +looked stern, determined, almost fierce, shook hands with a sort +of loose dissatisfaction, and dropped into one of the easy chairs +in which the library abounded. With the act the question seemed +shot from her--"Duv ye ca' yersel' an honest man, noo, Ma'colm?" + +"I ca' myself naething," answered the youth; "but I wad fain be +what ye say, Miss Horn." + +"Ow! I dinna doobt ye wadna steal, nor yet tell lees aboot a horse: +I ha'e jist come frae a sair waggin' o' tongues about ye. Mistress +Crathie tells me her man's in a sair vex 'at ye winna tell a wordless +lee aboot the black mere: that's what I ca't--no her. But lee it +wad be, an' dinna ye aither wag or haud a leein' tongue. A gentleman +maunna lee, no even by sayin' naething--na, no gien 't war to +win intill the kingdom. But, Guid be thankit, that's whaur leears +never come. Maybe ye're thinkin' I ha'e sma' occasion to say sic +like to yersel'. An' yet what's yer life but a lee, Ma'colm? You +'at's the honest Marquis o' Lossie to waur yer time an' the stren'th +o' yer boady an' the micht o' yer sowl tyauvin' (wrestling) wi' a +deevil o' a she horse, whan there's that half sister o' yer' ain +gauin' to the verra deevil o' perdition himsel' amang the godless +gentry o' Lon'on!" + +"What wad ye ha'e me un'erstan' by that, Miss Horn?" returned +Malcolm. "I hear no ill o' her. I daursay she's no jist a sa'nt +yet, but that's no to be luiked for in ane o' the breed: they maun +a' try the warl' first ony gait. There's a heap o' fowk--an' no +aye the warst, maybe," continued Malcolm, thinking of his father, +"'at wull ha'e their bite o' the aipple afore they spite it oot. +But for my leddy sister, she's owre prood ever to disgrace hersel'." + +"Weel, maybe, gien she bena misguidit by them she's wi'. But I'm +no sae muckle concernt aboot her. Only it's plain 'at ye ha'e no +richt to lead her intill temptation." + +"Hoo am I temptin' at her, mem?" + +"That's plain to half an e'e. Ir ye no lattin' her live believin' +a lee? Ir ye no allooin' her to gang on as gien she was somebody +mair nor mortal, when ye ken she's nae mair Marchioness o' Lossie +nor ye're the son o' auld Duncan MacPhail? Faith, ye ha'e lost +trowth gien ye ha'e gaint the warl' i' the cheenge o' forbeirs!" + +"Mint at naething again the deid, mem. My father's gane till's +accoont; an it's weel for him he has his father an' no his sister +to pronoonce upo' him." + +"'Deed ye're right there, laddie," said Miss Horn, in a subdued +tone. + +"He's made it up wi' my mither afore noo, I'm thinkin'; an' ony +gait he confesst her his wife an' me her son afore he dee'd, an' +what mair had he time to du?" + +"It's fac'," returned Miss Horn. "An' noo luik at yersel': what yer +father confesst wi' the verra deid thraw o' a labourin' speerit, to +the whilk naething cud ha'e broucht him but the deid thraws (death +struggles) o' the bodily natur' an' the fear o' hell, that same +confession ye row up again i' the cloot o' secrecy, in place o' +dightin' wi' 't the blot frae the memory o' ane wha I believe I +lo'ed mair as my third cousin nor ye du as yer ain mither!" + +"There's no blot upo' her memory, mem," returned the youth, "or I +wad be markis the morn. There's never a sowl kens she was mither +but kens she was wife--ay, an' whase wife, tu." + +Miss Horn had neither wish nor power to reply, and changed her +front. + +"An' sae, Ma'colm Colonsay," she said, "ye ha'e no less nor made +up yer min' to pass yer days in yer ain stable, neither better nor +waur than an ostler at the Lossie Airms, an' that efter a' 'at I +ha'e borne an' dune to mak a gentleman o' ye, bairdin' yer father +here like a verra lion in 's den, an' garrin' him confess the thing +again' ilka hair upon the stiff neck o' 'im? Losh, laddie! it was +a pictur' to see him stan'in wi' 's back to the door like a camstairy +(obstinate) bullock!" + +"Haud yer tongue, mem, gien ye please. I canna bide to hear my +father spoken o' like that. For ye see I lo'ed him afore I kent he +was ony drap 's blude to me." + +"Weel, that's verra weel; but father an' mither's man and wife, +an' ye camna o' a father alane." + +"That's true, mem, an' it canna be I sud ever forget yon face ye +shawed me i' the coffin, the bonniest, sairest sicht I ever saw," +returned Malcolm, with a quaver in his voice. + +"But what for cairry yer thouchts to the deid face o' her? Ye kent +the leevin' ane weel," objected Miss Horn. + +"That's true, mem; but the deid face maist blottit the leevin' oot +o' my brain." + +"I'm sorry for that.--Eh, laddie, but she was bonny to see!" + +"I aye thoucht her the bonniest leddy I ever set e'e upo'. An' dinna +think, mem, I'm gaein to forget the deid, 'cause I'm mair concemt +aboot the leevin'. I tell ye I jist dinna ken what to du. What +wi' my father's deein' words committin' her to my chairge, an' the +more than regaird I ha'e to Leddy Florimel hersel', I'm jist whiles +driven to ane mair. Hoo can I tak the verra sunsheen oot o' her life +'at I lo'ed afore I kent she was my ain sister, an' jist thoucht +lang to win near eneuch till to du her ony guid turn worth duin? An' +here I am, her ane half brither, wi' naething i' my pooer but to +scaud the hert o' her, or else lee! Supposin' she was weel merried +first, hoo wad she stan' wi' her man whan he cam to ken 'at she +was nae marchioness--hed no lawfu' richt to ony name but her +mither's? An' afore that, what richt cud I ha'e to alloo ony man +to merry her ohn kent the trowth aboot her? Faith, it wad be a fine +chance though for the fin'in' oot whether or no the man was worthy +o' her! But, ye see that micht be to make a playock o' her hert. +Puir thing, she luiks doon upo' me frae the tap o' her bonny neck, +as frae a h'avenly heicht; but I s' lat her ken yet, gien only I +can win at the gait o' 't, that I ha'ena come nigh her for naething." + +He gave a sigh with the words, and a pause followed. + +"The trowth's the trowth," resumed Miss Horn, "neither mair nor +less." + +"Ay," responded Malcolm; "but there's a richt an' a wrang time for +the telling' o' 't. It's no as gien I had had han' or tongue in +ony foregane lee. It was naething o' my duin', as ye ken, mem. To +mysel', I was never onything but a fisherman born. I confess 'at +whiles, when we wad be lyin' i' the lee o' the nets, tethered to +them like, wi' the win' blawin' strong 'an steady, I ha'e thocht +wi' mysel' 'at I kent naething aboot my father, an' what gien it +sud turn oot 'at I was the son o' somebody--what wad I du wi' my +siller?" + +"An' what thoucht ye ye wad du, laddie?" asked Miss Horn gently. + +"What but bigg a harbour at Scaurnose for the puir fisher fowk 'at +was like my ain flesh and blude!" + +"Weel," rejoined Miss Horn eagerly, "div ye no look upo' that as a +voo to the Almichty--a voo 'at ye're bun' to pay, noo 'at ye ha'e +yer wuss? An' it's no merely 'at ye ha'e the means, but there's no +anither that has the richt; for they're yer ain fowk, 'at ye gaither +rent frae, an 'at's been for mony a generation sattlet upo' yer +lan'--though for the maitter o' the lan', they ha'e had little +mair o' that than the birds o' the rock ha'e ohn feued--an' them +honest fowks wi' wives an' sowls o' their ain! Hoo upo' airth are +ye to du yer duty by them, an' render yer accoont at the last, +gien ye dinna tak till ye yer pooer an' reign? Ilk man 'at 's in +ony sense a king o' men is bun' to reign ower them in that sense. +I ken little aboot things mysel', an' I ha'e no feelin's to guide +me, but I ha'e a wheen cowmon sense, an' that maun jist stan' for +the lave." + +A silence followed. + +"What for speak na ye, Ma'colm?" said Miss Horn, at length. + +"I was jist tryin'," he answered, "to min' upon a twa lines 'at I +cam' upo' the ither day in a buik 'at Maister Graham gied me afore +he gaed awa--'cause I reckon he kent them a' by hert. They say +jist sic like's ye been sayin', mem--gien I cud but min' upo' +them. They're aboot a man 'at aye does the richt gait--made by +ane they ca' Wordsworth." + +"I ken naething aboot him," said Miss Horn, with emphasized +indifference. + +"An' I ken but little: I s' ken mair or lang though. This is hoo +the piece begins: + +Who is the happy warrior? Who is he +That every Man in arms should wish to be?-- +It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought +Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought +Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought. + +--There! that's what ye wad hae o' me, mem!" + +"Hear till him!" cried Miss Horn. "The man's i' the richt, though +naebody never h'ard o' 'im. Haud ye by that, Ma'colm, an' dinna ye +rist till ye ha'e biggit a harbour to the men an' women o' Scaurnose. +Wha kens hoo mony may gang to the boddom afore it be dune, jist +for the want o' 't?" + +"The fundation maun be laid in richteousness, though, mem, else-- +what gien 't war to save lives better lost?" + +"That belangs to the Michty," said Miss Horn. + +"Ay, but the layin' o' the fundation belangs to me. An' I'll no +du't till I can du't ohn ruint my sister." + +"Weel, there's ae thing clear: ye'll never ken what to do sae lang's +ye hing on aboot a stable, fu' o' fower fittet animals wantin' +sense--an' some twa fittet 'at has less." + +"I doobt ye're richt there, mem; and gien I cud but tak puir Kelpie +awa' wi' me--" + +"Hoots! I'm affrontit wi ye. Kelpie--quo he! Preserve's a'! The +laad 'ill lat his ain sister gang, an' bide at hame wi' a mere!" + +Malcolm held his peace. + +"Ay, I'm thinkin' I maun gang," he said at length. + +"Whaur till, than?" asked Miss Horn. + +"Ow! to Lon'on--whaur ither?" + +"And what'll yer lordship du there?" + +"Dinna say lordship to me, mem, or I'll think ye're jeerin' at me. +What wad the caterpillar say," he added, with a laugh, "gien ye +ca'd her my leddie Psyche?" + +Malcolm of course pronounced the Greek word in Scotch fashion. + +"I ken naething aboot yer Seechies or yer Sukies," rejoined Miss +Horn. "I ken 'at ye're bun' to be a lord and no a stableman, an' +I s' no lat ye rist till ye up an' say what neist?" + +"It's what I ha'e been sayin' for the last three month," said +Malcolm. + +"Ay, I daursay; but ye ha'e been sayin' 't upo' the braid o' yer +back, and I wad ha'e ye up an' sayin' 't." + +"Gien I but kent what to du!" said Malcolm, for the thousandth +time. + +"Ye can at least gang whaur ye ha'e a chance o' learnin'," returned +his friend.--"Come an' tak yer supper wi' me the nicht--a +rizzart haddie an' an egg, an' I'll tell ye mair aboot yer mither." + +But Malcolm avoided a promise, lest it should interfere with what +he might find best to do. + + + +CHAPTER IV: KELPIE'S AIRING + + +When Miss Horn left him--with a farewell kindlier than her +greeting--rendered yet more restless by her talk, he went back +to the stable, saddled Kelpie, and took her out for an airing. + +As he passed the factor's house, Mrs Crathie saw him from the +window. Her colour rose. She arose herself also, and looked after +him from the door--a proud and peevish woman, jealous of her +husband's dignity, still more jealous of her own. + +"The verra image o' the auld markis!" she said to herself; for in +the recesses of her bosom she spoke the Scotch she scorned to utter +aloud; "and sits jist like himsel', wi' a wee stoop i' the saiddle, +and ilka noo an' than a swing o' his haill boady back, as gien some +thoucht had set him straught.--Gien the fractious brute wad but +brak a bane or twa o' him!" she went on in growing anger. "The +impidence o' the fallow! He has his leave: what for disna he tak' +it an' gang? But oot o' this gang he sail. To ca' a man like mine a +heepocreet 'cause he wadna procleem till a haul market ilka secret +fau't o' the horse he had to sell! Haith, he cam' upo' the wrang +side o' the sheet to play the lord and maister here! and that I +can tell him!" + +The mare was fresh, and the roads through the policy hard both +by nature and by frost, so that he could not let her go, and had +enough to do with her. He turned, therefore, towards the sea gate, +and soon reached the shore. There, westward of the Seaton, where +the fisher folk lived, the sand lay smooth, flat, and wet along the +edge of the receding tide: he gave Kelpie the rein, and she sprang +into a wild gallop, every now and then flinging her heels as high +as her rider's head. But finding, as they approached the stony +part from which rose the great rock called the Bored Craig, that +he could not pull her up in time, he turned her head towards the +long dune of sand which, a little beyond the tide, ran parallel +with the shore. It was dry and loose, and the ascent steep. Kelpie's +hoofs sank at every step, and when she reached the top, with wide +spread struggling haunches, and "nostrils like pits full of blood +to the brim," he had her in hand. She stood panting, yet pawing +and dancing, and making the sand fly in all directions. + +Suddenly a woman with a child in her arms rose, as it seemed to +Malcolm, under Kelpie's very head. She wheeled and reared, and, +in wrath or in terror, strained every nerve to unseat her rider, +while, whether from faith or despair, the woman stood still as a +statue, staring at the struggle. + +"Haud awa' a bit, Lizzy," cried Malcolm. "She's a mad brute, an' +I mayna be able to haud her. Ye ha'e the bairnie, ye see!" + +She was a young woman, with a sad white face. To what Malcolm said +she paid no heed, but stood with her child in her arms and gazed +at Kelpie as she went on plunging and kicking about on the top of +the dune. + +"I reckon ye wadna care though the she deevil knockit oot yer harns; +but ye ha'e the bairn, woman! Ha'e mercy on the bairn, an' rin +to the boddom." + +"I want to speak to ye, Ma'colm MacPhail," she said, in a tone +whose very stillness revealed a depth of trouble. + +"I doobt I canna hearken to ye richt the noo," said Malcolm. "But +bide a wee." He swung himself from Kelpie's back, and, hanging hard +on the bit with one hand, searched with the other in the pocket of +his coat, saying, as he did so--"Sugar, Kelpie! sugar!" + +The animal gave an eager snort, settled on her feet, and began +snuffing about him. He made haste, for, if her eagerness should +turn to impatience, she would do her endeavour to bite him. After +crunching three or four lumps, she stood pretty quiet, and Malcolm +must make the best of what time she would give him. + +"Noo, Lizzy!" he said hurriedly. "Speyk while ye can." + +"Ma'colm," said the girl, and looked him full in the face for a +moment, for agony had overcome shame; then her gaze sought the far +horizon, which to seafaring people is as the hills whence cometh +their aid to the people who dwell among mountains; "--Ma'colm, +he's gaein' to merry Leddy Florimel." + +Malcolm started. Could the girl have learned more concerning his +sister than had yet reached himself? A fine watching over her was +his, truly! But who was this he? + +Lizzy had never uttered the name of the father of her child, and +all her people knew was that he could not be a fisherman, for then +he would have married her before the child was born. But Malcolm +had had a suspicion from the first, and now her words all but +confirmed it.--And was that fellow going to marry his sister? He +turned white with dismay--then red with anger, and stood speechless. + +But he was quickly brought to himself by a sharp pinch under the +shoulder blade from Kelpie's long teeth: he had forgotten her, and +she had taken the advantage. + +"Wha tellt ye that, Lizzy?" he said. + +"I'm no at leeberty to say, Ma'colm, but I'm sure it's true, an' +my hert's like to brak." + +"Puir lassie!" said Malcolm, whose own trouble had never at any +time rendered him insensible to that of others. "But is't onybody +'at kens what he says?" he pursued. + +"Weel, I dinna jist richtly ken gien she kens, but I think she +maun ha'e gude rizzon, or she wadna say as she says. Oh me! me! +my bairnie 'ill be scornin' me sair whan he comes to ken. Ma'colm, +ye're the only ane 'at disna luik doon upo' me, an whan ye cam' +ower the tap o' the Boar's Tail, it was like an angel in a fire +flaucht, an' something inside me said--Tell 'im; tell 'im; an' +sae I bude to tell ye." + +Malcolm was even too simple to feel flattered by the girl's confidence, +though to be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved. + +"Hearken, Lizzy!" he said. "I canna e'en think, wi' this brute ready +ilka meenute to ate me up. I maun tak' her hame. Efter that, gien +ye wad like to tell me onything, I s' be at yer service. Bide aboot +here--or, luik ye: here's the key o' yon door; come throu' that +intil the park--throu' aneth the toll ro'd, ye ken. There ye'll +get into the lythe (lee) wi' the bairnie; an' I'll be wi' ye in a +quarter o' an hoor. It'll tak' me but twa meenutes to gang hame. +Stoat 'ill put up the mere, and I'll be back--I can du't in ten +meenutes." + +"Eh! dinna hurry for me, Ma'colm: I'm no worth it," said Lizzy. + +But Malcolm was already at full speed along the top of the dune. + +"Lord preserve 's!" cried Lizzy, when she saw him clear the brass +swivel. "Sic a laad as that is! Eh, he maun ha'e a richt lass to +lo'e him some day! It's a' ane to him, boat or beast. He wadna turn +frae the deil himsel'. An syne he's jist as saft's a deuk's neck +when he speyks till a wuman or a bairn--ay, or an auld man aither!" + +And full of trouble as it was about another, Lizzy's heart yet +ached at the thought that she should be so unworthy of one like +him. + + + +CHAPTER V: LIZZY FINDLAY + + +From the sands she saw him gain the turnpike road with a bound and +a scramble. Crossing it he entered the park by the sea gate; she +had to enter it by the tunnel that passed under the same road. +She approached the grated door, unlocked it, and looked in with +a shudder. It was dark, the other end of it being obscured by +trees, and the roots of the hill on whose top stood the temple of +the winds. Through the tunnel blew what seemed quite another wind +--one of death, from regions beneath. She drew her shawl, one end +of which was rolled about her baby, closer around them both ere +she entered. Never before had she set foot within the place, and +a strange horror of it filled her: she did not know that by that +passage, on a certain lovely summer night, Lord Meikleham had issued +to meet her on the sands under the moon. The sea was not terrible +to her; she knew all its ways nearly as well as Malcolm knew the +moods of Kelpie; but the earth and its ways were less known to her, +and to turn her face towards it and enter by a little door into its +bosom was like a visit to her grave. But she gathered her strength, +entered with a shudder, passed in growing hope and final safety +through it, and at the other end came out again into the light, +only the cold of its death seemed to cling to her still. But the +day had grown colder; the clouds that, seen or unseen, ever haunt +the winter sun, had at length caught and shrouded him, and through +the gathering vapours he looked ghastly. The wind blew from the +sea. The tide was going down. There was snow in the air. The thin +leafless trees were all bending away from the shore, and the wind +went sighing, hissing, and almost wailing through their bare boughs +and budless twigs. There would be a storm, she thought, ere the +morning, but none of their people were out. + +Had there been--well, she had almost ceased to care about +anything, and her own life was so little to her now, that she had +become less able to value that of other people. To this had the +ignis fatuus of a false love brought her! She had dreamed heedlessly, +to awake sorrowfully. But not until she heard he was going to be +married, had she come right awake, and now she could dream no more. +Alas! alas! what claim had she upon him? How could she tell, since +such he was, what poor girl like herself she might not have robbed +of her part in him? + +Yet even in the midst of her misery and despair, it was some +consolation to think that Malcolm was her friend. + +Not knowing that he had already suffered from the blame of her +fault, or the risk at which he met her, she would have gone. towards +the house to meet him the sooner, had not this been a part of the +grounds where she knew Mr Crathie tolerated no one without express +leave given. The fisher folk in particular must keep to the road +by the other side of the burn, to which the sea gate admitted them. +Lizzy therefore lingered near the tunnel, afraid of being seen. + +Mr Crathie was a man who did well under authority, but upon the +top of it was consequential, overbearing, and far more exacting than +the marquis. Full of his employer's importance when he was present, +and of his own when he was absent, he was yet in the latter +circumstances so doubtful of its adequate recognition by those +under him, that he had grown very imperious, and resented with +indignation the slightest breach of his orders. Hence he was in no +great favour with the fishers. + +Now all the day he had been fuming over Malcolm's behaviour to him +in the morning, and when he went home and learned that his wife +had seen him upon Kelpie, as if nothing had happened, he became +furious, and, in this possession of the devil, was at the present +moment wandering about the grounds, brooding on the words Malcolm +had spoken. He could not get rid of them. They caused an acrid +burning in his bosom, for they had in them truth, like which no +poison stings. + +Malcolm, having crossed by the great bridge at the house, hurried +down the western side of the burn to find Lizzy, and soon came upon +her, walking up and down. + +"Eh, lassie, ye maun be cauld!" he said. + +"No that cauld," she answered, and with the words burst into tears: +"But naebody says a kin' word to me noo," she said in excuse, "an' +I canna weel bide the soun' o' ane when it comes; I'm no used till +'t." + +"Naebody?" exclaimed Malcolm. + +"Na, naebody," she answered. "My mither winna, my father daurna, +an' the bairnie canna, an I gang near naebody forbye." + +"Weel, we maunna stan' oot here i' the cauld: come this gait," said +Malcolm. "The bairnie 'll get its deid." + +"There wadna be mony to greit at that," returned Lizzy, and pressed +the child closer to her bosom. + +Malcolm led the way to the little chamber contrived under the temple +in the heart of the hill, and unlocking the door made her enter. +There he seated her in a comfortable chair, and wrapped her in the +plaid he had brought for the purpose. It was all he could do to +keep from taking her in his arms for very pity, for, both body and +soul, she seemed too frozen to shiver. He shut the door, sat down +on the table near her, and said: + +"There's naebody to disturb 's here, Lizzy: what wad ye say to me +noo?" + +The sun was nearly down, and its light already almost smothered in +clouds, so that the little chamber, whose door and window were in +the deep shadow of the hill, was nearly dark. + +"I wadna hae ye tell me onything ye promised no to tell," resumed +Malcolm, finding she did not reply, "but I wad like to hear as +muckle as ye can say." + +"I hae naething to tell ye, Ma'colm, but jist 'at my leddy Florimel's +gauin' to be merried upo' Lord Meikleham--Lord Liftore, they ca' +him noo. Hech me!" + +"God forbid she sud be merried upon ony sic a bla'guard!" cried +Malcolm. + +"Dinna ca' 'im ill names, Ma'colm. I canna bide it, though I hae +no richt to tak up the stick for him." + +"I wadna say a word 'at micht fa' sair on a sair hert," he returned; +"but gien ye kent a', ye wad ken I hed a gey sized craw to pluck +wi' 's lordship mysel'." + +The girl gave a low cry. + +"Ye wadna hurt 'im, Ma'colm?" she said, in terror at the thought +of the elegant youth in the clutches of an angry fisherman, even +if he were the generous Malcolm MacPhail himself. + +"I wad raither not," he replied, "but we maun see hoo he cairries +himsel'." + +"Du naething till 'im for my sake, Ma'colm. Ye can hae naething +again' him yersel'." + +It was too dark for Malcolm to see the keen look of wistful regret +with which Lizzy tried to pierce the gloom and read his face: for +a moment the poor girl thought he meant he had loved her himself. +But far other thoughts were in Malcolm's mind: one was that her +whom, as a scarce approachable goddess, he had loved before he knew +her of his own blood, he would rather see married to an honest +fisherman in the Seaton of Portlossie, than to such a lord as +Meikleham. He had seen enough of him at Lossie House to know what +he was, and puritanical fish catching Malcolm had ideas above +those of most marquises of his day: the thought of the alliance +was horrible to him. It was possibly not inevitable, however; only +what could he do, and at the same time avoid grievous hurt? + +"I dinna think he'll ever merry my leddy," he said. + +"What gars ye say that, Ma'colm?" returned Lizzy, with eagerness. + +"I canna tell ye jist i' the noo; but ye ken a body canna weel +be aye aboot a place ohn seein things. I'll tell ye something o' +mair consequence hooever," he continued. . "Some fowk say there's +a God, an' some say there's nane, an' I ha'e no richt to preach to +ye, Lizzy; but I maun jist tell ye this--'at gien God dinna help +them 'at cry till 'im i' the warst o' tribles, they micht jist as +weel ha'e nae God at a'. For my ain pairt I ha'e been helpit, an' +I think it was him intil 't. Wi' his help, a man may warstle throu' +onything. I say I think it was himsel' tuik me throu' 't, an' here +I stan' afore ye, ready for the neist trible, an' the help 'at 'll +come wi' 't. What it may be, God only knows!" + + + +CHAPTER VI: MR CRATHIE + + +He was interrupted by the sudden opening of the door, and the voice +of the factor in exultant wrath. + +"MacPhail!" it cried. "Come out with you. Don't think to sneak +there. I know you. What right have you to be on the premises? Didn't +I send you about your business this morning?" + +"Ay, sir, but ye didna pay me my wages," said Malcolm, who had +sprung to the door and now stood holding it half shut, while Mr +Crathie pushed it half open. + +"No matter. You're nothing better than a housebreaker if you enter +any building about the place." + +"I brak nae lock," returned Malcolm. "I ha'e the key my lord gae +me to ilka place 'ithin the wa's excep' the strong room." + +"Give it me directly. I'm master here now." + +"'Deed, I s' du nae sic thing, sir. What he gae me I'll keep." + +"Give up that key, or I'll go at once and get a warrant against +you for theft." + +"Weel, we s' refar't to Maister Soutar." + +"Damn your impudence--'at I sud say't!--what has he to do with +my affairs? Come out of that directly." + +"Huly, huly, sir!" returned Malcolm, in terror lest he should +discover who was with him. + +"You low bred rascal! Who have you there with you?" + +As he spoke Mr Crathie would have forced his way into the dusky +chamber, where he could just perceive a motionless undefined +form. But stiff as a statue Malcolm kept his stand, and the door +was immovable. Mr Crathie gave a second and angrier push, but the +youth's corporeal as well as his mental equilibrium was hard to +upset, and his enemy drew back in mounting fury. + +"Get out of there," he cried, "or I'll horsewhip you for a damned +blackguard." + +"Whup awa'," said Malcolm, "but in here ye s' no come the nicht." + +The factor rushed at him, his heavy whip upheaved--and the same +moment found himself, not in the room, but lying on the flower bed +in front of it. Malcolm instantly stepped out, locked the door, +put the key in his pocket, and turned to assist him. But he was up +already, and busy with words unbefitting the mouth of an elder of +the kirk. + +"Didna I say 'at ye sudna come in, sir? What for wull fowk no tak' +a tellin'?" expostulated Malcolm. + +But the factor was far beyond force of logic or illumination of +reason. He raved and swore. + +"Get oot o' my sicht," he cried, "or I'll shot ye like a tyke." + +"Gang an' fess yer gun," said Malcolm, "an' gien ye fin' me waitin' +for ye, ye can lat at me." + +The factor uttered a horrible imprecation on himself if he did not +make him pay dearly for his behaviour. + +"Hoots, sir! Be asham't o' yersel'. Gang hame to the mistress, an' +I s' be up the morn's mornin' for my wages." + +"If ye set foot on the grounds again, I'll set every dog in the +place upon you." + +Malcolm laughed. + +"Gien I was to turn the order the ither gait, wad they min' you or +me, div ye think, Maister Crathie?" + +"Give me that key, and go about your business." + +"Na, na, sir! What my lord gae me I s' keep--for a' the factors +atween this an' the Land's En'," returned Malcolm. "An' for lea'in' +the place, gien I be na in your service, Maister Crathie, I'm nae +un'er your orders. I'll gang whan it shuits me. An' mair yet, ye +s' gang oot o' this first, or I s' gar ye, an that ye'll see." + +It was a violent proceeding, but for a matter of manners he was +not going to risk what of her good name poor Lizzy had left: like +the books of the Sibyl, that grew in value. He made, however, but +one threatful stride towards the factor, for the great man turned +and fled. + +The moment he was out of sight, Malcolm unlocked the door, led +Lizzy out, and brought her through the tunnel to the sands. There +he left her, and set out for Scaurnose. + + + +CHAPTER VII: BLUE PETER + + +The door of Blue Peter's cottage was opened by his sister. Not +much at home in the summer, when she carried fish to the country, +she was very little absent in the winter, and as there was but one +room for all uses, except the closet bedroom and the garret at the +top of the ladder, Malcolm, instead of going in, called to his +friend, whom he saw by the fire with his little Phemy upon his +knee, to come out and speak to him. + +Blue Peter at once obeyed the summons. + +"There's naething wrang, I houp, Ma'colm?" he said, as he closed +the door behind him. + +"Maister Graham wad say," returned Malcolm, "naething ever was +wrang but what ye did wrang yersel', or wadna pit richt whan ye +had a chance. I ha'e him nae mair to gang till, Joseph, an' sae I'm +come to you. Come doon by, an' i' the scoug o' a rock, I'll tell +ye a' aboot it." + +"Ye wadna ha'e the mistress no ken o' 't?" said his friend. "I +dinna jist like haein' secrets frae her." + +"Ye sall jeedge for yersel', man, an' tell her or no just as ye +like. Only she maun haud her tongue, or the black dog 'll ha'e a' +the butter." + +"She can haud her tongue like the tae stane o' a grave," said Peter. + +As they spoke they reached the cliff that hung over the shattered +shore. It was a clear, cold night. Snow, the remnants of the last +storm, which frost had preserved in every shadowy spot, lay all +about them. The sky was clear, and full of stars, for the wind +that blew cold from the northwest had dispelled the snowy clouds. +The waves rushed into countless gulfs and crannies and straits +on the ruggedest of shores, and the sounds of waves and wind kept +calling like voices from the unseen. By a path, seemingly fitter +for goats than men, they descended halfway to the beach, and under +a great projection of rock stood sheltered from the wind. Then +Malcolm turned to Joseph Mair, commonly called Blue Peter, because +he had been a man of war's man, and laying his hand on his arm +said: + +"Blue Peter, did ever I tell ye a lee?" + +"No, never," answered Peter. "What gars ye speir sic a thing?" + +"Cause I want ye to believe me noo, an' it winna be easy." + +"I'll believe onything ye tell me--'at can be believed." + +"Weel, I ha'e come to the knowledge 'at my name's no MacPhail: it's +Colonsay. Man, I'm the Markis o' Lossie." + +Without a moment's hesitation, without a single stare of unbelief +or even astonishment, Blue Peter pulled off his bonnet, and stood +bareheaded before the companion of his toils. + +"Peter!" cried Malcolm, "dinna brak my hert: put on yer bonnet." + +"The Lord o' lords be thankit, my lord!" said Blue Peter: "the puir +man has a freen' this day." + +Then replacing his bonnet he said--"An' what'll be yer lordship's +wull?" + +"First and foremost, Peter, that my best freen', efter my auld +daddy and the schulemaister, 's no to turn again' me 'cause I hed +a markis an' neither piper nor fisher to my father." + +"It's no like it, my lord," returned Blue Peter, "whan the first +thing I say is--what wad ye ha'e o' me? Here I am--no speirin' +a queston!" + +"Weel, I wad ha'e ye hear the story o' 't a'." + +"Say on, my lord," said Peter. + +But Malcolm was silent for a few moments. + +"I was thinkin', Peter," he said at last, "whether I cud bide to +hear you say my lord to me. Dootless, as it 'll ha'e to come to +that, it wad be better to grow used till 't while we're thegither, +sae 'at whan it maun be, it mayna ha'e the luik o' cheenge until +it, for cheenge is jist the thing I canna bide. I' the meantime, +hooever, we canna gi'e in till 't, 'cause it wad set fowk jaloosin'. +But I wad be obleeged till ye, Peter, gien you wad say my lord +whiles, whan we're oor lanes, for I wad fain grow sae used till't +'at I never kent ye said it, for 'atween you an' me I dinna like +it. An' noo I s' tell ye a' 'at I ken." + +When he had ended the tale of what had come to his knowledge, and +how it had come, and paused: + +"Gie's a grup o' yer han', my lord," said Blue Peter, "an' may +God haud ye lang in life an' honour to reule ower us. Noo, gien ye +please, what are ye gauin' to du?" + +"Tell ye me, Peter, what ye think I oucht to du." + +"That wad tak a heap o' thinkin'," returned the fisherman; "but +ae thing seems aboot plain: ye ha'e no richt to lat yer sister +gang exposed to temptations ye cud haud frae her. That's no, as +ye promised, to be kin' till her. I canna believe that's hoo yer +father expeckit o' ye. I ken weel 'at fowk in his poseetion ha'ena +the preevileeges o' the like o' hiz--they ha'ena the win, an' the +watter, an' whiles a lee shore to gar them know they are but men, +an' sen' them rattling at the wicket of h'aven; but still I dinna +think, by yer ain accoont, specially noo 'at I houp he's forgi'en +an' latten in--God grant it!--I div not think he wad like my +leddy Florimel to be oon'er the influences o' sic a ane as that +Leddy Bellair. Ye maun gang till her. Ye ha'e nae ch'ice, my lord." + +"But what am I to do, whan I div gang?" + +"That's what ye hev to gang an' see." + +"An' that's what I ha'e been tellin' mysel', an' what Miss Horn's +been tellin' me tu. But it's a gran' thing to get yer ain thouchts +corroborat. Ye see I'm feart for wrangin' her for pride, and bringin' +her doon to set mysel' up." + +"My lord," said Blue Peter, solemnly, "ye ken the life o' puir +fisher fowk; ye ken hoo it micht be lichtened, sae lang as it laists, +an' mony a hole steikit 'at the cauld deith creeps in at the noo: +coont ye them naething, my lord? Coont ye the wull o' Providence, +'at sets ye ower them, naething? What for could the Lord ha'e gie +ye sic an upbringin' as no markis' son ever hed afore ye, or maybe +ever wull ha'e efter ye, gien it bena 'at ye sud tak them in han' +to du yer pairt by them? Gien ye forsak them noo, ye'll be forgettin' +him 'at made them an' you, an' the sea, an' the herrin' to be taen +intil 't. Gien ye forget them, there's nae houp for them, but the +same deith 'ill keep on swallowin' at them upo' sea an' shore." + +"Ye speyk the trowth as I ha'e spoken't till mysel', Peter. +Noo, hearken: will ye sail wi' me the nicht for Lon'on toon?" The +fisherman was silent a moment--then answered, "I wull, my lord; +but I maun tell my wife." + +"Rin, an' fess her here than, for I'm fleyed at yer sister, honest +wuman, an' little Phemy. It wad blaud a' thing gien I was hurried +to du something afore I kenned what." + +"I s' ha'e her oot in a meenute," said Joseph, and scrambled up +the cliff. + + + +CHAPTER VIII: VOYAGE TO LONDON + + +For a few minutes Malcolm stood alone in the dim starlight of +winter, looking out on the dusky sea, dark as his own future, into +which the wind now blowing behind him would soon begin to carry +him. He anticipated its difficulties, but never thought of perils: +it was seldom anything oppressed him but the doubt of what he ought +to do. This was ever the cold mist that swallowed the airy castles +he built and peopled with all the friends and acquaintances of his +youth. But the very first step towards action is the death warrant +of doubt, and the tide of Malcolm's being ran higher that night, as +he stood thus alone under the stars, than he had ever yet known it +run. With all his common sense, and the abundance of his philosophy, +which the much leisure belonging to certain phases of his life had +combined with the slow strength of his intellect to render somewhat +long winded in utterance, there was yet room in Malcolm's bonnet +for a bee above the ordinary size, and if it buzzed a little +too romantically for the taste of the nineteenth century, about +disguises and surprises and bounty and plots and rescues and such +like, something must be pardoned to one whose experience had already +been so greatly out of the common, and whose nature was far too +childlike and poetic, and developed in far too simple a surrounding of +labour and success, difficulty and conquest, danger and deliverance, +not to have more than the usual amount of what is called the romantic +in its composition. + +The buzzing of his bee was for the present interrupted by the return +of Blue Peter with his wife. She threw her arms round Malcolm's +neck, and burst into tears. + +"Hoots, my woman!" said her husband, "what are ye greitin' at?" + +"Eh, Peter!" she answered, "I canna help it. It's jist like a deith. +He's gauin' to lea' us a', an' gang hame till 's ain, an' I canna +bide 'at he sud grow strange-like to hiz 'at ha'e kenned him sae +lang." + +"It'll be an ill day," returned Malcolm, "whan I grow strange to +ony freen'. I'll ha'e to gang far down the laich (low) ro'd afore +that be poassible. I mayna aye be able to du jist what ye wad like; +but lippen ye to me: I s' be fair to ye. An' noo I want Blue Peter +to gang wi' me, an' help me to what I ha'e to du--gien ye ha'e +nae objection to lat him." + +"Na, nane ha'e I. I wad gang mysel' gien I cud be ony use," answered +Mrs Mair; "but women are i' the gait whiles." + +"Weel, I'll no even say thank ye; I'll be awin' ye that as weel's +the lave. But gien I dinna du weel, it winna be the fau't o' ane +or the ither o' you twa freen's. Noo, Peter, we maun be aff." + +"No the nicht, surely?" said Mrs Mair, a little taken by surprise. + +"The suner the better, lass," replied her husband. "An' we cudna +ha'e a better win'. Jist rin ye hame, an' get some vicktooals +thegither, an' come efter hiz to Portlossie." + +"But hoo 'ill ye get the boat to the watter ohn mair han's? I'll +need to come mysel' an' fess Jean." + +"Na, na; let Jean sit. There's plenty i' the Seaton to help. We're +gauin' to tak' the markis's cutter. She's a heap easier to lainch, +an' she'll sail a heap fester." + +"But what'll Maister Crathie say?" + +"We maun tak' oor chance o' that," answered her husband, with a +smile of confidence; and thereupon he and Malcolm set out for the +Seaton, while Mrs Mair went home to get ready some provisions for +the voyage, consisting chiefly of oatcakes. + +The prejudice against Malcolm from his imagined behaviour to Lizzy +Findlay, had by this time, partly through the assurances of Peter, +partly through the power of the youth's innocent presence, almost +died out, and when the two men reached the Seaton, they found plenty +of hands ready to help them to reach the little sloop. Malcolm said +he was going to take her to Peterhead, and they asked no questions +but such as he contrived to answer with truth, or to leave unanswered. +Once afloat, there was very little to be done to her, for she had +been laid up in perfect condition, and as soon as Mrs Mair appeared +with her basket, and they had put that, a keg of water, some +fishing lines, and a pan of mussels for bait, on board, they were +ready to sail, and wished their friends a light goodbye, leaving +them to imagine they were gone but for a day or two, probably on +some business of Mr Crathie's. + +With the wind from the northwest, they soon reached Duff Harbour, +where Malcolm went on shore and saw Mr Soutar. He, with a landsman's +prejudice, made strenuous objections to such a mad prank as sailing +to London at that time of the year, but in vain. Malcolm saw nothing +mad in it, and the lawyer had to admit he ought to know best. He +brought on board with him a lad of Peter's acquaintance, and now +fully manned, they set sail again, and by the time the sun appeared +were not far from Peterhead. + +Malcolm's spirits kept rising as they bowled along over the bright +cold waters. He never felt so capable as when at sea. His energies +had been first called out in combat with the elements, and hence +he always felt strongest, most at home, and surest of himself on +the water. Young as he was, however, such had been his training +under Mr Graham, that a large part of this elevation of spirit was +owing to an unreasoned sense of being there more immediately in the +hands of God. Later in life, he interpreted the mental condition +thus--that of course he was always and in every place equally in +God's hands, but that at sea he felt the truth more keenly. Where +a man has nothing firm under him, where his life depends on winds +invisible and waters unstable, where a single movement may be death, +he learns to feel what is at the same time just as true every night +he spends asleep in the bed in which generations have slept before +him, or any sunny hour he spends walking over ancestral acres. + +They put in at Peterhead, purchased a few provisions, and again +set sail. + +And now it seemed to Malcolm that he must soon come to a conclusion +as to the steps he must take when he reached London. But think as +he would, he could plan nothing beyond finding out where his sister +lived, going to look at the house, and getting into it if he might. +Nor could his companion help him with any suggestions, and indeed +he could not talk much with him because of the presence of Davy, +a rough, round eyed, red haired young Scot, of the dull invaluable +class that can only do what they are told, but do that to the extent +of their faculty. + +They knew all the coast as far as the Frith of Forth; after that +they had to be more careful. They had no charts on board, nor could +have made much use of any. But the wind continued favourable, and +the weather cold, bright, and full of life. They spoke many coasters +on their way, and received many directions. + +Off the Nore they had rough weather, and had to stand off and on +for a day and a night till it moderated. Then they spoke a fishing +boat, took a pilot on board, and were soon in smooth water. More +and more they wondered as the channel narrowed, and ended their +voyage at length below London Bridge, in a very jungle of masts. + + + +CHAPTER IX: LONDON STREETS + + +Leaving Davy to keep the sloop, the two fishermen went on shore. +Passing from the narrow precincts of the river, they found themselves +at once in the roar of London city. Stunned at first, then excited, +then bewildered, then dazed, without plan to guide their steps, +they wandered about until, unused to the hard stones, their feet +ached. It was a dull day in March. A keen wind blew round the +corners of the streets. They wished themselves at sea again. + +"Sic a sicht o' fowk!" said Blue Peter. + +"It's hard to think," rejoined Malcolm, "what w'y the God 'at made +them can luik efter them a' in sic a tumult. But they say even the +sheep dog kens ilk sheep i' the flock 'at 's gien him in chairge." + +"Ay, but ye see," said Blue Peter, "they're mair like a shoal o' +herrin' nor a flock o' sheep." + +"It's no the num'er o' them 'at plagues me," said Malcolm. "The +gran' diffeeculty is hoo He can lat ilk ane tak' his ain gait an' +yet luik efter them a'. But gien He does't, it stan's to rizzon it +maun be in some w'y 'at them 'at's sae luikit efter canna by ony +possibeelity un'erstan'." + +"That's trowth, I'm thinkin'. We maun jist gi'e up an' confess +there's things abune a' human comprehension." + +"Wha kens but that maybe 'cause i' their verra natur' they're ower +semple for cr'aturs like hiz 'at's made sae mixed-like, an' see +sae little intill the hert o' things?" + +"Ye're ayont me there," said Blue Peter, and a silence followed. + +It was a conversation very unsuitable to London Streets--but +then these were raw Scotch fisherman, who had not yet learned how +absurd it is to suppose ourselves come from anything greater than +ourselves, and had no conception of the liberty it confers on a man +to know that he is the child of a protoplasm, or something still +more beautifully small. + +At length a policeman directed them to a Scotch eating house, where +they fared after their country's fashions, and from the landlady +gathered directions by which to guide themselves towards Curzon +Street, a certain number in which Mr Soutar had given Malcolm as +Lady Bellair's address. + +The door was opened to Malcolm's knock by a slatternly charwoman, +who, unable to understand a word he said, would, but for its fine +frank expression, have shut the door in his face. From the expression +of hers, however, Malcolm suddenly remembered that he must speak +English, and having a plentiful store of the book sort, he at once +made himself intelligible in spite of tone and accent. It was, +however, only a shifting of the difficulty, for he now found it +nearly impossible to understand her. But by repeated questioning +and hard listening he learnt at last that Lady Bellair had removed +her establishment to Lady Lossie's house in Portland Place. + +After many curious perplexities, odd blunders, and vain endeavours +to understand shop signs and notices in the windows; after they had +again and again imagined themselves back at a place they had left +miles away; after many a useless effort to lay hold of directions +given so rapidly that the very sense could not gather the sounds, +they at length stood--not in Portland Place, but in front of +Westminster Abbey. Inquiring what it was, and finding they could +go in, they entered. + +For some moments not a word was spoken between them, but when they +had walked slowly halfway up the nave Malcolm turned and said, "Eh, +Peter! sic a blessin'!" and Peter replied, "There canna be muckle +o' this i' the warl'!" + +Comparing impressions afterwards, Peter said that the moment he +stepped in, he heard the rush of the tide on the rocks of Scaurnose; +and Malcolm declared he felt as if he had stepped out of the world +into the regions of eternal silence. + +"What a mercy it maun be," he went on, "to mony a cratur', in sic +a whummle an' a rum'le an' a remish as this Lon'on, to ken 'at +there is sic a cave howkit oot o' the din, 'at he can gang intill +an' say his prayers intill! Man, Peter! I'm jist some feared whiles +'at the verra din i' my lugs mayna 'maist drive the thoucht o' God +oot o' me." + +At length they found their way into Regent Street, and leaving +its mean assertion behind, reached the stately modesty of Portland +Place; and Malcolm was pleased to think the house he sought was +one of those he now saw. + +It was one of the largest in the Place. He would not, however, yield +to the temptation to have a good look at it, for fear of attracting +attention from its windows and being recognised. They turned therefore +aside into some of the smaller thoroughfares lying between Portland +Place and Great Portland Street, where searching about, they came +upon a decent looking public house and inquired after lodgings. +They were directed to a woman in the neighbourhood, who kept a dingy +little curiosity shop. On payment of a week's rent in advance, she +allowed them a small bedroom. But Malcolm did not want Peter with +him that night; he wished to be perfectly free; and besides it was +more than desirable that Peter should go and look after the boat +and the boy. + +Left alone he fell once more to his hitherto futile scheming: +How was he to get near his sister? To the whitest of lies he had +insuperable objection, and if he appeared before her with no reason +to give, would she not be far too offended with his presumption to +retain him in her service? And except he could be near her as her +servant, he did not see a chance of doing anything for her without +disclosing facts which might make all such service as he would most +gladly render her impossible, by causing her to hate the very sight +of him. Plan after plan rose and passed from his mind rejected, and +the only resolution he could come to was to write to Mr Soutar, to +whom he had committed the protection of Kelpie, to send her up by +the first smack from Aberdeen. He did so, and wrote also to Miss +Horn, telling her where he was, then went out, and made his way +back to Portland Place. + +Night had closed in, and thick vapours hid the moon, but lamps and +lighted windows illuminated the wide street. Presently it began +to snow. But through the snow and the night went carriages in all +directions, with great lamps that turned the flakes into white stars +for a moment as they gleamed past. The hoofs of the horses echoed +hard from the firm road. + +Could that house really belong to him? It did, yet he dared not +enter it. That which was dear and precious to him was in the house, +and just because of that he could not call it his own. There was +less light in it than in any other within his range. He walked +up and down the opposite side of the street its whole length some +fifty times, but saw no sign of vitality about the house. At length +a brougham stopped at the door, and a man got out and knocked. +Malcolm instantly crossed, but could not see his face. The door +opened, and he entered. The brougham waited. After about a quarter +of an hour he came out again, accompanied by two ladies, one of +whom he judged by her figure to be Florimel. They all got into the +carriage, and Malcolm braced himself for a terrible run. But the +coachman drove carefully, the snow lay a few inches deep, and he +found no difficulty in keeping near them, following with fleet foot +and husbanded breath. + +They stopped at the doors of a large dark looking building in a +narrow street He thought it was a church, and wondered that so his +sister should be going there on a week night. Nor did the aspect +of the entrance hall, into which he followed them, undeceive him. +It was more showy, certainly, than the vestibule of any church he +had ever been in before, but what might not churches be in London? +They went up a great flight of stairs--to reach the gallery, as +he thought, and still he went after them. When he reached the top, +they were just vanishing round a curve, and his advance was checked: +a man came up to him, said he could not come there, and gruffly +requested him to show his ticket. + +"I haven't got one. What is this place?" said Malcolm, whom the +aspect of the man had suddenly rendered doubtful, mouthing his English +with Scotch deliberation. The man gave him a look of contemptuous +surprise, and turning to another who lounged behind him with his +hands in his pockets, said--"Tom, here's a gentleman as wants to +know where he is: can you tell him?" The person addressed laughed, +and gave Malcolm a queer look. + +"Every cock crows on his own midden," said Malcolm, "but if I were +on mine, I would try to be civil." + +"You go down there, and pay for a pit ticket, and you'll soon know +where you are, mate," said Tom. + +He obeyed, and after a few inquiries, and the outlay of two +shillings, found himself in the pit of one of the largest of the +London theatres. + + + +CHAPTER X: THE TEMPEST + + +The play was begun, and the stage was the centre of light. Thither +Malcolm's eyes were drawn the instant he entered. He was all but +unaware of the multitude of faces about him, and his attention was +at once fascinated by the lovely show revealed in soft radiance. But +surely he had seen the vision before! One long moment its effect +upon him was as real as if he had been actually deceived as to +its nature: was it not the shore between Scaurnose and Portlossie, +betwixt the Boar's Tail and the sea? and was not that the marquis, +his father, in his dressing gown, pacing to and fro upon the +sands? He yielded himself to illusion--abandoned himself to the +wonderful, and looked only for what would come next. + +A lovely lady entered: to his excited fancy it was Florimel. A +moment more and she spoke. + + +If by your art, my dearest father, you have +Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. + +Then first he understood that before him rose in wondrous realization +the play of Shakspere he knew best--the first he had ever read: +The Tempest, hitherto a lovely phantom for the mind's eye, now +embodied to the enraptured sense. During the whole of the first act +he never thought either of Miranda or Florimel apart. At the same +time so taken was he with the princely carriage and utterance of +Ferdinand that, though with a sigh, he consented he should have +his sister. + +The drop scene had fallen for a minute or two before he began +to look around him. A moment more and he had commenced a thorough +search for his sister amongst the ladies in the boxes. But when at +length he found her, he dared not fix his eyes upon her lest his +gaze should make her look at him, and she should recognise him. +Alas, her eyes might have rested on him twenty times without his +face once rousing in her mind the thought of the fisher lad of +Portlossie! All that had passed between them in the days already +old was virtually forgotten. + +By degrees he gathered courage, and soon began to feel that there +was small chance indeed of her eyes alighting upon him for the +briefest of moments. Then he looked more closely, and felt through +rather than saw with his eyes that some sort of change had already +passed upon her. It was Florimel, yet not the very Florimel he had +known. Already something had begun to supplant the girl freedom +that had formerly in every look and motion asserted itself. She +was more beautiful, but not so lovely in his eyes; much of what had +charmed him had vanished. She was more stately, but the stateliness +had a little hardness mingled with it: and could it be that the +first of a cloud had already gathered on her forehead? Surely she +was not so happy as she had been at Lossie House. She was dressed +in black, with a white flower in her hair. + +Beside her sat the bold faced countess, and behind them her nephew, +Lord Meikleham that was now Lord Liftore. A fierce indignation +seized the heart of Malcolm at the sight. Behind the form of the +earl, his mind's eye saw that of Lizzy, out in the wind on the +Boar's Tail, her old shawl wrapped about herself and the child of +the man who sat there so composed and comfortable. His features +were fine and clear cut, his shoulders broad, and his head well +set: he had much improved since Malcolm offered to fight him with +one hand in the dining room of Lossie House. Every now and then +he leaned forward between his aunt and Florimel, and spoke to the +latter. To Malcolm's eyes she seemed to listen with some haughtiness. Now +and then she cast him an indifferent glance. Malcolm was pleased: +Lord Liftore was anything but the Ferdinand to whom he could consent +to yield his Miranda. They would make a fine couple certainly, but for +any other fitness, knowing what he did, Malcolm was glad to perceive +none. The more annoyed was he when once or twice he fancied he caught +a look between them that indicated more than acquaintanceship-- +some sort of intimacy at least. But he reflected that in the relation +in which they stood to Lady Bellair it could hardly be otherwise. + +The play was tolerably well put upon the stage, and free of the +absurdities attendant upon too ambitious an endeavour to represent to +the sense things which Shakspere and the dramatists of his period +freely committed to their best and most powerful ally, the willing +imagination of the spectators. The opening of the last scene, +where Ferdinand and Miranda are discovered at chess, was none the +less effective for its simplicity, and Malcolm was turning from a +delighted gaze at its loveliness to glance at his sister and her +companions, when his eyes fell on a face near him in the pit which +had fixed an absorbed regard in the same direction. It was that of +a man a few years older than himself, with irregular features, but +a fine mouth, large chin; and great forehead. Under the peculiarly +prominent eyebrows shone dark eyes of wondrous brilliancy and seeming +penetration. Malcolm could not but suspect that his gaze was upon +his sister, but as they were a long way from the boxes, he could +not be certain. Once he thought he saw her look at him, but of that +also he could be in no wise certain. + +He knew the play so well that he rose just in time to reach the +pit door ere exit should be impeded with the outcomers, and thence +with some difficulty he found his way to the foot of the stair up which +those he watched had gone. There he had stood but a little while, +when he saw in front of him, almost within reach of an outstretched +hand, the same young man waiting also. After what seemed a long +time, he saw his sister and her two companions come slowly down the +stair in the descending crowd. Her eyes seemed searching amongst +the multitude that filled the lobby. Presently an indubitable glance +of still recognition passed between them, and by a slight movement +the young man placed himself so that she must pass next him in +the crowd. Malcolm got one place nearer in the change, and thought +they grasped hands. She turned her head slightly back, and seemed +to put a question--with her lips only. He replied in the same +manner. A light rushed into her face and vanished. But not a feature +moved and not a word had been spoken. Neither of her companions +had seen the dumb show, and her friend stood where he was till they +had left the house. Malcolm stood also, much inclined to follow +him when he went, but, his attention having been attracted for a +moment in another direction, when he looked again he had disappeared. +He sought him where he fancied he saw the movement of his vanishing, +but was soon convinced of the uselessness of the attempt, and walked +home. + +Before he reached his lodging, he had resolved on making trial of +a plan which had more than once occurred to him, but had as often +been rejected as too full of the risk of repulse. + + + +CHAPTER XI: DEMON AND THE PIPES + + +His plan was to watch the house until he saw some entertainment +going on, then present himself as if he had but just arrived from +her ladyship's country seat. At such a time no one would acquaint +her with his appearance, and he would, as if it were but a matter +of course, at once take his share in waiting on the guests. By this +means he might perhaps get her a little accustomed to his presence +before she could be at leisure to challenge it. + +When he put Kelpie in her stall the last time for a season, and +ran into the house to get his plaid for Lizzy, who was waiting him +near the tunnel, he bethought himself that he had better take with +him also what other of his personal requirements he could carry. +He looked about therefore, and finding a large carpet bag in one +of the garret rooms, hurried into it some of his clothes--amongst +them the Highland dress he had worn as henchman to the marquis, +and added the great Lossie pipes his father had given to old Duncan +as well, but which the piper had not taken with him when he left +Lossie House. The said Highland dress he now resolved to put on, +as that in which latterly Florimel had been most used to see him: +in it he would watch his opportunity of gaining admission to the +house. + +The next morning Blue Peter made his appearance early. They went +out together, spent the day in sightseeing, and, on Malcolm's part +chiefly, in learning the topography of London. + +In Hyde Park Malcolm told his friend that he had sent for Kelpie. + +"She'll be the deid o' ye i' thae streets, as fu' o' wheels as the +sea o' fish: twize I've been 'maist gr'un to poother o' my ro'd +here," said Peter. + +"Ay, but ye see, oot here amo' the gentry it's no freely sae ill, +an' the ro'ds are no a' stane; an' here, ye see, 's the place whaur +they come, leddies an' a', to ha'e their rides thegither. What I'm +fleyt for is 'at she'll be brackin' legs wi' her deevilich kickin'." + +"Haud her upo' dry strae an' watter for a whilie, till her banes +begin to cry oot for something to hap them frae the cauld: that'll +quaiet her a bit," said Peter. + +"It's a' ye ken!" returned Malcolm. "She's aye the wau natur'd, the +less she has to ate. Na, na; she maun be weel lined. The deevil in +her maun lie warm, or she'll be neither to haud nor bin'. There's +nae doobt she's waur to haud in whan she's in guid condeetion; but +she's nane sae like to tak' a body by the sma' o' the back, an' shak +the inside oot o' 'im, as she maist did ae day to the herd laddie +at the ferm, only he had an auld girth aboot the mids o' 'im for +a belt, an' he tuik the less scaith." + +"Cudna we gang an' see the maister the day?" said Blue Peter, +changing the subject. + +He meant Mr Graham, the late schoolmaster of Portlossie, whom the +charge of heretical teaching had driven from the place. + +"We canna weel du that till we hear whaur he is. The last time Miss +Horn h'ard frae him, he was changin' his lodgin's, an' ye see the +kin' o' a place this Lon'on is," answered Malcolm. + +As soon as Peter was gone, to return to the boat, Malcolm dressed +himself in his kilt and its belongings, and when it was fairly dusk, +took his pipes under his arm, and set out for Portland Place. He +had the better hope of speedy success to his plan, that he fancied +he had read on his sister's lips, in the silent communication that +passed between her and her friend in the crowd, the words come and +tomorrow. It might have been the merest imagination, yet it was +something: how often have we not to be grateful for shadows! Up +and down the street he walked a long time, without seeing a sign +of life about the house. But at length the hall was lighted. Then +the door opened, and a servant rolled out a carpet over the wide +pavement, which the snow had left wet and miry--a signal for the +street children, ever on the outlook for sights, to gather. Before +the first carriage arrived, there was already a little crowd of +humble watchers and waiters about the gutter and curb stone. But +they were not destined to much amusement that evening, the visitors +amounting only to a small dinner party. Still they had the pleasure +of seeing a few grand ladies issue from their carriages, cross the +stage of their Epiphany, the pavement, and vanish in the paradise +of the shining hall, with its ascent of gorgeous stairs. No broken +steps, no missing balusters there! And they have the show all for +nothing! It is one of the perquisites of street service. What one +would give to see the shapes glide over the field of those camerae +obscurae, the hearts of the street Arabs! once to gaze on the +jewelled beauties through the eyes of those shocked haired girls! +I fancy they do not often begrudge them what they possess, except +perhaps when feature or hair or motion chances to remind them of +some one of their own people, and they feel wronged and indignant +that size should flaunt in such splendour, "when our Sally would +set off grand clothes so much better!" It is neither the wealth +nor the general consequence it confers that they envy, but, as I +imagine, the power of making a show--of living in the eyes and +knowledge of neighbours for a few radiant moments: nothing is so +pleasant to ordinary human nature as to know itself by its reflection +from others. When it turns from these warped and broken mirrors +to seek its reflection in the divine thought, then it is redeemed; +then it beholds itself in the perfect law of liberty. + +Before he became himself an object of curious interest to the crowd +he was watching, Malcolm had come to the same conclusion with many +a philosopher and observer of humanity before him--that on the +whole the rags are inhabited by the easier hearts; and he would +have arrived at the conclusion with more certainty but for the high +training that cuts off intercourse between heart and face. + +When some time had elapsed, and no more carriages appeared, Malcolm, +judging the dinner must now be in full vortex, rang the bell of +the front door. It was opened by a huge footman, whose head was +so small in proportion that his body seemed to have absorbed it. +Malcolm would have stepped in at once, and told what of his tale +he chose at his leisure; but the servant, who had never seen the +dress Malcolm wore, except on street beggars, with the instinct +his class shares with watchdogs, quickly closed the door. Ere it +reached the post, however, it found Malcolm's foot between. + +"Go along, Scotchy. You're not wanted here," said the man, pushing +the door hard. "Police is round the corner." + +Now one of the weaknesses Malcolm owed to his Celtic blood was an +utter impatience of rudeness. In his own nature entirely courteous, +he was wrathful even to absurdity at the slightest suspicion of +insult. But that, in part through the influence of Mr Graham, the +schoolmaster, he had learned to keep a firm hold on the reins of +action, this foolish feeling would not unfrequently have hurried +him into conduct undignified. On the present occasion, I fear the +main part of his answer, but for the shield of the door, would have +been a blow to fell a bigger man than the one that now glared at +him through the shoe broad opening. As it was, his words were fierce +with suppressed wrath. + +"Open the door, an' lat me in," was, however, all he said. + +"What's your business?" asked the man, on whom his tone had its +effect. + +"My business is with my Lady Lossie," said Malcolm, recovering his +English, which was one step towards mastering, if not recovering, +his temper. + +"You can't see her. She's at dinner." + +"Let me in, and I'll wait. I come from Lossie House." + +"Take away your foot and I'll go and see," said the man. + +"No. You open the door," returned Malcolm. + +The man's answer was an attempt to kick his foot out of the doorway. +If he were to let in a tramp, what would the butler say? + +But thereupon Malcolm set his port vent to his mouth, rapidly +filled his bag, while the man stared as if it were a petard with +which he was about to blow the door to shivers, and then sent from +the instrument such a shriek, as it galloped off into the Lossie +Gathering, that involuntarily his adversary pressed both hands to +his ears. With a sudden application of his knee Malcolm sent the +door wide, and entered the hall, with his pipes in full cry. The +house resounded with their yell--but only for one moment. For +down the stair, like bolt from catapult, came Demon, Florimel's +huge Irish staghound, and springing on Malcolm, put an instant end +to his music. The footman laughed with exultation, expecting to +see him torn to pieces. But when instead he saw the fierce animal, +a foot on each of his shoulders, licking Malcolm's face with long +fiery tongue, he began to doubt. + +"The dog knows you," he said sulkily. + +"So shall you, before long," returned Malcolm. "Was it my fault +that I made the mistake of looking for civility from you? One word +to the dog, and he has you by the throat." + +"I'll go and fetch Wallis," said the man, and closing the door, +left the hall. + +Now this Wallis had been a fellow servant of Malcolm's at Lossie +House, but he did not know that he had gone with Lady Bellair when +she took Florimel away: almost everyone had left at the same time. +He was now glad indeed to learn that there was one amongst the +servants who knew him. + +Wallis presently made his appearance, with a dish in his hands, on +his way to the dining room, from which came the confused noises of +the feast. + +"You'll be come up to wait on Lady Lossie," he said. "I haven't +a moment to speak to you now, for we're at dinner, and there's a +party." + +"Never mind me. Give me that dish; I'll take it in: you can go for +another," said Malcolm, laying his pipes in a safe spot. + +"You can't go into the dining room that figure," said Wallis, who +was in the Bellair livery. + +"This is how I waited on my lord," returned Malcolm, "and this is +how I'll wait on my lady." + +Wallis hesitated. But there was that about the fisher fellow was +too much for him. As he spoke, Malcolm took the dish from his hands, +and with it walked into the dining room. + +There one reconnoitring glance was sufficient. The butler was at the +sideboard opening a champagne bottle. He had cut wire and strings, +and had his hand on the cork as Malcolm walked up to him. It was +a critical moment, yet he stopped in the very article, and stared +at the apparition. + +"I'm Lady Lossie's man from Lossie House. I'll help you to wait," +said Malcolm. + +To the eyes of the butler he looked a savage. But there he +was in the room with the dish in his hands, and speaking at least +intelligibly; the cork of the champagne bottle was pushing hard +against his palm, and he had no time to question. He peeped into +Malcolm's dish. + +"Take it round, then," he said. So Malcolm settled into the business +of the hour. + +It was some time, after he knew where she was, before he ventured +to look at his sister: he would have her already familiarised with +his presence before their eyes met. That crisis did not arrive +during dinner. + +Lord Liftore was one of the company, and so, to Malcolm's pleasure, +for he felt in him an ally against the earl, was Florimel's mysterious +friend. + + + +CHAPTER XII: A NEW LIVERY + + +Scarcely had the ladies gone to the drawing room, when Florimel's +maid, who knew Malcolm, came in quest of him. Lady Lossie desired +to see him. + +"What is the meaning of this, MacPhail?" she said, when he entered +the room where she sat alone. "I did not send for you. Indeed, I +thought you had been dismissed with the rest of the servants." + +How differently she spoke! And she used to call him Malcolm! The +girl Florimel was gone, and there sat--the marchioness, was it? +--or some phase of riper womanhood only? It mattered little to +Malcolm. He was no curious student of man or woman. He loved his +kind too well to study it. But one thing seemed plain: she had +forgotten the half friendship and whole service that had had place +betwixt them, and it made him feel as if the soul of man no less +than his life were but as a vapour that appeareth for a little and +then vanisheth away. + +But Florimel had not so entirely forgotten the past as Malcolm +thought--not so entirely at least but that his appearance, and +certain difficulties in which she had begun to find herself, brought +something of it again to her mind. + +"I thought," said Malcolm, assuming his best English, "your +ladyship might not choose to part with an old servant at the will +of a factor, and so took upon me to appeal to your ladyship to +decide the question." + +"But how is that? Did you not return to your fishing when the +household was broken up?" + +"No, my lady. Mr Crathie kept me to help Stoat, and do odd jobs +about the place." + +"And now he wants to discharge you?" + +Then Malcolm told her the whole story, in which he gave such +a description of Kelpie, that her owner, as she imagined herself, +expressed a strong wish to see her; for Florimel was almost +passionately fond of horses. + +"You may soon do that, my lady," said Malcolm. "Mr Soutar, not +being of the same mind as Mr Crathie, is going to send her up. It +will be but the cost of the passage from Aberdeen, and she will +fetch a better price here if your ladyship should resolve to part +with her. She won't fetch the third of her value anywhere, though, +on account of her bad temper and ugly tricks." + +"But as to yourself, MacPhail--where are you going to go?" said +Florimel. "I don't like to send you away, but, if I keep you, +I don't know what to do with you. No doubt you could serve in the +house, but that would not be suitable at all to your education and +previous life." + +"A body wad tak' you for a granny grown!" said Malcolm to himself. +But to Florimel he replied--"If your ladyship should wish to keep +Kelpie, you will have to keep me too, for not a creature else will +she let near her." + +"And pray tell me what use then can I make of such an animal," said +Florimel. + +"Your ladyship, I should imagine, will want a groom to attend you +when you are out on horseback, and the groom will want a horse-- +and here am I and Kelpie!" answered Malcolm. + +Florimel laughed. + +"I see," she said. "You contrive I shall have a horse nobody can +manage but yourself." + +She rather liked the idea of a groom so mounted, and had too much +well justified faith in Malcolm to anticipate dangerous results. + +"My lady," said Malcolm, appealing to her knowledge of his +character to secure credit, for he was about to use his last means +of persuasion, and as he spoke, in his eagerness he relapsed into +his mother tongue,--"My lady, did I ever tell ye a lee?" + +"Certainly not, Malcolm, so far as I know. Indeed I am sure you +never did," answered Florimel, looking up at him in a dominant yet +kindly way. + +"Then," continued Malcolm, "I'll tell your ladyship something you +may find hard to believe, and yet is as true as that I loved your +ladyship's father.--Your ladyship knows he had a kindness for +me." + +"I do know it," answered Florimel gently, moved by the tone of +Malcolm's voice, and the expression of his countenance. + +"Then I make bold to tell your ladyship that on his deathbed your +father desired me to do my best for you--took my word that I +would be your ladyship's true servant." + +"Is it so, indeed, Malcolm?" returned Florimel, with a serious wonder +in her tone, and looked him in the face with an earnest gaze. She +had loved her father, and it sounded in her ears almost like a +message from the tomb. + +"It's as true as I stan' here, my leddy," said Malcolm. + +Florimel was silent for a moment. Then she said, "How is it that +only now you come to tell me?" + +"Your father never desired me to tell you, my lady--only he never +imagined you would want to part with me, I suppose. But when you +did not care to keep me, and never said a word to me when you went +away, I could not tell how to do as I had promised him. It wasn't +that one hour I forgot his wish, but that I feared to presume; for +if I should displease your ladyship my chance was gone. So I kept +about Lossie House as long as I could, hoping to see my way to some +plan or other. But when at length Mr Crathie turned me away, what +was I to do but come to your ladyship? And if your ladyship will +let things be as before in the way of service, I mean--I canna +doot, my leddy, but it'll be pleesant i' the sicht o' yer father, +whanever he may come to ken o' 't, my lady." + +Florimel gave him a strange, half startled look. Hardly more than +once since her father's funeral had she heard him alluded to, and +now this fisher lad spoke of him as if he were still at Lossie +House. + +Malcolm understood the look. + +"Ye mean, my leddy--I ken what ye mean," he said. "I canna help +it. For to lo'e onything is to ken't immortal. He's livin' to me, +my lady." + +Florimel continued staring, and still said nothing. + +I sometimes think that the present belief in mortality is nothing +but the almost universal although unsuspected unbelief in immortality +grown vocal and articulate. + +But Malcolm gathered courage and went on, + +"An' what for no, my leddy?" he said, floundering no more in +attempted English, but soaring on the clumsy wings of his mother +dialect. "Didna he turn his face to the licht afore he dee'd? an' +him 'at rase frae the deid said 'at whaever believed in him sud +never dee. Sae we maun believe 'at he's livin', for gien we dinna +believe what he says, what are we to believe, my leddy?" + +Florimel continued yet a moment looking him fixedly in the face. +The thought did arise that perhaps he had lost his reason, but she +could not look at him thus and even imagine it. She remembered how +strange he had always been, and for a moment had a glimmering idea +that in this young man's friendship she possessed an incorruptible +treasure. The calm, truthful, believing, almost for the moment +enthusiastic, expression of the young fisherman's face wrought upon +her with a strangely quieting influence. It was as if one spoke to +her out of a region of existence of which she had never even heard, +but in whose reality she was compelled to believe because of the +sound of the voice that came from it. + +Malcolm seldom made the mistake of stamping into the earth any +seeds of truth he might cast on it: he knew when to say no more, +and for a time neither spoke. But now for all the coolness of her +upper crust, Lady Florimel's heart glowed--not indeed with the +power of the shining truth Malcolm had uttered, but with the light +of gladness in the possession of such a strong, devoted, disinterested +squire. + +"I wish you to understand," she said at length, "that I am not at +present mistress of this house, although it belongs to me. I am +but the guest of Lady Bellair who has rented it of my guardians. +I cannot therefore arrange for you to be here. But you can find +accommodation in the neighbourhood, and come to me every day for +orders. Let me know when your mare arrives: I shall not want you +till then. You will find room for her in the stables. You had better +consult the butler about your groom's livery." + +Malcolm was astonished at the womanly sufficiency with which she +gave her orders. He left her with the gladness of one who has had +his righteous desire, held consultation with the butler on the +matter of the livery, and went home to his lodging. There he sat +down and meditated. + +A strange new yearning pity rose in his heart as he thought about +his sister and the sad facts of her lonely condition. He feared +much that her stately composure was built mainly on her imagined +position in society, and was not the outcome of her character. Would +it be cruelty to destroy that false foundation, hardly the more +false as a foundation for composure that beneath it lay a mistake? +--or was it not rather a justice which her deeper and truer self +had a right to demand of him? At present, however, he need not +attempt to answer the question. Communication even such as a trusted +groom might have with her, and familiarity with her surroundings, +would probably reveal much. Meantime it was enough that he would +now be so near her that no important change of which others might +be aware, could well approach her without his knowledge, or anything +take place without his being able to interfere if necessary. + + + +CHAPTER XIII: TWO CONVERSATIONS + + +The next day Wallis came to see Malcolm and take him to the tailor's. +They talked about the guests of the previous evening. + +"There's a great change on Lord Meikleham," said Malcolm. + +"There is that," said Wallis. "I consider him much improved. But +you see he's succeeded; he's the earl now, and Lord Liftore--and +a menseful, broad shouldered man to the boot of the bargain. He +used to be such a windle straw!" + +In order to speak good English, Wallis now and then, like some +Scotch people of better education, anglicized a word ludicrously. + +"Is there no news of his marriage?" asked Malcolm, adding, "they +say he has great property." + +"My love she's but a lassie yet," said Wallis, "--though she too +has changed quite as much as my lord." + +"Who are you speaking of?" asked Malcolm, anxious to hear the talk +of the household on the matter. + +"Why, Lady Lossie, of course. Anybody with half an eye can see as +much as that." + +"Is it settled then?" + +"That would be hard to say. Her ladyship is too like her father: no +one can tell what may be her mind the next minute. But, as I say, +she's young, and ought to have her fling first--so far, that +is, as we can permit it to a woman of her rank. Still, as I say, +anybody with half an eye can see the end of it all: he's for ever +hovering about her. My lady, too, has set her mind on it, and for +my part I can't see what better she can do. I must say I approve +of the match. I can see no possible objection to it." + +"We used to think he drank too much," suggested Malcolm. + +"Claret," said Wallis, in a tone that seemed to imply no one could +drink too much of that. + +"No, not claret only. I've seen the whisky follow the claret." + +"Well, he don't now--not whisky at least. He don't drink too +much--not much too much--not more than a gentleman should. He +don't look like it--does he now? A good wife, such as my Lady +Lossie will make him, will soon set him all right. I think of taking +a similar protection myself, one of these days." + +"He is not worthy of her," said Malcolm. + +"Well, I confess his family won't compare with hers. There's a +grandfather in it somewhere that was a banker or a brewer or a soap +boiler, or something of the sort, and she and her people have been +earls and marquises ever since they walked arm in arm out of the +ark. But, bless you! all that's been changed since I came to town. +So long as there's plenty of money and the mind to spend it, we have +learned not to be exclusive. It's selfish that. It's not Christian. +Everything lies in the mind to spend it though. Mrs Tredger-- +that's our lady's maid--only this is a secret--says it's all +settled--she knows it for certain fact--only there's nothing +to be said about it yet--she's so young, you know." + +"Who was the man that sat nearly opposite my lady, on the other +side of the table?" asked Malcolm. + +"I know who you mean. Didn't look as if he'd got any business there +--not like the rest of them, did he? No, they never do. Odd and +end sort of people like he is, never do look the right thing-- +let them try ever so hard. How can they when they ain't it? That's +a fellow that's painting Lady Lossie's portrait! Why he should +be asked to dinner for that, I'm sure I can't tell. He ain't paid +for it in victuals, is he? I never saw such land leapers let into +Lossie House, I know! But London's an awful place. There's no such +a thing as respect of persons here. Here you meet the butcher, the +baker, the candlestick maker, any night in my lady's drawing room. +I declare to you, Mawlcolm MacPhail, it makes me quite uncomfortable +at times to think who I may have been waiting upon without knowing +it. For that painter fellow, Lenorme they call him, I could knock +him on the teeth with the dish every time I hold it to him. And to +see him stare at Lady Lossie as he does!" + +"A painter must want to get a right good hold of the face he's got +to paint," said Malcolm. "Is he here often?" + +"He's been here five or six times already," answered Wallis, "and +how many times more I may have to fill his glass, I don't know. I +always give him second best sherry, I know. I'm sure the time that +pictur' 's been on hand! He ought to be ashamed of himself. If +she's been once to his studio, she's been twenty times--to give +him sittings as they call it. He's making a pretty penny of it, I'll +be bound! I wonder he has the cheek to show himself when my lady +treats him so haughtily. But those sort of people have no proper +feelin's, you see: it's not to be expected of such." + +Wallis liked the sound of his own sentences, and a great deal +more talk of similar character followed before they got back from +the tailor's. Malcolm was tired enough of him, and never felt +the difference between man and man more strongly than when, after +leaving him, he set out for a walk with Blue Peter, whom he found +waiting him at his lodging. On this same Blue Peter, however, +Wallis would have looked down from the height of his share of the +marquisate as one of the lower orders--ignorant, vulgar, even +dirty. + +They had already gazed together upon not a few of the marvels of +London, but nothing had hitherto moved or drawn them so much as the +ordinary flow of the currents of life through the huge city. Upon +Malcolm, however, this had now begun to pall, while Peter already +found it worse than irksome, and longed for Scaurnose. At the same +time loyalty to Malcolm kept him from uttering a whisper of his +homesickness. It was yet but the fourth day they had been in London. + +"Eh, my lord!" said Blue Peter, when by chance they found themselves +in the lull of a little quiet court, somewhere about Gray's Inn, +with the roar of Holborn in their ears, "it's like a month sin' I +was at the kirk. I'm feart the din's gotten into my heid, an' I'll +never get it out again. I cud maist wuss I was a mackerel, for +they tell me the fish hears naething. I ken weel noo what ye meant, +my lord, whan ye said ye dreidit the din micht gar ye forget yer +Macker." + +"I hae been wussin' sair mysel', this last twa days," responded +Malcolm, "'at I cud get ae sicht o' the jaws clashin' upo' the +Scaurnose, or rowin up upo' the edge o' the links. The din o' natur' +never troubles the guid thouchts in ye. I reckon it's 'cause it's +a kin' o' a harmony in 'tsel', an' a harmony's jist, as the maister +used to say, a higher kin' o' a peace. Yon organ 'at we hearkent +till ae day ootside the kirk, ye min'--man, it was a quaietness +in 'tsel', and cam' throu' the din like a bonny silence--like a +lull i' the win' o' this warl'! It wasna a din at a', but a gran' +repose like. But this noise tumultuous o' human strife, this din' +o' iron shune an' iron wheels, this whurr and whuzz o' buyin' an' +sellin' an' gettin' gain--it disna help a body to their prayers." + +"Eh, na, my lord! Jist think o' the preevilege--I never saw nor +thoucht o' 't afore--o' haein' 't i' yer pooer, ony nicht 'at +ye're no efter the fish, to stap oot at yer ain door, an' be in +the mids o' the temple! Be 't licht or dark, be 't foul or fair, +the sea sleepin' or ragin', ye ha'e aye room, an' naething atween +ye an' the throne o' the Almichty, to the whilk yer prayers ken the +gait, as weel 's the herrin' to the shores o' Scotlan': ye ha'e but +to lat them flee, an' they gang straucht there. But here ye ha'e +aye to luik sae gleg efter yer boady, 'at, as ye say, my lord, yer +sowl's like to come aff the waur, gien it binna clean forgotten." + +"I doobt there's something no richt aboot it, Peter," returned +Malcolm. + +"There maun be a heap no richt aboot it," answered Peter. + +"Ay, but I'm no meanin' 't jist as ye du. I had the haill thing +throu' my heid last nicht, an' I canna but think there's something +wrang wi' a man gien he canna hear the word o' God as weel i' the +mids o' a multitude no man can number, a' made ilk ane i' the image +o' the Father--as weel, I say, as i' the hert o' win' an' watter +an' the lift an' the starns an' a'. Ye canna say 'at thae things +are a' made i' the image o' God, in the same w'y, at least, 'at ye +can say 't o' the body an' face o' a man, for throu' them the God +o' the whole earth revealed Himsel' in Christ." + +"Ow, weel, I wad alloo what ye say, gien they war a' to be considered +Christians." + +"Ow, I grant we canna weel du that i' the full sense, but I doobt, +gien they bena a' Christians 'at ca's themsel's that, there's a +heap mair Christianity nor get's the credit o' its ain name. I min' +weel hoo Maister Graham said to me ance 'at hoo there was something +o' Him 'at made him luikin' oot o' the een o' ilka man 'at he had +made; an' what wad ye ca' that but a scart or a straik o' Christianity." + +"Weel, I kenna; but ony gait I canna think it can be again' the +trowth o' the gospel to wuss yersel' mair alane wi' yer God nor ye +ever can be in sic an awfu' Babylon o' a place as this." + +"Na, na, Peter; I'm no sayin' that. I ken weel we're to gang +intill the closet and shut to the door. I'm only afeart 'at there +be something wrang in mysel' 'at tak's 't ill to be amon' sae +mony neibors. I'm thinkin' 'at, gien a' was richt 'ithin me, gien +I lo'ed my neibor as the Lord wad hae them 'at lo'ed Him lo'e ilk +ane his brither, I micht be better able to pray amang them--ay, +i' the verra face o' the bargainin' an' leein' a' aboot me." + +"An' min' ye," said Peter, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, +and heedless of Malcolm's, "'at oor Lord himsel' bude whiles to +win awa', even frae his dissiples, to be him lane wi' the Father +o' 'im." + +"Ay, ye're richt there, Peter," answered Malcolm, "but there's ae +p'int in 't ye maunna forget--and that is 'at it was never i' +the day-time--sae far's I min'--'at he did sae. The lee lang +day he was among 's fowk--workin' his michty wark. Whan the nicht +cam', in which no man could wark, he gaed hame till 's Father, as +'t war. Eh me! but it's weel to ha'e a man like the schuilmaister +to put trowth intill ye. I kenna what comes o' them 'at ha'e drucken +maisters, or sic as cares for naething but coontin' an Laitin, an' +the likes o' that!" + + + +CHAPTER XIV: FLORIMEL + + +That night Florimel had her thoughts as well as Malcolm. Already +life was not what it had been to her, and the feeling of a difference +is often what sets one a-thinking first. While her father lived, +and the sureness of his love overarched her consciousness with a +heaven of safety, the physical harmony of her nature had supplied +her with a more than sufficient sense of well being. Since his death, +too, there had been times when she even fancied an enlargement of +life in the sense of freedom and power which came with the knowledge +of being a great lady, possessed of the rare privilege of an ancient +title and an inheritance which seemed to her a yet greater wealth +than it was. But she had soon found that, as to freedom, she had +less of that than before--less of the feeling of it within her: +not much freedom of any sort is to be had without fighting for it, +and she had yet to discover that the only freedom worth the name +--that of heart, and soul, and mind--is not to be gained except +through the hardest of battles. She was very lonely, too. Lady +Bellair had never assumed with her any authority, and had always +been kind even to petting, but there was nothing about her to make +a home for the girl's heart. She felt in her no superiority, and +for a spiritual home that is essential. As she learned to know her +better, this sense of loneliness went on deepening, for she felt +more and more that her guardian was not one in whom she could place +genuine confidence, while yet her power over her was greater than +she knew. The innocent nature of the girl had begun to recoil from +what she saw in the woman of the world, and yet she had in herself +worldliness enough to render her fully susceptible of her influences. +Notwithstanding her fine health and natural spirits, Florimel had +begun to know what it is to wake suddenly of a morning between +three and four, and lie for a long weary time, sleepless. In youth +bodily fatigue ensures falling asleep, but as soon as the body is +tolerably rested, if there be unrest in the mind, that wakes it, +and consciousness returns in the shape of a dull misgiving like the +far echo of the approaching trump of the archangel. Indeed, those +hours are as a vestibule to the great hall of judgment, and to such +as, without rendering it absolute obedience, yet care to keep on +some sort of terms with their conscience, is a time of anything but +comfort. Nor does the court in those hours sitting, concern itself +only with heavy questions of right or wrong, but whoever loves +and cares himself for his appearance before the eyes of men, finds +himself accused of paltry follies, stupidities, and indiscretions, +and punished with paltry mortifications, chagrins, and anxieties. +From such arraignment no man is free but him who walks in the perfect +law of liberty--that is, the will of the Perfect--which alone +is peace. + +On the morning after she had thus taken Malcolm again into her +service, Florimel had one of these experiences--a foretaste of +the Valley of the Shadow: she awoke in the hour when judgment sits +upon the hearts of men. Or is it not rather the hour for which a +legion of gracious spirits are on the watch--when, fresh raised +from the death of sleep, cleansed a little from the past and its +evils by the gift of God, the heart and brain are most capable of +their influences?--the hour when, besides, there is no refuge of +external things wherein the man may shelter himself from the truths +they would so gladly send conquering into the citadel of his nature, +--no world of the senses to rampart the soul from thought, when +the eye and the ear are as if they were not, and the soul lies naked +before the infinite of reality. This live hour of the morning is +the most real hour of the day, the hour of the motions of a prisoned +and persecuted life, of its effort to break through and breathe. A +good man then finds his refuge in the heart of the Purifying Fire; +the bad man curses the swarms of Beelzebub that settle upon every +sore spot in his conscious being. + +But it was not the general sense of unfitness in the conditions +of her life, neither was it dissatisfaction with Lady Bellair, or +the want of the pressure of authority upon her unstable being; it +was not the sense of loneliness and unshelteredness in the sterile +waste of fashionable life, neither was it weariness with the same +and its shows, or all these things together, that could have waked +the youth of Florimel and kept it awake at this hour of the night +--for night that hour is, however near the morning. + +Some few weeks agone, she had accompanied to the study of a certain +painter, a friend who was then sitting to him for her portrait. The +moment she entered, the appearance of the man and his surroundings +laid hold of her imagination. Although on the very verge of popularity, +he was young--not more than five and twenty. His face, far from +what is called handsome, had a certain almost grandeur in it, owed +mainly to the dominant forehead, and the regnant life in the eyes. +To this the rest of the countenance was submissive. The mouth was +sweet yet strong, seeming to derive its strength from the will +that towered above and overhung it, throned on the crags of those +eyebrows. The nose was rather short, not unpleasantly so, and had +mass enough. In figure he was scarcely above the usual height, +but well formed. To a first glance even, the careless yet graceful +freedom of his movements was remarkable, while his address was +manly, and altogether devoid of self recommendation. Confident +modesty and unobtrusive ease distinguished his demeanour. His +father, Arnold Lenorme, descended from an old Norman family, had +given him the Christian name of Raoul, which, although outlandish, +tolerably fitted the surname, notwithstanding the contiguous l's, +objectionable to the fastidious ear of their owner. The earlier +and more important part of his education, the beginnings, namely, +of everything he afterwards further followed, his mother herself +gave him, partly because she was both poor and capable, and +partly because she was more anxious than most mothers for his best +welfare. The poverty they had crept through, as those that strive +after better things always will, one way or another, with immeasurable +advantage, and before the time came when he must leave home, her +influence had armed him in adamant--a service which alas! few +mothers seem capable of rendering the knights whom they send out into +the battlefield of the world. Most of them give their children the +best they have; but how shall a foolish woman ever be a wise mother? +The result in his case was, that reverence for her as the type of +womanhood, working along with a natural instinct for refinement, a +keen feeling of the incompatibility with art of anything in itself +low or unclean, and a healthful and successful activity of mind, +had rendered him so far upright and honourable that he had never +yet done that in one mood which in another he had looked back upon +with loathing. As yet he had withstood the temptations belonging +to his youth and his profession--in great measure also the +temptations belonging to success; he had not yet been tried with +disappointment, or sorrow, or failure. + +As to the environment in which Florimel found him, it was to her +a region of confused and broken colour and form--a kind of chaos +out of which beauty was ever ready to start. Pictures stood on +easels, leaned against chair backs, glowed from the wall--each +contributing to the atmosphere of solved rainbow that seemed to +fill the space. Lenorme was seated--not at his easel, but at a +grand piano, which stood away, half hidden in a corner, as if it +knew itself there on sufferance, with pictures all about the legs +of it. For they had walked straight in without giving his servant +time to announce them. A bar of a song, in a fine tenor voice, +broke as they opened the door; and the painter came to meet them +from the farther end of the study. He shook hands with Florimel's +friend, and turned with a bow to her. At the first glance the eyes +of both fell. Raised the same instant, they encountered each other +point blank, and then the eloquent blood had its turn at betrayal. +What the moment meant, Florimel did not understand; but it seemed +as if Raoul and she had met somewhere long ago, were presumed not +to know it, but could not help remembering it, and agreeing to +recognise it as a fact. A strange pleasure filled her heart. While +Mrs Barnardiston sat she flitted about the room like a butterfly, +looking at one thing after another, and asking now the most ignorant, +now the most penetrative question, disturbing not a little the +work, but sweetening the temper of the painter, as he went on with +his study of the mask and helmet into which the Gorgon stare of +the Unideal had petrified the face and head of his sitter. He found +the situation trying nevertheless. It was as if Cupid had been set +by Jupiter to take a portrait of Io in her stall, while evermore he +heard his Psyche fluttering about among the peacocks in the yard. +For the girl had bewitched him at first sight. He thought it was +only as an artist, though to be sure a certain throb, almost of +pain, in the region of the heart, when first his eyes fell before +hers, might have warned, and perhaps did in vain warn him otherwise. +Sooner than usual he professed himself content with the sitting, +and then proceeded to show the ladies some of his sketches and +pictures. Florimel asked to see one standing as in disgrace with +its front to the wall. He put it, half reluctantly, on an easel, +and said it was meant for the unveiling of Isis, as presented in +a maehrchen of Novalis, introduced in Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, in +which the goddess of Nature reveals to the eager and anxious gaze +of the beholder the person of his Rosenbluethchen, whom he had left +behind him when he set out to visit the temple of the divinity. +But on the great pedestal where should have sat the goddess there +was no gracious form visible. That part of the picture was a +blank. The youth stood below, gazing enraptured with parted lips +and outstretched arms, as if he had already begun' to suspect what +had begun to dawn through the slowly thinning veil--but to the +eye of the beholder he gazed as yet only on vacancy, and the picture +had not reached an attempt at self explanation. Florimel asked why +he had left it so long unfinished, for the dust was thick on the +back of the canvas. + +"Because I have never seen the face or figure," the painter answered, +"either in eye of mind or of body, that claimed the position." + +As he spoke, his eyes seemed to Florimel to lighten strangely, and +as if by common consent they turned away, and looked at something +else. Presently Mrs Barnardiston, who cared more for sound than +form or colour, because she could herself sing a little, began to +glance over some music on the piano, curious to find what the young +man had been singing, whereupon Lenorme said to Florimel hurriedly, +and almost in a whisper, with a sort of hesitating assurance, + +"If you would give me a sitting or two--I know I am presumptuous, +but if you would--I--I should send the picture to the Academy +in a week." + +"I will," replied Florimel, flushing like a wild poppy, and as she +said it, she looked up in his face and smiled. + +"It would have been selfish," she said to herself as they drove +away, "to refuse him." + +This first interview, and all the interviews that had followed, now +passed through her mind as she lay awake in the darkness preceding +the dawn, and she reviewed them not without self reproach. But +for some of my readers it will be hard to believe that one of the +feelings that now tormented the girl was a sense of lowered dignity +because of the relation in which she stood to the painter--seeing +there was little or no ground for moral compunction, and the feeling +had its root merely in the fact that he was a painter fellow, and +she a marchioness. Her rank had already grown to seem to her so +identified with herself that she was hardly any longer capable of +the analysis that should show it distinct from her being. As to any +duty arising from her position, she had never heard the word used +except as representing something owing to, not owed by rank. Social +standing in the eyes of the super excellent few of fashion was the +Satan of unrighteousness worshipped around her. And the precepts +of this worship fell upon soil prepared for it. For with all the +simplicity of her nature, there was in it an inborn sense of rank, +of elevation in the order of the universe above most others of the +children of men--of greater intrinsic worth therefore in herself. +How could it be otherwise with the offspring of generations of pride +and falsely conscious superiority? Hence, as things were going now +with the mere human part of her, some commotion, if not earthquake +indeed, was imminent. Nay the commotion had already begun, as +manifest in her sleeplessness and the thoughts that occupied it. + +Rightly to understand the sense of shame and degradation she had +not unfrequently felt of late, we must remember that in the circle +in which she moved she heard professions, arts, and trades alluded +to with the same unuttered, but the more strongly implied contempt +--a contempt indeed regarded as so much a matter of course, so +thoroughly understood, so reasonable in its nature, so absolute in +its degree, that to utter it would have been bad taste from very +superfluity. Yet she never entered the painter's study but with +trembling heart, uncertain foot, and fluttering breath, as of one +stepping within the gates of an enchanted paradise, whose joy is +too much for the material weight of humanity to ballast even to the +steadying of the bodily step, and the outward calm of the bodily +carriage. How far things had gone between them we shall be able to +judge by and by; it will be enough at present to add that it was +this relation and the inward strife arising from it that had not +only prematurely, but over rapidly ripened the girl into the woman. + +This my disclosure of her condition, however, has not yet uncovered +the sorest spot upon which the flies of Beelzebub settled in the +darkness of this torture hour of the human clock. Although still +the same lively, self operative nature she had been in other +circumstances, she was so far from being insensible or indifferent +to the opinions of others, that she had not even strength enough to +keep a foreign will off the beam of her choice: the will of another, +in no way directly brought to bear on hers, would yet weigh to +her encouragement where her wish was doubtful, or to her restraint +where impulse was strong; it would even move her towards a line +of conduct whose anticipated results were distasteful to her. Ever +and anon her pride would rise armed against the consciousness of +slavery, but its armour was too weak either for defence or for +deliverance. She knew that the heart of Lady Bellair, what of heart +she had, was set upon her marriage with her nephew, Lord Liftore. +Now she recoiled from the idea of marriage, and dismissed it into +a future of indefinite removal; she had no special desire to please +Lady Bellair from the point of gratitude, for she was perfectly aware +that her relation to herself was far from being without advantage +to that lady's position as well as means: a whisper or two that +had reached her had been enough to enlighten her in that direction; +neither could she persuade herself that Lord Liftore was at all +the sort of man she could become proud of as a husband; and yet she +felt destined to be his wife. On the other hand she had no dislike +to him: he was handsome, well informed, capable--a gentleman, +she thought, of good regard in the circles in which they moved, and +one who would not in any manner disgrace her, although to be sure +he was her inferior in rank, and she would rather have married +a duke. At the same time, to confess all the truth, she was by no +means indifferent to the advantages of having for a husband a man +with money enough to restore the somewhat tarnished prestige of her +own family to its pristine brilliancy. She had never said a word +to encourage the scheming of Lady Bellair; neither, on the other +hand, had she ever said a word to discourage her hopes, or give her +ground for doubting the acceptableness of her cherished project. +Hence Lady Bellair had naturally come to regard the two as almost +affianced. But Florimel's aversion to the idea of marriage, and her +horror at the thought of the slightest whisper of what was between +her and Lenorme, increased together. + +There were times too when she asked herself in anxious discomfort +whether she was not possibly a transgressor against a deeper and +simpler law than that of station--whether she was altogether +maidenly in the encouragement she had given and was giving to the +painter. It must not be imagined that she had once visited him +without a companion, though that companion was indeed sometimes +only her maid--her real object being covered by the true pretext +of sitting for her portrait, which Lady Bellair pleased herself +with imagining would one day be presented to Lord Liftore. But she +could not, upon such occasions of morning judgment as this, fail +to doubt sorely whether the visits she paid him, and the liberties +which upon fortunate occasions she allowed him, were such as could +be justified on any ground other than that she was prepared to give +him all. All, however, she was by no means prepared to give him: +that involved consequences far too terrible to be contemplated even +as possibilities. + +With such causes for disquiet in her young heart and brain, it is +not then wonderful that she should sometimes be unable to slip across +this troubled region of the night in the boat of her dreams, but +should suffer shipwreck on the waking coast, and have to encounter +the staring and questioning eyes of more than one importunate truth. +Nor is it any wonder either that, to such an inexperienced and so +troubled a heart, the assurance of one absolutely devoted friend +should come with healing and hope--even if that friend should be +but a groom, altogether incapable of understanding her position, +or perceiving the phantoms that crowded about her, threatening to +embody themselves in her ruin. A clumsy, ridiculous fellow, she +said to herself, from whose person she could never dissociate the +smell of fish, who talked a horrible jargon called Scotch, and +who could not be prevented from uttering unpalatable truths at +uncomfortable moments; yet whose thoughts were as chivalrous as +his person was powerful, and whose countenance was pleasing if only +for the triumph of honesty therein: she actually felt stronger and +safer to know he was near, and at her beck and call. + + + +CHAPTER XV: PORTLOSSIE + + +Mr Crathie, seeing nothing more of Malcolm, believed himself at +last well rid of him; but it was days before his wrath ceased to +flame, and then it went on smouldering. Nothing occurred to take +him to the Seaton, and no business brought any of the fisher people +to his office during that time. Hence he heard nothing of the mode +of Malcolm's departure. When at length in the course of ordinary +undulatory propagation the news reached him that Malcolm had taken +the yacht with him, he was enraged beyond measure at the impudence +of the theft, as he called it, and ran to the Seaton in a fury. +He had this consolation, however: the man who had accused him of +dishonesty and hypocrisy had proved but a thief. + +He found the boathouse indeed empty, and went storming from cottage +to cottage, but came upon no one from whom his anger could draw +nourishment, not to say gain satisfaction. At length he reached the +Partan's, found him at home, and commenced, at haphazard, abusing +him as an aider and abettor of the felony. But Meg Partan was at +home also, as Mr Crathie soon learned to his cost; for, hearing +him usurp her unique privilege of falling out upon her husband, +she stole from the ben end, and having stood for a moment silent +in the doorway, listening for comprehension, rushed out in a storm +of tongue. + +"An' what for sudna my man," she cried, at full height of her +screeching voice, "lay tu his han' wi' ither honest fowk to du for +the boat what him 'at was weel kent for the captain o' her, sin' +ever she was a boat, wantit dune? Wad ye tak the comman' o' the +boat, sir, as weel's o' a' thing ither aboot the place?" + +"Hold your tongue, woman," said the factor; "I have nothing to say +to you." + +"Aigh, sirs! but it's a peety ye wasna foreordeent to be markis +yersel'! It maun be a sair vex to ye 'at ye're naething but the +factor." + +"If ye don't mind your manners, Mistress Fin'lay," said Mr Crathie +in glowing indignation, "perhaps you'll find that the factor is as +much as the marquis, when he's all there is for one." + +"Lord safe 's hear till 'im !" cried the Partaness. "Wha wad hae +thoucht it o' 'im? There's fowk 'at it sets weel to tak upo' them! +His father, honest man, wad ne'er hae spoken like that to Meg +Partan; but syne he was an honest man, though he was but the heid +shepherd upo' the estate. Man, I micht hae been yer mither--gien +I had been auld eneuch for 's first wife, for he wad fain hae had +me for 's second." + +"I've a great mind to take out a warrant against you, John Fin'lay, +otherwise called the Partan, as airt an' pairt in the stealing of +the Marchioness of Lossie's pleasure boat," said the factor. "And +for you, Mistress Fin'lay, I would have you please to remember that +this house, as far at least as you are concerned, is mine, although +I am but the factor, and not the marquis; and if you don't keep +that unruly tongue of yours a little quieter in your head, I'll +set you in the street the next quarter day but one, as sure's ever +you gutted a herring, and then you may bid goodbye to Portlossie, +for there's not a house, as you very well know, in all the Seaton, +that belongs to another than her ladyship." + +"'Deed, Mr Crathie," returned Meg Partan, a little sobered by the +threat, "ye wad hae mair sense nor rin the risk o' an uprisin' +o' the fisher fowk. They wad ill stan' to see my auld man an' me +misused, no to say 'at her leddyship hersel' wad see ony o' her +ain fowk turned oot o' hoose an' haudin' for naething ava." + +"Her ladyship wad gi'e hersel' sma' concern gien the haill bilin' +o' ye war whaur ye cam frae," returned the factor. "An' for the +toon here, the fowk kens the guid o' a quaiet caus'ay ower weel to +lament the loss o' ye." + +"The deil's i' the man!" cried the Partaness in high scorn. "He +wad threip upo' me 'at I was ane o' thae lang tongued limmers 'at +maks themsel's h'ard frae ae toon's en' to the tither! But I s' +gar him priv 's words yet!" + +"Ye see, sir," interposed the mild Partan, anxious to shove extremities +aside, "we didna ken 'at there was onything intill't by ord'nar. +Gien we had but kent 'at he was oot o' your guid graces,--" + +"Haud yer tongue afore ye lee, man," interrupted his wife. "Ye ken +weel eneuch ye wad du what Ma'colm MacPhail wad hae ye du, for ony +factor in braid Scotlan'." + +"You must have known," said the factor to the Partan, apparently +heedless of this last outbreak of the generous evil temper, and +laying a cunning trap for the information he sorely wanted, but +had as yet failed in procuring--"else why was it that not a soul +went with him? He could ill manage the boat alone." + +"What put sic buff an' styte i' yer heid, sir?" rejoined Meg; +defiant of the hints her husband sought to convey to her. "There's +mony ane wad hae been ready to gang, only wha sud gang but him 'at +gaed wi' him an' 's lordship frae the first?" + +"And who was that?" asked Mr Crathie. + +"Ow! wha but Blue Peter?" answered Meg. + +"Hm!" said the factor, in a tone that for almost the first time in +her life made the woman regret that she had spoken, and therewith +he rose and left the cottage. + +"Eh, mither!" cried Lizzy, in her turn appearing from the ben end, +with her child in her arms, "ye hae wroucht ruin i' the earth! He'll +hae Peter an' Annie an' a' oot o' hoose an' ha', come midsummer." + +"I daur him till't!" cried her mother, in the impotence and self +despite of a mortifying blunder; "I'll raise the toon upon 'im." + +"What wad that du, mither?" returned Lizzy, in distress about her +friends. "It wad but mak' ill waur." + +"An' wha are ye to oppen yer mou' sae wide to yer mither?" burst +forth Meg Partan, glad of an object upon which the chagrin that +consumed her might issue in flame. "Ye havena luikit to yer ain +gait sae weel 'at ye can thriep to set richt them 'at broucht ye +forth.--Wha are ye, I say?" she repeated in rage. + +"Ane 'at folly's made wiser, maybe, mither," answered Lizzie sadly, +and proceeded to take her shawl from behind the door: she would go +to her friends at Scaurnose, and communicate her fears for their +warning. But her words smote the mother within the mother, and she +turned and looked at her daughter with more of the woman and less +of the Partan in her rugged countenance than had been visible there +since the first week of her married life. She had been greatly +injured by the gaining of too easy a conquest and resultant supremacy +over her husband, whence she had ever after revelled in a rule too +absolute for good to any concerned. As she was turning away, her +daughter caught a glimpse of her softened eyes, and went out of the +house with more comfort in her heart than she had felt ever since +first she had given her conscience cause to speak daggers to her. + +The factor kept raging to himself all the way home, flung himself +trembling on his horse, vouchsafing his anxious wife scarce any +answer to her anxious enquiries, and galloped to Duff Harbour to +Mr Soutar. + +I will not occupy my tale with their interview. Suffice it to say +that the lawyer succeeded at last in convincing the demented factor +that it would be but prudent to delay measures for the recovery +of the yacht and the arrest and punishment of its abductors, until +he knew what Lady Lossie would say to the affair. She had always +had a liking for the lad, Mr Soutar said, and he would not be in +the least surprised to hear that Malcolm had gone straight to her +ladyship and put himself under her protection. No doubt by this +time the cutter was at its owner's disposal: it would be just like +the fellow! He always went the nearest road anywhere. And to prosecute +him for a thief would in any case but bring down the ridicule of +the whole coast upon the factor, and breed him endless annoyance +in the getting in of his rents--especially among the fishermen. +The result was that Mr Crathie went home--not indeed a humbler +or wiser man than he had gone, but a thwarted man, and therefore +the more dangerous in the channels left open to the outrush of his +angry power. + +When Lizzy reached Scaurnose, her account of the factor's behaviour, +to her surprise, did not take much effect upon Mrs Mair: a queer +little smile broke over her countenance, and vanished. An enforced +gravity succeeded, however, and she began to take counsel with +Lizzy as to what they could do, or where they could go, should the +worst come to the worst, and the doors, not only of her own house, +but of Scaurnose and Portlossie as well, be shut against them. +But through it all reigned a calm regard and fearlessness of the +future which, to Lizzy's roused and apprehensive imagination, was +strangely inexplicable. Annie Mair seemed possessed of some hidden +and upholding assurance that raised her above the fear of man or +what he could do to her. The girl concluded it must be the knowledge +of God, and prayed more earnestly that night than she had prayed +since the night on which Malcolm had talked to her so earnestly +before he left. I must add this much, that she was not altogether +astray: God was in Malcolm, giving new hope to his fisher folk. + + + +CHAPTER XVI: ST JAMES THE APOSTLE + + +When Malcolm left his sister, he had a dim sense of having lapsed +into Scotch, and set about buttressing and strengthening his +determination to get rid of all unconscious and unintended use of +the northern dialect, not only that, in his attendance upon Florimel, +he might be neither offensive nor ridiculous, but that, when the +time should come in which he must appear what he was, it might +be less of an annoyance to her to yield the marquisate to one who +could speak like a gentleman and one of the family. But not the +less did he love the tongue he had spoken from his childhood, and +in which were on record so many precious ballads and songs, old +and new; and he resolved that, when he came out as a marquis, he +would at Lossie House indemnify himself for the constraint of London. +He would not have an English servant there except Mrs Courthope: he +would not have the natural country speech corrupted with cockneyisms, +and his people taught to speak like Wallis! To his old friends the +fishers and their families, he would never utter a sentence but +in the old tongue, haunted with all the memories of relations that +were never to be obliterated or forgotten, its very tones reminding +him and them of hardships together endured, pleasures shared, and +help willingly given. At night, notwithstanding, he found that in +talking with Blue Peter, he had forgotten all about his resolve, +and it vexed him with himself not a little. He now saw that if he +could but get into the way of speaking English to him, the victory +would be gained, for with no one else would he find any difficulty +then. + +The next morning he went down to the stairs at London Bridge, and +took a boat to the yacht. He had to cross several vessels to reach +it. When at length he looked down from the last of them on the deck +of the little cutter, he saw Blue Peter sitting on the coamings of +the hatch, his feet hanging down within. He was lost in the book +he was reading. Curious to see, without disturbing him, what it +was that so absorbed him, Malcolm dropped quietly on the tiller, +and thence on the deck, and approaching softly peeped over his +shoulder. He was reading the epistle of James the apostle. Malcolm +fell a-thinking. From Peter's thumbed bible his eyes went wandering +through the thicket of masts, in which moved so many busy seafarers, +and then turned to the docks and wharfs and huge warehouses lining +the shores; and while they scanned the marvellous vision, the +thoughts that arose and passed through his brain were like these: +"What are ye duin' here, Jeames the Just? Ye was naething but a +fisher body upon a sma' watter i' the hert o' the hills, 'at wasna +even saut; an' what can the thochts that gaed throu' your fish +catchin' brain hae to du wi' sic a sicht 's this? I won'er gien at +this moment there be anither man in a' Lon'on sittin' readin' that +epistle o' yours but Blue Peter here? He thinks there's naething +o' mair importance, 'cep' maybe some ither pairts o' the same buik; +but syne he's but a puir fisher body himsel', an' what kens he o' +the wisdom an' riches an' pooer o' this michty queen o' the nations, +thron't aboot him?--Is't possible the auld body kent something +'at was jist as necessar' to ilka man, the busiest in this croodit +mairt, to ken an' gang by, as it was to Jeames an' the lave o' the +michty apostles themsel's? For me, I dinna doobt it--but hoo it +sud ever be onything but an auld warld story to the new warld o' +Lon'on, I think it wad bleck Maister Graham himsel' til imaigine." + +Before this, Blue Peter had become aware that some one was near +him, but, intent on the words of his brother fisher of the old time, +had half unconsciously put off looking up to see who was behind +him. When now he did so, and saw Malcolm, he rose and touched his +bonnet. + +"It was jist i' my heid, my lord," he said, without any preamble, +"sic a kin' o' a h'avenly Jacobin as this same Jacobus was! He's +sic a leveller as was feow afore 'im, I doobt, wi' his gowd ringt +man, an' his cloot cled brither! He pat me in twa min's, my lord, +whan I got up, whether I wad touch my bonnet to yer lordship or +no." + +Malcolm laughed with hearty appreciation. + +"When I am king of Lossie," he said, "be it known to all whom it +may concern, that it is and shall be the right of Blue Peter, and +all his descendants, to the end of time, to stand with bonneted +heads in the presence of Lord or--no, not Lady, Peter--of the +house of Lossie." + +"Ay, but ye see, Ma'colm," said Peter, forgetting his address, and +his eye twinkling in the humour of the moment, "it's no by your +leave, or ony man's leave; it's the richt o' the thing; an' that +I maun think aboot, an' see whether I be at leeberty to ca' ye my +lord or no." + +"Meantime, don't do it," said Malcolm, "lest you should have to +change afterwards. You might find it difficult." + +"Ye're cheengt a'ready," said Blue Peter, looking up at him sharply. +"I ne'er h'ard ye speyk like that afore." + +"Make nothing of it," returned Malcolm. "I am only airing my +English on you; I have made up my mind to learn to speak in London +as London people do, and so, even to you, in the meantime only, I +am going to speak as good English as I can.--It's nothing between +you and me, Peter and you must not mind it," he added, seeing a +slight cloud come over the fisherman's face. + +Blue Peter turned away with a sigh. The sounds of English speech +from the lips of Malcolm addressed to himself, seemed vaguely to +indicate the opening of a gulf between them, destined ere long to +widen to the whole social width between a fisherman and a marquis, +swallowing up in it not only all old memories, but all later +friendship and confidence. A shadow of bitterness crossed the poor +fellow's mind, and in it the seed of distrust began to strike root, +and all because a newer had been substituted for an older form of +the same speech and language. Truly man's heart is a delicate piece +of work, and takes gentle handling or hurt. But that the pain was +not all of innocence is revealed in the strange fact, afterwards +disclosed by the repentant Peter himself, that, in that same moment, +what had just passed his mouth as a joke, put on an important, +serious look, and appeared to involve a matter of doubtful duty: +was it really right of one man to say my lord to another? Thus the +fisherman, and not the marquis, was the first to sin against the +other because of altered fortune. Distrust awoke pride in the heart +of Blue Pete; and he erred in the lack of the charity that thinketh +no evil. + +But the lack and the doubt made little show as yet. The two men +rowed in the dinghy down the river to the Aberdeen wharf to make +arrangements about Kelpie, whose arrival Malcolm expected the +following Monday, then dined together, and after that had a long +row up the river. + + + +CHAPTER XVII: A DIFFERENCE + + +Notwithstanding his keenness of judgment and sobriety in action, +Malcolm had yet a certain love for effect, a delight, that is, +in the show of concentrated results, which, as I believe I have +elsewhere remarked, belongs especially to the Celtic nature, and +is one form in which the poetic element vaguely embodies itself. +Hence arose the temptation to try on Blue Peter the effect of a +literally theatrical surprise. He knew well the prejudices of the +greater portion of the Scots people against every possible form of +artistic, most of all, dramatic representation. He knew, therefore, +also, that Peter would never be persuaded to go with him to +the theatre: to invite him would be like asking him to call upon +Beelzebub; but as this feeling was cherished in utter ignorance +of its object, he judged he would be doing him no wrong if he made +experiment how the thing itself would affect the heart and judgment +of the unsophisticated fisherman. + +Finding that The Tempest was still the play represented, he +contrived, as they walked together, so to direct their course that +they should be near Drury Lane towards the hour of commencement. +He did not want to take him in much before the time: he would not +give him scope for thought, doubt, suspicion, discovery. + +When they came in front of the theatre, people were crowding in, +and carriages setting down their occupants. Blue Peter gave a glance +at the building. + +"This'll be ane o' the Lon'on kirks, I'm thinkin'?" he said. "It's +a muckle place; an' there maun be a heap o' guid fowk in Lon'on, +for as ill's it's ca'd, to see sae mony, an' i' their cairritches, +comin' to the kirk--on a Setterday nicht tu. It maun be some kin' +o' a prayer meetin', I'm thinkin'." + +Malcolm said nothing, but led the way to the pit entrance. + +"That's no an ill w'y o' getherin' the baubees," said Peter, seeing +how the incomers paid their money. "I hae h'ard o' the plate bein' +robbit in a muckle toon afore noo." + +When at length they were seated, and he had time to glance reverently +around him, he was a little staggered at sight of the decorations; +and the thought crossed his mind of the pictures and statues he +had heard of in catholic churches; but he remembered Westminster +Abbey, its windows and monuments, and returned to his belief that +he was, if in an episcopal, yet in a protestant church. But he could +not help the thought that the galleries were a little too gaudily +painted, while the high pews in them astonished him. Peter's nature, +however, was one of those calm, slow ones which, when occupied by +an idea or a belief, are by no means ready to doubt its correctness, +and are even ingenious in reducing all apparent contradictions to +theoretic harmony with it--whence it came that to him all this +was only part of the church furniture according to the taste and +magnificence of London. He sat quite tranquil, therefore, until the +curtain rose, revealing the ship's company in all the confusion of +the wildest of sea storms. + +Malcolm watched him narrowly. But Peter was first so taken by surprise, +and then so carried away with the interest of what he saw, that +thinking had ceased in him utterly, and imagination lay passive +as a mirror to the representation. Nor did the sudden change from +the first to the second scene rouse him, for before his thinking +machinery could be set in motion, the delight of the new show +had again caught him in its meshes. For to him, as it had been to +Malcolm, it was the shore at Portlossie, while the cave that opened +behind was the Bailie's Barn, where his friends the fishers might +at that moment, if it were a fine night, be holding one of their +prayer meetings. The mood lasted all through the talk of Prospero +and Miranda; but when Ariel entered there came a snap, and the spell +was broken. With a look in which doubt wrestled with horror, Blue +Peter turned to Malcolm, and whispered with bated breath--"I'm +jaloosin'--it canna be--it's no a playhoose, this?" + +Malcolm merely nodded, but from the nod Peter understood that he +had had no discovery to make as to the character of the place they +were in. + +"Eh!" he groaned, overcome with dismay. Then rising suddenly-- +"Guid nicht to ye, my lord," he said, with indignation, and rudely +forced his way from the crowded house. + +Malcolm followed in his wake, but said nothing till they were in +the street. Then, forgetting utterly his resolves concerning English +in the distress of having given his friend ground to complain of +his conduct towards him, he laid his hand on Blue Peter's arm, and +stopped him in the middle of the narrow street. + +"I but thoucht, Peter," he said, "to get ye to see wi' yer ain een, +an' hear wi' yer ain ears, afore ye passed jeedgment; but ye're +jist like the lave." + +"An' what for sudna I be jist like the lave?" returned Peter, +fiercely. + +"'Cause it's no fair to set doon a' thing for wrang 'at ye ha'e +been i' the w'y o' hearing aboot by them 'at kens as little aboot +them as yersel'. I cam here mysel', ohn kent whaur I was gaein', +the ither nicht, for the first time i' my life; but I wasna fleyt +like you, 'cause I kent frae the buik a' 'at was comin'. I hae +h'ard in a kirk in ae ten meenutes jist a sicht o' what maun ha'e +been sair displeasin' to the hert a' the maister a' 's a'; but +that nicht I saw nae ill an' h'ard nae ill, but was weel peyed back +upo' them 'at did it an' said it afore the business was ower, an' +that's mair nor ye'll see i' the streets o' Portlossie ilka day. +The playhoose is whaur ye gang to see what comes o' things 'at ye +canna follow oot in ordinar' life." + +Whether Malcolm, after a year's theatre going, would have said +precisely the same is hardly doubtful. He spoke of the ideal theatre +to which Shakspere is true, and in regard to that he spoke rightly. + +"Ye decoy't me intill the hoose o' ineequity!" was Peter's indignant +reply; "an' it 's no what ye ever ga'e me cause to expec' o' ye, +sae 'at I micht ha'e ta'en tent o' ye." + +"I thoucht nae ill o' 't," returned Malcolm. + +"Weel, I div," retorted Peter. + +"Then perhaps you are wrong," said Malcolm, "for charity thinketh +no evil. You wouldn't stay to see the thing out." + +"There ye are at yer English again! an' misgugglin' Scriptur' +wi' 't an' a' this upo' Setterday nicht--maist the Sawbath day! +Weel, I ha'e aye h'ard 'at Lon'on was an awfu' place, but I little +thoucht the verra air o' 't wad sae sune turn an honest laad like +Ma'colm MacPhail intill a scoffer. But maybe it's the markis o' +'im, an' no the muckle toon 'at's made the differ. Ony gait, I'm +thinkin' it'll be aboot time for me to be gauin' hame." + +Malcolm was vexed with himself, and both disappointed and troubled +at the change which had come over his friend, and threatened to +destroy the lifelong relation between them; his feelings therefore +held him silent. Peter concluded that the marquis was displeased, +and it clenched his resolve to go. + +"What w'y am I to win hame, my lord?" he said, when they had walked +some distance without word spoken. + +"By the Aberdeen smack," returned Malcolm. "She sails on Tuesday. +I will see you on board. You must take young Davy with you, for I +wouldn't have him here after you are gone. There will be nothing +for him to do." + +"Ye're unco ready to pairt wi' 's noo 'at ye ha'e nae mair use for +'s," said Peter. + +"No sae ready as ye seem to pairt wi' yer chairity," said Malcolm, +now angry too. + +"Ye see Annie 'ill be thinkin' lang," said Peter, softening a +little. + +No more angry words passed between them, but neither did any +thoroughly cordial ones, and they parted at the stairs in mutual, +though, with such men, it could not be more than superficial +estrangement. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII: LORD LIFTORE + + +The chief cause of Malcolm's anxiety had been, and perhaps still +was, Lord Liftore. In his ignorance of Mr Lenorme there might +lie equal cause with him, but he knew such evil of the other that +his whole nature revolted against the thought of his marrying his +sister. At Lossie he had made himself agreeable to her, and now, +if not actually living in the same house, he was there at all hours +of the day. + +It took nothing from his anxiety to see that his lordship was +greatly improved. Not only had the lanky youth passed into a well +formed man, but in countenance, whether as regarded expression, +complexion, or feature, he was not merely a handsomer but looked +in every way a healthier and better man. Whether it was from some +reviving sense of duty, or that, in his attachment to Florimel, +he had begun to cherish a desire of being worthy of her, I cannot +tell; but he looked altogether more of a man than the time that had +elapsed would have given ground to expect, even had he then seemed +on the mend, and indeed promised to become a really fine looking +fellow. His features were far more regular if less informed than +those of the painter and his carriage prouder if less graceful and +energetic. His admiration of and consequent attachment to Florimel +had been growing ever since his visit to Lossie House the preceding +summer, and if he had said nothing quite definite, it was only +because his aunt represented the impolicy of declaring himself just +yet: she was too young. She judged thus, attributing her evident +indifference to an incapacity as yet for falling in love. Hence, +beyond paying her all sorts of attentions and what compliments he +was capable of constructing, Lord Liftore had not gone far towards +making himself understood--at least, not until just before +Malcolm's arrival, when his behaviour had certainly grown warmer +and more confidential. + +All the time she had been under his aunt's care he had had abundant +opportunity for recommending himself, and he had made use of the +privilege. For one thing, credibly assured that he looked well in +the saddle, he had constantly encouraged Florimel's love of riding +and desire to become a thorough horse woman, and they had ridden a +good deal together in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. This practice +they continued as much as possible after they came to London early +in the spring; but the weather of late had not been favourable, +and Florimel had been very little out with him. + +For a long time Lady Bellair had had her mind set on a match between +the daughter of her old friend the Marquis of Lossie and her nephew, +and it was with this in view that, when invited to Lossie House, +she had begged leave to bring Lord Meikleham with her. The young +man was from the first sufficiently taken with the beautiful girl +to satisfy his aunt, and would even then have shown greater fervour +in his attentions, had he not met Lizzy Findlay at the wedding +of Joseph Mair's sister, and found her more than pleasing. I will +not say that from the first he purposed wrong to her: he was too +inexperienced in the ways of evil for that; but even when he saw +plainly enough to what their mutual attraction was tending, he gave +himself no trouble to resist it; and through the whole unhappy affair +had not had one smallest struggle with himself for the girl's sake. +To himself he was all in all as yet, and such was his opinion of +his own precious being, that, had he thought about it, he would have +considered the honour of his attentions far more than sufficient +to make up to any girl in such a position for whatever mishap his +acquaintance might bring upon her. What were the grief and mortification +of parents to put in the balance against his condescension? what +the shame and the humiliation of the girl herself compared with +the honour of having been shone upon for a period, however brief, +by his enamoured countenance? Must not even the sorrow attendant upon +her loss be rendered more than endurable--be radiantly consoled +by the memory that she had held such a demigod in her arms? When +he left her at last, with many promises, not one of which he ever +had the intention of fulfilling, he did purpose sending her a present. +But at that time he was poor--dependent, indeed, for his pocket +money upon his aunt; and, up to this hour, he had never since his +departure from Lossie House taken the least notice of her either +by gift or letter. He had taken care also that it should not be +in her power to write to him, and now he did not even know that he +was a father. Once or twice the possibility of such being the case +occurred to him, and he thought within himself that if he were, +and it should come to be talked of, it might, in respect of his +present hopes, be awkward and disagreeable; for, although such a +predicament was nowise unusual, in this instance the circumstances +were. More than one of his bachelor friends had a small family +even, but then it was in the regular way of an open and understood +secret: the fox had his nest in some pleasant nook, adroitly masked, +where lay his vixen and her brood; one day he would abandon them +for ever, and, with such gathered store of experience, set up for +a respectable family man. A few tears, a neat legal arrangement, +and all would be as it had never been, only that the blood of the +Montmorencies or Cliffords would meander unclaimed in this or that +obscure channel, beautifying the race, and rousing England to noble +deeds! But in his case it would be unpleasant--a little--that +every one of his future tenantry should know the relation in which +he stood to a woman of the fisher people. He did not fear any +resentment--not that he would have cared a straw for it, on such +trifling grounds, but people in their low condition never thought +anything of such slips on the part of their women especially where +a great man was concerned. What he did fear was that the immediate +relations of the woman--that was how he spoke of Lizzy to himself +--might presume upon the honour he had done them. Lizzy, however, +was a good girl, and had promised to keep the matter secret until +she heard from him, whatever might be the consequences; and surely +there was fascination enough in the holding of a secret with such +as he to enable her to keep her promise. She must be perfectly +aware, however appearances might be against him, that he was not +one to fail in appreciation of her conduct, however easy and natural +all that he required of her might be. He would requite her royally +when he was Lord of Lossie. Meantime, although it was even now in +his power to make her rich amends, he would prudently leave things as +they were, and not run the risk that must lie in opening communications. + +And so the young earl held his head high, looked as innocent as +may be desirable for a gentleman, had many a fair clean hand laid +in his, and many a maiden waist yielded to his arm, while "the +woman" flitted about half an alien amongst her own, with his child +wound in her old shawl of Lossie tartan; wandering not seldom in +the gloaming when her little one slept, along the top of the dune, +with the wind blowing keen upon her from the regions of eternal +ice, sometimes the snow settling softly on her hair, sometimes the +hailstones nestling in its meshes; the skies growing blacker about +her, and the sea stormier, while hope retreated so far into the +heavenly regions, that hope and heaven both were lost to her view. +Thus, alas! the things in which he was superior to her, most of +all that he was a gentleman, while she was but a peasant girl-- +the things whose witchery drew her to his will, he made the means +of casting her down from the place of her excellency into the mire +of shame and loss. The only love worthy of the name ever and always +uplifts. + +Of the people belonging to the upper town of Portlossie, which +raised itself high above the sea town in other respects besides the +topical, there were none who did not make poor Lizzy feel they were +aware of her disgrace, and but one man who made her feel it by being +kinder than before. That man, strange to say, was the factor. With +all his faults he had some chivalry, and he showed it to the fisher +girl. Nor did he alter his manner to her because of the rudeness +with which her mother had taken Malcolm's part. + +It was a sore proof to Mr Crathie that his discharged servant was +in favour with the marchioness when the order came from Mr Soutar +to send up Kelpie. She had written to himself when she wanted her +own horse; now she sent for this brute through her lawyer. It was +plain that Malcolm had been speaking against him; and he was the +more embittered therefore against his friends. + +Since his departure he had been twice on the point of poisoning +the mare. + +It was with difficulty he found two men to take her to Aberdeen. +There they had an arduous job to get her on board and secure her. +But it had been done, and all the Monday night Malcolm was waiting +her arrival at the wharf--alone, for after what had passed between +them, he would not ask Peter to go with him, and besides he was no +use with horses. At length, in the grey of a gurly dawn, the smack +came alongside. They had had a rough passage, and the mare was +considerably subdued by sickness, so that there was less difficulty +in getting her ashore, and she paced for a little while in tolerable +quietness. But with every step on dry land, the evil spirit in her +awoke, and soon Malcolm had to dismount and lead her. The morning +was little advanced, and few vehicles were about, otherwise he could +hardly have got her home uninjured, notwithstanding the sugar with +which he had filled a pocket. Before he reached the mews he was +very near wishing he had never seen her. But when he led her into +the stable, he was a little encouraged as well as surprised to +find that she had not forgotten Florimel's horse. They had always +been a little friendly, and now they greeted each other with an +affectionate neigh; after which, with the help of all she could +devour, the demoness was quieter. + + + +CHAPTER XIX: KELPIE IN LONDON + + +Before noon Lord Liftore came round to the mews: his riding horses +were there. Malcolm was not at the moment in the stable. + +"What animal is that?" he asked of his own groom, catching sight +of Kelpie in her loose box. + +"One just come up from Scotland for Lady Lossie, my lord," answered +the man. + +"She looks a clipper! Lead her out, and let me see her." + +"She's not sound in the temper, my lord, the groom that brought her +says. He told me on no account to go near her till she got used to +the sight of me." + +"Oh! you're afraid, are you?" said his lordship, whose breeding +had not taught him courtesy to his inferiors. + +At the word the man walked into her box. As he did so he looked +out for her hoofs, but his circumspection was in vain: in a moment +she had wheeled, jammed him against the wall, and taken his shoulder +in her teeth. He gave a yell of pain. His lordship caught up a +stable broom, and attacked the mare with it over the door; but it +flew from his hand to the other end of the stable, and the partition +began to go after it. But she still kept her hold of the man. +Happily, however, Malcolm was not far off and hearing the noise, +rushed in. He was just in time to save the groom's life. Clearing +the stall partition, and seizing the mare by the nose with a mighty +grasp, he inserted a forefinger behind her tusk, for she was one of +the few mares tusked like a horse, and soon compelled her to open +her mouth. The groom staggered and would have fallen, so cruelly +had she mauled him, but Malcolm's voice roused him. + +"For God's sake gang oot, as lang's there twa limbs o' ye stickin' +thegither." + +The poor fellow just managed to open the door, and fell senseless +on the stones. Lord Liftore called for help, and they carried him +into the saddle room, while one ran for the nearest surgeon. + +Meantime Malcolm was putting a muzzle on Kelpie, which he believed +she understood as a punishment, and while he was thus occupied, +his lordship came from the saddle room and approached the box. + +"Who are you?" he said. "I think I have seen you before." + +"I was servant to the late Marquis of Lossie, my lord, and now I +am groom to her ladyship." + +"What a fury you've brought up with you! She'll never do for London." + +"I told the man not to go near her, my lord." + +"What's the use of her if no one can go near her?" + +"I can, my lord." + +"By Jove, she's a splendid creature to look at! but I don't know +what you can do with her here, my man. She's fit to go double with +Satan himself." + +"She'll do for me to ride after my lady well enough. If only I had +room to exercise her a bit!" + +"Take her into the park early in the morning, and gallop her round. +Only mind she don't break your neck. What can have made Lady Lossie +send for such a devil as that!" + +Malcolm held his peace. + +"I'll try her myself some morning," said his lordship, who thought +himself a better horseman than he was. + +"I wouldn't advise you, my lord." + +"Who the devil asked your advice?" + +"Ten to one she'll kill you, my lord." + +"That's my look out," said Liftore, and went into the house. + +As soon as he had done with Kelpie, Malcolm dressed himself in his +new livery, and went to tell his mistress of her arrival. She sent +him orders to bring the mare round in half an hour. He went back +to her, took off her muzzle, fed her, and while she ate her corn, +put on the spurs he had prepared expressly for her use--a spike +without a rowel, rather blunt, but sharp indeed when sharply used +--like those of the Gauchos of the Pampas. Then he saddled her, +and rode her round. + +Having had her fit of temper, she was, to all appearance, going to +be fairly good for the rest of the day, and looked splendid. She +was a large mare, nearly thoroughbred, but with more bone than +usual for her breeding, which she carried triumphantly--an animal +most men would have been pleased to possess--and proud to ride. +Florimel came to the door to see her, accompanied by Liftore, and +was so delighted with the very sight of her that she sent at once +to the stables for her own horse, that she might ride out attended +by Malcolm. His lordship also ordered his horse. + +They went straight to Rotten Row for a little gallop, and Kelpie +was behaving very well for her. + +"What did you have two such savages, horse and groom both, up from +Scotland for, Florimel?" asked his lordship, as they cantered gently +along the Row, Kelpie coming sideways after them, as if she would +fain alter the pairing of her legs.. + +Florimel turned and cast an admiring glance on the two. + +"Do you know I am rather proud of them," she said. + +"He's a clumsy fellow, the groom; and for the mare, she's downright +wicked," said Liftore. + +"At least neither is a hypocrite," returned Florimel, with Malcolm's +account of his quarrel with the factor in her mind. "The mare is +just as wicked as she looks, and the man as good. Believe me, my +lord, that man you call a savage never told a lie in his life!" + +As she spoke she looked him hard in the face--with her father in +her eyes. + +Liftore could not return the look with equal steadiness. It seemed +for the moment to be inquiring too curiously. + +"I know what you mean," he said. "You don't believe my professions." + +As he spoke he edged his horse close up to hers. + +"But," he went on, "if I know that I speak the truth when I swear +that I love every breath of wind that has but touched your dress +as it passed, that I would die gladly for one loving touch of +your hand--why should you not let me ease my heart by saying so? +Florimel, my life has been a different thing from the moment I saw +you first. It has grown precious to me since I saw that it might be +--Confound the fellow! what's he about now with his horse devil?" + +For at that moment his lordship's horse, a high bred but timid +animal, sprang away from the side of Florimel's, and there stood +Kelpie on her hind legs, pawing the air between him and his lady, +and Florimel, whose old confidence in Malcolm was now more than +revived, was laughing merrily at the discomfiture of his attempt +at love making. Her behaviour and his own frustration put him in +such a rage that, wheeling quickly round, he struck Kelpie, just +as she dropped on all fours, a great cut with his whip across the +haunches. She plunged and kicked violently, came within an inch of +breaking his horse's leg, and flew across the rail into the park. +Nothing could have suited Malcolm better. He did not punish her as +he would have done had she been to blame, for he was always just +to lower as well as higher animals, but he took her a great round +at racing speed, while his mistress and her companion looked on, +and everyone in the Row stopped and stared. Finally, he hopped her +over the rail again, and brought her up dripping and foaming to his +mistress. Florimel's eyes were flashing, and Liftore looked still +angry. + +"Dinna du that again, my lord," said Malcolm. "Ye're no my maister; +an' gien ye war, ye wad hae no richt to brak my neck." + +"No fear of that! That's not how your neck will be broken, my man," +said his lordship, with an attempted laugh; for though he was all +the angrier that he was ashamed of what he had done, he dared not +further wrong the servant before his mistress. + +A policeman came up and laid his hand on Kelpie's bridle. + +"Take care what you're about," said Malcolm; "the mare's not safe. +--There's my mistress, the Marchioness of Lossie." + +The man saw an ugly look in Kelpie's eye, withdrew his hand, and +turned to Florimel. + +"My groom is not to blame," said she. "Lord Liftore struck his +mare, and she became ungovernable." + +The man gave a look at Liftore, seemed to take his likeness, touched +his hat, and withdrew. + +"You'd better ride the jade home," said Liftore. + +Malcolm only looked at his mistress. She moved on, and he followed. + +He was not so innocent in the affair as he had seemed. The expression +of Liftore's face as he drew nearer to Florimel, was to him so +hateful, that he interfered in a very literal fashion: Kelpie had +been doing no more than he had made her until the earl struck her. + +"Let us ride to Richmond tomorrow," said Florimel, "and have a +good gallop in the park. Did you ever see a finer sight than that +animal on the grass?" + +"The fellow's too heavy for her," said Liftore. "I should very much +like to try her myself." + +Florimel pulled up, and turned to Malcolm. + +"MacPhail," she said, "have that mare of yours ready whenever Lord +Liftore chooses to ride her." + +"I beg your pardon, my lady," returned Malcolm, "but would your +ladyship make a condition with my lord that he shall not mount her +anywhere on the stones." + +"By Jove!" said Liftore scornfully. "You fancy yourself the only +man that can ride!" + +"It's nothing to me, my lord, if you break your neck; but I am +bound to tell you I do not think your lordship will sit my mare. +Stoat can't; and I can only because I know her as well as my own +palm." + +The young earl made no answer and they rode on--Malcolm nearer +than his lordship liked. + +"I can't think, Florimel," he said, "why you should want that fellow +about you again. He is not only very awkward, but insolent as well." + +"I should call it straightforward," returned Florimel. + +"My dear Lady Lossie! See how close he is riding to us now." + +"He is anxious, I daresay, as to your Lordship's behaviour. He is +like some dogs that are a little too careful of their mistresses-- +touchy as to how they are addressed--not a bad fault in dog--or +groom either. He saved my life once, and he was a great favourite +with my father: I won't hear anything against him." + +"But for your own sake--just consider:--what will people say +if you show any preference for a man like that?" said Liftore, who +had already become jealous of the man who in his heart he feared +could ride better than himself. + +"My lord!" exclaimed Florimel, with a mingling of surprise and +indignation in her voice, and suddenly quickening her pace, dropped +him behind. + +Malcolm was after her so instantly, that it brought him abreast of +Liftore. + +"Keep your own place," said his lordship, with stern rebuke. + +"I keep my place to my mistress," returned Malcolm. + +Liftore looked at him as it he would strike him. But he thought +better of it apparently, and rode after Florimel. + + + +CHAPTER XX: BLUE PETER + + +By the time he had put up Kelpie, Malcolm found that his only chance +of seeing Blue Peter before he left London, lay in going direct to +the wharf. On his road he reflected on what had just passed, and +was not altogether pleased with himself. He had nearly lost his +temper with Liftore; and if he should act in any way unbefitting +the position he had assumed, from the duties of which he was in no +degree exonerated by the fact that he had assumed it for a purpose, +it would not only be a failure in himself, but an impediment perhaps +insurmountable in the path of his service. To attract attention was +almost to insure frustration. When he reached the wharf he found +they had nearly got her freight on board the smack. Blue Peter +stood on the forecastle. He went to him and explained how it was +that he had been unable to join him sooner. + +"I didna ken ye," said Blue Peter, "in sic playactor kin' o' claes." + +"Nobody in London would look at me twice now. But you remember how +we were stared at when first we came," said Malcolm. + +"Ow ay!" returned Peter with almost a groan; "there's a sair cheenge +past upo' you, but I'm gauin' hame to the auld w'y o' things. The +herrin' 'll be aye to the fore, I'm thinkin'; an' gien we getna a +harbour we'll get a h'aven." + +Judging it better to take no notice of this pretty strong expression +of distrust and disappointment, Malcolm led him aside, and putting +a few sovereigns in his hand, said, + +"Here, Peter, that will take you home." + +"It's ower muckle--a heap ower muckle. I'll tak naething frae ye +but what'll pay my w'y." + +"And what is such a trifle between friends?" + +"There was a time, Ma'colm, whan what was mine was yours, an' what +was yours was mine, but that time's gane." + +"I'm sorry to hear that, Peter; but still I owe you as much as that +for bare wages." + +"There was no word o' wages when ye said, Peter, come to Lon'on +wi' me.--Davie there--he maun hae his wauges." + +"Weel," said Malcolm, thinking it better to give way, "I'm no abune +bein' obleeged to ye, Peter. I maun bide my time, I see, for ye +winna lippen till me. Eh man! your faith's sune at the wa'." + +"Faith! what faith?" returned Peter, almost fiercely. "We're tauld +to put no faith in man; an' gien I bena come to that yet freely, +I'm nearer till't nor ever I was afore." + +"Weel, Peter, a' 'at I can say is, I ken my ain hert, an' ye dinna +ken't." + +"Daur ye tell me!" cried Peter. "Disna the Scriptur' itsel' say the +hert o' man is deceitfu' an' despratly wickit: who can know it?" + +"Peter," said Malcolm, and he spoke very gently, for he understood +that love and not hate was at the root of his friend's anger and +injustice, "gien ye winna lippen to me, there's naething for't +but I maun lippen to you. Gang hame to yer wife, an' gi'e her my +compliments, an' tell her a' 'at's past atween you an' me, as near, +word for word, as ye can tell the same; an' say till her, I pray +her to judge atween you an' me--an' to mak the best o' me to ye +'at she can, for I wad ill thole to loss yer freenship, Peter." + +The same moment came the command for all but passengers to go ashore. +The men grasped each other's hand, looked each other in the eyes +with something of mutual reproach, and parted--Blue Peter down +the river to Scaurnose and Annie, Malcolm to the yacht lying still +in the Upper Pool. + +He saw it taken properly in charge, and arranged for having it +towed up the river and anchored in the Chelsea Reach. + +When Blue Peter found himself once more safe out at sea, with twelve +hundred yards of canvas spread above him in one mighty wing betwixt +boom and gaff; and the wind blowing half a gale, the weather inside +him began to change a little. He began to see that he had not been +behaving altogether as a friend ought. It was not that he saw reason +for being better satisfied with Malcolm or his conduct, but reason +for being worse satisfied with himself; and the consequence was +that he grew still angrier with Malcolm, and the wrong he had done +him seemed more and more an unpardonable one. + +When he was at length seated on the top of the coach running betwixt +Aberdeen and Fochabers, which would set him down as near Scaurnose +as coach could go, he began to be doubtful how Annie, formally +retained on Malcolm's side by the message he had to give her, +would judge in the question between them; for what did she know of +theatres and such places? And the doubt strengthened as he neared +home. The consequence was that he felt in no haste to execute +Malcolm's commission; and hence, the delights of greeting over, +Annie was the first to open her bag of troubles: Mr Crathie had +given them notice to quit at Midsummer. + +"Jist what I micht hae expeckit!" cried Blue Peter, starting up. +"Woe be to the man 'at puts his trust in princes! I luikit till +him to save the fisher fowk, an' no to the Lord; an' the tooer o' +Siloam 's fa'en upo' my heid:--what does he, the first thing, +but turn his ain auld freen's oot o' the sma beild they had! That +his father nor his gran'father, 'at was naither o' them God fearin' +men, wad never hae put their han' till. Eh, wuman! but my hert's +sair 'ithin me. To think o' Ma'colm MacPhail turnin' his back +upo' them 'at's been freens wi' 'im sin ever he was a wee loonie, +rinnin' aboot in coaties!" + +"Hoot, man! what's gotten intill yer heid?" returned his wife. +"It's no Ma'colm; it's the illwully factor. Bide ye till he comes +till 's ain, an' Maister Crathie 'll hae to lauch o' the wrang side +o' 's mou'." + +But thereupon Peter began his tale of how he had fared in London, +and in the excitement of keenly anticipated evil, and with his +recollection of events wrapped in the mist of a displeasure which +had deepened during his journey, he so clothed the facts of Malcolm's +conduct in the garments of his own feelings that the mind of Annie +Mair also became speedily possessed with the fancy that their friend's +good fortune had upset his moral equilibrium, and that he had not +only behaved to her husband with pride and arrogance, breaking +all the ancient bonds of friendship between them, but had tried to +seduce him from the ways of righteousness by inveigling him into +a playhouse, where marvels of wickedness were going on at the very +time. She wept a few bitter tears of disappointment, dried them +hastily, lifted her head high, and proceeded to set her affairs in +order as if death were at the door. + +For indeed it was to them as a death to leave Scaurnose. True, Annie +came from inland, and was not of the fisher race, but this part of +the coast she had known from childhood, and in this cottage all her +married years had been spent, while banishment of the sort involved +banishment from every place they knew, for all the neighbourhood +was equally under the power of the factor. And poor as their +accommodation here was, they had plenty of open air and land room; +whereas if they should be compelled to go to any of the larger ports, +it would be to circumstances greatly inferior, and a neighbourhood +in all probability very undesirable for their children. + + + +CHAPTER XXI: MR GRAHAM + + +When Malcolm at length reached his lodging, he found there a letter +from Miss Horn, containing the much desired information as to where +the schoolmaster was to be found in the London wilderness. It was +now getting rather late, and the dusk of a spring night had begun +to gather; but little more than the breadth of the Regent's Park +lay between him and his best friend--his only one in London-- +and he set out immediately for Camden Town. + +The relation between him and his late schoolmaster was indeed of +the strongest and closest. Long before Malcolm was born, and ever +since, had Alexander Graham loved Malcolm's mother; but not until +within the last few months had he learned that Malcolm was the son +of Griselda Campbell. The discovery was to the schoolmaster like +the bursting out of a known flower on an unknown plant. He knew +then, not why he had loved the boy, for he loved every one of his +pupils more or less, but why he had loved him with such a peculiar +tone of affection. + +It was a lovely evening. There had been rain in the afternoon +as Malcolm walked home from the Pool, but before the sun set it +had cleared up; and as he went through the park towards the dingy +suburb, the first heralds of the returning youth of the year met him +from all sides in the guise of odours--not yet those of flowers, +but the more ethereal if less sweet, scents of buds and grass, and +ever pure earth moistened with the waters of heaven. And to his +surprise he found that his sojourn in a great city, although as yet +so brief, had already made the open earth with its corn and grass +more dear to him and wonderful. But when he left the park, and +crossed the Hampstead Road into a dreary region of dwellings crowded +and commonplace as the thoughts of a worshipper of Mammon, houses +upon houses, here and there shepherded by a tall spire, it was hard +to believe that the spring was indeed coming slowly up this way. + +After not a few inquiries, he found himself at a stationer's shop, +a poor little place, and learned that Mr Graham lodged over it, +and was then at home. + +He was shown up into a shabby room, with an iron bedstead, a chest +of drawers daubed with sickly paint, a table with a stained red +cover, a few bookshelves in a recess over the washstand, and two +chairs seated with haircloth. On one of these, by the side of a +small fire in a neglected grate, sat the schoolmaster reading his +Plato. On the table beside him lay his Greek New Testament, and +an old edition of George Herbert. He looked up as the door opened, +and, notwithstanding his strange dress, recognising at once his +friend and pupil, rose hastily, and welcomed him with hand and +eyes, and countenance, but without word spoken. For a few moments +the two stood silent, holding each the other's hand, and gazing +each in the other's eyes, then sat down, still speechless, one on +each side of the fire. + +They looked at each other and smiled, and again a minute passed. +Then the schoolmaster rose, rang the bell, and when it was answered +by a rather careworn young woman, requested her to bring tea. + +"I'm sorry I cannot give you cakes or fresh butter, my lord," +he said with a smile, and they were the first words spoken. "The +former is not to be had, and the latter is beyond my means. But +what I have will content one who is able to count that abundance +which many would count privation." + +He spoke in the choice word, measured phrase, and stately speech +which Wordsworth says "grave livers do in Scotland use," but +under it all rang a tone of humour, as if he knew the form of his +utterance too important for the subject matter of it, and would +gently amuse with it both his visitor and himself. + +He was a man of middle height, but so thin that notwithstanding a +slight stoop in the shoulders, he looked rather tall; much on the +young side of fifty, but apparently a good way on the other, partly +from the little hair he had being grey. He had sandy coloured +whiskers, and a shaven chin. Except his large sweetly closed mouth, +and rather long upper lip, there was nothing very notable in his +features. At ordinary moments, indeed, there was nothing in his +appearance other than insignificant to the ordinary observer. His +eyes were of a pale quiet blue, but when he smiled they sparkled +and throbbed with light. He wore the same old black tailcoat he had +worn last in his school at Portlossie, but the white neckcloth he +had always been seen in there had given place to a black one: that +was the sole change in the aspect of the man. + +About Portlossie he had been greatly respected, notwithstanding +the rumour that he was a "stickit minister," that is, one who had +failed in the attempt to preach; and when the presbytery dismissed +him on the charge of heresy, there had been many tears on the part +of his pupils, and much childish defiance of his unenviable successor. + +Few words passed between the two men until they had had their tea, +and then followed a long talk, Malcolm first explaining his present +position, and then answering many questions of the master as to how +things had gone since he left. Next followed anxious questions on +Malcolm's side as to how his friend found himself in the prison of +London. + +"I do miss the air, and the laverocks (skylarks), and the gowans," +he confessed; "but I have them all in my mind, and at my age a man +ought to be able to satisfy himself with the idea of a thing in his +soul. Of outer things that have contributed to his inward growth, +the memory alone may then well be enough. The sights which, when +I lie down to sleep, rise before that inward eye Wordsworth calls +the bliss of solitude, have upon me power almost of a spiritual +vision, so purely radiant are they of that which dwells in them, +the divine thought which is their substance, their hypostasis. My +boy! I doubt if you can tell what it is to know the presence of +the living God in and about you." + +"I houp I hae a bit notion o' 't, sir," said Malcolm. + +"But believe me that in any case, however much a man may have of +it, he may have it endlessly more. Since I left the cottage where +I hoped to end my days under the shadow of the house of your ancestors, +since I came into this region of bricks and smoke, and the crowded +tokens too plain of want and care, I have found a reality in the +things I had been trying to teach you at Portlossie, such as I had +before imagined only in my best moments. And more still: I am now +far better able to understand how it must have been with our Lord +when he was trying to teach the men and women of Palestine to +have faith in God. Depend upon it, we get our best use of life in +learning by the facts of its ebb and flow to understand the Son of +Man. And again, when we understand Him, then only do we understand +our life and ourselves. Never can we know the majesty of the will +of God concerning us except by understanding Jesus and the work the +Father gave Him to do. Now, nothing is of a more heavenly delight +than to enter into a dusky room in the house of your friend, and +there, with a blow of the heavenly rod, draw light from the dark +wall--open a window, a fountain of the eternal light, and let +in the truth which is the life of the world. Joyously would a man +spend his life, right joyously even if the road led to the gallows, +in showing the grandest he sees--the splendid purities of the +divine religion--the mountain top up to which the voice of God +is ever calling his children. Yes, I can understand even how a man +might live, like the good hermits of old, in triumphant meditation +upon such all satisfying truths, and let the waves of the world's +time wash by him in unheeded flow until his cell changed to his +tomb, and his spirit soared free. But to spend your time in giving +little lessons when you have great ones to give; in teaching the +multiplication table the morning after you made at midnight a grand +discovery upon the very summits of the moonlit mountain range of the +mathematics; in enforcing the old law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour +as thyself when you know in your own heart that not a soul can ever +learn to keep it without first learning to fulfil an infinitely +greater one--to love his neighbour even as Christ hath loved him +--then indeed one may well grow disheartened, and feel as if he +were not in the place prepared for, and at the work required of +him. But it is just then that he must go back to school himself +and learn not only the patience of God who keeps the whole dull +obstinate world alive, while generation after generation is born +and vanishes, and of the mighty multitude only one here and there +rises up from the fetters of humanity into the freedom of the sons +of God--and yet goes on teaching the whole, and bringing every +man who will but turn his ear a little towards the voice that +calls him, nearer and nearer to the second birth--of sonship and +liberty--not only this divine patience must he learn, but the +divine insight as well, which in every form spies the reflex of +the truth it cannot contain, and in every lowliest lesson sees the +highest drawn nearer, and the soul growing alive unto God." + + + +CHAPTER XXII: RICHMOND PARK + + +The next day at noon, mounted on Kelpie, Malcolm was in attendance +upon his mistress, who was eager after a gallop in Richmond Park. +Lord Liftore, who had intended to accompany her, had not made his +appearance yet, but Florimel did not seem the less desirous of +setting out at the time she had appointed Malcolm. The fact was she +had said one o'clock to Liftore, intending twelve, that she might +get away without him. Kelpie seemed on her good behaviour, and they +started quietly enough. By the time they had got out of the park +upon the Kensington Road, however, the evil spirit had begun to +wake in her. But even when she was quietest, she was nothing to +be trusted, and about London Malcolm found he dared never let his +thoughts go, or take his attention quite off her ears. They got +to Kew Bridge in safety nevertheless, though whether they were to +get safely across was doubtful all the time they were upon it, for +again and again she seemed on the very point of clearing the stone +balustrade, but for the terrible bit and chain without which Malcolm +never dared ride her. Still, whatever her caracoles or escapades, +they caused Florimel nothing but amusement, for her confidence in +Malcolm--that he could do whatever he believed he could--was +unbounded. They got through Richmond--with some trouble, but +hardly were they well into the park, when Lord Liftore, followed +by his groom, came suddenly up behind them at such a rate as quite +destroyed the small stock of equanimity Kelpie had to go upon. She +bolted. + +Florimel was a good rider, and knew herself quite mistress of her +horse, and if she now followed, it was at her own will, and with a +design; she wanted to make the horses behind her bolt also if she +could. His lordship came flying after her, and his groom after him, +but she kept increasing her pace until they were all at full stretch, +thundering over the grass--upon which Malcolm had at once turned +Kelpie, giving her little rein and plenty of spur. Gradually +Florimel slackened speed, and at last pulled up suddenly. Liftore +and his groom went past her like the wind. She turned at right angles +and galloped back to the road. There, on a gaunt thoroughbred, with +a furnace of old life in him yet, sat Lenorme, whom she had already +passed and signalled to remain thereabout. They drew alongside of +each other, but they did not shake hands; they only looked each in +the other's eyes, and for a few moments neither spoke. The three +riders were now far away over the park, and still Kelpie held on +and the other horses after her. "I little expected such a pleasure," +said Lenorme. + +"I meant to give it you, though," said Florimel, with a merry laugh. +"Bravo, Kelpie! take them with you," she cried, looking after the +still retreating horsemen. "I have got a familiar since I saw you +last, Raoul," she went on. "See if I don't get some good for us out +of him!--We'll move gently along the road here, and by the time +Liftore's horse is spent, we shall be ready for a good gallop. I +want to tell you all about it. I did not mean Liftore to be here +when I sent you word, but he has been too much for me." + +Lenorme replied with a look of gratitude; and as they walked their +horses along, she told him all concerning Malcolm and Kelpie. + +"Liftore hates him already," she said, "and I can hardly wonder; +but you must not, for you will find him useful. He is one I can +depend upon. You should have seen the look Liftore gave him when he +told him he could not sit his mare! It would have been worth gold +to you." + +Lenorme winced a little. + +"He thinks no end of his riding," Florimel continued; "but if +it were not so improper to have secrets with another gentleman, I +would tell you that he rides--just pretty well." + +Lenorme's great brow gloomed over his eyes like the Eiger in a +mist, but he said nothing yet. + +"He wants to ride Kelpie, and I have told my groom to let him have +her. Perhaps she'll break his neck." + +Lenorme smiled grimly. + +"You wouldn't mind, would you, Raoul?" added Florimel, with a +roguish look. + +"Would you mind telling me, Florimel, what you mean by the impropriety +of having secrets with another gentleman? Am I the other gentleman?" + +"Why, of course! You know Liftore imagined he has only to name the +day." + +"And you allow an idiot like that to cherish such a degrading idea +of you." + +"Why, Raoul! what does it matter what a fool like him thinks?" + +"If you don't mind it, I do. I feel it an insult to me that he +should dare think of you like that." + +"I don't know. I suppose I shall have to marry him some day." + +"Lady Lossie, do you want to make me hate you?" + +"Don't be foolish, Raoul. It won't be tomorrow--nor the next day. +Freuet euch des Lebens!" + +"O Florimel! what is to come of this? Do you want to break my heart? +--I hate to talk rubbish. You won't kill me--you will only ruin +my work, and possibly drive me mad." + +Florimel drew close to his side, laid her hand on his arm, and +looked in his face with a witching entreaty. + +"We have the present, Raoul," she said. + +"So has the butterfly," answered Lenorme; "but I had rather be the +caterpillar with a future.--Why don't you put a stop to the man's +lovemaking? He can't love you or any woman. He does not know what +love means. It makes me ill to hear him when he thinks he is paying +you irresistible compliments. They are so silly! so mawkish! Good +heavens, Florimel! can you imagine that smile every day and always? +Like the rest of his class he seems to think himself perfectly +justified in making fools of women. I want to help you to grow +as beautiful as God meant you to be when he thought of you first. +I want you to be my embodied vision of life, that I may for ever +worship at your feet--live in you, die with you: such bliss, even +were there nothing beyond, would be enough for the heart of a God +to bestow." + +"Stop, stop, Raoul; I'm not worthy of such love," said Florimel, +again laying her hand on his arm. "I do wish for your sake I had +been born a village girl." + +"If you had been, then I might have wished for your sake that I +had been born a marquis. As it is I would rather be a painter than +any nobleman in Europe--that is, with you to love me. Your love +is my patent of nobility. But I may glorify what you love--and +tell you that I can confer something on you also--what none of +your noble admirers can.--God forgive me! you will make me hate +them all!" + +"Raoul, this won't do at all," said Florimel, with the authority +that should belong only to the one in the right. And indeed for the +moment she felt the dignity of restraining a too impetuous passion. +"You will spoil everything. I dare not come to your studio if you +are going to behave like this. It would be very wrong of me. And +if I am never to come and see you, I shall die--I know I shall." + +The girl was so full of the delight of the secret love between +them, that she cared only to live in the present as if there were no +future beyond: Lenorme wanted to make that future like but better +than the present. The word marriage put Florimel in a rage. She +thought herself superior to Lenorme, because he, in the dread of +losing her, would have her marry him at once, while she was more +than content with the bliss of seeing him now and then. Often and +often her foolish talk stung him with bitter pain--worst of all +when it compelled him to doubt whether there was that in her to +be loved as he was capable of loving. Yet always the conviction +that there was a deep root of nobleness in her nature again got +uppermost; and, had it not been so, I fear he would, nevertheless, +have continued to prove her irresistible as often as she chose to +exercise upon him the full might of her witcheries. At one moment +she would reveal herself in such a sudden rush of tenderness +as seemed possible only to one ready to become his altogether and +for ever; the next she would start away as if she had never meant +anything, and talk as if not a thought were in her mind beyond the +cultivation of a pleasant acquaintance doomed to pass with the +season, if not with the final touches to her portrait. Or she would +fall to singing some song he had taught her, more likely a certain +one he had written in a passionate mood of bitter tenderness, with +the hope of stinging her love to some show of deeper life; but +would, while she sang, look with merry defiance in his face, as +if she adopted in seriousness what he had written in loving and +sorrowful satire. + +They rode in silence for some hundred yards. At length he spoke, +replying to her last asseveration. "Then what can you gain, child," +he said-- + +"Will you dare to call me child--a marchioness in my own right!" +she cried, playfully threatening him with uplifted whip, in the +handle of which the little jewels sparkled. + +"What, then, can you gain, my lady marchioness," he resumed, with +soft seriousness, and a sad smile, "by marrying one of your own +rank?--I should lay new honour and consideration at your feet. I +am young. I have done fairly well already. But I have done nothing +to what I could do now, if only my heart lay safe in the port of +peace:--you know where alone that is for me my--lady marchioness. +And you know too that the names of great painters go down with +honour from generation to generation, when my lord this or my lord +that is remembered only as a label to the picture that makes the +painter famous. I am not a great painter yet, but I will be one if +you will be good to me. And men shall say, when they look on your +portrait, in ages to come: No wonder he was such a painter when he +had such a woman to paint." + +He spoke the words with a certain tone of dignified playfulness. + +"When shall the woman sit to you again, painter?" said Florimel-- +sole reply to his rhapsody. + +The painter thought a little. Then he said: + +"I don't like that tire woman of yours. She has two evil eyes-- +one for each of us. I have again and again caught their expression +when they were upon us, and she thought none were upon her: I can +see without lifting my head when I am painting, and my art has +made me quick at catching expressions, and, I hope, at interpreting +them." + +"I don't altogether like her myself," said Florimel. "Of late I am +not so sure of her as I used to be. But what can I do? I must have +somebody with me, you know.--A thought strikes me. Yes. I won't +say now what it is lest I should disappoint my--painter; but-- +yes--you shall see what I will dare for you, faithless man!" + +She set off at a canter, turned on to the grass, and rode to meet +Liftore, whom she saw in the distance returning, followed by the +two grooms. + +"Come on, Raoul," she cried, looking back; "I must account for you. +He sees I have not been alone." + +Lenorme joined her, and they rode along side by side. + +The earl and the painter knew each other: as they drew near, the +painter lifted his hat, and the earl nodded. + +"You owe Mr Lenorme some acknowledgment, my lord, for taking charge +of me after your sudden desertion," said Florimel. "Why did you +gallop off in such a mad fashion?" + +"I am sorry," began Liftore a little embarrassed. + +"Oh! don't trouble yourself to apologise," said Florimel. "I have +always understood that great horsemen find a horse more interesting +than a lady. It is a mark of their breed, I am told." + +She knew that Liftore would not be ready to confess he could not +hold his hack. + +"If it hadn't been for Mr Lenorme," she added, "I should have +been left without a squire, subject to any whim of my four footed +servant here." + +As she spoke she patted the neck of her horse. The earl, on his +side, had been looking the painter's horse up and down with a would +be humorous expression of criticism. + +"I beg your pardon, marchioness," he replied; "but you pulled up +so quickly that we shot past you. I thought you were close behind, +and preferred following.--Seen his best days, eh, Lenorme?" he +concluded, willing to change the subject. + +"I fancy he doesn't think so," returned the painter. "I bought him +out of a butterman's cart, three months ago. He's been coming to +himself ever since. Look at his eye, my lord." + +"Are you knowing in horses, then?" + +"I can't say I am, beyond knowing how to treat them something like +human beings." + +"That's no ill," said Malcolm to himself. He was just near enough, +on the pawing and foaming Kelpie, to catch what was passing.-- +"The fallow 'll du. He's worth a score o' sic yerls as yon." + +"Ha! ha!" said his lordship; "I don't know about that--He's not +the best of tempers, I can see. But look at that demon of Lady +Lossie's--that black mare there! I wish you could teach her some +of your humanity. + +"--By the way, Florimel, I think now we are upon the grass,"-- +he said it loftily, as if submitting to an injustice--"I will +presume to mount the reprobate." + +The gallop had communicated itself to Liftore's blood, and, besides, +he thought after such a run Kelpie would be less extravagant in +her behaviour. + +"She is at your service," said Florimel. + +He dismounted, his groom rode up, he threw him the reins, and called +Malcolm. + +"Bring your mare here, my man," he said. + +Malcolm rode her up half way, and dismounted. + +"If your lordship is going to ride her," he said, "will you please +get on her here. I would rather not take her near the other horses." + +"Well, you know her better than I do.--You and I must ride about +the same length, I think." + +So saying his lordship carelessly measured the stirrup leather +against his arm, and took the reins. + +"Stand well forward, my lord. Don't mind turning your back to her +head: I'll look after her teeth; you mind her hind hoof," said +Malcolm, with her head in one hand and the stirrup in the other. + +Kelpie stood rigid as a rock, and the earl swung himself up cleverly +enough. But hardly was he in the saddle, and Malcolm had just let +her go, when she plunged and lashed out; then, having failed to +unseat her rider, stood straight up on her hind legs. + +"Give her her head, my lord," cried Malcolm. + +She stood swaying in the air, Liftore's now frightened face half +hid in her mane, and his spurs stuck in her flanks. + +"Come off her, my lord, for God's sake. Off with you!" cried Malcolm, +as he leaped at her head. "She'll be on her back in a moment." + +Liftore only clung the harder. Malcolm caught her head--just in +time: she was already falling backwards. + +"Let all go, my lord. Throw yourself off." + +He swung her towards him with all his strength, and just as his +lordship fell off behind her, she fell sideways to Malcolm, and +clear of Liftore. + +Malcolm was on the side away from the little group, and their own +horses were excited, those who had looked breathless on at the +struggle could not tell how he had managed it, but when they expected +to see the groom writhing under the weight of the demoness, there +he was with his knee upon her head--while Liftore was gathering +himself up from the ground, only just beyond the reach of her iron +shod hoofs. + +"Thank God!" said Florimel, "there is no harm done.--Well, have +you had enough of her yet, Liftore?" + +"Pretty nearly, I think," said his lordship, with an attempt at a +laugh, as he walked rather feebly and foolishly towards his horse. +He mounted with some difficulty, and looked very pale. + +"I hope you're not much hurt," said Florimel kindly, as she moved +alongside of him. + +"Not in the least--only disgraced," he answered, almost angrily. +"The brute's a perfect Satan. You must part with her. With such +a horse and such a groom you'll get yourself talked of all over +London. I believe the fellow himself was at the bottom of it. You +really must sell her." + +"I would, my lord, if you were my groom," answered Florimel, whom +his accusation of Malcolm had filled with angry contempt; and she +moved away towards the still prostrate mare. + +Malcolm was quietly seated on her head. She had ceased sprawling, +and lay nearly motionless, but for the heaving of her sides with +her huge inhalations. She knew from experience that struggling was +useless. + +"I beg your pardon, my lady," said Malcolm, "but I daren't get up." + +"How long do you mean to sit there then?" she asked. + +"If your ladyship wouldn't mind riding home without me, I would +give her a good half hour of it. I always do when she throws herself +over like that.--I've gat my Epictetus?" he asked himself feeling +in his coat pocket. + +"Do as you please," answered his mistress. "Let me see you when +you get home. I should like to know you are safe." + +"Thank you, my lady; there's little fear of that," said Malcolm. + +Florimel returned to the gentlemen, and they rode homewards. On +the way she said suddenly to the earl, + +"Can you tell me, Liftore, who Epictetus was?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," answered his lordship. "One of the old +fellows." + +She turned to Lenorme. Happily the Christian heathen was not +altogether unknown to the painter. + +"May I inquire why your ladyship asks?" he said, when he had told +all he could at the moment recollect. + +"Because," she answered, "I left my groom sitting on his horse's +head reading Epictetus." + +"By Jove!" exclaimed Liftore. "Ha! ha! ha! In the original, I +suppose!" + +"I don't doubt it," said Florimel. + +In about two hours Malcolm reported himself. Lord Liftore had gone +home, they told him. The painter fellow, as Wallis called him, had +stayed to lunch, but was now gone also, and Lady Lossie was alone +in the drawing room. + +She sent for him. + +"I am glad to see you safe, MacPhail," she said. "It is clear your +Kelpie--don't be alarmed; I am not going to make you part with +her--but it is clear she won't always do for you to attend me +upon. Suppose now I wanted to dismount and make a call, or go into +a shop?" + +"There's a sort of a friendship between your Abbot and her, my +lady; she would stand all the better if I had him to hold." + +"Well, but how would you put me up again?" + +"I never thought of that, my lady. Of course I daren't let you come +near Kelpie." + +"Could you trust yourself to buy another horse to ride after me +about town?" + +"No, my lady, not without a ten days' trial. If lies stuck like +London mud, there's many a horse would never be seen again. But +there's Mr Lenorme! If he would go with me, I fancy between us we +could do pretty well." + +"Ah! a good idea," returned his mistress. "But what makes you think +of him?" she added, willing enough to talk about him. + +"The look of the gentleman and his horse together, and what I heard +him say," answered Malcolm. + +"What did you hear him say?" + +"That he knew he had to treat horses something like human beings. +I've often fancied, within the last few months, that God does with +some people something like as I do with Kelpie." + +"I know nothing about theology." + +"I don't fancy you do, my lady; but this concerns biography rather +than theology. No one could tell what I meant except he had watched +his own history, and that of people he knew." + +"And horses too?" + +"It's hard to get at their insides, my lady, but I suspect it must +be so. I'll ask Mr Graham." + +"What Mr Graham?" + +"The schoolmaster of Portlossie." + +"Is he in London, then?" + +"Yes, my lady. He believed too much to please the presbytery, and +they turned him out." + +"I should like to see him. He was very attentive to my father on +his death bed." + +"Your ladyship will never know till you are dead yourself what Mr +Graham did for my lord." + +"What do you mean? What could he do for him?" + +"He helped him through sore trouble of mind, my lady." + +Florimel was silent for a little, then repeated, "I should like to +see him. I ought to pay him some attention. Couldn't I make them +give him his school again?" + +"I don't know about that, my lady; but I am sure he would not take +it against the will of the presbytery." + +"I should like to do something for him. Ask him to call." + +"If your ladyship lays your commands upon me," answered Malcolm; +"otherwise I would rather not." + +"Why so, pray?" + +"Because, except he can be of any use to you, he will not come." + +"But I want to be of use to him." + +"How, if I may ask, my lady?" + +"That I can't exactly say on the spur of the moment. I must know +the man first--especially if you are right in supposing he would +not enjoy a victory over the presbytery. I should. He wouldn't take +money, I fear." + +"Except it came of love or work, he would put it from him as he +would brush the dust from his coat." + +"I could introduce him to good society. That is no small privilege +to one of his station." + +"He has more of that and better than your ladyship could give him. +He holds company with Socrates and St. Paul, and greater still." + +"But they're not like living people." + +"Very like them, my lady--only far better company in general. +But Mr Graham would leave Plato himself--yes, or St. Paul either, +though he were sitting beside him in the flesh, to go and help any +old washerwoman that wanted him." + +"Then I want him." + +"No, my lady, you don't want him." + +"How dare you say so?" + +"If you did, you would go to him." + +Florimel's eyes flashed, and her pretty lip curled. She turned to +her writing table, annoyed with herself that she could not find a +fitting word wherewith to rebuke his presumption--rudeness, was +it not?--and a feeling of angry shame arose in her, that she, the +Marchioness of Lossie, had not dignity enough to prevent her own +groom from treating her like a child. But he was far too valuable +to quarrel with. + +She sat down and wrote a note. + +"There," she said, "take that note to Mr Lenorme. I have asked him +to help you in the choice of a horse." + +"What price would you be willing to go to, my lady?" + +"I leave that to Mr Lenorme's judgment--and your own," she added. + +"Thank you, my lady," said Malcolm, and was leaving the room, when +Florimel called him back. + +"Next time you see Mr Graham," she said, "give him my compliments, +and ask him if I can be of any service to him." + +"I'll do that, my lady. I am sure he will take it very kindly." + +Florimel made no answer, and Malcolm went to find the painter. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII: PAINTER AND GROOM + + +The address upon the note Malcolm had to deliver took him to a +house in Chelsea--one of a row of beautiful old houses fronting +the Thames, with little gardens between them and the road. The one +he sought was overgrown with creepers, most of them now covered +with fresh spring buds. The afternoon had turned cloudy, and a +cold east wind came up the river, which, as the tide was falling, +raised little waves on its surface and made Malcolm think of the +herring. Somehow, as he went up to the door, a new chapter of his +life seemed about to commence. + +The servant who took the note, returned immediately, and showed +him up to the study, a large back room, looking over a good sized +garden, with stables on one side. There Lenorme sat at his easel. + +"Ah!" he said, "I'm glad to see that wild animal has not quite torn +you to pieces. Take a chair. What on earth made you bring such an +incarnate fury to London?" + +"I see well enough now, sir, she's not exactly the one for London +use, but if you had once ridden her, you would never quite enjoy +another between your knees." + +"She's such an infernal brute!" + +"You can't say too ill of her. But I fancy a gaol chaplain sometimes +takes the most interest in the worst villain under his charge. I +should be a proud man to make her fit to live with decent people." + +"I'm afraid she'll be too much for you. At last you'll have to part +with her, I fear." + +"If she had bitten you as often as she has me, sir, you wouldn't +part with her. Besides, it would be wrong to sell her. She would +only be worse with anyone else. But, indeed, though you will hardly +believe it, she is better than she was." + +"Then what must she have been!" + +"You may well say that, sir!" + +"Here your mistress tells me you want my assistance in choosing +another horse." + +"Yes, sir--to attend upon her in London." + +"I don't profess to be knowing in horses: what made you think of +me?" + +"I saw how you sat your own horse, sir, and I heard you say you +bought him out of a butterman's cart, and treated him like a human +being: that was enough for me, sir. I've long had the notion that +the beasts, poor things, have a half sleeping, half waking human +soul in them, and it was a great pleasure to hear you say something +of the same sort. 'That gentleman,' I said to myself, '--he and +I would understand one another.'" + +"I am glad you think so," said Lenorme, with entire courtesy.--It +was not merely that the very doubtful recognition of his profession +by society had tended to keep him clear of his prejudices, but +both as a painter and a man he found the young fellow exceedingly +attractive;--as a painter from the rare combination of such +strength with such beauty, and as a man from a certain yet rarer +clarity of nature which to the vulgar observer seems fatuity until +he has to encounter it in action, when the contrast is like meeting +a thunderbolt. Naturally the dishonest takes the honest for a fool. +Beyond his understanding, he imagines him beneath it. But Lenorme, +although so much more a man of the world, was able in a measure +to look into Malcolm and appreciate him. His nature and his art +combined in enabling him to do this. + +"You see, sir," Malcolm went on, encouraged by the simplicity +of Lenorme's manner, "if they were nothing like us, how should we +be able to get on with them at all, teach them anything, or come +a hair nearer them, do what we might? For all her wickedness I +firmly believe Kelpie has a sort of regard for me--I won't call +it affection, but perhaps it comes as near that as may be possible +in the time to one of her temper." + +"Now I hope you will permit me, Mr MacPhail," said Lenorme, who had +been paying more attention to Malcolm than to his words, "to give +a violent wrench to the conversation, and turn it upon yourself. +You can't be surprised, and I hope you will not be annoyed, if I +say you strike one as not altogether like your calling. No London +groom I have ever spoken to, in the least resembles you. How is +it?" + +"I hope you don't mean to imply, sir, that I don't know my business," +returned Malcolm, laughing. + +"Anything but that! It were nearer the thing to say, that for all +I know you may understand mine as well." + +"I wish I did, sir. Except the pictures at Lossie House and those +in Portland Place, I've never seen one in my life. About most of +them I must say I find it hard to imagine what better the world +is for them. Mr Graham says that no work that doesn't tend to make +the world better makes it richer. If he were a heathen, he says, +he would build a temple to Ses, the sister of Psyche." + +"Ses?--I don't remember her," said Lenorme. + +"The moth, sir;--'the moth and the rust,' you know." + +"Yes, yes; now I know! Capital! Only more things may tend to make +the world better than some people think.--Who is this Mr Graham +of yours? He must be no common man." + +"You are right there, sir; there is not another like him in the +whole world, I believe." + +And thereupon Malcolm set himself to give the painter an idea of +the schoolmaster. + +When they had talked about him for a little while, + +"Well, all this accounts for your being a scholar," said Lenorme; "but--" + +"I am little enough of that, sir," interrupted Malcolm. "Any Scotch +boy that likes to learn finds the way open to him." + +"I am aware of that. But were you really reading Epictetus when we +left you in the park this morning?" + +"Yes, sir: why not?" + +"In the original?" + +"Yes, sir; but not very readily. I am a poor Greek scholar. But my +copy has a rough Latin translation on the opposite page, and that +helps me out. It's not difficult. You would think nothing of it if +it had been Cornelius Nepos, or Cordery's Colloquies. It's only a +better, not a more difficult book." + +"I don't know about that. It's not every one who can read Greek +that can understand Epictetus. Tell me what you have learned from +him?" + +"That would be hard to do. A man is very ready to forget how he +came first to think of the things he loves best. You see they are +as much a necessity of your being as they are of the man's who +thought them first. I can no more do without the truth than Plato. +It is as much my needful food and as fully mine to possess as his. +His having it, Mr Graham says, was for my sake as well as his own. +--It's just like what Sir Thomas Browne says about the faces of +those we love--that we cannot retain the idea of them because +they are ourselves. Those that help the world must be served like +their master and a good deal forgotten, I fancy. Of course they don't +mind it.--I remember another passage I think says something to +the same purpose--one in Epictetus himself," continued Malcolm, +drawing the little book from his pocket and turning over the leaves, +while Lenorme sat waiting, wondering, and careful not to interrupt +him. + +He turned to the forty-second chapter, and began to read from the +Greek. + +"I've forgotten all the Greek I ever had," said Lenorme. + +Then Malcolm turned to the opposite page and began to read the +Latin. + +"Tut! tut!" said Lenorme, "I can't follow your Scotch pronunciation." + +"That's a pity," said Malcolm: "it's the right way." + +"I don't doubt it. You Scotch are always in the right! But just +read it off in English--will you?" + +Thus adjured, Malcolm read slowly and with choice of word and phrase + +"'And if any one shall say unto thee, that thou knowest nothing, +notwithstanding thou must not be vexed: then know thou that thou +hast begun thy work.'--That is," explained Malcolm, "when you +keep silence about principles in the presence of those that are +incapable of understanding them.--'For the sheep also do not +manifest to the shepherds how much they have eaten, by producing +fodder; but, inwardly digesting their food, they produce outwardly +wool and milk. And thou therefore set not forth principles before +the unthinking, but the actions that result from the digestion of +them.'--That last is not quite literal, but I think it's about +right," concluded Malcolm, putting the book again in the breast +pocket of his silver buttoned coat. "--That's the passage I +thought of, but I see now it won't apply. He speaks of not saying +what you know; I spoke of forgetting where you got it." + +"Come now," said Lenorme, growing more and more interested in his +new acquaintance, "tell me something about your life. Account for +yourself.--If you will make a friendship of it, you must do that." + +"I will, sir," said Malcolm, and with the word began to tell him +most things he could think of as bearing upon his mental history +up to and after the time also when his birth was disclosed to him. +In omitting that disclosure he believed he had without it quite +accounted for himself. Through the whole recital he dwelt chiefly +on the lessons and influences of the schoolmaster. + +"Well, I must admit," said Lenorme when he had ended, "that you +are no longer unintelligible, not to say incredible. You have had +a splendid education, in which I hope you give the herring and +Kelpie their due share." + +He sat silently regarding him for a few moments. Then he said: + +"I'll tell you what now: if I help you to buy a horse, you must +help me to paint a picture." + +"I don't know how I'm to do that," said Malcolm, "but if you do, +that's enough. I shall only be too happy to do what I can." + +"Then I'll tell you.--But you're not to tell anybody: it's a +secret.--I have discovered that there is no suitable portrait of +Lady Lossie's father. It is a great pity. His brother and his father +and grandfather are all in Portland Place, in Highland costume, +as chiefs of their clan; his place only is vacant. Lady Lossie, +however, has in her possession one or two miniatures of him, which, +although badly painted, I should think may give the outlines of +his face and head with tolerable correctness. From the portraits +of his predecessors, and from Lady Lossie herself, I gain some +knowledge of what is common to the family; and from all together +I hope to gather and paint what will be recognizable by her as +a likeness of her father--which afterwards I hope to better by +her remarks. These remarks I hope to get first from her feelings +unadulterated by criticism, through the surprise of coming upon +the picture suddenly; afterwards from her judgment at its leisure. +Now I remember seeing you wait at table--the first time I saw +you--in the Highland dress: will you come to me so dressed, and +let me paint from you?" + +"I'll do better than that, sir," cried Malcolm, eagerly. "I'll get +up from Lossie Home my lord's very dress that he wore when he went +to court--his jewelled dirk, and Andrew Ferrara broadsword with +the hilt of real silver. That'll greatly help your design upon my +lady, for he dressed up in them all more than once just to please +her." + +"Thank you," said Lenorme very heartily; "that will be of immense +advantage. Write at once." + +"I will, sir.--Only I'm a bigger man than my--late master, and +you must mind that." + +"I'll see to it. You get the clothes, and all the rest +of the accoutrements--rich with barbaric gems and gold, and--" + +"Neither gems nor gold, sir;--honest Scotch cairngorms and plain +silver," said Malcolm. + +"I only quoted Milton," returned Lenorme. + +"Then you should have quoted correctly, sir.--'Showers on her kings +barbaric pearl and gold,'--that's the line, and you can't better +it. Mr Graham always pulled me up if I didn't quote correctly.-- +By the bye, sir, some say it's kings barbaric, but there's barbaric +gold in Virgil." + +"I dare say you are right," said Lenorme. "But you're far too +learned for me." + +"Don't make game of me, sir. I know two or three books pretty well, +and when I get a chance I can't help talking about them. It's so +seldom now I can get a mouthful of Milton. There's no cave here to +go into, and roll the mimic thunder in your mouth. If the people +here heard me reading loud out, they would call me mad. It's a mercy +in this London, if a working man get loneliness enough to say his +prayers in!" + +"You do say your prayers then?" asked Lenorme, looking at him +curiously. + +"Yes; don't you, sir? You had so much sense about the beasts I +thought you must be a man that said his prayers." + +Lenorme was silent. He was not altogether innocent of saying prayers; +but of late years it had grown a more formal and gradually a rarer +thing. One reason of this was that it had never come into his +head that God cared about pictures, or had the slightest interest +whether he painted well or ill. If a man's earnest calling, to +which of necessity the greater part of his thought is given, is +altogether dissociated in his mind from his religion, it is not +wonderful that his prayers should by degrees wither and die. The +question is whether they ever had much vitality. But one mighty +negative was yet true of Lenorme: he had not got in his head, still +less had he ever cherished in his heart, the thought that there was +anything fine in disbelieving in a God, or anything contemptible +in imagining communication with a being of grander essence than +himself. That in which Socrates rejoiced with exultant humility, +many a youth nowadays thinks himself a fine fellow for casting from +him with ignorant scorn. + +A true conception of the conversation above recorded can hardly be +had except my reader will take the trouble to imagine the contrast +between the Scotch accent and inflection, the largeness and +prolongation of vowel sounds, and, above all, the Scotch tone of +Malcolm, and the pure, clear articulation, and decided utterance +of the perfect London speech of Lenorme. It was something like the +difference between the blank verse of Young and the prose of Burke. + +The silence endured so long that Malcolm began to fear he had hurt +his new friend, and thought it better to take his leave. + +"I'll go and write to Mrs Courthope--that's the housekeeper, +tonight, to send up the things at once. When would it be convenient +for you to go and look at some horses with me, Mr Lenorme?" he +said. + +"I shall be at home all tomorrow," answered the painter, "and ready +to go with you any time you like to come for me." + +As he spoke he held out his hand, and they parted like old friends. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV: A LADY + + +The next morning, Malcolm took Kelpie into the park, and gave her +a good breathing. He had thought to jump the rails, and let her +have her head, but he found there were too many park keepers and +police about: he saw he could do little for her that way. He was +turning home with her again when one of her evil fits came upon +her, this time taking its first form in a sudden stiffening of +every muscle: she stood stock still with flaming eyes. I suspect +we human beings know but little of the fierceness with which the +vortices of passion rage in the more purely animal natures. This +beginning he knew well would end in a wild paroxysm of rearing and +plunging. He had more than once tried the exorcism of patience, +sitting sedate upon her back until she chose to move; but on these +occasions the tempest that followed had been of the very worst +description; so that he had concluded it better to bring on the +crisis, thereby sure at least to save time; and after he had adopted +this mode with her, attacks of the sort, if no less violent, had +certainly become fewer. The moment therefore that symptoms of an +approaching fit showed themselves, he used his spiked heels with +vigour. Upon this occasion he had a stiff tussle with her, but +as usual gained the victory, and was riding slowly along the Row, +Kelpie tossing up now her head now her heels in indignant protest +against obedience in general and enforced obedience in particular, +when a lady on horseback, who had come galloping from the opposite +direction, with her groom behind her, pulled up, and lifted her +hand with imperative grace: she had seen something of what had been +going on. Malcolm reined in. But Kelpie, after her nature, was now +as unwilling to stop as she had been before to proceed, and the +fight began again, with some difference of movement and aspect, +but the spurs once more playing a free part. + +"Man! man!" cried the lady, in most musical reproof, "do you know +what you are about?" + +"It would be a bad job for her and me too if I did not, my lady," +said Malcolm, whom her appearance and manner impressed with a +conviction of rank, and as he spoke he smiled in the midst of the +struggle: he seldom got angry with Kelpie. But the smile instead +of taking from the apparent roughness of his speech, only made his +conduct appear in the lady's eyes more cruel. + +"How is it possible you can treat the poor animal so unkindly +--and in cold blood too?" she said, and an indescribable tone of +pleading ran through the rebuke. "Why, her poor sides are actually--" +A shudder, and look of personal distress completed the sentence. + +"You don't know what she is, my lady, or you would not think it +necessary to intercede for her." + +"But if she is naughty, is that any reason why you should be cruel?" + +"No, my lady; but it is the best reason why I should try to make +her good." + +"You will never make her good that way." + +"Improvement gives ground for hope," said Malcolm. + +"But you must not treat a poor dumb animal as you would a responsible +human being." + +"She's not so very poor, my lady. She has all she wants, and does +nothing to earn it--nothing to speak of; and nothing at all with +good will. For her dumbness, that's a mercy. If she could speak she +wouldn't be fit to live among decent people. But for that matter, +if some one hadn't taken her in hand, dumb as she is, she would +have been shot long ago." + +"Better that than live with such usage." + +"I don't think she would agree with you, my lady. My fear is that, +for as cruel as it looks to your ladyship, take it altogether, she +enjoys the fight. In any case, I am certain she has more regard +for me than any other being in the universe." + +"Who can have any regard for you," said the lady very gently, +in utter mistake of his meaning, "if you have no command of your +temper? You must learn to rule yourself first." + +"That's true, my lady; and so long as my mare is not able to be a +law to herself, I must be a law to her too." + +"But have you never heard of the law of kindness? You could do so +much more without the severity." + +"With some natures I grant you, my lady, but not with such as she. +Horse or man--they never show kindness till they have learned +fear. Kelpie would have torn me to pieces before now if I had taken +your way with her. But except I can do a great deal more with her +yet she will be nothing better than a natural brute beast made to +be taken and destroyed." + +"The Bible again!" murmured the lady to herself. "Of how much +cruelty has not that book to bear the blame!" + +All this time Kelpie was trying hard to get at the lady's horse to +bite him. But she did not see that. She was much too distressed-- +and was growing more and more so. + +"I wish you would let my groom try her," she said, after a pitiful +pause. "He's an older and more experienced man than you. He has +children. He would show you what can be done by gentleness." + +From Malcolm's words she had scarcely gathered even a false meaning +--not a glimmer of his nature--not even a suspicion that he meant +something. To her he was but a handsome, brutal young groom. From +the world of thought and reasoning that lay behind his words, not +an echo had reached her. + +"It would be a great satisfaction to my old Adam to let him try +her," said Malcolm. + +"The Bible again!" said the lady to herself. + +"But it would be murder," he added, "not knowing myself what +experience he has had." + +"I see," said the lady to herself; but loud enough for Malcolm to +hear, for her tender heartedness had made her both angry and unjust, +"his self conceit is equal to his cruelty--just what I might have +expected!" + +With the words she turned her horse's head and rode away, leaving +a lump in Malcolm's throat. + +"I wuss fowk"--he still spoke in Scotch in his own chamber-- +"wad du as they're tell't, an' no jeedge ane anither. I'm sure it's +Kelpie's best chance o' salvation 'at I gang on wi' her. Stable men +wad ha'e had her brocken doon a'thegither by this time; an' life +wad ha'e had little relish left." + +It added hugely to the bitterness of being thus rebuked, that +he had never in his life seen such a radiance of beauty's softest +light as shone from the face and form of the reproving angel.-- +"Only She canna be an angel," he said to himself; "or she wad ha'e +ken't better." + +She was young--not more than twenty, tall and graceful, with a +touch of the matronly, which she must have had even in childhood, +for it belonged to her--so staid, so stately was she in all her +grace. With her brown hair, her lily complexion, her blue gray +eyes, she was all of the moonlight and its shadows--even now, in +the early morning, and angry. Her nose was so nearly perfect that +one never thought of it. Her mouth was rather large, but had gained +in value of shape, and in the expression of indwelling sweetness, +with every line that carried it beyond the measure of smallness. +Most little mouths are pretty, some even lovely, but not one have +I seen beautiful. Her forehead was the sweetest of half moons. Of +those who knew her best some absolutely believed that a radiance +resembling moonlight shimmered from its precious expanse. + +"Be ye angry and sin not," had always been a puzzle to Malcolm, +who had, as I have said, inherited a certain Celtic fierceness; +but now, even while he knew himself the object of the anger, +he understood the word. It tried him sorely, however, that such +gentleness and beauty should be unreasonable. Could it be that he +should never have a chance of convincing her how mistaken she was +concerning his treatment of Kelpie! What a celestial rosy red her +face had glowed! and what summer lightnings had flashed up in her +eyes, as if they had been the horizons of heavenly worlds up which +flew the dreams that broke from the brain of a young sleeping +goddess, to make the worlds glad also in the night of their slumber. + +Something like this Malcolm felt: whoever saw her must feel as he +had never felt before. He gazed after her long and earnestly. + +"It's an awfu' thing to ha'e a wuman like that angert at ye!", he +said to himself when at length she had disappeared, "--as bonny +as she is angry! God be praised 'at he kens a'thing, an' 's no +angert wi' ye for the luik o' a thing! But the wheel may come roon' +again--wha kens? Ony gait I s' mak' the best o' Kelpie I can.-- +I won'er gien she kens Leddy Florimel! She's a heap mair boontifu' +like in her beauty nor her. The man micht haud 's ain wi' an +archangel 'at had a woman like that to the wife o' 'm.--Hoots! +I'll be wussin' I had had anither upbringin', 'at I micht ha' won +a step nearer to the hem o' her garment! an' that wad be to deny +him 'at made an' ordeen't me. I wull not du that. But I maun hae a +crack wi' Maister Graham, anent things twa or three, just to haud +me straucht, for I'm jist girnin' at bein' sae regairdit by sic a +Revelation. Gien she had been an auld wife, I wad ha'e only lauchen: +what for 's that? I doobt I'm no muckle mair rizzonable nor hersel'! +The thing was this, I fancy it was sae clear she spak frae no ill +natur', only frae pure humanity. She's a gran' ane yon, only some +saft, I doobt." + +For the lady, she rode away sadly strengthened in her doubts whether +there could be a God in the world--not because there were in it +such men as she took Malcolm for, but because such a lovely animal +had fallen into his hands. + +"It's a sair thing to be misjeedged," said Malcolm to himself as +he put the demoness in her stall; "but it's no more than the Macker +o' 's pits up wi' ilka hoor o' the day, an' says na a word. Eh, +but God's unco quaiet! Sae lang as he kens till himsel' 'at he's +a' richt, he lats fowk think 'at they like--till he has time to +lat them ken better. Lord, mak' clean my hert within me, an' syne +I'll care little for ony jeedgement but thine." + + + +CHAPTER XXV: THE PSYCHE + + +It was a lovely day, but Florimel would not ride: Malcolm must go +at once to Mr Lenorme; she would not go out again until she could +have a choice of horses to follow her. + +"Your Kelpie is all very well in Richmond Park, and I wish I were +able to ride her myself, Malcolm, but she will never do in London." + +His name sounded sweet on her lips, but somehow today, for the first +time since he saw her first, he felt a strange sense of superiority +in his protection of her: could it be because he had that morning +looked unto a higher orb of creation? It mattered little to Malcolm's +generous nature that the voice that issued therefrom had been one +of unjust rebuke. + +"Who knows, my lady," he answered his mistress, "but you may ride +her some day! Give her a bit of sugar every time you see her-- +on your hand, so that she may take it with her lips, and not catch +your fingers." + +"You shall show me how," said Florimel, and gave him a note for Mr +Lenorme. + +When he came in sight of the river, there, almost opposite the +painter's house, lay his own little yacht! He thought of Kelpie +in the stable, saw Psyche floating like a swan in the reach, made +two or three long strides, then sought to exhale the pride of life +in thanksgiving. + +The moment his arrival was announced to Lenorme, he came down and +went with him, and in an hour or two they had found very much the +sort of horse they wanted. Malcolm took him home for trial, and +Florimel was pleased with him. The earl's opinion was not to be had, +for he had hurt his shoulder when he fell from the rearing Kelpie +the day before, and was confined to his room in Curzon Street. + +In the evening Malcolm put on his yachter's uniform, and set out +again for Chelsea. There he took a boat, and crossed the river +to the yacht, which lay near the other side, in charge of an old +salt whose acquaintance Blue Peter had made when lying below the +bridges. On board he found all tidy and shipshape. He dived into +the cabin, lighted a candle, and made some measurements: all the +little luxuries of the nest, carpets, cushions, curtains, and other +things, were at Lossie House, having been removed when the Psyche +was laid up for the winter: he was going to replace them. And +he was anxious to see whether be could not fulfil a desire he had +once heard Florimel express to her father--that she had a bed on +board, and could sleep there. He found it possible, and had soon +contrived a berth: even a tiny stateroom was within the limits of +construction. + +Returning to the deck, he was consulting Travers about a carpenter, +when, to his astonishment, he saw young Davy, the boy he had brought +from Duff Harbour, and whom he understood to have gone back with +Blue Peter, gazing at him from before the mast. + +"Gien ye please, Maister MacPhail," said Davy, and said no more. + +"How on earth do you come to be here, you rascal?" said Malcolm. +"Peter was to take you home with him!" + +"I garred him think I was gauin'," answered the boy, scratching +his red poll, which glowed in the dusk. + +"I gave him your wages," said Malcolm. + +"Ay, he tauld me that, but I loot them gang an' gae him the slip, +an' was ashore close ahint yersel', sir, jist as the smack set +sail. I cudna gang ohn hed a word wi' yersel', sir, to see whether +ye wadna lat me bide wi' ye, sir. I haena muckle wut, they tell +me, sir, but gien I michtna aye be able to du what ye tell't me to +du, I cud aye haud ohn dune what ye tell't me no to." + +The words of the boy pleased Malcolm more than he judged it wise +to manifest. He looked hard at Davy. There was little to be seen +in his face except the best and only thing--truth. It shone from +his round pale blue eyes; it conquered the self assertion of his +unhappy nose; it seemed to glow in every freckle of his sunburnt +cheeks, as earnestly he returned Malcolm's gaze. + +"But," said Malcolm, almost satisfied, "how is this, Travers? I +never gave you any instructions about the boy." + +"There's where it is, sir," answered Travers. "I seed the boy +aboard before, and when he come aboard again, jest arter you left, +I never as much as said to myself, It's all right. I axed him no +questions, and he told me no lies." + +"Gien ye please, sir," struck in Davy, "Maister Trahvers gied me +my mait, an' I tuik it, 'cause I hed no sil'er to buy ony: I houp +it wasna stealin', sir. An' gien ye wad keep me, ye cud tak it aft +o' my wauges for three days." + +"Look here, Davy," said Malcolm, turning sharp upon him, "can you +swim?" + +"Ay can I, sir,--weel that," answered Davy. + +"Jump overboard then, and swim ashore," said Malcolm, pointing to +the Chelsea bank. + +The boy made two strides to the larboard gunwale, and would have +been over the next instant, but Malcolm caught him by the shoulder. + +"That'll do, Davy; I'll give you a chance, Davy," he said, "and +if I get a good account of you from Travers, I'll rig you out like +myself here." + +"Thank you, sir," said Davy. "I s' du what I can to please ye, sir. +An' gien ye wad sen' my wauges hame to my mither, sir, ye wad ken +'at I cudna be gauin' stravaguin', and drinkin' whan yer back was +turn't." + +"Well, I'll write to your mother, and see what she says," said +Malcolm. "Now I want to tell you, both of you, that this yacht +belongs to the Marchioness of Lossie, and I have the command of +her, and I must have everything on board shipshape, and as clean, +Travers, as if she were a seventy-four. If there's the head of a +pail visible, it must be as bright as silver. And everything must +be at the word. The least hesitation, and I have done with that man. +If Davy here had grumbled one mouthful, even on his way overboard, +I wouldn't have kept him." + +He then arranged that Travers was to go home that night, and bring +with him the next morning an old carpenter friend of his. He would +himself be down by seven o'clock to set him to work. + +The result was that, before a fortnight was over, he had the +cabin thoroughly fitted up, with all the luxuries it had formerly +possessed, and as many more as he could think of--to compensate +for the loss of the space occupied by the daintiest little stateroom +--a very jewel box for softness and richness and comfort. In the +cabin, amongst the rest of his additions, he had fixed in a corner +a set of tiny bookshelves, and filled them with what books he knew +his sister liked, and some that he liked for her. It was not probable +she would read in them much, he said to himself, but they wouldn't +make the boat heel, and who could tell when a drop of celestial +nepenthe might ooze from one or another of them! So there they +stood, in their lovely colours, of morocco, russia, calf or vellum +--types of the infinite rest in the midst of the ever restless-- +the types for ever tossed, but the rest remaining. + +By that time also he had arranged with Travers and Davy a code of +signals. + +The day after Malcolm had his new hack, he rode him behind his +mistress in the park, and nothing could be more decorous than the +behaviour of both horse and groom. It was early, and in Rotten +Row, to his delight, they met the lady of rebuke. She and Florimel +pulled up simultaneously, greeted, and had a little talk. When +they parted, and the lady came to pass Malcolm, whom she had not +suspected, sitting a civilised horse in all serenity behind his +mistress, she cast a quick second glance at him, and her fair face +flushed with the red reflex of yesterday's anger. He expected her +to turn at once and complain of him to her mistress, but to his +disappointment, she rode on. + +When they left the park, Florimel went down Constitution Hill, and +turning westward, rode to Chelsea. As they approached Mr Lenorme's +house, she stopped and said to Malcolm--"I am going to run in and +thank Mr Lenorme for the trouble he has been at about the horse. +Which is the house?" + +She pulled up at the gate. Malcolm dismounted, but before he could +get near to assist her, she was already halfway up the walk-- +flying, and he was but in time to catch the rein of Abbot, already +moving off curious to know whether he was actually trusted alone. +In about five minutes she came again, glancing about her all ways +but behind, with a scared look, Malcolm thought. But she walked +more slowly and statelily than usual down the path. In a moment +Malcolm had her in the saddle, and she cantered away--past the +hospital into Sloane Street, and across the park home. He said to +himself, "She knows the way." + + + +CHAPTER XXVI: THE SCHOOLMASTER + + +Alexander Graham, the schoolmaster, was the son of a grieve, or +farm overseer, in the North of Scotland. By straining every nerve, +his parents had succeeded in giving him a university education, +the narrowness of whose scope was possibly favourable to the +development of what genius, rare and shy, might lurk among the +students. He had laboured well, and had gathered a good deal from +books and lectures, but far more from the mines they guided him to +discover in his own nature. In common with so many Scotch parents, +his had cherished the most wretched as well as hopeless of all +ambitions, seeing it presumes to work in a region into which no +ambition can enter--I mean that of seeing their son a clergyman. +In presbyter, curate, bishop, or cardinal, ambition can fare but as +that of the creeping thing to build its nest in the topmost boughs +of the cedar. Worse than that; my simile is a poor one; for the +moment a thought of ambition is cherished, that moment the man is +out of the kingdom. Their son with already a few glimmering insights, +which had not yet begun to interfere with his acceptance of the +doctrines of his church, made no opposition to their wish, but +having qualified himself to the satisfaction of his superiors, at +length ascended the pulpit to preach his first sermon. + +The custom of the time as to preaching was a sort of compromise +between reading a sermon and speaking extempore, a mode morally +as well as artistically false: the preacher learned his sermon by +rote, and repeated it--as much like the man he therein was not, +and as little like the parrot he was, as he could. It is no wonder, +in such an attempt, either that memory should fail a shy man, or +assurance an honest man. In Mr Graham's case it was probably the +former: the practice was universal, and he could hardly yet have +begun to question it, so as to have had any conscience of evil. +Blessedly, however, for his dawning truth and well being, he failed +--failed utterly--pitifully. His tongue clave to the roof of his +mouth; his lips moved, but shaped no sound; a deathly dew bathed +his forehead; his knees shook; and he sank at last to the bottom +of the chamber of his torture, whence, while his mother wept below, +and his father clenched hands of despair beneath the tails of his +Sunday coat, he was half led, half dragged down the steps by the +bedral, shrunken together like one caught in a shameful deed, and +with the ghastly look of him who has but just revived from the faint +supervening on the agonies of the rack. Home they crept together, +speechless and hopeless all three, to be thenceforth the contempt +and not the envy of their fellow parishioners. For if the vulgar +feeling towards the home born prophet is superciliousness, what +must the sentence upon failure be in ungenerous natures, to which +every downfall of another is an uplifting of themselves! But Mr +Graham's worth had gained him friends in the presbytery, and he +was that same week appointed to the vacant school of another parish. + +There it was not long before he made the acquaintance of Griselda +Campbell, who was governess in the great house of the neighbourhood, +and a love, not the less fine that it was hopeless from the first, +soon began to consume the chagrin of his failure, and substitute for +it a more elevating sorrow;--for how could an embodied failure, +to offer whose miserable self would be an insult, dare speak of +love to one before whom his whole being sank worshipping. Silence +was the sole armour of his privilege. So long as he was silent, the +terrible arrow would never part from the bow of those sweet lips; +he might love on, love ever, nor be grudged the bliss of such +visions as to him, seated on its outer steps, might come from any +chance opening of the heavenly gate. And Miss Campbell thought +of him more kindly than he knew. But before long she accepted the +offered situation of governess to Lady Annabel, the only child of +the late marquis's elder brother, at that time himself marquis, +and removed to Lossie House. There the late marquis fell in love +with her, and persuaded her to a secret marriage. There also she +became, in the absence of her husband, the mother of Malcolm. But +the marquis of the time, jealous for the succession of his daughter, +and fearing his brother might yet marry the mother of his child, +contrived, with the assistance of the midwife, to remove the infant +and persuade the mother that he was dead, and also to persuade +his brother of the death of both mother and child; after which, +imagining herself wilfully deserted by her husband, yet determined +to endure shame rather than break the promise of secrecy she had +given him, the poor lady accepted the hospitality of her distant +relative, Miss Horn, and continued with her till she died. + +When he learned where she had gone, Mr Graham seized a chance of +change to Portlossie that occurred soon after, and when she became +her cousin's guest, went to see her, was kindly received, and for +twenty years lived in friendly relations with the two. It was not +until after her death that he came to know the strange fact that the +object of his calm unalterable devotion had been a wife all those +years, and was the mother of his favourite pupil. About the same +time he was dismissed from the school on the charge of heretical +teaching, founded on certain religious conversations he had had with +some of the fisher people who sought his advice; and thereupon he +had left the place, and gone to London, knowing it would be next +to impossible to find or gather another school in Scotland after +being thus branded. In London he hoped, one way or another, to +avoid dying of cold or hunger, or in debt: that was very nearly +the limit of his earthly ambition. + +He had just one acquaintance in the whole mighty city, and no more. +Him he had known in the days of his sojourn at King's College, where +he had grown with him from bejan to magistrand. He was the son of +a linen draper in Aberdeen, and was a decent, good humoured fellow, +who, if he had not distinguished, had never disgraced himself. His +father, having somewhat influential business relations, and finding +in him no leanings to a profession, bespoke the good offices of a +certain large retail house in London, and sent him thither to learn +the business. The result was that he had married a daughter of +one of the partners, and become a partner himself. His old friend +wrote to him at his shop in Oxford Street, and then went to see +him at his house in Haverstock Hill. + +He was shown into the library--in which were two mahogany cases +with plate glass doors, full of books, well cared for as to clothing +and condition, and perfectly placid, as if never disturbed from +one week's end to another. In a minute Mr Marshal entered--so +changed that he could never have recognized him--still, however, +a kind hearted, genial man. He received his classfellow cordially +and respectfully--referred merrily to old times, and begged to +know how he was getting on, asked whether he had come to London with +any special object, and invited him to dine with them on Sunday. +He accepted the invitation, met him, according to agreement, at a +certain chapel in Kentish Town, of which he was a deacon, and walked +home with him and his wife. + +They had but one of their family at home--the youngest son, whom +his father was having educated for the dissenting ministry, in the +full conviction that he was doing not a little for the truth, and +justifying its cause before men, by devoting to its service the son +of a man of standing and worldly means, whom he might have easily +placed in a position to make money. The youth was of simple character +and good inclination--ready to do what he saw to be right, but +slow in putting to the question anything that interfered with his +notions of laudable ambition, or justifiable self interest. He was +attending lectures at a dissenting college in the neighbourhood, +for his father feared Oxford or Cambridge, not for his morals, but +his opinions in regard to church and state. + +The schoolmaster spent a few days in the house. His friend was +generally in town, and his wife, regarding him as very primitive +and hardly fit for what she counted society--the class, namely, +that she herself represented, was patronising and condescending; +but the young fellow, finding, to his surprise, that he knew a +great deal more about his studies than he did himself, was first +somewhat attracted and then somewhat influenced by him, so that at +length an intimacy tending to friendship arose between them. + +Mr Graham was not a little shocked to discover that his ideas +in respect of the preacher's calling were of a very worldly kind. +The notions of this fledgling of dissent differed from those of +a clergyman of the same stamp in this:--the latter regards the +church as a society with accumulated property for the use of its +officers; the former regarded it as a community of communities, each +possessing a preaching house which ought to be made commercially +successful. Saving influences must emanate from it of course-- +but dissenting saving influences. + +His mother was a partisan to a hideous extent. To hear her talk you +would have thought she imagined the apostles the first dissenters, +and that the main duty of every Christian soul was to battle for +the victory of Congregationalism over Episcopacy, and Voluntaryism +over State Endowment. Her every mode of thinking and acting was of +a levelling commonplace. With her, love was liking, duty something +unpleasant--generally to other people, and kindness patronage. But +she was just in money matters, and her son too had every intention +of being worthy of his hire, though wherein lay the value of the +labour with which he thought to counterpoise that hire, it were +hard to say. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII: THE PREACHER + + +The sermon Mr Graham heard at the chapel that Sunday morning in +Kentish Town was not of an elevating, therefore not of a strengthening +description. The pulpit was at that time in offer to the highest +bidder--in orthodoxy, that is, combined with popular talent. +The first object of the chapel's existence--I do not say in the +minds of those who built it, for it was an old place, but certainly +in the minds of those who now directed its affairs--was not to +save its present congregation, but to gather a larger--ultimately +that they might be saved, let us hope, but primarily that the +drain upon the purses of those who were responsible for its rent +and other outlays, might be lessened. Mr Masquar, therefore, to +whom the post was a desirable one, had been mainly anxious that +morning to prove his orthodoxy, and so commend his services. Not +that in those days one heard so much of the dangers of heterodoxy: +that monster was as yet but growling far off in the jungles of Germany; +but certain whispers had been abroad concerning the preacher which +he thought desirable to hush, especially as they were founded in +truth. He had tested the power of heterodoxy to attract attention, +but having found that the attention it did attract was not of a kind +favourable to his wishes, had so skilfully remodelled his theories +that, although to his former friends he declared them in substance +unaltered, it was impossible any longer to distinguish them from +the most uncompromising orthodoxy; and his sermon of that morning +had tended neither to the love of God, the love of man, nor +a hungering after righteousness--its aim being to disprove the +reported heterodoxy of Jacob Masquar. + +As they walked home, Mrs Marshal, addressing her husband in a tone +of conjugal disapproval, said, with more force than delicacy, + +"The pulpit is not the place to give a man to wash his dirty linen +in." + +"Well, you see, my love," answered her husband in a tone of apology, +"people won't submit to be told their duty by mere students, and +just at present there seems nobody else to be had. There's none +in the market but old stagers and young colts--eh, Fred? But Mr +Masquar is at least a man of experience." + +"Of more than enough, perhaps," suggested his wife. "And the young +ones must have their chance, else how are they to learn? You should +have given the principal a hint. It is a most desirable thing that +Frederick should preach a little oftener." + +"They have it in turn, and it wouldn't do to favour one more than +another." + +"He could hand his guinea, or whatever they gave him, to the one +whose turn it ought to have been, and that would set it all right." + +At this point the silk mercer, fearing that the dominie, as he +called him, was silently disapproving, and willing therefore to +change the subject, turned to him and said, + +"Why shouldn't you give us a sermon, Graham?" + +The schoolmaster laughed. + +"Did you never hear," he said, "how I fell like Dagon on the +threshold of the church, and have lain there ever since." + +"What has that to do with it?" returned his friend, sorry that +his forgetfulness should have caused a painful recollection. "That +is ages ago, when you were little more than a boy. Seriously," he +added, chiefly to cover his little indiscretion, "will you preach +for us the Sunday after next?" + +Deacons generally ask a man to preach for them. + +"No," said Mr Graham. + +But even as he said it, a something began to move in his heart-- +a something half of jealousy for God, half of pity for poor souls +buffeted by such winds as had that morning been roaring, chaff +laden, about the church, while the grain fell all to the bottom of +the pulpit. Something burned in him: was it the word that was as +a fire in his bones, or was it a mere lust of talk? He thought for +a moment. + +"Have you any gatherings between Sundays?" he asked. + +"Yes; every Wednesday evening," replied Mr Marshal. "And if you won't +preach on Sunday, we shall announce tonight that next Wednesday a +clergyman of the Church of Scotland will address the prayer meeting." + +He was glad to get out of it so, for he was uneasy about his +friend, both as to his nerve, which might fail him, and his Scotch +oddities, which would not. + +"That would be hardly true," said Mr Graham, "seeing I never got +beyond a licence." + +"Nobody here knows the difference between a licentiate and a placed +minister; and if they did they would not care a straw. So we'll +just say clergyman." + +"But I won't have it announced in any terms. Leave that alone, and +I will try to speak at the prayer meeting." + +"It won't be in the least worth your while except we announce it. +You won't have a soul to hear you but the pew openers, the woman +that cleans the chapel, Mrs Marshal's washerwoman, and the old +greengrocer we buy our vegetables from. We must really announce +it." + +"Then I won't do it. Just tell me--what would our Lord have +said to Peter or John if they had told Him that they had been to +synagogue and had been asked to speak, but had declined because +there were only the pew openers, the chapel cleaner, a washerwoman, +and a greengrocer present?" + +"I said it only for your sake, Graham; you needn't take me up so +sharply." + +"And ra-a-ther irreverently--don't you think--excuse me, sir?" +said Mrs Marshal very softly. But the very softness had a kind of +jellyfish sting in it. + +"I think," rejoined the schoolmaster, indirectly replying, "we +must be careful to show our reverence in a manner pleasing to our +Lord. Now I cannot discover that he cares for any reverences but +the shaping of our ways after his; and if you will show me a single +instance of respect of persons in our Lord, I will press my petition +no farther to be allowed to speak a word to your pew openers, +washerwoman, and greengrocer." + +His entertainers were silent--the gentleman in the consciousness +of deserved rebuke, the lady in offence. + +Just then the latter bethought herself that their guest, belonging +to the Scotch Church, was, if no Episcopalian, yet no dissenter, +and that seemed to clear up to her the spirit of his disapproval. + +"By all means, Mr Marshal," she said, "let your friend speak on +the Wednesday evening. It would not be to his advantage to have it +said that he occupied a dissenting pulpit. It will not be nearly +such an exertion either; and if he is unaccustomed to speak to +large congregations, he will find himself more comfortable with +our usual week evening one." + +"I have never attempted to speak in public but once," rejoined Mr +Graham, "and then I failed." + +"Ah! that accounts for it," said his friend's wife and the simplicity +of his confession, while it proved him a simpleton, mollified her. + +Thus it came that he spent the days between Sunday and Thursday in +their house, and so made the acquaintance of young Marshal. + +When his mother perceived their growing intimacy, she warned her +son that their visitor belonged to an unscriptural and worldly +community, and that notwithstanding his apparent guilelessness-- +deficiency indeed--he might yet use cunning arguments to draw him +aside from the faith of his fathers. But the youth replied that, +although in the firmness of his own position as a Congregationalist, +he had tried to get the Scotchman into a conversation upon church +government, he had failed; the man smiled queerly and said nothing. +But when a question of New Testament criticism arose, he came awake +at once, and his little blue eyes gleamed like glowworms. + +"Take care, Frederick," said his mother. "The Scriptures are not +to be treated like common books and subjected to human criticism." + +"We must find out what they mean, I suppose, mother," said the +youth. + +"You're to take just the plain meaning that he that runneth +may read," answered his mother.--"More than that no one has any +business with. You've got to save your own soul first, and then the +souls of your neighbours if they will let you; and for that reason +you must cultivate, not a spirit of criticism, but the talents +that attract people to the hearing of the Word. You have got a fine +voice, and it will improve with judicious use. Your father is now +on the outlook for a teacher of elocution to instruct you how to +make the best of it, and speak with power on God's behalf" + +When the afternoon of Wednesday began to draw towards the evening, +there came on a mist, not a London fog, but a low wet cloud, which +kept slowly condensing into rain; and as the hour of meeting drew +nigh with the darkness, it grew worse. Mrs Marshal had forgotten +all about the meeting and the schoolmaster: her husband was late, +and she wanted her dinner. At twenty minutes past six, she came +upon her guest in the hall, kneeling on the doormat, first on one +knee, then on the other, turning up the feet of his trousers. + +"Why, Mr Graham," she said kindly, as he rose and proceeded to look +for his cotton umbrella, easily discernible in the stand among the +silk ones of the house, "you're never going out on a night like +this?" + +"I am going to the prayer meeting, ma'am," he said. + +"Nonsense! You'll be wet to the skin before you get half way." + +"I promised, you may remember, ma'am, to talk a little to them." + +"You only said so to my husband. You may be very glad, seeing it has +turned out so wet, that I would not allow him to have it announced +from the pulpit. There is not the slightest occasion for your going. +Besides, you have not had your dinner." + +"That's not of the slightest consequence, ma'am. A bit of bread +and cheese before I go to bed is all I need to sustain nature, and +fit me for understanding my proposition in Euclid. I have been in +the habit, for the last few years, of reading one every night before +I go to bed." + +"We dissenters consider a chapter of the Bible the best thing to +read before going to bed," said the lady, with a sustained voice. + +"I keep that for the noontide of my perceptions--for mental high +water," said the schoolmaster, "Euclid is good enough after supper. +Not that I deny myself a small portion of the Word," he added with +a smile, as he proceeded to open the door--" when I feel very +hungry for it." + +"There is no one expecting you," persisted the lady, who could ill +endure not to have her own way, even when she did not care for the +matter concerned. "Who will be the wiser or the worse if you stay +at home?" + +"My dear lady," returned the schoolmaster, "when I have on good +grounds made up my mind to a thing, I always feel as if I had +promised God to do it; and indeed it amounts to the same thing very +nearly. Such a resolve then is not to be unmade except on equally +good grounds with those upon which it was made. Having resolved +to try whether I could not draw a little water of refreshment for +souls which if not thirsting are but fainting the more, shall I +allow a few drops of rain to prevent me?" + +"Pray don't let me persuade you against your will," said his hostess, +with a stately bend of her neck over her shoulder, as she turned +into the drawing room. + +Her guest went out into the rain, asking himself by what theory of +the will his hostess could justify such a phrase---too simple to +see that she had only thrown it out, as the cuttlefish its ink, to +cover her retreat. + +But the weather had got a little into his brain: into his soul it +was seldom allowed to intrude. He felt depressed and feeble and +dull. But at the first corner he turned, he met a little breath +of wind. It blew the rain in his face, and revived him a little, +reminding him at the same time that he had not yet opened his +umbrella. As he put it up he laughed. + +"Here I am," he said to himself, "lance in hand, spurring to meet +my dragon!" + +Once when he used a similar expression, Malcolm had asked him what +he meant by his dragon; "I mean," replied the schoolmaster, "that +huge slug, The Commonplace. It is the wearifulest dragon to fight +in the whole miscreation. Wound it as you may, the jelly mass of +the monster closes, and the dull one is himself again--feeding +all the time so cunningly that scarce one of the victims whom he +has swallowed suspects that he is but pabulum slowly digesting in +the belly of the monster." + +If the schoolmaster's dragon, spread abroad as he lies, a vague +dilution, everywhere throughout human haunts, has yet any headquarters, +where else can they be than in such places as that to which he was +now making his way to fight him? What can be fuller of the wearisome, +depressing, beauty blasting commonplace than a dissenting chapel in +London, on the night of the weekly prayer meeting, and that night +a drizzly one? The few lights fill the lower part with a dull, +yellow, steamy glare, while the vast galleries, possessed by an +ugly twilight, yawn above like the dreary openings of a disconsolate +eternity. The pulpit rises into the dim damp air, covered with +brown holland, reminding one of desertion and charwomen, if not +of a chamber of death and spiritual undertakers, who have shrouded +and coffined the truth. Gaping, empty, unsightly, the place is +the very skull of the monster himself--the fittest place of all +wherein to encounter the great slug, and deal him one of those +death blows which every sunrise, every repentance, every childbirth, +every true love deals him. Every hour he receives the blow that +kills, but he takes long to die, for every hour he is right carefully +fed and cherished by a whole army of purveyors, including every +trade and profession, but officered chiefly by divines and men of +science. + +When the dominie entered, all was still, and every light had +a nimbus of illuminated vapour. There were hardly more than three +present beyond the number Mr Marshal had given him to expect; and +their faces, some grim, some grimy, most of them troubled, and +none blissful, seemed the nervous ganglions of the monster whose +faintly gelatinous bulk filled the place. He seated himself in +a pew near the pulpit, communed with his own heart and was still. +Presently the ministering deacon, a humbler one in the worldly sense +than Mr Marshal, for he kept a small ironmongery shop in the next +street to the chapel, entered, twirling the wet from his umbrella +as he came along one of the passages intersecting the pews. Stepping +up into the desk which cowered humbly at the foot of the pulpit, +he stood erect, and cast his eyes around the small assembly. +Discovering there no one that could lead in singing, he chose out +and read one of the monster's favourite hymns, in which never a +sparkle of thought or a glow of worship gave reason wherefore the +holy words should have been carpentered together. Then he prayed +aloud, and then first the monster found tongue, voice, articulation. +If this was worship, surely it was the monster's own worship of +itself! No God were better than one to whom such were fitting words +of prayer. What passed in the man's soul, God forbid I should judge: +I speak but of the words that reached the ears of men. + +And over all the vast of London lay the monster, filling it like +the night--not in churches and chapels only--in almost all +theatres, and most houses--most of all in rich houses: everywhere +he had a foot, a tail, a tentacle or two--everywhere suckers that +drew the life blood from the sickening and somnolent soul. + +When the deacon, a little brown man, about five-and-thirty, had +ended his prayer, he read another hymn of the same sort--one of +such as form the bulk of most collections, and then looked meaningly +at Mr Graham, whom he had seen in the chapel on Sunday with his +brother deacon, and therefore judged one of consequence, who had +come to the meeting with an object, and ought to be propitiated: +he had intended speaking himself. After having thus for a moment +regarded him, + +"Would you favour us with a word of exhortation, sir?" he said, in +a stage-like whisper. + +Now the monster had by this time insinuated a hair-like sucker into +the heart of the schoolmaster, and was busy. But at the word, as +the Red Cross Knight when he heard Orgoglio in the wood staggered +to meet him, he rose at once, and although his umbrella slipped +and fell with a loud discomposing clatter, calmly approached the +reading desk. To look at his outer man, this knight of the truth +might have been the very high priest of the monster which, while +he was sitting there, had been twisting his slimy, semi-electric, +benumbing tendrils around his heart. His business was nevertheless +to fight him, though to fight him in his own heart and that of +other people at one and the same moment, he might well find hard +work. And the loathly worm had this advantage over the knight, that +it was the first time he had stood up to speak in public since his +failure thirty years ago. That hour again for a moment overshadowed +his spirit. It was a wavy harvest morning in a village of the north. +A golden wind was blowing, and little white clouds flying aloft in +the sunny blue. The church was full of well known faces, upturned, +listening, expectant, critical. The hour vanished in a slow mist +of abject misery and shame. But had he not learned to rejoice over +all dead hopes, and write Te Deums on their coffin lids? And now he +stood in dim light, in the vapour from damp garments, in dinginess +and ugliness, with a sense of spiritual squalor and destitution in +his very soul. He had tried to pray his own prayer while the deacon +prayed his; but there had come to him no reviving--no message +for this handful of dull souls--there were nine of them in all +--and his own soul crouched hard and dull within his bosom. How +to give them one deeper breath? How to make them know they were +alive? Whence was his aid to come? + +His aid was nearer than he knew. There were no hills to which he +could lift his eyes, but help may hide in the valley as well as +come down from the mountain, and he found his under the coal scuttle +bonnet of the woman that swept out and dusted the chapel. She was +no interesting young widow. A life of labour and vanished children +lay behind as well as before her. She was sixty years of age, seamed +with the smallpox, and in every seam the dust and smoke of London +had left a stain. She had a troubled eye, and a gaze that seemed +to ask of the universe why it had given birth to her. But it was +only her face that asked the question; her mind was too busy with +the ever recurring enigma, which, answered this week, was still an +enigma for the next--how she was to pay her rent--too busy to +have any other question to ask. Or would she not rather have gone +to sleep altogether, under the dreary fascination of the slug monster, +had she not had a severe landlady, who would be paid punctually, +or turn her out? Anyhow, every time and all the time she sat in +the chapel, she was brooding over ways and means, calculating pence +and shillings--the day's charing she had promised her, and the +chances of more--mingling faint regrets over past indulgences +--the extra half pint of beer she drank on Saturday--the bit +of cheese she bought on Monday. Of this face of care, revealing +a spirit which Satan had bound, the schoolmaster caught sight,-- +caught from its commonness, its grimness, its defeature, inspiration +and uplifting, for there he beheld the oppressed, down trodden, +mire fouled humanity which the man in whom he believed had loved +because it was his father's humanity divided into brothers, and +had died straining to lift back to the bosom of that Father. Oh +tale of horror and dreary monstrosity, if it be such indeed as the +bulk of its priests on the one hand, and its enemies on the other +represent it! Oh story of splendrous fate, of infinite resurrection +and uplifting, of sun and breeze, of organ blasts and exultation, +for the heart of every man and woman, whatsoever the bitterness +of its care or the weight of its care, if it be such as the Book +itself has held it from age to age! + +It was the mere humanity of the woman, I say, and nothing in her +individuality of what is commonly called the interesting, that +ministered to the breaking of the schoolmaster's trance. "Oh ye of +little faith!" were the first words that flew from his lips--he +knew not whether uttered concerning himself or the charwoman the +more; and at once he fell to speaking of him who said the words, +and of the people that came to him and heard him gladly;--how +this one, whom he described, must have felt, Oh, if that be true! +how that one, whom also he described, must have said, Now he means +me! and so laid bare the secrets of many hearts, until he had +concluded all in the misery of being without a helper in the world, +a prey to fear and selfishness and dismay. Then he told them how +the Lord pledged himself for all their needs--meat and drink and +clothes for the body, and God and love and truth for the soul, if +only they would put them in the right order and seek the best first. + +Next he spoke a parable to them--of a house and a father and his +children. The children would not do what their father told them, +and therefore began to keep out of his sight. After a while they +began to say to each other that he must have gone out, it was so +long since they had seen him--only they never went to look. And +again after a time some of them began to say to each other that they +did not believe they had ever had any father. But there were some +who dared not say that--who thought they had a father somewhere +in the house, and yet crept about in misery, sometimes hungry and +often cold, fancying he was not friendly to them, when all the time +it was they who were not friendly to him, and said to themselves +he would not give them anything. They never went to knock at his +door, or call to know if he were inside and would speak to them. +And all the time there he was sitting sorrowful, listening and +listening for some little hand to come knocking, and some little +voice to come gently calling through the keyhole; for sorely did +he long to take them to his bosom and give them everything. Only +if he did that without their coming to him, they would not care +for his love or him, would only care for the things he gave them, +and soon would come to hate their brothers and sisters, and turn +their own souls into hells, and the earth into a charnel of murder. + +Ere he ended he was pleading with the charwoman to seek her father +in his own room, tell him her troubles, do what he told her, and +fear nothing. And while he spoke, lo! the dragon slug had vanished; +the ugly chapel was no longer the den of the hideous monster; it +was but the dusky bottom of a glory shaft, adown which gazed the +stars of the coming resurrection. + +"The whole trouble is that we won't let God help us," said the +preacher, and sat down. + +A prayer from the greengrocer followed, in which he did seem to +be feeling after God a little; and then the ironmonger pronounced +the benediction, and all went--among the rest, Frederick Marshal, +who had followed the schoolmaster, and now walked back with him +to his father's, where he was to spend one night more. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII: THE PORTRAIT + + +Florimel had found her daring visit to Lenorme stranger and more +fearful than she had expected: her courage was not quite so masterful +as she had thought. The next day she got Mrs Barnardiston to meet +her at the studio.-But she contrived to be there first by some +minutes, and her friend found her seated, and the painter looking +as if he had fairly begun his morning's work. When she apologised +for being late, Florimel said she supposed her groom had brought +round the horses before his time; being ready, she had not looked +at her watch. She was sharp on other people for telling stories +--but had of late ceased to see any great harm in telling one to +protect herself. The fact however had begun to present itself in +those awful morning hours that seem a mingling of time and eternity, +and she did not like the discovery that, since her intimacy with +Lenorme, she had begun to tell lies: what would he say if he knew? + +Malcolm found it dreary waiting in the street while she sat to the +painter. He would not have minded it on Kelpie, for she was always +occupation enough, but with only a couple of quiet horses to hold, +it was dreary. He took to scrutinizing the faces that passed him, +trying to understand them. To his surprise he found that almost +everyone reminded him of somebody he had known before, though he +could not always identify the likeness. + +It was a pleasure to see his yacht lying so near him, and Davy on +the deck, and to hear the blows of the hammer and the swish of the +plane as the carpenter went on with the alterations to which he +had set him, but he got tired of sharing in activity only with his +ears and eyes. One thing he had by it, however, and that was--a +good lesson in quiescent waiting--a grand thing for any man, and +most of all for those in whom the active is strong. + +The next day Florimel did not ride until after lunch, but took her +maid with her to the studio, and Malcolm had a long morning with +Kelpie. Once again he passed the beautiful lady in Rotten Row, but +Kelpie was behaving in a most exemplary manner, and he could not +tell whether she even saw him. I believe she thought her lecture +had done him good. The day after that Lord Liftore was able to ride, +and for some days Florimel and he rode in the park before dinner, +when, as Malcolm followed on the new horse, he had to see his +lordship make love to his sister, without being able to find the +least colourable pretext of involuntary interference. + +At length the parcel he had sent for from Lossie House arrived. +He had explained to Mrs Courthope what he wanted the things for, +and she had made no difficulty of sending them to the address he +gave her. Lenorme had already begun the portrait, had indeed been +working at it very busily, and was now quite ready for him to sit. +The early morning being the only time a groom could contrive to +spare--and that involved yet earlier attention to his horses, +they arranged that Malcolm should be at the study every day by +seven o'clock, until the painter's object was gained. So he mounted +Kelpie at half past six of a fine breezy spring morning, rode across +Hyde Park and down Grosvenor Place, and so reached Chelsea, where +he put up his mare in Lenorme's stable--fortunately large enough +to admit of an empty stall between her and the painter's grand +screw, else a battle frightful to relate might have fallen to my +lot. + +Nothing could have been more to Malcolm's mind than such a surpassing +opportunity of learning with assurance what sort of man Lenorme +was; and the relation that arose between them extended the sittings +far beyond the number necessary for the object proposed. How the +first of them passed I must recount with some detail. + +As soon as he arrived, he was shown into the painter's bedroom, +where lay the portmanteau he had carried thither himself the night +before: out of it, with a strange mingling of pleasure and sadness, +he now took the garments of his father's vanished state--the +filibeg of the dark tartan of his clan, in which green predominated; +the French coat of black velvet of Genoa, with silver buttons; the +bonnet, which ought to have had an eagle's feather, but had only an +aigrette of diamonds; the black sporran of long goat's hair, with +the silver clasp; the silver mounted dirk, with its appendages, +set all with pale cairngorms nearly as good as oriental topazes; +and the claymore of the renowned Andrew's forging, with its basket +hilt of silver, and its black, silver mounted sheath. He handled +each with the reverence of a son. Having dressed in them, he drew +himself up with not a little of the Celt's pleasure in fine clothes, +and walked into the painting room. + +Lenorme started with admiration of his figure, and wonder at the +dignity of his carriage, while, mingled with these feelings, he was +aware of an indescribable doubt, something to which he could give +no name. He almost sprang at his palette and brushes: whether he +succeeded with the likeness of the late marquis or not, it would +be his own fault if he did not make a good picture! He painted +eagerly, and they talked little, and only about things indifferent. + +At length the painter said, + +"Thank you. Now walk about the room while I spread a spadeful of +paint: you must be tired standing." + +Malcolm did as he was told, and walked straight up to the Temple +of Isis, in which the painter had now long been at work on the +goddess. He recognised his sister at once, but a sudden pinch of +prudence checked the exclamation that had almost burst from his +lips. + +"What a beautiful picture!" he said. "What does it mean?-- +Surely it is Hermione coming to life, and Leontes dying of joy! +But no; that would not fit. They are both too young, and--" + +"You read Shakspere, I see," said Lenorme, "as well as Epictetus." + +"I do--a good deal," answered Malcolm. "But please tell me what +you painted this for." + +Then Lenorme told him the parable of Novalis, and Malcolm saw what +the poet meant. He stood staring at the picture, and Lenorme sat +working away, but a little anxious--he hardly knew why: had he +bethought himself he would have put the picture out of sight before +Malcolm came. + +"You wouldn't be offended if I made a remark, would you, Mr Lenorme?" +said Malcolm at length. + +"Certainly not," replied Lenorme, something afraid nevertheless of +what might be coming. + +"I don't know whether I can express what I mean," said Malcolm, +"but I'll try. I could do it better in Scotch, I believe, but then +you wouldn't understand me." + +"I think I should," said Lenorme. "I spent six months in Edinburgh +once." + +"Ow ay! but ye see they dinna thraw the words there jist the same +gait they du at Portlossie. Na, na! I maunna attemp' it." + +"Hold, hold!" cried Lenorme. "I want to have your criticism. I +don't understand a word you are saying. You must make the best you +can of the English." + +"I was only telling you in Scotch that I wouldn't try the Scotch," +returned Malcolm. "Now I will try the English.--In the first +place, then--but really it's very presumptuous of me, Mr Lenorme; +and it may be that I am blind to something in the picture." + +"Go on," said Lenorme impatiently. + +"Don't you think then, that one of the first things you would look +for in a goddess would be--what shall I call it?--an air of +mystery?" + +"That was so much involved in the very idea of Isis, in her +especially, that they said she was always veiled, and no man had +ever seen her face." + +"That would greatly interfere with my notion of mystery," said +Malcolm. "There must be revelation before mystery. I take it that +mystery is what lies behind revelation; that which as yet revelation +has not reached. You must see something--a part of something, +before you can feel any sense of mystery about it. The Isis for +ever veiled is the absolutely Unknown, not the Mysterious." + +"But, you observe, the idea of the parable is different. According +to that Isis is for ever unveiling, that is revealing herself, in +her works, chiefly in the women she creates, and then chiefly in +each of them to the man who loves her." + +"I see what you mean well enough; but not the less she remains the +goddess, does she not?" + +"Surely she does." + +"And can a goddess ever reveal all she is and has!" + +"Never." + +"Then ought there not to be mystery about the face and form of your +Isis on her pedestal?" + +"Is it not there? Is there not mystery in the face and form of +every woman that walks the earth?" + +"Doubtless; but you desire--do you not?--to show--that +although this is the very lady the young man loved before ever he +sought the shrine of the goddess, not the less is she the goddess +Isis herself?" + +"I do--or at least I ought; only--by Jove! you have already +looked deeper into the whole thing than I!" + +"There may be things to account for that on both sides," said +Malcolm. "But one word more to relieve my brain:--if you would +embody the full meaning of the parable, you must not be content that +the mystery is there; you must show in your painting that you feel +it there; you must paint the invisible veil that no hand can lift, +for there it is, and there it ever will be, though Isis herself +raise it from morning to morning." + +"How am I to do that?" said Lenorme, not that he did not see what +Malcolm meant, or agree with it: he wanted to make him talk. + +"How can I, who never drew a stroke, or painted anything but the +gunnel of a boat, tell you that?" rejoined Malcolm. "It is your +business. You must paint that veil, that mystery in the forehead, +and in the eyes, and in the lips--yes, in the cheeks and the +chin and the eyebrows and everywhere. You must make her say without +saying it, that she knows oh! so much, if only she could make you +understand it!--that she is all there for you, but the all is +infinitely more than you can know. As she stands there now," + +"I must interrupt you," cried Lenorme, "just to say that the picture +is not finished yet." + +"And yet I will finish my sentence, if you will allow me," returned +Malcolm. "--As she stands there--the goddess--she looks only +a beautiful young woman, with whom the young man spreading out his +arms to her is very absolutely in love. There is the glow and the +mystery of love in both their faces, and nothing more." + +"And is not that enough?" said Lenorme. + +"No," answered Malcolm. "And yet it may be too much," he added, +"if you are going to hang it up where people will see it." + +As he said this, he looked hard at the painter for a moment. The +dark hue of Lenorme's cheek deepened; his brows lowered a little +farther over the black wells of his eyes; and he painted on without +answer. + +"By Jove!" he said at length. + +"Don't swear, Mr Lenorme," said Malcolm. "--Besides, that's my +Lord Liftore's oath.--If you do, you will teach my lady to swear." + +"What do you mean by that?" asked Lenorme, with offence plain enough +in his tone. + +Thereupon Malcolm told him how on one occasion, himself being +present, the marquis her father happening to utter an imprecation, +Lady Florimel took the first possible opportunity of using the very +same words on her own account, much to the marquis's amusement and +Malcolm's astonishment. But upon reflection he had come to see that +she only wanted to cure her father of the bad habit. + +The painter laughed heartily, but stopped all at once and said, +"It's enough to make any fellow swear though, to hear a--groom +talk as you do about art." + +"Have I the impudence? I didn't know it," said Malcolm, with some +dismay. "I seemed to myself merely saying the obvious thing, the +common sense, about the picture, on the ground of your own statement +of your meaning in it. I am annoyed with myself if I have been +talking of things I know nothing about." + +"On the contrary, MacPhail, you are so entirely right in what you +say, that I cannot for the life of me understand where or how you +can have got it." + +"Mr Graham used to talk to me about everything." + +"Well, but he was only a country schoolmaster." + +"A good deal more than that, sir," said Malcolm, solemnly. "He is +a disciple of him that knows everything. And now I think of it, I +do believe that what I've been saying about your picture, I must +have got from hearing him talk about the revelation, in which is +included Isis herself, with her brother and all their train." + +Lenorme held his peace. Malcolm had taken his place again +unconsciously, and the painter was working hard, and looking very +thoughtful. Malcolm went again to the picture. + +"Hillo!" cried Lenorme, looking up and finding no object in the +focus of his eyes. + +Malcolm returned directly. + +"There was just one thing I wanted to see," he said, "--whether +the youth worshipping his goddess, had come into her presence +clean." + +"And what is your impression of him?" half murmured Lenorme, without +lifting his head. + +"The one that's painted there," answered Malcolm, "does look as if +he might know that the least a goddess may claim of a worshipper +is, that he should come into her presence pure enough to understand +her purity. I came upon a fine phrase the other evening in your +English prayer book. I never looked into it before, but I found +one lying on a book stall, and it happened to open at the marriage +service. There, amongst other good things, the bridegroom says: +'With my body I thee worship.'--'That's grand,' I said to myself. +'That's as it should be. The man whose body does not worship +the woman he weds, should marry a harlot.' God bless Mr William +Shakspere!--he knew that. I remember Mr Graham telling me once, +before I had read the play, that the critics condemn Measure +for Measure as failing in poetic justice. I know little about the +critics, and care less, for a man who has to earn his bread and +feed his soul as well, has enough to do with the books themselves +without what people say about them; and Mr Graham would not tell +me whether he thought the critics right or wrong; he wanted me to +judge for myself. But when I came to read the play, I found, to +my mind, a most absolute and splendid justice in it. They think, I +suppose, that my lord Angelo should have been put to death. It just +reveals the low breed of them; they think death the worst thing, +therefore the greatest punishment. But Angelo prays for death, +that it may hide him from his shame: it is too good for him, and he +shall not have it. He must live to remove the shame from Mariana. +And then see how Lucio is served!" + +While Malcolm talked, Lenorme went on painting diligently, listening +and saying nothing. When he had thus ended, a pause of some duration +followed. + +"A goddess has a right to claim that one thing--has she not, +Mr Lenorme?" said Malcolm at length, winding up a silent train of +thought aloud. + +"What thing?" asked Lenorme, still without lifting his head. + +"Purity in the arms a man holds out to her," answered Malcolm. + +"Certainly," replied Lenorme, with a sort of mechanical absoluteness. + +"And according to your picture, every woman whom a man loves is a +goddess--the goddess of nature?" + +"Certainly;--but what are you driving at? I can't paint for you. +There you stand," he went on, half angrily, "as if you were Socrates +himself, driving some poor Athenian buck into the corner of his +deserts! I don't deserve any such insinuations, I would have you +know." + +"I am making none, sir. I dare never insinuate except I were +prepared to charge. But I have told you I was bred up a fisher lad, +and partly among the fishers, to begin with. I half learned, half +discovered things that tended to give me what some would count +severe notions: I count them common sense. Then, as you know, I +went into service, and in that position it is easy enough to gather +that many people hold very loose and very nasty notions about some +things; so I just wanted to see how you felt about such. If I had +a sister now, and saw a man coming to woo her, all beclotted with +puddle filth--or if I knew that he had just left some woman as +good as she, crying eyes and heart out over his child--I don't +know that I could keep my hands off him--at least if I feared she +might take him. What do you think now? Mightn't it be a righteous +thing to throttle the scum and be hanged for it?" + +"Well," said Lenorme, "I don't know why I should justify myself, +especially where no charge is made, MacPhail; and I don't know why +to you any more than another man; but at this moment I am weak, or +egotistic, or sympathetic enough to wish you to understand that, so +far as the poor matter of one virtue goes, I might without remorse +act Sir Galahad in a play." + +"Now you are beyond me," said Malcolm. "I don't know what you mean." + +So Lenorme had to tell him the old Armoric tale which Tennyson has +since rendered so lovelily, for, amongst artists at least, he was +one of the earlier borrowers in the British legends. And as he told +it, in a half sullen kind of way, the heart of the young marquis +glowed within him, and he vowed to himself that Lenorme and no other +should marry his sister. But, lest he should reveal more emotion +than the obvious occasion justified, he restrained speech, and +again silence fell, during which Lenorme was painting furiously. + +"Confound it!" he cried at last, and sprang to his feet, but without +taking his eyes from his picture, "what have I been doing all this +time but making a portrait of you, MacPhail, and forgetting what +you were there for! And yet," he went on, hesitating and catching +up the miniature, "I have got a certain likeness! Yes, it must be +so, for I see in it also a certain look of Lady Lossie. Well! I +suppose a man can't altogether help what he paints any more than +what he dreams. That will do for this morning, anyhow, I think, +MacPhail. Make haste and put on your own clothes, and come into the +next room to breakfast. You must be tired with standing so long. + +"It is about the hardest work I ever tried," answered Malcolm; +"but I doubt if I am as tired as Kelpie. I've been listening for +the last half hour to hear the stalls flying." + + + +CHAPTER XXIX: AN EVIL OMEN + + +Florimel was beginning to understand that the shield of the portrait +was not large enough to cover many more visits to the studio. Still +she must and would venture; and should anything be said, there at +least was the portrait. For some weeks it had been all but finished, +was never off its easel, and always showed a touch of wet paint +somewhere--he kept the last of it lingering, ready to prove +itself almost yet not altogether finished. What was to follow its +absolute completion, neither of them could tell. The worst of it +was that their thoughts about it differed discordantly. Florimel +not unfrequently regarded the rupture of their intimacy as a thing +not undesirable--this chiefly after such a talk with Lady Bellair +as had been illustrated by some tale of misalliance or scandal +between high or low, of which kind of provision for age the bold +faced countess had a large store: her memory was little better than +an ashpit of scandal. Amongst other biographical scraps one day +she produced the case of a certain earl's daughter, who, having +disgraced herself by marrying a low fellow--an artist, she +believed--was as a matter of course neglected by the man whom, +in accepting him, she had taught to despise her, and, before +a twelvemonth was over--her family finding it impossible to +hold communication with her--was actually seen by her late maid +scrubbing her own floor. + +"Why couldn't she leave it dirty?" said Florimel. + +"Why indeed," returned Lady Bellair, "but that people sink to their +fortunes! Blue blood won't keep them out of the gutter." + +The remark was true, but of more general application than she +intended, seeing she herself was in the gutter and did not know +it. She spoke only of what followed on marriage beneath one's natal +position, than which she declared there was nothing worse a woman +of rank could do. + +"She may get over anything but that," she would say, believing, +but not saying, that she spoke from experience. + +Was it part of the late marquis's purgatory to see now, as the natural +result of the sins of his youth, the daughter whose innocence was +dear to him exposed to all the undermining influences of this good +natured but low moralled woman, whose ideas of the most mysterious +relations of humanity were in no respect higher than those of a +class which must not even be mentioned in my pages? At such tales +the high born heart would flutter in Florimel's bosom, beat itself +against its bars, turn sick at the sight of its danger, imagine +it had been cherishing a crime, and resolve--soon--before very +long--at length--finally--to break so far at least with the +painter as to limit their intercourse to the radiation of her power +across a dinner table, the rhythmic heaving of their two hearts at +a dance, or the quiet occasional talk in a corner, when the looks +of each would reveal to the other that they knew themselves the +martyrs of a cruel and inexorable law. It must be remembered that +she had had no mother since her childhood, that she was now but +a girl, and that the passion of a girl to that of a woman is "as +moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine." Of genuine love +she had little more than enough to serve as salt to the passion; +and passion, however bewitching, yea, entrancing a condition, may +yet be of more worth than that induced by opium or hashish, and +a capacity for it may be conjoined with anything or everything +contemptible and unmanly or unwomanly. In Florimel's case, however, +there was chiefly much of the childish in it. Definitely separated +from Lenorme, she would have been merry again in a fortnight; and +yet, though she half knew this herself, and at the same time was +more than half ashamed of the whole affair, she did not give it up +--would not--only intended by and by to let it go, and meantime +gave--occasionally--pretty free flutter to the half grown wings +of her fancy. + +Her liking for the painter had therefore, not unnaturally, its +fits. It was subject in a measure to the nature of the engagements +she had--that is, to the degree of pleasure she expected from +them; it was subject, as we have seen, to skilful battery from the +guns of her chaperon's entrenchment; and more than to either was +it subject to those delicate changes of condition which in the +microcosm are as frequent, and as varied both in kind and degree, +as in the macrocosm. The spirit has its risings and settings of +sun and moon, its seasons, its clouds and stars, its solstices, its +tides, its winds, its storms, its earthquakes--infinite vitality +in endless fluctuation. To rule these changes, Florimel had +neither the power that comes of love, nor the strength that comes +of obedience. What of conscience she had was not yet conscience +toward God, which is the guide to freedom, but conscience toward +society, which is the slave of a fool. It was no wonder then that +Lenorme, believing--hoping she loved him, should find her hard +to understand. He said hard; but sometimes he meant impossible. He +loved as a man loves who has thought seriously, speculated, tried +to understand; whose love therefore is consistent with itself, +harmonious with its nature and history, changing only in form and +growth, never in substance and character. Hence the idea of Florimel +became in his mind the centre of perplexing thought; the unrest +of her being metamorphosed on the way, passed over into his, and +troubled him sorely. Neither was his mind altogether free of the +dread of reproach. For self reproach he could find little or no +ground, seeing that to pity her much for the loss of consideration +her marriage with him would involve, would be to undervalue the honesty +of his love and the worth of his art; and indeed her position was +so independently based that she could not lose it even by marrying +one who had not the social standing of a brewer or a stockbroker; +but his pride was uneasy under the foreseen criticism that his +selfishness had taken advantage of her youth and inexperience to +work on the mind of an ignorant girl--a criticism not likely to +be the less indignant that those who passed it would, without a +shadow of compunction, have handed her over, body, soul, and goods, +to one of their own order, had he belonged to the very canaille of +the race. + +The painter was not merely in love with Florimel: he loved her. +I will not say that he was in no degree dazzled by her rank, or +that he felt no triumph, as a social nomad camping on the No Man's +Land of society, at the thought of the justification of the human +against the conventional, in his scaling of the giddy heights of +superiority, and, on one of its topmost peaks, taking from her nest +that rare bird in the earth, a landed and titled marchioness. But +such thoughts were only changing hues on the feathers of his love, +which itself was a mighty bird with great and yet growing wings. + +A day or two passed before Florimel went again to the studio +accompanied, notwithstanding Lenorme's warning and her own doubt, +yet again by her maid, a woman, unhappily, of Lady Bellair's finding. +At Lossie House, Malcolm had felt a repugnance to her, both moral +and physical. When first he heard her name, one of the servants +speaking of her as Miss Caley, he took it for Scaley, and if that +was not her name, yet scaly was her nature. + +This time Florimel rode to Chelsea with Malcolm, having directed +Caley to meet her there; and, the one designing to be a little early, +and the other to be a little late, two results naturally followed +--first, that the lovers had a few minutes alone; and second, +that when Caley crept in, noiseless and unannounced as a cat, she +had her desire, and saw the painter's arm round Florimel's waist, +and her head on his bosom. Still more to her contentment, not hearing, +they did not see her, and she crept out again quietly as she had +entered: it would of course be to her advantage to let them know +that she had seen, and that they were in her power, but it might be +still more to her advantage to conceal the fact so long as there +was a chance of additional discovery in the same direction. Through +the success of her trick it came about that Malcolm, chancing to +look up from Honour's back to the room where he always breakfasted +with his new friend, saw in one of the windows, as in a picture, +a face radiant with such an expression as that of the woman headed +snake might have worn when he saw Adam take the apple from the hand +of Eve. + +Caley was of the common class of servants in this, that she +considered service servitude, and took her amends in selfishness; +she was unlike them in this, that while false to her employers, +she made no common cause with her fellows against them--regarded +and sought none but her own ends. Her one thought was to make the +most of her position; for that, to gain influence with, and, if it +might be, power over her mistress; and, thereto, first of all, to +find out whether she had a secret: she had now discovered not merely +that she had one, but the secret itself! She was clever, greedy, +cunning; equally capable, according to the faculty with which she +might be matched, of duping or of being duped. She rather liked +her mistress, but watched her in the interests of Lady Bellair. +She had a fancy for the earl, a natural dislike for Malcolm which +she concealed in distant politeness, and for all the rest of the +house, indifference. As to her person, she had a neat oval face, +thin and sallow, in expression subacid; a lithe, rather graceful +figure, and hands too long, with fingers almost too tapering--of +which hands and fingers she was very careful, contemplating them +in secret with a regard amounting almost to reverence: they were +her sole witnesses to a descent in which she believed, but of which +she had no other shadow of proof. + +Caley's face, then, with its unsaintly illumination, gave Malcolm +something to think about as he sat there upon Honour, the new horse. +Clearly she had had a triumph: what could it be? The nature of the +woman was not altogether unknown to him even from the first, and +he could not for months go on meeting her occasionally in passages +and on stairs without learning to understand his own instinctive +dislike: it was plain the triumph was not in good. It was plain +too that it was in something which had that very moment occurred, +and could hardly have to do with anyone but her mistress. Then her +being in that room revealed more. They would never have sent her +out of the study, and so put themselves in her power. She had gone +into the house but a moment before, a minute or two behind her +mistress, and he knew with what a cat-like step she went about: +she had surprised them---discovered how matters stood between +her mistress and the painter! He saw everything--almost as it +had taken place. She had seen without being seen, and had retreated +with her prize! Florimel was then in the woman's power: what was +he to do? He must at least let her gather what warning she could +from the tale of what he had seen. + +Once arrived at a resolve, Malcolm never lost time. They had turned +but one corner on their way home, when he rode up to her. + +"Please, my lady," he began. + +But the same instant Florimel was pulling up. + +"Malcolm," she said, "I have left my pocket handkerchief. I must +go back for it." + +As she spoke, she turned her horse's head. But Malcolm, dreading +lest Caley should yet be lingering, would not allow her to expose +herself to a greater danger than she knew. + +"Before you go, my lady, I must tell you something I happened to +see while I waited with the horses," he said. + +The earnestness of his tone struck Florimel. She looked at him with +eyes a little wider, and waited to hear. + +"I happened to look up at the drawing room windows, my lady, +and Caley came to one of them with such a look on her face! +I can't exactly describe it to you, my lady, but--" + +"Why do you tell me?" interrupted his mistress, with absolute +composure, and hard, questioning eyes. + +But she had drawn herself up in the saddle. Then, before he could +reply, a flash of thought seemed to cross her face with a quick +single motion of her eyebrows, and it was instantly altered and +thoughtful. She seemed to have suddenly perceived some cause for +taking a mild interest in his communication. + +"But it cannot be, Malcolm," she said, in quite a changed tone. "You +must have taken some one else for her. She never left the studio +all the time I was there." + +"It was immediately after her arrival, my lady. She went in about +two minutes after your ladyship, and could not have had much more +than time to go upstairs when I saw her come to the window. I felt +bound to tell your ladyship." + +"Thank you, Malcolm," returned Florimel kindly. "You did right to +tell me,--but--it's of no consequence. Mr Lenorme's housekeeper +and she must have been talking about something." + +But her eyebrows were now thoughtfully contracted over her eyes. + +"There had been no time for that, I think, my lady," said Malcolm. + +Florimel turned again and rode on, saying no more about the +handkerchief. Malcolm saw that he had succeeded in warning her, +and was glad. But had he foreseen to what it would lead, he would +hardly have done it. + +Florimel was indeed very uneasy. She could not help strongly suspecting +that she had betrayed herself to one who, if not an intentional +spy, would yet be ready enough to make a spy's use of anything she +might have picked up. What was to be done? It was now too late to +think of getting rid of her: that would be but her signal to disclose +whatever she had seen, and so not merely enjoy a sweet revenge, but +account with clear satisfactoriness for her dismissal. What would +not Florimel now have given for some one who could sympathise with +her and yet counsel her! She was afraid to venture another meeting +with Lenorme, and besides was not a little shy of the advantage +the discovery would give him in pressing her to marry him. And now +first she began to feel as if her sins were going to find her out. + +A day or two passed in alternating psychical flaws and fogs-- +with poor glints of sunshine between. She watched her maid, but her +maid knew it, and discovered no change in her manner or behaviour. +Weary of observation she was gradually settling into her former +security, when Caley began to drop hints that alarmed her. Might +it not be altogether the safest thing to take her into confidence? +It would be such a relief, she thought, to have a woman she could +talk to! The result was that she began to lift a corner of the veil +that hid her trouble; the woman encouraged her, and at length the +silly girl threw her arms round the scaly one's neck, much to that +person's satisfaction, and told her that she loved Mr Lenorme. She +knew of course, she said, that she could not marry him. She was +only waiting a fit opportunity to free herself from a connection +which, however delightful, she was unable to justify. How the maid +interpreted her confession, I do not care to enquire very closely, +but anyhow it was in a manner that promised much to her after +influence. I hasten over this part of Florimel's history, for that +confession to Caley was perhaps the one thing in her life she had +most reason to be ashamed of, for she was therein false to the +being she thought she loved best in the world. Could Lenorme have +known her capable of unbosoming herself to such a woman, it would +almost have slain the love he bore her. The notions of that odd +and end sort of person, who made his livelihood by spreading paint, +would have been too hideously shocked by the shadow of an intimacy +between his love and such as she. + +Caley first comforted the weeping girl, and then began to insinuate +encouragement. She must indeed give him up--there was no help +for that; but neither was there any necessity for doing so all at +once. Mr Lenorme was a beautiful man, and any woman might be proud +to be loved by him. She must take her time to it. She might trust +her. And so on and on--for she was as vulgar minded as the worst +of those whom ladies endure about their persons, handling their +hair, and having access to more of their lock fast places than they +would willingly imagine. + +The first result was that, on the pretext of bidding him farewell, +and convincing him that he and she must meet no more, fate and +fortune, society and duty being all alike against their happiness +--I mean on that pretext to herself, the only one to be deceived +by it--Florimel arranged with her woman one evening to go the next +morning to the studio: she knew the painter to be an early riser, +and always at his work before eight o'clock. But although she tried +to imagine she had persuaded herself to say farewell, certainly +she had not yet brought her mind to any ripeness of resolve in the +matter. + +At seven o'clock in the morning, the marchioness habited like a +housemaid, they slipped out by the front door, turned the corners +of two streets, found a hackney coach waiting for them, and arrived +in due time at the painter's abode. + + + +CHAPTER XXX: A QUARREL + + +When the door opened and Florimel glided in, the painter sprang to +his feet to welcome her, and she flew softly, soundless as a moth, +into his arms; for the study being large and full of things, she +was not aware of the presence of Malcolm. From behind a picture +on an easel, he saw them meet, but shrinking from being an open +witness to their secret, and also from being discovered in his +father's clothes by the sister who knew him only as a servant, he +instantly sought escape. Nor was it hard to find, for near where +he stood was a door opening into a small intermediate chamber, +communicating with the drawing room, and by it he fled, intending +to pass through to Lenorme's bedroom, and change his clothes. +With noiseless stride he hurried away, but could not help hearing +a few passionate words that escaped his sister's lips before Lenorme +could warn her that they were not alone--words which, it seemed +to him, could come only from a heart whose very pulse was devotion. + +"How can I live without you, Raoul?" said the girl as she clung to +him. + +Lenorme gave an uneasy glance behind him, saw Malcolm disappear, +and answered, + +"I hope you will never try, my darling." + +"Oh, but you know this can't last," she returned, with playfully +affected authority. "It must come to an end. They will interfere." + +"Who can? Who will dare?" said the painter with confidence. + +"People will. We had better stop it ourselves--before it all comes +out, and we are shamed," said Florimel, now with perfect seriousness. + +"Shamed!" cried Lenorme. "--Well, if you can't help being ashamed +of me--and perhaps, as you have been brought up, you can't-- +do you not then love me enough to encounter a little shame for my +sake? I should welcome worlds of such for yours!" + +Florimel was silent. She kept her face hidden on his shoulder, but +was already halfway to a quarrel. + +"You don't love me, Florimel!" he said, after a pause, little +thinking how nearly true were the words. + +"Well, suppose I don't!" she cried, half defiantly, half merrily; +and drawing herself from him, she stepped back two paces, and +looked at him with saucy eyes, in which burned two little flames +of displeasure, that seemed to shoot up from the red spots glowing +upon her cheeks. Lenorme looked at her. He had often seen her like +this before, and knew that the shell was charged and the fuse lighted. +But within lay a mixture even more explosive than he suspected; for +not merely was there more of shame and fear and perplexity mingled +with her love than he understood, but she was conscious of having +now been false to him, and that rendered her temper dangerous. + +Lenorme had already suffered severely from the fluctuations of +her moods. They had been almost too much for him. He could endure +them, he thought, to all eternity, if he had her to himself, safe +and sure; but the confidence to which he rose every now and then +that she would one day be his, just as often failed him, rudely +shaken by some new symptom of what almost seemed like cherished +inconstancy. If after all she should forsake him! It was impossible, +but she might. If even that should come, he was too much of a man +to imagine anything but a stern encounter of the inevitable, and +he knew he would survive it; but he knew also that life could never +be the same again; that for a season work would be impossible-- +the kind of work he had hitherto believed his own rendered for ever +impossible perhaps, and his art degraded to the mere earning of a +living. At best he would have to die and be buried and rise again +before existence could become endurable under the new squalid +condition of life without her. It was no wonder then if her behaviour +sometimes angered him; for even against a Will o' the Wisp that has +enticed us into a swamp, a glow of foolish indignation will spring +up. And now a black fire in his eyes answered the blue flash in +hers; and the difference suggests the diversity of their loves: +hers might vanish in fierce explosion, his would go on burning like +a coal mine. A word of indignant expostulation rose to his lips, +but a thought came that repressed it. He took her hand, and led +her--the wonder was that she yielded, for she had seen the glow +in his eyes, and the fuse of her own anger burned faster; but she +did yield, partly from curiosity, and followed where he pleased +--her hand lying dead in his. It was but to the other end of the +room he led her, to the picture of her father, now all but finished. +Why he did so, he would have found it hard to say. Perhaps the +Genius that lies under the consciousness forefelt a catastrophe, +and urged him to give his gift ere giving should be impossible. + +Malcolm stepped into the drawing room, where the table was laid as +usual for breakfast: there stood Caley, helping herself to a spoonful +of honey from Hymettus. At his entrance she started violently, and +her sallow face grew earthy. For some seconds she stood motionless, +unable to take her eyes off the apparition, as it seemed to her, +of the late marquis, in wrath at her encouragement of his daughter +in disgraceful courses. Malcolm, supposing only she was ashamed +of herself, took no farther notice of her, and walked deliberately +towards the other door. Ere he reached it she knew him. Burning +with the combined ires of fright and shame, conscious also that, by +the one little contemptible act of greed in which he had surprised +her, she had justified the aversion which her woman instinct had +from the first recognized in him, she darted to the door, stood +with her back against it, and faced him flaming. + +"So!" she cried, "this is how my lady's kindness is abused! The +insolence! Her groom goes and sits for his portrait in her father's +court dress!" + +As she ceased, all the latent vulgarity of her nature broke loose, +and with a contracted pff she seized her thin nose between her +thumb and forefinger, to the indication that an evil odour of fish +interpenetrated her atmosphere, and must at the moment be defiling +the garments of the dead marquis. + +"My lady shall know of this," she concluded, with a vicious clenching +of her teeth, and two or three nods of her neat head. + +Malcolm stood regarding her with a coolness that yet inflamed +her wrath. He could not help smiling at the reaction of shame in +indignation. Had her anger been but a passing flame, that smile +would have turned it into enduring hate. She hissed in his face. + +"Go and have the first word," he said; "only leave the door and +let me pass." + +"Let you pass indeed! What would you pass for?--The bastard of +old Lord James and a married woman!--I don't care that for you." +And she snapped her fingers in his face. + +Malcolm turned from her and went to the window, taking a newspaper +from the breakfast table as he passed, and there sat down to read +until the way should be clear. Carried beyond herself by his utter +indifference, Caley darted from the room and went straight into +the study. + +Lenorme led Florimel in front of the picture. She gave a great +start, and turned and stared pallid at the painter. The effect upon +her was such as he had not foreseen, and the words she uttered were +not such as he could have hoped to hear. + +"What would he think of me if he knew?" she cried, clasping her +hands in agony. + +That moment Caley burst into the room, her eyes lamping like a +cat's. + +"My lady!" she shrieked, "there's MacPhail, the groom, my lady, +dressed up in your honoured father's bee-utiful clo'es as he always +wore when he went to dine with the Prince! And, please, my lady, +he's that rude I could 'ardly keep my 'ands off him." + +Florimel flashed a dagger of question in Lenorme's eyes. The painter +drew himself up. + +"It was at my request, Lady Lossie," he said. + +"Indeed!" returned Florimel, in high scorn, and glanced again at +the picture. + +"I see!" she went on. "How could I be such an idiot! It was my +groom's, not my father's likeness you meant to surprise me with!" + +Her eyes flashed as if she would annihilate him. + +"I have worked hard in the hope of giving you pleasure, Lady Lossie," +said the painter, with wounded dignity. + +"And you have failed," she adjoined cruelly. + +The painter took the miniature after which he had been working, +from a table near, handed it to her with a proud obeisance, and +the same moment dashed a brushful of dark paint across the face of +the picture. + +"Thank you, sir," said Florimel, and for a moment felt as if she +hated him. + +She turned away and walked from the study. The door of the drawing +room was open, and Caley stood by the side of it. Florimel, too +angry to consider what she was about, walked in: there sat Malcolm +in the window, in her father's clothes, and his very attitude, reading +the newspaper. He did not hear her enter. He had been waiting till +he could reach the bedroom unseen by her, for he knew from the +sound of the voices that the study door was open. Her anger rose +yet higher at the sight. + +"Leave the room," she said. + +He started to his feet, and now perceived that his sister was in the +dress of a servant. He took one step forward and stood--a little +mazed--gorgeous in dress and arms of price, before his mistress +in the cotton gown of a housemaid. + +"Take those clothes off instantly," said Florimel slowly, replacing +wrath with haughtiness as well as she might. Malcolm turned to the +door without a word. He saw that things had gone wrong where most +he would have wished them go right. + +"I'll see to them being well aired, my lady," said Caley, with +sibilant indignation. + +Malcolm went to the study. The painter sat before the picture of +the marquis, with his elbows on his knees, and his head between +his hands. + +"Mr Lenorme," said Malcolm, approaching him gently. + +"Oh, go away," said Lenorme, without raising his head. "I can't +bear the sight of you yet." + +Malcolm obeyed, a little smile playing about the corners of his +mouth. Caley saw it as he passed, and hated him yet worse. He was +in his own clothes, booted and belted, in two minutes. Three sufficed +to replace his father's garments in the portmanteau, and in three +more he and Kelpie went plunging past his mistress and her maid as +they drove home in their lumbering vehicle. + +"The insolence of the fellow!" said Caley, loud enough for her +mistress to hear notwithstanding the noise of the rattling windows. +"A pretty pass we are come to!" + +But already Florimel's mood had begun to change. She felt that she +had done her best to alienate men on whom she could depend, and +that she had chosen for a confidante one whom she had no ground +for trusting. + +She got safe and unseen to her room; and Caley believed she had +only to improve the advantage she had now gained. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI: THE TWO DAIMONS + + +Things had taken a turn that was not to Malcolm's satisfaction, +and his thoughts were as busy all the way home as Kelpie would +allow. He had ardently desired that his sister should be thoroughly +in love with Lenorme, for that seemed to open a clear path out of +his worst difficulties; now they had quarrelled; and besides were +both angry with him. The main fear was that Liftore would now make +some progress with her. Things looked dangerous. Even his warning +against Caley had led to a result the very opposite of his intent +and desire. And now it recurred to him that he had once come upon +Liftore talking to Caley, and giving her something that shone like +a sovereign. + +Earlier on the same morning of her visit to the studio, Florimel +had awaked and found herself in the presence of the spiritual +Vehmgericht. Every member of the tribunal seemed against her. All +her thoughts were busy accusing, none of them excusing one another. +So hard were they upon her that she fancied she had nearly come to +the conclusion that, if only she could do it pleasantly, without +pain or fear, the best thing would be to swallow something and +fall asleep; for like most people she was practically an atheist, +and therefore always thought of death as the refuge from the ills +of life. But although she was often very uncomfortable, Florimel +knew nothing of such genuine downright misery as drives some people +to what can be no more to their purpose than if a man should strip +himself naked because he is cold. When she returned from her unhappy +visit, and had sent her attendant to get her some tea, she threw +herself upon her bed, and found herself yet again in the dark +chambers of the spiritual police. But already even their company +was preferable to that of Caley, whose officiousness began to enrage +her. She was yet tossing in the Nessus tunic of her own disharmony, +when Malcolm came for orders. To get rid of herself and Caley both, +she desired him to bring the horses round at once. + +It was more than Malcolm had expected. He ran: he might yet have a +chance of trying to turn her in the right direction. He knew that +Liftore was neither in the house nor at the stable. With the help +of the earl's groom, he was round in ten minutes. Florimel was all +but ready: like some other ladies she could dress quickly when she +had good reason. She sprang from Malcolm's hand to the saddle, and +led as straight northward as she could go, never looking behind her +till she drew rein on the top of Hampstead Heath. When he rode up +to her "Malcolm," she said, looking at him half ashamed, "I don't +think my father would have minded you wearing his clothes." + +"Thank you, my lady," said Malcolm. "At least he would have forgiven +anything meant for your pleasure." + +"I was too hasty," she said. "But the fact was, Mr Lenorme had +irritated me, and I foolishly mixed you up with him." + +"When I went into the studio, after you left it, this morning my +lady," Malcolm ventured, "he had his head between his hands and +would not even look at me." + +Florimel turned her face aside, and Malcolm thought she was sorry; +but she was only hiding a smile: she had not yet got beyond the +kitten stage of love, and was pleased to find she gave pain. + +"If your ladyship never had another true friend, Mr Lenorme is +one," added Malcolm. + +"What opportunity can you have had for knowing?" said Florimel. + +"I have been sitting to him every morning for a good many days," +answered Malcolm. "he is something like a man!" + +Florimel's face flushed with pleasure. She liked to hear him praised, +for he loved her. + +"You should have seen, my lady, the pains he took with that portrait! +He would stare at the little picture you lent him of my lord for +minutes, as if he were looking through it at something behind it; +then he would get up and go and gaze at your ladyship on the pedestal, +as if you were the goddess herself able to tell him everything +about your father; and then he would hurry back to his easel, and +give a touch or two to the face, looking at it all the time as if +he loved it. It must have been a cruel pain that drove him to smear +it as he did!" + +Florimel began to feel a little motion of shame somewhere in the +mystery of her being. But to show that to her servant, would be to +betray herself--the more that he seemed the painter's friend. + +"I will ask Lord Liftore to go and see the portrait, and if he +thinks it like, I will buy it," she said. "Mr Lenorme is certainly +very clever with his brush." + +Malcolm saw that she said this not to insult Lenorme, but to blind +her groom, and made no answer. + +"I will ride there with you tomorrow morning," she added in +conclusion, and moved on. + +Malcolm touched his hat, and dropped behind. But the next moment +he was by her side again. + +"I beg your pardon, my lady, but would you allow me to say one word +more?" + +She bowed her head. + +"That woman Caley, I am certain, is not to be trusted. She does +not love you, my lady." + +"How do you know that?" asked Florimel, speaking steadily, but +writhing inwardly with the knowledge that the warning was too late. + +"I have tried her spirit," answered Malcolm, "and know that it is +of the devil. She loves herself too much to be true." + +After a little pause Florimel said, + +"I know you mean well, Malcolm; but it is nothing to me whether +she loves me or not. We don't look for that nowadays from servants." + +"It is because I love you, my lady," said Malcolm, "that I know Caley +does not. If she should get hold of anything your ladyship +would not wish talked about,--" + +"That she cannot," said Florimel, but with an inward shudder. "She +may tell the whole world all she can discover." + +She would have cantered on as the words left her lips, but something +in Malcolm's looks held her. She turned pale; she trembled: her +father was looking at her as only once had she seen him--in doubt +whether his child lied. The illusion was terrible. She shook in her +saddle. The next moment she was galloping along the grassy border +of the heath in wild flight from her worst enemy, whom yet she could +never by the wildest of flights escape; for when, coming a little +to herself as she approached a sand pit, she pulled up, there was +her enemy--neither before nor behind, neither above nor beneath +nor within her: it was the self which had just told a lie to the +servant of whom she had so lately boasted that he never told one +in his life. Then she grew angry. What had she done to be thus +tormented? She a marchioness, thus pestered by her own menials +--pulled in opposing directions by a groom and a maid. She would +turn them both away, and have nobody about her, either to trust or +suspect. + +She might have called them her good and her evil demon; for she +knew, that is, she had it somewhere about her, but did not look +it out, that it was her own cowardice and concealment, her own +falseness to the traditional, never failing courage of her house, +her ignobility, and unfitness to represent the Colonsays--her +double dealing in short, that had made the marchioness in her own +right the slave of her woman, the rebuked of her groom! + +She turned and rode back, looking the other way as she passed +Malcolm. + +When they reached the top of the heath, riding along to meet them +came Liftore--this time to Florimel's consolation and comfort: +she did not like riding unprotected with a good angel at her heels. +So glad was she that she did not even take the trouble to wonder how +he had discovered the road she went. She never suspected that Caley +had sent his lordship's groom to follow her until the direction +of her ride should be evident, but took his appearance without +question, as a loverlike attention, and rode home with him, talking +the whole way, and cherishing a feeling of triumph over both Malcolm +and Lenorme. Had she not a protector of her own kind? Could she +not, when they troubled her, pass from their sphere into one beyond +their ken? For the poor moment, the weak lord who rode beside her +seemed to her foolish heart a tower of refuge. She was particularly +gracious to her lover as they rode, and fancied again and again +that perhaps the best way out of her troubles would be to encourage +and at last accept him, so getting rid of honeyed delights and +rankling stings together, of good and evil angels and low bred +lover at one sweep. Quiet would console for dulness, innocence for +weariness. She would fain have a good conscience toward Society-- +that image whose feet are of gold and its head a bag of chaff and +sawdust. + +Malcolm followed sick at heart that she should prove herself so +shallow. Riding Honour, he had plenty of leisure to brood. + + + +CHAPTER XXXII: A CHASTISEMENT + + +When she went to her room, there was Caley taking from a portmanteau +the Highland dress which had occasioned so much. A note fell, and +she handed it to her mistress. Florimel opened it, grew pale as she +read it, and asked Caley to bring her a glass of water. No sooner +had her maid left the room than she sprang to the door and bolted +it. Then the tears burst from her eyes, she sobbed despairingly, +and but for the help of her handkerchief would have wailed aloud. +When Caley returned, she answered to her knock that she was lying +down, and wanted to sleep. She was, however, trying to force further +communication from the note. In it the painter told her that he was +going to set out the next morning for Italy, and that her portrait +was at the shop of certain carvers and gliders, being fitted with +a frame for which he had made drawings. Three times she read it, +searching for some hidden message to her heart; she held it up +between her and the light; then before the fire till it crackled +like a bit of old parchment; but all was in vain: by no device, +intellectual or physical, could she coax the shadow of a meaning +out of it, beyond what lay plain on the surface. She must, she +would see him again. + +That night she was merrier than usual at dinner; after it, sang +ballad after ballad to please Liftore; then went to her room and +told Caley to arrange for yet a visit, the next morning, to Mr +Lenorme's studio. She positively must, she said, secure her father's +portrait ere the ill tempered painter--all men of genius were +hasty and unreasonable--should have destroyed it utterly, as he +was certain to do before leaving--and with that she showed her +Lenorme's letter. Caley was all service, only said that this time +she thought they had better go openly. She would see Lady Bellair +as soon as Lady Lossie was in bed, and explain the thing to her. + +The next morning therefore they drove to Chelsea in the carriage. +When the door opened, Florimel walked straight up to the study. +There she saw no one, and her heart, which had been fluttering +strangely, sank, and was painfully still, while her gaze went +wandering about the room. It fell upon the pictured temple of Isis: +a thick dark veil had fallen and shrouded the whole figure of the +goddess, leaving only the outline; and the form of the worshipping +youth had vanished utterly: where he had stood, the tesselated +pavement, with the serpent of life twining through it, and the +sculptured walls of the temple, shone out clear and bare, as if +Hyacinth had walked out into the desert to return no more. Again +the tears gushed from the heart of Florimel: she had sinned against +her own fame--had blotted out a fair memorial record that might +have outlasted the knight of stone under the Norman canopy in +Lossie church. Again she sobbed, again she choked down a cry that +had else become a scream. + +Arms were around her. Never doubting whose the embrace, she leaned +her head against his bosom, stayed her sobs with the one word "Cruel!" +and slowly opening her tearful eyes, lifted them to the face that +bent over hers. It was Liftore's. She was dumb with disappointment +and dismay. It was a hateful moment. He kissed her forehead and +eyes, and sought her mouth. She shrieked aloud. In her very agony +at the loss of one to be kissed by another!--and there! It was +too degrading! too horrid! + +At the sound of her cry someone started up at the other end of +the room. An easel with a large canvas on it fell, and a man came +forward with great strides. Liftore let her go, with a muttered +curse on the intruder, and she darted from the room into the arms +of Caley, who had had her ear against the other side of the door. +The same instant Malcolm received from his lordship a well planted +blow between the eyes, which filled them with flashes and darkness. +The next, the earl was on the floor. The ancient fury of the Celt +had burst up into the nineteenth century, and mastered a noble spirit. +All Malcolm could afterwards remember was that he came to himself +dealing Liftore merciless blows, his foot on his back, and his +weapon the earl's whip. His lordship, struggling to rise, turned +up a face white with hate and impotent fury. + +"You damned flunkie!" he panted. "I'll have you shot like a mangy +dog." + +"Meanwhile I will chastise you like an insolent nobleman," said +Malcolm, who had already almost recovered his self possession. "You +dare to touch my mistress!" + +And with the words he gave him one more stinging cut with the whip. + +"Stand off, and let it be man to man," cried Liftore, with a fierce +oath, clenching his teeth in agony and rage. + +"That it cannot be, my lord; but I have had enough, and so I hope +has your lordship," said Malcolm; and as he spoke he threw the +whip to the other end of the room, and stood back. Liftore sprang +to his feet, and rushed at him. Malcolm caught him by the wrist +with a fisherman's grasp. + +"My lord, I don't want to kill you. Take a warning, and let ill +be, for fear of worse," he said, and threw his hand from him with +a swing that nearly dislocated his shoulder. + +The warning sufficed. His lordship cast him one scowl of concentrated +hate and revenge, and leaving the room hurried also from the house. + +At the usual morning hour, Malcolm had ridden to Chelsea, hoping to +find his friend in a less despairing and more companionable mood +than when he left him. To his surprise and disappointment he learned +that Lenorme had sailed by the packet to Ostend the night before. +He asked leave to go into the study. There on its easel stood the +portrait of his father as he had last seen it--disfigured with a +great smear of brown paint across the face. He knew that the face +was dry, and he saw that the smear was wet: he would see whether +he could not, with turpentine and a soft brush, remove the insult. +In this endeavour he was so absorbed, and by the picture itself +was so divided from the rest of the room, that he neither saw nor +heard anything until Florimel cried out. + +Naturally, those events made him yet more dissatisfied with his +sister's position. Evil influences and dangers were on all sides +of her--the worst possible outcome being that, loving one man, +she should marry another, and him such a man as Liftore. Whatever +he heard in the servants' hall, both tone and substance, only +confirmed the unfavourable impression he had had from the first of +the bold faced countess. The oldest of her servants had, he found, +the least respect for their mistress, although all had a certain +liking for her, which gave their disrespect the heavier import. +He must get Florimel away somehow. While all was right between +her and the painter he had been less anxious about her immediate +surroundings, trusting that Lenorme would ere long deliver her. +But now she had driven him from the very country, and he had left +no clue to follow him up by. His housekeeper could tell nothing of +his purposes. The gardener and she were left in charge as a matter +of course. He might be back in a week, or a year; she could not +even conjecture. + +Seeming possibilities, in varied mingling with rank absurdities +passing through Malcolm's mind, as, after Liftore's punishment, +he lifted the portrait, set it again upon its easel, and went on +trying to clean the face of it--with no small promise of success. +But as he made progress he grew anxious--lest with the defilement, +he should remove some of the colour as well: the painter alone, +he concluded at length could be trusted to restore the work he had +ruined. + +He left the house, walked across the road to the riverbank, and +gave a short sharp whistle. In an instant Davy was in the dinghy, +pulling for the shore. Malcolm went on board the yacht, saw that +all was right, gave some orders, went ashore again, and mounted +Kelpie. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII: LIES + + +In pain, wrath, and mortification, Liftore rode home. What would +the men at his club say if they knew that he had been thrashed by +a scoundrel of a groom for kissing his mistress? The fact would +soon be out: he must do his best to have it taken for what it ought +to be--namely, fiction. It was the harder upon him that he knew +himself no coward. He must punish the rascal somehow--he owed it +to society to punish him; but at present he did not see how, and +the first thing was to have the first word with Florimel; he must +see her before she saw the ruffian. He rode as hard as he dared to +Curzon Street, sent his groom to the stables, telling him he should +want the horses again before lunch, had a hot bath, of which he +stood in dire need, and some brandy with his breakfast, and then, +all unfit for exercise as he was, walked to Portland Place. + +Mistress and maid rode home together in silence. The moment Florimel +heard Malcolm's voice she had left the house. Caley following had +heard enough to know that there was a scuffle at least going on +in the study, and her eye witnessed against her heart that Liftore +could have no chance with the detested groom if the respect of the +latter gave way: would MacPhail thrash his lordship? If he did, +it would be well she should know it. In the hoped event of his +lordship's marrying her mistress, it was desirable, not only that +she should be in favour with both of them, but that she should +have some hold upon each of a more certainly enduring nature: if +she held secrets with husband and wife separately, she would be +in clover for the period of her natural existence. As to Florimel, +she was enraged at the liberties Liftore had taken with her. But +alas! was she not in some degree in his power? He had found her +there, and in tears! How did he come to be there? If Malcolm's +judgment of her was correct, Caley might have told him. Was she +already false? She pondered within herself, and cast no look upon +her maid until she had concluded how best to carry herself towards +the earl. Then glancing at the hooded cobra beside her--"What +an awkward thing that Lord Liftore, of all moments, should appear +just then!" she said. "How could it be?" + +"I'm sure I haven't an idea, my lady," returned Caley. "My lord +has been always kind to Mr Lenorme, and I suppose he has been in +the way of going to see him at work. Who would have thought my lord +had been such an early riser! There are not many gentlemen like him +nowadays, my lady! Did your ladyship hear the noise in the studio +after you left it?" + +"I heard high words," answered her mistress, "--nothing more. +How on earth did MacPhail come to be there as well?--From you, +Caley, I will not conceal that his lordship behaved indiscreetly; +in fact he was rude; and I can quite imagine that MacPhail thought +it his duty to defend me. It is all very awkward for me. Who could +have imagined him there, and sitting behind amongst the pictures! +It almost makes me doubt whether Mr Lenorme be really gone." + +"It seems to me, my lady," returned Caley, "that the man is always +just where he ought not to be, always meddling with something he +has no business with. I beg your pardon, my lady," she went on, "but +wouldn't it be better to get some staid elderly man for a groom, +one who has been properly bred up to his duties and taught his +manners in a gentleman's stable? It is so odd to have a groom from +a rough seafaring set--one who behaves like the rude fisherman +he is, never having had to obey orders of lord or lady! The worst +of it is, your ladyship will soon be the town's talk if you have +such a groom on such a horse after you everywhere." + +Florimel's face flushed. Caley saw she was angry, and held her +peace. + +Breakfast was hardly over, when Liftore walked in, looking pale, +and, in spite of his faultless get up, somewhat disreputable: for +shame, secret pain, and anger do not favour a good carriage or +honest mien. Florimel threw herself back in her chair--an action +characteristic of the bold faced countess, and held out her left +hand to him in an expansive, benevolent sort of way. + +"How dare you come into my presence, looking so well pleased with +yourself, my lord, after giving me such a fright this morning?" +she said. "You might at least have made sure that there was--that +we were--" + +She could not bring herself to complete the sentence. + +"My dearest girl!" said his lordship, not only delighted to get off +so pleasantly, but profoundly flattered by the implied understanding, +"I found you in tears, and how could I think of anything else? It +may have been stupid, but I trust you will think it pardonable." + +Caley had not fully betrayed her mistress to his lordship, and +he had, entirely to his own satisfaction, explained the liking +of Florimel for the society of the painter as the mere fancy of a +girl for the admiration of one whose employment, although nothing +above the servile, yet gave him a claim something beyond that of +a milliner or hair dresser, to be considered a judge in matters of +appearance. As to anything more in the affair--and with him in +the field--of such a notion he was simply incapable: he could +not have wronged the lady he meant to honour with his hand, by +regarding it as within the bounds of the possible. + +"It was no wonder I was crying," said Florimel. "A seraph would +have cried to see the state my father's portrait was in." + +"Your father's portrait!" + +"Yes. Did you not know? Mr Lenorme has been painting one from a +miniature I lent him--under my supervision, of course; and just +because I let fall a word that showed I was not altogether satisfied +with the likeness, what should the wretched man do but catch up a +brush full of filthy black paint, and smudge the face all over!" + +"Oh, Lenorme will soon set it to rights again. He's not a bad fellow +though he does belong to the genus irritabile. I will go about it +this very day." + +"You'll not find him, I'm sorry to say. There's a note I had from +him yesterday. And the picture's quite unfit to be seen--utterly +ruined. But I can't think how you could miss it!" + +"To tell you the truth, Florimel, I had a bit of a scrimmage after +you left me in the studio." Here his lordship did his best to +imitate a laugh. "Who should come rushing upon me out of the back +regions of paint and canvas but that mad groom of yours! I don't +suppose you knew he was there?" + +"Not I. I saw a man's feet--that was all." + +"Well, there he was, for what reason the devil knows, perdu amongst +the painter's litter; and when he heard your little startled cry +--most musical, most melancholy--what should he fancy but that +you were frightened, and he must rush to the rescue! And so he did +with a vengeance: I don't know when I shall quite forget the blow +he gave me." And again Liftore laughed, or thought he did. + +"He struck you!" exclaimed Florimel, rather astonished, but hardly +able for inward satisfaction to put enough of indignation into her +tone. + +"He did, the fellow!--But don't say a word about it, for I thrashed +him so unmercifully that, to tell the truth, I had to stop because +I grew sorry for him. I am sorry now. So I hope you will take +no notice of it. In fact, I begin to like the rascal: you know I +was never favourably impressed with him. By Jove! it is not every +mistress that can have such a devoted attendant. I only hope his +over zeal in your service may never get you into some compromising +position. He is hardly, with all his virtues, the proper servant +for a young lady to have about her; he has had no training--no +proper training at all, you see. But you must let the villain nurse +himself for a day or two anyhow. It would be torture to make him +ride, after what I gave him." + +His lordship spoke feelingly, with heroic endurance indeed; and if +Malcolm should dare give his account of the fracas, he trusted to +the word of a gentleman to outweigh that of a groom. + +Not all to whom it may seem incredible that a nobleman should thus +lie, are themselves incapable of doing likewise. Any man may put +himself in training for a liar by doing things he would be ashamed +to have known. The art is easily learned, and to practise it well +is a great advantage to people with designs. Men of ability, indeed, +if they take care not to try hard to speak the truth, will soon +become able to lie as truthfully as any sneak that sells grease +for butter to the poverty of the New Cut. + +It is worth remarking to him who can from the lie factual carry +his thought deeper to the lie essential, that all the power of a +lie comes from the truth; it has none in itself. So strong is the +truth that a mere resemblance to it is the source of strength to +its opposite--until it be found that like is not the same. + +Florimel had already made considerable progress in the art, but +proficiency in lying does not always develop the power of detecting +it. She knew that her father had on one occasion struck Malcolm, +and that he had taken it with the utmost gentleness, confessing +himself in the wrong. Also she had the impression that for a menial +to lift his hand against a gentleman, even in self defence, was a +thing unheard of. The blow Malcolm had struck Liftore was for her, +not himself. Therefore, while her confidence in Malcolm's courage +and prowess remained unshaken, she was yet able to believe that +Liftore had done as he said, and supposed that Malcolm had submitted. +In her heart she pitied without despising him. + +Caley herself took him the message that he would not be wanted. As +she delivered it, she smiled an evil smile and dropped a mocking +courtesy, with her gaze well fixed on his two black eyes and the +great bruise between them. + +When Liftore mounted to accompany Lady Lossie, it took all the pluck +that belonged to his high breed to enable him to smile and smile, +with twenty counsellors in different parts of his body feelingly +persuading him that he was at least a liar. As they rode, Florimel +asked him how he came to be at the studio that morning. He told her +that he had wanted very much to see her portrait before the final +touches were given it. He could have made certain suggestions, he +believed, that no one else could. He had indeed, he confessed-- +and felt absolutely virtuous in doing so, because here he spoke +a fact--heard from his aunt that Florimel was to be there that +morning for the last time: it was therefore his only chance; but +he had expected to be there hours before she was out of bed. For +the rest, be hoped he had been punished enough, seeing her rascally +groom--and once more his lordship laughed peculiarly--had but +just failed of breaking his arm; it was all he could do to hold +the reins. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV: AN OLD ENEMY + + +One Sunday evening--it must have been just while Malcolm and Blue +Peter stood in the Strand listening to a voluntary that filled and +overflowed an otherwise empty church--a short, stout, elderly +woman was walking lightly along the pavement of a street of small +houses, not far from a thoroughfare which, crowded like a market +the night before, had now two lively borders only--of holiday +makers mingled with church goers. The bells for evening prayers were +ringing. The sun had vanished behind the smoke and steam of London; +indeed he might have set--it was hard to say without consulting +the almanac: but it was not dark yet. The lamps in the street were +lighted, however, and also in the church she passed. She carried a +small bible in her hand, folded in a pocket handkerchief and looked +a decent woman from the country. Her quest was a place where the +minister said his prayers and did not read them out of a book: she +had been brought up a Presbyterian, and had prejudices in favour +of what she took for the simpler form of worship. Nor had she gone +much farther before she came upon a chapel which seemed to promise +all she wanted. She entered, and a sad looking woman showed her to +a seat. She sat down square, fixing her eyes at once on the pulpit, +rather dimly visible over many pews, as if it were one of the +mountains that surrounded her Jerusalem. The place was but scantily +lighted, for the community at present could ill afford to burn +daylight. When the worship commenced, and the congregation rose to +sing, she got up with a jerk that showed the duty as unwelcome as +unexpected, but seemed by the way she settled herself in her seat +for the prayer, already thereby reconciled to the differences +between Scotch church customs and English chapel customs. She went +to sleep softly, and woke warily as the prayer came to a close. + +While the congregation again sang, the minister who had officiated +hitherto left the pulpit, and another ascended to preach. When he +began to read the text, the woman gave a little start, and leaning +forward, peered very hard to gain a satisfactory sight of his face +between the candles on each side of it, but without success; she +soon gave up her attempted scrutiny, and thence forward seemed to +listen with marked attention. The sermon was a simple, earnest, +at times impassioned appeal to the hearts and consciences of the +congregation. There was little attempt in it at the communication +of knowledge of any kind, but the most indifferent hearer must have +been aware that the speaker was earnestly straining after something. +To those who understood, it was as if he would force his way through +every stockade of prejudice, ditch of habit, rampart of indifference, +moat of sin, wall of stupidity, and curtain of ignorance, until he +stood face to face with the conscience of his hearer. + +"Rank Arminianism!" murmured the woman. "Whaur's the gospel o' that?" +But still she listened with seeming intentness, while something +of wonder mingled with the something else that set in motion every +live wrinkle in her forehead, and made her eyebrows undulate like +writhing snakes. + +At length the preacher rose to eloquence, an eloquence inspired by +the hunger of his soul after truth eternal, and the love he bore +to his brethren who fed on husks--an eloquence innocent of the +tricks of elocution or the arts of rhetoric: to have discovered +himself using one of them would have sent him home to his knees in +shame and fear--an eloquence not devoid of discords, the strings +of his instrument being now slack with emotion, now tense with +vision, yet even in those discords shrouding the essence of all +harmony. When he ceased, the silence that followed seemed instinct +with thought, with that speech of the spirit which no longer needs +the articulating voice. + +"It canna be the stickit minister!" said the woman to herself. The +congregation slowly dispersed, but she sat motionless until all +were gone, and the sad faced woman was putting out the lights. Then +she rose, drew near through the gloom, and asked her the name of +the gentleman who had given them such a grand sermon. The woman +told her, adding that, although he had two or three times spoken +to them at the prayer meeting--such words of comfort, the poor +soul added, as she had never in her life heard before--this was +the first time he had occupied the pulpit. The woman thanked her, +and went out into the street. + +"God bless me!" she said to herself, as she walked away; "it is +the stickit minister! Weel, won'ers 'ill never cease. The age o' +mirracles 'ill be come back, I'm thinkin'!" And she laughed an oily +contemptuous laugh in the depths of her profuse person. + +What caused her astonishment need cause none to the thoughtful +mind. The man was no longer burdened with any anxiety as to his +reception by his hearers; he was hampered by no necromantic agony +to raise the dead letter of the sermon buried in the tail pocket +of his coat; he had thirty years more of life, and a whole granary +filled with such truths as grow for him who is ever breaking up +the clods of his being to the spiritual sun and wind and dew; and +above all he had an absolute yet expanding confidence in his Father +in heaven, and a tender love for everything human. The tongue of +the dumb had been in training for song. And first of all he had +learned to be silent while he had nought to reveal. He had been +trained to babble about religion, but through God's grace had +failed in his babble, and that was in itself a success. He would +have made one of the swarm that year after year cast themselves +like flies on the burning sacrifice that they may live on its flesh, +with evil odours extinguishing the fire that should have gone up +in flame; but a burning coal from off the altar had been laid on +his lips, and had silenced them in torture. For thirty years he +had held his peace, until the word of God had become as a fire in +his bones: it was now breaking forth in flashes. + +On the Monday, Mrs Catanach sought the shop of the deacon that was +an ironmonger, secured for herself a sitting in the chapel for the +next half year, and prepaid the sitting. + +"Wha kens," she said to herself "what birds may come to gether +worms an' golachs (beetles) aboot the boody craw (scarecrow), Sanny +Grame!" + +She was one to whom intrigue, founded on the knowledge of private +history, was as the very breath of her being: she could not exist +in composure without it. Wherever she went, therefore--and her +changes of residence had not been few--it was one of her first +cares to enter into connection with some religious community, first +that she might have scope for her calling--that of a midwife, +which in London would probably be straightened towards that of mere +monthly nurse--and next that thereby she might have good chances +for the finding of certain weeds of occult power that spring mostly +in walled gardens, and are rare on the roadside--poisonous things +mostly, called generically secrets. + +At this time she had been for some painful months in possession of +a most important one--painful, I say, because all those months +she had discovered no possibility of making use of it. The trial +had been hard. Her one passion was to drive the dark horses of +society, and here she had been sitting week after week on the coach +box over the finest team she had ever handled, ramping and "foming +tarre," unable to give them their heads because the demon grooms +had disappeared and left the looped traces dangling from their +collars. She had followed Florimel from Portlossie--to Edinburgh, +and then to London, but not yet had seen how to approach her with +probable advantage. In the meantime she had renewed old relations +with a certain herb doctor in Kentish Town, at whose house she +was now accommodated. There she had already begun to entice the +confidences of maid servants, by use of what evil knowledge she +had, and pretence to more, giving herself out as a wise woman. Her +faith never failed her that, if she but kept handling the fowls of +circumstance, one or other of them must at length drop an egg of +opportunity in her lap. When she stumbled upon the schoolmaster, +preaching in a chapel near her own haunts, she felt something more +like a gust of gratitude to the dark power that sat behind and +pulled the strings of events--for thus she saw through her own +projected phantom the heart of the universe--than she had ever +yet experienced. If there were such things as special providences, +here, she said, was one; if not, then it was better luck than she +had looked for. The main point in it was that the dominie seemed +likely after all to turn out a popular preacher; then beyond a +doubt other Scotch people would gather to him; this or that person +might turn up, and anyone might turn out useful; one thread might +be knotted to another, until all together had made a clue to guide +her straight through the labyrinth to the centre, to lay her hand +on the collar of the demon of the house of Lossie. It was the biggest +game of her life, and had been its game long before the opening of +my narrative. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV: THE EVIL GENIUS + + +When Malcolm first visited Mr Graham, the schoolmaster had already +preached two or three times in the pulpit of Hope Chapel. His +ministrations at the prayer meetings had led to this. For every +night on which he was expected to speak, there were more people +present than on the last; and when the deacons saw this, they asked +him to preach on the Sundays. After two Sundays they came to him +in a body, and besought him to become a candidate for the vacant +pulpit, assuring him of success if he did so. He gave a decided +refusal, however, nor mentioned his reasons. His friend Marshal +urged him, pledging himself for his income to an amount which would +have been riches to the dominie, but in vain. Thereupon the silk +mercer concluded that he must have money, and, kind man as he was, +grew kinder in consequence, and congratulated him on his independence. + +"I depend more on the fewness of my wants than on any earthly store +for supplying them," said the dominie. + +Marshal's thermometer fell a little, but not his anxiety to secure +services which, he insisted, would be for the glory of God and the +everlasting good of perishing souls. The schoolmaster only smiled +queerly and held his peace. + +He consented, however, to preach the next Sunday, and on the +Monday, consented to preach the next again. For several weeks the +same thing occurred. But he would never promise on a Sunday, or +allow the briefest advertisement to be given concerning him. All +said he was feeling his way. + +Neither had he, up to this time, said a word to Malcolm about the +manner in which his Sundays were employed, while yet he talked much +about a school he had opened in a room occupied in the evenings +by a debating club, where he was teaching such children of small +shopkeepers and artisans as found their way to him--in part through +his connection with the chapel folk. When Malcolm had called on a +Sunday, his landlady had been able to tell him nothing more than that +Mr Graham had gone out at such and such an hour--she presumed to +church; and when he had once or twice expressed a wish to accompany +him wherever he went to worship, Mr Graham had managed somehow to +let him go without having made any arrangement for his doing so. + +On the evening after his encounter with Liftore, Malcolm visited +the schoolmaster, and told him everything about the affair. He +concluded by saying that Lizzie's wrongs had loaded the whip far +more than his sister's insult; but that he was very doubtful whether +he had had any right to constitute himself the avenger of either +after such a fashion. Mr Graham replied that a man ought never +to be carried away by wrath, as he had so often sought to impress +upon him, and not without success: but that, in the present case, +as the rascal deserved it so well, he did not think he need trouble +himself much. At the same time he ought to remind himself that +the rightness or wrongness of any particular act was of far less +consequence than the rightness or wrongness of the will whence +sprang the act; and that, while no man could be too anxious as to +whether a contemplated action ought or ought not to be done, at +the same time no man could do anything absolutely right until he +was one with him whose was the only absolute self generated purity +--that is, until God dwelt in him and he in God. + +Before he left, the schoolmaster had acquainted him with all that +portion of his London history which he had hitherto kept from him, +and told him where he was preaching. + +When Caley returned to her mistress after giving Malcolm the message +that she did not require his services, and reported the condition +of his face, Florimel informed her of the chastisement he had +received from Liftore, and desired her to find out for her how he +was, for she was anxious about him. Somehow Florimel felt sorrier +for him than she could well understand, seeing he was but a groom +--a great lumbering fellow, all his life used to hard knocks, +which probably never hurt him. That her mistress should care so +much about him added yet an acrid touch to Caley's spite; but she +put on her bonnet and went to the mews, to confer with the wife of +his lordship's groom, who, although an honest woman, had not yet +come within her dislike. She went to make her inquiries, however, +full of grave doubt as to his lordship's statement to her mistress; +and the result of them was a conviction that, beyond his facial +bruises, of which Mrs Merton had heard no explanation, Malcolm had +had no hurt. This confirmed her suspicion that his lordship had +received what he professed to have given: from a window she had +seen him mount his horse; and her woman's fancy for him; while it +added to her hate of Malcolm, did not prevent her from thinking of +the advantage the discovery might bring in the prosecution of her +own schemes. But now she began to fear Malcolm a little as well +as hate him. And indeed he was rather a dangerous person to have +about, where all but himself had secrets more or less bad, and +one at least had dangerous ones--as Caley's conscience, or what +poor monkey rudiment in her did duty for one, in private asserted. +Notwithstanding her hold upon her mistress, she would not have felt +it quite safe to let her know all her secrets. She would not have +liked to say, for instance, how often she woke suddenly with a +little feeble wail sounding in the ears that fingers cannot stop, +or to confess that it cried out against a double injustice, that +of life and that of death: she had crossed the border of the region +of horror, and went about with a worm coiled in her heart, like a +centipede in the stone of a peach. + +"Merton's wife knows nothing, my lady," she said on her return. +"I saw the fellow in the yard going about much as usual. He will +stand a good deal of punishing, I fancy, my lady--like that +brute of a horse he makes such a fuss with. I can't help wishing, +for your ladyship's sake, we had never set eyes on him. He 'll do +us all a mischief yet before we get rid of him. I've had a hinstinc' +of it, my lady; from the first moment I set eyes on him," Caley's +speech was never classic. When she was excited it was low.--" And +when I 'ave a hinstinc' of anythink, he's not a dog as barks for +nothink. Mark my words--and I'm sure I beg your pardon, my lady +--but that man will bring shame on the house. He's that arrergant +an' interferin' as is certain sure to bring your ladyship into public +speech an' a scandal: things will come to be spoke, my lady, that +hadn't ought to be mentioned. Why, my lady, he must ha' struck his +lordship, afore he'd ha' give him two such black eyes as them! And +him that good natured an' condescendin'!--I'm sure I don't know +what's to come on it, but your ladyship might cast a thought on +the rest of us females as can't take the liberties of born ladies +without sufferin' for it. Think what the world will say of us. It's +hard, my lady, on the likes of us." + +But Florimel was not one to be talked into doing what she did not +choose. Neither would she to her maid render her reasons for not +choosing. She had repaired her fortifications, strengthened herself +with Liftore, and was confident. + +"The fact is, Caley," she said, "I have fallen in love with Kelpie, +and never mean to part with her--at least till I can ride her +--or she kills me. So I can't do without MacPhail. And I hope she +won't kill him before he has persuaded her to let me mount her. The +man must go with the mare. Besides, he is such a strange fellow, +if I turned him away I should quite expect him to poison her before +he left." + +The maid's face grew darker. That her mistress had the slightest +intention of ever mounting that mare she did not find herself fool +enough to believe, but of other reasons she could spy plenty behind. +And such there truly were, though none of the sort which Caley's +imagination, swift to evil, now supplied. The kind of confidence +she reposed in her groom, Caley had no faculty for understanding, +and was the last person to whom her mistress could impart the fact +of her father's leaving her in charge to his young henchman. To the +memory of her father she clung, and so far faithfully that, even +now when Malcolm had begun to occasion her a feeling of awe and +rebuke, she did not the less confidently regard him as her good +genius that he was in danger of becoming an unpleasant one. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI: CONJUNCTIONS + + +As the days passed on, and Florimel heard nothing of Lenorme, the +uneasiness that came with the thought of him gradually diminished, +and all the associations of opposite complexion returned. Untrammelled +by fear, the path into a scaring future seeming to be cut off, her +imagination began to work in the quarry of her late experience, +shaping its dazzling material into gorgeous castles, with foundations +deep dug in the air, wherein lorded the person and gifts and +devotion of the painter. When lost in such blissful reveries, not +seldom moments arrived in which she imagined herself--even felt +as if she were capable, if not of marrying Lenorme in the flushed +face of outraged society, yet of fleeing with him from the judgment +of the all but all potent divinity to the friendly bosom of some +blessed isle of the southern seas, whose empty luxuriance they +might change into luxury, and there living a long harmonious idyll +of wedded love, in which old age and death should be provided +against by never taking them into account. This mere fancy, which, +poor in courage as it was in invention, she was far from capable +of carrying into effect, yet seemed to herself the outcome and sign +of a whole world of devotion in her bosom. If one of the meanest +of human conditions is conscious heroism, paltrier yet is heroism +before the fact, incapable of self realization! But even the poorest +dreaming has its influences, and the result of hers was that the +attentions of Liftore became again distasteful to her. And no wonder, +for indeed his lordship's presence in the actual world made a poor +show beside that of the painter in the ideal world of the woman +who, if she could not with truth be said to love him, yet certainly +had a powerful fancy for him: the mean phrase is good enough, even +although the phantom of Lenorme roused in her all the twilight +poetry of her nature, and the presence of Liftore set her whole +consciousness in the perpendicular shadowless gaslight of prudence +and self protection. + +The pleasure of her castle building was but seldom interrupted by +any thought of the shamefulness of her behaviour to him. That did +not matter much! She could so easily make up for all he had suffered! +Her selfishness closed her eyes to her own falsehood. Had she meant +it truly she would have been right both for him and for herself. +To have repented and become as noble a creature as Lenorme was +capable of imagining her--not to say as God had designed her, would +indeed have been to make up for all he had suffered. But the poor +blandishment she contemplated as amends, could render him blessed +only while its intoxication blinded him to the fact that it meant +nothing of what it ought to mean, that behind it was no entire, +heart filled woman. Meantime, as the past, with its delightful +imprudences, its trembling joys, glided away, swiftly widening the +space between her and her false fears and shames, and seeming to +draw with it the very facts themselves, promising to obliterate at +length all traces of them, she gathered courage; and as the feeling +of exposure that had made the covert of Liftore's attentions +acceptable, began to yield, her variableness began to re-appear, +and his lordship to find her uncertain as ever. Assuredly, as his +aunt said, she was yet but a girl incapable of knowing her own mind, +and he must not press his suit. Nor had he the spur of jealousy +or fear to urge him: society regarded her as his; and the shadowy +repute of the bold faced countess intercepted some favourable rays +which would otherwise have fallen upon the young, and beautiful +marchioness from fairer luminaries even than Liftore. + +But there was one good process, by herself little regarded, going +on in Florimel: notwithstanding the moral discomfort oftener than +once occasioned her by Malcolm, her confidence in him was increasing; +and now that the kind of danger threatening her seemed altered, she +leaned her mind upon him not a little--and more than she could +well have accounted for to herself on the only grounds she could +have adduced--namely that he was an attendant authorized by her +father, and, like herself loyal to his memory and will; and that, +faithful as a dog, he would fly at the throat of anyone who dared +touch her--of which she had had late proof, supplemented by his +silent endurance of consequent suffering. Demon sometimes looked +angry--when she teased him--had even gone so far as to bare his +teeth; but Malcolm had never shown temper. In a matter of imagined +duty, he might presume--but that was a small thing beside the +sense of safety his very presence brought with it. She shuddered +indeed at the remembrance of one look he had given her, but that +had been for no behaviour to himself; and now that the painter was +gone, she was clear of all temptation to the sort of thing that +had caused it; and never, never more would she permit herself to +be drawn into circumstances the least equivocal--If only Lenorme +would come back, and allow her to be his friend--his best friend +--his only young lady friend, leaving her at perfect liberty to do +just as she liked, then all would be well--absolutely comfortable! +In the meantime, life was endurable without him--and would be, +provided Liftore did not make himself disagreeable. If he did, there +were other gentlemen who might be induced to keep him in check: she +would punish him--she knew how. She liked him better, however, +than any of those. + +It was out of pure kindness to Malcolm, upon Liftore's representation +of how he had punished him, that for the rest of the week she +dispensed with his attendance upon herself. But he, unaware of +the lies Liftore had told her, and knowing nothing, therefore, of +her reason for doing so, supposed she resented the liberty he had +taken in warning her against Caley, feared the breach would go on +widening, and went about, if not quite downcast, yet less hopeful +still. Everything seemed going counter to his desires. A whole world +of work lay before him:--a harbour to build; a numerous fisher +clan to house as they ought to be housed; justice to do on all +sides; righteous servants to appoint in place of oppressors; and, +all over, to show the heavens more just than his family had in +the past allowed them to appear; he had mortgages and other debts +to pay off--clearing his feet from fetters and his hands from +manacles, that he might be the true lord of his people; he had +Miss Horn to thank, and the schoolmaster to restore to the souls +and hearts of Portlossie; and, next of all to his sister, he had +old Duncan, his first friend and father, to find and minister to. +Not a day passed, not a night did he lay down his head, without +thinking of him. But the old man, whatever his hardships, and +even the fishermen, with no harbour to run home to from the wild +elements, were in no dangers to compare with such as threatened his +sister. To set her free was his first business, and that business +as yet refused to be done. Hence he was hemmed in, shut up, +incarcerated in stubborn circumstance, from a long reaching range +of duties, calling aloud upon his conscience and heart to hasten +with the first, that he might reach the second. What rendered it +the more disheartening was, that, having discovered, as he hoped, +how to compass his first end, the whole possibility had by his +sister's behaviour, and the consequent disappearance of Lenorme, +been swept from him, leaving him more resourceless than ever. + +When Sunday evening came, he found his way to Hope Chapel, and +walking in, was shown to a seat by a grimy faced pew opener. It +was with strange feelings he sat there, thinking of the past, and +looking for the appearance of his friend on the pulpit stair. But +his feelings would have been stranger still had he seen who sat +immediately in the pew behind him, watching him like a cat watching +a mouse, or rather like a half grown kitten watching a rat, for +she was a little frightened at him, even while resolved to have +him. But how could she doubt her final success, when her plans +were already affording her so much more than she had expected? Who +would have looked for the great red stag himself to come browsing +so soon about the scarecrow! He was too large game, however, to be +stalked without due foresight. + +When the congregation was dismissed, after a sermon the power of +whose utterance astonished Malcolm, accustomed as he was to the +schoolmaster's best moods, he waited until the preacher was at +liberty from the unwelcome attentions and vulgar congratulations +of the richer and more forward of his hearers, and then joined him +to walk home with him.--He was followed to the schoolmaster's +lodging, and thence, an hour after, to his own, by a little boy +far too little to excite suspicion, the grandson of Mrs Catanach's +friend, the herb doctor. + +Until now the woman had not known that Malcolm was in London. When +she learned that he was lodged so near Portland Place, she concluded +that he was watching his sister, and chuckled over the idea of his +being watched in turn by herself. + +Every day for weeks after her declaration concerning the birth of +Malcolm, had the mind of Mrs Catanach been exercised to the utmost +to invent some mode of undoing her own testimony. She would have +had no scruples, no sense of moral disgust, in eating every one of +her words; but a magistrate and a lawyer had both been present at +the uttering of them, and she feared the risk. Malcolm's behaviour +to her after his father's death had embittered the unfriendly +feelings she had cherished towards him for many years. While she +believed him base born, and was even ignorant as to his father, +she had thought to secure power over him for the annoyance of the +blind old man to whom she had committed him, and whom she hated +with the hatred of a wife with whom for the best of reasons he +had refused to live; but she had found in the boy a rectitude over +which although she had assailed it from his childhood, she could +gain no influence. Either a blind repugnance in Malcolm's soul, or +a childish instinct of and revulsion from embodied evil, had held +them apart. Even then it had added to her vile indignation that she +regarded him as owing her gratitude for not having murdered him at +the instigation of his uncle; and when at length, to her endless +chagrin, she had herself unwittingly supplied the only lacking +link in the testimony that should raise him to rank and wealth, +she imagined, that by making affidavit to the facts she had already +divulged, she enlarged the obligation infinitely, and might henceforth +hold him in her hand a tool for further operations. When, therefore, +he banished her from Lossie House, and sought to bind her to silence +as to his rank by the conditional promise of a small annuity, she +hated him with her whole huge power of hating. And now she must make +speed, for his incognito in a great city afforded a thousandfold +facility for doing him a mischief. And first she must draw closer +a certain loose tie she had already looped betwixt herself and +the household of Lady Bellair. This tie was the conjunction of her +lying influence with the credulous confidence of a certain very +ignorant and rather wickedly romantic scullery maid with whom, +having in espial seen her come from the house she had scraped +acquaintance, and to whom, for the securing of power over her through +her imagination, she had made the strangest and most appalling +disclosures. Amongst other secret favours, she had promised to +compound for her a horrible mixture--some of whose disgusting +ingredients, as potent as hard to procure, she named in her awe +stricken hearing--which, administered under certain conditions +and with certain precautions, one of which was absolute secrecy in +regard to the person who provided it, must infallibly secure for +her the affections of any man on whom she might cast a loving eye, +and whom she could either with or without his consent, contrive to +cause partake of the same. This girl she now sought, and from her +learned all she knew about Malcolm. Pursuing her enquiries into +the nature and composition of the household, however, Mrs Catanach +soon discovered a far more capable and indeed less scrupulous +associate and instrument in Caley. I will not introduce my reader +to any of their evil councils, although, for the sake of my own +credit, it might be well to be less considerate, seeing that many, +notwithstanding the superabundant evidence of history, find it all +but impossible to believe in the existence of such moral abandonment +as theirs. I will merely state concerning them, and all the relations +of the two women, that Mrs Catanach assumed and retained the upper +hand, in virtue of her superior knowledge, invention, and experience, +gathering from Caley, as she had hoped much valuable information, +full of reactions, and tending to organic development of scheme in +the brain of the arch plotter. But their designs were so mutually +favourable as to promise from the first a final coalescence in some +common plan for their attainment. + +Those who knew that Miss Campbell, as Portlossie regarded her, had +been in reality Lady Lossie, and was the mother of Malcolm, knew as +well that Florimel had no legal title even to the family cognomen; +but if his mother, and therefore the time of his mother's death, +remained unknown, the legitimacy of his sister would remain +unsuspected even upon his appearance as the heir. Now there were +but three besides Mrs Catanach and Malcolm who did know who was his +mother, namely, Miss Horn, Mr Graham, and a certain Mr Morrison, a +laird and magistrate near Portlossie, an elderly man, and of late +in feeble health. The lawyers the marquis had employed on his death +bed did not know: he had, for Florimel's sake taken care that they +should not. Upon what she knew and what she guessed of these facts +regarded in all their relations according to her own theories of +human nature the midwife would found a scheme of action. + +Doubtless she saw, and prepared for it, that after a certain point +should be reached the very similarity of their designs must cause +a rupture between her and Caley; neither could expect the other to +endure such a rival near her hidden throne of influence; for the +aim of both was power in a great family, with consequent money, and +consideration, and midnight councils, and the wielding of all the +weapons of hint and threat and insinuation. There was one difference, +indeed, that in Caley's eye money was the chief thing, while power +itself was the Swedenborgian hell of the midwife's bliss. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII: AN INNOCENT PLOT + + +Florimel and Lady Clementina Thornicroft, the same who in the park +rebuked Malcolm for his treatment of Kelpie, had met several times +during the spring, and had been mutually attracted--Florimel as +to a nature larger, more developed, more self supporting than her +own, and Lady Clementina as to one who, it was plain, stood in sore +need of what countenance and encouragement to good and free action +the friendship of one more experienced might afford her. Lady +Clementina was but a few years older than Florimel, it is true, but +had shown a courage which had already wrought her an unquestionable +influence, and that chiefly with the best. The root of this courage +was compassion. Her rare humanity of heart would, at the slightest +appearance of injustice, drive her like an angel with a flaming +sword against customs regarded, consciously or unconsciously, as the +very buttresses of social distinction. Anything but a wise woman, +she had yet so much in her of what is essential to all wisdom-- +love to her kind, that, if as yet she had done little but blunder, +she had at least blundered beautifully. On every society that had +for its declared end the setting right of wrong or the alleviation +of misery, she lavished, and mostly wasted, her money. Every misery +took to her the shape of a wrong. Hence to every mendicant that +could trump up a plausible story, she offered herself a willing +prey. Even when the barest faced imposition was brought home to one +of the race parasitical, her first care was to find all possible +excuse for his conduct: it was matter of pleasure to her friends +when she stopped there, and made no attempt at absolute justification. + +Left like Florimel an orphan, but at a yet earlier age, she had been +brought up with a care that had gone over into severity, against +which her nature had revolted with an energy that gathered strength +from her own repression of its signs; and when she came of age, and +took things into her own hands, she carried herself in its eyes so +oddly, yet with such sweetness and dignity and consistency in her +oddest extravagances, that society honoured her even when it laughed +at her, loved her, listened to her, applauded, approved--did +everything except imitate her--which indeed was just as well, +for else confusion would have been worse confounded. She was always +rushing to defence--with money, with indignation, with refuge. It +would look like a caricature did I record the number of charities +to which she belonged, and the various societies which, in the +exuberance of her passionate benevolence, she had projected and +of necessity abandoned. Yet still the fire burned, for her changes +were from no changeableness: through them all the fundamental +operation of her character remained the same. The case was that, +for all her headlong passion for deliverance, she could not help +discovering now and then, through an occasional self assertion of +that real good sense which her rampant and unsubjected benevolence +could but overlay, not finally smother, that she was either doing +nothing at all, or more evil than good. + +The lack of discipline in her goodness came out in this, at times +amusingly, that she would always at first side with the lower or +weaker or worse. If a dog had torn a child, and was going to be +killed in consequence, she would not only intercede for the dog, +but absolutely side with him, mentioning this and that provocation +which the naughty child must have given him ere he could have been +goaded to the deed. Once when the schoolmaster in her village was +going to cane a boy for cruelty to a cripple, she pleaded for his +pardon on the ground that it was worse to be cruel than to be a +cripple, and therefore more to be pitied. Everything painful was +to her cruel, and softness and indulgence, moral honey and sugar +and nuts to all alike, was the panacea for human ills. She could +not understand that infliction might be loving kindness. On one +occasion when a boy was caught in the act of picking her pocket, +she told the policeman he was doing nothing of the sort--he was +only searching for a lozenge for his terrible cough; and in proof +of her asserted conviction, she carried him home with her, but lost +him before morning, as well as the spoon with which he had eaten +his gruel. + +As to her person I have already made a poor attempt at describing +it. She might have been grand but for loveliness. When she drew +herself up in indignation, however, she would look grand for the +one moment ere the blood rose to her cheek, and the water to her +eyes. She would have taken the whole world to her infinite heart, +and in unwisdom coddled it into corruption. Praised be the grandeur +of the God who can endure to make and see his children suffer. Thanks +be to him for his north winds and his poverty, and his bitterness +that falls upon the spirit that errs: let those who know him thus +praise the Lord for his goodness. But Lady Clementina had not yet +descried the face of the Son of Man through the mists of Mount +Sinai, and she was not one to justify the ways of God to men. Not +the less was it the heart of God in her that drew her to the young +marchioness, over whom was cast the shadow of a tree that gave but +baneful shelter. She liked her frankness, her activity, her daring, +and fancied that, like herself she was at noble feud with that +infernal parody of the kingdom of heaven, called Society. She did +not well understand her relation to Lady Bellair, concerning whom +she was in doubt whether or not she was her legal guardian, but +she saw plainly enough that the countess wanted to secure her for +her nephew, and this nephew had about him a certain air of perdition, +which even the catholic heart of Lady Clementina could not brook. +She saw too that, being a mere girl, and having no scope of choice +in the limited circle of their visitors, she was in great danger of +yielding without a struggle, and she longed to take her in charge +like a poor little persecuted kitten, for the possession of which +each of a family of children was contending. What if her father +had belonged to a rowdy set, was that any reason why his innocent +daughter should be devoured, body and soul and possessions, by +those of the same set who had not yet perished in their sins? Lady +Clementina thanked Heaven that she came herself of decent people, +who paid their debts, dared acknowledge themselves in the wrong, +and were as honest as if they had been born peasants; and she hoped +a shred of the mantle of their good name had dropped upon her, big +enough to cover also this poor little thing who had come of no such +parentage. With her passion for redemption therefore, she seized +every chance of improving her acquaintance with Florimel, and +it was her anxiety to gain such a standing in her favour as might +further her coveted ministration, that had prevented her from bringing +her charge of brutality against Malcolm as soon as she discovered +whose groom he was: when she had secured her footing on the peak of +her friendship, she would unburden her soul, and meantime the horse +must suffer for his mistress--a conclusion in itself a great step +in advance, for it went dead against one of her most confidently +argued principles, namely, that the pain of any animal is, in every +sense, of just as much consequence as the pain of any other, human +or inferior: pain is pain, she said; and equal pains are equal +wherever they sting;--in which she would have been right, I think, +if pain and suffering were the same thing; but, knowing well that +the same degree and even the same kind of pain means two very +different things in the foot and in the head, I refuse the proposition. + +Happily for Florimel, she had by this time made progress enough +to venture a proposal--namely, that she should accompany her to +a small estate she had on the south coast, with a little ancient +house upon it--a strange place altogether, she said--to spend +a week or two in absolute quiet--only she must come alone-- +without even a maid: she would take none herself. This she said +because, with the instinct, if not quite insight, of a true nature, +she could not endure the woman Caley. + +"Will you come with me there for a fortnight?" she concluded. + +"I shall be delighted," returned Florimel, without a moment +s hesitation. "I am getting quite sick of London. There's no room +in it. And there's the spring all outside, and can't get in here! +I shall be only too glad to go with you, you dear creature!" + +"And on those hard terms--no maid, you know?" insisted Clementina. + +"The only thing wanted to make the pleasure complete! I shall be +charmed to be rid of her." + +"I am glad to see you so independent." + +"You don't imagine me such a baby as not to be able to get on +without a maid! You should have seen me in Scotland! I hated having +a woman about me then. And indeed I don't like it a bit better now +--only everybody has one, and your clothes want looking after," +added Florimel, thinking what a weight it would be off her if she +could get rid of Caley altogether. "--But I should like to take +my horse," she said. "I don't know what I should do in the country +without Abbot." + +"Of course; we must have our horses," returned Clementina. "And-- +yes--you had better bring your groom." + +"Please. You will find him very useful. He can do anything and +everything---and is so kind and helpful!" + +"Except to his horse," Clementina was on the point of saying, but +thought again she would first secure the mistress, and bide her +time to attack the man. + +Before they parted, the two ladies had talked themselves into +ecstasies over the anticipated enjoyments of their scheme. It must +be carried out at once. + +"Let us tell nobody," said Lady Clementina, "and set off tomorrow." + +"Enchanting!" cried Florimel, in full response. + +Then her brow clouded. + +"There is one difficulty, though," she said. "--No man could ride +Kelpie with a led horse; and if we had to employ another, Liftore +would be sure to hear where we had gone." + +"That would spoil all," said Clementina. "But how much better it +would be to give that poor creature a rest, and bring the other I +see him on sometimes!" + +"And by the time we came back, there would not be a living creature, +horse or man, anything bigger than a rat, about the stable. Kelpie +herself would be dead of hunger, if she hadn't been shot. No, no; +where Malcolm goes Kelpie must go. Besides, she's such fun--you +can't think!" + +"Then I'll tell you what!" cried Clementina, after a moment's pause +of perplexity: "we'll ride down! It's not a hundred miles, and we +can take as many days on the road as we please." + +"Better and better!" cried Florimel. "We'll run away with each +other.--But what will dear old Bellair say?" + +"Never mind her," rejoined Clementina. "She will have nothing to +say. You can write and tell her as much as will keep her from being +really alarmed. Order your man to get everything ready, and I will +instruct mine. He is such a staid old fellow, you know, he will be +quite protection. Tomorrow morning we shall set out together for +a ride in Richmond Park--that lying in our way. You can leave a +letter on the breakfast table, saying you are gone with me for a +little quiet. You're not in chancery--are you?" + +"I don't know," answered Florimel. "I suppose I'm all right.-- +Any how, whether I'm in chancery or not, here I am, and going with +you; and if chancery don't like it, chancery may come and fetch +me." + +"Send anything you think you may want to my house. I shall get a +box ready, and we will write from some town on our way to have it +sent there, and then we can write for it from The Gloom. We shall +find all mere necessaries there." + +So the thing was arranged: they would start quite early the next +morning; and that there might be no trouble in the streets, Malcolm +should go before with Kelpie, and wait them in the park. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII: THE JOURNEY + + +Malcolm was overjoyed at the prospect of an escape to the country +--and yet more to find that his mistress wanted to have him with +her--more still to understand, that the journey was to be kept a +secret. Perhaps now, far from both Caley and Liftore, he might say +something to open her eyes; yet how should he avoid the appearance +of a tale bearer? + +It was a sweet fresh morning, late in the spring--those loveliest +of hours that unite the seasons, like the shimmering question of +green or blue in the feathers of a peacock. He had set out an hour +before the rest, and now, a little way within the park, was coaxing +Kelpie to stand, that he might taste the morning in peace. The +sun was but a few degrees above the horizon, shining with all his +heart, and the earth was taking the shine with all hers. "I too am +light," she was saying, "although I can but receive it." The trees +were covered with baby leaves, half wrapped in their swaddling clothes, +and their breath was a warm aromatic odour in the glittering air. +The air and the light seemed one, and Malcolm felt as if his soul +were breathing the light into its very depths, while his body was +drinking the soft spicy wind. For Kelpie, she was as full of life +as if she had been meant for a winged horse, but by some accident +of nature the wing cases had never opened, and the wing life was +for ever trying to get out at her feet. The consequent restlessness, +where there was plenty of space as here, caused Malcolm no more +discomposure than, in his old fishing days, a gale with plenty of +sea room. And the song of the larks was one with the light and the +air. The budding of the trees was their way of singing; but the +larks beat them at that. "What a power of joy," thought Malcolm, +"there must be in God, to be able to keep so many larks so full of +bliss!" He was going to say--"without getting tired;" but he saw +that it was the eternal joy itself that bubbled from their little +fountains: weariness there would be the silence of all song, would +be death, utter vanishment to the gladness of the universe. The +sun would go out like a spark upon burnt paper, and the heart of +man would forget the sound of laughter. Then he said to himself: +"The larks do not make their own singing; do mortals make their +own sighing?" And he saw that at least they might open wider the +doors of their hearts to the Perseus Joy that comes to slay the +grief monsters. Then he thought how his life had been widening out +with the years. He could not say that it was now more pleasant than +it had been; he had Stoicism enough to doubt whether it would ever +become so from any mere change of circumstances. Dangers and sufferings +that one is able for, are not misfortunes or even hardships--so +far from such, that youth delights in them. Indeed he sorely missed +the adventure of the herring fishing. Kelpie, however, was as good +as a stiff gale. If only all were well with his sister! Then he +would go back to Portlossie and have fishing enough. But he must be +patient and follow as he was led. At three and twenty, he reflected, +Milton was content to seem to himself but a poor creature, and +was careful only to be ready for whatever work should hereafter be +required of him: such contentment, with such hope and resolve at +the back of it, he saw to be the right and the duty both of every +man. He whose ambition is to be ready when he is wanted, whatever +the work may be, may wait not the less watchful that he is content. +His heart grew lighter, his head clearer, and by the time the two +ladies with their attendant appeared, he felt such a masterdom over +Kelpie as he had never felt before. + +They rode twenty miles that day with ease, putting up at the first +town. The next day they rode about the same distance. They next day +they rode nearly thirty miles. On the fourth, with an early start, +and a good rest in the middle, they accomplished a yet greater +distance, and at night arrived at The Gloom, Wastbeach--after +a journey of continuous delight to three at least of the party, +Florimel and Malcolm having especially enjoyed that portion of it +which led through Surrey, where England and Scotland meet and mingle +in waste, heathery moor, and rich valley. Much talk had passed +between the ladies, and Florimel had been set thinking about many +things, though certainly about none after the wisest fashion. + +A young half moon was still up when, after riding miles through +pine woods, they at length drew near the house. Long before they +reached it, however, a confused noise of dogs met them in the +forest. Clementina had written to the housekeeper, and every dog +about the place, and the dogs were multitudinous, had been expecting +her all day, had heard the sound of their horses' hoofs miles off +and had at once begun to announce her approach. Nor were the dogs +the only cognisant or expectant animals. Most of the creatures about +the place understood that something was happening, and probably +associated it with their mistress; for almost every live thing +knew her--from the rheumatic cart horse, forty years of age, and +every whit as respectable in Clementina's eyes as her father's old +butler, to the wild cats that haunted the lofts and garrets of the +old Elizabethan hunting lodge. + +When they dismounted, the ladies could hardly get into the house +for dogs; those which could not reach their mistress, turned to +Florimel, and came swarming about her and leaping upon her, until, +much as she liked animal favour, she would gladly have used her +whip--but dared not, because of the presence of their mistress. +If the theories of that mistress allowed them anything of a moral +nature, she was certainly culpable in refusing them their right to +a few cuts of the whip. + +Mingled with all the noises of dogs and horses, came a soft nestling +murmur that filled up the interspaces of sound which even their +tumult could not help leaving. Florimel was too tired to hear it, +but Malcolm heard it, and it filled all the interspaces of his soul +with a speechless delight. He knew it for the still small voice of +the awful sea. + +Florimel scarcely cast a glance around the dark old fashioned room +into which she was shown, but went at once to bed, and when the old +housekeeper carried her something from the supper table at which +she had been expected, she found her already fast asleep. By the +time Malcolm had put Kelpie to rest, he also was a little tired, +and lay awake no moment longer than his sister. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX: DISCIPLINE + + +What with rats and mice, and cats and owls, and creaks and cracks, +there was no quiet about the place from night to morning; and what +with swallows and rooks, and cocks and kine, and horses and foals, +and dogs and pigeons and peacocks, and guinea fowls and turkeys +and geese, and every farm creature but pigs, which, with all her +zootrophy, Clementina did not like, no quiet from morning to night. +But if there was no quiet, there was plenty of calm, and the sleep +of neither brother nor sister was disturbed. + +Florimel awoke in the sweetest concert of pigeon murmuring, duck +diplomacy, fowl foraging, foal whinnering--the word wants an r in +it--and all the noises of rural life. The sun was shining into +the room by a window far off at the further end, bringing with +him strange sylvan shadows, not at once to be interpreted. He must +have been shining for hours, so bright and steady did he shine. +She sprang out of bed--with no lazy London resurrection of the +old buried, half sodden corpse, sleepy and ashamed, but with the +new birth of the new day, refreshed and strong, like a Hercules +baby. A few aching remnants of stiffness was all that was left of +the old fatigue. It was a heavenly joy to think that no Caley would +come knocking at her door. She glided down the long room to the +sunny window, drew aside the rich old faded curtain, and peeped +out. Nothing but pines and pines--Scotch firs all about and +everywhere! They came within a few yards of the window. She threw +it open. The air was still, the morning sun shone hot upon them, +and the resinous odour exhaled from their bark and their needles +and their fresh buds, filled the room--sweet and clean. There +was nothing, not even a fence, between this wing of the house and +the wood. + +All through his deep sleep, Malcolm heard the sound of the sea +--whether of the phantom sea in his soul, or of the world sea to +whose murmurs he had listened with such soft delight as he fell +asleep, matters little the sea was with him in his dreams. But +when he awoke it was to no musical crushing of water drops, no half +articulated tones of animal speech, but to tumult and out cry from +the stables. It was but too plain that he was wanted. Either Kelpie +had waked too soon, or he had overslept himself: she was kicking +furiously. Hurriedly induing a portion of his clothing, he rushed +down and across the yard, shouting to her as he ran, like a nurse +as she runs up the stair to a screaming child. She stopped once to +give an eager whinny, and then fell to again. Griffiths, the groom, +and the few other men about the place, were looking on appalled. +He darted to the corn bin, got a great pottleful of oats, and shot +into her stall. She buried her nose in them like the very demon +of hunger, and he left her for the few moments of peace that would +follow. He must finish his dressing as fast as he could: already, +after four days of travel, which with her meant anything but a +straight forward jog trot struggle with space, she needed a good +gallop! When he returned, he found her just finishing her oats, +and beginning to grow angry with her own nose for getting so near +the bottom of the manger. While yet there was no worse sign, however, +than the fidgetting of her hind quarters, and she was still busy, +he made haste to saddle her. But her unusually obstinate refusal +of the bit, and his difficulty in making her open her unwilling +jaws, gave unmistakable indication of coming conflict. Anxiously +he asked the bystanders after some open place where he might let +her go--fields or tolerably smooth heath, or sandy beach. He dared +not take her through the trees, he said, while she was in such a +humour; she would dash herself to pieces. They told him there was +a road straight from the stables to the shore, and there miles of +pure sand without a pebble. Nothing could be better. He mounted +and rode away. + +Florimel was yet but half dressed, when the door of her room opened +suddenly, and Lady Clementina darted in--the lovely chaos of +her night not more than half as far reduced to order as that of +Florimel's. Her moonlight hair, nearly as long as that of the fabled +Godiva, was flung wildly about her in heavy masses. Her eyes were +wild also; she looked like a holy Maenad. With a glide like the +swoop of an avenging angel, she pounced upon Florimel, caught her +by the wrist and pulled her towards the door. Florimel was startled, +but made no resistance. She half led, half dragged her up a stair +that rose from a corner of the hall gallery to the battlements of +a little square tower, whence a few yards of the beach, through a +chain of slight openings amongst the pines, was visible. Upon that +spot of beach, a strange thing was going on--at which afresh +Clementina gazed with indignant horror, but Florimel eagerly stared +with the forward borne eyes of a spectator of the Roman arena. She +saw Kelpie reared on end, striking out at Malcolm with her fore +hoofs, and snapping with angry teeth--then upon those teeth +receive such a blow from his fist that she swerved, and wheeling, +flung her hind hoofs at his head. But Malcolm was too quick for +her; she spent her heels in the air, and he had her by the bit. +Again she reared, and would have struck at him, but he kept well +by her side, and with the powerful bit forced her to rear to her +full height. Just as she was falling backwards, he pushed her head +from him, and bearing her down sideways, seated himself on it the +moment it touched the ground. Then first the two women turned to +each other. An arch of victory bowed Florimel's lip; her eyebrows +were uplifted; the blood flushed her cheek, and darkened the blue +in her wide opened eyes. Lady Clementina's forehead was gathered +in vertical wrinkles over her nose, and all about her eyes was +contracted as if squeezing from them the flame of indignation, +while her teeth and lips were firmly closed. The two made a splendid +contrast. When Clementina's gaze fell on her visitor, the fire +in her eyes burned more angry still: her soul was stirred by the +presence of wrong and cruelty, and here, her guest, and looking her +straight in the eyes, was a young woman, one word from whom would +stop it all, actually enjoying the sight! + +"Lady Lossie, I am ashamed of you!" she said, with severest reproof; +and turning from her, she ran down the stair. + +Florimel turned again towards the sea. Presently she caught sight +of Clementina glimpsing though the pines, "now in glimmer and now +in gloom," as she sped swiftly to the shore, and, after a few short +minutes of disappearance, saw her emerge upon the space of sand +where sat Malcolm on the head of the demoness. But alas! she could +only see. She could hardly even hear the sound of the tide. + +"MacPhail, are you a man?" cried Clementina, startling him so that +in another instant the floundering mare would have been on her feet. +With a right noble anger in her face, and her hair flying like a +wind torn cloud, she rushed out of the wood upon him, where he sat +quietly tracing a proposition of Euclid on the sand with his whip. + +"Ay, and a bold one," was on Malcolm's lips for reply, but he +bethought himself in time. + +"I am sorry what I am compelled to do should annoy your ladyship," +he said. + +What with indignation and breathless--she had run so fast-- +Clementina had exhausted herself in that one exclamation, and stood +panting and staring. The black bulk of Kelpie lay outstretched on +the yellow sand, giving now and then a sprawling kick or a wamble +like a lumpy snake, and her soul commiserated each movement as +if it had been the last throe of dissolution, while the grey fire +of the mare's one visible fierce eye, turned up from the shadow +of Malcolm's superimposed bulk, seemed to her tender heart a mute +appeal for woman's help. + +As Malcolm spoke, he cautiously shifted his position, and, half rising, +knelt with one knee where he had sat before, looking observant at +Lady Clementina. The champion of oppressed animality soon recovered +speech. + +"Get off the poor creature's head instantly," she said, with dignified +command. "I will permit no such usage of living thing on my ground." + +"I am very sorry to seem rude, my lady," answered Malcolm, "but to +obey you would perhaps be to ruin my mistress's property. If the +mare were to break away, she would dash herself to pieces in the +wood." + +"You have goaded her to madness." + +"I'm the more bound to take care of her then," said Malcolm. "But +indeed it is only temper--such temper, however, that I almost +believe she is at times possessed of a demon." + +"The demon is in yourself. There is nothing in her but what your +cruelty has put there. Let her up, I command you." + +"I dare not, my lady. If she were to get loose she would tear your +ladyship to pieces." + +"I will take my chance." + +"But I will not my lady. I know the danger, and have to take care +of you who do not. There is no occasion to be uneasy about the +mare. She is tolerably comfortable. I am not hurting her--not +much. Your ladyship does not reflect how strong a horse's skull +is. And you see what great powerful breaths she draws!" + +"She is in agony," cried Clementina. + +"Not in the least, my lady. She is only balked of her own way, and +does not like it." + +"And what right have you to balk her of her own way? Has she no +right to a mind of her own?" + +"She may of course have her mind, but she can't have her way. She +has got a master." + +"And what right have you to be her master?" + +"That my master, my Lord Lossie, gave me the charge of her." + +"I don't mean that sort of right; that goes for nothing. What right +in the nature of things can you have to tyrannize over any creature?" + +"None, my lady. But the higher nature has the right to rule the +lower in righteousness. Even you can't have your own way always, +my lady." + +"I certainly cannot now, so long as you keep in that position. Pray, +is it in virtue of your being the higher nature that you keep my +way from me?" + +"No, my lady. But it is in virtue of right. If I wanted to take +your ladyship's property, your dogs would be justified in refusing +me my way.--I do not think I exaggerate when I say that, if my +mare here had her way, there would not be a living creature about +your house by this day week." + +Lady Clementina had never yet felt upon her the power of a stronger +nature than her own. She had had to yield to authority, but never +to superiority. Hence her self will had been abnormally developed. +Her very compassion was self willed. Now for the first time, she +continuing altogether unaware of it, the presence of such a nature +began to operate upon her. The calmness of Malcolm's speech and +the immovable decision of his behaviour told. + +"But," she said, more calmly, "your mare has had four long journeys, +and she should have rested today." + +"Rest is just the one thing beyond her, my lady. There is a volcano +of life and strength in her you have no conception of. I could +not have dreamed of horse like her. She has never in her life had +enough to do. I believe that is the chief trouble with her. What +we all want, my lady, is a master--a real right master. +I've got one myself; and--" + +"You mean you want one yourself," said Lady Clementina. "You've +only got a mistress, and she spoils you." + +"That is not what I meant, my lady," returned Malcolm. "But one +thing I know, is, that Kelpie would soon come to grief without me. +I shall keep her here till her half hour is out, and then let her +take another gallop." + +Lady Clementina turned away. She was defeated. Malcolm knelt there +on one knee, with a hand on the mare's shoulder, so calm, so +imperturbable, so ridiculously full of argument, that there was +nothing more for her to do or say. Indignation, expostulation, were +powerless upon him as mist upon a rock. He was the oddest, most +incomprehensible of grooms. + +Going back to the house, she met Florimel, and turned again with +her to the scene of discipline. Ere they reached it, Florimel's +delight with all around her had done something to restore Clementina's +composure: the place was precious to her, for there she had passed +nearly the whole of her childhood. But to anyone with a heart open +to the expressions of Nature's countenance, the place could not +but have a strange as well as peculiar charm. + +Florimel had lost her way. I would rather it had been in +the moonlight, but slant sunlight was next best. It shone through +a slender multitude of mast-like stems, whose shadows complicated +the wonder, while the light seemed amongst them to have gathered +to itself properties appreciable by other organs besides the eyes, +and to dwell bodily with the trees. The soil was mainly of sand, +the soil to delight the long tap roots of the fir trees, covered +above with a thick layer of slow forming mould, in the gradual +odoriferous decay of needles and cones and flakes of bark and knots +of resinous exudation. It grew looser and sandier, and its upper +coat thinner, as she approached the shore. The trees shrunk in +size, stood farther apart, and grew more individual, sending out +knarled boughs on all sides of them, and asserting themselves as +the tall slender branchless ones in the social restraint of the +thicker wood dared not do. They thinned and thinned, and the sea +and the shore came shining through, for the ground sloped to the +beach without any intervening abruption of cliff or even bank; they +thinned and thinned until all were gone, and the bare long yellow +sands lay stretched out on both sides for miles, gleaming and +sparkling in the sun, especially at one spot where the water of +a little stream wandered about over them, as if it had at length +found its home, but was too weary to enter and lose its weariness, +and must wait for the tide to come up and take it. But when Florimel +reached the strand, she could see nothing of the group she sought: +the shore took a little bend, and a tongue of forest came in between. + +She was on her way back to the house when she met Clementina, also +returning discomfited. Pleased as she was with them, her hostess +soon interrupted her ecstasies by breaking out in accusation of +Malcolm, not untempered, however, with a touch of dawning respect. +At the same time her report of his words was anything but accurate, +for as no one can be just without love, so no one can truly report +without understanding. But they had not time to discuss him now, +as Clementina insisted on Florimel's putting an immediate stop to +his cruelty. + +When they reached the spot, there was the groom again seated on +his animal's head, with a new proposition in the sand before him. + +"Malcolm," said his mistress, "let the mare get up. You must let +her off the rest of her punishment this time." + +Malcolm rose again to his knee. + +"Yes, my lady," he said. "But perhaps your ladyship wouldn't mind +helping me to unbuckle her girths before she gets to her feet. I want +to give her a bath--Come to this side," he went on, as Florimel +advanced to his request, "--round here by her head. If your +ladyship would kneel upon it, that would be best. But you mustn't +move till I tell you." + +"I will do anything you bid me--exactly as you say, Malcolm," +responded Florimel. + +"There's the Colonsay blood! I can trust that!" cried Malcolm, with +a pardonable outbreak of pride in his family. Whether most of his +ancestors could so well have appreciated the courage of obedience, +is not very doubtful. + +Clementina was shocked at the insolent familiarity of her poor +little friend's groom, but Florimel saw none, and kneeled, as if +she had been in church, on the head of the mare, with the fierce +crater of her fiery brain blazing at her knee. Then Malcolm lifted +the flap of the saddle, undid the buckles of the girths, and drawing +them a little from under her, laid the saddle on the sand, talking +all the time to Florimel, lest a sudden word might seem a direction, +and she should rise before the right moment had come. + +"Please, my lady Clementina, will you go to the edge of the wood. +I can't tell what she may do when she gets up. And please, my lady +Florimel, will you run there too, the moment you get off her head." + +When he got her rid of the saddle, he gathered the reins together +in his bridle hand, took his whip in the other, and softly and +carefully straddled across her huge barrel without touching her. + +"Now, my lady!" he said. "Run for the wood." + +Florimel rose and fled, heard a great scrambling behind her, and +turning at the first tree, which was only a few yards off, saw +Kelpie on her hind legs, and Malcolm, whom she had lifted with her, +sticking by his knees on her bare back. The moment her fore feet +touched the ground, he gave her the spur severely, and after one +plunging kick, off they went westward over the sands, away from +the sun; nor did they turn before they had dwindled to such a speck +that the ladies could not have told by their eyes whether it was +moving or not. At length they saw it swerve a little; by and by it +began to grow larger; and after another moment or two they could +distinguish what it was, tearing along towards them like a whirlwind, +the lumps of wet sand flying behind like an upward storm of clods. +What a picture it was only neither of the ladies was calm enough +to see it picturewise: the still sea before, type of the infinite +always, and now of its repose; the still straight solemn wood behind, +like a past world that had gone to sleep--out of which the sand +seemed to come flowing down, to settle in the long sand lake of +the beach; that flameless furnace of life tearing along the shore, +betwixt the sea and the land, between time and eternity, guided, +but only half controlled, by the strength of a higher will; and +the two angels that had issued--whether out of the forest of the +past or the sea of the future, who could tell?--and now stood, +with hand shaded eyes, gazing upon that fierce apparition of terrene +life. + +As he came in front of them, Malcolm suddenly wheeled Kelpie, so +suddenly and in so sharp a curve that he made her "turne close to +the ground, like a cat, when scratchingly she wheeles about after +a mouse," as Sir Philip Sidney says, and dashed her straight into +the sea. The two ladies gave a cry, Florimel of delight, Clementina of +dismay, for she knew the coast, and that there it shelved suddenly +into deep water. But that was only the better to Malcolm: it was the +deep water he sought, though he got it with a little pitch sooner +than he expected. He had often ridden Kelpie into the sea at +Portlossie, even in the cold autumn weather when first she came +into his charge, and nothing pleased her better or quieted her more. +He was a heavy weight to swim with, but she displaced much water. +She carried her head bravely, he balanced sideways, and they swam +splendidly. To the eyes of Clementina the mare seemed to be labouring +for her life. + +When Malcolm thought she had had enough of it, he turned her head +to the shore. But then came the difficulty. So steeply did the +shore shelve that Kelpie could not get a hold with her hind hoofs +to scramble up into the shallow water. The ladies saw the struggle, +and Clementina, understanding it, was running in an agony right +into the water, with the vain idea of helping them, when Malcolm +threw himself off, drawing the reins over Kelpie's head as he fell, +and swimming but the length of them shorewards, felt the ground +with his feet, and stood, Kelpie, relieved of his weight, floated +a little farther on to the shelf, got a better hold with her fore +feet, some hold with her hind ones, and was beside him in a moment. +The same moment Malcolm was on her back again, and they were +tearing off eastward at full stretch. So far did the lessening point +recede in the narrowing distance, that the two ladies sat down on +the sand, and fell a-talking about Florimel's most uncategorical +groom, as Clementina, herself the most uncategorical of women, to +use her own scarcely justifiable epithet, called him. She asked if +such persons abounded in Scotland. Florimel could but answer that +this was the only one she had met with. Then she told her about +Richmond Park and Lord Liftore and Epictetus. + +"Ah, that accounts for him!" said Clementina. "Epictetus was a +Cynic, a very cruel man: he broke his slave's leg once, I remember." + +"Mr Lenorme told me that he was the slave, and that his master +broke his leg," said Florimel. + +"Ah, yes! I daresay.--That was it. But it is of little consequence: +his principles were severe, and your groom has been his too ready +pupil. It is a pity he is such a savage: he might be quite an +interesting character.--Can he read?" + +"I have just told you of his reading Greek over Kelpie's head," +said Florimel, laughing. + +"Ah! but I meant English," said Clementina, whose thoughts were a +little astray. Then laughing at herself she explained "I mean, can +he read aloud? I put the last of the Waverley novels in the box we +shall have tomorrow, or the next day at latest, I hope: and I was +wondering whether he could read the Scotch--as it ought to be +read. I have never heard it spoken, and I don't know how to imagine +it." + +"We can try him," said Florimel. "It will be great fun anyhow. He +is such a character! You will be so amused with the remarks he will +make!" + +"But can you venture to let him talk to you?" + +"If you ask him to read, how will you prevent him? Unfortunately +he has thoughts, and they will out." + +"Is there no danger of his being rude?" + +"If speaking his mind about anything in the book be rudeness, he +will most likely be rude. Any other kind of rudeness is as impossible +to Malcolm as to any gentleman in the land." + +"How can you be so sure of him?" said Clementina, a little anxious +as to the way in which her friend regarded the young man. + +"My father was--yes, I may say so--attached to him--so much +so that he--I can't quite say what--but something like made +him promise never to leave my service. And this I know for myself, +that not once, ever since that man came to us, has he done a selfish +thing or one to be ashamed of. I could give you proof after proof +of his devotion." + +Florimel's warmth did not reassure Clementina; and her uneasiness +wrought to the prejudice of Malcolm. She was never quite so generous +towards human beings as towards animals. She could not be depended +on for justice except to people in trouble, and then she was very +apt to be unjust to those who troubled them. + +"I would not have you place too much confidence in your Admirable +Crichton of menials, Florimel," she said. "There is something about +him I cannot get at the bottom of. Depend upon it, a man who can +be cruel would betray on the least provocation." + +Florimel smiled superior--as she had good reason to do; but +Clementina did not understand the smile, and therefore did not +like it. She feared the young fellow had already gained too much +influence over his mistress. + +"Florimel, my love," she said, "listen to me. Your experience is +not so ripe as mine. That man is not what you think him. One day +or other he will, I fear, make himself worse than disagreeable. +How can a cruel man be unselfish?" + +"I don't think him cruel at all. But then I haven't such a soft +heart for animals as you. We should think it silly in Scotland. You +wouldn't teach a dog manners at the expense of a howl. You would +let him be a nuisance rather than give him a cut with a whip. What +a nice mother of children you will make, Clementina! That's how +the children of good people are so often a disgrace to them." + +"You are like all the rest of the Scotch I ever knew," said Lady +Clementina: "the Scotch are always preaching! I believe it is +in their blood. You are a nation of parsons. Thank goodness! my +morals go no farther than doing as I would be done by. I want to +see creatures happy about me. For my own sake even, I would never +cause pang to person--it gives me such a pang myself." + +"That's the way you are made, I suppose, Clementina," returned +Florimel. "For me, my clay must be coarser. I don't mind a little +pain myself, and I can't break my heart for it when I see it-- +except it be very bad--such as I should care about myself--But +here comes the tyrant." + +Malcolm was pulling up his mare some hundred yards off. Even now +she was unwilling to stop--but it was at last only from pure +original objection to whatever was wanted of her. When she did +stand she stood stock still, breathing hard. + +"I have actually succeeded in taking a little out of her at last, +my lady," said Malcolm as he dismounted. "Have you got a bit of +sugar in your pocket, my lady? She would take it quite gently now." + +Florimel had none, but Clementina had, for she always carried sugar +for her horse. Malcolm held the demoness very watchfully, but she +took the sugar from Florimel's palm as neatly as an elephant, and +let her stroke her nose over her wide red nostrils without showing +the least of her usual inclination to punish a liberty with death. +Then Malcolm rode her home, and she was at peace till the evening +--when he took her out again. + + + +CHAPTER XL: MOONLIGHT + + +And now followed a pleasant time. Wastbeach was the quietest of +all quiet neighbourhoods; it was the loveliest of spring summer +weather; and the variety of scenery on moor, in woodland, and on +coast, within easy reach of such good horsewomen, was wonderful. +The first day they rested the horses that would rest, but the next +day were in the saddle immediately after an early breakfast. They +took the forest way. In many directions were tolerably smooth rides +cut, and along them they had good gallops, to the great delight +of Florimel after the restraints of Rotten Row, where riding had +seemed like dancing a minuet with a waltz in her heart. Malcolm, so +far as human companionship went, found it dull, for Lady Clementina's +groom regarded him with the contempt of superior age, the most +contemptible contempt of all, seeing years are not the wisdom they +ought to bring, and the first sign of that is modesty. Again and +again his remarks tempted Malcolm to incite him to ride Kelpie, but +conscience, the thought of the man's family, and the remembrance +that it required all his youthful strength, and that it would +therefore be the challenge of the strong to the weak, saved him +from the sin, and he schooled himself to the endurance of middle +aged arrogance. For the learning of the lesson he had practice +enough: they rode every day, and Griffith did not thaw; but the +one thundering gallop he had every morning along the sands with +Kelpie, whom * no ordinary day's work was enough to save from the +heart burning ferment of repressed activity, was both preparation +and amends for the annoyance. + +* [According to the grammars, I ought to have written which, but +it will not do. I could, I think, tell why, but prefer leaving the +question to the reader.] + +When his mistress mentioned the proposal of her friend with regard +to the new novel, he at once expressed his willingness to attempt +compliance, fearing only, he said, that his English would prove +offensive and his Scotch unintelligible. The task was nowise alarming +to him, for he had read aloud much to the schoolmaster, who had also +insisted that he should read aloud when alone, especially verse, +in order that he might get all the good of its outside as well as +inside--its sound as well as thought, the one being the ethereal +body of the other. And he had the best primary qualifications for +the art, namely, a delight in the sounds of human speech, a value +for the true embodiment of thought, and a good ear, mental as +well as vocal, for the assimilation of sound to sense. After these +came the quite secondary, yet valuable gift of a pleasant voice, +manageable for reflection; and with such an outfit, the peculiarities +of his country's utterance, the long drawn vowels, and the outbreak +of feeling in chant-like tones and modulations, might be forgiven, +and certainly were forgiven by Lady Clementina, who, even in his +presence, took his part against the objections of his mistress. On +the whole, they were so much pleased with his first reading, which +took place the very day the box arrived, that they concluded to +restrain the curiosity of their interest in persons and events, +for the sake of the pleasure of meeting them always in the final +fulness of local colour afforded them by his utterance. While he +read, they busied their fingers with their embroidery; for as yet +that graceful work, so lovelily described by Cowper in his Task, +had not begun to vanish before the crude colours and mechanical +vulgarity of Berlin wool, now happily in its turn vanishing like +a dry dust cloud into the limbo of the art universe: + + +The well depicted flower, +Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn +Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs, +And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed, +Follow the nimble finger of the fair; +A wreath, that cannot fade, of flowers that blow +With most success when all besides decay. * + +* ["The Winter Evening."] + +There was not much of a garden about the place, but there was a +little lawn amongst the pines, in the midst of which stood a huge +old patriarch, with red stem and grotesquely contorted branches: +beneath it was a bench, and there, after their return from their +two hours' ride, the ladies sat, while the sun was at its warmest, +on the mornings of their first and second readings: Malcolm sat on a +wheelbarrow. After lunch on the second day, which they had agreed +from the first, as ladies so often do, when free of the more +devouring sex, should be their dinner, and after due visits paid +to a multitude of animals, the desire awoke simultaneously in them +for another portion of "St. Ronan's Well." They resolved therefore +to send for their reader as soon as they had had tea. But when they +sent he was nowhere to be found, and they concluded on a stroll. + +Anticipating no further requirement of his service that day, Malcolm +had gone out. Drawn by the sea, he took his way through the dim +solemn boughless wood, as if to keep a moonlight tryst with his +early love. But the sun was not yet down, and among the dark trees, +shot through by the level radiance, he wandered, his heart swelling +in his bosom with the glory and the mystery. Again the sun was in +the wood, its burning centre, the marvel of the home which he left +in the morning only to return thither at night, and it was now +a temple of red light, more gorgeous, more dream woven than the +morning. How he glowed on the red stems of the bare pines, fit +pillars for that which seemed temple and rite, organ and anthem in +one--the worship of the earth, uplifted to its Hyperion! It was +a world of faery; anything might happen in it. Who, in that region +of marvel, would start to see suddenly a knight on a great sober +warhorse come slowly pacing down the torrent of carmine splendour, +flashing it, like the Knight of the Sun himself in a flood from +every hollow, a gleam from every flat, and a star from every round +and knob of his armour? As the trees thinned away, and his feet +sank deeper in the looser sand, and the sea broke blue out of the +infinite, talking quietly to itself of its own solemn swell into +being out of the infinite thought unseen, Malcolm felt as if the +world with its loveliness and splendour were sinking behind him, +and the cool entrancing sweetness of the eternal dreamland of the +soul, where the dreams are more real than any sights of the world, +were opening wide before his entering feet. + +"Shall not death be like this?" he said, and threw himself upon +the sand, and hid his face and his eyes from it all. For there is +this strange thing about all glory embodied in the material, that, +when the passion of it rises to its height, we hurry from its +presence that its idea may perfect itself in silent and dark and +deaf delight. Of its material self we want no more: its real self +we have, and it sits at the fountain of our tears. Malcolm hid his +face from the source of his gladness, and worshipped the source of +that source. + +Rare as they are at any given time, there have been, I think, such +youths in all ages of the world--youths capable of glorying in +the fountain whence issues the torrent of their youthful might. +Nor is the reality of their early worship blasted for us by any +mistral of doubt that may blow upon their spirit from the icy region +of the understanding. The cold fevers, the vital agues that such +winds breed, can but prove that not yet has the sun of the perfect +arisen upon them; that the Eternal has not yet manifested himself +in all regions of their being; that a grander, more obedient, +therefore more blissful, more absorbing worship yet, is possible, +nay, is essential to them. These chills are but the shivers of the +divine nature, unsatisfied, half starved, banished from its home, +divided from its origin, after which it calls in groanings it knows +not how to shape into sounds articulate. They are the spirit wail +of the holy infant after the bosom of its mother. Let no man long +back to the bliss of his youth--but forward to a bliss that +shall swallow even that, and contain it, and be more than it. Our +history moves in cycles, it is true, ever returning toward the point +whence it started; but it is in the imperfect circles of a spiral +it moves; it returns--but ever to a point above the former: even +the second childhood, at which the fool jeers, is the better, the +truer, the fuller childhood, growing strong to cast off altogether, +with the husk of its own enveloping age, that of its family, its +country, its world as well. Age is not all decay: it is the ripening, +the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the +husk. + +When Malcolm lifted his head, the sun had gone down. He rose and +wandered along the sand towards the moon--at length blooming +out of the darkening sky, where she had hung all day like a washed +out rag of light, to revive as the sunlight faded. He watched the +banished life of her day swoon returning, until, gathering courage, +she that had been no one, shone out fair and clear, in conscious +queendom of the night. Then, in the friendly infolding of her +dreamlight and the dreamland it created, Malcolm's soul revived as +in the comfort of the lesser, the mitigated glory, and, as the moon +into radiance from the darkened air, and the nightingale into music +from the sleep stilled world of birds, blossomed from the speechlessness +of thought and feeling into a strange kind of brooding song. If the +words were half nonsense, the feeling was not the less real. Such +as they were, they came almost of themselves, and the tune came +with them. + + +Rose o' my hert, +Open yer leaves to the lampin' mune; +Into the curls lat her keek an' dert; +She'll tak' the colour but gi'e ye tune. + +Buik o' my brain, +Open yer neuks to the starry signs; +Lat the een o' the holy luik an' strain +An' glimmer an' score atween the lines. + +Cup o' my sowl, +Gowd an' diamond an' ruby cup, +Ye're noucht ava but a toom dry bowl, +Till the wine o' the kingdom fill ye up, + +Conscience glass, +Mirror the infinite all in thee; +Melt the bounded and make it pass +Into the tideless, shoreless sea. + +World of my life, +Swing thee round thy sunny track; +Fire and wind and water and strife-- +Carry them all to the glory back. + +Ever as he halted for a word, the moonlight, and the low sweet waves +on the sands, filled up the pauses to his ear; and there he lay, +looking up to the sky and the moon and the rose diamond stars, his +thoughts half dissolved in feeling, and his feeling half crystallised +to thought. + +Out of the dim wood came two lovely forms into the moonlight, and +softly approached him--so softly that he knew nothing of their +nearness until Florimel spoke. + +"Is that MacPhail?" she said. + +"Yes, my lady," answered Malcolm, and bounded to his feet + +"What were you singing?" + +"You could hardly call it singing, my lady. We should call it +crooning in Scotland." + +"Croon it again then." + +"I couldn't, my lady. It's gone." + +"You don't mean to pretend that you were extemporising?" + +"I was crooning what came--like the birds, my lady. I couldn't +have done it if I had thought anyone was near." + +Then, half ashamed, and anxious to turn the talk from the threshold +of his secret chamber, he said, "Did you ever see a lovelier night, +ladies?" + +"Not often, certainly," answered Clementina. + +She was not quite pleased and not altogether offended at his +addressing them dually. A curious sense of impropriety in the state +of things bewildered her--she and her friend talking thus, in +the moonlight, on the seashore, doing nothing, with her friend's +groom--and such a groom, his mistress asking him to sing again, +and he addressing them both with a remark on the beauty of the +night! She had braved the world a good deal, but she did not choose +to brave it where nothing was to be had, and she was too honest to +say to herself that the world would never know--that there was +nothing to brave: she was not one to do that in secret to which she +would not hold her face. Yet all the time she had a doubt whether +this young man, whom it would certainly be improper to encourage +by addressing from any level but one of lofty superiority, did +not belong to a higher sphere than theirs; while certainly no man +could be more unpresuming, or less forward even when opposing his +opinion to theirs. Still--if an angel were to come down and take +charge of their horses, would ladies be justified in treating him +as other than a servant? + +"This is just the sort of night," Malcolm resumed, "when I could +almost persuade myself I was not quite sure I wasn't dreaming. It +makes a kind of border land betwixt waking and sleeping, knowing +and dreaming, in our brain. In a night like this I fancy we feel +something like the colour of what God feels when he is making the +lovely chaos of a new world, a new kind of world, such as has never +been before." + +"I think we had better go in," said Clementina to Florimel, and +turned away. + +Florimel made no objection, and they walked towards the wood. + +"You really must get rid of him as soon as you can," said Clementina, +when again the moonless night of the pines had received them: "he +is certainly more than half a lunatic. It is almost full moon now," +she added, looking up. "I have never seen him so bad." + +Florimel's clear laugh rang through the wood. + +"Don't be alarmed, Clementina," she said. "He has talked like that +ever since I knew him; and if he is mad, at least he is no worse +than he has always been. It is nothing but poetry--yeast on the +brain, my father used to say. We should have a fish poet of him-- +a new thing in the world, he said. He would never be cured till he +broke out in a book of poetry. I should be afraid my father would +break the catechism and not rest in his grave till the resurrection, +if I were to send Malcolm away." + +For Malcolm, he was at first not a little mazed at the utter blankness +of the wall against which his words had dashed themselves. Then he +smiled queerly to himself, and said: + +"I used to think ilka bonny lassie bude to be a poetess--for hoo +sud she be bonnie but by the informin' hermony o' her bein'?--an' +what's that but the poetry o' the Poet, the Makar, as they ca'd a +poet i' the auld Scots tongue?--but haith! I ken better an' waur +noo! There's gane the twa bonniest I ever saw, an' I s' lay my heid +there's mair poetry in auld man faced Miss Horn nor in a dizzin +like them. Ech! but it's some sair to bide. It's sair upon a man to +see a bonny wuman 'at has nae poetry, nae inward lichtsome hermony +in her. But it's dooms sairer yet to come upo' ane wantin' cowmon +sense! Saw onybody ever sic a gran' sicht as my Leddy Clementina! +--an' wha can say but she's weel named frae the hert oot?--as +guid at the hert, I'll sweir, as at the een! but eh me! to hear +the blether o' nonsense 'at comes oot atween thae twa bonny yetts +o' music--an' a' cause she winna gi'e her hert rist an' time +eneuch to grow bigger, but maun aye be settin' at things richt afore +their time, an' her ain fitness for the job! It's sic a faithless +kin' o' a w'y that! I could jist fancy I saw her gaein' a' roon' +the trees o' a simmer nicht, pittin' hiney upo' the peers an' the +peaches, 'cause she cudna lippen to natur' to ripe them sweet eneuch +--only 'at she wad never tak the hiney frae the bees. She's jist +the pictur' o' Natur' hersel' turnt some dementit. I cud jist fancy +I saw her gaein' aboot amo' the ripe corn, on sic a nicht as this +o' the mune, happin' 't frae the frost. An' I s' warran' no ae +mesh in oor nets wad she lea' ohn clippit open gien the twine had +a herrin' by the gills. She's e'en sae pitifu' owre the sinner 'at +she winna gi'e him a chance o' growin' better. I won'er gien she +believes 'at there's ae great thoucht abune a', an' aneth a', an' +roon' a', an' in a'thing. She cudna be in sic a mist o' benevolence +and parritch hertitness gien she cud lippen till a wiser. It's na'e +won'er she kens naething aboot poetry but the meeserable sids an' +sawdist an' leavin's the gran' leddies sing an' ca' sangs! Nae mair +is 't ony won'er she sud tak' me for dementit, gien she h'ard what +I was singin'! only I canna think she did that, for I was but croonin' +till mysel'."--Malcolm was wrong there, for he was singing out +loud and clear.--"That was but a kin' o' an unknown tongue atween +Him an' me an' no anither." + + + +CHAPTER XLI: THE SWIFT + + +Florimel succeeded so far in reassuring her friend as to the +safety if not sanity of her groom, that she made no objection to +yet another reading from "St Ronan's Well"--upon which occasion +an incident occurred that did far more to reassure her than all +the attestations of his mistress. + +Clementina, in consenting, had proposed, it being a warm sunny +afternoon, that they should that time go down to the lake, and sit +with their work on the bank, while Malcolm read. This lake, like +the whole place, and some of the people in it, was rather strange +--not resembling any piece of water that Malcolm at least had ever +seen. More than a mile in length, but quite narrow, it lay on the +seashore--a lake of deep fresh water, with nothing between it and +the sea but a bank of sand, up which the great waves came rolling +in southwesterly winds, one now and then toppling over--to the +disconcerting no doubt of the pikey multitude within. + +The head only of the mere came into Clementina's property, and they +sat on the landward side of it, on a sandy bank, among the half +exposed roots of a few ancient firs, where a little stream that +fed the lake had made a small gully, and was now trotting over a +bed of pebbles in the bottom of it. Clementina was describing to +Florimel the peculiarities of the place, how there was no outlet +to the lake, how the water went filtering through the sand into +the sea, how in some parts it was very deep, and what large pike +there were in it. Malcolm sat a little aside as usual, with his +face towards the ladies, and the book open in his hand, waiting a +sign to begin, but looking at the lake, which here was some fifty +yards broad, reedy at the edge, dark and deep in the centre. All +at once he sprang to his feet, dropping the book, ran down to the +brink of the water, undoing his buckled belt and pulling off his +coat as he ran, threw himself over the bordering reeds into the +pool, and disappeared with a great plash. + +Clementina gave a scream, and started up with distraction in her +face: she made no doubt that in the sudden ripeness of his insanity +he had committed suicide. But Florimel, though startled by her +friend's cry, laughed, and crowded out assurances that Malcolm +knew well enough what he was about. It was longer, however, than +she found pleasant, before a black head appeared--yards away, +for he had risen at a great slope, swimming towards the other side. +What could he be after? Near the middle he swam more softly, and +almost stopped. Then first they spied a small dark object on the +surface. Almost the same moment it rose into the air. They thought +Malcolm had flung it up. Instantly they perceived that it was a +bird--a swift. Somehow it had dropped into the water, but a lift +from Malcolm's hand had restored it to the air of its bliss. + +But instead of turning and swimming back, Malcolm held on, and +getting out on the farther side, ran down the beach and rushed +into the sea, rousing once more the apprehensions of Clementina. +The shore sloped rapidly, and in a moment he was in deep water. He +swam a few yards out, swam ashore again, ran round the end of the +lake, found his coat, and got from it his pocket handkerchief. +Having therewith dried his hands and face, he wrang out the sleeves +of his shirt a little, put on his coat, returned to his place, and +said, as he took up the book and sat down, + +"I beg your pardon, my ladies; but just as I heard my Lady Clementina +say pikes, I saw the little swift in the water. There was no time +to lose. Swiftie had but a poor chance." + +As he spoke he proceeded to find the place in the book. + +"You don't imagine we are going to have you read in such a plight +as that!" cried Clementina. + +"I will take good care, my lady. I have books of my own, and I +handle them like babies." + +"You foolish man! It is of you in your wet clothes, not of the book +I am thinking," said Clementina indignantly. + +"I'm much obliged to you, my lady, but there's no fear of me. You +saw me wash the fresh water out. Salt water never hurts." + +"You must go and change nevertheless," said Clementina. + +Malcolm looked to his mistress. She gave him a sign to obey, and +he rose. He had taken three steps towards the house when Clementina +recalled him. + +"One word, if you please," she said. "How is it that a man who risks +his life for that of a little bird, can be so heartless to a great +noble creature like that horse of yours? I cannot understand it!" + +"My lady," returned Malcolm with a smile, "I was no more risking +my life than you would be in taking a fly out of the milk jug. And +for your question, if your ladyship will only think, you cannot fail +to see the difference. Indeed I explained my treatment of Kelpie +to your ladyship that first morning in the park, when you so kindly +rebuked me for it, but I don't think your ladyship listened to a +word I said." + +Clementina's face flushed, and she turned to her friend with a "Well!" +in her eyes. But Florimel kept her head bent over her embroidery; +and Malcolm, no further notice being taken of him walked away. + + + +CHAPTER XLII: ST RONAN'S WELL + + +The next day the reading was resumed, and for several days was +regularly continued. Each day, as their interest grew, longer time +was devoted to it. They were all simple enough to accept what the +author gave them, nor, had a critic of the time been present to +instruct them that in this last he had fallen off, would they have +heeded him much: for Malcolm, it was the first story by the Great +Unknown he had seen. A question however occurring, not of art but +of morals, he was at once on the alert. It arose when they reached +that portion of the tale in which the true heir to an earldom and +its wealth offers to leave all in the possession of the usurper, +on the one condition of his ceasing to annoy a certain lady, whom, +by villainy of the worst, he had gained the power of rendering +unspeakably miserable. Naturally enough, at this point Malcolm's +personal interest was suddenly excited: here were elements strangely +correspondent with the circumstances of his present position. Tyrrel's +offer of acquiescence in things as they were, and abandonment of +his rights, which, in the story, is so amazing to the man of the +world to whom it is first propounded, drew an exclamation of delight +from both ladies--from Clementina because of its unselfishness, +from Florimel because of its devotion: neither of them was at +any time ready to raise a moral question, and least of all where +the heart approved. But Malcolm was interested after a different +fashion from theirs. Often during the reading he had made remarks +and given explanations--not so much to the annoyance of Lady +Clementina as she had feared, for since his rescue of the swift, +she had been more favourably disposed towards him, and had judged +him a little more justly--not that she understood him, but that +the gulf between them had contracted. He paused a moment, then +said: + +"Do you think it was right, my ladies? Ought Mr Tyrrel to have made +such an offer?" + +"It was most generous of him," said Clementina, not without indignation +--and with the tone of one whose answer should decide the question. + +"Splendidly generous," replied Malcolm; "--but--I so well +remember when Mr Graham first made me see that the question of duty +does not always lie between a good thing and a bad thing: there +would be no room for casuistry then, he said. A man has very often +to decide between one good thing and another. But indeed I can hardly +tell without more time to think, whether that comes in here. If a +man wants to be generous, it must at least be at his own expense." + +"But surely," said Florimel, not in the least aware that she was +changing sides, "a man ought to hold by the rights that birth and +inheritance give him." + +"That is by no means so clear, my lady," returned Malcolm, "as +you seem to think. A man may be bound to hold by things that are +his rights, but certainly not because they are rights. One of the +grandest things in having rights is that, being your rights, you +may give them up--except, of course, they involve duties with +the performance of which the abnegation would interfere." + +"I have been trying to think," said Lady Clementina, "what can be +the two good things here to choose between." + +"That is the right question, and logically put, my lady," rejoined +Malcolm, who, from his early training, could not help sometimes +putting on the schoolmaster. "The two good things are--let me +see--yes--on the one hand the protection of the lady to whom he +owed all possible devotion of man to woman, and on the other what +he owed to his tenants, and perhaps to society in general--yes +--as the owner of wealth and position. There is generosity on the +one side and dry duty on the other." + +"But this was no case of mere love to the lady, I think," said +Clementina. "Did Mr Tyrrel not owe Miss Mowbray what reparation lay +in his power? Was it not his tempting of her to a secret marriage, +while yet she was nothing more than a girl, that brought the mischief +upon her?" + +"That is the point," said Malcolm, "that makes the one difficulty. +Still, I do not see how there can be much of a question. He could +have no right to do fresh wrong for the mitigation of the consequences +of preceding wrong--to sacrifice others to atone for injuries +done by himself." + +"Where would be the wrong to others?" said Florimel, now back to +her former position. "Why could it matter to tenants or society +which of the brothers happened to be an earl?" + +"Only this, that, in the one case, the landlord of his tenants, +the earl in society, would be an honourable man, in the other, a +villain--a difference which might have consequences." + +"But," said Lady Clementina, "is not generosity something more than +duty--something higher, something beyond it?" + +"Yes," answered Malcolm, "so long as it does not go against duty, +but keeps in the same direction, is in harmony with it. I doubt +much, though, whether, as we grow in what is good, we shall not +come soon to see that generosity is but our duty, and nothing very +grand and beyond it. But the man who chooses to be generous at the +expense of justice, even if he give up at the same time everything +of his own, is but a poor creature beside him who, for the sake of +the right, will not only consent to appear selfish in the eyes of +men, but will go against his own heart and the comfort of those +dearest to him. The man who accepts a crown may be more noble than +he who lays one down and retires to the desert. Of the worthies +who do things by faith, some are sawn asunder, and some subdue +kingdoms. The look of the thing is nothing." + +Florimel made a neat little yawn over her work. Clementina's hands +rested a moment in her lap, and she looked thoughtful. But she +resumed her work, and said no more. Malcolm began to read again. +Presently Clementina interrupted him. She had not been listening. + +"Why should a man want to be better than his neighbours, any more +than to be richer?" she said, as if uttering her thoughts aloud. + +"Why, indeed," responded Malcolm, "except he wants to become a +hypocrite?" + +"Then, why do you talk for duty against generosity?" + +"Oh!" said Malcolm, for a moment perplexed. He did not at once +catch the relation of her ideas. "Does a man ever do his duty," he +rejoined at length, "in order to be better than his neighbours." +If he does, he won't do it long. A man does his duty because he +must. He has no choice but do it." + +"If a man has no choice, how is it that so many men choose to do +wrong?" asked Clementina. + +"In virtue of being slaves and stealing the choice," replied Malcolm. + +"You are playing with words," said Clementina. + +"If I am, at least I am not playing with things," returned Malcolm. +"If you like it better, my lady, I will say that, in declaring he +has no choice, the man with all his soul chooses the good, recognizing +it as the very necessity of his nature." + +"If I know in myself that I have a choice, all you say goes for +nothing," persisted Clementina. "I am not at all sure I would not +do wrong for the sake of another. The more one preferred what was +right, the greater would be the sacrifice." + +"If it was for the grandeur of it, my lady, that would be for the +man's own sake, not his friend's." + +"Leave that out then," said Clementina. + +"The more a man loved another, then--say a woman, as here in +the story--it seems to me, the more willing would he be that she +should continue to suffer rather than cease by wrong. Think, my +lady: the essence of wrong is injustice: to help another by wrong +is to do injustice to somebody you do not know well enough to love +for the sake of one you do know well enough to love. What honest +man could think of that twice? The woman capable of accepting such +a sacrifice would be contemptible." + +"She need not know of it." + +"He would know that she needed but to know of it to despise him." + +"Then might it not be noble in him to consent for her sake to be +contemptible in her eyes?" + +"If no others were concerned. And then there would be no injustice, +therefore nothing wrong, and nothing contemptible." + +"Might not what he did be wrong in the abstract, without having +reference to any person?" + +"There is no wrong man can do but is a thwarting of the living +Right. Surely you believe, my lady, that there is a living Power +of right, whose justice is the soul of our justice, who will have +right done, and causes even our own souls to take up arms against +us when we do wrong." + +"In plain language, I suppose you mean--Do I believe in a God?" + +"That is what I mean, if by a God you mean a being who cares about +us, and loves justice--that is, fair play--one whom therefore +we wrong to the very heart when we do a thing that is not just." + +"I would gladly believe in such a being, if things were so that +I could. As they are, I confess it seems to me the best thing to +doubt it. I do doubt it very much. How can I help doubting it, when +I see so much suffering, oppression, and cruelty in the world? If +there were such a being as you say, would he permit the horrible +things we hear of on every hand?" + +"I used to find that a difficulty. Indeed it troubled me sorely +until I came to understand things better. I remember Mr Graham +saying once something like this--I did not understand it for +months after: 'Every kind hearted person who thinks a great deal of +being comfortable, and takes prosperity to consist in being well +off must be tempted to doubt the existence of a God.--And perhaps +it is well they should be so tempted,' he added." + +"Why did he add that?" + +"I think because such are in danger of believing in an evil God. +And if men believed in an evil God, and had not the courage to defy +him, they must sink to the very depths of savagery. At least that +is what I ventured to suppose he meant." + +Clementina opened her eyes wide, but said nothing. Religious people, +she found, could think as boldly as she. + +"I remember all about it so well!" Malcolm added, thoughtfully. +"We had been talking about the Prometheus of AEschylus--how he +would not give in to Jupiter." + +"I am trying to understand," said Clementina, and ceased--and +a silence fell which for a few moments Malcolm could not break. +For suddenly he felt as if he had fallen under the power of a +spell. Something seemed to radiate from her silence which invaded +his consciousness. It was as if the wind which dwells in the tree +of life had waked in the twilight of heaven, and blew upon his +spirit. It was not that now first he saw that she was beautiful; +the moment his eyes fell upon her that morning in the park, he saw +her beautiful as he had never seen woman before. Neither was it +that now first he saw her good, even in that first interview her +heart had revealed itself to him as very lovely. But the foolishness +which flowed from her lips, noble and unselfish as it was, had barred +the way betwixt his feelings and her individuality as effectually +as if she had been the loveliest of Venuses lying uncarved in the +lunar marble of Carrara. There are men to whom silliness is an +absolute freezing mixture; to whose hearts a plain, sensible woman +at once appeals as a woman, while no amount of beauty can serve as +sweet oblivious antidote to counteract the nausea produced by folly. +Malcolm had found Clementina irritating, and the more irritating +that she was so beautiful. But at the first sound from her lips that +indicated genuine and truthful thought, the atmosphere had begun +to change; and at the first troubled gleam in her eyes, revealing +that she pursued some dim seen thing of the world of reality, a +nameless potency throbbed into the spiritual space betwixt her and +him, and embraced them in an aether of entrancing relation. All +that had been needed to awake love to her was, that her soul, her +self should look out of its windows--and now he had caught a +glimpse of it. Not all her beauty, not all her heart, not all her +courage, could draw him while she would ride only a hobby horse, +however tight its skin might be stuffed with emotions. But now who +could tell how soon she might be charging in the front line of the +Amazons of the Lord--on as real a horse as any in the heavenly +army? For was she not thinking--the rarest human operation in +the world? + +"I will try to speak a little more clearly, my lady," said Malcolm. +"If ease and comfort, and the pleasures of animal and intellectual +being, were the best things to be had, as they are the only things +most people desire, then that maker who did not care that his +creatures should possess or were deprived of such, could not be a +good God. But if the need with the lack of such things should be +the means, the only means, of their gaining something in +its very nature so much better that--" + +"But," interrupted Clementina, "if they don't care about anything +better--if they are content as they are?" + +"Should he then who called them into existence be limited in his +further intents for the perfecting of their creation, by their +notions concerning themselves who cannot add to their life one +cubit?--such notions being often consciously dishonest? If he +knows them worthless without something that he can give, shall he +withhold his hand because they do not care that he should stretch +it forth? Should a child not be taught to ride because he is content +to run on foot?" + +"But the means, according to your own theory, are so frightful!" +said Clementina. + +"But suppose he knows that the barest beginnings of the good he +intends them would not merely reconcile them to those means, but +cause them to choose his will at any expense of suffering! I tell +you, Lady Clementina," continued Malcolm, rising, and approaching +her a step or two, "if I had not the hope of one day being good +like God himself, if I thought there was no escape out of the wrong +and badness I feel within me and know I am not able to rid myself +of without supreme help, not all the wealth and honours of the +world could reconcile me to life." + +"You do not know what you are talking of," said Clementina, coldly +and softly, without lifting her head. + +"I do," said Malcolm. + +"You mean you would kill yourself but for your belief in God?" + +"By life, I meant being, my lady. If there were no God, I dared +not kill myself, lest worse should be waiting me in the awful voids +beyond. If there be a God, living or dying is all one--so it be +what he pleases." + +"I have read of saints," said Clementina, with cool dissatisfaction +in her tone, "uttering such sentiments--" + +"Sentiments!" said Malcolm to himself. + +"--and I do not doubt such were felt or at least imagined by them; +but I fail to understand how, even supposing these things true, +a young man like yourself should, in the midst of a busy +world, and with an occupation which, to say the least,--" + + +Here she paused. After a moment Malcolm ventured to help her. + +"Is so far from an ideal one--would you say, my lady?" + +"Something like that," answered Clementina, and concluded, "I wonder +how you can have arrived at such ideas." + +"There is nothing wonderful in it, my lady," returned Malcolm. +"Why should not a youth, a boy, a child, for as a child I thought +about what the kingdom of heaven could mean, desire with all his +might that his heart and mind should be clean, his will strong, +his thoughts just, his head clear, his soul dwelling in the place +of life? Why should I not desire that my life should be a complete +thing, and an outgoing of life to my neighbour? Some people are +content not to do mean actions: I want to become incapable of a +mean thought or feeling; and so I shall be before all is done." + +"Still, how did you come to begin so much earlier than others?" + +"All I know as to that, my lady, is that I had the best man in the +world to teach me." + +"And why did not I have such a man to teach me? I could have learned +of such a man too." + +"If you are able now, my lady, it does not follow that it would +have been the best thing for you sooner. Some children learn far +better for not being begun early, and will get before others who +have been at it for years. As you grow ready for it, somewhere +or other you will find what is needful for you--in a book, or a +friend, or, best of all in your own thoughts--the eternal thought +speaking in your thought." + +It flashed through her mind, "Can it be that I have found it now +--on the lips of a groom?" + +Was it her own spirit or another that laughed strangely within her? + +"Well, as you seem to know so much better than other people," she +said, "I want you to explain to me how the God in whom you profess +to believe can make use of such cruelties. It seems to me more like +the revelling of a demon." + +"My lady!" remonstrated Malcolm, "I never pretended to explain. All +I say is, that, if I had reason for hoping there was a God, and if +I found, from my own experience and the testimony of others, that +suffering led to valued good, I should think, hope, expect to +find that he caused suffering for reasons of the highest, purest +and kindest import, such as when understood must be absolutely +satisfactory to the sufferers themselves. If a man cannot believe +that, and if he thinks the pain the worst evil of all, then of +course he cannot believe there is a good God. Still, even then, +if he would lay claim to being a lover of truth, he ought to give +the idea--the mere idea of God fair play, lest there should be +a good God after all, and he all his life doing him the injustice +of refusing him his trust and obedience." + +"And how are we to give the mere idea of him fair play?" asked +Clementina, rather contemptuously. But I think she was fighting +emotion, confused and troublesome. + +"By looking to the heart of whatever claims to be a revelation of +him." + +"It would take a lifetime to read the half of such." + +"I will correct myself, and say--whatever of the sort has best +claims on your regard--whatever any person you look upon as +good, believes and would have you believe--at the same time doing +diligently what you know to be right; for, if there be a God, that +must be his will, and, if there be not, it remains our duty." + +All this time, Florimel was working away at her embroidery, a little +smile of satisfaction flickering on her face. She was pleased to +hear her clever friend talking so with her strange vassal. As to +what they were saying, she had no doubt it was all right, but to +her it was not interesting. She was mildly debating with herself +whether she should tell her friend about Lenorme. + +Clementina's work now lay on her lap and her hands on her work, +while her eyes at one time gazed on the grass at her feet, at +another searched Malcolm's face with a troubled look. The light of +Malcolm's candle was beginning to penetrate into her dusky room, +the power of his faith to tell upon the weakness of her unbelief. +There is no strength in unbelief. Even the unbelief of what is +false is no source of might. It is the truth shining from behind +that gives the strength to disbelieve. But into the house where +the refusal of the bad is followed by no embracing of the good-- +the house empty and swept and garnished--the bad will return, +bringing with it seven evils that are worse. + +If something of that sacred mystery, holy in the heart of the +Father, which draws together the souls of man and woman, was at work +between them, let those scoff at the mingling of love and religion +who know nothing of either; but man or woman who, loving woman or +man, has never in that love lifted the heart to the Father, and +everyone whose divine love has not yet cast at least an arm round +the human love, must take heed what they think of themselves, for +they are yet but paddlers in the tide of the eternal ocean. Love +is a lifting no less than a swelling of the heart, What changes, +what metamorphoses, transformations, purifications, glorifications, +this or that love must undergo ere it take its eternal place in +the kingdom of heaven, through all its changes yet remaining, in +its one essential root, the same, let the coming redemption reveal. +The hope of all honest lovers will lead them to the vision. Only +let them remember that love must dwell in the will as well as in +the heart. + +But whatever the nature of Malcolm's influence upon Lady Clementina, +she resented it, thinking towards and speaking to him repellently. +Something in her did not like him. She knew he did not approve of +her, and she did not like being disapproved of. Neither did she +approve of him. He was pedantic--and far too good for an honest +and brave youth: not that she could say she had seen dishonesty or +cowardice in him, or that she could have told which vice she would +prefer to season his goodness withal, and bring him to the level +of her ideal. And then, for all her theories of equality, he was +a groom--therefore to a lady ought to be repulsive--at least +when she found him intruding into the chambers of her thoughts +--personally intruding--yes, and met there by some traitorous +feelings whose behaviour she could not understand. She resented +it all, and felt towards Malcolm as if he were guilty of forcing +himself into the sacred presence of her bosom's queen--whereas it +was his angel that did so, his Idea, over which he had no control. +Clementina would have turned that Idea out, and when she found she +could not, her soul started up wrathful, in maidenly disgust with +her heart, and cast resentment upon everything in him whereon it would +hang. She had not yet, however, come to ask herself any questions; +she had only begun to fear that a woman to whom a person from the +stables could be interesting, even in the form of an unexplained +riddle, must be herself a person of low tastes; and that, for all +her pride in coming of honest people, there must be a drop of bad +blood in her somewhere. + +For a time her eyes had been fixed on her work, and there had been +silence in the little group. + +"My lady!" said Malcolm, and drew a step nearer to Clementina. + +She looked up. How lovely she was with the trouble in her eyes! +Thought Malcolm, "If only she were what she might be! If the form +were but filled with the spirit! the body with life!" + +"My lady!" he repeated, just a little embarrassed, "I should like +to tell you one thing that came to me only lately--came to me +when thinking over the hard words you spoke to me that day in the +park. But it is something so awful that I dare not speak of it +except you will make your heart solemn to hear it." + +He stopped, with his eyes questioning hers. Clementina's first +thought once more was madness, but as she steadily returned his +look, her face grew pale, and she gently bowed her head in consent. + +"I will try then," said Malcolm. "--Everybody knows what few +think about, that once there lived a man who, in the broad face +of prejudiced respectability, truth hating hypocrisy, commonplace +religion, and dull book learning, affirmed that he knew the secret +of life, and understood the heart and history of men--who wept +over their sorrows, yet worshipped the God of the whole earth, +saying that he had known him from eternal days. The same said that +he came to do what the Father did, and that he did nothing but what +he had learned of the Father. They killed him, you know, my lady, +in a terrible way that one is afraid even to think of. But he +insisted that he laid down his life; that he allowed them to take +it. Now I ask whether that grandest thing, crowning his life, the +yielding of it to the hand of violence, he had not learned also from +his Father. Was his death the only thing he had not so learned? If +I am right, and I do not say if in doubt, then the suffering of +those three terrible hours was a type of the suffering of the Father +himself in bringing sons and daughters through the cleansing and +glorifying fires, without which the created cannot be made the very +children of God, partakers of the divine nature and peace. Then +from the lowest, weakest tone of suffering, up to the loftiest +pitch, the divinest acme of pain, there is not one pang to which +the sensorium of the universe does not respond; never an untuneful +vibration of nerve or spirit but thrills beyond the brain or the +heart of the sufferer to the brain, the heart of the universe; +and God, in the simplest, most literal, fullest sense, and not by +sympathy alone, suffers with his creatures." + +"Well, but he is able to bear it; they are not: I cannot bring +myself to see the right of it." + +"Nor will you, my lady, so long as you cannot bring yourself to +see the good they get by it.--My lady, when I was trying my best +with poor Kelpie, you would not listen to me." + +"You are ungenerous," said Clementina, flushing. + +"My lady," persisted Malcolm, "you would not understand me. You +denied me a heart because of what seemed in your eyes cruelty. I +knew that I was saving her from death at the least, probably from +a life of torture: God may be good, though to you his government may +seem to deny it. There is but one way God cares to govern--the +way of the Father King--and that way is at hand.--But I have yet +given you only the one half of my theory: If God feels pain, then +he puts forth his will to bear and subject that pain; if the pain +comes to him from his creature, living in him, will the endurance +of God be confined to himself, and not, in its turn, pass beyond +the bounds of his individuality, and react upon the sufferer to his +sustaining? I do not mean that sustaining which a man feels from +knowing his will one with God's and God with him, but such sustaining +as those his creatures also may have who do not or cannot know +whence the sustaining comes. I believe that the endurance of God +goes forth to uphold, that his patience is strength to his creatures, +and that, while the whole creation may well groan, its suffering +is more bearable therefore than it seems to the repugnance of our +regard." + +"That is a dangerous doctrine," said Clementina. + +"Will it then make the cruel man more cruel to be told that God +is caring for the tortured creature from the citadel of whose life +he would force an answer to save his own from the sphinx that must +at last devour him, let him answer ever so wisely? Or will it make +the tender less pitiful to be consoled a little in the agony of +beholding what they cannot alleviate? Many hearts are from sympathy +as sorely in need of comfort as those with whom they suffer. And +to such I have one word more--to your heart, my lady, if it will +consent to be consoled: The animals, I believe, suffer less than +we, because they scarcely think of the past, and not at all of the +future. It is the same with children, Mr Graham says they suffer less +than grown people, and for the same reason. To get back something +of this privilege of theirs, we have to be obedient and take no +thought for the morrow." + +Clementina took up her work. Malcolm walked away. + +"Malcolm," cried his mistress, "are you not going on with the book?" + +"I hope your ladyship will excuse me," said Malcolm. "I would rather +not read more just at present." + +It may seem incredible that one so young as Malcolm should have +been able to talk thus, and indeed my report may have given words +more formal and systematic than his really were. For the matter of +them, it must be remembered that he was not young in the effort to +do and understand; and that the advantage to such a pupil of such +a teacher as Mr Graham is illimitable. + + + +CHAPTER XLIII: A PERPLEXITY + + +After Malcolm's departure, Clementina attempted to find what +Florimel thought of the things her strange groom had been saying: +she found only that she neither thought at all about them, nor had +a single true notion concerning the matter of their conversation. +Seeking to interest her in it and failing, she found however that +she had greatly deepened its impression upon herself. + +Florimel had not yet quite made up her mind whether or not she +should open her heart to Clementina, but she approached the door +of it in requesting her opinion upon the matter of marriage between +persons of social conditions widely parted--"frightfully sundered," +she said. Now Clementina was a radical of her day, a reformer, +a leveller--one who complained bitterly that some should be so +rich, and some so poor. In this she was perfectly honest. Her own +wealth, from a vague sense of unrighteousness in the possession of +it, was such a burden to her, that she threw it away where often +it made other people stumble if not fall. She professed to regard +all men as equal, and believed that she did so. She was powerful +in her contempt of the distinctions made between certain of the +classes, but had signally failed in some bold endeavours to act as +if they had no existence except in the whims of society. As yet no +man had sought her nearer regard for whom she would deign to cherish +even friendship. As to marriage, she professed, right honestly, an +entire disinclination, even aversion to it, saying to herself that +if ever she should marry it must be, for the sake of protest and +example, one notably beneath her in social condition. He must be a +gentleman, but his claims to that rare distinction should lie only +in himself, not his position, in what he was, not what he had. But +it is one thing to have opinions, and another to be called upon to +show them beliefs; it is one thing to declare all men equal, and +another to tell the girl who looks up to you for advice, that she +ought to feel herself at perfect liberty to marry--say a groom; +and when Florimel proposed the general question, Clementina might +well have hesitated. And indeed she did hesitate--but in vain +she tried to persuade herself that it was solely for the sake of +her young and inexperienced friend that she did so. As little could +she honestly say that it was from doubt of the principles she had +so long advocated. Had Florimel been open with her, and told her +what sort of inferior was in her thoughts, instead of representing +the gulf between them as big enough to swallow the city of Rome; +had she told her that he was a gentleman, a man of genius and gifts, +noble and large hearted, and indeed better bred than any other man +she knew, the fact of his profession would only have clenched Lady +Clementina's decision in his favour; and if Florimel had been honest +enough to confess the encouragement she had given him--nay, the +absolute love passages there had been, Clementina would at once have +insisted that her friend should write an apology for her behaviour +to him, should dare the dastard world, and offer to marry him when +he would. But, Florimel putting the question as she did, how should +Clementina imagine anything other than that it referred to Malcolm? +and a strange confusion of feeling was the consequence. Her thoughts +heaved in her like the half shaped monsters of a spiritual chaos, +and amongst them was one she could not at all identify. A direct +answer she found impossible. She found also that in presence +of Florimel, so much younger than herself, and looking up to her +for advice, she dared not even let the questions now pressing for +entrance appear before her consciousness. She therefore declined +giving an answer of any sort--was not prepared with one, she +said; much was to be considered; no two cases were just alike. + +They were summoned to tea, after which she retired to her room, shut +the door, and began to think--an operation which, seldom easy if +worth anything, was in the present case peculiarly difficult, both +because Clementina was not used to it, and the subject object of +it was herself. I suspect that self examination is seldom the most +profitable, certainly it is sometimes the most unpleasant, and +always the most difficult of moral actions--that is, to perform +after a genuine fashion. I know that very little of what passes +for it has the remotest claim to reality; and I will not say it has +never to be done; but I am certain that a good deal of the energy +spent by some devout and upright people on trying to understand +themselves and their own motives, would be expended to better +purpose, and with far fuller attainment even in regard to that object +itself, in the endeavour to understand God, and what he would have +us to do. + +Lady Clementina's attempt was as honest as she dared make it. It +went something after this fashion: + +"How is it possible I should counsel a young creature like that, +with all her gifts and privileges, to marry a groom--to bring +the stable into her chamber? If I did--if she did, has she the +strength to hold her face to it?--Yes, I know how different he +is from any other groom that ever rode behind a lady! but does she +understand him? Is she capable of such a regard for him as could +outlast a week of closer intimacy? At her age it is impossible she +should know what she was doing in daring such a thing. It would +be absolute ruin to her. And how could I advise her to do what I +could not do myself?--But then if she's in love with him?" + +She rose and paced the room--not hurriedly--she never did anything +hurriedly--but yet with unleisurely steps, until, catching sight +of herself in the glass, she turned away as from an intruding and +unwelcome presence, and threw herself on her couch, burying her +face in the pillow. Presently, however, she rose again, her face +glowing, and again walked up and down the room--almost swiftly +now. I can but indicate the course of her thoughts. + +"If what he says be true!--It opens another and higher life. +--What a man he is! and so young!--Has he not convicted me of +feebleness and folly, and made me ashamed of myself?--What better +thing could man or woman do for another than lower her in her own +haughty eyes, and give her a chance of becoming such as she had +but dreamed of the shadow of?--He is a gentleman--every inch! +Hear him talk!--Scotch, no doubt,--and--well--a little +long winded--a bad fault at his age! But see him ride!--see +him swim!--and to save a bird!--But then he is hard--severe +at best! All religious people are so severe! They think they are +safe themselves, and so can afford to be hard on others! He would +serve his wife the same as his mare if he thought she required +it!--And I have known women for whom it might be the best thing. +I am a fool! a soft hearted idiot! He told me I would give a baby +a lighted candle if it cried for it--Or didn't he? I believe he +never uttered a word of the sort; he only thought it"--As she +said this, there came a strange light in her eyes, and the light +seemed to shine from all around them as well as from the orbs +themselves. + +Suddenly she stood still as a statue in the middle of the room, and +her face grew white as the marble of one. For a minute she stood +thus--without a definite thought in her brain. The first that +came was something like this: "Then Florimel does love him!--and +wants help to decide whether she shall marry him or not! Poor weak +little wretch!--Then if I were in love with him, I would marry +him--would I?--It is well, perhaps, that I'm not!--But she! +he is ten times too good for her! He would be utterly thrown away +on her! But I am her counsel, not his; and what better could come +to her than have such a man for a husband; and instead of that +contemptible Liftore, with his grand earldom ways and proud nose! +He has little to be proud of that must take to his rank for it! +Fancy a right man condescending to be proud of his own rank! Pooh! +But this groom is a man! all a man! grand from the centre out, as +the great God made him!--Yes, it must be a great God that made +such a man as that!--that is, if he is the same he looks--the +same all through!--Perhaps there are more Gods than one, and one +of them is the devil, and made Liftore! But am I bound to give her +advice? Surely not! I may refuse. And rightly too! A woman that +marries from advice, instead of from a mighty love, is wrong. I +need not speak. I shall just tell her to consult her own heart-- +and conscience, and follow them.--But, gracious me! Am I then going +to fall in love with the fellow?--this stable man who pretends +to know his maker!" + +"Certainly not. There is nothing of the kind in my thoughts. + +Besides, how should I know what falling in love means? I never was +in love in my life, and don't mean to be. If I were so foolish as +imagine myself in any danger, would I be such a fool as be caught +in it? I should think not indeed! What if I do think of this man +in a way I never thought of anyone before, is there anything odd +in that? How should I help it when he is unlike anyone I ever saw +before? One must think of people as one finds them. Does it follow +that I have power over myself no longer, and must go where any +chance feeling may choose to lead me?" + +Here came a pause. Then she started, and once more began walking +up and down the room, now hurriedly indeed. + +"I will not have it!" she cried aloud--and checked herself, dashed +at the sound of her own voice. But her soul went on loud enough for +the thought universe to hear. "There can't be a God, or he would +never subject his women to what they don't choose. If a God had +made them, he would have them queens over themselves at least-- +and I will be queen, and then perhaps a God did make me. A slave +to things inside myself!--thoughts and feelings I refuse, and +which I ought to have control over! I don't want this in me, yet I +can't drive it out! I will drive it out. It is not me. A slave on +my own ground! worst slavery of all!--It will not go.--That must +be because I do not will it strong enough. And if I don't will it +--my God!--what does that mean?--That I am a slave already?" + +Again she threw herself on her couch, but only to rise and yet +again pace the room. + +"Nonsense! it is not love. It is merely that nobody could help +thinking about one who had been so much before her mind for so long +--one too who had made her think. Ah! there, I do believe, lies +the real secret of it all!--There's the main cause of my trouble +--and nothing worse! I must not be foolhardy though, and remain in +danger, especially as, for anything I can tell, he may be in love +with that foolish child. People, they say, like people that are +not at all like themselves. Then I am sure he might like me!--She +seems to be in love with him! I know she cannot be half a quarter +in real love with him: it's not in her." + +She did not rejoin Florimel that evening: it was part of the +understanding between the ladies that each should be at absolute +liberty. She slept little during the night, starting awake as +often as she began to slumber, and before the morning came was a +good deal humbled. All sorts of means are kept at work to make the +children obedient and simple and noble. Joy and sorrow are servants +in God's nursery; pain and delight, ecstasy and despair minister in +it; but amongst them there is none more marvellous in its potency +than that mingling of all pains and pleasures to which we specially +give the name of Love. + +When she appeared at breakfast, her countenance bore traces of her +suffering, but a headache, real enough, though little heeded in +the commotion upon whose surface it floated, gave answer to the not +very sympathetic solicitude of Florimel. Happily the day of their +return was near at hand. Some talk there had been of protracting +their stay, but to that Clementina avoided any farther allusion. +She must put an end to an intercourse which she was compelled to +admit was, at least, in danger of becoming dangerous. This much she +had with certainty discovered concerning her own feelings, that her +heart grew hot and cold at the thought of the young man belonging +more to the mistress who could not understand him than to herself +who imagined she could; and it wanted no experience in love to see +that it was therefore time to be on her guard against herself, for +to herself she was growing perilous. + + + +CHAPTER XLIV: THE MIND OF THE AUTHOR + + +The next was the last day of the reading. They must finish the +tale that morning, and on the following set out to return home, +travelling as they had come. Clementina had not the strength of mind +to deny herself that last indulgence--a long four days' ride in +the company of this strangest of attendants. After that, if not +the deluge, yet a few miles of Sahara. + +"' It is the opinion of many that he has entered into a Moravian +mission, for the use of which he had previously drawn considerable +sums,'" read Malcolm, and paused, with book half closed. + +"Is that all?" asked Florimel. + +"Not quite, my lady," he answered. "There isn't much more, but +I was just thinking whether we hadn't come upon something worth a +little reflection--whether we haven't here a window into the mind +of the author of Waverley, whoever he may be, Mr Scott, or another." + +"You mean?" said Clementina, interrogatively, and looked up from +her work, but not at the speaker. + +"I mean, my lady, that perhaps we here get a glimpse of the author's +own opinions, or feelings rather, perhaps." + +"I do not see what of the sort you can find there," returned +Clementina. + +"Neither should I, my lady, if Mr Graham had not taught me how to +find Shakspere in his plays. A man's own nature, he used to say, +must lie at the heart of what he does, even though not another man +should be sharp enough to find him there. Not a hypocrite, the most +consummate, he would say, but has his hypocrisy written in every +line of his countenance and motion of his fingers. The heavenly +Lavaters can read it, though the earthly may not be able." + +"And you think you can find him out?" said Clementina, dryly. + +"Not the hypocrite, my lady, but Mr Scott here. He is only round +a single corner. And one thing is--he believes in a God." + +"How do you make that out?" + +"He means this Mr Tyrrel for a fine fellow, and on the whole approves +of him--does he not, my lady?" + +"Certainly." + +"Of course all that duelling is wrong. But then Mr Scott only half +disapproves of it.--And it is almost a pity it is wrong," remarked +Malcolm with a laugh; "it is such an easy way of settling some +difficult things. Yet I hate it. It's so cowardly. I may be a +better shot than the other, and know it all the time. He may know +it too, and have twice my courage. And I may think him in the +wrong, when he knows himself in the right.--There is one man I +have felt as if I should like to kill. When I was a boy I killed +the cats that ate my pigeons." + +A look of horror almost distorted Lady Clementina's countenance. + +"I don't know what to say next, my lady," he went on, with a smile, +"because I have no way of telling whether you looked shocked for +the cats I killed, or the pigeons they killed, or the man I would +rather see killed than have him devour more of my--white doves," +he concluded sadly, with a little shake of the head.--"But, please +God," he resumed, "I shall manage to keep them from him, and let +him live to be as old as Methuselah if he can, even if he should +grow in cunning and wickedness all the time. I wonder how he will +feel when he comes to see what a sneaking cat he is. But this is +not what we set out for.--Mr Tyrrel, then, the author's hero, +joins the Moravians at last." + +"What are they?" questioned Clementina. + +"Simple, good, practical Christians, I believe," answered Malcolm. + +"But he only does it when disappointed in love." + +"No, my lady; he is not disappointed. The lady is only dead." + +Clementina stared a moment--then dropped her head as if she +understood. Presently she raised it again and said, + +"But, according to what you said the other day, in doing so he was +forsaking altogether the duties of the station in which God had +called him." + +"That is true. It would have been a far grander thing to do his +duty where he was, than to find another place and another duty. An +earldom allotted is better than a mission preferred." + +"And at least you must confess," interrupted Clementina, "that he +only took to religion because he was unhappy." + +"Certainly, my lady, it is the nobler thing to seek God in the days +of gladness, to look up to him in trustful bliss when the sun is +shining. But if a man be miserable, if the storm is coming down +on him, what is he to do? There is nothing mean in seeking God +then, though it would have been nobler to seek him before.--But +to return to the matter in hand: the author of Waverley makes his +noble hearted hero, whom assuredly he had no intention of disgracing, +turn Moravian; and my conclusion from it is that, in his judgment, +nobleness leads in the direction of religion; that he considers +it natural for a noble mind to seek comfort there for its deepest +sorrows." + +"Well, it may be so; but what is religion without consistency in +action?" said Clementina. + +"Nothing," answered Malcolm. + +"Then how can you, professing to believe as you do, cherish such +feelings towards any man as you have just been confessing?" + +"I don't cherish them, my lady. But I succeed in avoiding hate better +than suppressing contempt, which perhaps is the worse of the two. +There may be some respect in hate." + +Here he paused, for here was a chance that was not likely to recur. +He might say before two ladies what he could not say before one. +If he could but rouse Florimel's indignation! Then at any suitable +time only a word more would be needful to direct it upon the villain. +Clementina's eyes continued fixed upon him. At length he spoke. + +"I will try to make two pictures in your mind, my lady, if you will +help me to paint them. In my mind they are not painted pictures +--A long seacoast, my lady, and a stormy night;--the sea horses +rushing in from the northeast, and the snowflakes beginning to +fall. On the margin of the sea a long dune or sandbank, and on the +top of it, her head bare, and her thin cotton dress nearly torn +from her by the wind, a young woman, worn and white, with an old +faded tartan shawl tight about her shoulders, and the shape of a +baby inside it, upon her arm." + +"Oh! she doesn't mind the cold," said Florimel. "When I was there, +I didn't mind it a bit." + +"She does not mind the cold," answered Malcolm; "she is far too +miserable for that." + +"But she has no business to take the baby out on such a night," +continued Florimel, carelessly critical. "You ought to have painted +her by the fireside. They have all of them firesides to sit at. I +have seen them through the windows many a time." + +"Shame or cruelty had driven her from it," said Malcolm, "and there +she was." + +"Do you mean you saw her yourself wandering about?" asked Clementina. + +"Twenty times, my lady." + +Clementina was silent. + +"Well, what comes next?" said Florimel. + +"Next comes a young gentleman;--but this is a picture in another +frame, although of the same night;--a young gentleman in evening +dress, sipping his madeira, warm and comfortable, in the bland +temper that should follow the best of dinners, his face beaming with +satisfaction after some boast concerning himself, or with silent +success in the concoction of one or two compliments to have at hand +when he joins the ladies in the drawing room." + +"Nobody can help such differences," said Florimel. "If there were +nobody rich, who would there be to do anything for the poor? It's +not the young gentleman's fault that he is better born and has more +money than the poor girl." + +"No," said Malcolm; "but what if the poor girl has the young +gentleman's child to carry about from morning to night." + +"Oh, well! I suppose she's paid for it," said Florimel, whose +innocence must surely have been supplemented by some stupidity, +born of her flippancy. + +"Do be quiet, Florimel," said Clementina. "You don't know what you +are talking about." + +Her face was in a glow, and one glance at it set Florimel's in a +flame. She rose without a word, but with a look of mingled confusion +and offence, and walked away. Clementina gathered her work together. +But ere she followed her, she turned to Malcolm, looked him calmly +in the face, and said, + +"No one can blame you for hating such a man." + +"Indeed, my lady, but some one would--the only one for whose +praise or blame we ought to care more than a straw or two. +He tells us we are neither to judge nor to hate. But--" + +"I cannot stay and talk with you," said Clementina. "You must pardon +me if I follow your mistress." + +Another moment and he would have told her all, in the hope of her +warning Florimel. But she was gone. + + + +CHAPTER XLV: THE RIDE HOME + + +Florimel was offended with Malcolm: he had put her confidence in +him to shame, speaking of things to which he ought not once to have +even alluded. But Clementina was not only older than Florimel, but +in her loving endeavours for her kind, had heard many a pitiful +story, and was now saddened by the tale, not shocked at the teller. +Indeed, Malcolm's mode of acquainting her with the grounds of the +feeling she had challenged pleased both her heart and her sense +of what was becoming; while, as a partisan of women, finding a man +also of their part, she was ready to offer him the gratitude of +all womankind--in her one typical self. + +"What a rough diamond is here!" she thought. + +"Rough!" echoed her heart: "how is he rough? What fault could the +most fastidious find with his manners? True, he speaks as a servant +--and where would be his manners if he did not? But neither in +tone, expression, nor way of thinking, is he in the smallest degree +servile. He is like a great pearl, clean out of the sea--bred, +it is true, in the midst of strange surroundings, but pure as the +moonlight; and if a man, so environed, yet has grown so grand, what +might he not become with such privileges as--" + +Good Clementina--what did she mean? Did she imagine that such +mere gifts as she might give him, could do more for him than the +great sea, with the torment and conquest of its winds and tempests? +more than his own ministrations of love, and victories over passion +and pride? What the final touches of the shark skin are to the +marble that stands lord of the flaming bow, that only can wealth +and position be to the man who has yielded neither to the judgments +of the world nor the drawing of his own inclinations, and so has +submitted himself to the chisel and mallet of his maker. Society +is the barber who trims a man's hair, often very badly too--and +pretends he made it grow. If her owner should take her, body and +soul, and make of her being a gift to his--ah, then, indeed! But +Clementina was not yet capable of perceiving that, while what she +had in her thought to offer might hurt him, it could do him little +good. Her feeling concerning him, however, was all the time far +indeed from folly. Not for a moment did she imagine him in love +with her. Possibly she admired him too much to attribute to him +such an intolerable and insolent presumption as that would have +appeared to her own inferior self. Still, she was far indeed from +certain, were she, as befits the woman so immeasurably beyond even +the aspiration of the man, to make him offer implicit of hand and +havings, that he would reach out his to take them. And certainly +that she was not going to do--in which determination, whether +she knew it or not, there was as much modesty and gracious doubt +of her own worth as there was pride and maidenly recoil. In one +resolve she was confident, that her behaviour towards him should +be such as to keep him just where he was, affording him no smallest +excuse for taking one step nearer: and they would soon be in London, +where she would see nothing, or next to nothing more of him. But +should she ever cease to thank God, that was, if ever she came to +find him, that in this groom he had shown her what he could do in +the way of making a man! Heartily she wished she knew a nobleman or +two like him. In the meantime she meant to enjoy--with carefulness +--the ride to London, after which things should be as before. + +The morning arrived; they finished breakfast; the horses came round +and stood at the door--all but Kelpie. The ladies mounted. Ah, +what a morning to leave the country and go back to London! The +sun shone clear on the dark pine woods; the birds were radiant in +song; all under the trees the ferns were unrolling each its mystery +of ever generating life; the soul of the summer was there whose +mere idea sends the heart into the eyes, while itself flits mocking +from the cage of words. A gracious mystery it was--in the air, +in the sun, in the earth, in their own hearts. The lights of heaven +mingled and played with the shadows of the earth, which looked like +the souls of the trees, that had been out wandering all night, and +had been overtaken by the sun ere they could re-enter their dark +cells. Every motion of the horses under them was like a throb of the +heart of the earth, every bound like a sigh of her bliss. Florimel +shouted almost like a boy with ecstasy, and Clementina's moonlight +went very near changing into sunlight as she gazed, and breathed, +and knew that she was alive. + +They started without Malcolm, for he must always put his mistress +up, and then go back to the stable for Kelpie. In a moment they +were in the wood, crossing its shadows. It was like swimming their +horses through a sea of shadows. Then came a little stream and the +horses splashed it about like children from very gamesomeness. Half +a mile more and there was a sawmill, with a mossy wheel, a pond +behind, dappled with sun and shade, a dark rush of water along +a brown trough, and the air full of the sweet smell of sawn wood. +Clementina had not once looked behind, and did not know whether +Malcolm had yet joined them or not. All at once the wild vitality +of Kelpie filled the space beside her, and the voice of Malcolm +was in her ears. She turned her head. He was looking very solemn. + +"Will you let me tell you, my lady, what this always makes me think +of?" he said. + +"What in particular do you mean?" returned Clementina coldly. + +"This smell of new sawn wood that fills the air, my lady." + +She bowed her head. + +"It makes me think of Jesus in his father's workshop," said Malcolm +"--how he must have smelled the same sweet scent of the trees of +the world broken for the uses of men, that is now so sweet to me. +Oh, my lady! it makes the earth very holy and very lovely to think +that as we are in the world, so was he in the world. Oh, my lady +I think:--if God should be so nearly one with us that it was +nothing strange to him thus to visit his people! that we are not +the offspring of the soulless tyranny of law that knows not even +its own self, but the children of an unfathomable wonder, of which +science gathers only the foambells on the shore--children in the +house of a living Father, so entirely our Father that he cares even +to death that we should understand and love him!" + +He reined Kelpie back, and as she passed on, his eyes caught a +glimmer of emotion in Clementina's. He fell behind, and all that +day did not come near her again. + +Florimel asked her what he had been saying, and she compelled +herself to repeat a part of it. + +"He is always saying such odd out of the way things!" remarked +Florimel. "I used sometimes, like you, to fancy him a little astray, +but I soon found I was wrong. I wish you could have heard him tell +a story he once told my father and me. It was one of the wildest +you ever heard. I can't tell to this day whether he believed it +himself or not. He told it quite as if he did." + +"Could you not make him tell it again, as we ride along? It would +shorten the way." + +"Do you want the way shortened?--I don't. But indeed it would not +do to tell it so. It ought to be heard just where I heard it--at +the foot of the ruined castle where the dreadful things in it took +place. You must come and see me at Lossie House in the autumn, and +then he shall tell it you. Besides, it ought to be told in Scotch, +and there you will soon learn enough to follow it: half the charm +depends on that." + +Although Malcolm did not again approach Clementina that day, he +watched almost her every motion as she rode. Her lithe graceful +back and shoulders--for she was a rebel against the fashion of +the day in dress as well as in morals, and, believing in the natural +stay of the muscles, had found them responsive to her trust-- +the noble poise of her head, and the motions of her arms, easy yet +decided, were ever present to him, though sometimes he could hardly +have told whether his sight or his mind--now in the radiance of +the sun, now in the shadow of the wood, now against the green of +the meadow, now against the blue of the sky, and now in the faint +moonlight, through which he followed, as a ghost in the realms +of Hades might follow the ever flitting phantom of his love. Day +glided after day. Adventure came not near them. Soft and lovely as +a dream the morning dawned, the noon flowed past, the evening came +and the death that followed was yet sweeter than the life that had +gone before. Through it all, daydream and nightly trance, radiant +air and moony mist, before him glode the shape of Clementina, its +every motion a charm. After that shape he could have been content, +oh, how content! to ride on and on through the ever unfolding vistas +of an eternal succession. Occasionally his mistress would call him +to her, and then he would have one glance of the day side of the +wondrous world he had been following. Somewhere within it must be +the word of the living One. Little he thought that all the time she +was thinking more of him who had spoken that word in her hearing. +That he was the object of her thoughts not a suspicion crossed +the mind of the simple youth. How could he imagine a lady like her +taking a fancy to what, for all his marquisate, he was still in his +own eyes, a raw young fisherman, only just learning how to behave +himself decently! No doubt, ever since she began to listen to +reason, the idea of her had been spreading like a sweet odour in +his heart, but not because she had listened to him. The very fulness +of his admiration had made him wrathful with the intellectual +dishonesty, for in her it could not be stupidity, that quenched +his worship, and the first dawning sign of a reasonable soul drew +him to her feet, where, like Pygmalion before his statue, he could +have poured out his heart in thanks, that she consented to be a +woman. But even the intellectual phantom, nay, even the very phrase +of being in love with her, had never risen upon the dimmest verge +of his consciousness--and that although her being had now become +to him of all but absorbing interest. I say all but, because Malcolm +knew something of One whose idea she was, who had uttered her from +the immortal depths of his imagination. The man to whom no window +into the treasures of the Godhead has yet been opened, may well +scoff at the notion of such a love, for he has this advantage, that, +while one like Malcolm can never cease to love, he, gifted being, +can love today and forget tomorrow--or next year--where is the +difference? Malcolm's main thought was--what a grand thing it +would be to rouse a woman like Clementina to lift her head into +the regions mild of + + 'calm and serene air, + Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot + Which men call Earth.' + +If anyone think that love has no right to talk religion, I answer +for Malcolm at least, asking, Whereof shall a man speak, if not +out of the abundance of his heart? That man knows little either of +love or of religion who imagines they ought to be kept apart. Of +what sort, I ask, is either, if unfit to approach the other? Has +God decreed, created a love that must separate from himself? Is Love +then divided? Or shall not love to the heart created, lift up the +heart to the Heart creating? Alas for the love that is not treasured +in heaven! for the moth and the rust will devour it. Ah, these +pitiful old moth eaten loves! + +All the journey then Malcolm was thinking how to urge the beautiful +lady into finding for herself whether she had a father in heaven +or not. A pupil of Mr Graham, he placed little value in argument +that ran in any groove but that of persuasion, or any value in +persuasion that had any end but action. + +On the second day of the journey, he rode up to his mistress, and +told her, taking care that Lady Clementina should hear, that Mr +Graham was now preaching in London, adding that for his part he +had never before heard anything fit to call preaching. Florimel +did not show much interest, but asked where, and Malcolm fancied +he could see Lady Clementina make a mental note of the place. + +"If only," he thought, "she would let the power of that man's faith +have a chance of influencing her, all would be well." + +The ladies talked a good deal, but Florimel was not in earnest about +anything, and for Clementina to have turned the conversation upon +those possibilities, dim dawning through the chaos of her world, +which had begun to interest her, would have been absurd--especially +since such was her confusion and uncertainty, that she could not +tell whether they were clouds or mountains, shadows or continents. +Besides, why give a child sovereigns to play with when counters +or dominoes would do as well? Clementina's thoughts could not have +passed into Florimel, and become her thoughts. Their hearts, their +natures must come nearer first. Advise Florimel to disregard rank, +and marry the man she loved! As well counsel the child to give away +the cake he would cry for with intensified selfishness the moment +he had parted with it! Still, there was that in her feeling for +Malcolm which rendered her doubtful in Florimel's presence. + +Between the grooms little passed. Griffith's contempt for Malcolm +found its least offensive expression in silence, its most offensive +in the shape of his countenance. He could not make him the simplest +reply without a sneer. Malcolm was driven to keep mostly behind. If +by any chance he got in front of his fellow groom, Griffith would +instantly cross his direction and ride between him and the ladies. +His look seemed to say he had to protect them. + + + +CHAPTER XLVI: PORTLAND PLACE + + +The latter part of the journey was not so pleasant: it rained. +It was not cold, however, and the ladies did not mind it much. It +accorded with Clementina's mood; and as to Florimel, but for the +thought of meeting Caley, her fine spirits would have laughed the +weather to scorn. Malcolm was merry. His spirits always rose at the +appearance of bad weather, as indeed with every show of misfortune +a response antagonistic invariably awoke in him. On the present +occasion he had even to repress the constantly recurring impulse +to break out in song. His bosom's lord sat lightly in his throne. +Griffith was the only miserable one of the party. He was tired, and +did not relish the thought of the work to be done before getting +home. They entered London in a wet fog, streaked with rain, and +dyed with smoke. Florimel went with Clementina for the night, and +Malcolm carried a note from her to Lady Bellair, after which, having +made Kelpie comfortable, he went to his lodgings. + +When he entered the curiosity shop, the woman received him with +evident surprise, and when he would have passed through to the +stair, stopped him with the unwelcome information that, finding he +did not return, and knowing nothing about himself or his occupation, +she had, as soon as the week for which he had paid in advance was +out, let the room to an old lady from the country. + +"It is no great matter to me," said Malcolm, thoughtful over the +woman's want of confidence in him, for he had rather liked her, +"only I am sorry you could not trust me a little." + +"It's all you know, young man," she returned. "People as lives in +London must take care of theirselves--not wait for other people +to do it. They'd soon find theirselves nowheres in partic'lar. +I've took care on your things, an' laid 'em all together, an' the +sooner you find another place for 'em the better, for they do take +up a deal o' room." + +His personal property was not so bulky, however, but that in ten +minutes he had it all in his carpet bag and a paper parcel, carrying +which he re-entered the shop. + +"Would you oblige me by allowing these to lie here till I come for +them?" he said. + +The woman was silent for a moment. + +"I'd rather see the last on 'em," she answered. "To tell the truth, +I don't like the look on 'em. You acts a part, young man. I'm on +the square myself. But you'll find plenty to take you in.--No, +I can't do it. Take 'em with you." + +Malcolm turned from her, and with his bag in one hand and the parcel +under the other arm, stepped from the shop into the dreary night. +There he stood in the drizzle. It was a bystreet into which gas had +not yet penetrated, and the oil lamps shone red and dull through +the fog. He concluded to leave the things with Merton, while he +went to find a lodging. + +Merton was a decent sort of fellow--not in his master's confidence, +and Malcolm found him quite as sympathetic as the small occasion +demanded. + +"It ain't no sort o' night," he said, "to go lookin' for a bed. +Let's go an' speak to my old woman: she's a oner at contrivin'." + +He lived over the stable, and they had but to go up the stair. Mrs +Merton sat by the fire. A cradle with a baby was in front of it. +On the other side sat Caley, in suppressed exultation, for here +came what she had been waiting for--the first fruits of certain +arrangements between her and Mrs Catanach. She greeted Malcolm +distantly, but neither disdainfully nor spitefully. + +"I trust you've brought me back my lady, MacPhail," she said; then +added, thawing into something like jocularity, "I shouldn't have +looked to you to go running away with her." + +"I left my lady at Lady Clementina Thornicroft's an hour ago" +answered Malcolm. + +"Oh, of course! Lady Clem's everything now." + +"I believe my lady's not coming home till tomorrow," said Malcolm. + +"All the better for us," returned Caley. "Her room ain't ready for +her.--But I didn't know you lodged with Mrs Merton, MacPhail," +she said, with a look at the luggage he had placed on the floor. + +"Lawks, miss!" cried the good woman, "wherever should we put him +up, as has but the next room?" + +"You'll have to find that out, mother," said Merton. "Sure you've +got enough to shake down for him! With a truss of straw to help, +you'll manage it somehow--eh, old lady?--I'll be bound!" And +with that he told Malcolm's condition. + +"Well, I suppose we must manage it somehow," answered his wife, +"but I'm afraid we can't make him over comfortable." + +"I don't see but we could take him in at the house," said Caley, +reflectively. "There is a small room empty in the garret, I know. +It ain't much more than a closet, to be sure, but if he could put +up with it for a night or two, just till he found a better, I would +run across and see what they say." + +Malcolm wondered at the change in her, but could not hesitate. The +least chance of getting settled in the house was a thing not to be +thrown away. He thanked her heartily. She rose and went, and they +sat and talked till her return. She had been delayed, she said, by +the housekeeper; "the cross old patch" had objected to taking in +anyone from the stables. + +"I'm sure," she went on, "there ain't the ghost of a reason why you +shouldn't have the room, except that it ain't good enough. Nobody +else wants it, or is likely to. But it's all right now, and if +you'll come across in about an hour, you'll find it ready for you. +One of the girls in the kitchen--I forget her name----offered +to make it tidy for you. Only take care--I give you warning: +she's a great admirer of Mr MacPhail." + +Therewith she took her departure, and at the appointed time Malcolm +followed her. The door was opened to him by one of the maids whom +he knew by sight, and in her guidance he soon found himself in +that part of a house he liked best--immediately under the roof. +The room was indeed little more than a closet in the slope of the +roof with only a skylight. But just outside the door was a storm +window, from which, over the top of a lower range of houses, he had +a glimpse of the mews yard. The place smelt rather badly of mice, +while, as the skylight was immediately above his bed, and he had +no fancy for drenching that with an infusion of soot, he could not +open it. These, however, were the sole faults he had to find with +the place. Everything looked nice and clean, and his education had +not tended to fastidiousness. He took a book from his bag, and read +a good while; then went to bed, and fell fast asleep. + +In the morning he woke early, as was his habit, sprang at once on +the floor, dressed, and went quietly down. The household was yet +motionless. He had begun to descend the last stair, when all at once +he turned deadly sick, and had to sit down, grasping the balusters. +In a few minutes he recovered, and made the best speed he could to +the stable, where Kelpie was now beginning to demand her breakfast. + +But Malcolm had never in his life before felt sick, and it seemed +awful to him. Something that had appeared his own, a portion +--hardly a portion, rather an essential element of himself; had +suddenly deserted him, left him a prey to the inroad of something +that was not of himself, bringing with it faintness of heart, +fear and dismay. He found himself for the first time in his life +trembling; and it was to him a thing as appalling as strange. +While he sat on the stair he could not think; but as he walked to +the mews he said to himself: + +"Am I then the slave of something that is not myself--something +to which my fancied freedom and strength are a mockery? Was +my courage, my peace, all the time dependent on something not me, +which could be separated from me, and but a moment ago was separated +from me, and left me as helplessly dismayed as the veriest coward +in creation? I wonder what Alexander would have thought if, as +he swung himself on Bucephalus, he had been taken as I was on the +stair." + +Afterwards, talking the thing over with Mr Graham, he said: + +"I saw that I had no hand in my own courage. If I had any courage, +it was simply that I was born with it. If it left me, I could not +help it: I could neither prevent nor recall it; I could only wait +until it returned. Why, then, I asked myself, should I feel ashamed +that, for five minutes, as I sat on the stair, Kelpie was a terror +to me, and I felt as if I dared not go near her? I had almost +reached the stable before I saw into it a little. Then I did see +that if I had had nothing to do with my own courage, it was quite +time I had something to do with it. If a man had no hand in his +own nature, character, being, what could he be better than a divine +puppet--a happy creature, possibly--a heavenly animal, like +the grand horses and lions of the book of the Revelation--but not +one of the gods that the sons of God, the partakers of the divine +nature, are? For this end came the breach in my natural courage-- +that I might repair it from the will and power God had given me, +that I might have a hand in the making of my own courage, in the +creating of myself. Therefore I must see to it." + +Nor had he to wait for his next lesson, namely, the opportunity of +doing what he had been taught in the first. For just as he reached +the stable, where he heard Kelpie clamouring with hoofs and teeth, +after her usual manner when she judged herself neglected, the +sickness returned, and with it such a fear of the animal he heard +thundering and clashing on the other side of the door, as amounted to +nothing less than horror. She was a man eating horse!--a creature +with bloody teeth, brain spattered hoofs, and eyes of hate! A flesh +loving devil had possessed her and was now crying out for her groom +that he might devour him. + +He gathered, with agonized effort, every power within him to an +awful council, and thus he said to himself: + +"Better a thousand times my brain plastered the stable wall than I +should hold them in the head of a dastard. How can God look at me +with any content if I quail in the face of his four footed creature! +Does he not demand of me action according to what I know, not what +I may chance at any moment to feel? God is my strength, and I will +lay hold of that strength and use it, or I have none, and Kelpie +may take me and welcome." + +Therewith the sickness abated so far that he was able to open the +stable door; and, having brought them once into the presence of their +terror, his will arose and lorded it over his shrinking quivering +nerves, and like slaves they obeyed him. Surely the Father of his +spirit was most in that will when most that will was Malcolm's +own! It is when a man is most a man, that the cause of the man, the +God of his life, the very Life himself the original life-creating +Life, is closest to him, is most within him. The individual, that +his individuality may blossom, and not soon be "massed into the common +clay," must have the vital indwelling of the primary Individuality +which is its origin. The fire that is the hidden life of the bush +will not consume it. + +Malcolm tottered to the corn bin, staggered up to Kelpie, fell up +against her hind quarters as they dropped from a great kick, but got +into the stall beside her. She turned eagerly, darted at her food, +swallowed it greedily, and was quiet as a lamb while he dressed +her. + + + +CHAPTER XLVII: PORTLOSSIE AND SCAURNOSE + + +Meantime things were going rather badly at Portlossie and Scaurnose; +and the factor was the devil of them. Those who had known him +longest said he must be fey, that is doomed, so strangely altered +was his behaviour. Others said he took more counsel with his bottle +than had been his wont, and got no good from it. Almost all the +fishers found him surly, and upon some he broke out in violent rage, +while to certain whom he regarded as Malcolm's special friends, +he carried himself with cruel oppression. The notice to leave at +midsummer clouded the destiny of Joseph Mair and his family, and +every householder in the two villages believed that to take them +in would be to call down the like fate upon himself. But Meg Partan +at least was not to be intimidated. Her outbursts of temper were +but the hurricanes of a tropical heart--not much the less true +and good and steadfast that it was fierce. Let the factor rage as +he would, Meg was absolute in her determination that, if the cruel +sentence was carried out, which she hardly expected, her house +should be the shelter of those who had received her daughter when +her severity had driven her from her home. That would leave her +own family and theirs three months to look out for another abode. +Certain of Blue Peter's friends ventured a visit of intercession +to the factor, and were received with composure and treated with +consideration until their object appeared, when his wrath burst forth +so wildly that they were glad to escape without having to defend +their persons: only the day before had he learned with certainty from +Miss Horn that Malcolm was still in the service of the marchioness, +and in constant attendance upon her when she rode. It almost maddened +him. He had for some time taken to drinking more toddy after his +dinner, and it was fast ruining his temper: his wife, who had from +the first excited his indignation against Malcolm, was now reaping +her reward. To complete the troubles of the fisher folk, the harbour +at Portlossie had, by a severe equinoctial storm, been so filled +with sand as to be now inaccessible at lower than half tide, nobody +as yet having made it his business to see it attended to. + +But, in the midst of his anxieties about Florimel and his interest +in Clementina, Malcolm had not been forgetting them. As soon as he +was a little settled in London, he had written to Mr Soutar, and +he to architects and contractors, on the subject of a harbour at +Scaurnose. But there were difficulties, and the matter had been +making but slow progress. Malcolm, however, had insisted, and in +consequence of his determination to have the possibilities of the +thing thoroughly understood, three men appeared one morning on +the rocks at the bottom of the cliff on the west side of the Nose. +The children of the village discovered them, and carried the news; +whereupon, the men being all out in the bay, the women left their +work and went to see what the strangers were about. The moment they +were satisfied that they could make nothing of their proceedings, +they naturally became suspicious. To whom the fancy first occurred, +nobody ever knew, but such was the unhealthiness of the moral +atmosphere of the place, caused by the injustice and severity of +Mr Crathie, that, once suggested, it was universally received that +they were sent by the factor--and that for a purpose only too +consistent with the treatment Scaurnose, they said, had invariably +received ever since first it was the dwelling of fishers! Had not +their fathers told them how unwelcome they were to the lords of +the land? And what rents had they not to pay! and how poor was the +shelter for which they did so much--without a foot of land to +grow a potato in! To crown all, the factor was at length about to +drive them in a body from the place--Blue Peter first, one of the +best as well as the most considerable men among them! His notice +to quit was but the beginning of a clearance. It was easy to see +what those villains were about--on that precious rock, their +only friend, the one that did its best to give them the sole shadow +of harbourage they had, cutting off the wind from the northeast +a little, and breaking the eddy round the point of the Nose! What +could they be about but marking the spots where to bore the holes +for the blasting powder that should scatter it to the winds, and let +death and destruction, and the wild sea howling in upon Scaurnose, +that the cormorant and the bittern might possess it, the owl and +the raven dwell in it? But it would be seen what their husbands and +fathers would say to it when they came home! In the meantime they +must themselves do what they could. What were they men's wives for, +if not to act for their husbands when they happened to be away? + +The result was a shower of stones upon the unsuspecting surveyors, +who forthwith fled, and carried the report of their reception to +Mr Soutar at Duff Harbour. He wrote to Mr Crathie, who till then +had heard nothing of the business; and the news increased both his +discontent with his superiors, and his wrath with those whom he had +come to regard as his rebellious subjects. The stiff necked people +of the Bible was to him always now, as often he heard the words, +the people of Scaurnose and the Seaton of Portlossie. And having +at length committed this overt outrage, would he not be justified +by all in taking more active measures against them? + +When the fishermen came home and heard how their women had conducted +themselves, they accepted their conjectures, and approved of their +defence of the settlement. It was well for the land loupers, they +said, that they had only the women to deal with. + +Blue Peter did not so soon hear of the affair as the rest, for +his Annie had not been one of the assailants. But when the hurried +retreat of the surveyors was described to him in somewhat graphic +language by one of those concerned in causing it, he struck his +clenched fist in the palm of his other hand, and cried, + +"Weel saired! There! that's what comes o' yer new--" + +He had all but broken his promise, as he had already broken his +faith to Malcolm, when his wife laid her hand on his mouth and +stopped the issuing word. He started with sudden conviction and +stood for a moment in absolute terror at sight of the precipice +down which he had been on the point of falling, then straightway +excusing himself to his conscience on the ground of non intent, was +instantly angrier with Malcolm than before. He could not reflect +that the disregarded cause of the threatened sin was the greater +sin of the two. The breach of that charity which thinketh no evil +maybe a graver fault than a hasty breach of promise. + +Peter had not been improving since his return from London. He found +less satisfaction in his religious exercises; was not unfrequently +clouded in temper, occasionally even to sullenness; referred +things oftener than formerly to the vileness of the human nature, +but was far less willing than before to allow that he might himself +be wrong; while somehow the Bible had no more the same plenitude +of relation to the wants of his being, and he rose from the reading +of it unrefreshed. Men asked each other what had come to Blue Peter, +but no one could answer the question. For himself, he attributed +the change, which he could not but recognise, although he did +not understand it, to the withdrawing of the spirit of God, in +displeasure that he had not merely allowed himself to be inveigled +into a playhouse, but, far worse, had enjoyed the wickedness +he saw there. When his wife reasoned that God knew he had gone in +ignorance, trusting his friend, he cried, + +"What 's that to him wha judges richteous judgment? What's a' oor +puir meeserable excuzes i' the een 'at can see throu' the wa's o' +the hert! Ignorance is no innocence." + +Thus he lied for God! pleading his cause on the principles of hell. +But the eye of his wife was single, and her body full of light; +therefore to her it was plain that neither the theatre nor his +conscience concerning it was the cause of the change: it had to do +with his feelings towards Malcolm. He wronged his Friend in his +heart, half knew it, but would not own it. Fearing to search himself, +he took refuge in resentment, and to support his hard judgment, +put false and cruel interpretations on whatever befell. So that, +with love and anger and wrong acknowledged, his heart was full of +bitterness. + +"It 's a' the drumblet (muddied, troubled) luve o' 'im!" said +Annie to herself. "Puir fallow! gien only Ma'colm wad come hame, +an' lat him ken he 's no the villain he taks him for. I'll no +believe mysel' 'at the laad I kissed like my ain mither's son afore +he gaed awa' wad turn like that upo' 's 'maist the meenute he was +oot o' sicht, an' a' for a feow words aboot a fulish play actin'. +Lord bliss us a'! markises is men. + +"We'll see, Peter, my man," she said, when the neighbour took her +leave, "whether the wife, though she hasna' been to the ill place, +an' that's surely Lon'on, canna tell the true frae the Cause full +better nor her man, 'at kens sae muckle mair nor she wants to ken? +Lat sit an' lat see." + +Blue Peter made no reply; but perhaps the deepest depth in his +fall was that he feared his wife might be right, and he have one +day to stand ashamed before both her and his friend. But there are +marvellous differences in the quality of the sins of different men, +and a noble nature like Peter's would have to sink far indeed to +be beyond redemption. Still there was one element mingling with his +wrongness whose very triviality increased the difficulty of long +delaying repentance: he had been not a little proud at finding +himself the friend of a marquis. From the first they had been +friends, when the one was a youth and the other a child, and had +been out together in many a stormy and dangerous sea. More than +once or twice, driven from the churlish ocean to the scarce less +inhospitable shore, they had lain all night in each other's arms +to keep the life awake within their frozen garments. And now this +marquis spoke English to him! It rankled! + +All the time Blue Peter was careful to say nothing to injure Malcolm +in the eyes of his former comrades. His manner when his name was +mentioned, however, he could not honestly school to the conveyance +of the impression that things were as they had been betwixt them. +Folk marked the difference, and it went to swell the general feeling +that Malcolm had done ill to forsake a seafaring life for one upon +which all fishermen must look down with contempt. Some in the Seaton +went so far in their enmity as even to hint at an explanation of +his conduct in the truth of the discarded scandal which had laid +Lizzy's child at his door. + +But amongst them was one who, having wronged him thus, and been +convinced of her error, was now so fiercely his partisan as to be +ready to wrong the whole town in his defence: that was Meg Partan, +properly Mistress Findlay, Lizzy's mother. Although the daughter had +never confessed, the mother had yet arrived at the right conclusion +concerning the father of her child--how, she could hardly herself +have told, for the conviction had grown by accretion; a sign here +and a sign there, impalpable save to maternal sense, had led her +to the truth; and now, if anyone had a word to say against Malcolm, +he had better not say it in the hearing of the Partaness. + +One day Blue Peter was walking home from the upper town of Portlossie, +not with the lazy gait of the fisherman off work, poised backwards, +with hands in trouser pocket, but stooping care laden with listless +swinging arms. Thus Meg Partan met him--and of course attributed +his dejection to the factor. + +"Deil ha'e 'im for an upsettin' rascal 'at hasna pride eneuch to haud +him ohn lickit the gentry's shune! The man maun be fey! I houp he +may, an' I wuss I saw the beerial o' 'im makin' for the kirkyaird. +It's nae ill to wuss weel to a' body 'at wad be left! His nose is +turnt twise the colour i' the last twa month. He'll be drinkin' +byous. Gien only Ma'colm MacPhail had been at hame to haud him in +order!" + +Peter said nothing, and his silence, to one who spake out whatever +came, seemed fuller of restraints and meanings than it was. She +challenged it at once. + +"Noo, what mean ye by sayin' naething, Peter? Guid kens it's the +warst thing man or woman can say o' onybody to haud their tongue. +It's a thing I never was blamed wi' mysel', an' I wadna du't." + +"That's verra true," said Peter. + +"The mair weicht's intill't whan I lay 't to the door o' anither," +persisted Meg. "Peter, gien ye ha'e onything again' my freen' Ma'colm +MacPhail, oot wi' 't like a man, an' no playac' the gunpoother plot +ower again. Ill wull's the warst poother ye can lay i' the boddom +o' ony man's boat. But say at ye like, I s' uphaud Ma'colm again' +the haill poustie o' ye. Gien he was but here! I say't again, honest +laad!" + +But she could not rouse Peter to utterance, and losing what little +temper she had, she rated him soundly, and sent him home saying +with the prophet Jonah, "Do I not well to be angry?" for that also +he placed to Malcolm's account. Nor was his home any more a harbour +for his riven boat, seeing his wife only longed for the return +of him with whom his spirit chode: she regarded him as an exiled +king, one day to reappear, and justify himself in the eyes of all, +friends and enemies. + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII: TORTURE + + +Though unable to eat any breakfast, Malcolm persuaded himself +that he felt nearly as well as usual when he went to receive his +mistress's orders. Florimel had had enough of horseback--for +several days to come indeed--and would not ride. So he saddled +Kelpie, and rode to Chelsea to look after his boat. To get rid of +the mare, he rang the stable bell at Mr Lenorme's, and the gardener +let him in. As he was putting her up, the man told him that the +housekeeper had heard from his master. Malcolm went to the house +to learn what he might, and found to his surprise that, if he had +gone on the continent, he was there no longer, for the letter, +which contained only directions concerning some of his pictures, +was dated from Newcastle, and bore the Durham postmark of a week +ago. Malcolm remembered that he had heard Lenorme speak of Durham +cathedral, and in the hope that he might be spending some time +there, begged the housekeeper to allow him to go to the study to +write to her master. When he entered, however, he saw something that +made him change his plan, and, having written, instead of sending +the letter, as he had intended, inclosed to the postmaster at Durham, +he left it upon an easel. It contained merely an earnest entreaty +to be made and kept acquainted with his movements, that he might +at once let him know if anything should occur that he ought to be +informed concerning. + +He found all on board the yacht in shipshape, only Davy was absent. +Travers explained that he sent him on shore for a few hours every +day. He was a sharp boy, he said, and the more he saw, the more +useful he would be, and as he never gave him any money, there was +no risk of his mistaking his hours. + +"When do you expect him?" asked Malcolm. + +"At four o'clock," answered Travers. + +"It is four now," said Malcolm. + +A shrill whistle came from the Chelsea shore. + +"And there's Davy," said Travers. + +Malcolm got into the dinghy and rowed ashore. + +"Davy," he said "I don't want you to be all day on board, but I +can't have you be longer away than an hour at a time," + +"Ay, ay, sir," said Davy. + +"Now attend to me." + +"Ay, ay, sir." + +"Do you know Lady Lossie's house?" + +"No, sir; but I ken hersel'." + +"How is that?" + +"I ha'e seen her mair nor twa or three times, ridin' wi' yersel', +to yon hoose yon'er." + +"Would you know her again?" + +"Ay wad I--fine that. What for no, sir." + +"It's a good way to see a lady across the Thames and know her +again." + +"Ow! but I tuik the spy glaiss till her," answered Davy, reddening. + +"You are sure of her, then?" + +"I am that, sir." + +"Then come with me, and I will show you where she lives. I will +not ride faster than you can run. But mind you don't look as if +you belonged to me." + +"Na, na, sir. There's fowk takin' nottice." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"There's a wee laddie been efter mysel' twise or thrice." + +"Did you do anything?" + +"He wasna big eneuch to lick, sae I jist got him the last time an' +pu'd his niz, an' I dinna think he'll come efter me again." + +To see what the boy could do, Malcolm let Kelpie go at a good trot: +but Davy kept up without effort, now shooting ahead, now falling +behind, now stopping to look in at a window, and now to cast +a glance at a game of pitch and toss. No mere passerby could have +suspected that the sailor boy belonged to the horseman. He dropped +him not far from Portland Place, telling him to go and look at the +number, but not stare at the house. + +All the time he had had no return of the sickness, but, although +thus actively occupied, had felt greatly depressed. One main cause +of this was, however, that he had not found his religion stand him +in such stead as he might have hoped. It was not yet what it must +be to prove its reality. And now his eyes were afresh opened to +see that in his nature and thoughts lay large spaces wherein God +ruled not supreme--desert places, where who could tell what might +appear? For in such regions wild beasts range, evil herbs flourish, +and demons go about. If in very deed he lived and moved and had +his being in God, then assuredly there ought not to be one cranny +in his nature, one realm of his consciousness, one well spring of +thought, where the will of God was a stranger. If all were as it +should be, then surely there would be no moment, looking back on +which he could not at least say, + + +Yet like some sweet beguiling melody, +So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, +Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, +Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy. + +"In that agony o' sickness, as I sat upo' the stair," he said to +himself, for still in his own thoughts he spoke his native tongue, +"whaur was my God in a' my thouchts? I did cry till 'im, I min' +weel, but it was my reelin' brain an' no my trustin' hert 'at cried. +Aih me! I doobt gien the Lord war to come to me noo, he wadna fin' +muckle faith i' my pairt o' the yerth. Aih! I wad like to lat him +see something like lippenin'! I wad fain trust him till his hert's +content. But I doobt it's only speeritual ambeetion, or better wad +hae come o' 't by this time. Gien that sickness come again, I maun +see, noo 'at I'm forewarned o' my ain wakeness, what I can du. It +maun be something better nor last time, or I'll tine hert a'thegither. +Weel, maybe I need to be heumblet. The Lord help me!" + +In the evening he went to the schoolmaster, and gave him a pretty +full account of where he had been and what had taken place since last +he saw him, dwelling chiefly on his endeavours with Lady Clementina. + +From Mr Graham's lodging to the northeastern gate of the Regent's +Park, the nearest way led through a certain passage, which, although +a thoroughfare to persons on foot, was little known. Malcolm had +early discovered it, and always used it. Part of this short cut was +the yard and back premises of a small public house. It was between +eleven and twelve as he entered it for the second time that night. +Sunk in thought and suspecting no evil, he was struck down from +behind, and lost his consciousness. When he came to himself he was +lying in the public house, with his head bound up, and a doctor +standing over him, who asked him if he had been robbed. He searched +his pockets, and found that his old watch was gone, but his money +left. One of the men standing about said he would see him home. He +half thought he had seen him before, and did not like the look of +him, but accepted the offer, hoping to get on the track of something +thereby. As soon as they entered the comparative solitude of the +park he begged his companion, who had scarcely spoken all the way, +to give him his arm, and leaned upon it as if still suffering, +but watched him closely. About the middle of the park, where not +a creature was in sight, he felt him begin to fumble in his coat +pocket, and draw something from it. But when, unresisted, he +snatched away his other arm, Malcolm's fist followed it, and the +man fell, nor made any resistance while he took from him a short +stick, loaded with lead, and his own watch, which he found in his +waistcoat pocket. Then the fellow rose with apparent difficulty, +but the moment he was on his legs, ran like a hare, and Malcolm +let him run, for he felt unable to follow him. + +As soon as he reached home, he went to bed, for his head ached +severely; but he slept pretty well, and in the morning flattered +himself he felt much as usual. But it was as if all the night that +horrible sickness had been lying in wait on the stair to spring upon +him, for, the moment he reached the same spot on his way down, he +almost fainted. It was worse than before. His very soul seemed to +turn sick. But although his heart died within him, somehow, in the +confusion of thought and feeling occasioned by intense suffering, +it seemed while he clung to the balusters as if with both hands he +were clinging to the skirts of God's garment; and through the black +smoke of his fainting, his soul seemed to be struggling up towards +the light of his being. Presently the horrible sense subsided as +before, and again he sought to descend the stair and go to Kelpie. +But immediately the sickness returned, and all he could do after +a long and vain struggle, was to crawl on hands and knees up the +stairs and back to his room. There he crept upon his bed, and was +feebly committing Kelpie to the care of her maker, when consciousness +forsook him. + +It returned, heralded by frightful pains all over his body, which +by and by subsiding, he sank again to the bottom of the black Lethe. + +Meantime Kelpie had got so wildly uproarious that Merton tossed her +half a truss of hay, which she attacked like an enemy, and ran to +the house to get somebody to call Malcolm. After what seemed endless +delay, the door was opened by his admirer, the scullery maid, who, +as soon as she heard what was the matter, hastened to his room. + + + +CHAPTER XLIX: THE PHILTRE + + +Before he again came to himself, Malcolm had a dream, which, although +very confused, was in parts more vivid than any he had ever had. +His surroundings in it were those in which he actually lay, and he +was ill, but he thought it the one illness he had before. His head +ached, and he could rest in no position he tried. Suddenly he heard +a step he knew better than any other approaching the door of his +chamber: it opened, and his grandfather in great agitation entered, +not following his hands, however, in the fashion usual to blindness, +but carrying himself like any sight gifted man. He went straight +to the wash stand, took up the water bottle, and with a look of +mingled wrath and horror dashed it on the floor. The same instant +a cold shiver ran through the dreamer, and his dream vanished. But +instead of waking in his bed, he found himself standing in the middle +of the floor, his feet wet, the bottle in shivers about them, and, +strangest of all, the neck of the bottle in his hand. He lay down +again, grew delirious, and tossed about in the remorseless persecution +of centuries. But at length his tormentors left him, and when he +came to himself, he knew he was in his right mind. + +It was evening, and some one was sitting near his bed. By the light +of the long snuffed tallow candle, he saw the glitter of two great +black eyes watching him, and recognised the young woman who had +admitted him to the house the night of his return, and whom he +had since met once or twice as he came and went. The moment she +perceived that he was aware of her presence, she threw herself +on her knees at his bedside, hid her face, and began to weep. The +sympathy of his nature rendered yet more sensitive by weakness and +suffering, Malcolm laid his hand on her head, and sought to comfort +her. + +"Don't be alarmed about me," he said, "I shall soon be all right +again." + +"I can't bear it," she sobbed. "I can't bear to see you like that, +and all my fault." + +"Your fault! What can you mean?" said Malcolm. + +"But I did go for the doctor, for all it may be the hanging of me," +she sobbed. "Miss Caley said I wasn't to, but I would and I did. +They can't say I meant it--can they?" + +"I don't understand," said Malcolm, feebly. + +"The doctor says somebody's been an' p'isoned you," said the girl, +with a cry that sounded like a mingled sob and howl; "an' he's been +a-pokin' of all sorts of things down your poor throat." + +And again she cried aloud in her agony. + +"Well, never mind; I'm not dead you see; and I'll take better care +of myself after this. Thank you for being so good to me; you've +saved my life." + +"Ah! you won't be so kind to me when you know all, Mr MacPhail," +sobbed the girl. "It was myself gave you the horrid stuff, but God +knows I didn't mean to do you no harm no more than your own mother." + +"What made you do it then?" asked Malcolm: + +"The witch woman told me to. She said that--that--if +I gave it you--you would--you would--" + +She buried her face in the bed, and so stifled a fresh howl of pain +and shame. + +"And it was all lies--lies!" she resumed, lifting her face again, +which now flashed with rage, "for I know you'll hate me worse than +ever now." + +"My poor girl, I never hated you," said Malcolm. + +"No, but you did as bad: you never looked at me. And now you'll +hate me out and out. And the doctor says if you die, he'll have it +all searched into, and Miss Caley she look at me as if she suspect +me of a hand in it; and they won't let alone till they've got me +hanged for it; and it's all along of love of you; and I tell you +the truth, Mr MacPhail, and you can do anything with me you like +--I don't care--only you won't let them hang me--will you ? +--Oh, please don't." + +She said all this with clasped hands, and the tears streaming down +her face. + +Malcolm's impulse was of course to draw her to him and comfort her, +but something warned him. + +"Well, you see I'm not going to die just yet," he said as merrily +as he could; "and if I find myself going, I shall take care the +blame falls on the right person. What was the witch woman like? +Sit down on the chair there, and tell me all about her." + +She obeyed with a sigh, and gave him such a description as he could +not mistake. He asked where she lived, but the girl had never met +her anywhere but in the street, she said. + +Questioning her very carefully as to Caley's behaviour to her, +Malcolm was convinced that she had a hand in the affair. Indeed, +she had happily, more to do with it than even Mrs Catanach knew, +for she had traversed her treatment to the advantage of Malcolm. +The midwife had meant the potion to work slowly, but the lady's +maid had added to the pretended philtre a certain ingredient in +whose efficacy she had reason to trust; and the combination, while +it wrought more rapidly, had yet apparently set up a counteraction +favourable to the efforts of the struggling vitality which it stung +to an agonised resistance. + +But Malcolm's strength was now exhausted. He turned faint, and the +girl had the sense to run to the kitchen and get him some soup. As +he took it, her demeanour and regards made him anxious, uncomfortable, +embarrassed. It is to any true man a hateful thing to repel a woman +--it is such a reflection upon her. + +"I've told you everything, Mr MacPhail, and it's gospel truth I've +told you," said the girl, after a long pause.--It was a relief +when first she spoke, but the comfort vanished as she went on, +and with slow, perhaps unconscious movements approached him.--"I +would have died for you, and here that devil of a woman has been +making me kill you! Oh, how I hate her! Now you will never love me +a bit---not one tiny little bit for ever and ever!" + +There was a tone of despairful entreaty in her words that touched +Malcolm deeply. + +"I am more indebted to you than I can speak or you imagine," he said. +"You have saved me from my worst enemy. Do not tell any other what +you have told me, or let anyone know that we have talked together. +The day will come when I shall be able to show you my gratitude." + +Something in his tone struck her, even through the folds of her +passion. She looked at him a little amazed, and for a moment the +tide ebbed. Then came a rush that overmastered her. She flung her +hands above her head, and cried, + +"That means you will do anything but love me!" + +"I cannot love you as you mean," said Malcolm. "I promise to be +your friend, but more is out of my power." + +A fierce light came into the girl's eyes. But that instant a +terrible cry, such as Malcolm had never heard, but which he knew +must be Kelpie's, rang through the air, followed by the shouts of +men, the tones of fierce execration, and the clash and clang of +hoofs. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed, and forgetting everything else, sprang +from the bed, and ran to the window outside his door. + +The light of their lanterns dimly showed a confused crowd in the +yard of the mews, and amidst the hellish uproar of their coarse +voices he could hear Kelpie plunging and kicking. Again she uttered +the same ringing scream. He threw the window open and cried to +her that he was coming, but the noise was far too great for his +enfeebled voice. Hurriedly he added a garment or two to his half +dress, rushed to the stair, passing his new friend, who watched +anxiously at the head of it, without seeing her, and shot from the +house. + + + +CHAPTER L: THE DEMONESS AT BAY + + +When he reached the yard of the mews, the uproar had nothing abated. +But when he cried out to Kelpie, through it all came a whinny of +appeal, instantly followed by a scream. When he got up to the lanterns, +he found a group of wrathful men with stable forks surrounding the +poor animal, from whom the blood was streaming before and behind. +Fierce as she was, she dared not move, but stood trembling, with +the sweat of terror pouring from her. Yet her eye showed that not +even terror had cowed her. She was but biding her time. Her master's +first impulse was to scatter the men right and left, but on second +thoughts, of which he was even then capable, he saw that they might +have been driven to apparent brutality in defence of their lives, +and besides he could not tell what Kelpie might do if suddenly +released. So he caught her by the broken halter, and told them +to fall back. They did so carefully--it seemed unwillingly. But +the mare had eyes and ears only for her master. What she had never +done before, she nosed him over face and shoulders, trembling all +the time. Suddenly one of her tormentors darted forward, and gave +her a terrible prod in the off hind quarter. But he paid dearly +for it. Ere he could draw back, she lashed out, and shot him half +across the yard with his knee joint broken. The whole set of them +rushed at her. + +"Leave her alone," shouted Malcolm, "or I will take her part. +Between us we'll do for a dozen of you." + +"The devil's in her," said one of them. + +"You'll find more of him in that rascal groaning yonder. You had +better see to him. He'll never do such a thing again, I fancy. +Where is Merton?" + +They drew off and went to help their comrade, who lay senseless. + +When Malcolm would have led Kelpie in, she stopped suddenly at the +stable-door, and started back shuddering, as if the memory of what +she had endured there overcame her. Every fibre of her trembled. He +saw that she must have been pitifully used before she broke loose +and got out. But she yielded to his coaxing, and he led her to her +stall without difficulty. He wished Lady Clementina herself could +have been his witness how she knew her friend and trusted him. Had +she seen how the poor bleeding thing rejoiced over him, she could +not have doubted that his treatment had been in part at least a +success. + +Kelpie had many enemies amongst the men of the mews. Merton had +gone out for the evening, and they had taken the opportunity of +getting into her stable and tormenting her. At length she broke +her fastenings; they fled, and she rushed out after them. + +They carried the maimed man to the hospital, where his leg was +immediately amputated. + +Malcolm washed and dried his poor animal, handling her as gently +as possible, for she was in a sad plight. It was plain he must not +have her here any longer: worse to her at least was sure to follow. +He went up, trembling himself now, to Mrs Merton. She told him she +was just running to fetch him when he arrived: she had no idea how +ill he was. But he felt all the better for the excitement, and after +he had taken a cup of strong tea, wrote to Mr Soutar to provide +men on whom he could depend, if possible the same who had taken +her there before, to await Kelpie's arrival at Aberdeen. There he +must also find suitable housing and attention for her at any expense +until further directions, or until, more probably, he should claim +her himself. He added many instructions to be given as to her +treatment. + +Until Merton returned he kept watch, then went back to the chamber +of his torture, which, like Kelpie, he shuddered to enter. The cook +let him in, and gave him his candle, but hardly had he closed his +door when a tap came to it, and there stood Rose, his preserver. +He could not help feeling embarrassed when he saw her. + +"I see you don't trust me," she said. + +"I do trust you," he answered. "Will you bring me some water. I +dare not drink anything that has been standing." + +She looked at him with inquiring eyes, nodded her head, and went. +When she returned, he drank the water. + +"There! you see I trust you," he said with a laugh. "But there are +people about who for certain reasons want to get rid of me: will +you be on my side?" + +"That I will," she answered eagerly. + +"I have not got my plans laid yet; but will you meet me somewhere +near this tomorrow night? I shall not be at home, perhaps, all +day." + +She stared at him with great eyes, but agreed at once, and they +appointed time and place. He then bade her good night, and the +moment she left him lay down on the bed to think. But he did not +trouble himself yet to unravel the plot against him, or determine +whether the violence he had suffered had the same origin with the +poisoning. Nor was the question merely how to continue to serve +his sister without danger to his life; for he had just learned what +rendered it absolutely imperative that she should be removed from +her present position. Mrs Merton had told him that Lady Lossie was +about to accompany Lady Bellair and Lord Liftore to the continent. +That must not be, whatever means might be necessary to prevent it. +Before he went to sleep things had cleared themselves up considerably. + +He woke much better, and rose at his usual hour. Kelpie rejoiced +him by affording little other sign of the cruelty she had suffered +than the angry twitching of her skin when hand or brush approached +a wound. The worst fear was that some few white hairs might by +and by in consequence fleck her spotless black. Having urgently +committed her to Merton's care, he mounted Honour, and rode to +the Aberdeen wharf. There to his relief, time growing precious, he +learned that the same smack in which Kelpie had come was to sail +the next morning for Aberdeen. He arranged at once for her passage, +and, before he left, saw to every contrivance he could think of for +her safety and comfort. He warned the crew concerning her temper, +but at the same time prejudiced them in her favour by the argument +of a few sovereigns. He then rode to the Chelsea Reach, where the +Psyche had now grown to be a feature of the river in the eyes of +the dwellers upon its banks. + +At his whistle, Davy tumbled into the dinghy like a round ball +over the gunwale, and was rowing for the shore ere his whistle had +ceased ringing in Malcolm's own ears. He left him with his horse, +went on board, and gave various directions to Travers; then took +Davy with him, and bought many things at different shops, which +he ordered to be delivered to Davy when he should call for them. +Having next instructed him to get everything on board as soon as +possible, and appointed to meet him at the same place and hour he +had arranged with Rose, he went home. + +A little anxious lest Florimel might have wanted him, for it was +now past the hour at which he usually waited her orders, he learned +to his relief that she was gone shopping with Lady Bellair, upon +which he set out for the hospital, whither they had carried the man +Kelpie had so terribly mauled. He went, not merely led by sympathy, +but urged by a suspicion also which he desired to verify or remove. +On the plea of identification, he was permitted to look at him for +a moment, but not to speak to him. It was enough: he recognised +him at once as the same whose second attack he had foiled in the +Regent's Park. He remembered having seen him about the stable, +but had never spoken to him. Giving the nurse a sovereign, and +Mr Soutar's address, he requested her to let that gentleman know +as soon as it was possible to conjecture the time of his leaving. +Returning, he gave Merton a hint to keep his eye on the man, and +some money to spend for him as he judged best. He then took Kelpie +for an airing. To his surprise she fatigued him so much that when +he had put her up again he was glad to go and lie down. + +When it came near the time for meeting Rose and Davy, he got his +things together in the old carpetbag, which held all he cared for, +and carried it with him. As he drew near the spot, he saw Davy +already there, keeping a sharp look out on all sides. Presently Rose +appeared, but drew back when she saw Davy. Malcolm went to her. + +"Rose," he said, "I am going to ask you to do me a great favour. +But you cannot except you are able to trust me." + +"I do trust you," she answered. + +"All I can tell you now is that you must go with that boy tomorrow. +Before night you shall know more. Will you do it?" + +"I will," answered Rose. "I dearly love a secret." + +"I promise to let you understand it, if you do just as I tell you." + +"I will." + +"Be at this very spot then tomorrow morning, at six o'clock. Come +here, Davy. This boy will take you where I shall tell him." + +She looked from the one to the other. + +"I'll risk it," she said. + +"Put on a clean frock, and take a change of linen with you and your +dressing things. No harm shall come to you." + +"I'm not afraid," she answered, but looked as if she would cry. + +"Of course you will not tell anyone." + +"I will not, Mr MacPhail." + +"You are trusting me a great deal, Rose; but I am trusting you too +--more than you think.--Be off with that bag, Davy, and be here +at six tomorrow morning, to carry this young woman's for her." + +Davy vanished. + +"Now, Rose," continued Malcolm, "you had better go and make your +preparations." + +"Is that all, sir?" she said. + +"Yes. I shall see you tomorrow. Be brave." + +Something in Malcolm's tone and manner seemed to work strangely +on the girl. She gazed up at him half frightened, but submissive, +and went at once, looking, however, sadly disappointed. + +Malcolm had intended to go and tell Mr Graham of his plans that same +night, but he found himself too much exhausted to walk to Camden +Town. And thinking over it, he saw that it might be as well if he +took the bold measure he contemplated without revealing it to his +friend, to whom the knowledge might be the cause of inconvenience. +He therefore went home and to bed, that he might be strong for the +next day. + + + +CHAPTER LI: THE PSYCHE + + +He rose early the next morning, and having fed and dressed Kelpie, +strapped her blanket behind her saddle, and, by all the macadamized +ways he could find, rode her to the wharf--near where the Thames +tunnel had just been commenced. He had no great difficulty with +her on the way, though it was rather nervous work at times. But of +late her submission to her master had been decidedly growing. When +he reached the wharf he rode her straight along the gangway on to +the deck of the smack, as the easiest if not perhaps the safest +way of getting her on board. As soon as she was properly secured, +and he had satisfied himself as to the provision they had made for +her, impressed upon the captain the necessity of being bountiful +to her, and brought a loaf of sugar on board for her use, he left +her with a lighter heart than he had had ever since first he fetched +her from the same deck. + +It was a long way to walk home, but he felt much better, and thought +nothing of it. And all the way, to his delight, the wind met him +in the face. A steady westerly breeze was blowing. If God makes +his angels winds, as the Psalmist says, here was one sent to wait +upon him. He reached Portland Place in time to present himself for +orders at the usual hour. On these occasions, his mistress not +unfrequently saw him herself; but to make sure, he sent up the +request that she would speak with him. + +"I am sorry to hear that you have been ill, Malcolm," she said +kindly, as he entered the room, where happily he found her alone. + +"I am quite well now, thank you, my lady," he returned. "I thought +your ladyship would like to hear something I happened to come to +the knowledge of the other day." + +"Yes? What was that?" + +"I called at Mr Lenorme's to learn what news there might be of him. +The housekeeper let me go up to his painting room; and what should +I see there, my lady, but the portrait of my lord marquis more +beautiful than ever, the brown smear all gone, and the likeness, +to my mind, greater than before!" + +"Then Mr Lenorme is come home!" cried Florimel, scarce attempting +to conceal the pleasure his report gave her. + +"That I cannot say," said Malcolm. "His housekeeper had a letter +from him a few days ago from Newcastle. If he is come back, I do +not think she knows it. It seems strange, for who would touch one +of his pictures but himself?--except, indeed, he got some friend +to set it to rights for your ladyship. Anyhow, I thought you would +like to see it again." + +"I will go at once," Florimel said, rising hastily. "Get the horses, +Malcolm, as fast as you can." + +"If my Lord Liftore should come before we start?" he suggested. + +"Make haste," returned his mistress, impatiently. + +Malcolm did make haste, and so did Florimel. What precisely was in +her thoughts who shall say, when she could not have told herself? +But doubtless the chance of seeing Lenorme urged her more than the +desire to see her father's portrait. Within twenty minutes they +were riding down Grosvenor Place, and happily heard no following +hoofbeats. When they came near the river, Malcolm rode up to her +and said, + +"Would your ladyship allow me to put up the horses in Mr Lenorme's +stable? I think I could show your ladyship a point or two that may +have escaped you." + +Florimel thought for a moment, and concluded it would be less +awkward, would indeed tend rather to her advantage with Lenorme, +should he really be there, to have Malcolm with her. + +"Very well," she answered. "I see no objection. I will ride round +with you to the stable, and we can go in the back way." + +They did so. The gardener took the horses, and they went up to +the study. Lenorme was not there, and everything was just as when +Malcolm was last in the room. Florimel was much disappointed, but +Malcolm talked to her about the portrait, and did all he could to +bring back vivid the memory of her father. At length with a little +sigh she made a movement to go. + +"Has your ladyship ever seen the river from the next room?" said +Malcolm, and, as he spoke, threw open the door of communication, +near which they stood. + +Florimel, who was always ready to see, walked straight into the +drawing room, and went to a window. + +"There is that yacht lying there still!" remarked Malcolm. "Does +she not remind you of the Psyche, my lady?" + +"Every boat does that," answered his mistress. "I dream about her. +But I couldn't tell her from many another." + +"People used to boats, my lady, learn to know them like the faces +of their friends.--What a day for a sail!" + +"Do you suppose that one is for hire?" said Florimel. + +"We can ask," replied Malcolm; and with that went to another window, +raised the sash, put his head out, and whistled. Over tumbled Davy +into the dinghy at the Psyche's stern, unloosed the painter, and +was rowing for the shore ere the minute was out. + +"Why, they're answering your whistle already!" said Florimel. + +"A whistle goes farther, and perhaps is more imperative than any +other call," returned Malcolm evasively, "Will your ladyship come +down and hear what they say?" + +A wave from the slow silting lagoon of her girlhood came washing +over the sands between, and Florimel flew merrily down the stair +and across ball and garden and road to the riverbank, where was a +little wooden stage or landing place, with a few steps, at which +the dinghy was just arriving. + +"Will you take us on board and show us your boat?" said Malcolm. + +"Ay, ay, sir," answered Davy. + +Without a moment's hesitation, Florimel took Malcolm's offered +hand, and stepped into the boat. Malcolm took the oars, and shot +the little tub across the river. When they got alongside the cutter, +Travers reached down both his hands for hers, and Malcolm held one +of his for her foot, and Florimel sprang on deck. + +"Young woman on board, Davy?" whispered Malcolm. + +"Ay, ay, sir--doon i' the fore," answered Davy, and Malcolm stood +by his mistress. + +"She is like the Psyche," said Florimel, turning to him, "only the +mast is not so tall." + +"Her topmast is struck, you see my lady--to make sure of her +passing clear under the bridges." + +"Ask them if we couldn't go down the river a little way," said +Florimel. "I should so like to see the houses from it!" + +Malcolm conferred a moment with Travers and returned. + +"They are quite willing, my lady," he said. + +"What fun!" cried Florimel, her girlish spirit all at the surface. +"How I should like to run away from horrid London altogether, and +never hear of it again!--Dear old Lossie House! and the boats! +and the fishermen!" she added meditatively. + +The anchor was already up, and the yacht drifting with the falling +tide. A moment more and she spread a low treble reefed mainsail +behind, a little jib before, and the western breeze filled and +swelled and made them alive, and with wind and tide she went swiftly +down the smooth stream. Florimel clapped her hands with delight. +The shores and all their houses fled up the river. They slid past +rowboats, and great heavy barges loaded to the lip, with huge red +sails and yellow, glowing and gleaming in the hot sun. For one +moment the shadow of Vauxhall Bridge gloomed like a death cloud, +chill and cavernous, over their heads; then out again they shot +into the lovely light and heat of the summer world. + +"It's well we ain't got to shoot Putney or Battersea," said Travers +with a grim smile, as he stood shaping her course by inches with +his magic-like steering, in the midst of a little covey of pleasure +boats: "with this wind we might ha' brought either on 'em about +our ears like an old barn." + +"This is life!" cried Florimel, as the river bore them nearer and +nearer to the vortex--deeper and deeper into the tumult of London. + +How solemn the silent yet never resting highway!--almost majestic +in the stillness of its hurrying might as it rolled heedless past +houses and wharfs that crowded its brinks. They darted through under +Westminster Bridge, and boats and barges more and more numerous +covered the stream. Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars' Bridge they +passed. Sunlight all, and flashing water, and gleaming oars, and +gay boats, and endless motion! out of which rose calm, solemn, +reposeful, the resting yet hovering dome of St Paul's, with its +satellite spires, glittering in the tremulous hot air that swathed +in multitudinous ripples the mighty city. + +Southwark Bridge--and only London Bridge lay between them and the +open river, still widening as it flowed to the aged ocean. Through +the centre arch they shot, and lo! a world of masts, waiting to +woo with white sails the winds that should bear them across deserts +of water to lands of wealth and mystery. Through the labyrinth led +the highway of the stream, and downward they still swept--past +the Tower, and past the wharf where that morning Malcolm had said +goodbye for a time to his four footed subject and friend. The +smack's place was empty. With her hugest of sails, she was tearing +and flashing away, out of their sight, far down the river before +them. + +Through dingy dreary Limehouse they sank, and coasted the melancholy, +houseless Isle of Dogs; but on all sides were ships and ships, +and when they thinned at last, Greenwich rose before them. London +and the parks looked unendurable from this more varied life, more +plentiful air, and above all more abundant space. The very spirit +of freedom seemed to wave his wings about the yacht, fanning full +her sails. + +Florimel breathed as if she never could have enough of the sweet +wind; each breath gave her all the boundless region whence it blew; +she gazed as if she would fill her soul with the sparkling gray +of the water, the sun melted blue of the sky, and the incredible +green of the flat shores. For minutes she would be silent, her +parted lips revealing her absorbed delight, then break out in a +volley of questions, now addressing Malcolm, now Travers. She tried +Davy too, but Davy knew nothing except his duty here. The Thames +was like an unknown eternity to the creature of the Wan Water-- +about which, however, he could have told her a thousand things. + +Down and down the river they flew, and not until miles and miles of +meadows had come between her and London, not indeed until Gravesend +appeared, did it occur to Florimel that perhaps it might be well +to think by and by of returning. But she trusted everything to +Malcolm, who of course would see that everything was as it ought +to be. + +Her excitement began to flag a little. She was getting tired. The +bottle had been strained by the ferment of the wine. She turned to +Malcolm. + +"Had we not better be putting about?" she said. "I should like to +go on for ever--but we must come another day, better provided. +We shall hardly be in time for lunch." + +It was nearly four o'clock, but she rarely looked at her watch, +and indeed wound it up only now and then. + +"Will you go below and have some lunch, my lady?" said Malcolm. + +"There can't be anything on board!" she answered. + +"Come and see, my lady," rejoined Malcolm, and led the way to the +companion. + +When she saw the little cabin, she gave a cry of delight. + +"Why, it is just like our own cabin in the Psyche," she said, "only +smaller! Is it not, Malcolm?" + +"It is smaller, my lady," returned Malcolm, "but then there is a +little state room beyond." + +On the table was a nice meal--cold, but not the less agreeable in +the summer weather. Everything looked charming. There were flowers; +the linen was snowy; and the bread was the very sort Florimel liked +best. + +"It is a perfect fairy tale!" she cried. "And I declare here is our +crest on the forks and spoons!--What does it all mean, Malcolm?" + +But Malcolm had slipped away, and gone on deck again, leaving her +to food and conjecture, while he brought Rose up from the fore +cabin for a little air. Finding her fast asleep, however, he left +her undisturbed. + +Florimel finished her meal, and set about examining the cabin more +closely. The result was bewilderment. How could a yacht, fitted with +such completeness, such luxury, be lying for hire in the Thames? +As for the crest on the plate, that was a curious coincidence: many +people had the same crest. But both materials and colours were like +those of the Pysche! Then the pretty bindings on the book shelves +attracted her: every book was either one she knew or one of which +Malcolm had spoken to her! He must have had a hand in the business! +Next she opened the door of the stateroom; but when she saw the +lovely little white berth, and the indications of every comfort +belonging to a lady's chamber, she could keep her pleasure to herself +no longer. She hastened to the companionway, and called Malcolm. + +"What does it all mean?" she said, her eyes and cheeks glowing with +delight. + +"It means, my lady, that you are on board your own yacht, the Pysche. +I brought her with me from Portlossie, and have had her fitted up +according to the wish you once expressed to my lord, your father, +that you could sleep on board. Now you might make a voyage of many +days in her." + +"Oh, Malcolm!" was all Florimel could answer. She was too pleased +to think as yet of any of the thousand questions that might naturally +have followed. + +"Why, you've got the Arabian Nights, and all my favourite books +there!" she said at length.--"How long shall we have before we +get among the ships again?" + +She fancied she had given orders to return, and that the boat had +been put about. + +"A good many hours, my lady," answered Malcolm. + +"Ah, of course!" she returned; "it takes much longer against wind +and tide.--But my time is my own," she added, rather in the manner +of one asserting a freedom she did not feel, "and I don't see why +I should trouble myself. It will make some to do, I daresay, if +I don't appear at dinner; but it won't do anybody any harm. They +wouldn't break their hearts if they never saw me again." + +"Not one of them, my lady," said Malcolm. + +She lifted her head sharply, but took no farther notice of his +remark. + +"I won't be plagued any more," she said, holding counsel with +herself, but intending Malcolm to hear. "I will break with them +rather. Why should I not be as free as Clementina? She comes and +goes when and where she likes, and does what she pleases." + +"Why, indeed?" said Malcolm; and a pause followed, during which +Florimel stood apparently thinking, but in reality growing sleepy. + +"I will lie down a little," she said, "with one of those lovely +books." + +The excitement, the air, and the pleasure generally had wearied +her. Nothing could have suited Malcolm better. He left her. She +went to her berth, and fell fast asleep. + +When she awoke, it was some time before she could think where she +was. A strange ghostly light was about her, in which she could see +nothing plain; but the motion helped her to understand. She rose, +and crept to the companion ladder, and up on deck. Wonder upon wonder! +A clear full moon reigned high in the heavens, and below there was +nothing but water, gleaming with her molten face, or rushing past +the boat lead coloured, gray, and white. Here and there a vessel +--a snow cloud of sails--would glide between them and the moon, +and turn black from truck to waterline. + +The mast of the Psyche had shot up to its full height; the reef +points of the mainsail were loose, and the gaff was crowned with +its topsail; foresail and jib were full; and she was flying as if +her soul thirsted within her after infinite spaces. Yet what more +could she want? All around her was wave rushing upon wave, and +above her blue heaven and regnant moon. Florimel gave a great sigh +of delight. + +But what did it--what could it mean? What was Malcolm about? +Where was he taking her? What would London say to such an escapade +extraordinary? Lady Bellair would be the first to believe she had +run away with her groom--she knew so many instances of that sort +of thing! and Lord Liftore would be the next. It was too bad of +Malcolm! But she did not feel very angry with him, notwithstanding, +for had he not done it to give her pleasure? And assuredly he had +not failed. He knew better than anyone how to please her--better +even than Lenorme. + +She looked around her. No one was to be seen but Davie, who was +steering. The mainsail hid the men, and Rose, having been on deck +for two or three hours, was again below. She turned to Davy. But +the boy had been schooled, and only answered, + +"I maunna sae naething sae lang's I'm steerin', mem." + +She called Malcolm. He was beside her ere his name had left her +lips. The boy's reply had irritated her, and, coming upon this +sudden and utter change in her circumstances, made her feel as one +no longer lady of herself and her people, but a prisoner. + +"Once more, what does this mean, Malcolm?" she said, in high +displeasure. "You have deceived me shamefully! You left me to +believe we were on our way back to London--and here we are out +at sea! Am I no longer your mistress? Am I a child, to be taken +where you please?--And what, pray, is to become of the horses +you left at Mr Lenorme's?" + +Malcolm was glad of a question he was prepared to answer. + +"They are in their own stalls by this time, my lady. I took care +of that." + +"Then it was all a trick to carry me off against my will!" she +cried, with growing indignation. + +"Hardly against your will, my lady," said Malcolm, embarrassed and +thoughtful, in a tone deprecating and apologetic. + +"Utterly against my will!" insisted Florimel. "Could I ever have +consented to go to sea with a boatful of men, and not a woman on +board? You have disgraced me, Malcolm." + +Between anger and annoyance she was on the point of crying. + +"It's not so bad as that, my lady.--Here, Rose!" + +At his word, Rose appeared. + +"I've brought one of Lady Bellair's maids for your service, my +lady," Malcolm went on. "She will do the best she can to wait on +you." + +Florimel gave her a look. + +"I don't remember you," she said. + +"No, my lady. I was in the kitchen." + +"Then you can't be of much use to me." + +"A willing heart goes a long way, my lady," said Rose, prettily. + +"That is fine," returned Florimel, rather pleased. "Can you get me +some tea?" + +"Yes, my lady." + +Florimel turned, and, much to Malcolm's content vouchsafing him +not a word more, went below. + +Presently a little silver lamp appeared in the roof of the cabin, +and in a few minutes Davy came, carrying the tea tray, and followed +by Rose with the teapot. As soon as they were alone, Florimel began +to question Rose; but the girl soon satisfied her that she knew +little or nothing. + +When Florimel pressed her how she could go she knew not where at the +desire of a fellow servant, she gave such confused and apparently +contradictory answers, that Florimel began to think ill of both +her and Malcolm, and to feel more uncomfortable and indignant; and +the more she dwelt upon Malcolm's presumption, and speculated as +to his possible design in it, she grew the angrier. + +She went again on deck. By this time she was in a passion--little +mollified by the sense of her helplessness. + +"MacPhail," she said, laying the restraint of dignified utterance +upon her words, "I desire you to give me a good reason for your +most unaccountable behaviour. Where are you taking me?" + +"To Lossie House, my lady." + +"Indeed!" she returned with scornful and contemptuous surprise. "Then +I order you to change your course at once and return to London." + +"I cannot, my lady." + +"Cannot! Whose orders but mine are you under, pray?" + +"Your father's, my lady." + +"I have heard more than enough of that unfortunate--statement, +and the measureless assumptions founded on it. I shall heed it no +longer." + +"I am only doing my best to take care of you, my lady, as I promised +him. You will know it one day if you will but trust me." + +"I have trusted you ten times too much, and have gained nothing in +return but reasons for repenting it. Like all other servants made +too much of you have grown insolent. But I shall put a stop to it. +I cannot possibly keep you in my service after this. Am I to pay +a master where I want a servant?" + +Malcolm was silent. + +"You must have some reason for this strange conduct," she went on. +"How can your supposed duty to my father justify you in treating +me with such disrespect. Let me know your reasons. I have a right +to know them." + +"I will answer you, my lady," said Malcolm. "--Davy, go forward; +I will take the helm.--Now, my lady, if you will sit on that +cushion.--Rose, bring my lady a fur cloak you will find in the +cabin.--Now, my lady, if you will speak low that neither Davy +nor Rose shall hear us.--Travers is deaf--I will answer you." + +"I ask you," said Florimel, "why you have dared to bring me away +like this. Nothing but some danger threatening me could justify +it." + +"There you say it, my lady." + +"And what is the danger, pray?" + +'You were going on the continent with Lady Bellair and Lord Liftore +--and without me to do as I had promised." + +"You insult me!" cried Florimel. "Are my movements to be subject +to the approbation of my groom? Is it possible my father could give +his henchman such authority over his daughter? I ask you again, +where was the danger?" + +"In your company, my lady." + +"So!" exclaimed Florimel, attempting to rise in sarcasm as she rose +in wrath, lest she should fall into undignified rage. "And what +may be your objection to my companions?" + +"That Lady Bellair is not respected in any circle where her history +is known; and that her nephew is a scoundrel." + +"It but adds to the wrong you heap on me, that you compel me +to hear such wicked abuse of my father's friends," said Florimel, +struggling with tears of anger. But for regard to her dignity she +would have broken out in fierce and voluble rage. + +"If your father knew Lord Liftore as I do, he would be the last +man my lord marquis would see in your company." + +"Because he gave you a beating, you have no right to slander him," +said Florimel spitefully. + +Malcolm laughed. He must either laugh or be angry. + +"May I ask how your ladyship came to hear of that?" + +"He told me himself," she answered. + +"Then, my lady, he is a liar, as well as worse. It was I who gave +him the drubbing he deserved for his insolence to my--mistress. +I am sorry to mention the disagreeable fact, but it is absolutely +necessary you should know what sort of man he is." + +"And, if there be a lie, which of the two is more likely to tell +it?" + +"That question is for you, my lady, to answer." + +"I never knew a servant who would not tell a lie," said Florimel. + +"I was brought up a fisherman," said Malcolm. + +"And," Florimel went on, "I have heard my father say no gentleman +ever told a lie." + +"Then Lord Liftore is no gentleman," said Malcolm. "But I am not +going to plead my own cause even to you, my lady. If you can doubt +me, do. I have only one thing more to say: that when I told you +and my Lady Clementina about the fisher girl and the gentleman--" + +"How dare you refer to that again? Even you ought to know there +are things a lady cannot hear. It is enough you affronted me with +that before Lady Clementina--and after foolish boasts on my part +of your good breeding! Now you bring it up again, when I cannot +escape your low talk!" + +"My lady, I am sorrier than you think; but which is worse--that +you should hear such a thing spoken of, or make a friend of the +man who did it--and that is Lord Liftore?" + +Florimel turned away, and gave her seeming attention to the moonlit +waters, sweeping past the swift sailing cutter. + +Malcolm's heart ached for her: he thought she was deeply troubled. +But she was not half so shocked as he imagined. Infinitely worse +would have been the shock to him could he have seen how little the +charge against Liftore had touched her. Alas! evil communications +had already in no small degree corrupted her good manners. Lady +Bellair had uttered no bad words in her hearing: had softened to +decency every story that required it; had not unfrequently tacked +a worldly wise moral to the end of one; and yet, and yet, such had +been the tone of her telling, such the allotment of laughter and +lamentation, such the acceptance of things as necessary, and such +the repudiation of things as Quixotic, puritanical, impossible, +that the girl's natural notions of the lovely and the clean had +got dismally shaken and confused. + +Happily it was as yet more her judgment than her heart that was +perverted. But had she spoken out what was in her thoughts as she +looked over the great wallowing water, she would have merely said +that for all that Liftore was no worse than other men. They were +all the same. It was very unpleasant; but how could a lady help +it? If men would behave so, were by nature like that, women must +not make themselves miserable about it. They need ask no questions. +They were not supposed to be acquainted with the least fragment of +the facts, and they must cleave to their ignorance, and lay what +blame there might be on the women concerned. The thing was too +indecent even to think about. + +Ostrich-like they must hide their heads--close their eyes and +take the vice in their arms--to love, honour, and obey, as if it +were virtue's self, and men as pure as their demands on their wives. + +There are thousands that virtually reason thus: Only ignore the +thing effectually, and for you it is not. Lie right thoroughly +to yourself, and the thing is gone. The lie destroys the fact. So +reasoned Lady Macbeth--until conscience at last awoke, and she +could no longer keep even the smell of the blood from her. What +need Lady Lossie care about the fisher girl, or any other concerned +with his past, so long as he behaved like a gentleman to her! +Malcolm was a foolish meddling fellow, whose interference was the +more troublesome that it was honest + +She stood thus gazing on the waters that heaved and swept astern, +but without knowing that she saw them, her mind full of such nebulous +matter as, condensed, would have made such thoughts as I have set +down. And still and ever the water rolled and tossed away behind +in the moonlight. + +"Oh, my lady!" said Malcolm, "what it would be to have a soul as +big and as clean as all this!" + +She made no reply, did not turn her head, or acknowledge that she +heard him, a few minutes more she stood, then went below in silence, +and Malcolm saw no more of her that night. + + + +CHAPTER LII: HOPE CHAPEL + + +It was Sunday, during which Malcolm lay at the point of death some +three stories above his sister's room. There, in the morning, while +he was at the worst, she was talking with Clementina, who had called +to see whether she would not go and hear the preacher of whom he +had spoken with such fervour. Florimel laughed. + +"You seem to take everything for gospel Malcolm says, Clementina!" + +"Certainly not," returned Clementina, rather annoyed. "Gospel +nowadays is what nobody disputes and nobody heeds; but I do heed +what Malcolm says, and intend to find out, if I can, whether there +is any reality in it. I thought you had a high opinion of your +groom!" + +"I would take his word for anything a man's word can be taken for," +said Florimel. + +"But you don't set much store by his judgment?" + +"Oh, I daresay he's right. But I don't care for the things you +like so much to talk with him about. He's a sort of poet, anyhow, +and poets must be absurd. They are always either dreaming or talking +about their dreams. They care nothing for the realities of life. +No--if you want advice, you must go to your lawyer or clergyman, +or some man of common sense, neither groom nor poet." + +"Then, Florimel, it comes to this--that this groom of yours +is one of the truest of men, and one who possessed your father's +confidence, but you are so much his superior that you are capable +of judging him, and justified in despising his judgment." + +"Only in practical matters, Clementina." + +"And duty towards God is with you such a practical matter that you +cannot listen to anything he has got to say about it." + +Florimel shrugged her shoulders. + +"For my part, I would give all I have to know there was a God worth +believing in." + +"Clementina!" + +"What?" + +"Of course there is a God. It is very horrible to deny it." + +"Which is worse--to deny it, or to deny him? Now, I confess to +doubting it--that is, the fact of a God; but you seem to me to +deny God himself, for you admit there is a God--think it very +wicked to deny that, and yet you don't take interest enough in him +to wish to learn anything about him. You won't think, Florimel. I +don't fancy you ever really think." + +Florimel again laughed. + +"I am glad," she said, "that you don't judge me incapable of that +high art. But it is not so very long since Malcolm used to hint +something much the same about yourself, my lady!" + +"Then he was quite right," returned Clementina. "I am only just +beginning to think, and if I can find a teacher, here I am, his +pupil." + +"Well, I suppose I can spare my groom quite enough to teach you all +he knows," Florimel said, with what Clementina took for a marked +absence of expression. She reddened. But she was not one to defend +herself before her principles. + +"If he can, why should he not?" she said. "But it was of his friend +Mr Graham I was thinking---not himself." + +"You cannot tell whether he has got anything to teach you." + +"Your groom's testimony gives likelihood enough to make it my duty +to go and see. I intend to find the place this evening." + +"It must be some little ranting methodist conventicle. He would +not be allowed to preach in a church, you know." + +"Of course not! The church of England is like the apostle that +forbade the man casting out devils, and got forbid himself for it +--with this difference that she won't be forbid. Well, she chooses +her portion with Dives and not Lazarus. She is the most arrant +respecter of persons I know, and her Christianity is worse than a +farce. It was that first of all that drove me to doubt. If I could +find a place where everything was just the opposite, the poorer it +was the better I should like it. It makes me feel quite wicked to +hear a smug parson reading the gold ring and the goodly apparel, +while the pew openers beneath are illustrating in dumb show the +very thing the apostle is pouring out the vial of his indignation +upon over their heads;--doing it calmly and without a suspicion, +for the parson, while he reads, is rejoicing in his heart over the +increasing aristocracy of his congregation. The farce is fit to +make a devil in torment laugh." + +Once more, Florimel laughed aloud. + +"Another revolution, Clementina, and we shall have you heading the +canaille to destroy Westminster Abbey." + +"I would follow any leader to destroy falsehood," said Clementina. +"No canaille will take that up until it meddles with their stomachs +or their pew rents." + +"Really, Clementina, you are the worst Jacobin I ever heard talk. +My groom is quite an aristocrat beside you." + +"Not an atom more than I am. I do acknowledge an aristocracy-- +but it is one neither of birth nor of intellect nor of wealth." + +"What is there besides to make one?" + +"Something I hope to find before long. What if there be indeed a +kingdom and an aristocracy of life and truth!--Will you or will +you not go with me to hear this schoolmaster?" + +"I will go anywhere with you, if it were only to be seen with such +a beauty," said Florimel, throwing her arms round her neck and +kissing her. + +Clementina gently returned the embrace, and the thing was settled. + +The sound of their wheels, pausing in swift revolution with the +clangor of iron hoofs on rough stones at the door of the chapel, +refreshed the diaconal heart like the sound of water in the desert. +For the first time in the memory of the oldest, the dayspring of +success seemed on the point of breaking over Hope Chapel. The ladies +were ushered in by Mr Marshal himself, to Clementina's disgust and +Florimel's amusement, with much the same attention as his own shop +walker would have shown to carriage customers--How could a man +who taught light and truth be found in such a mean entourage? But +the setting was not the jewel. A real stone might be found in a +copper ring. So said Clementina to herself as she sat waiting her +hoped for instructor. + +Mrs Catanach settled her broad back into its corner, chuckling +over her own wisdom and foresight. Her seat was at the pulpit end +of the chapel, at right angles to almost all the rest of the pews +--chosen because thence, if indeed she could not well see the +preacher, she could get a good glimpse of nearly everyone that +entered. Keen sighted both physically and intellectually, she +recognized Florimel the moment she saw her. + +"Twa doos mair to the boody craw!" she laughed to herself. "Ae +man thrashin', an' twa birdies pickin'!" she went on, quoting the +old nursery nonsense. Then she stooped, and let down her veil. +Florimel hated her, and therefore might know her. + +"It's the day o' the Lord wi' auld Sanny Grame!" she resumed +to herself, as she lifted her head. "He's stickit nae mair, but a +chosen trumpet at last! Foul fa' 'im for a wearifu' cratur for a' +that! He has nowther balm o' grace nor pith o' damnation. + +"Yon laad Flemin', 'at preached i' the Baillies' Barn aboot the +dowgs gaein' roon' an' roon' the wa's o' the New Jeroozlem, gien +he had but hauden thegither an' no gean to the worms sae sune, wad +hae dung a score o' 'im. But Sanny angers me to that degree 'at but +for rizons--like yon twa--I wad gang oot i' the mids o' ane o' +'s palahvers, an' never come back, though I ha'e a haill quarter o' +my sittin' to sit oot yet, an' it cost me dear, an' fits the auld +back o' me no that ill." + +When Mr Graham rose to read the psalm, great was Clementina's +disappointment: he looked altogether, as she thought, of a sort +with the place--mean and dreary--of the chapel very chapelly, +and she did not believe it could be the man of whom Malcolm had +spoken. By a strange coincidence however, a kind of occurrence as +frequent as strange, he read for his text that same passage about +the gold ring and the vile raiment, in which we learn how exactly +the behaviour of the early Jewish churches corresponded to that +of the later English ones, and Clementina soon began to alter her +involuntary judgment of him when she found herself listening to +an utterance beside which her most voluble indignation would have +been but as the babble of a child. + +Sweeping, incisive, withering, blasting denunciation, logic +and poetry combining in one torrent of genuine eloquence, poured +confusion and dismay upon head and heart of all who set themselves +up for pillars of the church without practising the first principles +of the doctrine of Christ--men who, professing to gather their +fellows together in the name of Christ, conducted the affairs of +the church on the principles of hell--men so blind and dull and +slow of heart, that they would never know what the outer darkness +meant until it had closed around them--men who paid court to +the rich for their money, and to the poor for their numbers--men +who sought gain first, safety next, and the will of God not at all +--men whose presentation of Christianity was enough to drive the +world to a preferable infidelity. + +Clementina listened with her very soul. All doubt as to whether +this was Malcolm's friend, vanished within two minutes of his +commencement. If she rejoiced a little more than was humble or +healthful in finding that such a man thought as she thought, she +gained this good notwithstanding--the presence and power of a +man who believed in righteousness the doctrine he taught. Also she +perceived that the principles of equality he held, were founded +on the infinite possibilities of the individual--and of the race +only through the individual; and that he held these principles +with an absoluteness, an earnestness, a simplicity, that dwarfed +her loudest objurgation to the uneasy murmuring of a sleeper. She +could not but trust him, and her hope grew great that perhaps for +her he held the key of the kingdom of heaven. She saw that if what +this man said was true, then the gospel was represented by men who +knew nothing of its real nature, and by such she bad been led into +a false judgment of it. + +"If such a man," said the schoolmaster in conclusion, "would but +once represent to himself that the man whom he regards as beneath +him, may nevertheless be immeasurably above him--and that after +no arbitrary judgment, but according to the absolute facts of +creation, the scale of the kingdom of God, in which being is rank; +if he could persuade himself of the possibility that he may yet +have to worship before the feet of those on whom he looks down as +on the creatures of another and meaner order of creation, would it +not sting him to rise, and, lest this should be one of such, make +offer of his chair to the poor man in the vile raiment? Would he +ever more, all his life long, dare to say, 'Stand thou there, or +sit here under my footstool?'" + +During the week that followed, Clementina reflected with growing +delight on what she had heard, and looked forward to hearing more +of a kind correspondent on the approaching Sunday. Nor did the shock +of the disappearance of Florimel with Malcolm abate her desire to +be taught by Malcolm's friend. + +Lady Bellair was astounded, mortified, enraged. Liftore turned grey +with passion, then livid with mortification, at the news. Not one +of all their circle, as Florimel had herself foreseen, doubted for +a moment that she had run away with that groom of hers. Indeed, +upon examination, it became evident that the scheme had been for +some time in hand: the yacht they had gone on board had been lying +there for months; and although she was her own mistress, and might +marry whom she pleased, it was no wonder she had run away, for how +could she have held her face to it, or up after it? + +Lady Clementina accepted the general conclusion, but judged it +individually. She had more reason to be distressed at what seemed +to have taken place than anyone else; indeed it stung her to the +heart, wounding her worse than in its first stunning effects she was +able to know; yet she thought better rather than worse of Florimel +because of it. What she did not like in her with reference to the +affair was the depreciatory manner in which she had always spoken +of Malcolm. If genuine, it was quite inconsistent with due regard +for the man for whom she was yet prepared to sacrifice so much; +if, on the other hand, her slight opinion of his judgment was a +pretence, then she had been disloyal to the just prerogatives of +friendship. + +The latter part of that week was the sorest time Clementina had +ever passed. But, like a true woman, she fought her own misery and +sense of loss, as well as her annoyance and anxiety,--constantly +saying to herself that, be the thing as it might, she could never +cease to be glad that she had known Malcolm MacPhail. + + + +CHAPTER LIII: A NEW PUPIL + + +The sermon Lady Clementina heard with such delight had followed one +levelled at the common and right worldly idea of success harboured +by each, and unquestioned by one of the chief men of the community: +together they caused a strange uncertain sense of discomfort in +the mind diaconal. Slow to perceive that that idea, nauseous in +his presentment of it, was the very same cherished and justified +by themselves; unwilling also to believe that in his denunciation +of respecters of persons they themselves had a full share, they yet +felt a little uneasy from the vague whispers of their consciences +on the side of the neglected principles enounced, clashing with +the less vague conviction that if those whispers were encouraged +and listened to, the ruin of their hopes for their chapel, and +their influence in connection with it, must follow. They eyed each +other doubtfully, and there appeared a general tendency amongst +them to close pressed lips and single shakes of the head. But there +were other forces at work--tending in the same direction. + +Whatever may have been the influence of the schoolmaster upon the +congregation gathered in Hope Chapel, there was one on whom his +converse, supplemented by his preaching, had taken genuine hold. +Frederick Marshal had begun to open his eyes to the fact that, +regarded as a profession, the ministry, as they called it in their +communion, was the meanest way of making a living in the whole +creation, one deserving the contempt of every man honest enough to +give honourable work, that is, work worth the money, for the money +paid him. Also he had a glimmering insight, on the other hand, into +the truth of what the dominie said--that it was the noblest of +martyrdoms to the man who, sent by God, loved the truth with his +whole soul, and was never happier than when bearing witness of +it, except, indeed, in those blessed moments when receiving it of +the Father. In consequence of this opening of his eyes the youth +recoiled with dismay from the sacrilegious mockery of which he had +been guilty in meditating the presumption of teaching holy things +of which the sole sign that he knew anything was now afforded by +this same recoil. At last he was not far from the kingdom of heaven, +though whether he was to be sent to persuade men that that kingdom +was amongst them, and must be in them, remained a question. + +On the morning after the latter of those two sermons, Frederick, +as they sat at breakfast, succeeded, with no small effort, for he +feared his mother, in blurting out to his father the request that +he might be taken into the counting house; and when indignantly +requested, over the top of the teapot, to explain himself, declared +that he found it impossible to give his mind to a course of education +which could only end in the disappointment of his parents, seeing +he was at length satisfied that he had no call to the ministry. +His father was not displeased at the thought of having him at the +shop; but his mother was for some moments speechless with angry +tribulation. Recovering herself, with scornful bitterness she +requested to know to what tempter he had been giving ear--for +tempted he must have been ere son of hers would have been guilty +of backsliding from the cause; of taking his hand from the plough +and looking behind him. The youth returned such answers as, while +they satisfied his father he was right, served only to convince +his mother, where yet conviction was hardly needed, that she had to +thank the dominie for his defection, his apostasy from the church +to the world. + +Incapable of perceiving that now first there was hope of a genuine +disciple in the child of her affection, she was filled with the gall +of disappointment, and with spite against the man who had taught +her son how worse than foolish it is to aspire to teach before one +has learned; nor did she fail to cast scathing reflections on her +husband, in that he had brought home a viper in his bosom, a wolf +into his fold, the wretched minion of a worldly church to lead her +son away captive at his will; and partly no doubt from his last +uncomfortable sermons, but mainly from the play of Mrs Marshal's +tongue on her husband's tympanum, the deacons in full conclave +agreed that no further renewal of the invitation to preach "for +them" should be made to the schoolmaster--just the end of the +business Mr Graham had expected, and for which he had provided. On +Tuesday morning he smiled to himself, and wondered whether, if he +were to preach in his own schoolroom the next Sunday evening, anyone +would come to hear him. On Saturday he received a cool letter of +thanks for his services, written by the ironmonger in the name of +the deacons, enclosing a cheque, tolerably liberal as ideas went, +in acknowledgment of them. The cheque Mr Graham returned, saying +that, as he was not a preacher by profession, he had no right to +take fees. It was a half holiday: he walked up to Hampstead Heath, +and was paid for everything, in sky and cloud, fresh air, and a +glorious sunset. + +When the end of her troubled week came, and the Sunday of her +expectation brought lovely weather, with a certain vague suspicion +of peace, into the regions of Mayfair and Spitalfields, Clementina +walked across the Regent's Park to Hope Chapel, and its morning +observances; but thought herself poorly repaid for her exertions +by having to listen to a dreadful sermon and worse prayers from Mr +Masquar--one of the chief priests of Commonplace--a comfortable +idol to serve, seeing he accepts as homage to himself all that any +man offers to his own person, opinions, or history. But Clementina +contrived to endure it, comforting herself that she had made a +mistake in supposing Mr Graham preached in the morning. + +In the evening her carriage once again drew up with clang and clatter +at the door of the chapel. But her coachman was out of temper at +having to leave the bosom of his family circle--as he styled the +table that upheld his pot of beer and jar of tobacco--of a Sunday, +and sought relief to his feelings in giving his horses a lesson in +crawling; the result of which was fortunate for his mistress: when +she entered, the obnoxious Mr Masquar was already reading the hymn. +She turned at once and made for the door. + +But her carriage was already gone. A strange sense of loneliness +and desolation seized her. The place had grown hateful to her, and +she would have fled from it. Yet she lingered in the porch. The +eyes of the man in the pulpit, with his face of false solemnity +and low importance--she seemed to feel the look of them on her +back, yet she lingered. Now that Malcolm was gone, how was she to +learn when Mr Graham would be preaching? + +"If you please, ma'am," said a humble and dejected voice. + +She turned and saw the seamed and smoky face of the pew opener, +who had been watching her from the lobby, and had crept out after +her. She dropped a courtesy, and went on hurriedly, with an anxious +look now and then over her shoulder--"Oh, ma'am! we shan't see +'im no more. Our people here--they're very good people, but they +don't like to be told the truth. It seems to me as if they knowed +it so well they thought as how there was no need for them to mind +it." + +"You don't mean that Mr Graham has given up preaching here?" + +"They've given up askin' of 'im to preach, lady. But if ever there +was a good man in that pulpit, Mr Graham he do be that man!" + +"Do you know where he lives?" + +"Yes, ma'am; but it would be hard to direct you." Here she looked +in at the door of the chapel with a curious half frightened glance, +as if to satisfy herself that the inner door was closed. "But," +she went on, "they won't miss me now the service is begun, and I +can be back before it's over. I'll show you where, ma'am." + +"I should be greatly obliged to you," said Clementina, "only I am +sorry to give you the trouble." + +"To tell the truth, I'm only too glad to get away," she returned, +"for the place it do look like a cementery, now he's out of it." + +"Was he so kind to you?" + +"He never spoke word to me, as to myself like, no, nor never gave +me sixpence, like Mr Masquar do; but he give me strength in my +heart to bear up, and that's better than meat or money." + +It was a good half hour's walk, and during it Clementina held what +conversation she might with her companion. It was not much the +woman had to say of a general sort. She knew little beyond her +own troubles and the help that met them, but what else are the two +main forces whose composition results in upward motion? Her world +was very limited--the houses in which she went charing, the chapel +she swept and dusted, the neighbours with whom she gossipped, the +little shops where she bought the barest needs of her bare life; +but it was at least large enough to leave behind her; and if she +was not one to take the kingdom of heaven by force, she was yet +one to creep quietly into it. The earthly life of such as she-- +immeasurably less sordid than that of the poet who will not work +for his daily bread, or that of the speculator who, having settled +money on his wife, risks that of his neighbour--passing away like +a cloud, will hang in their west, stained indeed, but with gold, +blotted, but with roses. Dull as it all was now, Clementina yet +gained from her unfoldings a new outlook upon life, its needs, its +sorrows, its consolations, and its hopes; nor was there any vulgar +pity in the smile of the one, or of degrading acknowledgment in +the tears of the other, when a piece of gold passed from hand to +hand, as they parted. + +The Sunday sealed door of the stationer's shop--for there was no +private entrance to the house--was opened by another sad faced +woman. What a place to seek the secret of life in! Lovelily enfolds +the husk its kernel; but what the human eye turns from as squalid +and unclean may enfold the seed that clasps, couched in infinite +withdrawment, the vital germ of all that is lovely and graceful, +harmonious and strong, all without which no poet would sing, no +martyr burn, no king rule in righteousness, no geometrician pore +over the marvellous must. + +The woman led her through the counter into a little dingy room +behind the shop, looking out on a yard a few feet square, with a +water butt, half a dozen flower pots, and a maimed plaster Cupid +perched on the windowsill. There sat the schoolmaster, in conversation +with a lady, whom the woman of the house, awed by her sternness and +grandeur, had, out of regard to her lodger's feelings, shown into +her parlour and not into his bedroom. + +Cherishing the hope that the patent consequences of his line of action +might have already taught him moderation, Mrs Marshal, instead of +going to chapel to hear Mr Masquar, had paid Mr Graham a visit, +with the object of enlisting his sympathies if she could, at all +events his services, in the combating of the scruples he had himself +aroused in the bosom of her son. What had passed between them I +do not care to record, but when Lady Clementina--unannounced of +the landlady--entered, there was light enough, notwithstanding +the non reflective properties of the water butt, to reveal Mrs +Marshal flushed and flashing, Mr Graham grave and luminous, and +to enable the chapel business eye of Mrs Marshal, which saw every +stranger that entered "Hope," at once to recognise her as having +made one of the congregation the last Sunday evening. + +Evidently one of Mr Graham's party, she was not prejudiced in her +favour. But there was that in her manner which impressed her-- +that something ethereal and indescribable which she herself was +constantly aping, and, almost involuntarily, she took upon herself +such honours as the place, despicable in her eyes, would admit of. +She rose, made a sweeping courtesy, and addressed Lady Clementina +with such a manner as people of Mrs Marshal's ambitions put off +and on like their clothes. + +"Pray, take a seat, ma'am, such as it is," she said, with a wave +of her hand. "I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing you at +our place." + +Lady Clementina sat down: the room was too small to stand in, and +Mrs Marshal seemed to take the half of it. + +"I am not aware of the honour," she returned, doubtful what the +woman meant--perhaps some shop or dressmaker's. Clementina was +not one who delighted in freezing her humbler fellow creatures, as +we know; but there was something altogether repulsive in the would +be grand but really arrogant behaviour of her fellow visitor. + +"I mean," said Mrs Marshal, a little abashed, for ambition is not +strength, "at our little Bethel in Kentish Town! Not that we live +there!" she explained with a superior smile. + +"Oh! I think I understand. You must mean the chapel where this +gentleman was preaching." + +"That is my meaning," assented Mrs Marshal. + +"I went there tonight," said Clementina, turning with some timidity +to Mr Graham. "That I did not find you there, sir, will, I hope, +explain--"Here she paused, and turned again to Mrs Marshal. "I see +you think with me, ma'am, that a true teacher is worth following." + +As she said this she turned once more to Mr Graham, who sat listening +with a queer, amused, but right courteous smile. + +"I hope you will pardon me," she continued, "for venturing to +call upon you, and, as I have the misfortune to find you occupied, +allow me to call another day. If you would set me a time, I should +be more obliged than I can tell you," she concluded, her voice +trembling a little. + +"Stay now, if you will, madam," returned the schoolmaster, with a +bow of oldest fashioned courtesy. "This lady has done laying her +commands upon me, I believe." + +"As you think proper to call them commands, Mr Graham, I conclude +you intend to obey them," said Mrs Marshal, with a forced smile +and an attempt at pleasantry. + +"Not for the world, madam," he answered. "Your son is acting the +part of a gentleman--yes, I make bold to say, of one who is very +nigh the kingdom of heaven, if not indeed within its gate, and before +I would check him I would be burnt at the stake--even were your +displeasure the fire, madam," he added, with a kindly bow. "Your +son is a line fellow." + +"He would be, if he were left to himself. Good evening, Mr Graham. +Goodbye, rather, for I think we are not likely to meet again." + +"In heaven, I hope, madam; for by that time we shall be able to +understand each other," said the schoolmaster, still kindly. + +Mrs Marshal made no answer beyond a facial flash as she turned to +Clementina. + +"Good evening, ma'am," she said. "To pay court to the earthen +vessel because of the treasure it may happen to hold, is to be a +respecter of persons as bad as any." + +An answering flash broke from Clementina's blue orbs, but her speech +was more than calm as she returned, + +"I learned something of that lesson last Sunday evening, I hope, +ma'am. But you have left me far behind, for you seem to have learned +disrespect even to the worthiest of persons. Good evening, ma'am." + +She looked the angry matron full in the face, with an icy regard, +from which, as from the Gorgon eye, she fled. + +The victor turned to the schoolmaster. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," she said, "for presuming to take your +part, but a gentleman is helpless with a vulgar woman." + +"I thank you, madam. I hope the sharpness of your rebuke--but +indeed the poor woman can hardly help her rudeness, for she is very +worldly, and believes herself very pious. It is the old story-- +hard for the rich." + +Clementina was struck. + +"I too am rich and worldly," she said. "But I know that I am not +pious, and if you would but satisfy me that religion is common +sense, I would try to be religious with all my heart and soul." + +"I willingly undertake the task. But let us know each other a +little first. And lest I should afterwards seem to have taken an +advantage of you, I hope you have no wish to be nameless to me, for +my friend Malcolm MacPhail had so described you that I recognized +your ladyship at once." + +Clementina said that, on the contrary, she had given her name to +the woman who opened the door. + +"It is because of what Malcolm said of you that I ventured to come +to you," she added. + +"Have you seen Malcolm lately?" he asked, his brow clouding a +little. "It is more than a week since he has been to me." + +Thereupon, with embarrassment, such as she would never have felt except +in the presence of pure simplicity, she told of his disappearance +with his mistress. + +"And you think they have run away together?" said the schoolmaster, +his face beaming with what, to Clementina's surprise, looked almost +like merriment. + +"Yes, I think so," she answered. "Why not, if they choose?" + +"I will say this for my friend Malcolm," returned Mr Graham composedly, +"that whatever he did I should expect to find not only all right +in intention, but prudent and well devised also. The present may +well seem a rash, ill considered affair for both of them, but--" + +"I see no necessity either for explanation or excuse," said +Clementina, too eager to mark that she interrupted Mr Graham. "In +making up her mind to marry him, Lady Lossie has shown greater +wisdom and courage than, I confess, I had given her credit for." + +"And Malcolm?" rejoined the schoolmaster softly. "Should you say +of him that he showed equal wisdom?" + +"I decline to give an opinion upon the gentleman's part in the +business," answered Clementina, laughing, but glad there was so +little light in the room, for she was painfully conscious of the +burning of her cheeks. "Besides, I have no measure to apply to +Malcolm," she went on, a little hurriedly. "He is like no one else +I have ever talked with, and I confess there is something about +him I cannot understand. Indeed, he is beyond me altogether." + +"Perhaps, having known him from infancy, I might be able to explain +him," returned Mr Graham, in a tone that invited questioning. + +"Perhaps, then," said Clementina, "I may be permitted, in jealousy +for the teaching I have received of him, to confess my bewilderment +that one so young should be capable of dealing with such things as +he delights in. The youth of the prophet makes me doubt his prophecy." + +"At least," rejoined Mr Graham, "the phenomenon coincides with what +the master of these things said of them--that they were revealed +to babes and not to the wise and prudent. As to Malcolm's wonderful +facility in giving them form and utterance, that depends so +immediately on the clear sight of them, that, granted a little of +the gift poetic, developed through reading and talk, we need not +wonder much at it." + +"You consider your friend a genius?" suggested Clementina. + +"I consider him possessed of a kind of heavenly common sense, +equally at home in the truths of divine relation, and the facts of +the human struggle with nature and her forces. I should never have +discovered my own ignorance in certain points of the mathematics +but for the questions that boy put to me before he was twelve years +of age. A thing not understood lay in his mind like a fretting +foreign body. But there is a far more important factor concerned +than this exceptional degree of insight. Understanding is the reward +of obedience. Peter says 'the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given them +that obey him.' Obedience is the key to every door. I am perplexed +at the stupidity of the ordinary religious being. In the most practical +of all matters, he will talk, and speculate, and try to feel, but +he will not set himself to do. It is different with Malcolm. From +the first he has been trying to obey. Nor do I see why it should be +strange that even a child should understand these things, if they +are the very elements of the region for which we were created and +to which our being holds essential relations, as a bird to the +air, or a fish to the sea. If a man may not understand the things +of God whence he came, what shall he understand?" + +"How, then, is it that so few do understand?" + +"Because where they know, so few obey. This boy, I say, did. If +you had seen, as I have, the almost superhuman struggles of his +will to master the fierce temper his ancestors gave him, you would +marvel less at what he has so early become. I have seen him, white +with passion, cast himself on his face on the shore, and cling with +his hands to the earth as if in a paroxysm of bodily suffering; +then after a few moments rise and do a service to the man who had +wronged him. Were it any wonder if the light should have soon gone +up in a soul like that? When I was a younger man I used to go out +with the fishing boats now and then, drawn chiefly by my love for +the boy, who earned his own bread that way before he was in his +teens. One night we were caught in a terrible storm, and had to +stand out to sea in the pitch dark. He was then not fourteen. 'Can +you let a boy like that steer?' I said to the captain of the boat. +'Yes; just a boy like that,' he answered. 'Ma'colm 'ill steer +as straucht's a porpus.' When he was relieved, he crept over the +thwarts to where I sat. 'Is there any true definition of a straight +line, sir?' he said. 'I can't take the one in my Euclid.'--'So +you're not afraid, Malcolm?' I returned, heedless of his question, +for I wanted to see what he would answer. 'Afraid, sir!' he rejoined +with some surprise, 'I wad ill like to hear the Lord say, O thou +o' little faith!'--'But,' I persisted, 'God may mean to drown +you!'--'An' what for no?' he returned. 'Gien ye war to tell me +'at I micht be droon't ohn him meant it, I wad be fleyt eneuch.' +I see your ladyship does not understand: I will interpret the dark +saying: 'And why should he not drown me? If you were to tell me +I might be drowned without his meaning it, I should be frightened +enough.' Believe me, my lady, the right way is simple to find, +though only they that seek it first can find it. But I have allowed +myself," concluded the schoolmaster, "to be carried adrift in my +laudation of Malcolm. You did not come to hear praises of him, my +lady." + +"I owe him much," said Clementina. "--But tell me then, Mr Graham, +how is it that you know there is a God, and one--one--fit to +be trusted as you trust him?" + +"In no way that I can bring to bear on the reason of another so as +to produce conviction." + +"Then what is to become of me?" + +"I can do for you what is far better. I can persuade you to look +and see whether before your own door stands not a gate--lies not +a path to walk in. Entering by that gate, walking in that path, +you shall yourself arrive at the conviction, which no man can give +you, that there is a living Love and Truth at the heart of your +being, and pervading all that surrounds you. The man who seeks +the truth in any other manner will never find it. Listen to me a +moment, my lady. I loved that boy's mother. Naturally she did not +love me--how could she? I was very unhappy. I sought comfort +from the unknown source of my life. He gave me to understand his +Son, and so I understood himself, knew that I came of God, and was +comforted." + +"But how do you know that it was not all a delusion--the product +of your own fervid imagination? Do not mistake me; I want to find +it true." + +"It is a right and honest question, my lady. I will tell you. + +"Not to mention the conviction which a truth beheld must carry with +itself and concerning which there can be no argument either with +him who does or him who does not see it, this experience goes far +with me, and would with you if you had it, as you may--namely, +that all my difficulties and confusions have gone on clearing +themselves up ever since I set out to walk in that way. My consciousness +of life is threefold what it was; my perception of what is lovely +around me, and my delight in it, threefold; my power of understanding +things and of ordering my way, threefold also; the same with my +hope and my courage, my love to my kind, my power of forgiveness. +In short, I cannot but believe that my whole being and its whole +world are in process of rectification for me. Is not that something +to set against the doubt born of the eye and ear, and the questions +of an intellect that can neither grasp nor disprove? I say nothing +of better things still. To the man who receives such as I mean, +they are the heart of life; to the man who does not, they exist +not. But I say--if I thus find my whole being enlightened and +redeemed, and know that therein I fare according to the word of +the man of whom the old story tells: if I find that his word, and +the result of action founded upon that word, correspond and agree, +opening a heaven within and beyond me, in which I see myself +delivered from all that now in myself is to myself despicable and +unlovely; if I can reasonably--reasonably to myself not to another +--cherish hopes of a glory of conscious being, divinely better +than all my imagination when most daring could invent--a glory +springing from absolute unity with my creator, and therefore with +my neighbour; if the Lord of the ancient tale, I say, has thus held +word with me, am I likely to doubt much or long whether there be +such a lord or no?" + +"What, then, is the way that lies before my own door? Help me to +see it." + +"It is just the old way--as old as the conscience--that of +obedience to any and every law of personal duty. But if you have +ever seen the Lord, if only from afar--if you have any vaguest +suspicion that the Jew Jesus, who professed to have come from God, +was a better man than other men, one of your first duties must +be to open your ears to his words, and see whether they commend +themselves to you as true; then, if they do, to obey them with your +whole strength and might, upheld by the hope of the vision promised +in them to the obedient. This is the way of life, which will lead +a man out of the miseries of the nineteenth century, as it led Paul +out of the miseries of the first." + +There followed a little pause, and then a long talk about what the +schoolmaster had called the old story; in which he spoke with such +fervid delight of this and that point in the tale; removing this +and that stumbling-block by giving the true reading--or the +right interpretation; showing the what and why and how--the very +intent of our Lord in the thing he said or did, that, for the first +time in her life, Clementina began to feel as if such a man must +really have lived, that his blessed feet must really have walked +over the acres of Palestine, that his human heart must indeed have +thought and felt, worshipped and borne, right humanly. Even in the +presence of her new teacher, and with his words in her ears, she +began to desire her own chamber that she might sit down with the +neglected story and read for herself. + +The schoolmaster walked with her to the chapel door. There her +carriage was already waiting. He put her in, and, while the Reverend +Jacob Masquar was still holding forth upon the difference between +adoption and justification, Clementina drove away, never more to +delight the hearts of the deacons with the noise of the hoofs of +her horses, staying the wheels of her yellow chariot. + + + +CHAPTER LIV: THE FEY FACTOR + + +When Mr Crathie heard of the outrage the people of Scaurnose had +committed upon the surveyors, he vowed be would empty every house +in the place at Michaelmas. His wife warned him that such a wholesale +proceeding must put him in the wrong with the country, seeing they +could not all have been guilty. He replied it would be impossible, +the rascals hung so together, to find out the ringleaders +even. She returned that they all deserved it, and that a correct +discrimination was of no consequence; it would be enough to the +purpose if he made a difference. People would then say he had done +his best to distinguish. The factor was persuaded and made out a +list of those who were to leave, in which he took care to include +all the principal men, to whom he gave warning forthwith to quit +their houses at Michaelmas. I do not know whether the notice was +in law sufficient, but exception was not taken on that score. + +Scaurnose, on the receipt of the papers, all at the same time, by +the hand of the bellman of Portlossie, was like a hive about to +swarm. Endless and complicated were the comings and goings between +the houses, the dialogues, confabulations, and consultations, in +the one street and its many closes. In the middle of it, in front +of the little public house, stood, all that day and the next, a group +of men and women, for no five minutes in its component parts the +same, but, like a cloud, ever slow dissolving, and as continuously +reforming, some dropping away, others falling to. Such nid nodding, such +uplifting and fanning of palms among the women, such semi-revolving +side shakes of the head, such demonstration of fists, and such cursing +among the men, had never before been seen and heard in Scaurnose. +The result was a conclusion to make common cause with the first +victim of the factor's tyranny, namely Blue Peter, whose expulsion +would arrive three months before theirs, and was unquestionably +head and front of the same cruel scheme for putting down the fisher +folk altogether. + +Three of them, therefore, repaired to Joseph's house, commissioned +with the following proposal and condition of compact: that Joseph +should defy the notice given him to quit, they pledging themselves +that he should not be expelled. Whether he agreed or not, they were +equally determined, they said, when their turn came, to defend the +village; but if he would cast in his lot with them, they would, in +defending him, gain the advantage of having the question settled +three months sooner for themselves. Blue Peter sought to dissuade +them, specially insisting on the danger of bloodshed. They laughed. +They had anticipated objection, but being of the youngest and +roughest in the place, the idea of a scrimmage was, neither in +itself nor in its probable consequences, at all repulsive to them. +They answered that a little blood letting would do nobody any harm, +neither would there be much of that, for they scorned to use any +weapon sharper than their fists or a good thick rung: the women +and children would take stones of course. Nobody would be killed, +but every meddlesome authority taught to let Scaurnose and fishers +alone. Peter objected that their enemies could easily starve them +out. Dubs rejoined that, if they took care to keep the sea door open, +their friends at Portlossie would not let them starve. Grosert said +he made no doubt the factor would have the Seaton to fight as well +as Scaurnose, for they must see plainly enough that their turn would +come next. Joseph said the factor would apply to the magistrates, +and they would call out the militia. + +"An' we'll call out Buckie," answered Dubs. + +"Man," said Fite Folp, the eldest of the three, "the haill shore, +frae the Brough to Fort George, 'll be up in a jiffie, an' a' the +cuintry, frae John o' Groat's to Berwick, 'ill hear hoo the fisher +fowk 's misguidit; an' at last it'll come to the king, an' syne +we'll get oor richts, for he'll no stan' to see't, an' maitters 'll +sane be set upon a better futtin' for puir fowk 'at has no freen' +but God an' the sea." + +The greatness of the result represented laid hold of Peter's +imagination, and the resistance to injustice necessary to reach it +stirred the old tar in him. When they took their leave, he walked +halfway up the street with them, and then returned to tell his wife +what they had been saying, all the way murmuring to himself as he +went, "The Lord is a man of war." And ever as he said the words, +he saw as in a vision the great man of war in which he had served, +sweeping across the bows of a Frenchman, and raking him, gun after +gun, from stem to stern. Nor did the warlike mood abate until +he reached home and looked his wife in the eyes. He told her all, +ending with the half repudiatory, half tentative words. + +"That's what they say, ye see, Annie." + +"And what say ye, Joseph?" returned his wife. + +"Ow! I'm no sayin'," he answered. + +"What are ye thinkin' than, Joseph?" she pursued. "Ye canna say +ye're no thinkin'." + +"Na; I'll no say that, lass," he replied, but said no more. + +"Weel, gien ye winna say," resumed Annie, "I wull; an' my say is, +'at it luiks to me unco like takin' things intil yer ain han'." + +"An' whase han' sud we tak them intil but oor ain?" said Peter, +with a falseness which in another would have roused his righteous +indignation. + +"That's no the p'int. It's whase han' ye're takin' them oot o'," +returned she, and spoke with solemnity and significance. + +Peter made no answer, but the words Vengeance is mine began to ring +in his mental ears instead of The Lord is a man of war. + +Before Mr Graham left them, and while Peter's soul was flourishing, +he would have simply said that it was their part to endure, and +leave the rest to the God of the sparrows. But now the words of +men whose judgment had no weight with him, threw him back upon the +instinct of self defence--driven from which by the words of his +wife, he betook himself, not alas! to the protection, but to the +vengeance of the Lord! + +The next day he told the three commissioners that he was sorry to +disappoint them, but he could not make common cause with them, for +he could not see it his duty to resist, much as it would gratify +the natural man. They must therefore excuse him if he left Scaurnose +at the time appointed. He hoped he should leave friends behind him. + +They listened respectfully, showed no offence, and did not even +attempt to argue the matter with him. But certain looks passed +between them. + +After this Blue Peter was a little happier in his mind, and went +more briskly about his affairs. + + + +CHAPTER LV: THE WANDERER + + +It was a lovely summer evening, and the sun, going down just beyond +the point of the Scaurnose, shone straight upon the Partan's door. +That it was closed in such weather had a significance--general as +well as individual. Doors were oftener closed in the Seaton now. +The spiritual atmosphere of the place was less clear and open +than hitherto. The behaviour of the factor, the trouble of their +neighbours, the conviction that the man who depopulated Scaurnose +would at least raise the rents upon them, had brought a cloud +over the feelings and prospects of its inhabitants--which their +special quarrel with the oppressor for Malcolm's sake, had drawn +deeper around the Findlays; and hence it was that the setting sun +shone upon the closed door of their cottage. + +But a shadow darkened it, cutting off the level stream of rosy red. +An aged man, in Highland garments, stood and knocked. His overworn +dress looked fresher and brighter in the friendly rays, but they +shone very yellow on the bare hollows of his old knees. It was +Duncan MacPhail, the supposed grandfather of Malcolm. He was older +and feebler, I had almost said blinder, but that could not be, +certainly shabbier than ever. The glitter of dirk and broadsword at +his sides, and the many coloured ribbons adorning the old bagpipes +under his arms, somehow enhanced the look of more than autumnal, +of wintry desolation in his appearance. + +Before he left the Seaton, the staff he carried was for show rather +than use, but now he was bent over it, as if but for it he would +fall into his grave. His knock was feeble and doubtful, as if unsure +of a welcoming response. He was broken, sad, and uncomforted. + +A moment passed. The door was unlatched, and within stood the +Partaness, wiping her hands in her apron, and looking thunderous. +But when she saw who it was, her countenance and manner changed +utterly. + +"Preserve's a'! Ye're a sicht for sair e'en, Maister MacPhail!" she +cried, holding out her hand, which the blind man took as if he saw +as well as she. "Come awa' but the hoose. Wow! but ye're walcome." + +"She thanks your own self, Mistress Partan," said Duncan, as he +followed her in; "and her heart will pe thanking you for ta coot +welcome; and it will pe a long time since she'll saw you howefer." + +"Noo, noo!" exclaimed Meg, stopping in the middle of her little +kitchen, as she was getting a chair for the old man, and turning +upon him to revive on the first possible chance what had been a +standing quarrel between them, "what can be the rizon 'at gars ane +like you, 'at never saw man or wuman i' yer lang life, the verra +meenute ye open yer mou', say it's lang sin' ye saw me. A mensefu' +body like you, Maister MacPhail, sud speyk mair to the p'int." + +"Ton't you'll pe preaking her heart with ta one hand while you'll +pe clapping her head with ta other," said the piper. "Ton't be +taking her into your house to pe telling her she can't see. Is it +that old Tuncan is not a man as much as any woman in ta world, tat +you'll pe telling her she can't see? I tell you she can see, and +more tan you'll pe think. And I will tell it to you, tere iss a pape +in this house, and tere was pe none when Tuncan she'll co away." + +"We a' ken ye ha'e the second sicht," said Mrs Findlay, who had +not expected such a reply; "an' it was only o' the first I spak. +Haith! it wad be ill set o' me to anger ye the moment ye come back +to yer ain. Sit ye doon there by the chimla neuk, till I mask ye +a dish o' tay. Or maybe ye wad prefar a drap o' parritch an' milk? +It's no muckle I ha'e to offer ye, but ye cudna be mair walcome." + +As easily appeased as irritated, the old man sat down with a +grateful, placid look, and while the tea was drawing Mrs Findlay, by +judicious questions, gathered from him the history of his adventures. + +Unable to rise above the disappointment and chagrin of finding +that the boy he loved as his own soul, and had brought up as his +own son was actually the child of a Campbell woman, one of the +race to which belonged the murderer of his people in Glencoe, and +which therefore he hated with an absolute passion of hatred, unable +also to endure the terrible schism in his being occasioned by the +conflict between horror at the Campbell blood, and ineffaceable +affection for the youth in whose veins it ran, and who so fully +deserved all the love he had lavished upon him, he had concluded to +rid himself of all the associations of place and people and event +now grown so painful, to make his way back to his native Glencoe, +and there endure his humiliation as best he might, beheld of the +mountains which had beheld the ruin of his race. He would end the +few and miserable days of his pilgrimage amid the rushing of the +old torrents, and the calling of the old winds about the crags and +precipices that had hung over his darksome yet blessed childhood. +These were still his friends. But he had not gone many days' +journey before a farmer found him on the road insensible, and took +him home. As he recovered, his longing after his boy Malcolm grew, +until it rose to agony, but he fought with his heart, and believed +he had overcome it. The boy was a good boy, he said to himself; +the boy had been to him as the son of his own heart; there was no +fault to find with him or in him; he was as brave as he was kind, +as sincere as he was clever, as strong as he was gentle; he could +play on the bagpipes, and very nearly talk Gaelic, but his mother +was a Campbell, and for that there was no help. To be on loving terms +with one in whose veins ran a single drop of the black pollution +was a thing no MacDhonuill must dream of. He had lived a man of +honour, and he would die a man of honour, hating the Campbells to +their last generation. How should the bard of his clan ever talk to +his own soul if he knew himself false to the name of his fathers! +Hard fate for him! As if it were not enough that he had been doomed +to save and rear a child of the brood abominable, he was yet further +doomed, worst fate of all, to love the evil thing! he could not +tear the lovely youth from his heart. But he could go further and +further from him. + +As soon as he was able, he resumed his journey westward, and at +length reached his native glen, the wildest spot in all the island. +There he found indeed the rush of the torrents and the call of the +winds unchanged, but when his soul cried out in its agonies, they +went on with the same song that had soothed his childhood; for the +heart of the suffering man they had no response. Days passed before +he came upon a creature who remembered him; for more than twenty +years were gone, and a new generation had come up since he forsook +the glen. Worst of all, the clan spirit was dying out, the family +type of government all but extinct, the patriarchal vanishing in +a low form of the feudal, itself already in abject decay. The hour +of the Celt was gone by, and the long wandering raven, returning +at last, found the ark it had left afloat on the waters dry and +deserted and rotting to dust. There was not even a cottage in which +he could hide his head. The one he had forsaken when cruelty and +crime drove him out, had fallen to ruins, and now there was nothing +of it left but its foundations. The people of the inn at the mouth +of the valley did their best for him, but he learned by accident +that they had Campbell connections, and, rising that instant, walked +from it for ever. He wandered about for a time, playing his pipes, +and everywhere hospitably treated; but at length his heart could +endure its hunger no more: he must see his boy, or die. He walked +therefore straight to the cottage of his quarrelsome but true friend, +Mrs Partan--to learn that his benefactor, the marquis, was dead, +and Malcolm gone. But here alone could he hope ever to see him +again, and the same night he sought his cottage in the grounds of +Lossie House, never doubting his right to re-occupy it. But the door +was locked, and he could find no entrance. He went to the House, +and there was referred to the factor. But when he knocked at his +door, and requested the key of the cottage, Mr Crathie, who was +in the middle of his third tumbler, came raging out of his dining +room, cursed him for an old Highland goat, and heaped insults +on him and his grandson indiscriminately. It was well he kept the +door between him and the old man, for otherwise he would never have +finished the said third tumbler. That door carried in it thenceforth +the marks of every weapon that Duncan bore, and indeed the half of +his sgian dhu was the next morning found sticking in it, like the +sting which the bee is doomed to leave behind her. He returned to +Mistress Partan white and trembling, in a mountainous rage with +"ta low pred hount of a factor." Her sympathy was enthusiastic, for +they shared a common wrath. And now came the tale of the factor's +cruelty to the fishers, his hatred of Malcolm, and his general +wildness of behaviour. The piper vowed to shed the last drop of his +blood in defence of his Mistress Partan. But when, to strengthen +the force of his asseveration, he drew the dangerous looking dirk +from its sheath, she threw herself upon him, wrenched it from his +hand, and testified that "fules sudna hae chappin' sticks, nor yet +teylors guns." It was days before Duncan discovered where she had +hidden it. But not the less heartily did she insist on his taking +up his abode with her; and the very next day he resumed his old +profession of lamp cleaner to the community. + +When Miss Horn heard that he had come and where he was, old feud +with Meg Partan rendering it imprudent to call upon him, she watched +for him in the street, and welcomed him home, assuring him that, +if ever he should wish to change his quarters, her house was at +his service. + +"I'm nae Cam'ell, ye ken, Duncan," she concluded, "an' what an auld +wuman like mysel' can du to mak ye coamfortable sail no fail, an' +that I promise ye." + +The old man thanked her with the perfect courtesy of the Celt, +confessed that he was not altogether at ease where he was, but said +he must not hurt the feelings of Mistress Partan, "for she'll not +pe a paad womans," he added, "but her house will pe aalways in ta +flames, howefer." + +So he remained where he was, and the general heart of the Seaton was +not a little revived by the return of one whose presence reminded +them of a better time, when no such cloud as now threatened them +heaved its ragged sides above their horizon. + +The factor was foolish enough to attempt inducing Meg to send her +guest away. + +"We want no landloupin' knaves, old or young, about Lossie," he +said. "If the place is no keepit dacent, we'll never get the young +marchioness to come near's again." + +"'Deed, factor," returned Meg, enhancing the force of her utterance +by a composure marvellous from it's rarity, "the first thing to +mak' the place--I'll no say dacent, sae lang there's sae mony +claverin' wives in't, but mair dacent nor it has been for the last +ten year, wad be to sen' factors back whaur they cam' frae." + +"And whaur may that be?" asked Mr Crathie. + +"That's mair nor I richtly can say," answered Meg Partan, "but auld +farand fouk threepit it was somewhaur 'ithin the swing o' Sawtan's +tail." + +The reply on the factor's lips as he left the house, tended to +justify the rude sarcasm. + + + +CHAPTER LVI: MID OCEAN + + +There came a breath of something in the east. It was neither wind +nor warmth. It was light before it is light to the eyes of men. +Slowly and slowly it grew, until, like the dawning soul in the +face of one who lies in a faint, the life of light came back to +the world, and at last the whole huge hollow hemisphere of rushing +sea and cloud flecked sky lay like a great empty heart, waiting, +in conscious glory of the light, for the central glory, the coming +lord of day. And in the whole crystalline hollow, gleaming and +flowing with delight, yet waiting for more, the Psyche was the +only lonely life bearing thing--the one cloudy germ spot afloat +in the bosom of the great roc egg of sea and sky, whose sheltering +nest was the universe with its walls of flame. + +Florimel woke, rose, went on deck, and for a moment was fresh born. +It was a forescent--even this could not be called a foretaste, +of the kingdom of heaven; but Florimel never thought of the kingdom +of heaven, the ideal of her own existence. She could however half +appreciate this earthly outbreak of its glory, this incarnation of +truth invisible. Round her, like a thousand doves, clamoured with +greeting wings the joyous sea wind. Up came a thousand dancing +billows, to shout their good morning. Like a petted animal, importunate +for play, the breeze tossed her hair and dragged at her fluttering +garments, then rushed in the Psyche's sails, swelled them yet +deeper, and sent her dancing over the dancers. The sun peered up +like a mother waking and looking out on her frolicking children. +Black shadows fell from sail to sail, slipping and shifting, and +one long shadow of the Psyche herself shot over the world to the +very gates of the west, but held her not, for she danced and leaned +and flew as if she had but just begun her corantolavolta fresh +with the morning, and had not been dancing all the livelong night +over the same floor. Lively as any newborn butterfly, not like a +butterfly's, flitting and hovering, was her flight, for still, like +one that longed, she sped and strained and flew. The joy of bare +life swelled in Florimel's bosom. She looked up, she looked around, +she breathed deep. The cloudy anger that had rushed upon her like a +watching tiger the moment she waked, fell back, and left her soul +a clear minor to reflect God's dream of a world. She turned, and +saw Malcolm at the tiller, and the cloudy wrath sprang upon her. +He stood composed and clear and cool as the morning, without sign +of doubt or conscience of wrong, now peeping into the binnacle, +now glancing at the sunny sails, where swayed across and back the +dark shadows of the rigging, as the cutter leaned and rose, like +a child running and staggering over the multitudinous and unstable +hillocks. She turned from him. + +"Good morning, my lady! What a good morning it is!" As in all his +address to his mistress, the freedom of the words did not infect the +tone; that was resonant of essential honour. "Strange to think," +he went on, "that the sun himself there is only a great fire, +and knows nothing about it! There must be a sun to that sun, or +the whole thing is a vain show. There must be one to whom each is +itself, yet the all makes a whole--one who is at once both centre +and circumference to all." + +Florimel cast on him a scornful look. For not merely was he +talking his usual unintelligible rubbish of poetry, but he had the +impertinence to speak as if he had done nothing amiss, and she had +no ground for being offended with him. She made him no answer. A +cloud came over Malcolm's face; and until she went again below, he +gave his attention to his steering. + +In the meantime Rose, who happily had turned out as good a sailor +as her new mistress, had tidied the little cabin; and Florimel +found, if not quite such a sumptuous breakfast laid as at Portland +Place, yet a far better appetite than usual to meet what there +was; and when she had finished, her temper was better, and she was +inclined to think less indignantly of Malcolm's share in causing +her so great a pleasure. She was not yet quite spoiled. She was +still such a lover of the visible world and of personal freedom, +that the thought of returning to London and its leaden footed +hours, would now have been unendurable. At this moment she could +have imagined no better thing than thus to go tearing through the +water--home to her home. For although she had spent little of +her life at Lossie House, she could not but prefer it unspeakably +to the schools in which she had passed almost the whole of the preceding +portion of it. There was little or nothing in the affair she could +have wished otherwise except its origin. She was mischievous enough +to enjoy even the thought of the consternation it would cause at +Portland Place. She did not realize all its awkwardness. A letter +to Lady Bellair when she reached home would, she said to herself, +set everything right; and if Malcolm had now repented and put about, +she would instantly have ordered him to hold on for Lossie. But it +was mortifying that she should have come at the will of Malcolm, +and not by her own--worse than mortifying that perhaps she would +have to say so. If she were going to say so, she must turn him away +as soon as she arrived. There was no help for it. She dared not +keep him after that in the face of society. But she might take the +bold, and perhaps a little dangerous measure of adopting the flight +as altogether her own madcap idea. Her thoughts went floundering +in the bog of expediency, until she was tired, and declined from +thought to reverie. + +Then dawning out of the dreamland of her past, appeared the image +of Lenorme. Pure pleasure, glorious delight, such as she now felt, +could not long possess her mind, without raising in its charmed +circle the vision of the only man except her father whom she had +ever--something like loved. Her behaviour to him had not yet roused +in her shame or sorrow or sense of wrong. She had driven him from +her; she was ashamed of her relation to him; she had caused him +bitter suffering; she had all but promised to marry another man; +yet she had not the slightest wish for that man's company there and +then: with no one of her acquaintance but Lenorme could she have +shared this conscious splendour of life. + +"Would to God he had been born a gentleman instead of a painter!" +she said to herself when her imagination had brought him from the +past, and set him in the midst of the present. + +"Rank," she said, "I am above caring about. In that he might be +ever so far my inferior, and welcome, if only he had been of a good +family, a gentleman born!" + +She was generosity, magnanimity itself in her own eyes! Yet he +was of far better family than she knew, for she had never taken +the trouble to inquire into his history. And now she was so much +easier in her mind since she had so cruelly broken with him, that +she felt positively virtuous because she had done it, and he was not +at that moment by her side. And yet if he had that moment stepped +from behind the mainsail, she would in all probability have thrown +herself into his arms. + +The day passed on: Florimel grew tired and went to sleep; woke and +had her dinner; took a volume of the "Arabian Nights," and read +herself again to sleep; woke again; went on deck; saw the sun +growing weary in the west. And still the unwearied wind blew, and +still the Psyche danced on, as unwearied as the wind. + +The sunset was rather an assumption than a decease, a reception of +him out of their sight into an eternity of gold and crimson; and +when he was gone, and the gorgeous bliss had withered into a dove +hued grief, then the cool, soft twilight, thoughtful of the past +and its love, crept out of the western caves over the breast of the +water, and filled the dome and made of itself a great lens royal, +through which the stars and their motions were visible; and the +ghost of Aurora with both hands lifted her shroud above her head +and made a dawn for the moon on the verge of the watery horizon-- +a dawn as of the past, the hour of inverted hope. + +Not a word all day had been uttered between Malcolm and his mistress: +when the moon appeared, with the waves sweeping up against her +face, he approached Florimel where she sat in the stern. Davy was +steering. + +"Will your ladyship come forward and see how the Psyche goes?" +he said. "At the stern, you can see only the passive part of her +motion. It is quite another thing to see the will of her at work +in the bows." + +At first she was going to refuse; but she changed her mind, or +her mind changed her: she was not much more of a living and acting +creature yet than the Psyche herself. She said nothing, but rose, +and permitted Malcolm to help her forward. + +It was the moon's turn now to be level with the water, and as +Florimel stood on the larboard side, leaning over and gazing down, +she saw her shine through the little feather of spray the cutwater +sent curling up before it, and turn it into pearls and semiopals. + +"She's got a bone in her mouth, you see, my lady," said old Travers. + +"Go aft till I call you, Travers," said Malcolm. + +Rose was in Florimel's cabin, and they were now quite alone. + +"My lady," said Malcolm, "I can't bear to have you angry with me." + +"Then you ought not to deserve it," returned Florimel. + +"My lady, if you knew all, you would not say I deserved it." + +"Tell me all then, and let me judge." + +"I cannot tell you all yet, but I will tell you something which +may perhaps incline you to feel merciful. Did your ladyship ever +think what could make me so much attached to your father?" + +"No indeed. I never saw anything peculiar in it. Even nowadays +there are servants to be found who love their masters. It seems to +me natural enough. Besides he was very kind to you." + +"It was natural indeed, my lady--more natural than you think. +Kind to me he was, and that was natural too." + +"Natural to him, no doubt, for he was kind to everybody." + +"My grandfather told you something of my early history--did he +not, my lady?" + +"Yes--at least I think I remember his doing so." + +"Will you recall it, and see whether it suggests nothing?" + +But Florimel could remember nothing in particular, she said. She had +in truth, for as much as she was interested at the time, forgotten +almost everything of the story. + +"I really cannot think what you mean," she added. "If you are going +to be mysterious, I shall resume my place by the tiller. Travers +is deaf, and Davy is dumb: I prefer either." + +"My lady," said Malcolm, "your father knew my mother, and persuaded +her that he loved her." + +Florimel drew herself up, and would have looked him to ashes if +wrath could burn. Malcolm saw he must come to the point at once or +the parley would cease. + +"My lady," he said, "your father was my father too. I am a son of +the Marquis of Lossie, and your brother--your ladyship's half +brother, that is." + +She looked a little stunned. The gleam died out of her eyes, and +the glow out of her cheek. She turned and leaned over the bulwark. +He said no more, but stood watching her. She raised herself suddenly, +looked at him, and said, + +"Do I understand you?" + +"I am your brother," Malcolm repeated. + +She made a step forward, and held out her hand. He took the little +thing in his great grasp tenderly. Her lip trembled. She gazed at +him for an instant, full in the face, with a womanly, believing +expression. + +"My poor Malcolm!" she said, "I am sorry for you." + +She withdrew her hand, and again leaned over the bulwark. Her heart +was softened towards her groom brother, and for a moment it seemed +to her that some wrong had been done. Why should the one be a +marchioness and the other a groom? Then came the thought that now +all was explained. Every peculiarity of the young man, every gift +extraordinary of body, mind, or spirit, his strength, his beauty, +his courage, and honesty, his simplicity, nobleness, and affection, +yes, even what in him was mere doggedness and presumption, +all, everything explained itself to Florimel in the fact that the +incomprehensible fisherman groom, that talked like a parson, was +the son of her father. She never thought of the woman that was his +mother, and what share she might happen to have in the phenomenon +--thought only of her father, and a little pitifully of the half +honour and more than half disgrace infolding the very existence of +her attendant. As usual her thoughts were confused. The one moment +the poor fellow seemed to exist only on sufferance, having no +right to be there at all, for as fine a fellow as he was; the next +she thought how immeasurably he was indebted to the family of the +Colonsays. + +Then arose the remembrance of his arrogance and presumption +in assuming on such a ground something more than guardianship-- +absolute tyranny over her, and with the thought pride and injury at +once got the upper hand. Was she to be dictated to by a low born, +low bred fellow like that--a fellow whose hands were harder than +any leather, not with doing things for his amusement but actually +with earning his daily bread--one that used to smell so of fish +--on the ground of right too--and such a right as ought to +exclude him for ever from her presence!--She turned to him again. + +"How long have you known this--this--painful--indeed I must +confess to finding it an awkward and embarrassing fact? I presume +you do know it?" she said, coldly and searchingly. + +"My father confessed it on his deathbed." + +"Confessed!" echoed Florimel's pride, but she restrained her tongue. + +"It explains much," she said, with a sort of judicial relief. +"There has been a great change upon you since then. Mind I only +say explains. It could never justify such behaviour as yours-- +no, not if you had been my true brother. There is some excuse, I +daresay, to be made for your ignorance and inexperience. No doubt +the discovery turned your head. Still I am at a loss to understand +how you could imagine that sort of--of--that sort of thing gave +you any right over me!" + +"Love has its rights, my lady," said Malcolm. + +Again her eyes flashed and her cheek flushed. "I cannot permit you +to talk so to me. You must not fancy such things are looked upon +in our position with the same indifference as in yours. You must +not flatter yourself that you can be allowed to cherish the same +feelings towards me as if--as if--you were really my brother. +I am sorry for you, Malcolm, as I said already; but you have +altogether missed your mark if you think that can alter facts, or +shelter you from the consequences of presumption." + +Again she turned away. Malcolm's heart was sore for her. How +grievously she had sunk from the Lady Florimel of the old days! It +was all from being so constantly with that wretched woman and her +vile nephew. Had he been able to foresee such a rapid declension, +he would have taken her away long ago, and let come of her feelings +what might. He had been too careful over them. + +"Indeed," Florimel resumed, but this time without turning towards +him, "I do not see how things can possibly, after what you have +told me, remain as they are. I should not feel at all comfortable +in having one about me who would be constantly supposing he had +rights, and reflecting on my father for fancied injustice, and +whom I fear nothing could prevent from taking liberties. It is very +awkward indeed, Malcolm--very awkward! But it is your own fault +that you are so changed, and I must say I should not have expected +it of you. I should have thought you had more good sense and regard +for me. If I were to tell the world why I wanted to keep you, people +would but shrug their shoulders and tell me to get rid of you; and +if I said nothing, there would always be something coming up that +required explanation. Besides, you would for ever be trying to convert +me to one or other of your foolish notions. I hardly know what to +do. I will consult--my friends on the subject. And yet I would +rather they knew nothing of it, My father you see--" She paused. +"If you had been my real brother it would have been different." + +"I am your real brother, my lady, and I have tried to behave like +one ever since I knew it." + +"Yes; you have been troublesome. I have always understood that +brothers were troublesome. I am told they are given to taking upon +them the charge of their sisters conduct. But I would not have even +you think me heartless. If you had been a real brother, of course +I should have treated you differently." + +"I don't doubt it, my lady, for everything would have been different +then. I should have been the Marquis of Lossie, and you would have +been Lady Florimel Colonsay. But it would have made little difference +in one thing: I could not have loved you better than I do now-- +if only you would believe it, my lady!" + +The emotion of Malcolm, evident in his voice as he said this, seemed +to touch her a little. + +"I believe it, my poor Malcolm," she returned, "quite as much as +I want, or as it is pleasant to believe it. I think you would do a +great deal for me, Malcolm. But then you are so rude! take things +into your hands, and do things for me I don't want done! You will +judge, not only for yourself, but for me! How can a man of your +training and position judge for a lady of mine! Don't you see the +absurdity of it? At times it has been very awkward indeed. Perhaps +when I am married it might be arranged; but I don't know." + +Here Malcolm ground his teeth, but was otherwise irresponsive as +block of stone. + +"How would a gamekeeper's place suit you? That is a half gentlemanly +kind of post. I will speak to the factor, and see what can be +done.--But on the whole I think, Malcolm, it will be better you +should go. I am very sorry. I wish you had not told me. It is very +painful to me. You should not have told me. These things are not +intended to be talked of--Suppose you were to marry--say--" + +She stopped abruptly, and it was well both for herself and Malcolm +that she caught back the name that was on her lips. + +The poor girl must not be judged as if she had been more than a +girl, or other than one with every disadvantage of evil training. +Had she been four or five years older, she might have been a good +deal worse, and have seemed better, for she would have kept much +of what she had now said to herself, and would perhaps have treated +her brother more kindly while she cared even less for him. + +"What will you do with Kelpie, my lady?" asked Malcolm quietly. + +"There it is, you see!" she returned. "So awkward! If you had not +told me, things could have gone on as before, and for your sake I +could have pretended I came this voyage of my own will and pleasure. +Now, I don't know what I can do--except indeed you--let me see +--if you were to hold your tongue, and tell nobody what you have +just told me--I don't know but you might stay till you got her +so far trained that another man could manage her. I might even be +able to ride her myself.--Will you promise?" + +"I will promise not to let the fact come out so long as I am in +your service, my lady." + +"After all that has passed, I think you might promise me a little +more! But I will not press it." + +"May I ask what it is, my lady?" + +"I am not going to press it, for I do not choose to make a favour +of it. Still, I do not see that it would be such a mighty favour +to ask--of one who owes respect at least to the house of Lossie. +But I will not ask. I will only suggest, Malcolm, that you should +leave this part of the country--say this country altogether, and +go to America, or New South Wales, or the Cape of Good Hope. If +you will take the hint, and promise never to speak a word of this +unfortunate--yes, I must be honest, and allow there is a sort +of relationship between us; but if you will keep it secret, I will +take care that something is done for you--something, I mean, more +than you could have any right to expect. And mind, I am not asking +you to conceal anything that could reflect honour upon you or +dishonour upon us." + +"I cannot, my lady." + +"I scarcely thought you would. Only you hold such grand ideas about +self denial, that I thought it might be agreeable to you to have +an opportunity of exercising the virtue at a small expense and a +great advantage." + +Malcolm was miserable. Who could have dreamed to find in her such +a woman of the world! He must break off the hopeless interview. + +"Then, my lady," he said, "I suppose I am to give my chief attention +to Kelpie, and things are to be as they have been." + +"For the present. And as to this last piece of presumption, I will +so far forgive you as to take the proceeding on myself--mainly +because it would have been my very choice had you submitted it to +me. There is nothing I should have preferred to a sea voyage and +returning to Lossie at this time of the year. + +"But you also must be silent on your insufferable share in the +business. And for the other matter, the least arrogance or assumption +I shall consider to absolve me at once from all obligation towards +you of any sort. Such relationships are never acknowledged." + +"Thank you--sister," said Malcolm--a last forlorn experiment; +and as he said the word he looked lovingly in her eyes. + +She drew herself up like the princess Lucifera, "with loftie eyes, +halfe loth to looke so lowe," and said, cold as ice, + +"If once I hear that word on your lips again, as between you and +me, Malcolm, I shall that very moment discharge you from my service, +as for a misdemeanour. You have no claim upon me, and the world +will not blame me." + +"Certainly not, my lady. I beg your pardon. But there is one who +perhaps will blame you a little." + +"I know what you mean; but I don't pretend to any of your religious +motives. When I do, then you may bring them to bear upon me." + +"I was not so foolish as you think me, my lady. I merely imagined +you might be as far on as a Chinaman," said Malcolm, with a poor +attempt at a smile. + +"What insolence do you intend now?" + +"The Chinese, my lady, pay the highest respect to their departed +parents. When I said there was one who would blame you a little, +I meant your father." + +He touched his cap, and withdrew. + +"Send Rose to me," Florimel called after him, and presently with +her went down to the cabin. + +And still the Psyche soul-like flew. Her earthly birth held her to +the earth, but the ocean upbore her, and the breath of God drove +her on. Little thought Florimel to what she hurried her! A queen in +her own self sufficiency and condescension, she could not suspect +how little of real queendom, noble and self sustaining, there was +in her being; for not a soul of man or woman whose every atom leans +not upon its father fact in God, can sustain itself when the outer +wall of things begins to tumble towards the centre, crushing it in +on every side. + +During the voyage no further allusion was made by either to what +had passed. By the next morning Florimel had yet again recovered +her temper, and, nothing fresh occurring to irritate her, kept it +and was kind. + +Malcolm was only too glad to accept whatever parings of heart she +might offer. By the time their flight was over, Florimel almost felt +as if it had indeed been undertaken at her own desire and motion, +and was quite prepared to assert that such was the fact. + + + +CHAPTER LVII: THE SHORE + + +It was two days after the longest day of the year, when there is no +night in those regions, only a long twilight, in which many dream +and do not know it. There had been a week of variable weather, +with sudden changes of wind to east and north, and round again by +south to west, and then there had been a calm for several days. + +But now the little wind there was blew from the northeast; and +the fervour of June was rendered more delicious by the films of +flavouring cold that floated through the mass of heat. All Portlossie +more and less, the Seaton especially, was in a state of excitement, +for its little neighbour, Scaurnose, was more excited still. There +the man most threatened, and with greatest injustice, was the only +one calm amongst the men, and amongst the women his wife was the +only one that was calmer than he. Blue Peter was resolved to abide +the stroke of wrong, and not resist the powers that were, believing +them in some true sense, which he found it hard to understand when +he thought of the factor as the individual instance, ordained of +God. He had a dim perception too that it was better that one, that +one he, should suffer, than that order should be destroyed and law +defied. Suffering, he might still in patience possess his soul, +and all be well with him; but what would become of the country if +everyone wronged were to take the law into his own hands? Thousands +more would be wronged by the lawless in a week than by unjust powers +in a year. But the young men were determined to pursue their plan +of resistance, and those of the older and soberer who saw the +uselessness of it, gave themselves little trouble to change the +minds of the rest. + +Peter, although he knew they were not for peace, neither inquired +what their purpose might be, nor allowed any conjecture or suspicion +concerning it to influence him in his preparations for departure. +Not that he had found a new home. Indeed he had not heartily set +about searching for one; in part because, unconsciously to himself +he was buoyed up by the hope he read so clear in the face of his +more trusting wife--that Malcolm would come to deliver them. His +plan was to leave her and his children with certain friends at Port +Gordon; he would not hear of going to the Partans to bring them +into trouble. He would himself set out immediately after for the +Lewis fishing. + +Few had gone to the Hebrides that year from Scaurnose or Portlossie. +The magnitude of the events that were about to take place, yet more +the excitement and interest they occasioned, kept the most of the +men at home--to content themselves with fishing the waters of +the Moray Frith. And they had notable success. But what was success +with such a tyrant over them as the factor, threatening to harry +their nests, and turn the sea birds and their young out of their +heritage of rock and sand and shingle? They could not keep house +on the waves, any more than the gulls! Those who still held their +religious assemblies in the cave called the Baillies' Barn, met +often, read and sang the comminatory psalms more than any others, +and prayed much against the wiles and force of their enemies both +temporal and spiritual; while Mr Crathie went every Sunday to +Church, grew redder in the nose, and hotter in the temper. + +Miss Horn was growing more and more uncomfortable concerning +events, and dissatisfied with Malcolm. She had not for some time +heard from him, and here was his most important duty unattended to-- +she would not yet say neglected--the well being of his tenantry, +namely, left in the hands of an unsympathetic, self important underling, +who was fast losing all the good sense he had once possessed! Was +the life and history of all these brave fishermen and their wives +and children to be postponed to the pampered feelings of one girl, +and that because she was what she had no right to be, his half +sister forsooth? said Miss Horn to herself--that bosom friend to +whom some people, and those not the worst, say oftener what they +do not mean than what they do. She had written to him within the +last month a very hot letter indeed, which had afforded no end of +amusement to Mrs Catanach, as she sat in his old lodging over the +curiosity shop, but, I need hardly say, had not reached Malcolm: +and now there was but one night, and the best of all the fisher +families would have nowhere to lie down! Miss Horn, with Joseph +Mair, thought she did well to be angry with Malcolm. + +The blind piper had been very restless all day. Questioned again +and again by Meg Partan as to what was amiss with him, he had always +returned her odd and evasive answers. Every few minutes he got up +--even from cleaning her lamp--to go to the shore. He had but +to cross the threshold, and take a few steps through the close, +to reach the road that ran along the sea front of the village: on +the one side were the cottages, scattered and huddled, on the other +the shore and ocean wide outstretched. He would walk straight across +this road until he felt the sand under his feet; there stand for a +few moments facing the sea, and, with nostrils distended, breathing +deep breaths of the air from the northeast; then turn and walk +back to Meg Partan's kitchen, to resume his ministration of light. +These his sallies were so frequent, and his absences so short, that +a more serene temper than hers might have been fretted by them. +But there was something about his look and behaviour that, while +it perplexed, restrained her; and instead of breaking out upon him, +she eyed him curiously. + +She had found that it would not do to stare at him. The instant +she began to do so, he began to fidget, and turned his back to her. +It had made her lose her temper for a moment, and declare aloud as +her conviction that he was after all an impostor, and saw as well +as any of them. + +"She has told you so, Mistress Partan, one hundred thousand times," +replied Duncan with an odd smile: "and perhaps she will pe see a +little petter as any of you, no matter." + +Thereupon she murmured to herself "The cratur 'ill be seein' something!" +and with mingled awe and curiosity sought to lay restraint upon +her unwelcome observation of him. + +Thus it went on the whole day, and as the evening approached, he +grew still more excited. The sun went down, and the twilight began; +and, as the twilight deepened, still his excitement grew. + +Straightway it seemed as if the whole Seaton had come to share in +it. Men and women were all out of doors; and, late as it was when +the sun set, to judge by the number of red legs and feet that trotted +in and out with a little shadowy flash, with a dull patter pat on +earthen floor and hard road, and a scratching and hustling among +the pebbles, there could not have been one older than a baby in +bed; while of the babies even not a few were awake in their mothers' +arms, and out with them on the sea front. + +The men, with their hands in their trouser pockets, were lazily +smoking pigtail, in short clay pipes with tin covers fastened to +the stems by little chains, and some of the women, in short blue +petticoats and worsted stockings, doing the same. + +Some stood in their doors, talking with neighbours standing in their +doors; but these were mostly the elder women: the younger ones-- +all but Lizzy Findlay--were out in the road. One man half leaned, +half sat on the window sill of Duncan's former abode, and round him +were two or three more, and some women, talking about Scaurnose, +and the factor, and what the lads would do tomorrow; while the hush +of the sea on the pebbles mingled with their talk, like an unknown +tongue of the infinite--never articulating, only suggesting-- +uttering in song and not in speech--dealing not with thoughts, +but with feelings and foretastes. No one listened: what to them +was the Infinite with Scaurnose in the near distance! It was now +almost as dark as it would be throughout the night if it kept as +clear. + +Once more there was Duncan, standing as if looking out to sea, and +shading his brows with his hand as if to protect his eyes from the +glare of the sun, and enable his sight! + +"There's the auld piper again!" said one of the group, a young +woman. "He's unco fule like to be stan'in that gait (way), makin' +as gien he cudna weel see for the sun in 's e'en." + +"Haud ye yer tongue, lass," rejoined an elderly woman beside her. +"There's mair things nor ye ken, as the Beuk says. There's een 'at +can see an' een 'at canna, an' een 'at can see twise ower, an' een +'at can see steikit what nane can see open." + +"Ta poat! ta poat of my chief!" cried the seer. "She is coming like +a tream of ta night, put one tat will not tepart with ta morning." + +He spoke as one suppressing a wild joy. + +"Wha'll that be, lucky deddy (grandfather)?" inquired, in a respectful +voice, the woman who had last spoken, while those within hearing +hushed each other and stood in silence. And all the time the ghost +of the day was creeping round from west to east to put on its +resurrection body, and rise new born. It gleamed faint like a cold +ashy fire in the north. + +"And who will it pe than her own son, Mistress Reekie?" answered +the piper, calling her by her husband's nickname, as was usual, +but, as was his sole wont, prefixing the title of respect, where +custom would have employed but her Christian name. + +"Who'll should it pe put her own Malcolm?" he went on. "I see his +poat come round ta Tead Head. She flits over the water like a pale +ghost over Morven. But it's ta young and ta strong she is pringing +home to Tuncan. O m'anam, beannuich!" + +Involuntarily all eyes turned towards the point called the Death's +Head, which bounded the bay on the east. + +"It's ower dark to see onything," said the man on the window sill. +"There's a bit haar (fog) come up." + +"Yes," said Duncan, "it'll pe too tark for you who haf cot no eyes +only to speak of. Put your'll wait a few, and you'll pe seeing as +well as herself. Och, her poy! her poy! O m'anam! Ta Lort pe praised! +and she'll tie in peace, for he'll pe only ta one half of him a +Cam'ell, and he'll pe safed at last, as sure as there's a heafen to +co to and a hell to co from. For ta half tat's not a Cam'ell must +pe ta strong half and it will trag ta other half into heafen-- +where it will not pe ta welcome, howefer." + +As if to get rid of the unpleasant thought that his Malcolm could +not enter heaven without taking half a Campbell with him, he turned +from the sea and hurried into the house--but only to catch up his +pipes and hasten out again, filling the bag as he went. Arrived once +more on the verge of the sand, he stood again facing the northeast, +and began to blow a pibroch loud and clear. + +Meantime the Partan had joined the same group, and they were talking +in a low tone about the piper's claim to the second sight, for, +although all were more or less inclined to put faith in Duncan, +there was here no such unquestioning belief in the marvel as would +have been found on the west coast in every glen from the Mull +of Cantyre to Loch Eribol--when suddenly Meg Partan, almost the +only one hitherto remaining in the house, appeared rushing from +the close. + +"Hech, sirs!" she cried, addressing the Seaton in general, +"gien the auld man be i' the richt,--" + +"She'll pe aal in ta right, Mistress Partan, and tat you'll pe +seeing," said Duncan, who, hearing her first cry, had stopped his +drone, and played softly, listening. + +But Meg went on without heeding him any more than was implied in +the repetition of her exordium. + +"Gien the auld man be i' the richt, it'll be the marchioness hersel' +'at's h'ard o' the ill duin's o' her factor, an's comin' to see +efter her fowk! An' it'll be Ma'colm's duin', an' that'll be seen. +But the bonny laad winna ken the state o' the herbour, an' he'll be +makin' for the moo' o't, an' he'll jist rin 's bonny boatie agrun' +'atween the twa piers, an' that'll no be a richt hame comin' for +the leddy o' the lan', an' what's mair, Ma'colm 'ill get the wyte +(blame) o' 't, an' that'll be seen. Sae ye maun some o' ye to the +pier-heid, an' luik oot to gie 'im warnin'." + +Her own husband was the first to start, proud of the foresight of +his wife. + +"Haith, Meg !" he cried, "ye're maist as guid at the lang sicht as +the piper himsel'!" + +Several followed him, and as they ran, Meg cried after them, giving +her orders as if she had been vice admiral of the red, in a voice +shrill enough to pierce the worst gale that ever blew on northern +shore. + +"Ye'll jist tell the bonnie laad to haud wast a bit an' rin her +ashore, an' we'll a' be there an' hae her as dry's Noah's ark in a +jiffie. Tell her leddyship we'll cairry the boat, an' her intil't, +to the tap o' the Boar's Tail, gien she'll gie's her orders.-- +Winna we, laads?" + +"We can but try!" said one. "--But the Fisky 'ill be waur to +get a grip o' nor Nancy here," he added, turning suddenly upon the +plumpest girl in the place, who stood next to him. She foiled him +however of the kiss he had thought to snatch, and turned the laugh +from herself upon him, so cleverly avoiding his clutch that he +staggered into the road, and nearly fell upon his nose. + +By the time the Partan and his companions reached the pier head, +something was dawning in the vague of sea and sky that might be a +sloop and standing for the harbour. Thereupon the Partan and Jamie +Ladle jumped into a small boat and pulled out. Dubs, who had come +from Scaurnose on the business of the conjuration, had stepped into +the stern, not to steer but to show a white ensign--somebody's +Sunday shirt he had gathered, as they ran, from a furze bush, where +it hung to dry, between the Seaton and the harbour. + +"Hoots! ye'll affront the marchioness," objected the Partan. + +"Man, i' the gloamin' she'll no ken 't frae buntin'," said Dubs, +and at once displayed it, holding it by the two sleeves. + +The wind had now fallen to the softest breath, and the little +vessel came on slowly. The men rowed hard, shouting, and waving +their flag, and soon heard a hail which none of them could mistake +for other than Malcolm's. In a few minutes they were on board, +greeting their old friend with jubilation, but talking in a subdued +tone, for they perceived by Malcolm's that the cutter bore their +lady. + +Briefly the Partan communicated the state of the harbour, and +recommended porting his helm, and running the Fisky ashore about +opposite the brass swivel. + +"A' the men an' women i' the Seaton," he said, "'ill be there to +haul her up." + +Malcolm took the helm, gave his orders, and steered further westward. +By this time the people on shore had caught sight of the cutter. +They saw her come stealing out of the thin dark like a thought half +thought, and go gliding along the shore like a sea ghost over the +dusky water, faint, uncertain, noiseless, glimmering. It could be +no other than the Fisky! Both their lady and their friend Malcolm +must be on board, they were certain, for how could the one of them +come without the other? and doubtless the marchioness, whom they +all remembered as a good humoured handsome young lady, never shy +of speaking to anybody, had come to deliver them from the hateful +red nosed ogre, her factor! Out at once they all set along the +shore to greet her arrival, each running regardless of the rest, +so that from the Seaton to the middle of the Boar's Tail there was +a long, straggling broken string of hurrying fisher folk, men and +women, old and young, followed by all the current children, tapering +to one or two toddlers, who felt themselves neglected and wept their +way along. The piper, too asthmatic to run, but not too asthmatic +to walk and play his bagpipes, delighting the heart of Malcolm, +who could not mistake the style, believed he brought up the rear, +but was wrong; for the very last came Mrs Findlay and Lizzy, carrying +between them their little deal kitchen table, for her ladyship to +step out of the boat upon, and Lizzy's child fast asleep on the +top of it. + +The foremost ran and ran until they saw that the Psyche had chosen +her couch, and was turning her head to the shore, when they stopped +and stood ready with greased planks and ropes to draw her up. + +In a few moments the whole population was gathered, darkening, in +the June midnight, the yellow sands between the tide and dune. The +Psyche was well manned now with a crew of six. On she came under +full sail till within a few yards of the beach, when, in one and +the same moment, every sheet was let go, and she swept softly up +like a summer wave, and lay still on the shore. + +The butterfly was asleep. But ere she came to rest, the instant +indeed that her canvas went fluttering away, thirty strong men had +rushed into the water and laid hold of the now broken winged thing. +In a few minutes she was high and dry. + +Malcolm leaped on the sand just as the Partaness came bustling up +with her kitchen table between her two hands like a tray. She set +it down, and across it shook hands with him violently; then caught +it up and deposited it firm on its four legs beneath the cutter's +waist. + +"Noo, my leddy," said Meg, looking up at the marchioness, "set ye +yer bit fut upo' my table, an' we'll think the mair o't efter whan +we tak' oor denner aff o' 't." + +Florimel thanked her, stepped lightly upon it, and sprang to the +sand, where she was received with words of welcome from many, and +shouts which rendered them inaudible from the rest. The men, their +bonnets in their hands, and the women courtesying, made a lane +for her to pass through, while the young fellows would gladly have +begged leave to carry her, could they have extemporised any suitable +sort of palanquin or triumphal litter. + +Followed by Malcolm, she led the way over the Boar's Tail--nor +would accept any help in climbing it--straight for the tunnel: + +Malcolm had never laid aside the key to the private doors his father +had given him while he was yet a servant. They crossed by the +embrasure of the brass swivel. That implement had now long been +silent, but they had not gone many paces from the bottom of the +dune when it went off with a roar. The shouts of the people drowned +the startled cry with which Florimel, involuntarily mindful of old +and for her better times, turned to Malcolm. She had not looked +for such a reception, and was both flattered and touched by it. +For a brief space the spirit of her girlhood came back. Possibly, +had she then understood that hope rather than faith or love was at +the heart of their enthusiasm, that her tenants looked upon her as +their saviour from the factor, and sorely needed the exercise of +her sovereignty, she might have better understood her position, +and her duty towards them. + +Malcolm unlocked the door of the tunnel, and she entered, followed +by Rose, who felt as if she were walking in a dream. As he stepped +in after them, he was seized from behind, and clasped close in an +embrace he knew at once. + +"Daddy, daddy!" he said, and turning threw his arms round the piper. + +"My poy! my poy! Her nain son Malcolm!" cried the old man in a +whisper of intense satisfaction and suppression. "You'll must pe +forgifing her for coming pack to you. She cannot help lofing you, +and you must forget tat you are a Cam'ell." + +Malcolm kissed his cheek, and said, also in a whisper: + +"My ain daddy! I ha'e a heap to tell ye, but I maun see my leddy +hame first." + +"Co, co, this moment co," cried the old man, pushing him away. "To +your tuties to my leddyship first, and then come to her old daddy." + +"I'll be wi' ye in half an hoor or less." + +"Coot poy! coot poy! Come to Mistress Partan's." + +"Ay, ay, daddy!" said Malcolm, and hurried through the tunnel. + +As Florimel approached the ancient dwelling of her race, now her +own to do with as she would, her pleasure grew. Whether it was +the twilight, or the breach in dulling custom, everything looked +strange, the grounds wider, the trees larger, the house grander +and more anciently venerable. And all the way the burn sang in the +hollow. The spirit of her father seemed to hover about the place, +and while the thought that her father's voice would not greet her +when she entered the hall, cast a solemn funereal state over her +simple return, her heart yet swelled with satisfaction and far +derived pride. + +All this was hers to work her pleasure with, to confer as she +pleased! No thought of her tenants, fishers or farmers, who did +their strong part in supporting the ancient dignity of her house, +had even an associated share in the bliss of the moment. She had +forgotten her reception already, or regarded it only as the natural +homage to such a position and power as hers. As to owing anything +in return, the idea had indeed been presented to her when with +Clementina and Malcolm she talked over "St Ronan's Well," but it +had never entered her mind. + +The drawing room and the hall were lighted. Mrs Courthope was at +the door as if she expected her, and Florimel was careful to take +everything as a matter of course. + +"When will your ladyship please to want me?" asked Malcolm. + +"At the usual hour, Malcolm," she answered. + +He turned, and ran to the Seaton. + +His first business was the accommodation of Travers and Davy, but he +found them already housed at the Salmon, with Jamie Ladle teaching +Travers to drink toddy. They had left the Psyche snug: she was +high above high water mark, and there were no tramps about; they +had furled her sails, locked the companion door, and left her. + +Mrs Findlay rejoiced over Malcolm as if he had been her own +son from a far country; but the poor piper between politeness and +gratitude on the one hand, and the urging of his heart on the other, +was sorely tried by her loquacity: he could hardly get in a word. +Malcolm perceived his suffering, and, as soon as seemed prudent, +proposed that he should walk with him to Miss Horn's, where he was +going to sleep, he said, that night. Mrs Partan snuffed, but held +her peace. For the third or fourth time that day, wonderful to +tell, she restrained herself! + +As soon as they were out of the house, Malcolm assured Duncan, to +the old man's great satisfaction, that, had he not found him there, +he would, within another month, have set out to roam Scotland in +search of him. + +Miss Horn had heard of their arrival, and was wandering about +the house, unable even to sit down until she saw the marquis. To +herself she always called him the marquis; to his face he was always +Malcolm. If he had not come, she declared she could not have gone +to bed--yet she received him with an edge to her welcome: he +had to answer for his behaviour. They sat down, and Duncan told a +long sad story; which finished, with the toddy that had sustained +him during the telling, the old man thought it better, for fear +of annoying his Mistress Partan, to go home. As it was past one +o'clock, they both agreed. + +"And if she'll tie tonight, my poy," said Duncan, "she'll pe lie +awake in her crave all ta long tarkness, to pe waiting to hear ta +voice of your worrts in ta morning. And nefer you mind, Malcolm, +she'll has learned to forgife you for peing only ta one half of +yourself a cursed Cam'ell." + +Miss Horn gave Malcolm a wink, as much as to say, "Let the old +man talk. It will hurt no Campbell," and showed him out with much +attention. And then at last Malcolm poured forth his whole story, +and his heart with it, to Miss Horn, who heard and received it with +understanding, and a sympathy which grew ever as she listened. At +length she declared herself perfectly satisfied, for not only had +he done his best, but she did not see what else he could have done. +She hoped, however, that now he would contrive to get this part +over as quickly as possible, for which, in the morning, she would, +she said, show him cogent reasons. + +"I ha'e no feelin's mysel', as ye weel ken, laddie," she remarked +in conclusion, "an' I doobt, gien I had been i' your place, I wad +na hae luikit to a' sides o' the thing at ance as ye hae dune.-- +An' it was a man like you 'at sae near lost yer life for the hizzy!" +she exclaimed. "I maunna think aboot it, or I winna sleep a wink. +But we maun get that deevil Catanach (an' cat eneuch!) hangt. Weel, +my man, ye may haud up yer heid afore the father o' ye, for ye're +the first o' the race, I'm thinkin', 'at ever was near han' deein' +for anither. But mak ye a speedy en' till 't noo, laad, an' fa' +to the lave o' yer wark. There's a terrible heap to be dune. But I +maun haud my tongue the nicht, for I wad fain ye had a guid sleep, +an' I'm needin' ane sair mysel', for I'm no sae yoong as I ance +was, an' I ha'e been that anxious aboot ye, Ma'colm, 'at though I +never hed ony feelin's, yet, noo 'at a' 's gaein' richt, an' ye're +a' richt, and like to be richt for ever mair, my heid's just like +to split. Gang yer wa's to yer bed, and soon may ye sleep. It's +the bed yer bonny mither got a soon' sleep in at last, and muckle +was she i' the need o' 't! An' jist tak tent the morn what ye say +whan Jean's i' the room, or maybe o' the ither side o' the door, for +she's no mowse. I dinna ken what gars me keep the jaud. I believe +'at gien the verra deevil himsel' had been wi' me sae lang, I wadna +ha'e the hert to turn him aboot his ill business. That's what comes +o' haein' no feelin's. Ither fowk wad ha'e gotten rid o' her half +a score years sin' syne." + + + +CHAPTER LVIII: THE TRENCH + + +Malcolm had not yet, after all the health giving of the voyage, +entirely recovered from the effects of the ill compounded potion. +Indeed, sometimes the fear crossed his mind that never would he be +the same man again, that the slow furnace of the grave alone would +destroy the vile deposit left in his house of life. Hence it came +that he was weary, and overslept himself the next day--but it was +no great matter; he had yet time enough. He swallowed his breakfast +as a working man alone can, and set out for Duff Harbour. At Leith, +where they had put in for provisions, he had posted a letter to Mr +Soutar, directing him to have Kelpie brought on to his own town, +whence he would fetch her himself. The distance was about ten +miles, the hour eight, and he was a good enough walker, although +boats and horses had combined to prevent him, he confessed, from +getting over fond of Shanks' mare. To men who delight in the +motions of a horse under them, the legs of a man are a tame, dull +means of progression, although they too have their superiorities; +and one of the disciplines of this world is to have to get out of +the saddle and walk afoot. He who can do so with perfect serenity, +must very nearly have learned with St Paul in whatsoever state he is +therein to be content. It was the loveliest of mornings, however, +to be abroad in upon any terms, and Malcolm hardly needed the +resources of one who knew both how to be abased and how to abound +--enviable perfection---for the enjoyment of even a long walk. +Heaven and earth were just settling to the work of the day after +their morning prayer, and the whole face of things yet wore something +of that look of expectation which one who mingled the vision of +the poet with the faith of the Christian might well imagine to be +their upward look of hope after a night of groaning and travailing +--the earnest gaze of the creature waiting for the manifestation +of the sons of God and for himself, though the hardest thing was +yet to come, there was a satisfaction in finding himself almost up +to his last fence, with the heavy ploughed land through which he +had been floundering nearly all behind him--which figure means +that he had almost made up his mind what to do. + +When he reached the Duff Arms, he walked straight into the yard, +where the first thing he saw was a stable boy in the air, hanging +on to a twitch on the nose of the rearing Kelpie. In another instant +he would have been killed or maimed for life, and Kelpie loose, +and scouring the streets of Duff Harbour. When she heard Malcolm's +voice and the sound of his running feet, she stopped as if to +listen. He flung the boy aside and caught her halter. Once or twice +more she reared, in the vain hope of so ridding herself of the pain +that clung to her lip and nose, nor did she, through the mist of +her anger and suffering, quite recognize her master in his yacht +uniform. But the torture decreasing, she grew able to scent his +presence, welcomed him with her usual glad whinny, and allowed him +to do with her as he would. + +Having fed her, found Mr Soutar, and arranged several matters with +him, he set out for home. + +That was a ride! Kelpie was mad with life. Every available field +he jumped her into, and she tore its element of space at least +to shreds with her spurning hoofs. But the distance was not great +enough to quiet her before they got to hard turnpike and young +plantations. He would have entered at the grand gate, but found no +one at the lodge, for the factor, to save a little, had dismissed +the old keeper. He had therefore to go on, and through the town, +where, to the awe stricken eyes of the population peeping from +doors and windows, it seemed as if the terrible horse would carry +him right over the roofs of the fisher cottages below, and out to +sea. + +"Eh, but he's a terrible cratur that Ma'colm MacPhail!" said the old +wives to each other, for they felt there must be something wicked +in him to ride like that. But he turned her aside from the steep +hill, and passed along the street that led to the town gate of +the House.--Whom should he see, as he turned into it, but Mrs +Catanach!--standing on her own doorstep, opposite the descent +to the Seaton, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking far out +over the water through the green smoke of the village below. As +long as he could remember her, it had been her wont to gaze thus; +though what she could at such times be looking for, except it were +the devil in person, he found it hard to conjecture. + +At the sound of his approach she turned; and such an expression +crossed her face in a momentary flash ere she disappeared in the +house, as added considerably to his knowledge of fallen humanity. +Before he reached her door she was out again, tying on a clean +white apron as she came, and smiling like a dark pool in sunshine. +She dropped him a low courtesy, and looked as if she had been +occupying her house for months of his absence. But Malcolm would +not meet even cunning with its own weapons, and therefore turned +away his head, and took no notice of her. She ground her teeth with +the fury of hate, and swore that she would yet disappoint him of +his purpose, whatever it were, in this masquerade of service. Her +heart being scarcely of the calibre to comprehend one like Malcolm's, +her theories for the interpretation of the mystery were somewhat +wild, and altogether of a character unfit to see the light. + +The keeper of the town gate greeted Malcolm, as he let him in, with +a pleased old face and words of welcome; but added instantly, as +if it was no time for the indulgence of friendship, that it was a +terrible business going on at the Nose. + +"What is it?" asked Malcolm, in alarm. + +"Ye ha'e been ower lang awa', I doobt," answered the man, "to ken +hoo the factor--But, Lord save ye! haud yer tongue," he interjected, +looking fearfully around him. "Gien he kenned 'at I said sic a +thing, he wad turn me oot o' hoose an' ha'." + +"You've said nothing yet," rejoined Malcolm. + +"I said factor, an' that same 's 'maist eneuch, for he's like +a roarin' lion an' a ragin' bear amang the people, an' that sin' +ever ye gaed. Bow o' Meal said i' the meetin' the ither nicht 'at +he bude to be the verra man, the wickit ruler propheseed o' sae +lang sin syne i' the beuk o' the Proverbs. Eh! it's an awfu' thing +to be foreordeent to oonrichteousness!" + +"But you haven't told me what is the matter at Scaurnose," said +Malcolm impatiently. + +"Ow, it's jist this--at this same's midsimmer day, an' Blew +Peter, honest fallow! he's been for the last three month +un'er nottice frae the factor to quit. An' sae, ye see,--" + +"To quit!" exclaimed Malcolm. "Sic a thing was never h'ard tell o'!" + +"Haith! it's h'ard tell o' noo," returned the gatekeeper. "Quittin' +'s as plenty as quicken (couch grass). 'Deed there's maist naething +ither h'ard tell o' bit quittin'; for the full half o' Scaurnose +is un'er like nottice for Michaelmas, an' the Lord kens what it +'ll a' en' in!" + +"But what's it for? Blue Peter's no the man to misbehave himsel'." + +"Weel, ye ken mair yersel' nor ony ither as to the warst fau't there +is to lay till's chairge; for they say--that is, some say, it's +a' yer ain wyte, Ma'colm." + +"What mean ye, man? Speyk oot," said Malcolm. + +"They say it's a' anent the abduckin' o' the markis's boat, 'at +you an' him gaed aff wi' thegither." + +"That'll hardly haud, seeing the marchioness hersel' cam' hame in +her the last nicht." + +"Ay, but ye see the decree's gane oot, an' what the factor says is +like the laws o' the Medes an' the Prussians, 'at they say's no to +be altert; I kenna mysel'." + +"Ow weel! gien that be a', I'll see efter that wi' the marchioness." + +"Ay, but ye see there's a lot o' the laads there, as I'm tellt, +'at has vooed 'at factor nor factor's man s'all ever set fut in +Scaurnose fine this day furth. Gang ye doon to the Seaton, an' see +hoo mony o' yer auld freen's ye'll fin' there. Man, they're a' oot +to Scaurnose to see the plisky. The factor he's there, I ken, an' +some constables wi' 'im--to see 'at his order 's cairried oot. +An' the laads they ha'e been fortifeein' the place--as they ca' +'t--for the last oor. They've howkit a trenk, they tell me, 'at +nane but a hunter on 's horse cud win ower, an' they're postit +alang the toon side o' 't wi' sticks an' stanes, an' boat heuks, an' +guns an' pistils. An' gien there bena a man or twa killt a'ready,--" + +Before he finished his sentence, Kelpie was levelling herself for +the sea gate. + +Johnny Bykes was locking it on the other side, in haste to secure +his eye share of what was going on, when he caught sight of Malcolm +tearing up. Mindful of the old grudge, also that there was no marquis +now to favour his foe, he finished the arrested act of turning the +key, drew it from the lock, and to Malcolm's orders, threats, and +appeals, returned for all answer that he had no time to attend to +him, and so left him looking through the bars. Malcolm dashed across +the burn, and round the base of the hill on which stood the little +windgod blowing his horn, dismounted, unlocked the door in the wall, +got Kelpie through, and was in the saddle again before Johnny was +halfway from the gate. When the churl saw him, he trembled, turned, +and ran for its shelter again in terror--nor perceived until he +reached it, that the insulted groom had gone off like the wind in +the opposite direction. + +Malcolm soon left the high road and cut across the fields--over +which the wind bore cries and shouts, mingled with laughter and the +animal sounds of coarse jeering. When he came nigh the cart road +which led into the village, he saw at the entrance of the street +a crowd, and rising from it the well known shape of the factor on +his horse. Nearer the sea, where was another entrance through the +back yards of some cottages, was a smaller crowd. Both were now +pretty silent, for the attention of all was fixed on Malcolm's +approach. As he drew up Kelpie foaming and prancing, and the group +made way for her, he saw a deep wide ditch across the road, on whose +opposite side was ranged irregularly the flower of Scaurnose's younger +manhood, calmly, even merrily prepared to defend their entrenchment. +They had been chaffing the factor, and loudly challenging the +constables to come on, when they recognised Malcolm in the distance, +and expectancy stayed the rush of their bruising wit. For they +regarded him as beyond a doubt come from the marchioness with +messages of goodwill. When he rode up, therefore, they raised a +great shout, everyone welcoming him by name. But the factor, who, +to judge by appearances, had had his forenoon dram ere he left +home, burning with wrath, moved his horse in between Malcolm and the +assembled Scaurnoseans on the other side of the ditch. He had self +command enough left, however, to make one attempt at the loftily +superior. + +"Pray what is your business?" he said, as if he had never seen +Malcolm in his life before, "I presume you come with a message." + +"I come to beg you, sir, not to go further with this business. +Surely the punishment is already enough!" said Malcolm respectfully. + +"Who sends me the message?" asked the factor, his teeth clenched, +and his eyes flaming. + +"One," answered Malcolm, "who has some influence for justice, and +will use it, upon whichever side the justice may lie." + +"Go to hell," cried the Factor, losing utterly his slender self +command, and raising his whip. + +Malcolm took no heed of the gesture, for he was at the moment beyond +his reach. + +"Mr Crathie," he said calmly, "you are banishing the best man in +the place." + +"No doubt! no doubt! seeing he's a crony of yours," laughed the +factor in mighty scorn. "A canting, prayer meeting rascal!" he +added. + +"Is that ony waur nor a drucken elyer o' the kirk?" cried Dubs from +the other side of the ditch, raising a roar of laughter. + +The very purple forsook the factor's face, and left it a corpse-like +grey in the fire of his fury. + +"Come, come, my men! that's going too far," said Malcolm. + +"An' wha ir ye for a fudgie (truant) fisher, to gi'e coonsel ohn +speired?" shouted Dubs, altogether disappointed in the poor part +Malcolm seemed taking. "Haud to the factor there wi' yer coonsel." + +"Get out of my way," said Mr Crathie, still speaking through his +set teeth, and came straight upon Malcolm. "Home with you! or-r-r" + +Again he raised his whip, this time plainly with intent. + +"For God's sake, factor, min' the mere," cried Malcolm. "Ribs an' +legs an' a' 'ill be to crack, gien ye anger her wi' yer whuppin." + +As he spoke, he drew a little aside that the factor might pass if +he pleased. A noise arose in the smaller crowd, and Malcolm turned +to see what it meant: off his guard, he received a stinging cut +over the head from the factor's whip. Simultaneously, Kelpie stood +up on end, and Malcolm tore the weapon from the treacherous hand. + +"If I gave you what you deserve, Mr Crathie, I should knock you and +your horse together into that ditch. A touch of the spur would do +it. I am not quite sure that I ought not. A nature like yours takes +forbearance for fear." + +While he spoke, his mare was ramping and kicking, making a clean +sweep all about her. Mr Crathie's horse turned restive from sympathy, +and it was all his rider could do to keep his seat. As soon as he +got Kelpie a little quieter, Malcolm drew near and returned him +his whip. He snatched it from his outstretched hand, and essayed +a second cut at him, which Malcolm rendered powerless by pushing +Kelpie close up to him. Then suddenly wheeling, he left him. + +On the other side of the trench the fellows were shouting and +roaring with laughter. + +"Men," cried Malcolm, "you have no right to stop up this road. I +want to go and see Blue Peter." + +"Come on," cried one of the young men, emulous of Dubs's humour, +and spread out his arms as if to receive Kelpie to his bosom. + +"Stand out of the way then," said Malcolm, "I am coming." + +As he spoke, he took Kelpie a little round, keeping out of the way +of the factor, who sat trembling with rage on his still excited +animal, and sent her at the trench. + +The Deevil's Jock, as they called him, kept jumping, with his arms +outspread, from one place to another, as if to receive Kelpie's +charge, but when he saw her actually coming, in short, quick +bounds, straight to the trench, he was seized with terror, and, +half paralysed, slipped as he turned to flee, and rolled into the +ditch, just in time to let Kelpie fly over his head. His comrades +scampered right and left, and Malcolm, rather disgusted, took no +notice of them. + +A cart, loaded with their little all, the horse in the shafts, +was standing at Peter's door, but nobody was near it. Hardly was +Malcolm well into the close, however, when out rushed Annie, and, +heedless of Kelpie's demonstrative repellence, reached up her hands +like a child, caught him by the arm, while yet he was busied with +his troublesome charge, drew him down towards her, and held him +till, in spite of Kelpie, she had kissed him again and again. + +"Eh, Ma'colm! eh, my lord!" she said, "ye ha'e saved my faith. I +kenned ye wad come!" + +"Haud yer tongue, Annie. I mauna be kenned," said Malcolm. + +"There's nae danger. They'll tak' it for sweirin'," answered Annie, +laughing and crying both at once. + +Out next came Blue Peter, his youngest child in his arms. + +"Eh, Peter man! I'm blythe to see ye," cried Malcolm. "Gie's a grup +o' yer honest han'." + +More than even the sight of his face beaming with pleasure, more +than that grasp of the hand that would have squeezed the life out +of a polecat, was the sound of the mother tongue from his lips. The +cloud of Peter's long distrust broke and vanished, and the sky of +his soul was straightway a celestial blue. He snatched his hand from +Malcolm's, walked back into the empty house, ran into the little +closet off the kitchen, bolted the door, fell on his knees in the +void little sanctuary that had of late been the scene of so many +foiled attempts to lift up his heart, and poured out speechless +thanksgiving to the God of all grace and consolation, who had +given him back his friend, and that in the time of his sore need. +So true was his heart in its love, that, giving thanks for his +friend, he forgot that friend was the Marquis of Lossie, before +whom his enemy was but as a snail in the sun. + +When he rose from his knees, and went out again, his face shining +and his eyes misty, his wife was on the top of the cart, tying a +rope across the cradle. + +"Peter," said Malcolm, "ye was quite richt to gang, but I'm glaid +they didna lat ye." + +"I wad ha'e been half w'y to Port Gordon or noo," said Peter. + +"But noo ye'll no gang to Port Gordon," said Malcolm. "Ye'll jist +gang to the Salmon for a feow days, till we see hoo things gang." + +"I'll du onything ye like, Ma'colm," said Peter, and went into the +house to fetch his bonnet. + +In the street arose the cry of a woman, and into the close rushed +one of the fisherwives, followed by the factor. He had found a +place on the eastern side of the village, where, jumping a low earth +wail, he got into a little back yard, and was trampling over its +few stocks of kail, and its one dusty miller and double daisy, when +the woman to whose cottage it belonged caught sight of him through +the window, and running out fell to abusing him in no measured +language. He rode at her in his rage, and she fled shrieking +into Peter's close, where she took refuge behind the cart, never +ceasing her vituperation, but calling him every choice name in her +vocabulary. Beside himself with the rage of murdered dignity, he +rode up, and struck at her over the corner of the cart, whereupon, +from the top of it, Annie Mair ventured to expostulate. + +"Hoot, sir! It's no mainners to lat at a wuman like that." + +He turned upon her, and gave her a cut on the arm and hand, so +stinging that she cried out, and nearly fell from the cart. Out +rushed Peter and flew at the factor, who from his seat of vantage +began to ply his whip about his head. But Malcolm, who, when the +factor appeared, had moved aside to keep Kelpie out of mischief, +and saw only the second of the two assaults, came forward with a +scramble and a bound. + +"Haud awa, Peter," he cried. "This belangs to me. I ga'e him back +'s whup, an' sae I'm accoontable.--Mr Crathie,"--and as he spoke +he edged his mare up to the panting factor, "the man who strikes +a woman must be taught that he is a scoundrel, and that office I +take. I would do the same if you were the lord of Lossie instead +of his factor." + +Mr Crathie, knowing himself now in the wrong, was a little frightened +at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, but the swift +descent of Malcolm's heavy riding whip on his shoulders and back +made him voluble in curses. Then began a battle that could not last +long with such odds on the side of justice. It was gazed at from +the mouth of the close by many spectators, but none dared enter +because of the capering and plunging and kicking of the horses. In +less than a minute the factor turned to flee, and spurring out of +the court, galloped up the street at full stretch. + +"Haud oot o' the gait," cried Malcolm, and rode after him. But more +careful of the people, he did not get a good start, and the factor +was over the trench and into the fields before he caught him +up. Then again the stinging switch buckled about the shoulders of +the oppressor, driven with all the force of Malcolm's brawny arm. +The factor yelled and cursed and swore, and still Malcolm plied +the whip, and still the horses flew--over fields and fences and +ditches. At length in the last field, from which they must turn into +the high road, the factor groaned out--"For God's sake, Ma'colm, +ha'e mercy!" + +The youth's uplifted arm fell by his side. He turned his mare's +head, and when the factor turned his, he saw the avenger already +halfway back to Scaurnose, and the constables in full flight meeting +him. + +While Malcolm was thus occupied, his sister was writing to Lady +Bellair. She told her that, having gone out for a sail in her yacht, +which she had sent for from Scotland, the desire to see her home +had overpowered her to such a degree that of the intended sail she +had made a voyage, and here she was, longing just as much now to +see Lady Bellair; and if she thought proper to bring a gentleman +to take care of her, he also should be welcomed for her sake. It +was a long way for her to come, she said, and Lady Bellair knew +what sort of a place it was; but there was nobody in London now, +and if she had nothing more enticing on her tablets, &c., &c. She +ended with begging her, if she was mercifully inclined to make her +happy with her presence, to bring to her Caley and her hound Demon. +She had hardly finished when Malcolm presented himself. + +She received him very coldly, and declined to listen to anything +about the fishers. She insisted that, being one of their party, +he was prejudiced in their favour; and that of course a man of Mr +Crathie's experience must know better than he what ought to be done +with such people, in view of protecting her rights, and keeping +them in order. She declared that she was not going to disturb the +old way of things to please him; and said that he had now done +her all the mischief he could, except, indeed, he were to head the +fishers and sack Lossie House. + +Malcolm found that, by making himself known to her as her brother, +he had but given her confidence in speaking her mind to him, and set +her free from considerations of personal dignity when she desired +to humiliate him. But he was a good deal surprised at the ability +with which she set forth and defended her own view of her affairs, +for she did not tell him that the Rev. Mr Cairns had been with her +all the morning, flattering her vanity, worshipping her power, and +generally instructing her in her own greatness--also putting in +a word or two anent his friend Mr Crathie and his troubles with her +ladyship's fisher tenants. She was still, however, so far afraid +of her brother--which state of feeling was, perhaps, the main +cause of her insulting behaviour to him--that she sat in some +dread lest he might chance to see the address of the letter she +had been writing. + +I may mention here that Lady Bellair accepted the invitation with +pleasure for herself and Liftore, promised to bring Caley, but +utterly declined to take charge of Demon, or allow him to be of the +party. Thereupon Florimel, who was fond of the animal, and feared +much, as he was no favourite, that something would happen to him, +wrote to Clementina, praying her to visit her in her lovely loneliness +--good as The Gloom in its way, though not quite so dark--and +to add a hair to the weight of her obligations if she complied, by +allowing her deerhound to accompany her. Clementina was the only +one, she said, of her friends for whom the animal had ever shown +a preference. + +Malcolm retired from his sister's presence much depressed, saw Mrs +Courthope, who was kind as ever, and betook himself to his own room, +next to that in which his strange history began. There he sat down +and wrote urgently to Lenorme, stating that he had an important +communication to make, and begging him to start for the north the +moment he received the letter. A messenger from Duff Harbour well +mounted, he said, would ensure his presence within a couple of +hours. + +He found the behaviour of his old acquaintances and friends in the +Seaton much what he had expected: the few were as cordial as ever, +while the many still resented, with a mingling of the jealousy of +affection, his forsaking of the old life for a calling they regarded +as unworthy of one bred at least if not born a fisherman. A few +there were besides who always had been, for reasons perhaps best +known to themselves, less than friendly. The women were all cordial. + +"Sic a mad-like thing," said old Futtocks, who was now the leader +of the assembly at the barn, "to gang scoorin' the cuintry on that +mad brute o' a mere! What guid, think ye, can come sic like?" + +"H'ard ye him ever tell the story aboot Colonsay Castel yon'er?" + +"Ay hey!" + +"Weel, isna his mere 'at they ca' Kelpie jist the pictur' o' the +deil's ain horse 'at lay at the door an' watched, whan he flaw oot +an' tuik the wa' wi' 'im ?" + +"I cudna say till I saw whether the deil himsel' cud gar her lie +still." + + + +CHAPTER LIX: THE PEACEMAKER + + +The heroes of Scaurnose expected a renewal of the attack, and in +greater force, the next day, and made their preparations accordingly, +strengthening every weak point around the village. They were put in +great heart by Malcolm's espousal of their cause, as they considered +his punishment of the factor; but most of them set it down in their +wisdom as resulting from the popular condemnation of his previous +supineness. It did not therefore add greatly to his influence with +them. When he would have prevailed upon them to allow Blue Peter +to depart, arguing that they had less right to prevent than the +factor had to compel him, they once more turned upon him: what +right had he to dictate to them? he did not belong to Scaurnose! + +He reasoned with them that the factor, although he had not justice, +had law on his side, and could turn out whom he pleased. They +said--"Let him try it!" He told them that they had given great +provocation, for he knew that the men they had assaulted came +surveying for a harbour, and that they ought at least to make some +apology for having maltreated them. It was all useless: that was +the women's doing, they said; besides they did not believe him; and +if what he said was true, what was the thing to them, seeing they +were all under notice to leave? + +Malcolm said that perhaps an apology would be accepted. They told +him, if he did not take himself off, they would serve him as he had +served the factor. Finding expostulation a failure, therefore, he +begged Joseph and Annie to settle themselves again as comfortably +as they could, and left them. + +Contrary to the expectation of all, however, and considerably to +the disappointment of the party of Dubs, Fite Folp, and the rest, +the next day was as peaceful as if Scaurnose had been a halcyon +nest floating on the summer waves; and it was soon reported that, +in consequence of the punishment he had received from Malcolm, the +factor was far too ill to be troublesome to any but his wife. This +was true, but, severe as his chastisement was, it was not severe +enough to have had any such consequences but for his late growing +habit of drinking whisky. As it was, fever had followed upon the +combination of bodily and mental suffering. But already it had +wrought this good in him, that he was far more keenly aware of the +brutality of the offence of which he had been guilty than he would +otherwise have been all his life through. To his wife, who first +learned the reason of Malcolm's treatment of him from his delirious +talk in the night, it did not, circumstances considered, appear +an enormity, and her indignation with the avenger of it, whom she +had all but hated before, was furious. + +Malcolm, on his part, was greatly concerned to hear the result +of his severity. He refrained, however, from calling to inquire, +knowing it would be interpreted as an insult, not accepted as +a sign of sympathy. He went to the doctor instead--who, to his +consternation, looked very serious at first. But when he learned all +about the affair, he changed his view considerably, and condescended +to give good hopes of his coming through, even adding that it would +lengthen his life by twenty years if it broke him of his habits of +whisky drinking and rage. + +And now Malcolm had a little time of leisure, which he put to the +best possible use in strengthening his relations with the fishers. +For he had nothing to do about the House, except look after Kelpie; +and Florimel, as if determined to make him feel that he was less +to her than before, much as she used to enjoy seeing him sit his +mare, never took him out with her--always Stoat. He resolved +therefore, seeing he must yet delay action a while in the hope of +the appearance of Lenorme, to go out as in the old days after the +herring, both for the sake of splicing, if possible, what strands +had been broken between him and the fishers, and of renewing for +himself the delights of elemental conflict. + +With these views, he hired himself to the Partan, whose boat's +crew was short handed. And now, night after night, he revelled in +the old pleasure, enhanced by so many months of deprivation. Joy +itself seemed embodied in the wind blowing on him out of the misty +infinite while his boat rocked and swung on the waters, hanging +between two worlds, that in which the wind blew, and that other +dark swaying mystery whereinto the nets to which it was tied went +away down and down, gathering the harvest of the ocean. + +It was as if nature called up all her motherhood to greet and embrace +her long absent son. When it came on to blow hard, as it did once +and again during those summer nights, instead of making him feel +small and weak in the midst of the storming forces, it gave him a +glorious sense of power and unconquerable life. And when his watch +was out, and the boat lay quiet, like a horse tethered and asleep +in his clover field, he too would fall asleep with a sense of +simultaneously deepening and vanishing delight such as be had not +at all in other conditions experienced. + +Ever since the poison had got into his system, and crept where it +yet lay lurking in hidden corners and crannies, a noise at night +would on shore startle him awake, and set his heart beating hard; +but no loudest sea noise ever woke him; the stronger the wind +flapped its wings around him, the deeper he slept. When a comrade +called him by name, he was up at once and wide awake. + +It answered also all his hopes in regard to his companions and the +fisher folk generally. Those who had really known him found the +same old Malcolm, and those who had doubted him soon began to see +that at least he had lost nothing in courage or skill or goodwill: +ere long he was even a greater favourite than before. On his part, +he learned to understand far better the nature of his people, +as well as the individual characters of them, for his long (but +not too long) absence and return enabled him to regard them with +unaccustomed, and therefore in some respects more discriminating +eyes. + +Duncan's former dwelling happening to be then occupied by a lonely +woman, Malcolm made arrangements with her to take them both in; so +that in relation to his grandfather too something very much like the +old life returned for a time--with this difference, that Duncan +soon began to check himself as often as the name of his hate, with +its accompanying curse, rose to his lips. + +The factor continued very ill. He had sunk into a low state, in +which his former indulgence was greatly against him. Every night the +fever returned, and at length his wife was worn out with watching, +and waiting upon him. + +And every morning Lizzy Findlay, without fail, called to inquire +how Mr Crathie had spent the night. To the last, while quarrelling +with every one of her neighbours with whom he had anything to do, +he had continued kind to her, and she was more grateful than one +in other trouble than hers could have understood. But she did not +know that an element in the origination of his kindness was the +belief that it was by Malcolm she had been wronged and forsaken. + +Again and again she had offered, in the humblest manner, to ease +his wife's burden by sitting with him at night; and at last, finding +she could hold up no longer, Mrs Crathie consented. But even after +a week she found herself still unable to resume the watching, and +so, night after night, resting at home during a part of the day, +Lizzy sat by the sleeping factor, and when he woke ministered to +him like a daughter. Nor did even her mother object, for sickness +is a wondrous reconciler. + +Little did the factor suspect, however, that it was partly for +Malcolm's sake she nursed him, anxious to shield the youth from +any possible consequences of his righteous vengeance. + +While their persecutor lay thus, gradually everything at Scaurnose, +and consequently at the Seaton, lapsed into its old way, and the +summer of such content as before they had possessed, returned to +the fishers. I fear it would have proved hard for some of them, +had they made effort in that direction, to join in the prayer, if +prayer it may be called, put up in church for him every Sunday. What +a fearful canopy the prayers that do not get beyond the atmosphere +would make if they turned brown with age! Having so lately seen the +factor going about like a maniac, raving at this piece of damage +and that heap of dirt, the few fishers present could never help +smiling when Mr Cairns prayed for him as "the servant of God and +his church now lying grievously afflicted--persecuted, but not +forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed;"--having found the fitting +phrases he seldom varied them. + +Through her sorrow, Lizzy had grown tender, as through her shame +she had grown wise. That the factor had been much in the wrong only +rendered her anxious sympathy the more eager to serve him. Knowing +so well what it was to have done wrong, she was pitiful over him, +and her ministrations were none the less devoted that she knew +exactly how Malcolm thought and felt about him; for the affair, +having taken place in open village and wide field and in the light +of midday, and having been reported by eyewitnesses many, was +everywhere perfectly known, and Malcolm therefore talked of it +freely to his friends, amongst them both to Lizzy and her mother. + +Sickness sometimes works marvellous changes, and the most marvellous +on persons who to the ordinary observer seem the least liable +to change. Much apparent steadfastness of nature, however, is +but sluggishness, and comes from incapacity to generate change or +contribute towards personal growth; and it follows that those whose +nature is such can as little prevent or retard any change that has +its initiative beyond them. The men who impress the world as the +mightiest are those often who can the least--never those who can +the most in their natural kingdom; generally those whose frontiers +lie openest to the inroads of temptation, whose atmosphere is most +subject to moody changes and passionate convulsions, who, while +perhaps they can whisper laws to a hemisphere, can utter no decree +of smallest potency as to how things shall be within themselves. +Place Alexander ille Magnus beside Malcolm's friend Epictetus, ille +servorum servus; take his crutch from the slave and set the hero +upon his Bucephalus--but set them alone and in a desert: which +will prove the great man? which the unchangeable? The question +being what the man himself shall or shall not be, shall or shall +not feel, shall or shall not recognize as of himself and troubling +the motions of his being, Alexander will prove a mere earth bubble, +Epictetus a cavern in which pulses the tide of the eternal and +infinite Sea. + +But then first, when the false strength of the self imagined great +man is gone, when the want or the sickness has weakened the self +assertion which is so often mistaken for strength of individuality, +when the occupations in which he formerly found a comfortable +consciousness of being have lost their interest, his ambitions +their glow, and his consolations their colour, when suffering has +wasted away those upper strata of his factitious consciousness, and +laid bare the lower, simpler, truer deeps, of which he has never +known or has forgotten the existence, then there is a hope of his +commencing a new and real life. + +Powers then, even powers within himself of which he knew nothing, +begin to assert themselves, and the man commonly reported to possess +a strong will, is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and +tossed. This factor, this man of business, this despiser of humbug, +to whom the scruples of a sensitive conscience were a contempt, +would now lie awake in the night and weep. + +"Ah!" I hear it answered, "but that was the weakness caused by his +illness." True: but what then had become of his strength? And was +it all weakness? What if this weakness was itself a sign of returning +life, not of advancing death--of the dawn of a new and genuine +strength! For he wept because, in the visions of his troubled brain, +he saw once more the cottage of his father the shepherd, with all +its store of lovely nothings round which the nimbus of sanctity +had gathered while he thought not of them; wept over the memory of +that moment of delight when his mother kissed him for parting with +his willow whistle to the sister who cried for it: he cried now in +his turn, after five and fifty years, for not yet had the little +fact done with him, not yet had the kiss of his mother lost its +power on the man: wept over the sale of the pet lamb, though he had +himself sold thousands of lambs, since; wept over even that bush +of dusty miller by the door, like the one he trampled under his +horse's feet in the little yard at Scaurnose that horrible day. +And oh, that nest of wild bees with its combs of honey unspeakable! +He used to laugh and sing then: he laughed still sometimes--he +could hear how he laughed, and it sounded frightful--but he never +sang! Were the tears that honoured such childish memories all of +weakness? Was it cause of regret that he had not been wicked enough +to have become impregnable to such foolish trifles? Unable to mount +a horse, unable to give an order, not caring even for his toddy, +he was left at the mercy of his fundamentals; his childhood came up +and claimed him, and he found the childish things he had put away +better than the manly things he had adopted. It is one thing for +St Paul and another for Mr Worldly Wiseman to put away childish +things. The ways they do it, and the things they substitute, are +both so different? And now first to me, whose weakness it is to +love life more than manners, and men more than their portraits, +the man begins to grow interesting. Picture the dawn of innocence +on a dull, whisky drinking, commonplace soul, stained by self +indulgence, and distorted by injustice! Unspeakably more interesting +and lovely is to me such a dawn than the honeymoon of the most +passionate of lovers, except indeed I know them such lovers that +their love will outlast all the moons. + +"I'm a poor creature, Lizzy," he said, turning his heavy face one +midnight towards the girl, as she sat half dozing, ready to start +awake. + +"God comfort ye, sir!" said the girl. + +"He'll take good care of that!" returned the factor. "What did I +ever do to deserve it?--There's that MacPhail, now--to think +of him! Didn't I do what man could for him? Didn't I keep him about +the place when all the rest were dismissed? Didn't I give him the +key of the library, that he might read and improve his mind? And +look what comes of it!" + +"Ye mean, sir," said. Lizzy, quite innocently, "'at that 's the +w'y ye ha'e dune wi' God, an' sae he winna heed ye?" + +The factor had meant nothing in the least like it. He had merely +been talking as the imps of suggestion tossed up. His logic was +as sick and helpless as himself. So at that he held his peace-- +stung in his pride at least--perhaps in his conscience too, only +he was not prepared to be rebuked by a girl like her, who had-- +Well, he must let it pass: how much better was he himself? + +But Lizzy was loyal: she could not hear him speak so of Malcolm +and hold her peace as if she agreed in his condemnation. + +"Ye'll ken Ma'colm better some day, sir," she said. + +"Well, Lizzy," returned the sick man, in a tone that but for +feebleness would have been indignant, "I have heard a good deal of +the way women will stand up for men that have treated them cruelly, +but you to stand up for him passes!" + +"He's been the best friend I ever had," said Lizzy. + +"Girl! how can you sit there, and tell me so to my face?" +cried the factor, his voice strengthened by the righteousness +of the reproof it bore. "If it were not the dead of the night--" + +"I tell ye naething but the trowth, sir," said Lizzy, as the +contingent threat died away. "But ye maun lie still or I maun gang +for the mistress. Gien ye be the waur the morn, it'll be a' my +wyte, 'cause I cudna bide to hear sic things said o' Ma'colm." + +"Do you mean to tell me," persisted her charge, heedless of her +expostulation, "that the fellow who brought you to disgrace, and +left you with a child you could ill provide for--and I well know +never sent you a penny all the time he was away, whatever he may +have done now, is the best friend you ever had?" + +"Noo God forgi'e ye, Maister Crathie, for threipin' sic a thing!" +cried Lizzy, rising as if she would leave him; "Ma'colm MacPhail +'s as clear o' ony sin like mine as my wee bairnie itsel'." + +"Do ye daur tell me he's no the father o' that same, lass?" + +"No, nor never will be the father a' ony bairn whase mither 's no +his wife!" said. Lizzy, with burning cheeks and resolute voice. + +The factor, who had risen on his elbow to look her in the face, +fell back in silence; and neither of them spoke for what seemed to +the watcher a long time; When she ventured to look at him, he was +asleep. + +He lay in one of those troubled slumbers into which weakness and +exhaustion will sometimes pass very suddenly; and in that slumber +he had a dream which he never forgot. He thought he had risen from +his grave with an awful sound in his ears, and knew he was wanted +at the judgment seat. But he did not want to go, therefore crept into +the porch of the church, and hoped to be forgotten. But suddenly +an angel appeared with a flaming sword and drove him out of the +churchyard away to Scaurnose where the judge was sitting. And as +he fled in terror before the angel, he fell, and the angel came +and stood over him, and his sword flashed torture into his bones, +but he could not and dared not rise. At last, summoning all his +strength, he looked up at him, and cried out, "Sir, ha'e mercy, +for God's sake." Instantly all the flames drew back into the sword, +and the blade dropped, burning like a brand, from the hilt, which +the angel threw away.--And lo! it was Malcolm MacPhail, and he +was stooping to raise him. With that he awoke, and there was Lizzy +looking down on him anxiously. + +"What are you looking like that for?" he asked crossly. + +She did not like to tell him that she had been alarmed by his dropping +asleep: and in her confusion she fell back on the last subject. + +"There maun be some mistak, Mr Crathie," she said. "I wuss ye wad +tell me what gars ye hate Ma'colm MacPhail as ye du." + +The factor, although he seemed to himself to know well enough, +was yet a little puzzled how to commence his reply; and therewith +a process began that presently turned into something with which +never in his life before had his inward parts been acquainted--a +sort of self examination to wit. He said to himself, partly in the +desire to justify his present dislike--he would not call it hate, +as Lizzy did--that he used to get on with the lad well enough, +and had never taken offence at his freedoms, making no doubt his +manner came of his blood, and he could not help it, being a chip +of the old block; but when he ran away with the marquis's boat, +and went to the marchioness and told her lies against him--then +what could he do but dislike him? + +Arrived at this point, he opened his mouth and gave the substance +of what preceded it for answer to Lizzy's question. But she replied +at once. + +"Nobody 'ill gar me believe, sir, 'at Ma'colm MacPhail ever tellt +a lee again' you or onybody. I dinna believe he ever tellt a lee +in 's life. Jist ye exem' him weel anent it, sir. An' for the boat, +nae doobt it was makin' free to tak it; but ye ken, sir, 'at hoo he +was maister o' the same. It was in his chairge, an' ye ken little +aboot boats yersel,' or the sailin' o' them, sir." + +"But it was me that engaged him again, after all the servants at +the House had been dismissed: he was my servant." + +"That maks the thing luik waur, nae doobt," allowed Lizzy,--with +something of cunning. "Hoo was't 'at he cam to du 't ava' (of all; +at all), sir? Can ye min'?" she pursued. + +"I discharged him." + +"An' what for, gien I may mak' hold to speir, sir?" she went on. + +"For insolence." + +"Wad ye tell me hoo he answert ye? Dinna think me meddlin', sir. +I'm clear certain there's been some mistak. Ye cudna be sae guid +to me, an' be ill to him, ohn some mistak." + +It was consoling to the conscience of the factor, in regard of his +behaviour to the two women, to hear his own praise for kindness +from woman's lips. He took no offence therefore at her persistent +questioning, but told her as well and as truly as he could remember, +with no more than the all but unavoidable exaggeration with which +feeling will colour fact, the whole passage between Malcolm and +himself concerning the sale of Kelpie, and closed with an appeal to +the judgment of his listener, in which he confidently anticipated +her verdict. + +"A most ridic'lous thing! ye can see yersel' as weel 's onybody, +Lizzy! An' sic a thing to ca' an honest man like mysel' a hypocrete +for! ha! ha! ha! There's no a bairn 'atween John o' Groat's an' +the Lan's En' disna ken 'at the seller a horse is b'un' to reese +(extol) him, an' the buyer to tak care o' himsel'. I'll no say +it's jist allooable to tell a doonricht lee, but ye may come full +nearer till't in horse dealin', ohn sinned, nor in ony ither kin' +o' merchandeze. It's like luve an' war, in baith which, it's weel +keened, a' thing's fair. The saw sud rin--Luve an' war an' horse +dealin'.--Divna ye see, Lizzy?" + +But Lizzy did not answer, and the factor, hearing a stifled sob, +started to his elbow. + +"Lie still, sir," said Lizzy. "It's naething. I was only jist +thinkin' 'at that wad be the w'y 'at the father o' my bairn rizoned +wi' himsel' whan he lee'd to me." + +"Hey!" said the astonished factor, and in his turn held his peace, +trying to think. + +Now Lizzy, for the last few months, had been going to school, +the same school with Malcolm, open to all comers, the only school +where one is sure to be led in the direction of wisdom, and there +she had been learning to some purpose--as plainly appeared before +she had done with the factor. + +"Whase kirk are ye elder o', Maister Crathie?" she asked presently. + +"Ow, the kirk o' Scotlan', of coorse!" answered the patient, in +some surprise at her ignorance. + +"Ay, ay," returned Lizzy; "but whase aucht (owning, property) is +'t?" + +"Ow, whase but the Redeemer's!" + +"An' div ye think, Mr Craithie, 'at gien Jesus Christ had had a +horse to sell, he wad ha'e hidden frae him 'at wad buy, ae hair a +fau't 'at the beast hed? Wad he no ha'e dune till's neiper as he +wad ha'e his neiper du to him?" + +"Lassie! lassie! tak care hoo ye even him to sic like as hiz (us). +What wad he hae to du wi' horse flesh?" + +Lizzy held her peace. Here was no room for argument. He had flung +the door of his conscience in the face of her who woke it. But it +was too late, for the word was in already. Oh! that false reverence +which men substitute for adoring obedience, and wherewith they +reprove the childlike spirit that does not know another kingdom +than that of God and that of Mammon! God never gave man thing to +do concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the son of +God would have done it. + +But, I say, the word was in, and, partly no doubt from its following +so close upon the dream the factor had had, was potent in its +operation. He fell a thinking, and a thinking more honestly than +he had thought for many a day. And presently it was revealed to +him that, if he were in the horse market wanting to buy, and a man +there who had to sell said to him--"He wadna du for you, sir; +ye wad be tired o' 'im in a week," he would never remark, "What a +fool the fellow is!" but--"Weel noo, I ca' that neibourly!" He +did not get quite so far just then as to see that every man to whom +he might want to sell a horse was as much his neighbour as his own +brother; nor, indeed, if he had got as far, would it have indicated +much progress in honesty, seeing he would at any time, when needful +and possible, have cheated that brother in the matter of a horse, +as certainly as he would a Patagonian or a Chinaman. But the warped +glass of a bad maxim had at least been cracked in his window. + +The peacemaker sat in silence the rest of the night, but the factor's +sleep was broken, and at times he wandered. He was not so well the +next day, and his wife, gathering that Lizzy had been talking, and +herself feeling better, would not allow her to sit up with him any +more. + +Days and days passed, and still Malcolm had no word from Lenorme, +and was getting hopeless in respect of that quarter of possible +aid. But so long as Florimel could content herself with the quiet +of Lossie House, there was time to wait, he said to himself. She +was not idle, and that was promising. Every day she rode out with +Stoat. Now and then she would make a call in the neighbourhood, +and, apparently to trouble Malcolm, took care to let him know that +on one of these occasions her call had been upon Mrs Stewart. + +One thing he did feel was that she made no renewal of her friendship +with his grandfather: she had, alas! outgrown the girlish fancy. +Poor Duncan took it much to heart. She saw more of the minister +and his wife, who both flattered her, than anybody else, and was +expecting the arrival of Lady Bellair and Lord Liftore with the +utmost impatience. They, for their part, were making the journey +by the easiest possible stages, tacking and veering, and visiting +everyone of their friends that lay between London and Lossie: +they thought to give Florimel the little lesson, that, though they +accepted her invitation, they had plenty of friends in the world +besides her ladyship, and were not dying to see her. + +One evening, Malcolm, as he left the grounds of Mr Morrison, on +whom he had been calling, saw a travelling carriage pass towards +Portlossie; and something liker fear laid hold of his heart than +he had ever felt except when Florimel and he on the night of the +storm took her father for Lord Gernon the wizard. As soon as he +reached certain available fields, he sent Kelpie tearing across +them, dodged through a fir wood, and came out on the road half a +mile in front of the carriage: as again it passed him he saw that +his fears were facts, for in it sat the bold faced countess, and +the mean hearted lord. Something must be done at last, and until +it was done good watch must be kept. + +I must here note that, during this time of hoping and waiting, +Malcolm had attended to another matter of importance. Over every +element influencing his life, his family, his dependents, his +property, he desired to possess a lawful, honest command: where +he had to render account, he would be head. Therefore, through Mr +Soutar's London agent, to whom he sent up Davy, and whom he brought +acquainted with Merton, and his former landlady at the curiosity +shop, he had discovered a good deal about Mrs Catanach from her +London associates, among them the herb doctor, and his little boy +who had watched Davy, and he had now almost completed an outline +of evidence, which, grounded on that of Rose, might be used against +Mrs Catanach at any moment. He had also set inquiries on foot in +the track of Caley's antecedents, and had discovered more than the +acquaintance between her and Mrs Catanach. Also he had arranged +that Hodges, the man who had lost his leg through his cruelty to +Kelpie, should leave for Duff Harbour as soon as possible after his +discharge from the hospital. He was determined to crush the evil +powers which had been ravaging his little world. + + + +CHAPTER LX: AN OFFERING + + +Clementina was always ready to accord any reasonable request Florimel +could make of her; but her letter lifted such a weight from her +heart and life that she would now have done whatever she desired, +reasonable or unreasonable, provided only it was honest. She had +no difficulty in accepting Florimel's explanation that her sudden +disappearance was but a breaking of the social gaol, the flight of +the weary bird from its foreign cage back to the country of its +nest; and that same morning she called upon Demon. The hound, feared +and neglected, was rejoiced to see her, came when she called him, +and received her caresses: there was no ground for dreading his +company. It was a long journey, but if it had been across a desert +instead of through her own country, the hope that lay at the end +of it would have made it more than pleasant. She, as well as Lady +Bellair, had friends upon the way, but no desire to lengthen the +journey or shorten its tedium by visiting them. + +The letter would have found her at Wastbeach instead of London, +had not the society and instructions of the schoolmaster detained +her a willing prisoner to its heat and glare and dust. Him only in +all London must she see to bid goodbye. To Camden Town therefore +she went that same evening, when his work would be over for the +day. As usual now, she was shown into his room--his only one. +As usual also, she found him poring over his Greek Testament. +The gracious, graceful woman looked lovelily strange in that mean +chamber--like an opal in a brass ring. + +There was no such contrast between the room and its occupant. +His bodily presence was too weak to "stick fiery off" from its +surroundings, and to the eye that saw through the bodily presence +to the inherent grandeur, that grandeur suggested no discrepancy, +being of the kind that lifts everything to its own level, casts +the mantle of its own radiance around its surroundings. Still to +the eye of love and reverence it was not pleasant to see him in +such entourage, and now that Clementina was going to leave him, +the ministering spirit that dwelt in the woman was troubled. + +"Ah!" he said, and rose as she entered; "this is then the angel +of my deliverance!" But with such a smile he did not look as if he +had much to be delivered from. "You see," he went on, "old man as +I am, and peaceful, the summer will lay hold upon me. She stretches +out a long arm into this desert of houses and stones, and sets me +longing after the green fields and the living air--it seems dead +here--and the face of God--as much as one may behold of the +Infinite through the revealing veil of earth and sky and sea. Shall +I confess my weakness, my poverty of spirit, my covetousness after +the visual? I was even getting a little tired of that glorious God +and man lover, Saul of Tarsus--no, not of him, never of him, only +of his shadow in his words. Yet perhaps, yes I think so, it is God +alone of whom a man can never get tired. Well, no matter; tired +I was; when lo! here comes my pupil, with more of God in her face +than all the worlds and their skies he ever made!" + +"I would my heart were as full of him, too, then, sir!" answered +Clementina. "But if I am anything of a comfort to you, I am more +than glad,--therefore the more sorry to tell you that I am going +to leave you--though for a little while only, I trust." + +"You do not take me by surprise, my lady. I have of course been +looking forward for some time to my loss and your gain. The world +is full of little deaths, deaths of all sorts and sizes, rather +let me say. For this one I was prepared. The good summer land calls +you to its bosom, and you must go." + +"Come with me," cried Clementina, her eyes eager with the light of +the sudden thought, while her heart reproached her grievously that +only now first had it come to her. + +"A man must not leave the most irksome work for the most peaceful +pleasure," answered the schoolmaster. "I am able to live--yes, and +do my work, without you, my lady," he added with a smile, "though +I shall miss you sorely." + +"But you do not know where I want you to come," she said. + +"What difference can that make, my lady, except indeed in the amount +of pleasure to be refused, seeing this is not a matter of choice? +I must be with the children whom I have engaged to teach, and whose +parents pay me for my labour--not with those who, besides, can +do well without me." + +"I cannot, sir--not for long, at least." + +"What! not with Malcolm to supply my place?" + +Clementina blushed, but only like a white rose. She did not turn +her head aside; she did not lower their lids to veil the light +she felt mount into her eyes; she looked him gently in the face as +before, and her aspect of entreaty did not change. + +"Ah! do not be unkind, master," she said. + +"Unkind!" he repeated. "You know I am not. I have more kindness +in my heart than my lips can tell. You do not know, you could not +yet imagine the half of what I hope of and for and from you." + +"I am going to see Malcolm," she said, with a little sigh. "That +is, I am going to visit Lady Lossie at her place in Scotland-- +your own old home, where so many must love you.--Can't you come? +I shall be travelling alone, quite alone, except my servants." + +A shadow came over the schoolmaster's face. + +"You do not think, my lady, or you would not press me. It pains +me that you do not see at once it would be dishonest to go without +timely notice to my pupils, and to the public too. But, beyond that +quite, I never do anything of myself. I go, not where I wish, but +where I seem to be called or sent. I never even wish much--except +when I pray to him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom +and knowledge. After what he wants to give me I am wishing all day +long. I used to build many castles, not without a beauty of their +own--that was when I had less understanding: now I leave them +to God to build for me--he does it better and they last longer. +See now, this very hour, when I needed help--could I have contrived a +more lovely annihilation of the monotony that threatened to invade +my weary spirit, than this inroad of light in the person of my lady +Clementina? Nor will he allow me to get over wearied with vain +efforts. I do not think he will keep me here long, for I find I +cannot do much for these children. They are but some of his many +pagans--not yet quite ready to receive Christianity, I think-- +not like children with some of the old seeds of the truth buried +in them, that want to be turned up nearer to the light. This +ministration I take to be more for my good than theirs--a little +trial of faith and patience for me--a stony corner of the lovely +valley of humiliation to cross. True, I might be happier where I +could hear the larks, but I do not know that anywhere have I been +more peaceful than in this little room, on which I see you so often +cast round your eyes curiously--perhaps pitifully, my lady?" + +"It is not at all a fit place for you," said Clementina, with a +touch of indignation. + +"Softly, my lady----lest, without knowing it, your love should +make you sin! Who set thee, I pray, for a guardian angel over my +welfare? I could scarce have a lovelier--true! but where is thy +brevet? No, my lady! it is a greater than thou that sets me the +bounds of my habitation. Perhaps he may give me a palace one day. +If I might choose, it would be the things that belong to a cottage +--the whiteness and the greenness and the sweet odours of cleanliness. +But the father has decreed for his children that they shall know +the thing that is neither their ideal nor his. Who can imagine how +in this respect things looked to our Lord when he came and found +so little faith on the earth! But, perhaps, my lady, you would +not pity my present condition so much, if you had seen the cottage +in which I was born, and where my father and my mother loved each +other, and died happier than on their wedding day. There I was +happy too until their loving ambition decreed that I should be a +scholar and a clergyman. Not before then did I ever know anything +worthy of the name of trouble. A little cold and a little hunger +at times, and not a little restlessness always was all. But then +--ah then, my troubles began! Yet God, who bringeth light out of +darkness, hath brought good even out of my weakness and presumption +and half unconscious falsehood!--When do you go?" + +"Tomorrow morning--as I purpose." + +"Then God be with thee. He is with thee, only my prayer is that +thou mayest know it. He is with me and I know it. He does not find +this chamber too mean or dingy or unclean to let me know him near +me in it." + +"Tell me one thing before I go," said Clementina: "are we not +commanded to bear each other's burdens and so fulfil the law of +Christ? I read it today." + +"Then why ask me?" + +"For another question: does not that involve the command to those +who have burdens that they should allow others to bear them?" + +"Surely, my lady. But I have no burden to let you bear." + +"Why should I have everything, and you nothing?--Answer me that?" + +"My lady, I have millions more than you, for I have been gathering +the crumbs under my master's table for thirty years." + +"You are a king," answered Clementina. "But a king needs a +handmaiden somewhere in his house: that let me be in yours. No, I +will be proud, and assert my rights. I am your daughter. If I am +not, why am I here? Do you not remember telling me that the adoption +of God meant a closer relation than any other fatherhood, even his +own first fatherhood could signify? You cannot cast me off if you +would. Why should you be poor when I am rich?--You are poor. You +cannot deny it," she concluded with a serious playfulness. + +"I will not deny my privileges," said the schoolmaster, with a smile +such as might have acknowledged the possession of some exquisite +and envied rarity. + +"I believe," insisted Clementina, "you are just as poor as the +apostle Paul when he sat down to make a tent--or as our Lord +himself after he gave up carpentering." + +"You are wrong there, my lady. I am not so poor as they must often +have been." + +"But I don't know how long I may be away, and you may fall +ill, or--or--see some--some book you want very much, or--" + +"I never do," said the schoolmaster. + +"What! never see a book you want to have?" + +"No; not now. I have my Greek Testament, my Plato, and my Shakspere +--and one or two little books besides, whose wisdom I have not +yet quite exhausted." + +"I can't bear it!" cried Clementina, almost on the point of weeping. +"You will not let me near you. You put out an arm as long as the +summer's and push me away from you. Let me be your servant." + +As she spoke, she rose, and walking softly up to him where he sat +kneeled at his knees, and held out suppliantly a little bag of +white silk, tied with crimson. + +"Take it--father," she said, hesitating, and bringing the word +out with an effort; "take your daughter's offering--a poor thing +to show her love, but something to ease her heart." + +He took it, and weighed it up and down in his hand with an amused +smile, but his eyes full of tears. It was heavy. He opened it. A +chair was within his reach, he emptied it on the seat of it, and +laughed with merry delight as its contents came tumbling out. + +"I never saw so much gold in my life, if it were all taken together," +he said. "What beautiful stuff it is! But I don't want it, my dear. +It would but trouble me." And as he spoke, he began to put it in +the bag again. "You will want it for your journey," he said. + +"I have plenty in my reticule," she answered. "That is a mere nothing +to what I could have tomorrow morning for writing a cheque. I am +afraid I am very rich. It is such a shame! But I can't well help +it. You must teach me how to become poor.--Tell me true: how much +money have you?" + +She said this with such an earnest look of simple love that the +schoolmaster made haste to rise, that he might conceal his growing +emotion. + +"Rise, my dear lady," he said, as he rose himself, "and I will show +you." + +He gave her his hand, and she obeyed, but troubled and disappointed, +and so stood looking after him, while he went to a drawer. Thence, +searching in a corner of it, he brought a half sovereign, a few +shillings, and some coppers, and held them out to her on his hand, +with the smile of one who has proved his point. + +"There!" he said; "do you think Paul would have stopped preaching +to make a tent so long as he had as much as that in his pocket? I +shall have more on Saturday, and I always carry a month's rent in +my good old watch, for which I never had much use, and now have +less than ever." + +Clementina had been struggling with herself; now she burst into +tears. + +"Why, what a misspending of precious sorrow!" exclaimed the +schoolmaster. "Do you think because a man has not a gold mine he +must die of hunger? I once heard of a sparrow that never had a worm +left for the morrow, and died a happy death notwithstanding." + +As he spoke he took her handkerchief from her hand and dried her +tears with it. But he had enough ado to keep his own back. + +"Because I won't take a bagful of gold from you when I don't want +it," he went on, "do you think I should let myself starve without +coming to you? I promise you I will let you know--come to you if +I can, the moment I get too hungry to do my work well, and have no +money left. Should I think it a disgrace to take money from you? +That would show a poverty of spirit such as I hope never to fall +into. My sole reason for refusing it now is that I do not need it." + +But for all his loving words and assurances Clementina could not +stay her tears. She was not ready to weep, but now her eyes were +as a fountain. + +"See, then, for your tears are hard to bear, my daughter," he said, +"I will take one of these golden ministers, and if it has flown from +me ere you come, seeing that, like the raven, it will not return +if once I let it go, I will ask you for another. It may be God's +will that you should feed me for a time." + +"Like one of Elijah's ravens," said Clementina, with an attempted +laugh that was really a sob. + +"Like a dove whose wings are covered with silver, and her feathers +with yellow gold," said the schoolmaster. + +A moment of silence followed, broken only by Clementina's failures +in quieting herself. + +"To me," he resumed, "the sweetest fountain of money is the hand of +love, but a man has no right to take it from that fountain except +he is in want of it. I am not. True, I go somewhat bare, my lady; +but what is that when my Lord would have it so?" + +He opened again the bag, and slowly, reverentially indeed, drew +from it one of the new sovereigns with which it was filled. He put +it into a waistcoat pocket, and laid the bag on the table. + +"But your clothes are shabby, sir," said Clementina, looking at +him with a sad little shake of the head. + +"Are they?" he returned, and looked down at his lower garments, +reddening and anxious. "--I did not think they were more than +a little rubbed, but they shine somewhat," he said. "--They are +indeed polished by use," he went on, with a troubled little laugh; +"but they have no holes yet--at least none that are visible," he +corrected. "If you tell me, my lady, if you honestly tell me that +my garments"--and he looked at the sleeve of his coat, drawing +back his head from it to see it better--"are unsightly, I will +take of your money and buy me a new suit." + +Over his coat sleeve he regarded her, questioning. + +"Everything about you is beautiful!" she burst out "You want nothing +but a body that lets the light through!" + +She took the hand still raised in his survey of his sleeve, pressed +it to her lips, and walked, with even more than her wonted state, +slowly from the room. He took the bag of gold from the table, and +followed her down the stair. Her chariot was waiting her at the door. +He handed her in, and laid the bag on the little seat in front. + +"Will you tell him to drive home," she said, with a firm voice, and +a smile which if anyone care to understand, let him read Spenser's +fortieth sonnet. And so they parted. The coachman took the queer +shabby un-London-like man for a fortune teller his lady was in the +habit of consulting, and paid homage to his power with the handle +of his whip as he drove away. The schoolmaster returned to his +room, not to his Plato, not even to Saul of Tarsus, but to the Lord +himself. + + + +CHAPTER LXI: THOUGHTS + + +When Malcolm took Kelpie to her stall the night of the arrival +of Lady Bellair and her nephew, he was rushed upon by Demon, and +nearly prostrated between his immoderate welcome and the startled +rearing of the mare. The hound had arrived a couple of hours +before, while Malcolm was out. He wondered he had not seen him with +the carriage he had passed, never suspecting he had had another +conductress, or dreaming what his presence there signified for him. + +I have not said much concerning Malcolm's feelings with regard to +Lady Clementina, but all this time the sense of her existence had +been like an atmosphere surrounding and pervading his thought. He +saw in her the promise of all he could desire to see in woman. His +love was not of the blind little boy sort, but of a deeper, more +exacting, keen eyed kind, that sees faults where even a true mother +will not, so jealous is it of the perfection of the beloved. + +But one thing was plain even to this seraphic dragon that dwelt +sleepless in him, and there was eternal content in the thought, +that such a woman, once started on the right way, would soon leave +fault and weakness behind her, and become as one of the grand +women of old, whose religion was simply what religion is--life +--neither more nor less than life. She would be a saint without +knowing it, the only grand kind of sainthood. + +Whoever can think of religion as an addition to life, however glorious +--a starry crown, say, set upon the head of humanity, is not yet +the least in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever thinks of life as a +something that could be without religion, is in deathly ignorance +of both. Life and religion are one, or neither is anything: I will +not say neither is growing to be anything. Religion is no way of +life, no show of life, no observance of any sort. It is neither +the food nor the medicine of being. It is life essential. To think +otherwise is as if a man should pride himself on his honesty, or +his parental kindness, or hold up his head amongst men because he +never killed one: were he less than honest or kind or free from +blood, he would yet think something of himself! The man to whom +virtue is but the ornament of character, something over and above, +not essential to it, is not yet a man. + +If I say then, that Malcolm was always thinking about Lady Clementina +when he was not thinking about something he had to think about, +have I not said nearly enough on the matter? Should I ever dream +of attempting to set forth what love is, in such a man for such a +woman? There are comparatively few that have more than the glimmer +of a notion of what love means. God only knows how grandly, how +passionately yet how calmly, how divinely the man and the woman he +has made, might, may, shall love each other. One thing only I will +dare to say: that the love that belonged to Malcolm's nature was +one through the very nerves of which the love of God must rise and +flow and return, as its essential life. If any man think that such +a love could no longer be the love of the man for the woman, he +knows his own nature, and that of the woman he pretends or thinks +he adores, but in the darkest of glasses. + +Malcolm's lowly idea of himself did not at all interfere with his +loving Clementina, for at first his love was entirely dissociated +from any thought of hers. When the idea--the mere idea of her +loving him presented itself, from whatever quarter suggested, he +turned from it with shame and self reproof: the thought was in its +own nature too unfit! That splendour regard him! + +From a social point of view there was of course little presumption +in it. The Marquis of Lossie bore a name that might pair itself +with any in the land; but Malcolm did not yet feel that the title +made much difference to the fisherman. He was what he was, and that +was something very lowly indeed. Yet the thought would at times dawn +up from somewhere in the infinite matrix of thought, that perhaps, +if he went to college, and graduated, and dressed like a gentleman, +and did everything as gentlemen do, in short, claimed his rank, and +lived as a marquis should, as well as a fisherman might,--then +--then--was it not--might it not be within the bounds of +possibility--just within them--that the great hearted, generous, +liberty loving Lady Clementina, groom as he had been, menial as he +had heard himself called, and as, ere yet he knew his birth, he +had laughed to hear, knowing that his service was true,--that +she, who despised nothing human, would be neither disgusted nor +contemptuous nor wrathful, if, from a great way off, at an awful +remove of humility and worship, he were to wake in her a surmise +that he dared feel towards her as he had never felt and never could +feel towards any other? + +For would it not be altogether counter to the principles he had +so often heard her announce and defend, to despise him because he +had earned his bread by doing honourable work--work hearty, and +up to the worth of his wages? Was she one to say and not see--to +opine and not believe? or was she one to hold and not practise-- +to believe for the heart and not for the hand--to say I go, and +not go--I love, and not help? If such she were, then there were +for him no further searchings of the heart upon her account; he +could but hold up her name in the common prayer for all men, only +praying besides not to dream about her when he slept. + +At length, such thoughts rising again and again, and ever accompanied +by such reflections concerning the truth of her character, and by +the growing certainty that her convictions were the souls of actions +to be born them, his daring of belief in her strengthened until he +began to think that perhaps it would be neither his early history, +nor his defective education, nor his clumsiness, that would prevent +her from listening to such words wherewith he burned to throw open +the gates of his world, and pray her to enter and sit upon its +loftiest throne--its loftiest throne but one. And with the thought +he felt as if he must run to her, calling aloud that he was the +Marquis of Lossie, and throw himself at her feet. + +But the wheels of his thought chariot, self moved, were rushing, +and here was no goal at which to halt or turn!--for, feeling +thus, where was his faith in her principles? How now was he treating +the truth of her nature? where now were his convictions of the +genuineness of her professions? Where were those principles, that +truth, those professions, if after all she would listen to a marquis +and would not listen to a groom? To suppose such a thing was to +wrong her grievously. To herald his suit with his rank would be to +insult her, declaring that he regarded her theories of humanity as +wordy froth. And what a chance of proving her truth would he not +deprive her of, if, as he approached her, he called on the marquis +to supplement the man!--But what then was the man, fisherman or +marquis, to dare even himself to such a glory as the Lady Clementina? +--This much of a man at least, answered his waking dignity, that +he could not condescend to be accepted as Malcolm, Marquis of +Lossie, knowing he would have been rejected as Malcolm MacPhail, +fisherman and groom. + +Accepted as marquis, he would for ever be haunted with the channering +question whether she would have accepted him as groom? And if in +his pain he were one day to utter it, and she in her honesty were +to confess she would not, must she not then fall prone from her +pedestal in his imagination? Could he then, in love for the woman +herself condescend as marquis to marry one who might not have married +him as any something else he could honestly have been, under the +all enlightening sun: but again! was that fair to her yet? Might +she not see in the marquis the truth and worth which the blinding +falsehoods of society prevented her from seeing in the groom? +Might not a lady--he tried to think of a lady in the abstract-- +might not a lady, in marrying a marquis, a lady to whom from her +own position a marquis was just a man on the level, marry in him +the man he was, and not the marquis he seemed? Most certainly, he +answered: he must not be unfair.--Not the less however did he +shrink from the thought of taking her prisoner under the shield of +his marquisate, beclouding her nobility, and depriving her of the +rare chance of shining forth as the sun in the splendour of womanly +truth. No; he would choose the greater risk of losing her, for the +chance of winning her greater. + +So far Malcolm got with his theories; but the moment he began to +think in the least practically, he recoiled altogether from the +presumption. Under no circumstances could he ever have the courage +to approach Lady Clementina with a thought of himself in his mind. +How could he have dared even to raise her imagined eidolon for his +thoughts to deal withal. She had never shown him personal favour. +He could not tell whether she had listened to what he had tried +to lay before her. He did not know that she had gone to hear his +master; Florimel had never referred to their visit to Hope Chapel; +his surprise would have equalled his delight at the news that she +had already become as a daughter to the schoolmaster. + +And what had been Clementina's thoughts since learning that +Florimel had not run away with her groom? It were hard to say with +completeness. Accuracy however may not be equally unattainable. +Her first feeling was an utterly inarticulate, undefined pleasure +that Malcolm was free to be thought about. She was clear next that +it would be matter for honest rejoicing if the truest man she had +ever met except his master, was not going to marry such an unreality +as Florimel--one concerning whom, as things had been going of +late, it was impossible to say that she was not more likely to turn +to evil than to good. + +Clementina with all her generosity could not help being doubtful +of a woman who could make a companion of such a man as Liftore, a +man to whom every individual particle of Clementina's nature seemed +for itself to object. But she was not yet past befriending. + +Then she began to grow more curious about Malcolm. She had already +much real knowledge of him, gathered both from himself and from Mr +Graham;--as to what went to make the man, she knew him indeed, +not thoroughly, but well; and just therefore, she said to herself, +there were some points in his history and condition concerning which +she had curiosity. The principal of these was whether he might not +be engaged to some young woman in his own station of life. It was +not merely possible, but was it likely he could have escaped it? +In the lower ranks of society, men married younger--they had no +false aims to prevent them that implied earlier engagements. On the +other hand, was it likely that in a fishing village there would be +any choice of girls who could understand him when he talked about +Plato and the New Testament? If there was one however, that might +be--worse--Yes, worse; she accepted the word. Neither was it +absolutely necessary in a wife that she should understand more of +a husband than his heart. Many learned men had had mere housekeepers +for wives, and been satisfied, at least never complained. + +And what did she know about the fishers, men or women--there were +none at Wastbeach? For anything she knew to the contrary, they +might all be philosophers together, and a fitting match for Malcolm +might be far more easy to find amongst them than in the society +to which she herself belonged, where in truth the philosophical +element was rare enough. Then arose in her mind, she could not +have told how, the vision, half logical, half pictorial, of a whole +family of brave, believing, daring, saving fisher folk, father, +mother, boys and girls, each sacrificing to the rest, each sacrificed +to by all, and all devoted to their neighbours. + +Grand it was and blissful, and the borders of the great sea alone +seemed fit place for such beings amphibious of time and eternity! +Their very toils and dangers were but additional atmospheres to +press their souls together! It was glorious! Why had she been born +an earl's daughter,--never to look a danger in the face--never +to have a chance of a true life--that is, a grand, simple, noble +one?--Who then denied her the chance? Had she no power to order +her own steps, to determine her own being? Was she nailed to +her rank? Or who was there that could part her from it? Was she a +prisoner in the dungeons of the House of Pride? + +When the gates of paradise closed behind Adam and Eve, they had +this consolation left, that "the world was all before them where +to choose." Was she not a free woman--without even a guardian to +trouble her with advice? She had no excuse to act ignobly!--But +had she any for being unmaidenly?--Would it then be--would +it be a very unmaidenly thing if? The rest of the sentence did not +take even the shape of words. But she answered it nevertheless in +the words: "Not so unmaidenly as presumptuous." And alas there was +little hope that he would ever presume to? He was such a modest +youth with all his directness and fearlessness! If he had no respect +for rank,--and that was--yes, she would say the word, hopeful +--he had, on the other hand, the profoundest respect for the +human, and she could not tell how that might, in the individual +matter, operate. + +Then she fell a-thinking of the difference between Malcolm and any +other servant she had ever known. She hated the servile. She knew +that it was false as well as low: she had not got so far as to see +that it was low through its being false. She knew that most servants, +while they spoke with the appearance of respect in presence, altered +their tone entirely when beyond the circle of the eye--theirs +was eye service--they were men pleasers--they were servile. +She had overheard her maid speak of her as Lady Clem, and that not +without a streak of contempt in the tone. + +But here was a man who touched no imaginary hat while he stood in +the presence of his mistress, neither swore at her in the stable +yard. He looked her straight in the face, and would upon occasion +speak--not his mind--but the truth to her. Even his slight +mistress had the conviction that if one dared in his presence but +utter her name lightly, whoever he were he would have to answer +to him for it. What a lovely thing was true service--Absolutely +divine! + +But, alas, such a youth would never, could never dare offer other +than such service! Were she even to encourage him as a maiden +might, he would but serve her the better--would but embody his +recognition of her favour, in fervour of ministering devotion.-- +Was it not a recognized law, however, in the relation of superiors +and inferiors, that with regard to such matters as well as others +of no moment, the lady? + +Ah, but! for her to take the initiative, would provoke the conclusion +--as revolting to her as unavoidable to him--that she judged +herself his superior--so greatly his superior as to be absolved +from the necessity of behaving to him on the ordinary footing of +man and woman. What a ground to start from with a husband! The idea +was hateful to her. She tried the argument that such a procedure +arrogated merely a superiority in social standing; but it made her +recoil from it the more. He was so immeasurably her superior, that +the poor little advantage on her side vanished like a candle in +the sunlight, and she laughed herself to scorn. + +"Fancy," she laughed, "a midge, on the strength of having wings, +condescending to offer marriage to a horse !" It would argue the +assumption of equality in other and more important things than +rank, or at least the confidence that her social superiority not +only counterbalanced the difference, but left enough over to her +credit to justify her initiative. And what a miserable fiction that +money and position had a right to the first move before greatness +of living fact! that having had the precedence of being! That +Malcolm should imagine such her judgment--No--let all go-- +let himself go rather! And then he might not choose to accept her +munificent offer! Or worse--far worse!--what if he should be +tempted by rank and wealth, and, accepting her, be shorn of his +glory and proved of the ordinary human type after all! A thousand +times rather would she see the bright particular star blazing +unreachable above her! What! would she carry it about a cinder in +her pocket?--And yet if he could be "turned to a coal," why should +she go on worshipping him?--alas! the offer itself was the only +test severe enough to try him withal, and if he proved a cinder, +she would by the very use of the test be bound to love, honour, +and obey her cinder. + +She could not well reject him for accepting her--neither could +she marry him if he rose grandly superior to her temptations. No; +he could be nothing to her nearer than the bright particular star. + +Thus went the thoughts to and fro in the minds of each. Neither +could see the way. Both feared the risk of loss. Neither could hope +greatly for gain. + + + +CHAPTER LXII: THE DUNE + + +Having put Kelpie up, and fed and bedded her, Malcolm took his way +to the Seaton, full of busily anxious thought. Things had taken a +bad turn, and he was worse off for counsel than before. The enemy +was in the house with his sister, and he had no longer any chance +of judging how matters were going, as now he never rode out with +her. But at least he could haunt the house. He would run therefore +to his grandfather, and tell him that he was going to occupy his +old quarters at the House that night. + +Returning directly and passing, as had been his custom, through the +kitchen to ascend the small corkscrew stair the servants generally +used, he encountered Mrs Courthope, who told him that her ladyship +had given orders that her maid, who had come with Lady Bellair, +should have his room. + +He was at once convinced that Florimel had done so with the intention +of banishing him from the house, for there were dozens of rooms +vacant, and many of them more suitable. It was a hard blow! How he +wished for Mr Graham to consult! And yet Mr Graham was not of much +use where any sort of plotting was wanted. He asked Mrs Courthope +to let him have another room; but she looked so doubtful that he +withdrew his request, and went back to his grandfather. + +It was Saturday, and not many of the boats would go fishing. +Findlay's would not leave the harbour till Sunday was over, and +therefore Malcolm was free. But he could not rest, and would go +line fishing. + +"Daddy," he said, "I'm gaein oot to catch a haddick or sae to oor +denner the morn. Ye micht jist sit doon upo' ane o' the Boar's +Taes, an' tak a play o' yer pipes. I'll hear ye fine, an' it'll du +me guid." + +The Boar's Toes were two or three small rocks that rose out of the +sand near the end of the dune. Duncan agreed right willingly, and +Malcolm, borrowing some lines, and taking the Psyche's dinghy, +rowed out into the bay. + +The sun was down, the moon was up, and he had caught more fish +than he wanted. His grandfather had got tired, and gone home, and +the fountain of his anxious thoughts began to flow more rapidly. +He must go ashore. He must go up to the House: who could tell what +might not be going on there? He drew in his line, purposing to take +the best of the fish to Miss Horn, and some to Mrs Courthope, as +in the old days. + +The Psyche still lay on the sands, and he was rowing the dinghy +towards her, when, looking round to direct his course, he thought +he caught a glimpse of some one seated on the slope of the dune. +Yes, there was some one there, sure enough. The old times rushed +back on his memory: could it be Florimel? Alas! it was not likely +she would now be wandering about alone! But if it were? Then for +one endeavour more to rouse her slumbering conscience! He would +call up all the associations of the last few months she had spent +in the place, and, with the spirit of her father, as it were, +hovering over her, conjure her, in his name, to break with Liftore. + +He rowed swiftly to the Psyche--beached and drew up the dinghy, +and climbed the dune. Plainly enough it was a lady who sat there. +It might be one from the upper town, enjoying the lovely night; it +might be Florimel, but how could she have got away, or wished to +get away from her newly arrived guests? The voices of several groups +of walkers came from the high road behind the dune, but there was +no other figure to be seen all along the sands. He drew nearer. The +lady did not move. If it were Florimel, would she not know him as +he came, and would she wait for him? + +He drew nearer still. His heart gave a throb. Could it be? Or was +the moon weaving some hallucination in his troubled brain? If it +was a phantom, it was that of Lady Clementina; if but modelled of +the filmy vapours of the moonlight, and the artist his own brain, +the phantom was welcome as joy! His spirit seemed to soar aloft in +the yellow air, and hang hovering over and around her, while his +body stood rooted to the spot, like one who fears by moving nigher +to lose the lovely vision of a mirage. She sat motionless, her +gaze on the sea. Malcolm bethought himself that she could not know +him in his fisher dress, and must take him for some rude fisherman +staring at her. He must go at once, or approach and address her. +He came forward at once. + +"My lady!" he said. + +She did not start. Neither did she speak. She did not even turn +her face. She rose first, then turned, and held out her hand. Three +steps more, and he had it in his, and his eyes looked straight +into hers. Neither spoke. The moon shone full on Clementina's face. +There was no illumination fitter for that face than the moonlight, +and to Malcolm it was lovelier than ever. Nor was it any wonder +it should seem so to him, for certainly never had the eyes in it +rested on his with such a lovely and trusting light in them. + +A moment she stood, then slowly sank upon the sand, and drew her +skirts about her with a dumb show of invitation. The place where she +sat was a little terraced hollow in the slope, forming a convenient +seat. Malcolm saw but could not believe she actually made room for +him to sit beside her--alone with her in the universe. It was +too much; he dared not believe it. And now by one of those wondrous +duplications which are not always at least born of the fancy, +the same scene in which he had found Florimel thus seated on the +slope of the dune, appeared to be passing again through Malcolm's +consciousness, only instead of Florimel was Clementina, and instead +of the sun was the moon. And creature of the sunlight as Florimel +was, bright and gay and beautiful, she paled into a creature of +the cloud beside this maiden of the moonlight, tall and stately, +silent and soft and grand. + +Again she made a movement. This time he could not doubt her +invitation. It was as if her soul made room in her unseen world +for him to enter and sit beside her. But who could enter heaven in +his work day garments? + +"Won't you sit by me, Malcolm?" seeing his more than hesitation, +she said at last, with a slight tremble in the voice that was music +itself in his ears. + +"I have been catching fish, my lady," he answered, "and my clothes +must be unpleasant. I will sit here." + +He went a little lower on the slope, and laid himself down, leaning +on his elbow. + +"Do fresh water fishes smell the same as the sea fishes, Malcolm?" +she asked. + +"Indeed I am not certain, my lady. Why?" + +"Because if they do,--You remember what you said to me as we +passed the sawmill in the wood?" + +It was by silence Malcolm showed he did remember. + +"Does not this night remind you of that one at Wastbeach when we +came upon you singing?" said Clementina. + +"It is like it, my lady--now. But a little ago, before I saw you, +I was thinking of that night, and thinking how different this was." + +Again a moon filled silence fell; and once more it was the lady +who broke it. + +"Do you know who are at the house?" she asked. + +"I do, my lady," he replied. + +"I had not been there more than an hour or two," she went on, "when +they arrived. I suppose Florimel--Lady Lossie thought I would +not come if she told me she expected them." + +"And would you have come, my lady?" + +"I cannot endure the earl." + +"Neither can I. But then I know more about him than your ladyship +does, and I am miserable for my mistress." + +It stung Clementina as if her heart had taken a beat backward. But +her voice was steadier than it had yet been as she returned--"Why +should you be miserable for Lady Lossie?" + +"I would die rather than see her marry that wretch," he answered. + +Again her blood stung her in the left side. + +"You do not want her to marry, then?" she said. + +"I do," answered Malcolm, emphatically, "but not that fellow." + +"Whom then, if I may ask?" ventured Clementina, trembling. + +But Malcolm was silent He did not feel it would be right to say. +Clementina turned sick at heart. + +"I have heard there is something dangerous about the moonlight," +she said. "I think it does not suit me tonight. I will go--home." + +Malcolm sprung to his feet and offered his hand. She did not take +it, but rose more lightly, though more slowly than he. + +"How did you come from the park, my lady?" he asked. + +"By a gate over there," she answered, pointing. "I wandered out +after dinner, and the sea drew me." + +"If your ladyship will allow me, I will take you a much nearer way +back," he said. + +"Do then," she returned. + +He thought she spoke a little sadly, and set it down to her hating +to go back to her fellow guests. What if she should leave tomorrow +morning! he thought He could never then be sure she had really been +with him that night. He must then sometimes think it a dream. But +oh, what a dream! He could thank God for it all his life, if he +should never dream so again. + +They walked across the grassy sand towards the tunnel in silence, +he pondering what he could say that might comfort her and keep her +from going so soon. + +"My lady never takes me out with her now," he said at length. + +He was going to add that, if she pleased, he could wait upon her +with Kelpie, and show her the country. But then he saw that, if +she were not with Florimel, his sister would be riding everywhere +alone with Liftore. Therefore he stopped short. + +"And you feel forsaken--deserted?" returned Clementina, sadly +still. + +"Rather, my lady." + +They had reached the tunnel. It looked very black when he opened +the door, but there was just a glimmer through the trees at the +other end. + +"This is the valley of the shadow of death," she said. "Do I walk +straight through?" + +"Yes, my lady. You will soon come out in the light again," he said. + +"Are there no steps to fall down?" she asked. + +"None, my lady. But I will go first if you wish." + +"No, that would but cut off the little light I have," she said. +"Come beside me." + +They passed through in silence, save for the rustle of her dress, +and the dull echo that haunted their steps. In a few moments they +came out among the trees, but both continued silent. The still, +thoughtful moonlight seemed to press them close together, but +neither knew that the other felt the same. + +They reached a point in the road where another step would bring +them in sight of the house. + +"You cannot go wrong now, my lady," said Malcolm. "If you please +I will go no farther." + +"Do you not live in the house?" she asked. + +"I used to do as I liked, and could be there or with my grandfather. +I did mean to be at the House tonight, but my lady has given my +room to her maid." + +"What! that woman Caley?" + +"I suppose so, my lady. I must sleep tonight in the village. If you +could, my lady," he added, after a pause, and faltered, hesitating. +She did not help him, but waited. "If you could--if you would +not be displeased at my asking you," he resumed, "--if you could +keep my lady from going farther with that--I shall call +him names if I go on--" + +"It is a strange request," Clementina replied, after a moment's +reflection. "I hardly know, as the guest of Lady Lossie, what answer +I ought to make to it. One thing I will say, however, that, though +you may know more of the man than I, you can hardly dislike him +more. Whether I can interfere is another matter. Honestly, I do +not think it would be of any use. But I do not say I will not. Good +night." + +She hurried away, and did not again offer her hand. + +Malcolm walked back through the tunnel, his heart singing and +making melody. Oh how lovely, how more than lovely, how divinely +beautiful she was! And so kind and friendly! Yet she seemed just the +least bit fitful too. Something troubled her, he said to himself. +But he little thought that he, and no one else, had spoiled +the moonlight for her. He went home to glorious dreams--she to +a troubled half wakeful night. Not until she had made up her mind +to do her utmost to rescue Florimel from Liftore, even if it gave +her to Malcolm, did she find a moment's quiet. It was morning then, +but she fell fast asleep, slept late, and woke refreshed. + + + +CHAPTER LXIII: CONFESSION OF SIN + + +Mr Crathie was slowly recovering, but still very weak. He did not, +after having turned the corner, get well so fast as his medical +minister judged he ought, and the reason was plain to Lizzy, dimly +perceptible to his wife: he was ill at ease. A man may have more +mind and more conscience, and more discomfort in both or either, +than his neighbours give him credit for. They may be in the right +about him up to a certain point in his history, but then a crisis, +by them unperceived, perhaps to them inappreciable, arrived, after +which the man to all eternity could never be the same as they had +known him. Such a change must appear improbable, and save on the +theory of a higher operative power, is improbable because impossible. +But a man who has not created himself can never secure himself +against the inroad of the glorious terror of that Goodness which +was able to utter him into being, with all its possible wrongs and +repentances. The fact that a man has never, up to any point yet, +been aware of aught beyond himself, cannot shut him out who is beyond +him, when at last he means to enter. Not even the soul benumbing +visits of his clerical minister could repress the swell of the slow +mounting dayspring in the soul of the hard, commonplace, business +worshipping man, Hector Crathie. + +The hireling would talk to him kindly enough--of his illness, or +of events of the day, especially those of the town and neighbourhood, +and encourage him with reiterated expression of the hope that ere +many days they would enjoy a tumbler together as of old, but as to +wrong done, apology to make, forgiveness to be sought, or consolation +to be found, the dumb dog had not uttered a bark. + +The sources of the factor's restless discomfort were now two; the +first, that he had lifted his hand to women; the second, the old +ground of his quarrel with Malcolm, brought up by Lizzy. + +All his life, since ever he had had business, Mr Crathie had prided +himself on his honesty, and was therefore in one of the most dangerous +moral positions a man could occupy--ruinous even to the honesty +itself. Asleep in the mud, he dreamed himself awake on a pedestal. +At best such a man is but perched on a needle point when he thinketh +he standeth. Of him who prided himself on his honour I should expect +that one day, in the long run it might be, he would do some vile +thing. Not, probably, within the small circle of illumination +around his wretched rushlight, but in the great region beyond it, +of what to him is a moral darkness, or twilight vague, he may be or +may become capable of doing a deed that will stink in the nostrils +of the universe--and in his own when he knows it as it is. The +honesty in which a man can pride himself must be a small one, for +more honesty will ever reveal more defect, while perfect honesty +will never think of itself at all. The limited honesty of the +factor clave to the interests of his employers, and let the rights +he encountered take care of themselves. Those he dealt with were to +him rather as enemies than friends, not enemies to be prayed for, +but to be spoiled. Malcolm's doctrine of honesty in horse dealing +was to him ludicrously new. His notion of honesty in that kind +was to cheat the buyer for his master if he could, proud to write +in his book a large sum against the name of the animal. He would +have scorned in his very soul the idea of making a farthing by it +himself through any business quirk whatever, but he would not have +been the least ashamed if, having sold Kelpie, he had heard--let +me say after a week of possession--that she had dashed out her +purchaser's brains. He would have been a little shocked, a little +sorry perhaps, but nowise ashamed. "By this time," he would have +said, "the man ought to have been up to her, and either taken care +of himself--or sold her again,"--to dash out another man's +brains instead! + +That the bastard Malcolm, or the ignorant and indeed fallen fisher +girl Lizzy, should judge differently, nowise troubled him: what +could they know about the rights and wrongs of business? The fact +which Lizzy sought to bring to bear upon him, that our Lord would +not have done such a thing, was to him no argument at all. He said +to himself with the superior smile of arrogated common sense, that +"no mere man since the fall" could be expected to do like him; that +he was divine, and had not to fight for a living; that he set us +an example that we might see what sinners we were; that religion +was one thing, and a very proper thing, but business was another, +and a very proper thing also--with customs and indeed laws +of its own far more determinate, at least definite, than those of +religion, and that to mingle the one with the other was not merely +absurd--it was irreverent and wrong, and certainly never intended +in the Bible, which must surely be common sense. + +It was the Bible always with him,--never the will of Christ. +But although he could dispose of the question thus satisfactorily, +yet, as he lay ill, supine, without any distracting occupation, +the thing haunted him. + +Now in his father's cottage had lain, much dabbled in of the children, +a certain boardless copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, round in the +face and hollow in the back, in which, amongst other pictures was +one of the Wicket Gate. This scripture of his childhood, given by +inspiration of God, threw out, in one of his troubled and feverish +nights, a dream bud in the brain of the man. He saw the face of +Jesus looking on him over the top of the Wicket Gate, at which he +had been for some time knocking in vain, while the cruel dog barked +loud from the enemy's yard. But that face, when at last it came, +was full of sorrowful displeasure. And in his heart he knew that +it was because of a certain transaction in horse dealing, wherein +he had hitherto lauded his own cunning--adroitness, he considered +it--and success. One word only he heard from the lips of the Man +--. "Worker of iniquity,"--and woke with a great start. From +that moment truths began to be facts to him. The beginning of the +change was indeed very small, but every beginning is small, and +every beginning is a creation. Monad, molecule, protoplasm, whatever +word may be attached to it when it becomes appreciable by men, being +then, however many stages, I believe, upon its journey, beginning +is an irrepressible fact; and however far from good or humble even +after many days, the man here began to grow good and humble. His +dull unimaginative nature, a perfect lumber room of the world and +its rusting affairs, had received a gift in a dream--a truth +from the lips of the Lord, remodelled in the brain and heart of +the tinker of Elstow, and sent forth in his wondrous parable to +be pictured and printed, and lie in old Hector Crathie's cottage, +that it might enter and lie in young Hector Crathie's brain until +he grew old and had done wrong enough to heed it, when it rose +upon him in a dream, and had its way. Henceforth the claims of +his neighbour began to reveal themselves, and his mind to breed +conscientious doubts and scruples, with which, struggle as he +might against it, a certain respect for Malcolm would keep coming +and mingling--a feeling which grew with its returns, until, by +slow changes, he began at length to regard him as the minister of +God's vengeance--for his punishment,--and perhaps salvation-- +who could tell? + +Lizzy's nightly ministrations had not been resumed, but she often +called, and was a good deal with him; for Mrs Crathie had learned +to like the humble, helpful girl still better when she found she +had taken no offence at being deprived of her post of honour by +his bedside. One day, when Malcolm was seated, mending a net, among +the thin grass and great red daisies of the links by the bank of +the burn, where it crossed the sands from the Lossie grounds to +the sea, Lizzy came up to him and said, + +"The factor wad like to see ye, Ma'colm, as sune's ye can gang till +'im." + +She waited no reply. Malcolm rose and went + +At the factor's, the door was opened by Mrs Crathie herself, who, +looking mysterious, led him to the dining room, where she plunged +at once into business, doing her best to keep down all manifestation +of the profound resentment she cherished against him. Her manner +was confidential, almost coaxing. + +"Ye see, Ma'colm," she said, as if pursuing instead of commencing +a conversation, "he's some sore about the little fraicass between +him 'an you. Jest make your apoalogies till 'im and tell 'im you +had a drop too much, and your soary for misbehavin' yerself to +wann sae much your shuperrior. Tell him that, Ma'colm, an' there's +a half croon to ye." + +She wished much to speak English, and I have tried to represent the +thing she did speak, which was neither honest Scotch nor anything +like English. Alas! the good, pithy, old Anglo Saxon dialect is +fast perishing, and a jargon of corrupt English taking its place. + +"But, mem," said Malcolm, taking no notice either of the coin or +the words that accompanied the offer of it, "I canna lee. I wasna +in drink, an' I'm no sorry." + +"Hoot!" returned Mrs Crathie, blurting out her Scotch fast enough +now, "I s' warran' ye can lee well eneuch whan ye ha'e occasion. +Tak' yer siller, an' du as I tell ye." + +"Wad ye ha'e me damned, mem?" + +Mrs Crathie gave a cry and held up her hands. She was too well +accustomed to imprecations from the lips of her husband for any but +an affected horror, but, regarding the honest word as a bad one, +she assumed an air of injury. + +"Wad ye daur to sweir afore a leddy," she exclaimed, shaking her +uplifted hands in pretence of ghasted astonishment. + +"If Mr Crathie wishes to see me, ma'am," rejoined Malcolm, taking +up the shield of English, "I am ready. If not, please allow me to +go." + +The same moment the bell whose rope was at the head of the factor's +bed, rang violently, and Mrs Crathie's importance collapsed. + +"Come this w'y," she said, and turning led him up the stair to the +room where her husband lay. + +Entering, Malcolm stood astonished at the change he saw upon +the strong man of rubicund countenance, and his heart filled with +compassion. The factor was sitting up in bed, looking very white +and worn and troubled. Even his nose had grown thin and white. He +held out his hand to him, and said to his wife, "Tak the door to +ye, Mistress Crathie," indicating which side he wished it closed +from. + +"Ye was some sair upo' me, Ma'colm," he went on, grasping the +youth's hand. + +"I doobt I was ower sair," said Malcolm, who could hardly speak +for a lump in his throat. + +"Weel, I deserved it. But eh, Ma'colm! I canna believe it was me: +it bude to be the drink." + +"It was the drink," rejoined Malcolm; "an' eh sir! afore ye rise +frae that bed, sweir to the great God 'at ye'll never drink nae +mair drams, nor onything 'ayont ae tum'ler at a sittin'." + +"I sweir't; I sweir't, Ma'colm!" cried the factor. + +"It's easy to sweir't noo, sir, but whan ye're up again it'll be +hard to keep yer aith.--O Lord!" spoke the youth, breaking out +into almost involuntary prayer, "help this man to haud troth wi' +thee.--An' noo, Maister Crathie," he resumed, "I'm yer servan', +ready to do onything I can. Forgi'e me, sir, for layin' on ower +sair." + +"I forgi'e ye wi' a' my hert," returned the factor, inly delighted +to have something to forgive. + +"I thank ye frae mine," answered Malcolm, and again they shook +hands. + +"But eh, Ma'colm, my man!" said the factor, "hoo will I ever shaw +my face again?" + +"Fine that!" returned Malcolm, eagerly. "Fowk's terrible guid natur'd +whan ye alloo 'at ye're i' the wrang. I do believe 'at whan a man +confesses till 's neebour, an' says he's sorry, he thinks mair o' +'im nor afore he did it. Ye see we a' ken we ha'e dune wrang, but we +ha'ena a' confessed. An' it's a queer thing, but a man'll think it +gran' o' 's neebour to confess, whan a' the time there's something +he winna repent o' himsel' for fear o' the shame o' ha'ein' to +confess 't. To me, the shame lies in no confessin' efter ye ken +ye're wrang. Ye'll see, sir, the fisher fowk 'll min' what ye say +to them a heap better noo." + +"Div ye railly think it, Ma'colm?" sighed the factor with a flush. + +"I div that, sir. Only whan ye grow better, gien ye'll alloo me to +say't, sir, ye maunna lat Sawtan temp' ye to think 'at this same +repentin' was but a wakeness o' the flesh, an' no an enlichtenment +o' the speerit." + +"I s' tie mysel' up till 't," cried the factor, eagerly. "Gang +an' tell them i' my name, 'at I tak' back ilka scart o' a nottice +I ever ga'e ane o' them to quit, only we maun ha'e nae mair stan'in' +o' honest fowk 'at comes to bigg herbours till them.--Div ye +think it wad be weel ta'en gien ye tuik a poun' nott the piece to +the twa women?" + +"I wadna du that, sir, gien I was you," answered Malcolm. "For yer +ain sake, I wadna to Mistress Mair, for naething wad gar her tak' +it--it wad only affront her; an' for Nancy Tacket's sake, I wadna +to her, for as her name so's her natur': she wad not only tak it, +but she wad lat ye play the same as aften 's ye likit for less +siller. Ye'll ha'e mony a chance o' makin' 't up to them baith, +ten times ower, afore you an' them pairt, sir." + +"I maun lea' the cuintry, Ma'colm." + +"'Deed, sir, ye'll du naething o' the kin'. The fishers themsel's +wad rise, no to lat ye, as they did wi' Blew Peter! As sune's +ye're able to be aboot again, ye'll see plain eneuch 'at there's no +occasion for onything like that, sir. Portlossie wadna ken 'tsel' +wantin' ye. Jist gie me a commission to say to the twa honest women +'at ye're sorry for what ye did, an' that's a' 'at need be said +'atween you an them, or their men aither." + +The result showed that Malcolm was right; for, the very next day, +instead of looking for gifts from him, the two injured women came +to the factor's door, first Annie Mair, with the offering of a few +fresh eggs, scarce at the season, and after her Nancy Tacket, with +a great lobster. + + + +CHAPTER LXIV: A VISITATION + + +Malcolm's custom was, first, immediately after breakfast, to give +Kelpie her airing--and a tremendous amount of air she wanted for +the huge animal furnace of her frame, and the fiery spirit that +kept it alight; then, returning to the Seaton, to change the dress +of the groom, in which he always appeared about the house, lest by +any chance his mistress should want him, for that of the fisherman, +and help with the nets, or the boats, or in whatever was going +on. As often as he might he did what seldom a man would--went to +the long shed where the women prepared the fish for salting, took +a knife, and wrought as deftly as any of them, throwing a marvellously +rapid succession of cleaned herrings into the preserving brine. It +was no wonder he was a favourite with the women. Although, however, +the place was malodorous and the work dirty, I cannot claim so +much for Malcolm as may at first appear to belong to him, for he +had been accustomed to the sight and smell from earliest childhood. +Still, as I say, it was work the men would not do. He had such a +chivalrous humanity that it was misery to him to see man or woman +at anything scorned, except he bore a hand himself. He did it half +in love, half in terror of being unjust. + +He had gone to Mr Crathie in his fisher clothes, thinking it better +the sick man should not be reminded of the cause of his illness +more forcibly than could not be helped. The nearest way led past a +corner of the house overlooked by one of the drawing room windows, +Clementina saw him, and, judging by his garb that he would probably +return presently, went out in the hope of meeting him; and as he +was going back to his net by the sea gate, he caught sight of her +on the opposite side of the burn, accompanied only by a book. He +walked through the burn, climbed the bank, and approached her. + +It was a hot summer afternoon. The burn ran dark and brown and +cool in deep shade, but the sea beyond was glowing in light, and +the laburnum blossoms hung like cocoons of sunbeams. No breath of +air was stirring; no bird sang; the sun was burning high in the +west. Clementina stood waiting him, like a moon that could hold +her own in the face of the sun. + +"Malcolm," she said, "I have been watching all day, but have not +found a single opportunity of speaking to your mistress as you +wished. But to tell the truth, I am not sorry, for the more I think +about it, the less I see what to say. That another does not like +a person, can have little weight with one who does, and I know +nothing against him. I wish you would release me from my promise. +It is such an ugly thing to speak to one's hostess to the disadvantage +of a fellow guest!" + +"I understand," said Malcolm. "It was not a right thing to ask of +you. I beg your pardon, my lady, and give you back your promise, +if such you count it. But indeed I do not think you promised." + +"Thank you, I would rather be free. Had it been before you left +London.--Lady Lossie is very kind, but does not seem to put +the same confidence in me as formerly. She and Lady Bellair and that +man make a trio, and I am left outside. I almost think I ought to +go. Even Caley is more of a friend than I am. I cannot get rid of +the suspicion that something not right is going on. There seems a +bad air about the place. Those two are playing their game with the +inexperience of that poor child, your mistress." + +"I know that very well, my lady, but I hope yet they will not win," +said Malcolm. + +By this time they were near the tunnel. + +"Could you let me through to the shore?" asked Clementina. + +"Certainly, my lady.--I wish you could see the boats go out. From +the Boar's Tail it is a pretty sight. They will all be starting +together as soon as the tide turns." + +Thereupon Clementina began questioning him about the night fishing, +and Malcolm described its pleasures and dangers, and the pleasures +of its dangers, in such fashion that Clementina listened with +delight. He dwelt especially on the feeling almost of disembodiment, +and existence as pure thought, arising from the all pervading +clarity and fluidity, the suspension, and the unceasing motion. + +"I wish I could once feel like that," exclaimed Clementina. "Could +I not go with you--for one night--just for once, Malcolm?" + +"My lady, it would hardly do, I am afraid. If you knew the discomforts +that must assail one unaccustomed--I cannot tell--but I doubt +if you would go. All the doors to bliss have their defences of +swamps and thorny thickets through which alone they can be gained. +You would need to be a fisherman's sister--or wife, I fear, my +lady, to get through to this one." + +Clementina smiled gravely, but did not reply, and Malcolm too was +silent, thinking. + +"Yes," he said at last, "I see how we can manage it. You +shall have a boat for your own use, my lady, and--" + +"But I want to see just what you see, and to feel, as nearly as +I may, what you feel. I don't want a downy, rose leaf notion of +the thing. I want to understand what you fishermen encounter and +experience." + +"We must make a difference though, my lady. Look what clothes, what +boots we fishers must wear to be fit for our work! But you shall +have a true idea as far as it reaches, and one that will go a long +way towards enabling you to understand the rest. You shall go in +a real fishing boat, with a full crew and all the nets, and you +shall catch real herrings; only you shall not be out longer than +you please.--But there is hardly time to arrange for it tonight, +my lady." + +"Tomorrow then?" + +"Yes. I have no doubt I can manage it then." + +"Oh, thank you!" said Clementina. "It will be a great delight." + +"And now," suggested Malcolm, "would you like to go through the +village, and see some of the cottages, and how the fishers live?" + +"If they would not think me inquisitive, or intrusive," answered +Clementina. + +"There is no danger of that," rejoined Malcolm. "If it were my Lady +Bellair, to patronize, and deal praise and blame, as if what she +calls poverty were fault and childishness, and she their spiritual +as well as social superior, they might very likely be what she +would call rude. She was here once before, and we have some notion +of her about the Seaton. I venture to say there is not a woman in +it who is not her moral superior, and many of them are her superiors +in intellect and true knowledge, if they are not so familiar with +London scandal. Mr Graham says that in the kingdom of heaven every +superior is a ruler, for there to rule is to raise, and a man's +rank is his power to uplift." + +"I would I were in the kingdom of heaven, if it be such as you and +Mr Graham take it for," said Clementina. + +"You must be in it, my lady, or you couldn't wish it to be such as +it is." + +"Can one then be in it, and yet seem to be out of it, Malcolm?" + +"So many are out of it that seem to be in it, my lady, that one +might well imagine it the other way with some." + +"Are you not uncharitable, Malcolm?" + +"Our Lord speaks of many coming up to his door confident of admission, +whom yet he sends from him. Faith is obedience, not confidence." + +"Then I do well to fear." + +"Yes, my lady, so long as your fear makes you knock the louder." + +"But if I be in, as you say, how can I go on knocking?" + +"There are a thousand more doors to knock at after you are in, my +lady. No one content to stand just inside the gate will be inside +it long. But it is one thing to be in, and another to be satisfied +that we are in. Such a satisfying as comes from our own feelings +may, you see from what our Lord says, be a false one. It is one +thing to gather the conviction for ourselves, and another to have +it from God. What wise man would have it before he gives it? He who +does what his Lord tells him, is in the kingdom, if every feeling +of heart or brain told him he was out. And his Lord will see that +he knows it one day. But I do not think, my lady, one can ever be +quite sure, until the king himself has come in to sup with him, +and has let him know that he is altogether one with him." + +During the talk of which this is the substance, they reached the +Seaton, and Malcolm took her to see his grandfather. + +"Taal and faer and chentle and coot!" murmured the old man as he +held her hand for a moment in his. With a start of suspicion he +dropped it, and cried out in alarm--"She'll not pe a Cam'ell, +Malcolm?" + +"Na, na, daddy--far frae that," answered Malcolm. + +"Then my laty will pe right welcome to Tuncan's heart," he replied, +and taking her hand again led her to a chair. + +When they left, she expressed herself charmed with the piper, but +when she learned the cause of his peculiar behaviour at first, she +looked grave, and found his feeling difficult to understand. + +They next visited the Partaness, with whom she was far more amused +than puzzled. But her heart was drawn to the young woman who sat +in a corner, rocking her child in its wooden cradle, and never +lifting her eyes from her needlework: she knew her for the fisher +girl of Malcolm's picture. + +From house to house he took her, and where they went, they were +welcomed. If the man was smoking, he put away his pipe, and the +woman left her work and sat down to talk with her. They did the +honours of their poor houses in a homely and dignified fashion. +Clementina was delighted. But Malcolm told her he had taken her +only to the best houses in the place to begin with. The village, +though a fair sample of fishing villages, was no ex-sample, he said: +there were all kinds of people in it as in every other. It was a +class in the big life school of the world, whose special masters +were the sea and the herrings. + +"What would you do now, if you were lord of the place?" asked +Clementina, as they were walking back by the sea gate; "--I mean, +what would be the first thing you would do?" + +"As it would be my business to know my tenants that I might rule +them," he answered, "I would first court the society and confidence of +the best men among them. I should be in no hurry to make changes, +but would talk openly with them, and try to be worthy of their +confidence. Of course I would see a little better to their houses, +and improve their harbour: and I would build a boat for myself that +would show them a better kind; but my main hope for them would be +the same as for myself--the knowledge of him whose is the sea +and all its store, who cares for every fish in its bosom, but for +the fisher more than many herrings. I would spend my best efforts +to make them follow him whose first servants were the fishermen of +Galilee, for with all my heart I believe that that Man holds the +secret of life, and that only the man who obeys him can ever come +to know the God who is the root and crown of our being, and whom +to know is freedom and bliss." + +A pause followed. + +"But do you not sometimes find it hard to remember God all through +your work?" asked Clementina. + +"Not very hard, my lady. Sometimes I wake up to find that I have +been in an evil mood and forgetting him, and then life is hard until +I get near him again. But it is not my work that makes me forget +him. When I go a-fishing, I go to catch God's fish; when I take +Kelpie out, I am teaching one of God's wild creatures; when I read +the Bible or Shakspere, I am listening to the word of God, uttered +in each after its kind. When the wind blows on my face, what matter +that the chymist pulls it to pieces! He cannot hurt it, for his +knowledge of it cannot make my feeling of it a folly, so long as +he cannot pull that to pieces with his retorts and crucibles: it +is to me the wind of him who makes it blow, the sign of something +in him, the fit emblem of his spirit, that breathes into my spirit +the breath of life. When Mr Graham talks to me, it is a prophet +come from God that teaches me, as certainly as if his fiery chariot +were waiting to carry him back when he had spoken; for the word +he utters at once humbles and uplifts my soul, telling it that God +is all in all and my God--that the Lord Christ is the truth and +the life, and the way home to the Father." + +After a little pause, + +"And when you are talking to a rich, ignorant, proud lady?" said +Clementina, "--what do you feel then?" + +"That I would it were my lady Clementina instead," answered Malcolm +with a smile. + +She held her peace. + +When he left her, Malcolm hurried to Scaurnose and arranged with +Blue Peter for his boat and crew the next night. Returning to his +grandfather, he found a note waiting him from Mrs Courthope, to +the effect that, as Miss Caley, her ladyship's maid, had preferred +another room, there was no reason why, if he pleased, he should +not re-occupy his own. + + + +CHAPTER LXV: THE EVE OF THE CRISIS + + +It was late in the sweetest of summer mornings when the Partan's boat +slipped slowly back with a light wind to the harbour of Portlossie. +Malcolm did not wait to land the fish, but having changed his +clothes and taken breakfast with Duncan, who was always up early, +went to look after Kelpie. When he had done with her, finding some +of the household already in motion, he went through the kitchen, +and up the old corkscrew stone stair to his room to have the sleep +he generally had before his breakfast. Presently came a knock at +his door, and there was Rose. + +The girl's behaviour to Malcolm was much changed. The conviction +had been strengthened in her that he was not what he seemed, and +she regarded him now with a vague awe. She looked this way and +that along the passage, with fear in her eyes, then stepped timidly +inside the room to tell him, in a hurried whisper, that she had +seen the woman who gave her the poisonous philtre, talking to Caley +the night before, at the foot of the bridge, after everybody else +was in bed. She had been miserable till she could warn him. He +thanked her heartily, and said he would be on his guard; he would +neither eat nor drink in the house. She crept softly away. He +secured the door, lay down, and trying to think fell asleep. + +When he woke his brain was clear. The very next day, whether +Lenorme came or not, he would declare himself. That night he would +go fishing with Lady Clementina, but not one day longer would +he allow those people to be about his sister. Who could tell what +might not be brewing, or into what abyss, with the help of her +friends, the woman Catanach might not plunge Florimel? + +He rose, took Kelpie out, and had a good gallop. On his way back +he saw in the distance Florimel riding with Liftore. The earl was +on his father's bay mare. He could not endure the sight, and dashed +home at full speed. + +Learning from Rose that Lady Clementina was in the flower garden, +he found her at the swan basin, feeding the gold and silver fishes. +An under gardener who had been about the place for thirty years, +was at work not far off. The light splash of the falling column +which the marble swan spouted from its upturned beak, prevented +her from hearing his approach until he was close behind her. She +turned, and her fair face took the flush of a white rose. + +"My lady," he said, "I have got everything arranged for tonight." + +"And when shall we go?" she asked eagerly. + +"At the turn of the tide, about half past seven. But seven is your +dinner hour." + +"It is of no consequence.--But could you not make it half an hour +later, and then I should not seem rude?" + +"Make it any hour you please, my lady, so long as the tide is +falling." + +"Let it be eight then, and dinner will be almost over. They will +not miss me after that. Mr Cairns is going to dine with them. I +think, except Liftore, I never disliked a man so much. Shall I tell +them where I am going?" + +"Yes, my lady. It will be better.--They will look amazed--for +all their breeding!" + +"Whose boat is it, that I may be able to tell them if they should +ask me?" + +"Joseph Mair's. He and his wife will come and fetch you. Annie +Mair will go with us--if I may say us: will you allow me to go +in your boat, my lady?" + +"I couldn't go without you, Malcolm." + +"Thank you, my lady. Indeed I don't know how I could let you go +without me! Not that there is anything to fear, or that I could +make it the least safer; but somehow it seems my business to take +care of you." + +"Like Kelpie?" said Clementina, with a merrier smile than he had +ever seen on her face before. + +"Yes, my lady," answered Malcolm; "--if to do for you all and the +best you will permit me to do, be to take care of you like Kelpie, +then so it is." + +Clementina gave a little sigh. + +"Mind you don't scruple, my lady, to give what orders you please. +It will be your fishing boat for tonight." + +Clementina bowed her head in acknowledgment. + +"And now, my lady," Malcolm went on, "just look about you for a +moment. See this great vault of heaven, full of golden light raining +on trees and flowers--every atom of air shining. Take the whole +into your heart, that you may feel the difference at night, my lady +--when the stars, and neither sun nor moon, will be in the sky, +and all the flowers they shine on will be their own flitting, +blinking, swinging, shutting and opening reflections in the swaying +floor of the ocean,--when the heat will be gone, and the air +clean and clear as the thoughts of a saint." + +Clementina did as he said, and gazed above and around her on the +glory of the summer day overhanging the sweet garden, and on the +flowers that had just before been making her heart ache with their +unattainable secret. But she thought with herself that if Malcolm +and she but shared it with a common heart as well as neighboured +eyes, gorgeous day and ethereal night, or snow clad wild and sky +of stormy blackness, were alike welcome to her spirit. + +As they talked they wandered up the garden, and had drawn near the +spot where, in the side of the glen, was hollowed the cave of the +hermit. They now turned towards the pretty arbour of moss that +covered its entrance, each thinking the other led, but Malcolm not +without reluctance. For how horribly and unaccountably had he not +been shaken, the only time he ever entered it, at the sight of the +hermit! The thing was a foolish wooden figure, no doubt, but the +thought that it still sat over its book in the darkest corner of the +cave, ready to rise and advance with outstretched hand to welcome +its visitor, had, ever since then, sufficed to make him shudder. He +was on the point of warning Clementina lest she too should be worse +than startled, when he was arrested by the voice of John Jack, the +old gardener, who came stooping after them, looking a sexton of +flowers. + +"Ma'colm, Ma'colm!" he cried, and crept up wheezing. "--I beg +yer leddyship's pardon, my leddy, but I wadna ha'e Ma'colm lat ye +gang in there ohn tellt ye what there is inside." + +"Thank you, John. I was just going to tell my lady," said Malcolm. + +"Because, ye see," pursued John, "I was ae day here i' the gairden +--an' I was jist graftin' a bonny wull rose buss wi' a Hector o' +France--an' it grew to be the bonniest rose buss in a' the haul +gairden--whan the markis, no the auld markis, but my leddy's +father, cam' up the walk there, an' a bonny young leddy wi' his +lordship, as it micht be yersel's twa--an' I beg yer pardon, +my leddy, but I'm an auld man noo, an' whiles forgets the differs +'atween fowk--an' this yoong leddy 'at they ca'd Miss Cam'ell-- +ye kenned her yersel' efterhin', I daursay, Ma'colm--he was unco +ta'en with her, the markis, as ilka body cud see ohn luikit that +near, sae 'at some saich 'at hoo he hed no richt to gang on wi' +her that gait, garrin' her believe, gien he wasna gaein' to merry +her. That's naither here nor there, hooever, seein' it a' cam' to +jist naething ava'. Sae up they gaed to the cave yon'er, as I was +tellin' ye; an' hoo it was, was a won'er, for I s' warran' she had +been aboot the place near a towmon (twelvemonth), but never had +she been intil that cave, and kenned no more nor the bairn unborn +what there was in 't. An' sae whan the airemite, as the auld minister +ca'd him, though what for he ca'd a muckle block like yon an airy +mite, I'm sure I never cud fathom--whan he gat up, as I was sayin', +an' cam' foret wi' his han' oot, she gae a scraich 'at jist garred +my lugs dirl, an' doon she drappit, an' there, whan I ran up, was +she lyin' i' the markis his airms, as white 's a cauk eemege, an' +it was lang or he brought her till hersel', for he wadna lat me +rin for the hoosekeeper, but sent me fleein' to the f'untain for +watter, an' gied me a gowd guinea to haud my tongue aboot it a'. +Sae noo, my leddy, ye're forewarnt, an' no ill can come to ye, for +there's naething to be fleyt at whan ye ken what's gauin' to meet +ye." + +Malcolm had turned his head aside, and now moved on without remark. +Struck by his silence, Clementina looked up, and saw his face very +pale, and the tears standing in his eyes. + +"You must tell me the sad story, Malcolm," she murmured. "I could +scarcely understand a word the old man said." + +He continued silent, and seemed struggling with some emotion. But +when they were within a few paces of the arbour, he stopped short, +and said--"I would rather not go in there today. You would oblige +me, my lady, if you would not go." + +She looked up at him again, with wonder but more concern in her +lovely face, put her hand on his arm, gently turned him away, and +walked back with him to the fountain. Not a word more did she say +about the matter. + + + +CHAPTER LXVI: SEA + + +The evening came; and the company at Lossie House was still seated +at table, Clementina heartily weary of the vapid talk that had +been going on all through the dinner, when she was informed that a +fisherman of the name of Mair was at the door, accompanied by his +wife, saying they had an appointment with her. She had already +acquainted her hostess, when first they sat down, with her arrangements +for going a-fishing that night, and much foolish talk and would +be wit had followed; now, when she rose and excused herself, they +all wished her a pleasant evening, in a tone indicating the conviction +that she little knew what she was about, and would soon be longing +heartily enough to be back with them in the drawing room, whose +lighted windows she would see from the boat. But Clementina hoped +otherwise, hurriedly changed her dress, hastened to join Malcolm's +messengers, and almost in a moment had made the two childlike people +at home with her, by the simplicity and truth of her manner, and +the directness of her utterance. They had not talked with her five +minutes before they said in their hearts that here was the wife +for the marquis if he could get her. + +"She's jist like ane o' oorsel's," whispered Annie to her husband +on the first opportunity, "only a hantle better an bonnier." + +They took the nearest way to the harbour--through the town, and +Lady Clementina and Blue Peter kept up a constant talk as they went. +All in the streets and at the windows stared to see the grand lady +from the House walking between a Scaurnose fisherman and his wife, +and chatting away with them as if they were all fishers together. + +"What's the wordle comin' till!" cried Mrs Mellis, the draper's +wife, as she saw them pass. + +"I'm glaid to see the yoong wuman--an' a bonny lass she is!--in +sic guid company," said Miss Horn, looking down from the opposite +side of the way. "I'm thinkin' the han' o' the markis 'ill be i' +this, no'!" + +All was ready to receive her, but in the present bad state of +the harbour, and the tide having now ebbed a little way, the boat +could not get close either to quay or shore. Six of the crew were +on board, seated on the thwarts with their oars shipped, for Peter +had insisted on a certain approximation to man of war manners +and discipline for the evening, or at least until they got to the +fishing ground. The shore itself formed one side of the harbour, +and sloped down into it, and on the sand stood Malcolm with a young +woman, whom Clementina recognised at once as the girl she had seen +at the Findlays'. + +"My lady," he said, approaching, "would you do me the favour to let +Lizzy go with you. She would like to attend your ladyship, because, +being a fisherman's daughter, she is used to the sea, and Mrs Mair +is not so much at home upon it, being a farmer's daughter from +inland." + +Receiving Clementina's thankful assent, he turned to Lizzy and said +-- + +"Min' ye tell my lady what rizon ye ken whaurfor my mistress at +the Hoose sudna be merried upo' Lord Liftore--him 'at was Lord +Meikleham. Ye may speyk to my lady there as ye wad to mysel'-- +an' better, haein' the hert o' a wuman." + +Lizzy blushed a deep red, and dared but the glimmer of a glance at +Clementina, but there was only shame, no annoyance in her face. + +"Ye winna repent it, Lizzy," concluded Malcolm, and turned away. + +He cherished a faint hope that, if she heard or guessed Lizzy's +story, Clementina might yet find some way of bringing her influence +to bear on his sister even at the last hour of her chance--from +which, for her sake, he shrunk the more the nearer it drew. Clementina +held out her hand to Lizzy, and again accepted her offered service +with kindly thanks. + +Now Blue Peter, having been ship's carpenter in his day, had constructed +a little poop in the stern of his craft; thereon Malcolm had laid +cushions and pillows and furs and blankets from the Psyche,--a +grafting of Cleopatra's galley upon the rude fishing boat--and +there Clementina was to repose in state. Malcolm gave a sign: Peter +took his wife in his arms, and walking through the few yards of +water between, lifted her into the boat, which lay with its stern +to the shore. Malcolm and Clementina turned to each other: he was +about to ask leave to do her the same service, but she spoke before +him. + +"Put Lizzy on board first," she said. + +He obeyed, and when, returning, he again approached her--"Are +you able, Malcolm?" she asked. "I am very heavy." + +He smiled for all reply, took her in his arms like a child, and +had placed her on the cushions before she had time to realize the +mode of her transference. Then taking a stride deeper into the +water, he scrambled on board. The same instant the men gave way. +They pulled carefully through the narrow jaws of the little harbour, +and away with quivering oar and falling tide, went the boat, gliding +out into the measureless north, where the horizon was now dotted +with the sails that had preceded it. + +No sooner were they afloat than a kind of enchantment enwrapped and +possessed the soul of Clementina. Everything seemed all at once +changed utterly. The very ends of the harbour piers might have +stood in the Divina Commedia instead of the Moray Frith. Oh that +wonderful look everything wears when beheld from the other side! +Wonderful surely will this world appear--strangely more, when, +become children again by being gathered to our fathers--joyous +day! we turn and gaze back upon it from the other side! I imagine +that, to him who has overcome it, the world, in very virtue of his +victory, will show itself the lovely and pure thing it was created-- +for he will see through the cloudy envelope of his battle to the +living kernel below. The cliffs, the rocks, the sands, the dune, the +town, the very clouds that hung over the hill above Lossie House, +were in strange fashion transfigured. To think of people sitting +behind those windows while the splendour and freedom of space with +all its divine shows invited them--lay bare and empty to them! +Out and still out they rowed and drifted, till the coast began to +open up beyond the headlands on either side. + +There a light breeze was waiting them. Up then went three short +masts, and three dark brown sails shone red in the sun, and Malcolm +came aft, over the great heap of brown nets, crept with apology +across the poop, and got down into a little well behind, there to +sit and steer the boat; for now, obedient to the wind in its sails, +it went frolicking over the sea. + +The bonnie Annie bore a picked crew; for Peter's boat was to him a +sort of church, in which he would not with his will carry any Jonah +fleeing from the will of the lord of the sea. And that boat's +crew did not look the less merrily out of their blue eyes, or carry +themselves the less manfully in danger, that they believed a lord +of the earth and the sea and the fountains of water cared for his +children and would have them honest and fearless. + +And now came a scattering of rubies and topazes over the slow +waves, as the sun reached the edge of the horizon, and shone with +a glory of blinding red along the heaving level of green, dashed +with the foam of their flight. Could such a descent as this be +intended for a type of death? Clementina asked. Was it not rather +as if, from a corner of the tomb behind, she saw the back parts +of a resurrection and ascension: warmth, out shining, splendour; +departure from the door of the tomb; exultant memory; tarnishing +gold, red fading to russet; fainting of spirit, loneliness; deepening +blue and green; pallor, grayness, coldness; out creeping stars; +further reaching memory; the dawn of infinite hope and foresight; +the assurance that under passion itself lay a better and holier +mystery? Here was God's naughty child, the world, laid asleep and +dreaming--if not merrily, yet contentedly; and there was the +sky with all the day gathered and hidden up in its blue, ready to +break forth again in laughter on the morrow, bending over its skyey +cradle like a mother! and there was the aurora, the secret of life, +creeping away round to the north to be ready! Then first, when the +slow twilight had fairly settled into night, did Clementina begin +to know the deepest marvel of this facet of the rose diamond +life! God's night and sky and sea were her's now, as they had been +Malcolm's from childhood! And when the nets had been paid out, +and sank straight into the deep, stretched betwixt leads below and +floats and buoys above, extending a screen of meshes against the +rush of the watery herd; when the sails were down, and the whole +vault of stars laid bare to her eyes as she lay; when the boat was +still, fast to the nets, anchored as it were by hanging acres of +curtain, and all was silent as a church, waiting, and she might +dream or sleep or pray as she would, with nothing about her but peace +and love and the deep sea, and over her but still peace and love +and the deeper sky, then the soul of Clementina rose and worshipped +the soul of the universe; her spirit clave to the Life of her life, +the Thought of her thought, the Heart of her heart; her will bowed +itself to the creator of will, worshipping the supreme, original, +only Freedom--the Father of her love, the Father of Jesus Christ, +the God of the hearts of the universe, the Thinker of all thoughts, +the Beginner of all beginnings, the All in all. It was her first +experience of speechless adoration. + +Most of the men were asleep in the bows of the boat; all were lying +down but one. That one was Malcolm. He had come aft, and seated +himself under the platform leaning against it. + +The boat rose and sank a little, just enough to rock the sleeping +children a little deeper into their sleep; Malcolm thought +all slept. He did not see how Clementina's eyes shone back to the +heavens--no star in them to be named beside those eyes. She knew +that Malcolm was near her, but she would not speak; she would not +break the peace of the presence. A minute or two passed. Then softly +woke a murmur of sound, that strengthened and grew, and swelled +at last into a song. She feared to stir lest she should interrupt +its flow. And thus it flowed: + + +The stars are steady abune; +I' the water they flichter an' flee; +But steady aye luikin' doon, +They ken themsel's i' the sea. + +A' licht, an' clear, an' free, +God, thou shinest abune; +Yet luik, an' see thysel' in me, +God, whan thou luikest doon. + +A silence followed, but a silence that seemed about to be broken. +And again Malcolm sang: + +There was an auld fisher--he sat by the wa', +An' luikit oot ower the sea; +The bairnies war playin', he smilit on them a', +But the tear stude in his e'e. + +An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! +An' it's oh to win awa' +Whaur the bairns come home, an' the wives they bide, +An' God is the Father o' a'! + +Jocky an' Jeamy an' Tammy oot there, +A' i' the boatie gaed doon; +An' I'm ower auld to fish ony mair, +An' I hinna the chance to droon. +An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! &c. + +An' Jeanie she grat to ease her hert, +An' she easit hersel' awa' +But I'm ower auld for the tears to stert, +An' sae the sighs maun blaw. +An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! &c. + +Lord, steer me hame whaur my Lord has steerit, +For I'm tired o' life's rockin' sea +An' dinna be lang, for I'm nearhan' fearit +'At I'm 'maist ower auld to dee. +An' it's oh to win awa', awe'! &c. + +Again the stars and the sky were all, and there was no sound but +the slight murmurous lipping of the low swell against the edges of +the planks. Then Clementina said: + +"Did you make that song, Malcolm?" + +"Whilk o' them, my leddy?--But it's a' ane--they're baith +mine, sic as they are." + +"Thank you," she returned. + +"What for, my leddy?" + +"For speaking Scotch to me." + +"I beg your pardon, my lady. I forgot your ladyship was English." + +"Please forget it," she said. "But I thank you for your songs too. +It was the second I wanted to know about; the first I was certain +was your own. I did not know you could enter like that into the +feelings of an old man." + +"Why not, my lady? I never can see living thing without asking it +how it feels. Often and often, out here at such a time as this, +have I tried to fancy myself a herring caught by the gills in the +net down below, instead of the fisherman in the boat above going +to haul him out." + +"And did you succeed?" + +"Well, I fancy I came to understand as much of him as he does +himself. It's a merry enough life down there. The flukes--plaice, +you call them, my lady,--bother me, I confess. I never contemplate +one without feeling as if I had been sat upon when I was a baby. +But for an old man!--Why, that's what I shall be myself one day +most likely, and it would be a shame not to know pretty nearly how +he felt--near enough at least to make a song about him." + +"And shan't you mind being an old man, then, Malcolm?" + +"Not in the least, my lady. I shall mind nothing so long as I can +trust in the maker of me. If my faith should give way--why then +there would be nothing worth minding either! I don't know but I +should kill myself." + +"Malcolm!" + +"Which is worse, my lady--to distrust God, or to think life worth +having without him?" + +"But one may hope in the midst of doubt--at least that is what +Mr Graham--and you--have taught me to do." + +"Yes, surely, my lady. I won't let anyone beat me at that, if I can +help it. And I think that so long as I kept my reason, I should be +able to cry out, as that grandest and most human of all the prophets +did--'Though he slay me yet will I trust in him.' But would you +not like to sleep, my lady?" + +"No, Malcolm. I would much rather hear you talk,--Could you not +tell me a story now? Lady Lossie mentioned one you once told her +about an old castle somewhere not far from here." + +"Eh, my leddy!" broke in Annie Mair, who had waked up while they +were speaking, "I wuss ye wad gar him tell ye that story, for my +man he's h'ard 'im tell't, an' he says it's unco gruesome: I wad +fain hear 't.--Wauk up, Lizzy," she went on, in her eagerness +waiting for no answer; "Ma'colm's gauin' to tell 's the tale o' +the auld castel o' Colonsay.--It's oot by yon'er, my leddy-- +'no that far frae the Deid Heid.--Wauk up, Lizzy." + +"I'm no sleepin', Annie," said Lizzy, "--though like Ma'colm's +auld man," she added with a sigh, "I wad whiles fain be." + +Now there were reasons why Malcolm should not be unwilling to tell +the strange wild story requested of him, and he commenced it at +once, but modified the Scotch of it considerably for the sake of +the unaccustomed ears. When it was ended Clementina said nothing; +Annie Mair said "Hech, sirs!" and Lizzy with a great sigh, remarked, + +"The deil maun be in a'thing whaur God hasna a han', I'm thinkin'." + +"Ye may tak yer aith upo' that," rejoined Malcolm. + +It was a custom in Peter's boat never to draw the nets without +a prayer, uttered now by one and now by another of the crew. Upon +this occasion, whether it was in deference to Malcolm, who, as he +well understood, did not like long prayers, or that the presence +of Clementina exercised some restraint upon his spirit, out of the +bows of the boat came now the solemn voice of its master, bearing +only this one sentence: + +"Oh Thoo, wha didst tell thy dissiples to cast the net upo' the side +whaur swam the fish, gien it be thy wull 'at we catch the nicht, +lat 's catch; gien it binna thy wull, lat 's no catch.--Haul +awa', my laads." + +Up sprang the men, and went each to his place, and straight a torrent +of gleaming fish was pouring in over the gunwale of the boat. Such +a take it was ere the last of the nets was drawn, as the oldest of +them had seldom seen. Thousands of fish there were that had never +got into the meshes at all. + +"I cannot understand it," said Clementina. "There are multitudes +more fish than there are meshes in the nets to catch them: if they +are not caught, why do they not swim away?" + +"Because they are drowned, my lady," answered Malcolm. + +"What do you mean by that? How can you drown a fish?" + +"You may call it suffocated if you like, my lady; it is all the +same. You have read of panic stricken people, when a church or a +theatre is on fire, rushing to the door all in a heap, and crowding +each other to death? It is something like that with the fish. They +are swimming along in a great shoal, yards thick; and when the first +can get no farther, that does not at once stop the rest, any more +than it would in a crowd of people; those that are behind come +pressing up into every corner, where there is room, till they are +one dense mass. Then they push and push to get forward, and can't +get through, and the rest come still crowding on behind and above +and below, till a multitude of them are jammed so tight against +each other that they can't open their gills; and even if they could, +there would not be air enough for them. You've seen the goldfish +in the swan basin, my lady, how they open and shut their gills +constantly: that's their way of getting air out of the water by +some wonderful contrivance nobody understands, for they need breath +just as much as we do: and to close their gills is to them the same +as closing a man's mouth and nose. That's how the most of those +herrings are taken." + +All were now ready to seek the harbour. A light westerly wind was +still blowing, with the aid of which, heavy laden, they crept slowly +to the land. As she lay snug and warm, with the cool breath of the +sea on her face, a half sleep came over Clementina, and she half +dreamed that she was voyaging in a ship of the air, through infinite +regions of space, with a destination too glorious to be known. +The herring boat was a living splendour of strength and speed, its +sails were as the wings of a will, in place of the instruments of +a force, and softly as mightily it bore them through the charmed +realms of dreamland towards the ideal of the soul. And yet the +herring boat but crawled over the still waters with its load of +fish, as the harvest waggon creeps over the field with its piled +up sheaves; and she who imagined its wondrous speed was the only +one who did not desire it should move faster. + +No word passed between her and Malcolm all their homeward way. +Each was brooding over the night and its joy that enclosed them +together, and hoping for that which was yet to be shaken from the +lap of the coming time. + +Also Clementina had in her mind a scheme for attempting what Malcolm +had requested of her; the next day must see it carried into effect; +and ever and anon, like a cold blast of doubt invading the bliss +of confidence, into the heart of that sea borne peace darted the +thought, that, if she failed, she must leave at once for England, +for she would not again meet Liftore. + + + +CHAPTER LXVII: SHORE + + +At last they glided once more through the stony jaws of the harbour, +as if returning again to the earth from a sojourn in the land of +the disembodied. When Clementina's foot touched the shore she felt +like one waked out of a dream, from whom yet the dream has not +departed--but keeps floating about him, waved in thinner and yet +thinner streams from the wings of the vanishing sleep. + +It seemed almost as if her spirit, instead of having come back to +the world of its former abode, had been borne across the parting +waters and landed on the shore of the immortals. There was the +ghostlike harbour of the spirit land, the water gleaming betwixt its +dark walls, one solitary boat motionless upon it, the men moving +about like shadows in the star twilight! Here stood three women +and a man on the shore, and save the stars no light shone, and from +the land came no sound of life. Was it the dead of the night, or +a day that had no sun? It was not dark, but the light was rayless. +Or, rather, it was as if she had gained the power of seeing in the +dark. + +Suppressed sleep wove the stuff of a dream around her, and the +stir at her heart kept it alive with dream forms. Even the voice +of Peter's Annie, saying, "I s' bide for my man. Gude nicht, my +leddy," did not break the charm. Her heart shaped that also into +the dream. Turning away with Malcolm and Lizzy, she passed along +the front of the Seaton. + +How still, how dead, how empty like cenotaphs, all the cottages +looked! How the sea which lay like a watcher at their doors, murmured +in its sleep! Arrived at the entrance to her own close, Lizzy next +bade them good night, and Clementina and Malcolm were left. + +And now drew near the full power, the culmination of the mounting +enchantment of the night for Malcolm. When once the Scaurnose +people should have passed them, they would be alone--alone as in +the spaces between the stars. There would not be a living soul on +the shore for hours. From the harbour the nearest way to the House +was by the sea gate, but where was the haste--with the lovely +night around them, private as a dream shared only by two? Besides, +to get in by that, they would have had to rouse the cantankerous +Bykes, and what a jar would not that bring into the music of the +silence! Instead, therefore, of turning up by the side of the stream +where it crossed the shore, he took Clementina once again in his +arms unforbidden, and carried her over. Then the long sands lay +open to their feet. Presently they heard the Scaurnose party behind +them, coming audibly, merrily on. As by a common resolve they turned +to the left, and crossing the end of the Boar's Tail, resumed their +former direction, with the dune now between them and the sea. The +voices passed on the other side, and they heard them slowly merge +into the inaudible. At length, after an interval of silence, on the +westerly air came one quiver of laughter--by which Malcolm knew +his friends were winding up the red path to the top of the cliff. +And now the shore was bare of presence, bare of sound save the soft +fitful rush of the rising tide. But behind the long sandhill, for +all they could see of the sea, they might have been in the heart +of a continent. + +"Who would imagine the ocean so near us, my lady!" said Malcolm, +after they had walked for some time without word spoken. + +"Who can tell what may be near us?" she returned. + +"True, my lady. Our future is near us, holding thousands of things +unknown. Hosts of thinking beings with endless myriads of thoughts +may be around us. What a joy t' know that, of all things and all +thoughts, God is nearest to us--so near that we cannot see him, +but, far beyond seeing him, can know of him infinitely!" + +As he spoke they came opposite the tunnel, but he turned from it +and they ascended the dune. As their heads rose over the top, and +the sky night above and the sea night beneath rolled themselves out +and rushed silently together, Malcolm said, as if thinking aloud: + +"Thus shall we meet death and the unknown, and the new that breaks +from the bosom of the invisible will be better than the old upon +which the gates close behind us. The Son of man is content with my +future, and I am content." + +There was a peace in the words that troubled Clementina: he wanted +no more than he had--this cold, imperturbable, devout fisherman! +She did not see that it was the confidence of having all things +that held his peace rooted. From the platform of the swivel, they +looked abroad over the sea. Far north in the east lurked a suspicion +of dawn, which seemed, while they gazed upon it, to "languish into +life," and the sea was a shade less dark than when they turned from +it to go behind the dune. They descended a few paces, and halted +again. + +"Did your ladyship ever see the sun rise?" asked Malcolm. + +"Never in open country," she answered. + +"Then stay and see it now, my lady. He'll rise just over yonder, +a little nearer this way than that light from under his eyelids. +A more glorious chance you could not have. And when he rises, just +observe, one minute after he is up, how like a dream all you have +been in tonight will look. It is to me strange even to awfulness +how many different phases of things, and feelings about them, and +moods of life and consciousness, God can tie up in the bundle of +one world with one human soul to carry it." + +Clementina slowly sank on the sand of the slope, and like lovely +sphinx of northern desert, gazed in immovable silence out on the yet +more northern sea. Malcolm took his place a little below, leaning +on his elbow, for the slope was steep, and looking up at her. Thus +they waited the sunrise. + +Was it minutes or only moments passed in that silence--whose +speech was the soft ripple of the sea on the sand? Neither could +have answered the question. At length said Malcolm, + +"I think of changing my service, my lady." + +"Indeed, Malcolm!" + +"Yes, my lady. My--mistress does not like to turn me away, but +she is tired of me, and does not want me any longer." + +"But you would never think of finally forsaking a fisherman's life +for that of a servant, surely, Malcolm?" + +"What would become of Kelpie, my lady?" rejoined Malcolm, smiling +to himself. + +"Ah!" said Clementina, bewildered; "I had not thought of her.-- +But you cannot take her with you," she added, coming a little to +her senses. + +"There is nobody about the place who could, or rather, who would do +anything with her. They would sell her. I have enough to buy her, +and perhaps somebody might not object to the encumbrance, but hire +me and her together.--Your groom wants a coachman's place, my +lady." + +"O Malcolm! do you mean you would be my groom?" cried Clementina, +pressing her palms together. + +"If you would have me, my lady; but I have heard you say you would +have none but a married man." + +"But--Malcolm--don't you know anybody that would?--Could you +not find some one--some lady--that?--I mean, why shouldn't +you be a married man?" + +"For a very good and to me rather sad reason, my lady; the only +woman I could marry, or should ever be able to marry,--would not +have me. She is very kind and very noble, but--it is preposterous +--the thing is too preposterous. I dare not have the presumption +to ask her." + +Malcolm's voice trembled as he spoke, and a few moments' pause +followed, during which he could not lift his eyes. The whole heaven +seemed pressing down their lids. The breath which he modelled into +words seemed to come in little billows. + +But his words had raised a storm in Clementina's bosom. A cry broke +from her, as if driven forth by pain. She called up all the energy +of her nature, and stilled herself to speak. The voice that came +was little more than a sob scattered whisper, but to her it seemed +as if all the world must hear. + +"Oh Malcolm!" she panted, "I will try to be good and wise. Don't +marry anybody else--anybody, I mean; but come with Kelpie and be +my groom, and wait and see if I don't grow better." + +Malcolm leaped to his feet and threw himself at hers. He had heard +but in part, and he must know all. + +"My lady," he said, with intense quiet, "Kelpie and I will be your +slaves. Take me for fisherman--groom--what you will. I offer +the whole sum of service that is in me." He kissed her feet. + +"My lady, I would put your feet on my head," he went on, "only then +what should I do when I see my Lord, and cast myself before Him?" + +But Clementina, again her own to give, rose quickly, and said with +all the dignity born of her inward grandeur, + +"Rise, Malcolm; you misunderstand me." + +Malcolm rose abashed, but stood erect before her, save that his head +was bowed, for his heart was sunk in dismay. Then slowly, gently, +Clementina knelt before him. He was bewildered, and thought she +was going to pray. In sweet, clear, unshaken tones, for she feared +nothing now, she said, + +"Malcolm, I am not worthy of you. But take me--take my very soul +if you will, for it is yours." + +Now Malcolm saw that he had no right to raise a kneeling lady; all +he could do was to kneel beside her. When people kneel, they lift +up their hearts; and the creating heart of their joy was forgotten +of neither. And well for them, for the love where God is not, be +the lady lovely as Cordelia, the man gentle as Philip Sidney, will +fare as the overkept manna. + +When the huge tidal wave from the ocean of infinite delight had +broken at last upon the shore of the finite, and withdrawn again +into the deeps, leaving every cistern brimming, every fountain +overflowing, the two entranced souls opened their bodily eyes, +looked at each other, rose, and stood hand in hand, speechless. + +"Ah, my lady!" said Malcolm at length, "what is to become of this +delicate smoothness in my great rough hand? Will it not be hurt?" + +"You don't know how strong it is, Malcolm. There!" + +"I can scarcely feel it with my hand, my lady; it all goes through +to my heart. It shall lie in mine as the diamond in the rock." + +"No, no, Malcolm! Now that I am going to be a fisherman's wife, +it must be a strong hand--it must work. What homage shall you +require of me, Malcolm? What will you have me do to rise a little +nearer your level? Shall I give away lands and money? And shall I +live with you in the Seaton? or will you come and fish at Wastbeach?" + +"Forgive me, my lady; I can't think about things now--even with +you in them. There is neither past nor future to me now--only +this one eternal morning. Sit here, and look up, Lady Clementina: +--see all those worlds:--something in me constantly says that +I shall know every one of them one day; that they are all but rooms +in the house of my spirit, that is, the house of our Father. Let +us not now, when your love makes me twice eternal, talk of time +and places. Come, let us fancy ourselves two blessed spirits, lying +full in the sight and light of our God,--as indeed what else are +we?--warming our hearts in his presence and peace; and that we +have but to rise and spread our wings to sear aloft and find--what +shall it be, my lady? Worlds upon worlds? No, no. What are worlds +upon worlds in infinite show until we have seen the face of the +Son of Man?" + +A silence fell. But he resumed. + +"Let us imagine our earthly life behind us, our hearts clean, love +all in all.--But that sends me back to the now. My lady, I know +I shall never love you aright until you have helped me perfect. When +the face of the least lovely of my neighbours needs but appear to +rouse in my heart a divine tenderness, then it must be that I shall +love you better than now. Now, alas! I am so pervious to wrong! +so fertile of resentments and indignations! You must cure me, my +divine Clemency.--Am I a poor lover to talk, this first glorious +hour, of anything but my lady love? Ah! but let it excuse me that +this love is no new thing to me. It is a very old love. I have +loved you a thousand years. I love every atom of your being, every +thought that can harbour in your soul, and I am jealous of hurting +your blossoms with the over jubilant winds of that very love. +I would therefore behold you folded in the atmosphere of the Love +eternal. My lady, if I were to talk of your beauty, I should but +offend you, for you would think I raved, and spoke not the words +of truth and soberness. But how often have I not cried to the God +who breathed the beauty into you that it might shine out of you, +to save my soul from the tempest of its own delight therein. And +now I am like one that has caught an angel in his net, and fears to +come too nigh, lest fire should flash from the eyes of the startled +splendour, and consume the net and him who holds it. But I will +not rave, because I would possess in grand peace that which I lay +at your feet. I am yours, and would be worthy of your moonlight +calm." + +"Alas! I am beside you but a block of marble!" said Clementina. +"You are so eloquent, my--" + +"New groom," suggested Malcolm gently. + +Clementina smiled. + +"But my heart is so full," she went on, "that I cannot think the +filmiest thought. I hardly know that I feel. I only know that I +want to weep." + +"Weep then, my word ineffable!" cried Malcolm, and laid himself +again at her feet, kissed them, and was silent. + +He was but a fisher poet; no courtier, no darling of society, no +dealer in the fine speeches, no clerk of compliments. All the words +he had were the living blossoms of thought rooted in feeling. His +pure clear heart was as a crystal cup, through which shone the red +wine of his love. To himself Malcolm stammered as a dumb man, the +string of whose tongue has but just been loosed; to Clementina his +speech was as the song of the Lady to Comus, "divine enchanting +ravishment." The God of truth is surely present at every such +marriage feast of two radiant spirits. Their joy was that neither +had fooled the hope of the other. + +And so the herring boat had indeed carried Clementina over into +paradise, and this night of the world was to her a twilight of +heaven. God alone can tell what delights it is possible for him to +give to the pure in heart who shall one day behold him. Like two +that had died and found each other, they talked until speech rose +into silence, they smiled until the dews which the smiles had +sublimed claimed their turn and descended in tears. + +All at once they became aware that an eye was upon them. It was +the sun. He was ten degrees up the slope of the sky, and they had +never seen him rise. + +With the sun came a troublous thought, for with the sun came +"a world of men." Neither they nor the simple fisher folk, their +friends, had thought of the thing, but now at length it occurred to +Clementina that she would rather not walk up to the door of Lossie +House with Malcolm at this hour of the morning. Yet neither could +she well appear alone. Ere she had spoken Malcolm rose. + +"You won't mind being left, my lady," he said, "for a quarter of +an hour or so--will you? I want to bring Lizzy to walk home with +you." + +He went, and Clementina sat alone on the dune in a reposeful rapture, +to which the sleeplessness of the night gave a certain additional +intensity and richness and strangeness. She watched the great strides +of her fisherman as he walked along the sands, and she seemed not +to be left behind, but to go with him every step. The tide was again +falling, and the sea shone and sparkled and danced with life, and +the wet sand gleamed, and a soft air blew on her cheek, and the +lordly sun was mounting higher and higher, and a lark over her +head was sacrificing all nature in his song; and it seemed as if +Malcolm were still speaking strange, half intelligible, altogether +lovely things in her ears. She felt a little weary, and laid her +head down upon her arm to listen more at her ease. + +Now the lark had seen all and heard all, and was telling it again +to the universe, only in dark sayings which none but themselves +could understand; therefore it is no wonder that, as she listened, +his song melted into a dream, and she slept. And the dream was +lovely as dream needs be, but not lovelier than the wakeful night. +She opened her eyes, calm as any cradled child, and there stood +her fisherman! + +"I have been explaining to Lizzy, my lady," he said, "that your +ladyship would rather have her company up to the door than mine. +Lizzy is to be trusted, my lady." + +"'Deed, my leddy," said Lizzy, "Ma'colm's been ower guid to me, no +to gar me du onything he wad ha'e o' me, I can haud my tongue whan +I like, my leddy. An' dinna doobt my thouchts, my leddy, for I ken +Ma'colm as weel's ye du yersel', my leddy." + +While she was speaking, Clementina rose, and they went straight +to the door in the bank. Through the tunnel and the young wood and +the dew and the morning odours, along the lovely paths the three +walked to the house together. And oh, how the larks of the earth +and the larks of the soul sang for two of them! And how the burn +rang with music, and the air throbbed with sweetest life! while +the breath of God made a little sound as of a going now and then +in the tops of the fir trees, and the sun shone his brightest and +best, and all nature knew that the heart of God is the home of his +creatures. + +When they drew near the house Malcolm left them. After they had +rung a good many times, the door was opened by the housekeeper, +looking very proper and just a little scandalized. + +"Please, Mrs Courthope," said Lady Clementina, "will you give +orders that when this young woman comes to see me today she shall +be shown up to my room?" + +Then she turned to Lizzy and thanked her for her kindness, and they +parted--Lizzy to her baby, and Clementina to yet a dream or two. +Long before her dreams were sleeping ones, however, Malcolm was out +in the bay in the Psyche's dinghy, catching mackerel: some should +be for his grandfather, some for Miss Horn, some for Mrs Courthope, +and some for Mrs Crathie. + + + +CHAPTER LXVIII: THE CREW OF THE BONNIE ANNIE + + +Having caught as many fish as he wanted, Malcolm rowed to the +other side of the Scaurnose. There he landed and left the dinghy in +the shelter of the rocks, the fish covered with long broad leaved +tangles, climbed the steep cliff, and sought Blue Peter. The brown +village was quiet as a churchyard, although the sun was now growing +hot. Of the men some were not yet returned from the night's fishing, +and some were asleep in their beds after it. Not a chimney smoked. +But Malcolm seemed to have in his own single being life and joy +enough for a world; such an intense consciousness of bliss burned +within him, that, in the sightless, motionless village, he seemed +to himself to stand like an altar blazing in the midst of desert +Carnac. But he was not the only one awake: on the threshold of +Peter's cottage sat his little Phemy, trying to polish a bit of +serpentine marble upon the doorstep, with the help of water, which +stood by her side in a broken tea cup. + +She lifted her sweet gray eyes, and smiled him a welcome. + +"Are ye up a'ready, Phemy?" he said. + +"I ha'ena been doon yet," she answered. "My mither was oot last +nicht wi' the boat, an' Auntie Jinse was wi' the bairn, an' sae I +cud du as I likit." + +"An' what did ye like, Phemy?" + +"A'body kens what I like," answered the child: "I was oot an' aboot +a' nicht. An' eh, Ma'colm! I hed a veesion." + +"What was that, Phemy?" + +"I was upo' the tap o' the Nose, jist as the sun rase, luikin' +aboot me, an' awa' upo' the Boar's Tail I saw twa angels sayin' +their prayers. Nae doobt they war prayin' for the haill warl', i' +the quaiet o' the mornin' afore the din begud. Maybe ane them was +that auld priest wi' the lang name i' the buik o' Genesis, 'at +hed naither father nor mither--puir man!--him 'at gaed aboot +blissin' fowk." + +Malcolm thought he might take his own time to set the child right, +and asked her to go and tell her father that he wanted to see him. +In a few minutes Blue Peter appeared, rubbing his eyes--one of +the dead called too early from the tomb of sleep. + +"Freen' Peter," said Malcolm, "I'm gaein' to speak oot the day." + +Peter woke up. + +"Weel," he said, "I am glaid o' that, Ma'colm,--I beg yer pardon, +my lord, I sud say.--Annie!" + +"Haud a quaiet sough, man. I wadna hae 't come oot at Scaurnose +first. I'm come noo 'cause I want ye to stan' by me." + +"I wull that, my lord." + +"Weel, gang an' gether yer boat's crew, an' fess them doon to the +cove, an' I'll tell them, an' maybe they'll stan' by me as weel." + +"There's little fear o' that, gien I ken my men," answered Peter, +and went off, rather less than half clothed, the sun burning hot +upon his back, through the sleeping village, to call them, while +Malcolm went and waited beside the dinghy. + +At length six men in a body, and one lagging behind, appeared coming +down the winding path--all but Peter no doubt wondering why they +were called so soon from their beds, on such a peaceful morning, +after being out the night before. Malcolm went to meet them. + +"Freen's," he said, "I'm in want o' yer help." + +"Onything ye like, Ma'colm, sae far 's I'm concernt, 'cep' it be +to ride yer mere. That I wull no tak in han'," said Jeames Gentle. + +"It's no that," returned Malcolm. "It's naething freely sae hard's +that, I'm thinkin'. The hard 'll be to believe what I'm gaein' to +tell ye." + +"Ye'll no be gaein' to set up for a proaphet?" said Girnel, with +something approaching a sneer. + +Girnel was the one who came down behind the rest. + +"Na, na; naething like it," said Blue Peter. + +"But first ye'll promise to haud yer tongues for half a day?" said +Malcolm. + +"Ay, ay; we'll no clype."--"We s' haud ower tongues," cried one +and another and another, and all seemed to assent. + +"Weel," said Malcolm, "My name 's no Ma'colm MacPhail, but--" + +"We a' ken that," said Girnel. + +"An' what mair du ye ken?" asked Blue Peter, with some anger at +his interruption. + +"Ow, naething." + +"Weel, ye ken little," said Peter, and the rest laughed. + +"I'm the Markis o' Lossie," said Malcolm. + +Every man but Peter laughed again: all took it for a joke +precursive of some serious announcement. That which it would have +least surprised them to hear, would have been that he was a natural +son of the late marquis. + +"My name 's Ma'colm Colonsay," resumed Malcolm, quietly; "an' I'm +the saxt Markis o' Lossie." + +A dead silence followed, and in doubt, astonishment, bewilderment, +and vague awe, accompanied in the case of two or three by a strong +inclination to laugh, with which they struggled, belief began. Always +a curious observer of humanity, Malcolm calmly watched them. From +discord of expression, most of their faces had grown idiotic. But +after a few moments of stupefaction, first one and then another +turned his eyes upon Blue Peter, and perceiving that the matter was +to him not only serious but evidently no news, each began to come +to his senses, the chaos within him slowly arranged itself, and +his face gradually settled into an expression of sanity--the +foolishness disappearing while the wonder and pleasure remained. + +"Ye mauna tak it ill, my lord," said Peter, "gien the laads be ta'en +aback wi' the news. It's a some suddent shift o' the win, ye see, +my lord." + +"I wuss yer lordship weel," thereupon said one, and held out his +hand. + +"Lang life to yer lordship," said another. + +Each spoke a hearty word, and shook hands with him--all except +Girnel, who held back, looking on, with his right hand in his +trouser pocket. He was one who always took the opposite side-- +a tolerably honest and trustworthy soul, with a good many knots +and pieces of cross grain in the timber of him. His old Adam was +the most essential and thorough of dissenters, always arguing and +disputing, especially on theological questions. + +"Na," said Girnel; "ye maun saitisfee me first wha ye are, an' what +ye want o' me. I'm no to be drawn into onything 'at I dinna ken a' +aboot aforehan'. I s' no tie mysel' up wi' ony promises. Them 'at +gangs whaur they kenna, may lan' at the widdie (gallows)." + +"Nae doobt," said Malcolm, "yer ain jeedgement 's mair to ye nor +my word, Girnel; but saw ye ever onything in me 'at wad justifee +ye in no lippenin' to that sae far 's it gaed?" + +"Ow na! I'm no sayin' that naither. But what ha'e ye to shaw anent +the privin' o' 't?" + +"I have papers signed by my father, the late marquis, and sealed +and witnessed by well known gentlemen of the neighbourhood." + +"Whaur are they?" said Girnel, holding out his hand. + +"I don't carry such valuable things about me," answered Malcolm. +"But if you go with the rest, you shall see them afterwards." + +"I'll du naething i' the dark," persisted Girnel. "Whan I see the +peppers, I'll ken what to du." + +With a nod of the head as self important as decisive, he turned +his back. + +"At all events," said Malcolm, "you will say nothing about it before +you hear from one of us again?" + +"I mak nae promises," answered Girnel, from behind his own back. + +A howl arose from the rest. + +"Ye promised a'ready," said Blue Peter. + +"Na, I didna that. I said never a word." + +"What right then had you to remain and listen to my disclosure?" +said Malcolm. "If you be guilty of such a mean trick as betray me +and ruin my plans, no honest man in Portlossie or Scaurnose but +will scorn you." + +"There! tak ye that!" said Peter. "An' I s' promise ye, ye s' +never lay leg ower the gunnel o' my boat again. I s' hae nane but +Christian men i' my pey." + +"Ye hired me for the sizon, Blew Peter," said Girnel, turning +defiantly. + +"Oh! ye s' ha'e yer wauges. I'm no ane to creep oot o' a bargain, +or say 'at I didna promise. Ye s' get yer reward, never fear. But +into my boat ye s' no come. We'll ha'e nae Auchans i' oor camp. +Eh, Girnel, man, but ye ha'e lost yersel' the day! He'll never loup +far 'at winna lippen. The auld worthies tuik their life i' their +han', but ye tak yer fit (foot) i' yours. I'm clean affrontit 'at +ever I hed ye amo' my men." + +But with that there rushed over Peter the recollection of how he +had himself mistrusted, not Malcolm's word indeed, but his heart. +He turned, and clasping his hands in sudden self reproach, + +"My lord, I saired ye ill mysel' ance," he cried; "for I misdoobted +'at ye wasna the same to me efter ye cam to yer ain. I beg yer +pardon, my lord, here i' the face o' my freen's. It was ill temper +an' pride i' me, jist the same as it's noo in Girnel there; an' ye +maun forgi'e him, as ye forga'e me, my lord, as sune 's ye can." + +"I'll du that, my Peter, the verra moment he wants to be forgi'en," +said Malcolm. + +But Girnel turned with a grunt, and moved away towards the cliff. + +"This 'll never du," said Peter. "A man 'at 's honest i' the main +may play the verra dog afore he gets the deevil oot o' 'im ance +he 's in like that. Gang efter 'im, laads, an' kep (intercept) 'im +an' keep 'im. We'll ha'e to cast a k-not or twa aboot 'im, an' lay +'im i' the boddom o' the boat." + +The six had already started after him like one man. But Malcolm +cried, + +"Let him go: he has done me no wrong yet, and I don't believe will +do me any. But for no risk must we prevent wrong with wrong." + +So Girnel was allowed to depart--scarcely in peace, for he was +already ashamed of himself. With the understanding that they were +to be ready to his call, and that they should hear from him in the +course of the day, Malcolm left them, and rowed back to the Psyche. +There he took his basket of fish on his arm, which he went and +distributed according to his purpose, ending with Mrs Courthope at +the House. Then he fed and dressed Kelpie, saddled her and galloped +to Duff Harbour, where he found Mr Soutar at breakfast, and arranged +with him to be at Lossie House at two o'clock. On his way back he +called on Mr Morrison, and requested his presence at the same hour. +Skirting the back of the House, and riding as straight as he could, +he then made for Scaurnose, and appointed his friends to be near +the House at noon, so placed as not to attract observation and yet +be within hearing of his whistle from door or window in the front. + +Returning to the House, he put up Kelpie, rubbed her down and fed +her; then, as there was yet some time to spare, paid a visit to +the factor. He found his lady, for all his present of fish in the +earlier morning, anything but friendly. She did all she could to +humble him; insisted on paying him for the fish; and ordered him, +because they smelt of the stable, to take off his boots before he +went upstairs--to his master's room, as she phrased it. But Mr +Crathie was cordial, and, to Malcolm's great satisfaction, much +recovered. He had better than pleasant talk with him. + + + +CHAPTER LXIX: LIZZY'S BABY + + +While they were out in the fishing boat together, Clementina had, +with less difficulty than she had anticipated, persuaded Lizzy to +tell Lady Lossie her secret. It was in the hope of an interview +with her false lover that the poor girl had consented so easily. + +A great longing had risen within her to have the father of her child +acknowledge him--only to her, taking him once in his arms. That +was all. She had no hope, thought indeed she had no desire for +herself. But a kind word to him would be welcome as light. The love +that covers sins had covered the multitude of his, and although +hopelessness had put desire to sleep, she would gladly have given +her life for a loving smile from him. But mingled with this longing +to see him once with his child in his arms, a certain loyalty to the +house of Lossie also influenced her to listen to the solicitation +of Lady Clementina, and tell the marchioness the truth. + +She cherished no resentment against Liftore, but not therefore was +she willing to allow a poor young thing like Lady Lossie, whom they +all liked, to be sacrificed to such a man, who would doubtless at +length behave badly enough to her also. + +With trembling hands, and heart now beating wildly, now failing for +fear, she dressed her baby and herself as well as she could, and, +about one o'clock, went to the House. + +Now nothing would have better pleased Lady Clementina than that +Liftore and Lizzy should meet in Florimel's presence, but she +recoiled altogether from the small stratagems, not to mention the +lies, necessary to the effecting of such a confrontation. So she +had to content herself with bringing the two girls together, and, +when Lizzy was a little rested, and had had a glass of wine, went +to look for Florimel. + +She found her in a little room adjoining the library, which, on +her first coming to Lossie, she had chosen for her waking nest. +Liftore had, if not quite the freedom of the spot, yet privileges +there; but at that moment Florimel was alone in it. Clementina +informed her that a fisher girl, with a sad story which she wanted +to tell her, had come to the house; and Florimel, who was not only +kind hearted, but relished the position she imagined herself to +occupy as lady of the place, at once assented to her proposal to +bring the young woman to her there. + +Now Florimel and the earl had had a small quarrel the night before, +after Clementina left the dinner table, and for the pleasure +of keeping it up Florimel had not appeared at breakfast, and had +declined to ride with his lordship, who had therefore been all the +morning on the watch for an opportunity of reconciling himself. It +so happened that from the end of one of the long narrow passages +in which the house abounded, he caught a glimpse of Clementina's +dress vanishing through the library door, and took the lady for +Florimel on her way to her boudoir. + +When Clementina entered with Lizzy carrying her child, Florimel +instantly suspected the truth, both as to who she was and as to the +design of her appearance. Her face flushed, for her heart filled +with anger, chiefly indeed against Malcolm, but against the two +women as well, who, she did not doubt, had lent themselves to his +designs, whatever they might be. She rose, drew herself up, and +stood prepared to act for both Liftore and herself. + +Scarcely however had the poor girl, trembling at the evident +displeasure the sight of her caused in Florimel, opened her mouth +to answer her haughty inquiry as to her business, when Lord Liftore, +daring an entrance without warning, opened the door behind her, +and, almost as he opened it, began his apology. + +At the sound of his voice Lizzy turned with a cry, and her small +remaining modicum of self possession vanished at sight of him +round whose phantom in her bosom whirred the leaves of her withered +life on the stinging blasts of her shame and sorrow. As much from +inability to stand as in supplication for the coveted favour, she +dropped on her knees before him, incapable of uttering a word, but +holding up her child imploringly. Taken altogether by surprise, +and not knowing what to say or do, the earl stood and stared for +a moment, then, moved by a dull spirit of subterfuge, fell back on +the pretence of knowing nothing about her. + +"Well, young woman," he said, affecting cheerfulness, "what do you +want with me? I didn't advertise for a baby. Pretty child, though!" + +Lizzy turned white as death, and her whole body seemed to give a +heave of agony. Clementina had just taken the child from her arms +when she sunk motionless at his feet. Florimel went to the bell. +But Clementina prevented her from ringing. + +"I will take her away," she said. "Do not expose her to your servants. +Lady Lossie, my Lord Liftore is the father of this child: and if +you can marry him after the way you have seen him use its mother, +you are not too good for him, and I will trouble myself no more +about you." + +"I know the author of this calumny!" cried Florimel, panting and +flushed. "You have been listening to the inventions of an ungrateful +dependent! You slander my guest." + +"Is it a calumny, my lord? Do I slander you?" said Lady Clementina, +turning sharply upon the earl. + +His lordship made her a cool obeisance. Clementina ran into +the library, laid the child in a big chair, and returned for the +mother. She was already coming a little to herself; and feeling +about blindly for her baby, while Florimel and Liftore were looking +out of the window, with their backs towards her. Clementina raised +and led her from the room. But in the doorway she turned and said +--"Goodbye, Lady Lossie. I thank you for your hospitality, but I +can of course be your guest no longer." + +"Of course not. There is no occasion for prolonged leave taking," +returned Florimel, with the air of a woman of forty. + +"Florimel, you will curse the day you marry that man!" cried +Clementina, and closed the door. + +She hurried Lizzy to the library, put the baby in her arms, and +clasped them both in her own. A gush of tears lightened the oppressed +heart of the mother. + +"Lat me oot o' the hoose, for God's sake!" she cried; and Clementina, +almost as anxious to leave it as she, helped her down to the hall. +When she saw the open door, she rushed out of it as if escaping +from the pit. + +Now Malcolm, as he came from the factor's, had seen her go in +with her baby in her arms, and suspected the hand of Clementina. +Wondering and anxious, but not very hopeful as to what might come +of it, he waited close by; and when now he saw Lizzy dart from the +house in wild perturbation, he ran from the cover of the surrounding +trees into the open drive to meet her. + +"Ma'colm!" groaned the poor girl, holding out her baby, "he winna +own till't. He winna alloo 'at he kens oucht aboot me or the bairn +aither!" + +Malcolm had taken the child from her, and was clasping him to his +bosom. + +"He's the warst rascal, Lizzy," he said, "'at ever God made an' +the deevil blaudit." + +"Na, na," cried Lizzy; "the likes o' him whiles kills the wuman, +but he wadna du that. Na, he's nae the warst; there's a heap waur +nor him." + +"Did ye see my mistress?" asked Malcolm. + +"Ow ay; but she luikit sae angry at me, I cudna speyk. Him an' her +'s ower thrang for her to believe onything again' him. An' what +ever the bairn 's to du wantin' a father!" + +"Lizzy," said Malcolm, clasping the child again to his bosom. "I +s' be a father to yer bairn--that is, as weel's ane 'at's no yer +man can be." + +And he kissed the child tenderly. + +The same moment an undefined impulse--the drawing of eyes probably +--made him lift his towards the house: half leaning from the open +window of the boudoir above him, stood Florimel and Liftore; and +just as he looked up, Liftore was turning to Florimel with a smile +that seemed to say--"There! I told you so! He is the father +himself." + +Malcolm replaced the infant in his mother's arm, and strode towards +the house. Imagining he went to avenge her wrongs, Lizzy ran after +him. + +"Ma'colm Ma'colm!" she cried; "--for my sake!--He's the father +o' my bairn!" + +Malcolm turned. + +"Lizzy," he said solemnly, "I winna lay han' upon 'im." + +Lizzy pressed her child closer with a throb of relief. + +"Come in yersel' an' see," he added. + +"I daurna! I daurna!" she said. But she lingered about the door. + + + +CHAPTER LXX: THE DISCLOSURE + + +When the earl saw Malcolm coming, although he was no coward, and +had reason to trust his skill, yet knowing himself both in the wrong +and vastly inferior in strength to his enemy, it may be pardoned +him that for the next few seconds his heart doubled its beats. But +of all things he must not show fear before Florimel! + +"What can the fellow be after now?" he said. "I must go down to +him." + +"No, no; don't go near him--he may be violent," objected Florimel, +and laid her hand on his arm with a beseeching look in her face. +"He is a dangerous man." + +Liftore laughed. + +"Stop here till I return," he said, and left the room. + +But Florimel followed, fearful of what might happen, and enraged +with her brother. + +Malcolm's brief detention by Lizzy gave Liftore a little advantage, +for just as Malcolm approached the top of the great staircase, +Liftore gained it. Hastening to secure the command of the position, +and resolved to shun all parley, he stood ready to strike. Malcolm, +however, caught sight of him and his attitude in time, and, fearful +of breaking his word to Lizzy, pulled himself up abruptly a few +steps from the top--just as Florimel appeared. + +"MacPhail," she said, sweeping to the stair like an indignant +goddess, "I discharge you from my service. Leave the house instantly." + +Malcolm turned, flew down, and ran to the servants' stair half the +length of the house away. As he crossed the servants' hall he saw +Rose. She was the only one in the house except Clementina to whom +he could look for help. + +"Come after me, Rose," he said without stopping. + +She followed instantly, as fast as she could run, and saw him +enter the drawing room. Florimel and Liftore were there. The earl +had Florimel's hand in his. + +"For God's sake, my lady!" cried Malcolm, "hear me one word before +you promise that man anything." + +His lordship started back from Florimel, and turned upon Malcolm +in a fury. But he had not now the advantage of the stair, and +hesitated. Florimel's eyes dilated with wrath. + +"I tell you for the last time, my lady," said Malcolm, "if you +marry that man, you will marry a liar and a scoundrel." + +Liftore laughed, and his imitation of scorn was wonderfully successful, +for he felt sure of Florimel, now that she had thus taken his part. + +"Shall I ring for the servants, Lady Lossie, to put the fellow +out?" he said. "The man is as mad as a March hare." + +Meantime Lady Clementina, her maid having gone to send her man to +get horses for her at once, was alone in her room, which was close +to the drawing room: hearing Malcolm's voice, she ran to the door, +and saw Rose in a listening attitude at that of the drawing room. + +"What are you doing there?" she said. + +"Mr MacPhail told me to follow him, my lady, and I am waiting here +till he wants me." + +Clementina went into the drawing room, and was present during all +that now follows. Lizzy also, hearing loud voices and still afraid +of mischief had come peering up the stair, and now approached the +other door; behind Florimel and the earl. + +"So!" cried Florimel, "this is the way you keep your promise to my +father!" + +"It is, my lady. To associate the name of Liftore with his would be +to blot the scutcheon of Lossie. He is not fit to walk the street +with men: his touch is to you an utter degradation. My lady, in +the name of your father, I beg a word with you in private." + +"You insult me." + +"I beg of you, my lady--for your own dear sake." + +"Once more I order you to leave my house, and never set foot in it +again." + +"You hear her ladyship?" cried Liftore. "Get out." He approached +threateningly. + +"Stand back," said Malcolm. "If it were not that I promised +the poor girl carrying your baby out there, I should soon--" + +It was unwisely said: the earl came on the bolder. For all Malcolm +could do to parry, evade, or stop his blows, he had soon taken several +pretty severe ones. Then came the voice of Lizzy in an agony from +the door-- + +"Haud aff o' yersel', Ma'colm. I canna bide it. I gi'e ye back yer +word." + +"We'll manage yet Lizzy," answered Malcolm, and kept warily +retreating towards a window. Suddenly he dashed his elbow through +a pane, and gave a loud shrill whistle, the same instant receiving +a blow over the eye which the blood followed. Lizzy made a rush +forward, but the terror that the father would strike the child he +had disowned, seized her, and she stood trembling. Already, however, +Clementina and Rose had darted between, and, full of rage as he +was, Liftore was compelled to restrain himself. + +"Oh!" he said, "if ladies want a share in the row, I must yield my +place," and drew back. + +The few men servants now came hurrying all together into the room. + +"Take that rascal there, and put him under the pump," said Liftore. +"He is mad." + +"My fellow servants know better than touch me," said Malcolm. + +The men looked to their mistress. + +"Do as my lord tells you," she said, "--and instantly." + +"Men," said Malcolm, "I have spared that foolish lord there for +the sake of this fisher girl and his child, but don't one of you +touch me." + +Stoat was a brave enough man, and not a little jealous of Malcolm, +but he dared not obey his mistress. + +And now came the tramp of many feet along the landing from the +stair head, and the six fisherman entered, two and two. Florimel +started forward. + +"My brave fisherman!" she cried. "Take that bad man MacPhail, and +put him out of my grounds." + +"I canna du't, my leddy," answered their leader. + +"Take Lord Liftore," said Malcolm, "and hold him, while I make him +acquainted with a fact or two which he may judge of consequence to +him." + +The men walked straight up to the earl. He struck right and left, +but was overpowered in a moment, and held fast. + +"Stan' still," said Peter, "or I ha'e a han'fu' o' twine i' my +pooch 'at I'll jist cast a k-not aboot yer airms wi' in a jiffey." + +His lordship stood still, muttering curses. + +Then Malcolm stepped into the middle of the room approaching his +sister. + +"I tell you to leave the house," Florimel shrieked, beside herself +with fury, yet pale as marble with a growing terror for which she +could ill have accounted. + +"Florimel!" said Malcolm solemnly, calling her sister by name for +the first time. + +"You insolent wretch!" she cried, panting. "What right have you, +if you be, as you say, my base born brother, to call me by my name." + +"Florimel!" repeated Malcolm, and the voice was like the voice of +her father, "I have done what I could to serve you." + +"And I want no more such service!" she returned, beginning to +tremble. + +"But you have driven me almost to extremities," he went on, heedless +of her interruption. "Beware of doing so quite." + +"Will nobody take pity on me?" said Florimel, and looked round +imploringly. Then, finding herself ready to burst into tears, she +gathered all her pride, and stepping up to Malcolm, looked him in +the face, and said, + +"Pray, sir! is this house yours or mine?" + +"Mine," answered Malcolm. "I am the Marquis of Lossie, and while I +am your elder brother and the head of the family, you shall never +with my consent marry that base man--a man it would blast me to +the soul to call brother." + +Liftore uttered a fierce imprecation. + +"If you dare give breath to another such word in my sister's presence, +I will have you gagged," said Malcolm. "If my sister marries him," +he continued, turning again to Florimel, "not one shilling shall +she take with her beyond what she may happen to have in her purse +at the moment. She is in my power, and I will use it to the utmost +to protect her from that man." + +"Proof!" cried Liftore sullenly. But Florimel gazed with pale +dilated eyes in the face of the speaker. She knew his words were +true. Her soul assured her of it. + +"To my sister," answered Malcolm, "I will give all the proof she +may please to require; to Lord Liftore I will not even repeat my +assertion. To him I will give no shadow of proof. I will but cast +him out of my house. Stoat, order horses for Lady Bellair." + +"Gien ye please, sir, my Lord," replied Stoat, "the Lossie Airms +horses is ordered a'ready for Lady Clementina." + +"Will my Lady Clementina oblige me by yielding her horses to Lady +Bellair?" said Malcolm, turning to her. + +"Certainly, my lord," answered Clementina. + +"You, I trust, my lady," said Malcolm, "will stay a little longer +with my sister." + +Lady Bellair came up. + +"My lord," she said, "is this the marquis or the fisherman's way +of treating a lady?" + +"Neither. But do not drive me to give the rein to my tongue. Let +it be enough to say that my house shall never be what your presence +would make it." + +He turned to the fishermen. + +"Three of you take that lord to the town gate, and leave him on the +other side of it. His servant shall follow as soon as the horses +come." + +"I will go with you," said Florimel, crossing to Lady Bellair. + +Malcolm took her by the arm. For one moment she struggled, but +finding no one dared interfere, submitted, and was led from the +room like a naughty child. + +"Keep my lord there till I return," he said as he went. + +He led her into the room which had been her mother's boudoir, and +when he had shut the door, + +"Florimel," he said, "I have striven to serve you the best way I +knew. Your father, when he confessed me his heir, begged me to be +good to you, and I promised him. Would I have given all these months +of my life to the poor labour of a groom, allowed my people to be +wronged and oppressed, my grandfather to be a wanderer, and my best +friend to sit with his lips of wisdom sealed, but for your sake? I +can hardly say it was for my father's sake, for I should have done +the same had he never said a word about you. Florimel, I loved +my sister, and longed for her goodness. But she has foiled all my +endeavours. She has not loved or followed the truth. She has been +proud and disdainful, and careless of right. Yourself young and +pure, and naturally recoiling from evil, you have yet cast from you +the devotion of a noble, gifted, large hearted, and great souled +man, for the miserable preference of the smallest, meanest, vilest +of men. Nor that only! for with him you have sided against the woman +he most bitterly wrongs: and therein you wrong the nature and the +God of women. Once more, I pray you to give up this man; to let +your true self speak and send him away." + +"Sir, I go with my Lady Bellair, driven from her father's house by +one who calls himself my brother. My lawyer shall make inquiries." + +She would have left the room, but he intercepted her. + +"Florimel," he said, "you are casting the pearl of your womanhood +before a swine. He will trample it under his feet and turn again +and rend you. He will treat you worse still than poor Lizzy, whom +he troubles no more with his presence." + +He had again taken her arm in his great grasp. + +"Let me go. You are brutal. I shall scream." + +"You shall not go until you have heard all the truth." + +"What! more truth still? Your truth is anything but pleasant." + +"It is more unpleasant yet than you surmise. Florimel, you have +driven me to it. I would have prepared you a shield against the +shock which must come, but you compel me to wound you to the quick. +I would have had you receive the bitter truth from lips you loved, +but you drove those lips of honour from you, and now there are +left to utter it only the lips you hate, yet the truth you shall +receive: it may help to save you from weakness, arrogance, and +falsehood.--Sister, your mother was never Lady Lossie." + +"You lie. I know you lie. Because you wrong me, you would brand me +with dishonour, to take from me as well the sympathy of the world. +But I defy you." + +"Alas! there is no help, sister. Your mother indeed passed as Lady +Lossie, but my mother, the true Lady Lossie, was alive all the +time, and in truth, died only last year. For twenty years my mother +suffered for yours in the eye of the law. You are no better than +the little child his father denied in your presence. Give that man +his dismissal, or he will give you yours. Never doubt it. Refuse +again, and I go from this room to publish in the next the fact that +you are neither Lady Lossie nor Lady Florimel Colonsay. You have +no right to any name but your mother's. You are Miss Gordon." + +She gave a great gasp at the word, but bravely fought the horror +that was taking possession of her. She stood with one hand on the +back of a chair, her face white, her eyes starting, her mouth a +little open and rigid--her whole appearance, except for the breath +that came short and quick, that of one who had died in sore pain. + +"All that is now left you," concluded Malcolm, "is the choice between +sending Liftore away, and being abandoned by him. That choice you +must now make." + +The poor girl tried to speak, but could not. Her fire was burning +out, her forced strength fast failing her. + +"Florimel," said Malcolm, and knelt on one knee and took her hand. +It gave a flutter as if it would fly like a bird; but the net of +his love held it, and it lay passive and cold. "Florimel, I will +be your true brother. I am your brother, your very own brother, to +live for you, love you, fight for you, watch and ward you, till a +true man takes you for his wife." Her hand quivered like a leaf. +"Sister, when you and I appear before our father, I shall hold up +my face before him: will you?" + +"Send him away," she breathed rather than said, and sank on the +floor. He lifted her, laid her on a couch, and returned to the +drawing room. + +"My lady Clementina," he said, "will you oblige me by going to my +sister in the room at the top of the stair?" + +"I will, my lord," she answered, and went. + +Malcolm walked up to Liftore. + +"My lord," he said, "my sister takes leave of you." + +"I must have my dismissal from her own lips." + +"You shall have it from the hands of my fishermen. Take him away." + +"You shall hear from me, my lord marquis, if such you be," said +Liftore. + +"Let it be of your repentance, then, my lord," said Malcolm. "That +I shall be glad to hear of." + +As he turned from him, he saw Caley gliding through the little +group of servants towards the door. He walked after her, laid his +hand on her shoulder, and whispered a word in her ear, she grew +gray rather than white, and stood still. + +Turning again to go to Florimel, he saw the fishermen stopped with +their charge in the doorway by Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, entering +together. + +"My lord! my lord!" said the lawyer, coming hastily up to him, +"there can be surely no occasion for such--such--measures!" + +Catching sight of Malcolm's wounded forehead, however, he supplemented +the remark with a low exclamation of astonishment and dismay-- +the tone saying almost as clearly as words, "How ill and foolishly +everything is managed without a lawyer!" + +Malcolm only smiled, and went up to the magistrate, whom he led +into the middle of the room, saying, + +"Mr Morrison, every one here knows you: tell them who I am." + +"The Marquis of Lossie, my lord," answered Mr Morrison; "and from +my heart I congratulate your people that at length you assume the +rights and honours of your position." + +A murmur of pleasure arose in response. Ere it ceased, Malcolm +started and sprung to the door. There stood Lenorme! He seized him +by the arm, and, without a word of explanation, hurried him to the +room where his sister was. He called Clementina, drew her from the +room, half pushed Lenorme in, and closed the door. + +"Will you meet me on the sand hill at sunset, my lady?" he said. + +She smiled assent. He gave her the key of the tunnel, hinted that +she might leave the two to themselves for awhile, and returned to +his friends in the drawing room. + +Having begged them to excuse him for a little while, and desired +Mrs Courthope to serve luncheon for them, he ran to his grandfather, +dreading lest any other tongue than his own should yield him +the opened secret. He was but just in time, for already the town +was in a tumult, and the spreading ripples of the news were fast +approaching Duncan's ears. + +Malcolm found him, expectant and restless. When he disclosed himself +he manifested little astonishment, only took him in his arms and +pressed him to his bosom, saying, "Ta Lort pe praised, my son! and +she wouldn't pe at aal surprised." Then he broke out in a fervent +ejaculation of Gaelic, during which he turned instinctively to +his pipes, for through them lay the final and only sure escape for +the prisoned waters of the overcharged reservoir of his feelings. +While he played, Malcolm slipped out, and hurried to Miss Horn. + +One word to her was enough. The stern old woman burst into tears, +crying, + +"Oh, my Grisel! my Grisel! Luik doon frae yer bonny hoose amo' the +stars, an' see the braw laad left ahint ye, an' praise the lord 'at +ye ha'e sic a son o' yer boady to come hame to ye whan a' 's ower." + +She sobbed and wept for a while without restraint. Then suddenly +she rose, dabbed her eyes indignantly, and cried, + +"Hoot! I'm an auld fule. A body wad think I hed feelin's efter a'!" + +Malcolm laughed, and she could not help joining him. + +"Ye maun come the morn an' chise yer ain room i' the Hoose," he +said. + +"What mean ye by that, laddie?" + +"At ye'll ha'e to come an' bide wi' me noo." + +"'Deed an' I s' du naething o' the kin', Ma'colm! H'ard ever onybody +sic nonsense! What wad I du wi' Jean? An' I cudna thole men fowk +to wait upo' me. I wad be clean affrontit." + +"Weel, weel! we'll see," said Malcolm. + +On his way back to the House, he knocked at Mrs Catanach's door, +and said a few words to her which had a remarkable effect on the +expression of her plump countenance and deep set black eyes. + +When he reached home, he ran up the main staircase, knocked at +the first door, opened it, and peeped in. There sat Lenorme on the +couch, with Florimel on his knees, nestling her head against his +shoulder, like a child that had been very naughty but was fully +forgiven. Her face was blotted with her tears, and her hair was +everywhere; but there was a light of dawning goodness all about her, +such as had never shone in her atmosphere before. By what stormy +sweet process the fountain of this light had been unsealed, no one +ever knew but themselves. + +She did not move when Malcolm entered--more than just to bring +the palms of her hands together, and look up in his face. + +"Have you told him all, Florimel?" he asked. + +"Yes, Malcolm," she answered. "Tell him again yourself." + +"No, Florimel. Once is enough." + +"I told him all," she said with a gasp; then gave a wild little +cry, and, with subdued exultation, added, "and he loves me yet! He +has taken the girl without a name to his heart!" + +"No wonder," said Malcolm, "when she brought it with her." + +"Yes," said Lenorme, "I but took the diamond casket that held my +bliss, and now I could dare the angel Gabriel to match happinesses +with me." + +Poor Florimel, for all her worldly ways, was but a child. +Bad associates had filled her with worldly maxims and words and +thoughts and judgments. She had never loved Liftore, she had only +taken delight in his flatteries. And now had come the shock of +a terrible disclosure, whose significance she read in remembered +looks and tones and behaviours of the world. Her insolence to +Malcolm when she supposed his the nameless fate, had recoiled in +lurid interpretation of her own. She was a pariah--without root, +without descent, without fathers to whom to be gathered. She was +nobody. From the courted and flattered and high seated and powerful, +she was a nobody! Then suddenly to this poor houseless, wind beaten, +rain wet nobody, a house--no, a home she had once looked into +with longing, had opened, and received her to its heart, that it +might be fulfilled which was written of old, "A man shall be as an +hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." Knowing +herself a nobody, she now first began to be a somebody. She had +been dreaming pleasant but bad dreams: she woke, and here was a +lovely, unspeakably blessed and good reality, which had been waiting +for her all the time on the threshold of her sleep! She was baptized +into it with the tears of sorrow and shame. She had been a fool, +but now she knew it, and was going to be wise. + +"Will you come to your brother, Florimel?" said Malcolm tenderly, +holding out his arms. + +Lenorme raised her. She went softly to him, and laid herself on +his bosom. + +"Forgive me, brother," she said, and held up her face. + +He kissed her forehead and lips, took her in his arms, and laid +her again on Lenorme's knees. + +"I give her to you," he said, "for you are good." + +With that he left them, and sought Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, who +were waiting him over a glass of wine after their lunch. An hour +of business followed, in which, amongst other matters, they talked +about the needful arrangements for a dinner to his people, fishers +and farmers and all. + +After the gentlemen took their leave, nobody saw him for hours. +Till sunset approached he remained alone, shut up in the Wizard's +Chamber, the room in which he was born. Part of the time he occupied +in writing to Mr Graham. + +As the sun's orbed furnace fell behind the tumbling waters, Malcolm +turned his face inland from the wet strip of shining shore on which +he had been pacing, and ascended the sandhill. + +From the other side Clementina, but a moment later, ascended also. +On the top they met, in the red light of the sunset. They clasped +each the other's hand, and stood for a moment in silence. + +"Ah, my lord!" said the lady, "how shall I thank you that you kept +your secret from me! But my heart is sore to lose my fisherman." + +"My lady," returned Malcolm, "you have not lost your fisherman; +you have only found your groom." + +And the sun went down, and the twilight came, and the night followed, +and the world of sea and land and wind and vapour was around them, +and the universe of stars and spaces over and under them, and +eternity within them, and the heart of each for a chamber to the +other, and God filling all--nay, nay--God's heart containing, +infolding, cherishing all--saving all, from height to height of +intensest being, by the bliss of that love whose absolute devotion +could utter itself only in death. + + + +CHAPTER LXXI: THE ASSEMBLY + + +That same evening, Duncan, in full dress, claymore and dirk at his +sides, and carrying the great Lossie pipes, marched first through +the streets of the upper, then through the closes of the lower +town, followed by the bellman who had been appointed crier upon +his disappearance. At the proper stations, Duncan blew a rousing +pibroch, after which the bellman, who, for the dignity of his calling, +insisted on a prelude of three strokes of his clapper, proclaimed +aloud that Malcolm, Marquis of Lossie, desired the presence of each +and every of his tenants in the royal burgh of Portlossie, Newton +and Seaton, in the town hall of the same, at seven of the clock +upon the evening next following. + +The proclamation ended, the piper sounded one note three times, +and they passed to the next station. When they had gone through the +Seaton, they entered a carriage waiting for them at the sea gate, +and were driven to Scaurnose, and thence again to the several other +villages on the coast belonging to the marquis, making at each in +like manner the same announcement. + +Portlossie was in a ferment of wonder, satisfaction, and pleasure. +There were few in it who were not glad at the accession of Malcolm, +and with every one of those few the cause lay in himself. In +the shops, among the nets, in the curing sheds, in the houses and +cottages, nothing else was talked about; and stories and reminiscences +innumerable were brought out, chiefly to prove that Malcolm +had always appeared likely to turn out somebody, the narrator not +seldom modestly hinting at a glimmering foresight on his own part +of what had now been at length revealed to the world. His friends +were jubilant as revellers. For Meg Partan, she ran from house to +house like a maniac, laughing and crying. It was as if the whole +Seaton had suddenly been translated. The men came crowding about +Duncan, congratulating him and asking him a hundred questions. +But the old man maintained a reticence whose dignity was strangely +mingled of pomp and grace; sat calm and stately as feeling the +glow of reflected honour; would not, by word, gesture, tone, or +exclamation, confess to any surprise; behaved as if he had known it +all the time; made no pretence however of having known it, merely +treated the fact as not a whit more than might have been looked +for by one who had known Malcolm as he had known him. + +Davy, in his yacht uniform, was the next morning appointed the +marquis's personal attendant, and a running time he had of it for +a fortnight. + +Almost the first thing that fell to him in his office was to show +into the room on the ground floor where his master sat--the same +in which for ages the lords of Lossie had been wont to transact +what little business any of them ever attended to--a pale, feeble +man, bowed by the weight of a huge brass clasped volume under each +arm. His lordship rose and met him with outstretched hand. + +"I am glad indeed to see you, Mr Crathie," he said, "but I fear +you are out too soon." + +"I am quite well since yesterday, my lord," returned the factor, his +face shining with pleasure. "Your lordship's accession has made a +young man of me again. Here I am to render account of my stewardship." + +"I want none, Mr Crathie--nothing, that is, beyond a summary +statement of how things stand with me." + +"I should like to satisfy your lordship that I have dealt honestly +"--here the factor paused for a moment, then with an effort added +--"by you, my lord." + +"One word," said Malcolm "--the last of the sort, I believe, that +will ever pass between us. Thank God! we had made it up before +yesterday.--If you have ever been hard upon any of my tenants, +not to say unfair, you have wronged me infinitely more than if +you had taken from me. God be with me as I prefer ruin to wrong. +Remember, besides, that my tenants are my charge and care. For +you, my representative, therefore, to do one of them an injury is +to do me a double injury--to wrong my tenant, and to wrong him +in my name." + +"Ah, my lord! you don't know how they would take advantage of you, +if there were nobody to look after your interests." + +"Then do look after them, sir. It would be bad for them to succeed, +as well as crippling to me. Only be sure, with the thought of the +righteous God to elevate your sense of justice, that you are in +the right. If doubtful, then give in.--And now, if any man thinks +he has cause of complaint, I leave it to you, with the help of the +new light that has been given you, to reconsider the matter, and, +where needful, to make reparation. You must be the friend of my +tenant as much as of his landlord. I have no interests inimical to +those of my tenants. If any man comes to me with complaint, I will +send him to restate his case to you, with the understanding that, +if you will not listen to him, he is to come to me again, when I +shall hear both sides and judge between. If after six months you +should desire me to go over the books with you, I will do so. As +to your loyalty to my family and its affairs, of that I never had +a shadow of suspicion." + +As he ended, Malcolm held out his hand. The factor's trembled in +his strong grasp. + +"Mistress Crathie is sorely vexed, my lord," he said, rising to +take his leave, "at things both said and done in the dark." + +Malcolm laughed. + +"Give Mrs Crathie my compliments," he said, "and tell her a man +is more than a marquis. If she will after this treat every honest +fisherman as if he might possibly turn out a lord, she and I shall +be more than quits." + +The next morning he carried her again a few mackerel he had just +caught, and she never forgot the lesson given her. That morning, I +may mention, he did not go fishing alone, but had a lady with him +in the dinghy; and indeed they were together, in one place and +another, the most of the day--at one time flying along the fields, +she on the bay mare, and he on Kelpie. + +When the evening came, the town hall was crammed--men standing +on all the window sills; and so many could not get in that Malcolm +proposed they should occupy the square in front. A fisherman in +garb and gesture, not the less a gentleman and a marquis, he stood +on the steps of the town hall and spoke to his people. They received +him with wild enthusiasm. + +"The open air is better for everything," he began. "Fishers, I have +called you first, because you are my own people. I am, and shall be +a fisherman, after such fashion, I trust, as will content my old +comrades. How things have come about, I shall not now tell you. Come +all of you and dine with me, and you shall hear enough to satisfy +at least lawful curiosity. At present my care is that you should +understand the terms upon which it is possible for us to live +together as friends. I make no allusion to personal friendships. +A true friend is for ever a friend. And I venture to say my old +friends know best both what I am and what I shall be. As to them I +have no shadow of anxiety. But I would gladly be a friend to all, +and will do my endeavour to that end. + +"You of Portlossie shall have your harbour cleared without delay." + +In justice to the fishers I here interrupt my report to state that +the very next day they set about clearing the harbour themselves. +It was their business--in part at least, they said, and they were +ashamed of having left it so long. This did much towards starting +well for a new order of things. + +"You of Scaurnose shall hear the blasting necessary for your harbour +commence within a fortnight; and every house shall ere long have a +small piece of land at a reasonable rate allotted to it. But I feel +bound to mention that there are some among you upon whom, until +I see that they carry themselves differently, I must keep an eye. +That they have shown themselves unfriendly to myself in my attempts +to persuade them to what they knew to be right, I shall endeavour +to forget, but I give them warning that whoever shall hereafter +disturb the peace or interfere with the liberty of my people, shall +assuredly be cast out of my borders, and that as soon as the law +will permit. + +"I shall take measures that all complaints shall be heard, and all +save foolish ones heeded; for, as much as in me lies, I will to +execute justice and judgment and righteousness in the land. Whoever +oppresses or wrongs his neighbour shall have to do with me. And +to aid me in doing justice, I pray the help of every honest man. +I have not been so long among you without having in some measure +distinguished between the men who have heart and brain, and the +men who have merely a sense of their own importance--which latter +class unhappily, always takes itself for the former. I will deal +with every man as I find him. I am set to rule, and rule I will. +He who loves righteousness, will help me to rule; he who loves it +not, shall be ruled, or depart." + +The address had been every now and then interrupted by a hearty +cheer; at this point the cheering was greatly prolonged; after it +there was no more. For thus he went on: + +"And now I am about to give you proof that I mean what I say, and +that evil shall not come to the light without being noted and dealt +with. + +"There are in this company two women--my eyes are at this moment +upon them where they stand together. One of them is already well +known to you all by sight: now you shall know, not what she looks, +but what she is. Her name, or at least that by which she goes among +you, is Barbara Catanach. The other is an Englishwoman of whom you +know nothing. Her name is Caley." + +All eyes were turned upon the two. Even Mrs Catanach was cowed by +the consciousness of the universal stare, and a kind of numb thrill +went through her from head to foot. + +"Well assured that if I brought a criminal action against them, it +would hang them both, I trust you will not imagine it revenge that +moves me thus to expose them. In refraining from prosecuting them, +I bind myself of necessity to see that they work no more evil. +In giving them time for repentance, I take the consequences upon +myself. I am bound to take care that they do not employ the respite +in doing mischief to their neighbours. Without precaution I could +not be justified in sparing them. Therefore those women shall not +go forth to pass for harmless members of society, and see the life +and honour of others lie bare to their secret attack. They shall +live here, in this town, thoroughly known; and absolutely distrusted. +And that they may thus be known and distrusted, I publicly declare +that I hold proof against these women of having conspired to kill +me. From the effects of the poison they succeeded in giving me, +I fear I shall never altogether recover. I can prove also, to the +extreme of circumstantial evidence, that there is the blood of one +child at least upon the hands of each; and that there are mischiefs +innumerable upon their lying tongues, it were an easy task to convince +you. If I wrong them, let them accuse me; and whether they lose or +gain their suit, I promise before you for witnesses, I will pay +all; only thereby they will compel me to bring my actions for murder +and conspiracy. Let them choose. + +"Hear what I have determined concerning them. The woman Catanach +shall take to her cottage the woman Caley. That cottage they shall +have rent free: who could receive money from such hands? I will +appoint them also a sufficiency for life and maintenance, bare indeed, +for I would not have them comfortable. But they shall be free to +work if they can find any to employ them. If, however, either shall +go beyond the bounds I set, she shall be followed the moment she +is missed, and that with a warrant for her apprehension. And I beg +all honest people to keep an eye upon them. According as they live +shall their life be. If they come to repentance, they will bless +the day I resolved upon such severe measures on their behalf. Let +them go to their place." + +I will not try to describe the devilish look, mingled of contempt +and hate, that possessed the countenance of the midwife, as, with +head erect, and eyes looking straight before her, she obeyed the +command. Caley, white as death, trembled and tottered, nor dared +once look up as she followed her companion to their appointed hell. +Whether they made it pleasant for each other my reader may debate +with himself. Before many months had gone by, stared at and shunned +by all, even by Miss Horn's Jean, driven back upon her own memories, +and the pictures that rose out of them, and deprived of every chance +of indulging her dominant passion for mischievous influence, the +midwife's face told such a different tale, that the schoolmaster +began to cherish a feeble hope that within a few years Mrs Catanach +might get so far as to begin to suspect she was a sinner--that +she had actually done things she ought not to have done. One of +those things that same night Malcolm heard from the lips of Duncan, +a tale of horror and dismay. Not until then did he know, after all +he knew concerning her, what the woman was capable of. + +At his own entreaty, Duncan was formally recognized as piper to the +Marquis of Lossie. His ambition reached no higher. Malcolm himself +saw to his perfect equipment, heedful specially that his kilt and +plaid should be of Duncan's own tartan of red and blue and green. +His dirk and broadsword he had new sheathed, with silver mountings. +A great silver brooch with a big cairngorm in the centre, took +the place of the brass one, which henceforth was laid up among the +precious things in the little armoury, and the badge of his clan +in gold, with rubies and amethysts for the bells of the heather, +glowed on his bonnet. And Malcolm's guests, as long as Duncan +continued able to fill the bag, had to endure as best they might, +between each course of every dinner without fail, two or three +minutes of uproar and outcry from the treble throat of the powerful +Lossie pipes. By his own desire, the piper had a chair and small +table set for him behind and to the right of his chief, as he called +him; there he ate with the family and guests, waited upon by Davy, +part of whose business it was to hand him the pipes at the proper +moment, whereupon he rose to his feet, for even he with all his +experience and habitude was unable in a sitting posture to keep +that stand of pipes full of wind, and raised such a storm of sound +as made the windows tremble. A lady guest would now and then venture +to hint that the custom was rather a trying one for English ears; +but Clementina would never listen to a breath against Duncan's +music. Her respect and affection for the old man were unbounded. + +Malcolm was one of the few who understand the shelter of light, the +protection to be gained against lying tongues by the discarding of +needless reticence, and the open presentation of the truth. Many +men who would not tell a lie, yet seem to have faith in concealment: +they would rather not reveal the truth; darkness seems to offer +them the cover of a friendly wing. But there is no veil like light +--no adamantine armour against hurt like the truth. To Malcolm +it was one of the promises of the kingdom that there is nothing +covered that shall not be revealed. He was anxious, therefore, to +tell his people, at the coming dinner, the main points of his story, +and certain that such openness would also help to lay the foundation +of confidence between him and his people. The one difficulty in +the way was the position of Florimel. But that could not fail to +appear in any case, and he was satisfied that even for her sake +it was far better to speak openly; for then the common heart would +take her in and cover her. He consulted, therefore, with Lenorme, +who went to find her. She came, threw her arms round his neck and +begged him to say whatever he thought best. + +To add the final tinge to the rainbow of Malcolm's joy, on the +morning of the dinner the schoolmaster arrived. It would be hard +to say whether Malcolm or Clementina was the more delighted to see +him. He said little with his tongue, but much with his eyes and +face and presence. + +This time the tables were not set in different parts of the grounds, +but gathered upon the level of the drive and the adjacent lawny +spaces between the house and the trees. Malcolm, in full highland +dress as chief of his clan, took the head of the central table, with +Florimel in the place of honour at his right hand, and Clementina +on his left. Lenorme sat next to Florimel, and Annie Mair next to +Lenorme. On the other side, Mr Graham sat next to Clementina, Miss +Horn next to Mr Graham, and Blue Peter next to Miss Horn. Except +Mr Morrison, he had asked none who were not his tenants or servants +or in some way connected with the estates, except indeed a few +whom he counted old friends, amongst them some aged beggar folk, +waiting their summons to Abraham's bosom--in which there was no +such exceptional virtue on the marquis's part, for, the poor law +not having yet invaded Scotland, a man was not without the respect +of his neighbours merely because he was a beggar. He set Mr Morrison +to preside at the farmers' tables, and had all the fisher folk +about himself. + +When the main part of the dinner was over, he rose, and with as +much circumstance as he thought desirable, told his story, beginning +with the parts in it his uncle and Mrs Catanach had taken. It was, +however, he said, a principle in the history of the world, that +evil should bring forth good, and his poor little cock boat had +been set adrift upon an ocean of blessing. For had he not been +taken to the heart of one of the noblest and simplest of men, who +had brought him up in honourable poverty and rectitude? When he had +said this, he turned to Duncan, who sat at his own table behind him, +with his pipe on a stool covered with a rich cloth by his side. + +"You all know my grandfather," he went on, "and you all respect +him." + +At this rose a great shout. + +"I thank you, my friends," he continued. "My desire is that every +soul upon land of mine should carry himself to Duncan MacPhail +as if he were in blood that which he is in deed and in truth, my +grandfather." + +A second great shout arose, which wavered and sank when they saw +the old man bow his head upon his hands. + +He went on to speak of the privileges he alone of all his race had +ever enjoyed--the privileges of toil and danger, with all their +experiences of human dependence and divine aid; the privilege of +the confidence and companionship of honourable labouring men, and +the understanding of their ways and thoughts and feelings; and, +above all, the privilege of the friendship and instruction of the +schoolmaster, to whom he owed more than eternity could reveal. + +Then he turned again to his narrative, and told how his father, +falsely informed that his wife and child were dead, married Florimel's +mother; how his mother, out of compassion for both of them, held +her peace; how for twenty years she had lived with her cousin Miss +Horn, and held her peace even from her; how at last, when, having +succeeded to the property, she heard he was coming to the House, +the thought of his nearness yet unapproachableness--in this way +at least he, the child of both, interpreted the result--so worked +upon a worn and enfeebled frame, that she died. + +Then he told how Miss Horn, after his mother's death, came upon +letters revealing the secret which she had all along known must +exist, but after which, from love and respect for her cousin, she +had never inquired. + +Last of all he told how, in a paroxysm of rage, Mrs Catanach had +let the secret of his birth escape her; how she had afterwards made +affidavit concerning it; and how his father had upon his death bed, +with all necessary legal observances, acknowledged him his son and +heir. + +"And now, to the mighty gladness of my soul," he said, looking on +Florimel at his side, "my dearly loved and honoured sister, loved +and honoured long before I knew she was my own, has accepted me as +her brother, and I do not think she greatly regrets the loss of +the headship of the house which she has passed over to me. She will +lose little else. And of all women it may well be to her a small +matter to lose a mere title, seeing she is so soon to change her +name for one who will bring her honour of a more enduring reality. +For he who is about to become her husband is not only one of the +noblest of men, but a man of genius whose praises she will hear +on all sides. One of his works, the labour and gift of love, you +shall see when we rise from the table. It is a portrait of your +late landlord, my father, painted partly from a miniature, partly +from my sister, partly from the portraits of the family, and partly, +I am happy to think, from myself. You must yourselves judge of the +truth of it. And you will remember that Mr Lenorme never saw my +father. I say this, not to excuse, but to enhance his work. + +"My tenants, I will do my best to give you fair play. My friend +and factor, Mr Crathie, has confided to me his doubts whether he +may not have been a little hard: he is prepared to reconsider some +of your cases. Do not imagine that I am going to be a careless man +of business. I want money, for I have enough to do with it, if only +to set right much that is wrong. But let God judge between you and +me. + +"My fishermen, every honest man of you is my friend, and you shall +know it. Between you and me that is enough. But for the sake of +harmony, and right, and order, and that I may keep near you, I shall +appoint three men of yourselves in each village, to whom any man +or woman may go with request or complaint. If two of those three +men judge the matter fit to refer to me, the probability is that +I shall see it as they do. If any man think them scant of justice +towards him, let him come to me. Should I find myself in doubt, +I have here at my side my beloved and honoured master to whom to +apply for counsel, knowing that what oracle he may utter I shall +receive straight from the innermost parts of a temple of the Holy +Ghost. Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest +with each other. + +"And, in conclusion, why should you hear from any lips but my +own, that this lady beside me, the daughter of an English earl of +ancient house, has honoured the house of Lossie by consenting to +become its marchioness? Lady Clementina Thornicroft possesses large +estates in the south of England, but not for them did I seek her +favour--as you will be convinced when you reflect what the fact +involves which she has herself desired me to make known to you-- +namely, that it was while yet she was unacquainted with my birth +and position, and had never dreamed that I was other than only a +fisherman and a groom, that she accepted me for her husband.-- +I thank my God." + +With that he took his seat, and after hearty cheering, a glass or +two of wine, and several speeches, all rose, and went to look at +the portrait of the late marquis. + + + +CHAPTER LXXII: KNOTTED STRANDS + + +Lady Clementina had to return to England to see her lawyers, and +arrange her affairs. Before she went, she would gladly have gone +with Malcolm over every spot where had passed any portion of his +history, and at each heard its own chapter or paragraph; but Malcolm +obstinately refused to begin such a narration before Clementina +was mistress of the region to which it mainly belonged. After that, +he said, he would, even more gladly, he believed, than she, occupy +all the time that could be spared from the duties of the present in +piecing together the broken reflections of the past in the pools of +memory, until they had lived both their lives over again together, +from earliest recollection to the time when the two streams flowed +into one, thenceforth to mingle more and more inwardly to endless +ages. + +So the Psyche was launched. Lady Clementina, Florimel, and Lenorme +were the passengers, and Malcolm, Blue Peter, and Davy the crew. +There was no room for servants, yet was there no lack of service. +They had rough weather a part of the time, and neither Clementina +nor Lenorme was altogether comfortable, but they made a rapid +voyage, and were all well when they landed at Greenwich. + +Knowing nothing of Lady Bellair's proceedings, they sent Davy +to reconnoitre in Portland Place. He brought back word that there +was no one in the house but an old woman. So Malcolm took Florimel +there. Everything belonging to their late visitors had vanished, +and nobody knew where they had gone. + +Searching the drawers and cabinets, Malcolm, to his unspeakable +delight, found a miniature of his mother, along with one of his +father--a younger likeness than he had yet seen. Also he found +a few letters of his mother--mostly mere notes in pencil; but +neither these nor those of his father which Miss Horn had given +him, would he read: + +"What right has life over the secrets of death ?" he said. "Or +rather, what right have we who sleep over the secrets of those who +have waked from their sleep and left the fragments of their dreams +behind them?" + +Lovingly he laid them together, and burned them to dust flakes. + +"My mother shall tell me what she pleases, when I find her," he said. +"She shall not reprove me for reading her letters to my father." + +They were married, at Wastbeach, both couples in the same ceremony. +Immediately after the wedding, the painter and his bride set out +for Rome, and the marquis and marchioness went on board the Psyche. +For nothing would content Clementina, troubled at the experience +of her first voyage, but she must get herself accustomed to the +sea, as became the wife of a fisherman; therefore in no way would +she journey but on board the Psyche; and as it was the desire of +each to begin their married life at home, they sailed direct for +Portlossie. After a good voyage, however, they landed, in order to +reach home quietly, at Duff Harbour, took horses from there, and +arrived at Lossie House late in the evening. + +Malcolm had written to the housekeeper to prepare for them the +Wizard's Chamber, but to alter nothing on walls or in furniture. +That room, he had resolved, should be the first he occupied with +his bride. Mrs Courthope was scandalized at the idea of taking an +earl's daughter to sleep in the garret, not to mention that the +room had for centuries had an ill name; but she had no choice, and +therefore contented herself with doing all that lay in the power of +woman, under such severe restrictions, to make the dingy old room +cheerful. + +Alone at length in their somewhat strange quarters, concerning +which Malcolm had merely told her that the room was that in which +he was born--what place fitter, thought Clementina, wherein to +commence the long and wonderful story she hungered to hear. Malcolm +would still have delayed it, but she asked question upon question +till she had him fairly afloat. He had not gone far, however, +before he had to make mention of the stair in the wall, which led +from the place where they sat, straight from the house. + +"Can there be such a stair in this room?" she asked in surprise. + +He rose, took a candle, opened a door, then another, and showed +her the first of the steps down which the midwife had carried him, +and descending which, twenty years after, his father had come by +his death. + +"Let us go down," said Clementina. + +"Are you not afraid? Look," said Malcolm. + +"Afraid, and you with me!" she exclaimed. + +"But it is dark, and the steps are broken." + +"If it led to Hades, I would go with my fisherman. The only horror +would be to be left behind." + +"Come then," said Malcolm, "Only you must be very careful." He laid +a shawl on her shoulders, and down they went, Malcolm a few steps +in front, holding the candle to every step for her, many being +broken. + +They came at length where the stair ceased in ruin. He leaped down; +she stooped, put her hands on his shoulder, and dropped into his +arms. Then over the fallen rubbish, out by the groaning door, they +went into the moonlight. + +Clementina was merry as a child. All was so safe and peaceful with +her fisherman! She would not hear of returning. They must have +a walk in the moonlight first! So down the steps and the winding +path into the valley of the burn, and up to the flower garden they +wandered, Clementina telling him how sick the moonlight had made +her feel that night she met him first on the Boar's Tail, when his +words concerning her revived the conviction that he loved Florimel. +At the great stone basin Malcolm set the swan spouting, but the +sweet musical jargon of the falling water seemed almost coarse in +the soundless diapason of the moonlight. So he stopped it again, +and they strolled farther up the garden. + +Clementina venturing to remind him of the sexton-like gardener's +story of the lady and the hermit's cave, which because of its +Scotch, she was unable to follow. Malcolm told her now what John +Jack had narrated, adding that the lady was his own mother, and that +from the gardener's tale he learned that morning at length how to +account for the horror which had seized him on his first entering +the cave, as also for his father's peculiar carriage on that occasion: +doubtless he then caught a likeness in him to his mother. He then +recounted the occurrence circumstantially. + +"I have ever since felt ashamed of the weakness," he concluded: +"but at this moment I believe I could walk in with perfect coolness." + +"We won't try it tonight," said Clementina, and once more turned +him from the place, reverencing the shadow he had brought with him +from the spirit of his mother. + +They walked and sat and talked in the moonlight, for how long +neither knew; and when the moon went behind the trees on the cliff, +and the valley was left in darkness, but a darkness that seemed alive +with the new day soon to be born, they sat yet, lost in a peaceful +unveiling of hearts, till a sudden gust of wind roused Malcolm, +and looking up he saw that the stars were clouded, and knew that +the chill of the morning was drawing near. + +He kept that chamber just as it was ever after, and often retired +to it for meditation. He never restored the ruinous parts of the +stair, and he kept the door at the top carefully closed. But he +cleared out the rubbish that choked the place where the stair had +led lower down, came upon it again in tolerable preservation a +little beneath, and followed it into a passage that ran under the +burn, appearing to lead in the direction of the cave behind the +Baillies' Barn. Doubtless there was some foundation for the legend +of Lord Gernon. + +There however, he abandoned the work, thinking of the possibility +of a time when employment would be scarce, and his people in want +of all he could give them. And when such a time arrived, as arrive +it did before they had been two years married, a far more important +undertaking was found needful to employ the many who must earn or +starve. Then it was that Clementina had the desire of her heart, +and began to lay out the money she had been saving for the purpose, +in rebuilding the ancient Castle of Colonsay. Its vaults were emptied +of rubbish and ruin, the rock faced afresh, walls and towers and +battlements raised, until at last, when the loftiest tower seemed +to have reached its height, it rose yet higher, and blossomed in +radiance; for, topmost crown of all, there, flaming far into the +northern night, shone a splendid beacon lamp, to guide the fisherman +when his way was hid. + +Every summer for years, Florimel and her husband spent weeks in +the castle, and many a study the painter made there of the ever +changing face of the sea. + +Malcolm, as he well might, had such a strong feeling of the power +for good of every high souled schoolmaster, that nothing would serve +him but Mr Graham must be reinstated. He told the presbytery that +if it were not done, he would himself build a school house for +him, and the consequence, he said, needed no prediction. Finding, +at the same time, that the young man they had put in his place was +willing to act as his assistant, he proposed that he should keep +the cottage, and all other emoluments of the office, on the sole +condition that, when he found he could no longer conscientiously +and heartily further the endeavours of Mr Graham, he should say +so; whereupon the marquis would endeavour to procure him another +appointment; and on these understandings the thing was arranged. + +Mr Graham thenceforward lived in the House, a spiritual father to +the whole family, reverenced by all, ever greeted with gladness, +ever obeyed. The spiritual dignity and simplicity, the fine sense +and delicate feeling of the man, rendered him a saving presence in +the place; and Clementina felt as if one of the ancient prophets, +blossomed into a Christian, was the glory of their family and +house. Like a perfect daughter, she watched him, tried to discover +preferences of which he might not himself be aware, and often waited +upon him with her own hands. + +There was an ancient building connected with the house, divided +now for many years into barn and dairy, but evidently the chapel +of the monastery: this Malcolm soon set about reconverting. It made +a lovely chapel--too large for the household, but not too large +for its congregation upon Wednesday evenings, when many of the +fishermen and their families, and not a few of the inhabitants of +the upper town, with occasionally several farm servants from the +neighbourhood, assembled to listen devoutly to the fervent and loving +expostulations and rousings, or the tender consolings and wise +instructions of the master, as every one called him. The hold he +had of their hearts was firm, and his influence on their consciences +far reaching. + +When there was need of conference, or ground for any wide expostulation, +the marquis would call a meeting in the chapel; but this occurred +very seldom. Now and then the master, sometimes the marquis himself, +would use it for a course of lectures or a succession of readings +from some specially interesting book; and in what had been the +sacristy they gathered a small library for the use of the neighbourhood. + +No meeting was held there of a Sunday, for although the clergyman +was the one person to whom all his life the marquis never came any +nearer, he was not the less careful to avoid everything that might +rouse contention or encourage division. + +"I find the doing of the will of God," he would say, "leaves me +no time for disputing about his plans--I do not say for thinking +about them." + +Not therefore, however, would he waive the exercise of the inborn +right of teaching, and anybody might come to the house and see the +master on Sunday evenings. As to whether people went to church or +stayed away, he never troubled himself in the least; and no more +did the schoolmaster. + +The chapel had not been long finished when he had an organ built in +it. Lady Lossie played upon it. Almost every evening, at a certain +hour, she played for a while; the door was always open, and any +one who pleased might sit down and listen. + +Gradually the feeling of the community, from the strengthening and +concentrating influence of the House, began to bear upon offenders; +and any whose conduct had become in the least flagrant soon felt +that the general eye was upon them, and that gradually the human tide +was falling from them, and leaving them prisoned in a rocky basin +on a barren shore. But at the same time, all three of the powers at +the House were watching to come in the moment there was a chance; +and what with the marquis's warnings, his wife's encouragements, +and the master's expostulations, there was no little hope of the +final recovery of several who would otherwise most likely have sunk +deeper and deeper. + +The marchioness took Lizzy for her personal attendant, and had her +boy much about her; so that by the time she had children of her +own, she had some genuine and worthy notion of what a child was, and +what could and ought to be done for the development of the divine +germ that lay in the human egg; and had found that the best she +could do for any child, or indeed anybody, was to be good herself. + +Rose married a young fisherman, and made a brave wife and mother. +To the end of her days she regarded the marquis almost as a being +higher than human, an angel that had found and saved her. + +Kelpie had a foal, and, apparently in consequence, grew so much +more gentle that at length Malcolm consented that Clementina, who +was an excellent horsewoman, should mount her. After a few attempts +to unseat her, not of the most determined kind however, Kelpie, on +her part, consented to carry her, and ever after seemed proud of +having a mistress that could ride. Her foal turned out a magnificent +horse. Malcolm did not allow him to do anything that could be +called work before he was eight years old, and had the return at +the other end, for when Goblin was thirty he rode him still, and +to judge by appearances, might but for an accident have ridden him +ten years more. + +It was not long ere people began to remark that no one now ever +heard the piper utter the name Campbell. An ill bred youth once +--it was well for him that Malcolm was not near--dared the evil +word in his presence: a cloud swept across the old man's face, but +he held his peace; and to the day of his death, which arrived in +his ninety-first year, it never crossed his lips. He died with the +Lossie pipes on his bed, Malcolm on one side of him, and Clementina +on the other. + +Some of my readers may care to know that Phemy and Davy were +married, and made the quaintest, oldest fashioned little couple, +with hearts which king or beggar might equally have trusted. + +Malcolm's relations with the fisher folk, founded as they were in +truth and open uprightness, were not in the least injured by his +change of position. He made it a point to be always at home during +the herring fishing. Whatever might be going on in London, the +marquis and marchioness, their family and household, were sure +to leave in time for the commencement of that. Those who admired +Malcolm, of whom there were not a few even in Vanity Fair, called +him the fisher king: the wags called him the kingfisher, and laughed +at the oddity of his taste in preferring what he called his duty +to the pleasures of the season. But the marquis found even the +hen pecked Partan a nobler and more elevating presence than any +strutting platitude of Bond Street. And when he was at home, he was +always about amongst the people. Almost every day he would look in +at some door in the Seaton, and call out a salutation to the busy +housewife--perhaps go in and sit down for a minute. Now he would +be walking with this one, now talking with that--oftenest with +Blue Peter; and sometimes both their wives would be with them, +upon the shore, or in the grounds. Nor was there a family meal to +which any one or all together of the six men whom he had set over +the Seaton and Scaurnose would not have been welcomed by the marquis +and his Clemency. The House was head and heart of the whole district. + +A conventional visitor was certain to feel very shruggish at first +sight of the terms on which the marquis was with "persons of that +sort;" but often such a one came to allow that it was no great +matter: the persons did not seem to presume unpleasantly, and, +notwithstanding his atrocious training, the marquis was after all +a very good sort of fellow--considering. + +In the third year he launched a strange vessel. Her tonnage was +two hundred, but she was built like a fishing boat. She had great +stowage forward and below: if there was a large take, boat after +boat could empty its load into her, and go back and draw its nets +again. But this was not the original design in her. + +The after half of her deck was parted off with a light rope rail, +was kept as white as holystone could make it, and had a brass railed +bulwark. She was steered with a wheel, for more room; the top of +the binnacle was made sloping, to serve as a lectern; there were +seats all round the bulwarks; and she was called the Clemency. + +For more than two years he had provided training for the fittest +youths he could find amongst the fishers, and now he had a pretty +good band playing on wind instruments, able to give back to God a +shadow of his own music. The same formed the Clemency's crew. And +every Sunday evening the great fishing boat with the marquis, and +almost always the marchioness on board, and the latter never without +a child or children, led out from the harbour such of the boats as +were going to spend the night on the water. + +When they reached the ground, all the other boats gathered about +the great boat, and the chief men came on board, and Malcolm stood +up betwixt the wheel and the binnacle, and read--always from the +gospel, and generally words of Jesus, and talked to them, striving +earnestly to get the truth alive into their hearts. Then he would +pray aloud to the living God, as one so living that they could +not see him, so one with them that they could not behold him. When +they rose from their knees; man after man dropped into his boat, +and the fleet scattered wide over the waters to search them for +their treasure. + +Then the little ones were put to bed; and Malcolm and Clementina +would sit on the deck, reading and talking, till the night fell, +when they too went below, and slept in peace. But if ever a boat +wanted help, or the slightest danger arose, the first thing was to +call the marquis, and he was on deck in a moment. + +In the morning, when a few of the boats had gathered, they would +make for the harbour again, but now with full blast of praising +trumpets and horns, the waves seeming to dance to the well ordered +noise divine. Or if the wind was contrary, or no wind blew, the +lightest laden of the boats would take the Clemency in tow, and, +with frequent change of rowers, draw her softly back to the harbour. + +For such Monday mornings, the marquis wrote a little song, and his +Clemency made an air to it, and harmonized it for the band. Here +is the last stanza of it: + +Like the fish that brought the coin, +We in ministry will join-- +Bring what pleases thee the best; +Help from each to all the rest. + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Marquis of Lossie, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE *** + +This file should be named 7174.txt or 7174.zip + +This etext was produced by Martin Robb + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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