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THE LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA
AT CHAPEL HILL
ENDOWED BY THE
DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC
SOCIETIES
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL
00008755894
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the last date stamped under ‘“‘Date Due.” If not on hold it
may be renewed by bringing it to the library.
DATE DATE
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THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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P. 268.
‘**T am your brother,’ Malcolm repeated.”
THE WS
Sex. QOUIS OF LOSSIE
BY
GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D. MSY
6b 7 bb I OG
AUTHOR OF ‘* DAVID ELGINBROD,
HOWGLEN,”’ ‘‘
ROBERT FALCONER, ALEC FORBES OF
ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD,”’ ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
g LAFAYETTE PLACE
GEORGE MACDONALD’S NOVELS.
“A mine of original and quaint stmilitudes. Thetr
deep perceptions of human nature are certainly remarka-
ble.” —THE CENTURY MAGAZINE.
With illustrations on wood and steel. Being the First Col-
lected Uniform Edition of this Author's Writings. 21
volumes, r2mo. cloth, in box. Per set, $31.50.. Half calf
extra, Per set, $63.00, Cloth, per volume, $1.50.
Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood.
The Seaboard Parish. A Sequel to Annals of a Quiet Neigh-
borhood.
Guild Court. A London Story.
Alec Forbes of Howglen.
Robert Falconer.
The Vicar’s Daughter. An Autobiographical Story.
Paul Faber, Surgeon.
Thomas Wingfold, Curate.
Wilfrid Cumbermede. An Autobiographical Story.
Sir Gibbie.
St. George and St. Michael. A Novel.
; The Portent. A Story.
Phantastes. A Faerie Romance for Men and Women.
David Elginbrod.
Adela Cathcart.
Malcolm,
The Marquis of Lossie.
Warlock O’ Glenwarlock. A Homely Romance.
Mary Marston.
Weighed and Wanting.
Donal Grant.
Stephen Archer,
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS,
g LAFAYETTE PLACE, NEw York.
tae
thraws (death struggles) 0’ the bodily natur’ an’ the fear o’ hell,
that same confession ye row up again’ 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
+e THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
a’ ’at I ha’e borne an’ dune to mak a gentleman 0’ 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 (ods¢znate) 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 oO’ 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.”
“‘T’m sorry for that.—Eh, laddie, but she was bonny to see!”
“YT 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 her-
sel’, 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, w1’
naething 7’ 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
lawfw’ 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
Ae Be: “ork ee
Pe
:
MISS HORN. I
‘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 0’ 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 slits
fowk ’at was like my ain flesh and blude!”
“Weel,” rejoined Miss Horn eagerly, ff 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
im 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.
“TI 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.”
“TI ken naething aboot him,” said Miss Horn, with emphasized
indifference.
* An’ I ken but little: Is’ 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 0’ ’im, Haud ye by that, Ma’colm,
ae
12 7 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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.”
“T doobt ye’re richt there, mem; and gien I cud but tak puir
Kelpie awa’ wi’ me i
“ 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 P” asked Miss Horn.
“ Ow! to Lon’on—whaur ither?”
“¢ And what'll yer lordship du there?”
“‘Dinna say /ordshif to me, mem, or I'll think ye’re jeerin’ at
me. What wad the caterpillar say,” he added, with a laugh,
“sien ye ca’d her zzy leddie Psyche?”
Malcolm of course pronounced the Greek word in Scotch
fashion.
“T ken naething aboot yer Seechies or yer Sukies,” rejoined
Miss Horn. “I ken ’at ye’re bun’ to be a lord and no a stable-
man, an’ I s’ no lat ye rist till ye up an’ say what netst 2?”
“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
- mnither.”
But Malcolm avoided a promise, lest it should interfere with -
what he might find best to do.
RELPIE'S AIRING. 3
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 rose 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 sall. To ca’ aman 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 !”
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-
——
44 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
: 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.
“T reckon ye wadna care though the she-deevil knockit oot yet
harns ; but ye hae the bairn, woman! MHa’e mercy on the
bairmn, an’ rin to the boddom.”
“I want to speak to ye, Ma’colm MacPhail,” she said, ina
tone whose very stillness revealed a depth of trouble.
“‘T 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, amd
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.
A . ub ee
ae
KELPIE’S AIRING. ge
“Wha tellt ye that, Lizzy ?” he said.
“Tm 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 Zens what he says?” he pursued.
“ Weel, I dinna jist richtly ken gien she ens, but I think she
maun ha’e gude rizzon, or she wadna say as she says. Obi 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—-Zell’ zm ; 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, Is’ be at yer
service. Bide aboot here—or, luik ye: here’s the key o’ yon
door; come throw’ that intil the park—throu’ aneth the toll-
rod, ye ken. There ye'll get into the lythe (/ce) 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 il put up the mere, and [ll be
back—I can du’t in ten meenutes.”
“Hh! 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,
16 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 sum-
mer 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?
™ #5 pen a OK are we eS ee ee Pi ~~ 7 x
J Ea sae Nae Ab ah ta eet ots +t Ph _
(die ER ne - ‘¥ mak
A eng aa “ Sa a aL.
LIZZY FINDLAY. 17
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 exact-
ing 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 recogni-
tion 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 w ith the fishers.
Now all the day he had been fuming over Malcolm’s be-
haviour 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.
“‘ Fh, lassie, ye maun be cauld !” he said.
a No that cauld,” she answered, and with the words burst into
* tears. ‘“ But naebody says a kin’ word to me noe, ” 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.”
x Weel, we maunna stan’ oot here 7’ the cauld: come this
gait,” said Malcolm. “The bairnie "Il 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
B
~a eae Re s.
> at a4
Sas
18 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE. #
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, Lizzie: 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.
“ T wadna hae ye tell me onything ye promised no to tell,” re-
sumed Malcolm, finding she did not reply, “ but I wad like to
hear as muckle as ye can say.”
“TI 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.”
‘“‘T wadna say a word ’at micht fa’ sair on a sair hert,” he re-
turned ; “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 fisher-
man, even if he were the generous Malcolm MacPhail himself.
“TY wad raither not,” he replied, “but we maun see hoo he
- cairries himsel’.”
“Du naething till ’im for my sake, Ma’colm. Yecan hae nae-
thing again’ him yersel’.”
It was too dark for Malcolm to see the keen look of wistful
regret with which Lizzie 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 hal
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 inevitabie, however ! only what could he do, and at the same
time avoid grievous hurt ?
eo MR CRATHIE. | £9
«¥ dinna think he’ll ever merry my leddy,” he said.
“What gars ye say that, Ma’colm?” returned Lizzy, with
eagerness.
“T canna tell ye jist 1 the noo; but ye ken a body canna weel ©
be aye aboot a place ohn seen things. J’ll tell ye something 0’
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 7 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 throw’ onything. I say I think it was himsel’ tuik me
ithrow’ ’t, an’ here I stan’ afore ye, ready for the neist trible, an’
tthe 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. / 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 pey 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.”
“J brak nae lock,” returned Malcolm. ‘TI ha’e the key my
Jord gae me to ilka place ’ithin the wa’s excep’ the strong room.”
“‘ Give it me directly. JZ’ master here now.”
“’Deed, Is’ 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, wes’ refar’t to Maister Soutar.”
“Damn your impudence—at / 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. |
"e . 5 ge ke Fe A ae
. = a p ; je |
20 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“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 mis-
tress, 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’
3 :
for leain’ the place, gien I be na in your service, Maister
_ Crathie, I’m nae un’er your orders. T’ll gang whan it shuits me,
An’ mair yet, ye s’ gang oot o’ this first, or I 9’ gar ye, an’ that
ve'lisee.”
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,
Pip One Re ae
ois the
ae
Re
BLUE PETER. ox
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 atonce obeyed the summons.
“There’s naething wrang, Lhoup, 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
yehadachance. I ha’e him nae mair to gang till, Joseph, an’ sae
I’m come to you. Come doon by, an’ ?’ the scoug o’ a rock, Ill
tell ye a’ aboot it.”
“Ye wadna ha’e the mistress no ken o’ ’t?” said his friend.
‘J 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 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 halfway to
ry te ee Ry
Steet feproa . 7 3. 1S ‘
go 23.) THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
the beach, and under a great projection of rock stood sheltcree
from the wind. Then Malcolm turned to Joseph Marr, com-
- monly 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?” ee ete
“ No,never,” answered Peter. “What gars ye speir sic a thing?
“’Cause I want ye to believe me noo, an’ it winna be easy.’
“Tl believe onything ye tell me—at can be believed.” 5
“Weel, I ha’e come to the knowledge ‘at my names nO
MacPhail : it’s Colonsay. Man, I’m the Markis o’ Lossie.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, without a single stare of un-.
belief 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.” 7
“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 fishef to my father.”
“Tt’s no like it, my lord,” returned Blue Peter, *‘ whan the first
thing I say is—what wad ye hae o’ me? Here I am—no
speirin’ a queston!”
“‘ Weel, I wad ha’e ye hear the story 0’ ’t a’.”
Say on, my lord,” said Peter.
But Malcolm was silent for a few moments.
“ TI was thinkin’, Peter,” he said at last, ‘whether I cud bide
to hear you say my Jord to me. Dootless, as it Il 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 gie in till ’t, ‘cause it
wad set fowk jaloosin’. But I wad be obleeged till ye, Peter,
gien you wad say my Jord 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 gs’ tell ye a’ ’at-I ken.”
When he had ended the tale of what had come to his know-
ledge, 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.”
s fe. iene
BLUE PETER. 23
“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 wot 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,
“T 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.”
“Ts’ ha’e her oot in a meenute,” said Joseph, and scrambled
up the cliff.
7, ea THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
CHAPTER VIIL
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
ire carry him. He anticipated its difficulties, but never thought of
perils: it was seldom anything oppressed him but the doubt of
what he ought todo. 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 sur-
prises 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 de-
liverance, 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’
alr?
“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.”
“Tell be an ill day,” returned Malcolm, “whan I grow strange
to ony freen’. T’ll ha’e to gang far down the laich (ow) ro’d
afore that be poassible. J 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?’ 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 oy
surprise.
“The suner the better, lass,” replied her husband. “ An’ we
cudna ha’e a better win’. Tist 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?
Pll need to come mysel’ an’ fess Jean.”
“Na, na; let Jean sit. There’s plenty 1 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 2”
“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 oat-
cakes.
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 con-
dition, 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.
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 tully manned, they set sail
= YOYAGE.TO LONDON. nes
ae re
26 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE,
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.
LONDON STREETS. 29
‘ CHAPTER XI.
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 7?’ 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 oy sheep.”
“Tt’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’ con-
fess there’s things abune a’ human comprehension.”
“Wha kens but that maybe ’cause 1’ 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?”
“Vere 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
THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 remem-
bered 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
‘tale house in Portland Place.
After many curious perplexities, odd blunders, and vain en-
deavours 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 half-way up the nave Malcolm
‘turned and said, “‘ Eh, Peter! sic a blessin’!” and Peter replied, |
“There canna be muckle o’ this 7? 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 ’ 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 thorough:
fares 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-
‘LONDON STREETS. 29
shop. On payment of a week’s rent in advance, she allowed
them asmall 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 :
Itow 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 com-
mitted 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 care-
fully, the snow lay a few inches deep, and he found no difficulty
in keeping near the.1, 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
30 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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.
“TI 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.
Malcolm 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,
THE TEMPEST. Ps aay
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: Zhe 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 sup-
plant 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
32 TAE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
and the child of the man who sat there so composed and com-
fortable. His features were fine and clear-cut, his shoulders
bread, 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
btit 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
DEMON AND THE PIPES. ng
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,
Ge OCAP DE, Root
DEMON AND THE PIPEo.
His plan was to watch the house until he saw some entertain-
ment 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
C
A OT Pee ae og eee CF F
a Wa H r r ay eek
, 7 4) oo am la ne Oe ae ee Se eee Ee ee se) Oe ee ee eee SRS me a Fs en, Pe ts See.
regs PB aP ERB eae ee ee a RD See RD VO Ba, Eee Ged IE ORR gM :
’ % bee 7 a a
an cam” - - «mm “, =< f
Tet
THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 sight-seeing, 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 Port-
land 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 to-morrow. It might have been
DEMON AND THE PIPES. 35
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 amount-
ing 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
camerze obscure, 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 s/e 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 con-
clusion 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 /zgh 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 i in at once, and told what of his tale he chose at tie
A sure ; but the servant, who had never seen the dress Malcolm
wore, except on street-beggars, with the instinct his class shares
vith watch-dogs, quickly closed the door. Ere it reached the —
St, newever, it found Malcolm’s foot between. .
« Wo along, Scotchy. You’re not wanted here,” said the man
eae the door hard. “ Police is round the corner.”
Now one of the weaknesses Malcolm owed to his Celtic
ae
$
. . \
’ ral Oe i 9 ae nae
A ‘ a up? ee
blood was an utter impatience of rudeness. In his own — e
nature entirely courteous, he was wrathful even to absurdity at fo
the slightest suspicion of insult. But that, in part through the
influence of Mr Graham, the schoolmaster, he had learned to
es
4
a
keep a firm hold on the reins of action, this ' foolish feeling
would not unfrequently have hurried him into conduct undigni- _
_ fied. On the present occasion, I fear the main part of “his ee.
answer, but for the shield of the door, would have beena blow
to fell a bigger man than the one that now glared at him through e
_ the shoe-broad opening. As it was, his words were fierce with
Pe
suppressed wrath. . i.
“Open the door, an’ lat me in,” was, however, all he said. © es a
“ What’s your business?” asked the man, on whom his tone uy
had its effect. oe,
_ “My business is with my Lady Lossie,” said Malcolm, ré-
3 covering his English, which was one step towards mastering, ities af
“ot recovering, his temper. rag
“You can’t see her. She’s at dinner.” os!
Let me in, and I’ll wait. I come from Lossie House.” eee
is ae Take away your foot and I'll go and see,” said the man. 7
SONo. You open the door,” returned Malcolm. a
The man’s answer was an attempt to kick his foot out of the es
_ doorway. If he were to let in a tramp what would the butler | ee
say? Be.
But thereupon Malcolm set his port-vent to his mont z
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, E
and then sent from the instrument such a shriek, as it galloped oS
_ 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,
ae with his pipes in full cry. The house resounded with their. “a
“ai 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. ;
ma The footman laughed with exultation, expecting to see him cons :
- DEMON AND THE PIPES. 37
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.”
“Tl 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 Beliair 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 disk 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 ~
g ’ » laying pip
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 Pll 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 botile. 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.
“Tm Lady Lossie’s man from Lossie House. Ill 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 tiimead at
least intelligibly ; ; the cork of the champagne bottle was pushing
hard against nis 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.
f ose
Bi te
Al > , 9. eS
POS ae ae
4 tak YF .
ee
f uae 7") Sie
" ee LW
.
wie Me
38 «THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 Flori-
‘mel’s mysterious friend.
y
CHAPTER XII.
A NEW LIVERY.
Scarcety 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 appear-
ance, and certain difficulties in which she had begun to find her-
self, brought something of it again to her mind.
“TI 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
A NEW LIVERY. 39
such a description of Kelpie, that her owner, as she imagined
-
education and previous life.”
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
“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 no-
body 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
aleer ”
“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 some-
thing 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.”
*T do know it,” answered Florimel gently, moved by the tone
of Malcolm’s voice, and the expression of his countenance.
WR ys See
Ba ats THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“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.”
“Ts 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 fora 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, 1 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,
‘Av’ 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 Ze says, what aze we to believe, my
leddy?” >
' Florimel continued yet a moment looking him fixedly in the
Pe. sie *
ih cx Fides sag “VapBh tags Sat gts cael aia aa
A NEW LIVERY. 4l
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 friend-
ship she possessed an incorruptible treasure. The calm, truth-
ful, 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 cool-
ness 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. :
«1 wish you to understand,” she said at length, “that I am
not at present mistress of this house, although it “belongs to me.
Iam 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 founda-
tion, 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
Case THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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.
“Ts 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.”
His at-settied 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
Na ri
Ws
TWO CONVERSATIONS. 43
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.
night. I think of taking a similar protection myself, one of these
, d ays.”
“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 busi-
ness 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, Zknow! 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?”
“e’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. J always give him second-best sherry, 7 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
44 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTIE.
| penny of it, ’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 mar-
vels 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.
“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.”
“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’ 0’ a peace. Yon organ ’at we
hearkent till ae day ootside the kirk, ye min’-—man, it was a
quaietness in ’tsel’, and cam’ throw’ the din like a bonny silence
—like a lull ? 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 7? yer pooer, ony nicht ’at
TWO CONVERSATIONS. 45
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.”
“J doobt there’s something no richt aboot it, Peter,” returned
Malcolm.
“There maun be a heap no richt aboot it,” answered Peter.
“Ay, but ’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 7 the mids o’ a multitude no man can number, a’ made
ilk ane 7 the image o’ the Father—as weel, I say, asi’ the hert
© win’ an’ watter an’ the lift an’ the starns an’ a’. Ye canna say
’at thae things are a’ made?’ 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 con-
sidered Christi-ans.”
“Ow, I grant we canna weel du that 7’ the full sense, but I
doobt, gien they bena a’ Christi-ans ’at ca’s themsel’s that, there’s
a heap mair Christi-anity 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
© Christi-anity.”
cavers, + 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, 1 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 0’ ’im.”
t oe Ss
at >
We
eo
16 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
** Ay, yee richt there, Peter,” answered Malcolm, “but there’s
ae pint 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,
ast war. Eh me! but it’s weel to ha’e a man like the schuil-
maister 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 over-arched her con-
_ sciousness 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 dis-
cover 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
FLORIMEL. 47
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 be-
tween 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 mis-
giving 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 con-
science, 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 appear-
ance before the eyes of men, finds himself accused of paltry follies,
stupidities, and indiscretions, and punished with paltry mortifica-
tions, 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, be-
sides, there is no refuge of external things wherein the man may
shelter himself from the truths they would so gladly send con-
quering 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
“48 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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
_acertain 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 fore-
head, 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 selfrecommendation. 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 out-
landish, tolerably fitted the surname, notwithstanding the con-
tiguous 7s, objectionable to the fastidious ear of their owner.
The earlier and more important part of his education, the begin-
“nings, 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 teimpta-
tions belonging to his youth and his profession—in great measure
FLORIMEL. ~ 49
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 sweeten-
ing 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
mahrchen of Novalis, introduced in Die Lehrlinge zu Sats, in
which the goddess of Nature reveals to the eager and anxious
gaze of the beholder the person of his Rosenbliithchen, whom he
had left behind him when he set out to visit the temple of the
D
ko) THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
rw See” we eee 2 el ree Shr Re ey A MME Ce Pd SO aS ie ree Me, gl Mee Che rh
Ran, iA oan Mire Mat ON bal aay Ah A TA Sac atel nAD a ty enc mee
iy wore; { Pa PBN MIS MAME eae Na are icue tg ae Atl
al . “2
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-ex-
planation. 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,
“Tf you would give me a sitting or two—I know I am pre-
sumptuous, but if you would—I—I should send the picture to
the Academy in a week.”
“T will,” replied Florimel, flushing like a wild poppy, and as
she said it, she looked up in his face and smiled.
“Tt 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 com-
punction, 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 posi-
_ tion, she had never heard the word used except as representing
something owing to, not owed by rank. Social standing in the
nat Sm
eyes of the super-excellent few of fashion was the Satan of un-~ f os
righteousness worshipped around her. And the precepts of this
worship fell upon soil prepared for it. For with all the simplicity
ae
tas aes
pa y
BPP at
oe oe
> epee te) RS eee er ee Le ‘ . are ry Pa Fae ee eh ey > ees OOF +S, of ye AL iOb heel a } > enlia|
Sa fiat ea ae ei eo Ny Pgh pe eae ei dye neem 3
ia ee Pores | RL ORIMETL. 51
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 earth-
quake 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. 7
This my disclosure of her condition, however, has not yet un-
covered 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 dis-
missed it into a future of indefinite removal ; she had no special |
desire to piease Lady Bellair from the point of gratitude, tor she - _
neta)»
ae)?
ees
‘s 4
a
icf
ne
52 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE, ~~
-
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 mza 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 briliancy. 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
affanced. 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
PORTLOSSTE. 53
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 ina fury. He had this consolation, how- °
ever: the man who had accused him of dishonesty and hypocrisy
had proved but a thief.
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 comprehenson, rushed out in a storm of tongue.
dl
/ Pee Sy. Pr ae za ¢ rape ; br a Ser iene ee: ah Ga i: age soF Bags te etek g eal ei Re eae Oe.
; a) = -
: 3 ’ <
54 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.
‘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.”
“Tf 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 zwas 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.”
“T’ve a great mind to take out a warrant against you, John —
Fin’lay, otherwise called the Partan, as airt an’ pairt in the steal-
ing of the Marchioness of Lossie’s pleasure-boat,” said the factor. —
“And for you, Mistress Finlay, 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.”
‘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 0’ ye.”
“The deil’s ’ 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 Is’ gar him priv ’s words yet !”
Cae
ePORTLOSSIE, rae
“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, :
“aud 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.
“Fim !” 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.
* fh, mither!” cried Lizzy, in her turn appearing from the
ben-end, with her child in her arms, “ye hae wroucht ruin 7’ the
earth! He'll hae Peter an’ Annie an’ a’ oot o’ hoose an’ ha,
come midsummer.”
“YT daur him till’t!” cried her mother, in the impotence and
self-despite of a mortifying blunder; “ T’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 mow’ sae wide to yer mither? ”
burst forth Meg Partan, glad of an object upon which the chagrin
that consumed her mightissue in flame. ‘ Yeha’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.
* 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,
PAS a eR oe RO Ge =” Son edae
jatrass ie oes Ae < :
Pe POA gm
* ae nS
Fea Beract eoe me ee u
Ko THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 fi rsh eee
she had given her conscience cause to speak daggers to ‘her! 40 9
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 gallopedto 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 de-
mented 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 in-
explicable. 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.
>
: Ss ST. ¥AMES THE APOSTLE.
| aes tas XVL
ST JAMES THE APOSTLE,
Wun 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 in-
demnify 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 Pir families, he would never utter a sentence
but in the old tongue, Harnted with all the memories of relations
that were never to be obliterated or forgotten, its very tones.
reminding him and them of hardships together endur ed, pleasures
shared, and help willingly given. At night, notwithstanding, he
found that i in talking with Blue Pcter, he ‘had for gotten 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
_ fam, 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
eS
ie tp. ne
2 ee THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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? He
thinks there’s naething 0’ mair importance, ’cep’ maybe some
ither pairts 0’ 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 ?—Ist
possible the auld body kent something ’at was jist as necessar’ to |
ilkka 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. .
“Tt was jist ’ 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 Iam 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, “least you should
have to change afterwards. You might find it difficult.”
“Ye’re cheengt a’ready,” said Blue Peter, looking up at him
Sharply. “TI ne’er h’ard ye speyk like that afore.”
ae
Le ea
A Re ear PN il ma ct ON eg he Pa Ut a ok bo bt aE
" Sette oy sat te is eee. Pes by
A DIFFERENCE. ToS
“Make nothing of it,” returned Malcolm. “Iam only airing my
-_ Englishon you. I have made up my mind to learn to speak in Lon-
don 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 substi-
tuted 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 i 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 asa 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
Peter, 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 whart
to make arrangements about Kelpie, whose arrival Malcolm ex-
pected the following Monday, then dined together, and ace 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
60 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
is one form in which the poetic element vaguely embodies itself.
Hence arose the temptation to try on Blue Peter the effect of a
uiterally 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, there-
fore, 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 Zhe .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 commence-
_ ment. 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, ’m thinkin’?” he said.
‘It’s a muckie 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’? their cair-
ritches, comin’ to the kirk—on a Setterday nicht tu. It maun be —
some kin’ 0’ 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 in-comers 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 remem-
bered 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,
5 A DIFFERENCE. oa
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 Malcelm, 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—
“Tm jaloosin’—it canna be—it’s no a playhoose, this ?”
Malcolm merely nodded, but from the riod Peter understood
that 4e 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 indigna-
tion, 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 com-
plain of his conduct towards him, he laid his hand on Blue
Peter's arm, and stopped him in the middle of the narrow street.
““T 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 1 the w’y o’ hearing abus’t 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 7 my life ; but I wasna
fleyt like you, ’cause I kent frae the buik a’’at was comin’. I
hae hard in a kirk in ae ten meenutes jist a sicht o’ what maun
ha’e been sair displeasin’ to the he’rt o’ the maister 0’’s a’; but
that nicht I saw nae ill and h’ard nae ill, but was weel peyed back
upo’ t em ’at did it an’ said it afore the business was ower, an’
62 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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.” |
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 0’ ye.”
“‘T thoucht nae ill o’ ’t,” returned Malcolm
“Weel, Z 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 0’
’im, an’ no the muckle toon ’at’s made the differ. Ony gait, ’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 life-long relation between them; his
feelings therefore held him silent. Peter concluded that the
marguis was displeased, and it clenched his resolve to go.
“What w’y am IJ 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 Mal-
-colm, 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 super-
ficial estrangement.
LORD LIFTORE. 63
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 ex-
pression, 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 zzformed 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 repre-
sented 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
ee . Se Re ht SS Tae
THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE. —
oe nt " ae
= es soe
‘ 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
Lossic 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
- -eyil 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.
as
Von
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i he
x
ar
¥ hy
pay OS
eee AE
Rag Mag oe
“ii
re
ay
nt,
pie
=e
~
was all in all as yet, and such was his opinion of his own precious’ ae
_ being, that, had he thonght about it, he would have considered
the honour of zs atten-ions far more than sufficient to make up
to any girl in such a position for whatever mishap his acquaint. =
ance might bring upon her. What were the grief and mortifica- Ae
- tion 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 fora period, however —s_—
_ brief, by his enamoured countenance? Must not even the sorrow. _ a
attendant upon her loss be rendered more than endurable—be a
radiantly consoled by the memory that she had held such a demi- es
god 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. _ ve
_ purpose sending her a present. But at that time he was poor— — a
_ dependent, indeed, for his pocket-money upon his aunt; and,up ie
_ 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 5 i
_ taken care also that it should not be in her power to write to him}. aes
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 at
his nest in some pleasant nook, adroitly masked, where lay his —
— . Pitter fee Fs a 5 aye a eT AMD ONE aE ris cae eG OT BE fete ol aie rrr
, 5 Per ee a ere 2A a ste ee ar om . : SE cal
ee re Page he aa ae oe Ds bs > ‘ i a Pe SR “ | ; <
> “> — ee
Be AORD LIFTORE
vixen and her brood ; one day he would abandon them for ever,
and, with such gathered store of experience, set up for a respect-
able family man. hs
ae:
aaa oe Se es Tn et 4 a, Cae mS ~ fe > Leen oN ee ee 2 Oe ae ew, Ti
ee * i fl “iq - - Ne iti aS es > ies SE) aS See FH ale mre i apy ‘ uM F tee! .
: ee >
~~ ak:
+ é LTS Wey es te Re 85 ‘
66 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
Ot 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 Mal-
colm’s part.
It was a sore proof to Mr Crathie that his discharged servant
was in favour with the marchioness when the order came froin
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 poison-
ing 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 sub-
dued 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.
cA MS ss 5, no AS el SO RS a
Cae er aa ‘ etait ~ ‘ YA ea ee
Bee oe ns CD A el
KELPIE IN LONDON. 67
CHAPTER XIX.
KELPIE IN LONDON.
BeroreE 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 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.
“ For God’s sake gang oot, as lang’s there twa limbs 0’ 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.”
68 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.
“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 da
for London.”
-“T told the man not to go near her, my lord.”
‘“‘What’s the use of her if no one can go near her?”
**T 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.
“Tl try her myself some morning,” said his lordship, who
thought himself a better horseman than he was.
“IT 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 him:
self 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—hke 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 lord-
‘ship also ordered his horse. |
They went straight to Rotten Row for a little gallop, and
Kelpie was behaving very vell for her.
“What ad you have two such savages, horse and groom both,
up from Scotland for, Florimel?” asked his lordship, as they
KELPIE IN LONDON. 69
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.
~ “J 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 anery,
a! eS os
OS es ee
gs 5 ae Say 3% ’ eo Sh ae ast To oe
70 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“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 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?”
“The fellow’s too heavy for her,” said Liftore. ‘I should
very much like to try her myseif.”
Florimel pulled up, and turned to Malcolm.
“MacPhail,” she said, “ have that mare of yours ready when-
ever Lord Liftore chooses to ride her.”
“‘T 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!”
“Tt’s nothing to me, my lord, if you break your neck ; but I
am bound to tell you I do zo¢ 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.
“T can’t think, Florimel,” he said, “ why you should want that -
.« fad - Re ho x Ra Pe si ss tat eS I ees ly Tae ue
SF ie fe ta, >
BLUE PETER. 71
fellow about you again. He is not only very awkward, but
insolent as well.”
“1 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.
“1 keep my place to my mistress,” returned Malcolm.
Liftore looked at him as it he would strike him. But he
thought better ot 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
Be: THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.
the forecastle. He went to him and explained how it was that
. he had been unable to join him sooner. a
ps “I didna ken ye,” said Blue Peter, “in sic playactor kin’ 0’
ie na Claes.”
“ Nobody in London would look at me twice now. But you re-
member how we were stared at when first we came,” said Malcolm.
~~“ Ow ay!” returned Peter with almost a groan; “there’s a
__~ gsair cheenge past upo’ you, but I’m gauin’ hame to the auld wy
:. o things. The herrin’ ‘Il be aye to the fore, P’m thinkin’ ; an’
baer. pien we getna a harbour we'll get a h’aven.”
a 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.”
a oe ’s é a heap ower muckle. I'll tak naething — .
~~ rae ye but what'll pay my wy.” “ -
a2 “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.’
_~ Tm sorry to hear that, Peter; but still I owe you as much as
iat 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, ’m nearer till’t nor ever I was afore.”
e “Weel, Peter, a’ ’at I can say is, I ken my ain hert, an’ ye
te, dinna ken’t.”
z “‘ Daur ye tell me!” cried Peter. “ Disna the Scriptur’ itsel’
say the hert o’ man is deceitfu’ an’ despratly wickit : who can
: know it?”
ee “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 nacthing :
| 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,
2 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 0”
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
“ores
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RICHMOND PARK. 79
groom after him, but she kept increasing her pace until they were
“4 § as Piss i
alt 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 swch a pleasure,” said Lenorme.
S| meant to give it you, though,” said Florimel, with a merry
laugh. ‘Bravo, * Kelpie! take them with you,” she cried, look-
ing ” after the still retreating horsemen. “I have gota 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.
“TLiftore 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? ae y &
the other gentleman ?” é
80 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.
“Why, of course! You know Liftore imagines 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 ?”
“Tf you don’t mind it, I do. I feel it an insult to me that he
should dare think of you like that.”
“YT 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 to-morrow—nor the
next day. Sreuet euch des Lebens !”
“QO Florimel! what zs 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 compli-
ments. 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. J 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.”
“Tf you had been, then I might have wished for your sake
that I had been born a marquis. As it is I would rather bea
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
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"ate Re } ca Bek, pe ie he ae a0] bs OW Ree eal Wei tn fi ie Oy >
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RICHMOND PARK. | 81
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
inarage. 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 noble-
ness 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 cultiva-
tion 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. me
They rode in silence for some hundred yards. At length he
spoke, replying to her last asseveration.
“Then what cam 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?—TI 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, it only my heart lay
F
82 - ‘THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE,
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 genera-
tion, when my lord this or my lord that is remembered only as a
label to the picture that makes the painter famous. I am nota
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 sucha
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:
“T 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 ex-
pression 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.” |
“JT don’t altogether like her myself,” said Florimel. “ Of
late I am not so sure of her as I used to be. But what canI 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, faith-
less 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 ? ”
~ “Yam sorry,” began Liftore a little embarrassed.
“Qh! 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.
“Tf it hadn’t been for Mr Lenorme,” she added, “I should
RICHMOND PARK. 83.
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.
“‘T 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. -
“JT 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?”
“TJ can’t say I am, beyond knowing how to treat them some-
thing 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 pass
ing. —“‘ The fallow ‘ll du. He’s worth a score 0’ 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 ave upon the grass,”—he said it loftily, as if sub-
mitting to an injustice—‘“I will presume to mount the ~
reprobate.”
The gallop had communicated itself to Liftore’s blood, and, be-
sides, he thought after such arun 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.
“Tf 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 ida
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.
84 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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.
“‘T hope youre 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.”
“IT 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.
“T beg your pardon, my lady,” said Malcolm, “ but I daren’t
get up.”
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RICHMOND PARK. 85
“‘ 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 ?”
“Tm 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 !”
“TI .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?”
“TI 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,”
86 ‘THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“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.”
“T 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. J’ll ask Mr Graham.”
“What Mr Graham ?”
“The schoolmaster of Portlossie.”
“Ts he in London, then?”
“Ves, my lady. He believed too much to sipleaee the presby-
tery, and they turned him out.”
“T 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,
*““T should like to see him, I ought to pay him some attention.
Couldn’t I make them give him his school again ?”
“T don’t know about that, my lady; but 1 am sure he would
not take it against the will of the presbytery.”
“T should like to do something for him. Ask him to call.”
Boel: Our, ladyship lays your commands upon me,” ans
Malcolm ; “otherwise I would rather not.”
“Why 50, pray?”
u 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. JZ should. He
wouldn’t take Tae T fear.<
PAINTER AND GROOM 87
“Except it came of love or work, he would put it from him as
he would brush the dust from his coat.”
“J 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?”
“Tf 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?”
‘*T 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.”
“T'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
See ce
88 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 Mal-
colm 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?”
“‘T 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 “er 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 choos-
ing another horse.”
“‘ Yes, sir—to attend upon her in London.”
“JT 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 fee 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, halt-
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.’ ”
“T am glad you think so,” said Lenorme, with entire courtesy.
—It was not merely that the very doubtful recognition at his
baat.
SETS
eng te,
PAINTER AND GROOM. | 89
profession by society. had tended to keep him clear of his pre-
judices, but both as a painter and a man he found the young
fellow exceedingly attractive ;—as a painter from the rare com-
bination of such strength with such beauty, and as a man froma .
certain yet rarer clarity of nature which to the vulgar observer
seems fatuity until he has to encounter it in action, when the con
trast 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 appre-
ciate him. His nature and his art combined in enabling him to
do this.
‘Vou see, sir,” Malcolm went on, encouraged by the simplicity
of Lenorme’s manner, ‘“‘if they were nothing like us, how should
y 8 )
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 wicked-
ness 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
woras, ‘‘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?”
“‘T 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.”
“‘T 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 P—I don’t remember her,” said Lenorme.
“ The moth, sir ;—‘the moth and the rust,’ you know.”
“Ves, 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.”
90 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
_.__ 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——”
“Tam little enough of that, sir,” interrupted Malcolm. “Any
Scotch boy that likes to learn finds the way open to him.”
i “T 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.
“T 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 ate 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 pro-
nunciation.”
“ That's a pity,” said Malcolm: “it’s the right way.”
“don’t doubt it. You Scotch are always in the right! |
But just read it off in English—will you?”
PAINTER AND GROOM. Mer a
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 pre-
sence 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 there-
fore 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 inter-
ested in his new acquaintance, “‘ tell me something about your
life. Account for yourselfi—If you will make a friendship of it,
you must do that.”
TY 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 : ;
“Il tell you what now: if I help you to buy a horse, you
must help me to paint a picture.”
“1 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.” A
“Then [ll tell you.—But you’re not to tell azybody: 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
Noy THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 recog-
nizable 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?”
“YPll do better than that, sir,” cried Malcolm, eagerly. “T’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.”
“Thank you,” said Lenorme very heartily; “that will be of
immense advantage. Write at once.”
“T will, sir.—Only I’m a bigger man than my—late master,
and you must mind that.”
“T’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.
“T 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 Aings barbaric, but there’s
barbaric gold in Virgil.”
“T 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.
PAINTER AND GROOM. 93
“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 say-
ing 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.
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 large-
ness 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.
“Tl go and write to Mrs Courthope—that’ s the housekeeper,
to-night, to send up the things at once. When would it be con-
venient for you to go and look at some horses with me, Mr
Lenorme ?” he said.
“T shall be at home all to-morrow,” 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.
Bah
94 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.
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. Hehad 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 u_ the lady’s eyes more cruel.
A LADY. 95
“‘ 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
crue.” |
- “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.” ;
“IT 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 caz 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.
96 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“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.
_ “Tt 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.”
“T 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.
“T 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 child-
hood, 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 halfmoons. Of those who knew her best some
absolutely believed that a radiance resembling moonlight
shimmered from its precious expanse. “Be ye angry and sin
A LADY. 97
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 concern-
ing 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.
“Tt’s an awfu’ thing to ha’e a wuman like that angert at ye!”
he said to himself when at length sne 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 boontifw’ 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, 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.”
G
imate
he
98 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 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.
“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 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, hav-
ing been removed when the Psyche was laid up for the winter:
i503
<% Ase
THE PSYCHE. 99
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 con-
struction.
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 under-
stood 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 !”
“‘T garred him think I was gauin’,” answered the boy, scratch-
Ing his red poll, which glowed in the dusk.
‘J gave him your wages,” said Malcolm.
“ Ay, he tauld me that, but I loot them gang an’ gae him the
slip, an’ wan ashore close ahint yersel’, sir, jist as the smack set
sau. JI 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
; du ?
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 nght. 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 aff 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.
100 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
ye
“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. ‘Is’ 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 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.”
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 :o 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 compen-
sate for the loss of the space occupied by the daintiest little
state-room—a very jewel box for softness and richness and com-
fort. 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
ae. a
THE SCHOOLMASTER. 1Or
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 yester-
day’s anger. He expected her to turn at once and com-
plain 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—
“J 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 XXVLIL
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 edu-
cation, 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
102 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
a region into which zo 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 com-
promise 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 supercilious-
ness, 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 true 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
THE SCHOOLMASTER. 103
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. SBut 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 hos-
pitality 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
oy
104 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
was a decent, good humoured fellow, who, if he had not dis-
tinguished, 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 makemoney. ‘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 primi-
tive and hardly fit for what she counted saciety—the class,
namely, that she herself represented, was patronising and con-
descending ; 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.
THE PREACHER. 10s
_- 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 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.
CHAPTER XXVIL.
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
106 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 atten-
tion, 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
~learnP 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.
ies.) aoe eas
THE PREACHER. 107
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 to-
night that next Wednesday a clergyman of the Church of Scot-
land 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 de-
clined because there were only the pew-openers, the chapel-
cleaner, a washerwoman, and a greengrocer present ?”
“T 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 jelly-fish sting in it.
“TY 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 iarther to be allowed to speak a
word to your pew-openers, washerwoman, and greengrocer.”
108 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
His entertainers were silent—the gentleman in the conscious-
ness of deserved rebuke, the lady in offence.
Just then the latter bethought herself that their guest, belong-
ing to the Scotch Church, was, if no Episcopalian, yet no dis-
senter, 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 comfort-
able with our usual week-evening one.”
“T have never attempted to speak in public but once,” re-
joined 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 posi-
tion 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.
“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
THE PREACHER. 109
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 school-
master: her husband was late, and shé 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.
‘Why, Mr Graham,” she said kindly, as he rose and pro-
ceeded to look for his cotton umbrella, easily discernible in the
stand among the silk ones of the house, “ you’re never going out
in a night like this?”
‘“‘T am going to the prayer-meeting, ma’am,” he said.
“Nonsense! You'll be wet to the skin before you get half
way.”
“JT 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.
“TI keep that for the noontide of my perceptions—for mental
high water,” said the schoolmaster. “Euclid is g-od 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 J
116 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 faint-
ing 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. 7
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 ! 1?
Once when he used a similar expression, Malcolm had asked
him what he meant by his dragon; ‘I mean,” replied the school-
master, “‘ that huge slug, Ze 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 /ead-
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
&
THE PREACHER. 111
great slug, and deal him one of those death blows which every sun- _
rise, 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.
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 assemnbly. 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. 3
oo
rete THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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, semt-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 Ze Deuwms on their coffin-lids? And now
he stood in dim light, in the vapour from damp garments, in dingi-
ness 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 small-pox, and in
every seam the dust and smoke of London had left astain. She
had a troubled eye, anda 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
THE PREACHER, 113
monster, had she not had a severe landlady, who wowld 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 school-
master 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 cark 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, O4, ¢f that
be true! how that one, whom also he described, must have said,
Vow 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
__
* .
Tod & ee * 4
a. he enue fen ; x
YS > r 4 . >
a Son,
LIES. 141
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?”
“Tm 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 lady-
ship hear the noise in the studio after you left it?”
“T 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 Am 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 getup, 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_
142 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
Bers Bchon characteristic of the bold-faced spanteee ae held out her’ c .
left hand to him in an expansive, benevolent sort of way. 2) Se
eg “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
3 complete the sentence. | ar
eae “My dearest girl!” said his lordship, not only delighted to —
__-_ get off so pleasantly, but profoundly flattered by the implied
ze: 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, ane om
Sta he had, entirely to his own satisfaction, explained the liking of _
= ae lorimel 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
BS: regarding it as within the bounds of the possible. i
~ “Jt was no wonder I was crying,” said Florimel “A 7©
seraph would have cried to see the state my father’s portrait
was in.’
e “Your father’s portrait |” :
es, “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 !” a
eer “Oh, Lenorme will soon. set it to rights again. He’s not a
by bad fellow though he does belong to the genus irritabile. Iwill —
ue go about it this very day.”
Ben's “You'll not find him, I’m sorry to say. There’s a note I had “4
____ from him yesterday. And the picture’s quite unfit to be seen—
utterly ruined. But I can’t think how you could miss it!”
a ~ “To tell you the truth, Florimel, I had a bit of a scrimmage
ta 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 —
ae -yours! I don’t suppose you knew he was there?”
* “Not I. I saw a man’s feet—that was all.”
SIE Se 143
“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. Iam 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 fvoger 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 Azs 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. 3
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 Ze 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 gentle-
ness, confessing himself in the wrong. Also she had the imp
ee cae
ei | Biden: ve
a baa ee THE MARQUIS € OF LOSSIE.
_ sion 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 un- ~——
shaken, she was yet able to believe that Liftore had done as he
said, and supposed that Malcolm had submitted. In her heart-
e=)she pitied without despising him.
Caley herself took him the message that he would not be a
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, he hoped he had
been -punished enough, seeing her rascally groom—and once = am
~ 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 ae
_ hoiiday-makers mingled with church-goers. The bellsforevening
__. prayers were ringing. The sun had vanished behind the na -
and steam of London ; indeed he aes have set—it was hard tom
AN OLD ENEMY. “145
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 re-
conciled 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 scul after truth eternal, and the love he bore
K
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146 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.
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.
“Tt 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 com-
fort, 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; “1
ts the stickit minister! Weel, won’ers ‘ll never cease. The sa
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 thought-.
ful mind, The man was no longer burdened with any anxiety as
to his reception by his hearers ; he was hampered by no necro-
mantic 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 con-
fidence 1 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
asuccess. 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,
AN OLD ENEMY. 17
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 (dee¢/es) aboot the boody-craw (scare-
crow), 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 com-
munity, 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 posses-
sion 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 seett 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 accommo-
dated. ‘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 cir-_
cumstance, one or other of them must at length drop an egg of
opportunity in her lap. When she stumbled. upon the school-
master, preaching in a chapel near her own haunts, she felt some-
thing 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 poimt in it was that the
dominie seemed likely after all to turn out a popular preacher;
148 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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.
_ “YT 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 con-
cerning 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
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IHE EVIL GENIUS. 149
in the evenings by a debuting 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
iso * THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 prose-
cution 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 alla mischief yet before we get rid ~
of him. Ive had a hinstine’ 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 hinstine’ of any-
think, 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 ws. 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
CONF¥UNCTIONS. 151
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 re-
turned. 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
152 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 condi- ~
tions 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.
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. Tio 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 be-
tween 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 accept-
able, 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.
CONYUNCTIONS. — 153
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 con-
sequent suffering. Demon sometimes looked angry—when she
teased him—had even gone so far a& 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 dest 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 repre-
sentation 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
Se ee een eres aes wey
SF Sys. ea ei a ‘oN
154 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 dis:
covered, 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
seenwho sat immediately in the pew behind him, watching him like
acat 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 4
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
preaches was at liberty from the unwelcome attentions and vulgar
congratulations of the riches 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
Tondon. When she learned that he was lodged so near Port-
lund Place, she concluded that he was watching his sister, and
CONYUNCTIONS. Iss
chuckled over the idea of his being watched in turn by her.
self.
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
156 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 désigns 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 in-
fluence ; for the aim of both was power in a great family, with
consequent money, and consideration, and midnight councils,
a of i ee ee ee oe | ." —_- Cae
ge, ee ee Re
ane pet ; a set ag seer Py :
abs
TDI Nb ale aA ; “)
AN INNOCENT PLOT. 157
and the wielding of all the weapons of hint and threat and in-
sinuation, ‘There was one difference, indeed, that in Caley’s
eye money was the chief thing, while power itself was the Swed-
enborgian hell of the midwife’s bliss.
CHAPTER XXXVII
AN INNOCENT PLOT.
-Frorimet 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 encour-
“agement 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 com-
passion. 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
s ph sli ne olay
i of Se
~~ oe wiaks oS . ; aan
: 2
If your ladyship would kneel upon it, that would be best. But s
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,
ees
» \
DISCIPLINE. 171i
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 softlv
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
172 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.
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 run-
ning 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 east-
ward 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 Ze was the slave, and that his master
broke “zs leg,” said Florimel.
“Ah, yes! I daresay.—That was it. But it is of little conse-
quence: 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?”
“‘T 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 :—
“T 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. 1 have never heard it spoken,
and I don’t know how to imagine it.”
DISCIPLINE. 193
“We can try him,” said Florimel. “It will be great fun any-
how. He is swch a character! You will be so amused with the
remarks he will make!” .
“ But can you venture to let him talk to you?”
“Tf you ask him to read, how will you prevent him? Unfor.
tunately he has thoughts, and they wz// out.”
“Ts 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.
“J 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, aman who can be cruel would betray on the least pro-
vocation.”
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 experi-
ence 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 caz a cruel man be unselfish?”
“¥ 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 Scot-
land. 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.”
174 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“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 good-
ness! 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, J would never cause pang to person—it gives me sucha
pang myself.”
“That’s the way you are made, I suppose, Clementina,” re-
turned 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.
“T have actually succeeded in taking a little out of her at last,
my lady,” said Malcolm as he dismounted. ‘“ Have you gota
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.
Anp 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 wonder-
ful. 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
ot a te 2 4 oa
of ae eee .
he ee Pe, 1g “
» 7h Vie ee + Fe
MOONLIGHT. 175
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 youth-
ful 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. ;
When his mistress mentioned the proposal of her friend with
regard to the new novel, he at once exoressed 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
* 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 te the
reader,
176 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
read, they busied their fingers with their embroidery ; for as yet
that graceful work, so lovelily described by Cowper in his Jas,
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, _ ih age
And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed, ;
Follow the nimble finger of the fair ;
A wreath, that cannot fade, of flowers that blow is
With most success when all besides decay.*
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.” a
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 moon- *
light tryst with his early love. But the sun was not yet down,
and among the dark trees, shot through by the level radiance, he f
wandered, his heart swelling in his bosom with the glory and the
mystery. Again the sun was zz 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 gor-
geous, 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 2
earth, uplifted to its Hyperion! It was a world of faery ; anything rs
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,
* ‘©The Winter Evening.” aoe
MOONLIGHT. ~ 177
~ Tike 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 fromitall. For there is this strange thing
about all glory embodied in the material, that, when the passion
of it rises to its height,.we hurty 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 mani-
fested 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 im-
perfect 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, fs tne 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 burst3 the husk.
_M
; When iatcotm lifted his head, the sun haat gone downey ec
rose and wandered along the sand towards the moon—at length
pets 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
oe infolding of her dreamlight and the dreamland it created, Mal-—
-- colm’s soul revived as in the comfort of the lesser, the mitigated a
__ 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 —
ae strange kind of brooding song. If the words were half nonsense, —
oh ~ the feeling was not the less real. Such as they were, they came >
almost of themselves, and the tune came with them.
Rose 0’ my hert,
Open yer leaves to the lampin’ mune 3 ‘s
Into the curls lat her keek an’ dert ; So
She'll tak’ the colour but gi’e ve tune. a
Buik o’ my brain, woe
Open yer neuks to the starry signs 3 a
Lat the een o’ the jholy luik an’ strain aes *
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 ; . ie
Fire and wind and water and strife— a
Carry them all to the glory back.
s yer as he halted for a word, the moonlight, and the low _
_ sweet waves on the sands, filled up the’ pauses to his ear; and by
_ there he lay, looking up to the sky and the moon and the rose-
_ diamond stars, his thoughts half-dissolved in feeling, and his (aan
pgrcime half-crystallised to thought. Oe
Out of the dim wood came two lovely forms into the moonlight, i
a softly approached him—so softly that he knew eae Oe
their nearness until Florimel spoke.
“Ts that MacPhail?” she said.
Par ee MOONLIGHT. 179
“Ves, 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.”
“T couldn’t, my lady. It’s gone.”
“You don’t mean to pretend that you were extemporising ?”
“T 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 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 unpre-
suming, 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.”
“T 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
me is = .
Bai eae ! 2
180 LHE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.,
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 them-
selves. Then he smiled queerly to himself, and said:
“T 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’ p—an’ what’s that but the poetry o’ ¢#e Poet, the Makar, as
they ca’d a poet ? the auld Scots tongue?—but haith! I ken
better an’ waur noo! ‘There’s gane the twa bonniest / 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 p—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 gie 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’ 0’ a wy
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 pitifw’ owre the sinner ’at she
winna gi’e him a chance 0’ growin’ better. I won’er gien she
_believes ’at there’s ae great thoucht abune a’, an’ aneth a’, an’
THE SWIPTO 181
roon’ a’, an’ in a’thing. She cudna be in sic a mist o’ benevo-
lence and parritch-hertitness gien she cud lippen till a wiser.
It’s na’e won’er she kens naething aboot poetry but the meeser-
able 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’ 0’
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 occa-
sion 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 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.
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 de-
scribing 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, daik
PE 7 ES ea tna lt eA a a RRNA SI eB a a ANS Ie SB ST Oe A
ae oes ent oy SS EE ba oe ee a ea
Lg Es
te ”
%
XE rea 2
“¢ a, ¢ eray -
182 LHE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE, —
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 cow/d he be after?
Near the middle he swam more softly, and almost stopped.
Then first they spied a small dark object on the surface. Al-
most the same moment it rose into the air. They thought Mal-
colm 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. NHaving 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 Zzkes, 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
“T’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 asign to obey,
and he rose. He had taken three steps towards the house when
Clementina recalled hin.
s ST. RONAN'S WELL. ~~ 183
“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. :
GHAPTER XLIL
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 villany 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
es
*
SS a ae ie
iy we =>
“. be"
s :
184 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
time ready to raise a moral question, and least of all where the — ae
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. “at
““Splendidly generous,” replied Malcolm ; “‘—but—I so well Be
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 re
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. Ifa man wants to be generous, it must at least ;
be at his own expense.” cee
“ 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 "s
inheriteace give him.” —He
Rm TE wt
a > *
ae
av
A PERSLEXILY. 197
is a gentleman—every inch! Hear him talk !—Scotch, no doubt,
—and—well—a /it#/e 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 ave known women for
whom it might be the best thing. Iam 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 ’'m not !—But she! he is ten times too good for her? He
would be utterly thrown away on her! But Iam Aer 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 forit! Fancy a right
man condescending to be proud of his own rank! Pooh! But
this groom is a man! alla man! grand from the centre out, as
the great God made him !—Yes, it must bea great God that
made such a man as that !—that is, if he zs the same he looks—
the same all through !—Perhaps there are more Gods than one,
and one of them is the devil, and made Jultore! 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 wot speak. I shall just
tell her to consult her own heart —and conscience, and follow
them.—But, gracious me! am / then going to fall in love with
the fellow ?—this stable-man who pretends to know his maker!
Certainly not. There is zothing of the kind in my thoughts.
Besides, how should Z know what falling in love means? I
never was in love in my life, and don’t mean to be. It 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 it I
do think of this man in a way I never thought of anyone before,
oi “198 | see THE 2 MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
is there anything odd in that? How should I np it whieh ve
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 ee a
choose to lead 1 mers ae
Here came a pause. Then she started, and once more began — a
walking up-and down the room, now hurriedly indeed. \ oe
“TJ 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 wil/ 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 wé// drive it~
out. It is not me. A slave on my own ground! worst slaveua
of all!—It will not go.—That must be bec cause I do not willit
strong enough. And if,I don’t will it—my God !—what does” 4
that mean ?—That I am a slave already ?” ee
Again she threw herself on her couch, but only to rise and
yet again pace the room. —
“Nonsense! it is zot love. It is merely that nobody coulda is
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 "
hough, and remain in danger, especially as, for anything I can
tell, he may be in love with that foolish child. People, they say, iz |
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 ‘. r
she cannot be half a quarter in real love with him: it’s not in =
her.” , s
She did not rejoin Florimel that evening: it was part of the i
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 Be.
sorrow are servants in God’s nursery; pain and delight, ecslaga a
and despair, minister in it; but amongst them there is none aes
more marvellous in its potency than that mingling of all pains |
and pleasures to which we specially give the name of Love. a ;
ws
When she appeared at breakfast, her countenance bore tracesss Be
Ay
THE MIND OF THE AUTHOR. 199
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 con-
cerning 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.
“ place and another
duty. An earldcm a lotted is better than « mi s’on preferred.”
“And at least you must confess,” int.r..pted 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?”
“J 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.
“‘T 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 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.”
- ay aps ar
rk Dae Ls car S
Tet >
202 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“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—”
“T cannot stay and talk with you,” said Clementina. “You
must pardon me if I follow your mistress,”
~~
i ape cleared ott A ae oe te Fe pores pee Ty aye eee oe ae ee” OMe he a lat ay a ee a, Oe
Ses a bes Ee a ee Mie me X cas ike ; is AS on Mite te Cals te y
4, thy Ke Se Was ae : oe ees iM iat ra er a. re 1D ate = ' r Bg Thee «Yeti oy ee
Me
THE RIDE HOME, 9 203
Another moment and he would have told her all, in the hope
of her warning Fiorimel. But she was gone.
CHAPTER XLV.
THE RIDE HOME.
' Frorimet was offended with Malcolm: he had put her con-
fidence 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
~~
Sha
tale, not shocked at the teller. Indeed, Malcolm’s mode of ac- .
quainting 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 nr
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
| er Geri to , offer mig, oht hurt him, it pire do “aan jee
Age him in love with her. Possibly she admired him too much to a
attribute to him such an intolerable and insolent presumption as
that would have appeared to her own inferior self. Still, she was”
measurably beyond even the aspiration of the man, to make him .
offer implicit of hand and havings, that he would reach out his
_ which determination, whether she knew it or not, there was as
much modesty and gracious doubt of her own worth as there |
_that in this groom he had shown her what he could do in the. 7
man or two like him. In the meantime she meant to enjoy—
_ came round and stood at the door—all but Kelpie. The ladies
_ mistress up, and then go back to the stable for Kelpie. In a “a }
moment they were in the wood, crossing its shadows, It was — is
good. Her feeling concerning him, however, was all the time — z
far indeed from folly. Not for a moment did she imagine
far indeed from certain, were she, as: befits the woman so im-—
to take them. And certainly that ‘she was not going to do !—in ae
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 aking Be
one step nearer: and they would soon be in London, where she — 7 Ee |
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, . 3 ch
way of making aman! Heartily she wished she knew a noble-
with carefulness—the ride to London, after which things should
be as before. a
The morning arrived; they finished breakfast; the ores 2
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
ynrolling 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 — 4
bliss... Florimel shouted almost like a boy with ecstasy, and Zs
2 ~Clementina’s moonlight went very near changing into sunlig he Be
as she gazed, and breathed, and knew that she was alive. 4
‘They started without Malcolm, for he must always put his
THE RIDE HOME. 205
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 herhead. 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 tome. 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 un-
fathomable wonder, of which science gathers only the foambells
on the shore—children in the house of a living Father, so en-
tirely 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. tic fell behind, and “all
that day did not come near her again.
Florimel asked her what he had been saying, and she com-
pelled 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 itso. It ought to be heard just where I
‘ab eed
* al
;
Wt tad Al me ty Ere 2 ae Pee ere Se ee }eaaee } fas ao ae 7h ed
oy Det te ae ras ink vel Ree Ty t
% ;
a6 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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, beliey-
ing 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 some-
times 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 fol-
lowed, 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 fisher-
man, 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 Azm. The very fulness of his ad-
miration 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
bere SF rn ere eee. era Sl ke ee BN el a ul Sie ee i 2 PST... ae ae et
ete eee SUPP A er. Sete ay yee ee ee Be to ie a
Ua F ‘ Seating ‘
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Ref
ar and
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THE RIDE HOME. 207
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
to-day and forget to-morrow—or next year—where is the differ-
ence? 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 Mal-
colm fancied he could see Lady Clementina make a mental note
of the place.
“Tf 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 conversa-
tion upon those possibilities, dim-dawning through the chaos of
her world, which had begun to interest her, would have been
208 THE MARQUIS OF- LOSSTE.
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? Clemen:
tina’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 OXLVE
PORTLAND PLACE.
TuE 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,
ne went to his lodgings.
When he entered the curiosity-shop, the woman received him
PORTLAND PLACE. 209
with evident surprise, and when he would have passed through to
the stair, stopped him with the unwelcome information that, find-
ing 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.”
“Tt’s all you know, young man,” she returned. ‘“‘ People as
lives in London must take care of theirselves—not wait for other
people to doit. They’d soon find theirselves nowheres in par-
ticlar. 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.
“Td 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 doit. 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 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.
Merton was a decent sort of fellow—vo¢ in his master’s con-
fidence, and Malcolm found him quite as sympathetic as the
small occasion demanded.
“Tt 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.”
O
210 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“T left my lady at Lady Clementina Thornicroft's an hour
ago,” answered Malcolm.
‘Oh, of course! Lady Clem’s everything now.”
“‘T believe my lady’s not coming home till to-morrow,” 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. 2!
“T don’t see but we cou/d 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 i in anyone from the stables.
“T’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 eise wants it, or is likely to. But it’s all right
now, and if youll 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—im mediately
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
ranze of houses, he had a glimpse of the mews-yard. The place
smeit rather badly of mice, while, as the sky-light was immediately
PORTLAND PLACE. 21)
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 fau!ts 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 guod 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 be-
ginning 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—some- —
thing 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:
“T 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. Ifa 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 Revela-
tion—-but not one of the gods that the sons of God, the partakers
ie) oping Sof eat ay iae tint Rea en Ram hee See Lime ED ere iNet ae Doar TS oe alas eis Pes Boe
Ros ae cee ‘ aaa pe. RS Worn Patan tt pee Sot Sie . AN yi *
A re oa an ga eee ec e Loe RD PP gd ta NE Sad eee ane hs Me ee
Tice a a : ta apes Nee Se A SRR ned I RE RG Ree a
Rs 5 2 rs ‘ Py a we ‘ sipetys
212 e THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.
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 £zow, 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.
PORTLOSSIE AND SCAURNOSE. 213
CHAPTER XLVIL.
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 /ey, 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
hese} e.) 2 YSTHE MARQUIS OF LOSSI2. * 3) ae ae
ofa harbour at “caurnose. But there were difficulties, and the — aig
matter had been making but slow progress. Malcolm, however, — ag
had insisted, and in consequence of his determination to have _ ‘
the possibilities of the thing thoroughly understood, three men ae
appeared one morning on the rocks at the bottom of the cliffon
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, k
but such was the unhealthiness of the moral atmosphere of the place, 3
caused by the injustice and severity of Mr Crathie, that, once sug-
gested, 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 paid so much—without a foot of land to grow a potato in!
To crown all, the factor was at length about to drive them ina _
body from the place—Blue Peter first, one of the best as wellas
the most considerable men among them! His notice to quit was py
but the beginning of a clearance. It was easy to see what those ee.
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 could a
they be about but marking the spots where to bore the holes for — a
the blasting-powder that should scatter it to the winds, andlet _
death and destruction, and the wild sea howling in upon Scaur- _ Eaeo
220 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
{
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,
Vet 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 7’ 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 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 suspect-
ing no evil, he was struck down from behind, and lost his con-
sciousness. 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
ct
“eS
“TORTURE... 291
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 com-
parative 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 horribie 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.
a BrrorE he again came to himself, Malcolm had a dream, which,
a he tried. Suddenly he heard a step he knew better than any ©
Ya
5) be ;
went. The moment she perceived that he was aware of her pre-
222 «= THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
Becever tad.’ His surroundings in it were those in which he
actually lay, and he was ill, but he thought it the one illness he
_ like any sight-gifted man. He went straight to the wash-stand, »
_ of waking in his bed, he ‘found himself standing in the middle of
-and when he came to himself, he knew he was in his right mind.
~ woman who had admitted him to the house the night of his re-
oe
_ “But I did go for the doctor, for all it may be the hanging of
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE PHILTRE.
although very confused, was in parts more vivid than any he had
had before. His head ached, and he could rest in no position =
other approaching the door of his chamber: it opened, and his — EY
grandfather in great agitation entered, not following his hands, o..
however, in the fashion usual to blindness, but carrying himself —
took up the water-bottle, and with a look of mingled wrath and ae
horror, dashed it on the floor. The same instant a cold shiver - —
ran through the dreamer, and his dream vanished. But instead
the floor, his feet wet, the bottle in shivers about them, and, Me
strangest of all, the neck of the bottle in his hand. He lay e
down again, grew delirious, and tossed about in the remorseless
persecution of centuries. But at length his tormentors left him,
ee
_ It was evening, and some one was sitting near his bed. By a
the light of the long-snuffed tallow candle, he saw the glitter of
two great black eyes watching him, and recognised the young
turn, and whom he had since met once or twice as ye came and ,
sence, she threw herself on her knees at his bedside, hid her
face, and began to weep. The sympathy of his nature rendered
past more sensitive by weakness and suffering, Malcolm laid his
hand on her head, and sought to comfort her. BS
“ Don’t be alarmed about me,” he said, ‘I shall soon be all a
right again.” poe
_ “T can’t bear it,” she sobbed. “I can’t bear to see you likes a
that, and all my fault,” z
~ © Your fault! What can you mean ?” said Maloolint
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 ? > a
“ T don’t understand,” said Malcolm, feebly. ? a >
“The doctor says somebody’s been an’ pisoned you,” said are
oe ean
eae
THE PHILTRE. : ay | gags
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 P—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. eon
“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 mid-wife had meant the potion to
_ work slowly, but the lady’s- pene Ree added to the pretend i
Eestitire 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 ae
fo ANXIOUS, uncomfortable, embarrassed. It is to any true man a ~
hateful thing to repel a woman—it is such a reflection upon her. —
Bea ve told you everything, Mr MacPhail, and it’s gospel truth ©
T'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, a |
and with slow, perhaps unconscious movements approached him, a |
—“J would have died for you, and here that devil of awoman
has been making me kill you! Oh, howI hate her! Nowyou
will never love me a bit—not one tiny little bit for ever and 4
ever!” ee
There was a tone of despairful entreaty in her words that
_ touched Malcolm deeply. =
; ‘J am more indebted to you than I can speak or you imagine,” a
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 pee
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 ne 4
her passion. She looked at him a little amazed, and for a a 4
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!” oe
“T cannot love you as you mean, ” said Malcolm. Ad promise Ta
to be your friend, but more is out of my power.” | ee:
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 clashand
clang of hoofs, a
_ “Good God!” he exclaimed, and forgetting everything else, e. ¥
_ 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 4
coarse voices he could hear Kelpie plunging and kicking. Again 2 3
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 =
L
tes
BOR TIPLE Se eas! SOO ie ih OE be
CRS ER een ee, CoS
this sudden and utter change in her circumstances, made her —
prisoner. 4 a
“Once more, what does this mean, Malcolm?” she said, in
high displeasure. ‘You have deceived me shamefully! You
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. ag
“They are in their own stalls by this time, my lady. Itook
“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
“Utterly against my will!” insisted Florimel. ‘Could I ever 3
have consented to go to sea with a boatful of men, and nota
woman on board? You have disgraced me, Malcolm. x -
- Between anger and annoyance she was on the point of on om
“It’s not so bad as that, my lady.—Here, Rose!”
_ At his word, Rose appeared. .
*T've brought one of Lady Bellair’s maids for your service, my
lady,” Malcolm went on. ‘She will do the best she can to walt
.oM
Florimel gave her a look.
“TJ don’t remember you,” she said.
“No, my lady. I was in the kitchen,”
THE PSYCHE. 239
“Then you can’t be of much use to me.”
“A willing heart goes a long way, my lady,’
prettily. ;
“That is true,” returned Florimel, rather pleased. “Can you
get me some tea?”
“Ves, 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 utter-
ance 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 sur-
prise. ‘“‘‘Then I order you to change your course at once and
return to London.”
“TY cannot, my lady.”
“Cannot! Whose orders but mine are you under, pray?”
‘Your father’s, my lady.”
“7 have heard more than enough of that unfortunate—state- _
ment, and the measureless assumptions founded on it. I shall —
heed it no longer.” ‘
“T am only doing my best to take care of you, my lady, as I pro-
mised Aim. You will know it one day if you will but trust me.”
“T 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 mastcr where I want a servant?”
Malcolm was silent.
“You must have some reason for this strange conduct,” she
?
said Rose,
by
you in treating me with such disrespect. Let me know your Jam 5
reasons. . I have a right to know them.” «a
justify it.”
- Liftore—and without me to do as I had promised.”
history is known ; and that her nephew is a scoundrel.” .
238 THE MARQUIS. OF LOSSIE,
went on. “How can your supposed duty to my Ris : juste
«J will answer you, my lady,” said Malcolm. ‘“—Davy, aa
forward ; I will take the helm.—Now, my lady, if you will siton
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
ia Davy nor Rose shall hear us.—Travers is deaf—I will answer | aa
ou.” ee.
“T ask you,” said Florimel, “why you have dared to bring me
away like this. Nothing but some danger threatening me could o.
“There you say it, my lady.”
“ And what is the danger, pray?” ae
“You were going on the continent with Lady Bellair and Lord eS
“Vou insult me!” cried Florimel. “Are my movements to |
be subject to the approbation of my groom? Is it possible my a :
father could give his henchman such authority over his aust
I ask you again, where was the danger ?” a
“Tn your company, my lady.” | a 4
“So!” exclaimed Florimel, attempting to rise in sarcasm as
she rose in wrath, lest she should fall into undignified rage. “a 1
“ And what may be your objection to my companions ?” os
“That Lady Bellair is not respected in any circle where her. 2
ee
“Tt but adds to the wrong you heap on me, that you compel me 3 =
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 chem
last man my lord marquis would see in your company.” Ag
“‘Because he gave you a beating, you have no nght to slange
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 eI who a
gave him the drubbing he deserved for his insolence to my—mis- Bs
tress. J 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, shes of the two is more likely to
fellate.” a
“That question is for you, my lady, to answer.”
PT er Pe ier fant Lite ee! Seer Nee ght) Shy r
oO ™ ea ee 4 ole he eae oe Plt nt . 4
SY ORAS Sn sears 4 eet ae) Fes Aa 2 en ied
+> : " y Lt pa : ae
4 Ne, a aap ee Ny
THE PSYCHE. — 239
“T never knew a servant who would not tell a lie,” said
Florimel.
“T 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 com-
munications 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 ot
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
“14 ?m,' “oe Stak 2 Cae
Ss Soy rae! AN t,t
4 Vt Sasol. ©
‘
\
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,
‘ne Ostrich like they must hide thet Aondenclors their eyes. and tak ce
the vice in their arms—to love, honour, and obey, as if it were — Bi
__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
could no longer keep even the smell of the blood from her. What
need Lady Lossie care about the fisher-girl, or any other con-
cerned with his past, so long as he behaved like a gentlemanto __
her! Malcolm was a foolish meddling fellow, whose inte |
_ was the more troublesome that it was ‘honest.
_ She stood thus gazing on the waters that heaved and sweol
astern, but without knowing that she saw them, her mind fullof =
such nebulous matter as, condensed, would have made such zee,
thoughts as I have set down. And still and ever the water rolled —
and tossed away behind in the moonlight. =
“Qh, 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, |
“a . 7
Pe!
CHAPTER LIL
HOPE CHAPEL.
__ Ir was Sunday, during which Malcolm lay at the point of death
some three stories above his sister’s room, There, in ne us
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 fervoutaag .
Florimel laughed. .
You seem to take everything for gospel Malcolm says,
Clementina ! ” a
yi “Certainly not,” returned Clementina, rather annoyed.
We AzOspel now-a-days i is what nobody disputes and nobody heeds;
oe but I do heed what Malcolm says, and intend to find out, if 13 2
__ ¢an, whether there is any reality in it. I thought you had a high ia
opinion of your groom !” a
“TJ would take his word for anything a man’s word can be i
3 _ taken for,” said Florimel. a
nh
HOPE CHAPEL. a4t
“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 1s
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. v
‘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 1n.”
“‘Clementina!”
“What?”
“Of course there is a God. It is very horrible to deny it.”
“Which is worse—to deny z¢, or to deny 47m? Now, I con-
fess to doubting z#—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 ¢hink,
Florimel. I don’t fancy you ever really ¢hink.”
Florimel again laughed.
“Tam glad,” she said, “that you don’t judge me éncapable 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.” .
Q
aa ‘THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“Tt must be some little ranting methodist conventicle !
_ would not be allowed to preach in a church, you know.”
“Ofcourse 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 — “ 4
_. 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 — a
I could find a place where everything was just the opposite, the E
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 Pe
goodly apparel, while the pew-openers beneath are illustrating in 2
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 Inks
his heart over the increasing aristocracy of his congregation. The
___-farce is fit to make a devil in torment laugh.”
ag Once more, Florimel laughed aloud.
‘* Another revolution, Clementina, and we shall have you head- |
ing the canaille to destroy Westminster Abbey.”
“JT would follow any leader to destroy falsehood,” sida |
Clementina. ‘No canaille will take that up until it meddles 3
with their stomachs or their pew-rents.” “3am
“Really, Clementina, you are the worst Jacobin I ever heard — py
talk. My groom is quite an aristocrat beside you.” |
“Not an atom more than I am. I do acknowledge an <
2 aristocracy—but it is one neither of birth nor of intellect nor of
~ wealth.” a
“What is there besides to make one?” ay
‘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 @
ae: you not go with me to hear this schoolmaster?” ~¥ a
age “TJ 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
fee 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 day-spring of —
success seemed on the point of breaking over Hope Chapel. —
ne The ladies were ushered in by Mr Marshal himself, to.
‘ Clementina’s disgust and Florimel’s amusement, with much the
HOPE CHAPEL, 243
same attention as his own shop-walkcr would have shown to
carriage-customers.—How could a man who taught light and
truth be found in such a mean extourage? But the setting was not
the jewel. A real stone mzght 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 7 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?’ 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 them-
selves up for pillars ot the church without practising the first
Wi x
bes a Y om i; Ps
¥ eEy Jy Ab We “ ne oe Seky
aad. THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
dull and slow of heart, that they would never know what the _
outer darkness meant until it had closed around them—men who
whether this was Malcolm’s friend, vanished within two minutes
_ that dwarfed her loudest objurgation to the uneasy murmuring of
asleeper. She could not but trust him, and her hope grew great
ne creation, the scale of the kingdom of God, in which Jeng is rang;
there, or sit here under my footstool?’ ”
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
Fe |
_
paid court to the rich for their money, and to the poor for their — a
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. a
Clementina listened with her very soul. All doubt as to
of his commencement. If she rejoiced a little more than was — Be
humble or healthful in finding that such a man thought as she
_ thought, she gained this good notwithstanding—the presence and — a
- 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 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. “If sucha
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
eet
es -
ot
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 vileraiment? __
%
Would he ever more, all his life long, dare to say, ‘Stand thou ae
ee
During the week that followed, Clementina reflected with -
5 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. aa
Lady Bellair was astounded, mortified, enraged. Liftore turned — a
grey with passion, then livid with mortification, at the news. Nota
\ <8
A NEW PUPIL. - 245
one of all their circle, as Florimel had herself foreseen, doubted —
fora 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 heid 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 CLITL
A NEW PUPIL.
THE sermon Lady Clementina heard with such delight had fol- ~
lowed 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 prin-
_ though whether he was to be sent to persuade men that that a
kingdom was amongst them, and must be in them, remained a
ahi a
oes oF pat men QUIS OF LOSSTE. a a
ciples enounced, clashing with the less vague conviction that
those whispers were encouraged and listened to, the ruin of the :
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 ate
work—tending in the same direction. a
Whatever may have been the influence of the schoolmaster ee
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 a
they called it in their communion, was the meanest way of mak-
ing a living in the whole creation, one deserving the contempt of
every man honest enough to give honourable work, that is, work 4
worth the money, for the money paid him. Also he hada glim-
mering 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 a
_ never happier than when bearing witness of it, except, indeed, in a
those blessed moments when receiving it of the Father. In con- _
sequence of this opening of his eyes the youth recoiled with dis-
may from the sacrilegious mockery of which he had been guilty _
in meditating the presumption of teaching holy things of which ae
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, __
question. os
On the morning after the latter of those two sermons,
Frederick, as they sat at breakfast, succeeded, with no small Bee
effort, for he feared his mother, in blurting out to his father thes
request that he might be taken into the counting-house; and —
when indignantly requested, over the top of the teapot, to eX. am
plain himself, declared that he found it impossible to give his
mind to a course of education which could only end in the dis-
_ appointment of his parents, seeing he was at length satisfiéd that et
he had no call to the ministry. His father was not displeased ates
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 —
_ eausé, of taking his hand from the plough and looking behind —
« = see
A NEW PUPIZ, ae
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 reflec-
tions 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 school-
master—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 sus-
picion 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
a
*r Of a Bindsy, and sought relief to his feelings in giving his horses ‘
a lesson in crawling; the result of which® was fortunate for hiss
- - mistress: when she entered, the obnoxious Mr Masquar was
already reading the hymn. She turned at once and ne for a
the door. @
But her carriage was already gone. A strange sense of lonieli a4
ness 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 bom -
preaching ?
“Tf you please, ma’am,” said a humble and dejected voice.
_ ~~ She turned and saw the seamed and smoky face of the fe
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— * a
“Oh, ma’am ! we shan’t see 477 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.” oo
“You don’t mean that Mr Graham has given up preaching a
here 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 theta
fer mant”
“Do you know where he lives ?”
slic “Yes, ma’am ; but it would be hard to direct you.” Here Be
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
eg begun, and I can be back before it’s over. I'll show you whee 4
= maa.’ ba
x *‘T should be greatly obliged to you,’ ’ said Clementina, “ ‘only a ia
I am sorry to give you the trouble.” i:
es “To tell the truth, ?m only too glad to get away,” she re-
turned, “ for the place it do look like a cementery, now “e's out
eee. ~ Ol it.”
Bn. “‘ Was he so kind to you ?” a
ee ‘He never spoke word to me, as to myself like, no, nor never —
e ie eave me sixpence, like Mr Masquar do; but he ever me Bee
A NEW PUPIL. — 249
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 créep 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.
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! Love-
lily 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 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 bed-
room.
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 sym-
: pathies if she Could, at all events bis services, in tie combating — :
perties of the water-butt, to reveal Mrs Marshal flushed and —
one of the congregation the last Sunday evening. Evidently one | a
of Mr Graham’s party, she was not prejudiced in her favour.
But there was that in her manner which impressed her--thaem S "3
wave of her hand. “I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing —
_ timidity to Mr Graham. “ That I did not find you there, sir, 2
of the scruples he had himself ar oused in the bosom of her son.
What had passed between. them I do not care to record, but — Z ;
when Lady Clementina—unannounced of the landlady—entered,
there was light enough, notwithstanding the non-reflective pros
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 93
something ethereal and indescribable which she herself was con-
stantly 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 — ie
ambitions put off and on like their clothes. di :
“Pray, take a seat, ma’am, such as it is,” she said, with a e
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. ee
“T am not aware of the honour,” she returned, doubtful
what the woman meant—perhaps some shop or dress-maker’ S. Be
Clementina was not one who delighted in freezing her humbler _
fellow-creatures, as we know; but there was something altogether © a
repulsive in the would-be-grand but really arrogant behaviour of SS
her fellow-visitor. i E.
“‘T 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. = Fe
“Oh! I think I understand. You must mean the chapel
where this gentleman was preaching. 2
“That zs my meaning,” assented Mrs Marshal.
_ “T went there. to- night, ” said Clementina, turning with some
’ ee *
' a
on
ve
will, I hope, explain ” Here she paused, and turned again | -
to Mrs Marshal. “I see you think with me, ma’am, that a ies
teacher is worth following.”
As she said this she turned once more to Mr Graben who |
sat listening with a queer, amused, but right courteous smile. il 4 %
“T hope you will pardon me,” ‘she continued, “ for venturin
to call upon you, and, as I have the misfortune to find yous
4 NEW PUPIL, ast
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 con-
cluded, her voice trembling a jittle.
“Stay now, if you will, iiadanks 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 fine fellow.”
“He would be, if he were left to himself. Good evening, Mr
Graham. Good- -bye, rather, for I ¢izxk 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,
““T 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.
“TY beg your pardon, sir,” she said, “for presuming to take
your part, but a gentleman is helpless with a vulgar woman.”
“JT 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.
“T 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 naan with all my heart a an
Psoul,”
“T willingly undertake the task. But let us know each othe
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 RK
I recognized your ladyship at once.’ :
Clementina said that, on the contrary, ae had given hee ~
hame 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. - =
“ave you seen Malcolm lately?” he asked, his brow cloud. a
ing a little. ‘It is more than a week since he has been to mer
ae Thereupon, with embarrassment, such as she would never have —
felt except in the presence of pure simplicity, she told of his ag
a disappearance with his mistress. me
And you think they have run away together?” said the ee
schoolmaster, his face beaming with what, to Clementina’s sur-— =.
i. .- prise, looked almost like. merriment. aa
se? “Yes, I think so,” she answered. “Why not, if they choose: ae
“ T 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. — 2
~The present may well seem a rash, ill-considered affair for both”
of them, but oils
: “JT see no necessity either for explanation or excuse,” a ae
_ Clementina, too eager to mark that she interrupted Mr Graham. __
“Jn 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 a
« eae 5 oS SE
2 mz AEP (th ts Rha
Bape Neeetad o ee eres ba a gee
264 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE,
earned his own bread that way before he was in his teens. One mi na
night we were caught in a terrible storm, and had to stand outa
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" E |
straucht’s a porpus.’ When he was relieved, he crept overthe __
thwarts to where I sat. ‘J/s there any true definition of a
oe 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 — =
eas question, for I wanted to see what he would answer. ‘ Afraid,
_ sir!’ he rejoined with some surprise, ‘I wad ill like to hear thea
+ 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 : Ls
__-will interpret the dark saying: ‘And why should he not drown
me? If you were to tell me I might be drowned without his - a
meaning it, I should be frightened enough.’ Believe me, my _
__~ lady, the right way is simple | to find, though only they that seek —
eee it frst can find it. But I have allowed myself,” concluded the
a schoolmaster, ‘ to be carried adrift in my laudation of Malcolm, Ry Si
You did not come to hear praises of him, my lady.” aa
.. “T 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?” cai
i “Tn no way that I can bring to bear on the reason of another ce,
so as to produce conviction.”
“Then what is to become of me?” ape
“JT can do for you what is far better. I can persuade you to ay:
- 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 —
es) heart of your being, and pervading all that surrounds you. The | a
man who seeks the truth in any other manner will never find it. 4
Listen to me a moment, my lady. I loved that boy’s mother. a
| 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 alla delusion—the _
i product of your own fervid imagination? Do not mistake me: -
I want to find it true.” ig
-—s- * ‘It is a right and honest question, my lady. I will tell yom Ny
K- - ”
es eS
ce
A NEW PUPIL. 255
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 despic-
able 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.”
“Tt 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
256 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 differ-
ence 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 Ti V~
THE FEY FACTOR.
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 a 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 con.
Sequence; 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
oe ae f -
> Fae
» Fe
od iadig Rg RR peta New Scenes aes
“THE FEY FACTOR. — 2t9
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 semirevolving 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, com-
missioned 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 advan-
tage 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 ruzg.: 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 Biough to Fort George, ’ll be up in a jiffie, an’ a’
the cuintry, frae John o’ Groat’s to Berwick, ‘ill hear hoo the
R
“THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
el rm
_ 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 11
_sune be set upon a better futtin’ for puir fowk ’at has no freen’
_but God an’ the sea.” | a
The greatness of the result represented laid hold of Peters
imagination, and the resistance to injustice necessary to reachit _
_ 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 French-
man, 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; [Pll 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. ae
“That’s no the pint. 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 Zhe Lord ts 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 a8
which by the words of his wife, he betook himself, not alas! to
_ the protection, but to the vengeance of the Lord! a
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. ) | ey
2
THE WANDERER. 259
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,
GHAPTER “LY.
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 Find-
lays; 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 fnendly
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 en-
hanced 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.
260 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“ Preserve’s a’! Ye’re a sicht for sair e’en, Maister Mac-
Phail!” 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 caz 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 mensefw’ 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
youll 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 cau 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 0’ tay. Or maybe ye wad prefar a drap 0’
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 Find-
lay, by judicious questions, gathered from him the history of his
adventures.
Unable to rise above the disappointment and chagrin of find-
ing 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,
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THE WANDERER. 261
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 call-
ing 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 suffermg 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 govern-
ment 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
ao leave behind her. He returned to Mistress Partan white and ;
ee rE MARQUIS: OF LOSSIE,
7 playing his pipes, and everywhere hospitably treated; but at
length his heart could endure its hunger no more: he must seevag a
factor.” Her sympathy was enthusiastic, for they shared a 2
- common wrath. And now came the tale of the factor’s cruelty a
she had hidden it. But not the less heartily did she insist on —
gould hide his head. The one he i forsaken when 7 erie ae xy
crime drove him out, had fallen to ruins, and now there was |
a
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 Oa <
accident that they had Campbell connections, and, rising i
instant, walked from it for ever. He wandered about for a time,
his ‘boy, or die. He walked therefore straight to the cottage of
his quarrelsome but true friend, Mrs Partan—to learn that his — e
benefactor, the marquis, was dead, and Malcolm gone. But re:
Here alone could he hope ever to see him again, and the same
night he sought his cottage in the grounds of Lossie House, © a .
never doubting his right to re-occupy it. But the door was
locked, and he could find no entrance. He went to the House, a
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 | a ;
insults on him and his grandson indiscriminately. It was well he a
kept the door between ‘him and the old man, for otherwise he ah
would never have finished the said third tumbler. That door F .
carried in it thenceforth the marks of every weapon that Duncan —
bore, and indeed the half of his sgian dhu was the next morning a
found sticking in it, like the sting which the bee is doomed to
trembling, in a mountainous rage with “ta low-pred hount of a =
to the fishers, his hatred of Malcolm, and his general wildness of |
behaviout. 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 ss
_ from its sheath, she threw herself upon him, wrenched it from 4
sas
his hand, and testified that ‘ fules sudna hae chappin’-sticks, na
yet teylors guns.” It was days before Duncan discovered where —
his taking up his abode with her; and the very next day he os
sumed his old profession of lamp- cleaner to the community. 4
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 pe
her house was at his service. . as
- momen i Part, x 364 eae gy alee: eo nm Pp ee nag Oa aale ae | bt Sari coche oP gee ee SPAT aie et a Pie ea Mle
ai aa Sas ere vay | Se
Pi tae Abe fe *
MID-OCEAN. 263
“T’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.”
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 pre-
sence 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 neatr’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,
“Dut 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 rush-
ing sea and cloud- flecked sky lay like a great empty heart, wait-
ing, in conscious glory of the light, for the central glory, the
coming lord of day. And in the whole crystaline hollow, gleaming
ee, 2a “THE MARQUIS ¢ OF LOSSIE. ae
and flowing with delight, yet waiting for more, the Patche 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 fore-scent—even this could not be called a fore-
taste, of the kingdom of heaven; but Florimel never thought of *
the kingdom of heaven, the ideal of her own existence. She ‘could -
a however half appreciate this earthly outbreak of its glory, this im-
a carnation of truth invisible. Round her, like a thousand doves, _
__ clamoured with greeting wings the joyous sea-wind. Up camea
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 hke 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 E
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 —
_ howering, was her flight, for still, like one that longed, she ae
and strained and flew. The joy ‘of bare life swelled in Florimel’s _ 4 .
bosom. She looked up, she looked around, she breathed deep. —
The cloudy anger that had rushed upon her like a watching tiger Be
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 ee :
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, — a
like a child running and staggering over the sped tos and ©
—_ unstable hillocks. She turned from him.
as - “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 4
sun to that sun, or the whole thing is a vain show. There must
i de one to whom each is itself, yet the all makes a whole—one — |
as who is at once both centre and circumference to all. +:
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MID-OCEAN. “2660
Floximel 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 caus-
ing 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 con-
sternation 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
266 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE, —
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 acquaintaince 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,
“Tam 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 main-
sail, 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 sun-set was rather an assumption than a decease, a recep-
tion 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 ©
Loa
‘.
MID-OCEAN,. 267
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.”
*T 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
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.”
“Tt 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 every-
body.”
“My grandfather told you something of my early history—
did he not my lady ?”
** Ves—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.
“T 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,
268 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTIE.
“My lady,” he said, ‘‘ your father was my father too. Tama
son of the Marquis of Lossie, and your BENS es 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 fy and said,
“Do I understand you! Pa
“I am your brother,” Malcolm repented.
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 jim 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 halfhonour
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 some-
thing 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 |
MID-OCEAN. 36g"
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 death-bed.”
“‘Confessed !” echoed Florimel’s pride, but she restrained her
tongue.
“Tt explains much,” she said, with a sort of judicial relief.
“There has been a great change upon you since then. Mind I
- only say explaims. 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 sotome. 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 wewld 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
270 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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.”
“Tam your real brother, my lady, and I have tried to behave
like one ever since I knew it.” |
“Ves; you have been troublesome. I have always under-
stood 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.”
“J 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.
“J 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 we// judge, not only for yourself, but for me!
How caz 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 ¢4zzk, Malcolm, it will be better you should go.
Iam very sorry. I wish you had not told me. It is very pain-
fulto me. You shozzld not have told me. ‘These things are not
intended to be talked of.—Suppose you were to marry—say fe
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.
Ss nh eae Rea
7 hier. gaits
* sae ms Bo ee ta 2
MID-OCEAN. | 271
“What will you do with Kelpie, my lady?” asked Malcolm
quietly.
“There it is, you see!” she returned. ‘‘Soawkward! 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 beable to ride her myself—Will you
promise ?”
*‘{ will promise not to let the fact come out so long as] 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?”
“T 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—some-
thing, 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.”
“ T cannot, my lady.”
*“T 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 hope-
less 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.
. ee
272 _ THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 ever
acknowledged.”
“Thank you—-sister,” said Malcolm—a last forlorn experi-
ment ; 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,
“Tf 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 zo 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.”
“T 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.”
“Twas 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
THE SHORE. 273
had indeed been undertaken at her own desire and motion, and
was quite prepared to assert that such was the fact.
CHAPTER LVIL.
THE SHORE.
Ir 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
deiicious by the films of flavouring cold that floated through the
mass of heat. All Portlossie more and less, the Seaton especi-
ally, was in a state of excitement, for its little neighbour, Scaur-
nose, 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 resist-
ance, 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 anew 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
S
274 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 évents 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 con-_
cerning 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 unsym-
pathetic, 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
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THE SHORE. 275
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 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. 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 aiter 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 excite-
ment 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 haif 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,
276 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 ariiculating, 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 (gvandfather)?” 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 ghdst 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. Om’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!
Ya Lort pe praised! and she'll tie in peace, for he'll pe only ta —
cS
THE SHORE. — 277
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 north-east, 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,
*‘ sien 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 7 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’ ot, an’ he’ll jist rin ’s bonny boatie agrun’
’atween the twa piers, an’ that’ll no be a richt hame-comin’ for the
ues o’ the lan’, an’ what’s mair, Ma’colm ’ill get the wyte (lame)
’’t, an’ that'll be seen. Sae ye maun some 0O’ ye to the pier-heid, “4
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, ina
voice shrill enough to pierce the worst gale that ever blew on
northern shore.
Ve'll jist tell the bonnie laad to haud wast a bit an’ rin her
a + re oR;
,> a det be 2 \ w
: opis:
eos ©... THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE, =
J ; a 7 Meee
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 ?” * a
“We can but try!” said one. ‘‘—Butthe 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 — se ~
Seaton and the harbour.
“‘ Hoots ! ye’ll affront the marchioness,” objected the Partan.
“Man, 7 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 7’ 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,’ un-
certain, 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 a
THE SHORE. 3 279
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 them-
selves 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 be-
tween 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. 3
“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 0’ ’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 courtesy- —
ing, 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 tunne'.
y 2 4 ery Ae amt php Sage Sah
‘eHa THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE, aa
- 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 aroar.. 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. ek
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. a
“Daddy, daddy!” he said, and turning threw his arms round
the piper. é
“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: is
“My ain daddy! I hae a heap to tell ye, but I maun see my —
- leddy hame first.” a
“Co, co, this moment co,” cried the old man, pushing him
away. “To your tuties to my leddyship first, and then come to
Popa, ner-old.daddy.” .
__. “J'll be wi’ ye in half an hoor or less.”
“Coot poy! coot poy! Come to Mistress Partan’s.” mee
“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 asolemn _
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 |
“
“aed ae:
* ae >a ‘ et ee pea c ‘
aay ee Ba ee eae. ie ioe Sa
THE SHORE. 281
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
aword. 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 timé 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 Ma’colm. 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.
282 THE MARQUIS GF LOSSIE.
“And if she'll tie to-night, my poy,” said Duncan, “shellpe
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.
“T 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 7?’ 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. 1 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 o’
years sin’ syne.”
Pe Ree ee rk Pe Welt ee 92, 3 Nog *
en ee é
THE TRENCH. 283
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE TRENCH.
Matcorm 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 ot
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 some-
thing 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 came, there was a satisfaction i 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
284 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSTE.
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 hip 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 SSeS: 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
THE TRENCH. — 985
her teeth with the fury of hate, and swore that she would yet dis-
appoint 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
3 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. “ Gient-he kenned
’at I said sic a thing, he wad turn me oot o’ hoose an’ ha’.”
“You've said nothing yet,” rejoined Malcolm.
“J 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. Bowo’ 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 7 the beuk o’ the Proverbs. Eh! it’s an awfw’ 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 hae g7ass). "Deed there’s”
maist naething ither h’ard tell o’ dz¢ 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.
as 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’ cany’
_ hame in her the last niente.
286 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
‘Ay, but ye see the decree’s gane oot, an’ what the factor says |
is like the laws 0’ 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
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 ook. 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 0’ ’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 Azm, 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, dis-
mounted, 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.
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,
a ic ei Seem TE EAT Te ee i ae er OS Sab OV Se ek ee RR ere 8
NEE er ae oS TOE aa i: AR gy antler aa Moe ey se ta a ERT g hac UB Ue SA ma Paes a OS Oh pe Ps) ag ‘ ; . ei cise, uae
% ., = ve a
THE PEACEMAKER. 897°
selfassertion which is so often mistaken for strength of in
dividuality, 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 unspeak-
able! He used to laugh and sing then: he laughed still some-
times—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 hin,
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 |
ensther for Mr Woz:cly Wiseman to put away childish things
The ways they de it, and the things they substitute, are both so
298 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
different? And now frst to me, whose weakness it is to love
life more than manners, and men more than their portraits, the ; i
man begins to grow interesting. Picture the dawn of innocence
on a dull, whisky-drinking, common-placé soul, stained by self--
indulgence, and. distorted by injustice! Unspeakably more
interesting and lovely is to me such a dawn than the honey-
moon of the most passiovyte 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 kim? 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?”
“Me
The factor had meant nothing in the least like it Hehad
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 wz// stand up for men that have treated
them cruelly, but you to stand up for Aim 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——”
‘‘T 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 0’ Ma’colm.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” persisted her charge, heedless of
her expostulation, “ that the fellow who brought you to disgrace,
THE PEACEMAKER. 299
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 forgie 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
rtset'/?
~ “To ye daur tell me he’s no the father o’ that same, lass?”
“ No; nor never will be the father o’ 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
ie 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
\Yropping 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
e 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 some-
wing with which never in his life before had his inward parts been
300 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE. -
acquainted—a sort of self-examination to wit. He said to him-
self, 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.
red discharged him.”
“¢ An’ what for, gien I may mak’ bold 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 kind-
ness 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 qwe// 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 ridiclous 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 (ex/o/) 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,
wy a
Zé
~ ae
THE PEACEMAKER. 301
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 0’, 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 (ownéng,
property) ist?”
“ 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
0’ 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 fim to sic like as hiz
(ws). 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
wuerewith 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
s6a THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 — 4
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 ora Chinaman. But the warped glass of a
bad maxim had at least been cracked in his window.
The peacemakers 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 Lizzie 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 Mal-
-colm, 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 grand-
father: 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.
cs c be oa we : te * Ohi ‘ is or z aa py
et ; : t."
AN OFFERING. | 303
{ 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 inquifies on foot in the track of
Caley’s antecedents, and had discovered more than the acquaint-
ance 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 disaypearance 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 ted
by visiting them.
The letter would have found her at Wastbeach instead ay
eee
Soke 2 ee
Fae
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sac.
304 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
London, had not the society and instructions of the schoolmaster
detained her a willing prisoner to its heat and glare and dust. Him
enly in all London must she see to bid good-bye. ‘To Camden
Fown therefore she went that same evening, when his work would
Se 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 pre-
sence to the inherent grandeur, that grandeur suggested no dis-
crepancy, 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 evtourage, 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 cf 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 42m, 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 Iam anything of a comfort to
you, | am more than glad,—therefore the more sorry to tell you
that 1 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.”
alle
AN OFFERING. — 305
“ 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.”
“T am going to see Malcolm,” she said, with a little sigh. ©
“ That is, 1 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 ¢#znk, 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 Clemen. ©
U
Pe a
306 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
tina? 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 lke
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 mzght 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 ?”
“Tt 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 havea 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 false-
hood !—When do you go?”
“To-morrow morning—as I purpose.”
“Then God be with thee. He zs 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
AN OFFERING. - 307
not commanded to bear each others burdens and so fulfil the
law of Christ? I read it to-day.”
“Then why ask me?”
“ For another question : does not that involve the command to
those who have burdens that they shouldallow otherstobearthem?”
“Surely, my lady. But JZ have no burden to let you bear.”
“Why should I have everything, and you nothing P—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 nights. J am your daughter.
If 1 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 P—You ave poor. You cannot deny it,” she concluded
with a serious playfulness.
“TJ will not deny my privileges,” said the schoolmaster, with a
smile such as might have acknowledged the possession of some
exquisite and envied rarity.
““T 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 4
“T 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 wis- ~
dom J have not yet quite exhausted.”
“JT 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. Ze¢ 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.”
308 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
He took it, and weighed it upeand 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.
“‘T 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.
“JT 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?”
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 dis-
appointed, 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 notwith-
standing.” 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
Tithink it a disgrace to take money from you? That would
AN OFFERING. 305
show a poverty of spirit such as } 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.”
“Tike 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 gar-
ments, 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 littie seat in front.
ee ®
ee ee pe eee
is 4 , 7” a
310 - THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“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. Huis 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 any-
thing : I will not say neither is growing to be anything. Religion
THOUGH Paar e an
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 him-
self! 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 Zad 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 with--
in the bounds of possibility—just within them—that the great-
hearted, generous, liberty-loving Lady Clementina, groom as he
had been, menza/ 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
312 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 /
go, and not go—Z /ove, 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 upoi. 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 him-
self at her feet. 3
But the wheels of his thought-chariot, selfmoved, 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 —
ave been rejected as Malcolm MacPhail, fisherman and groom —
THOUGHTS. 313
Accepted as marquis, he would for ever be haunted with the
channering question whether she would have accepted him as
groomre 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 mzgf¢ 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.
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 thounts 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
314 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
who could make a companion of such a man as Liftore,a mantc
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 there-
fore, she said to herself, there were some points in his history and _—
condition concerning which she had curtoszty. 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 zo 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
THOUGHTS. 315
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. Butshe answered it neverthe-
less in the words: ‘ Not so unmaidenly as presumptuous.” And
alas there was little hope that Ze 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, Aopefu/—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 everknown. She hated the serv7/e.
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 mimd—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 recggnition 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 mat: ers 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 superlor—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 AY 2
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 advantaye on her side vanished itke a candle
516 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
in the surlight, and she laughed herself to scorn. “ Fancy,” she
laughed, “a midge, on the strength of having wings, condescend- ~
ing to offer marriage toa 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 Aaving had the precedence of being! That
Malcolm should imagine such fer 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
THE DUNE, : 317
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, ana
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 olimpse of some one seated on the slope of
the faa, 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, enjoyirg
“pees ROOTS OF ‘LOSSIE.
the lovely night; it mzght be Florimel, but how éould she have seh
~ got away, or wished to get away from her newly arrived guests ? 2
‘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. pies «.
_ it were Florimel, would she not know him as he came, and would te
she wait for him ?
He drew nearer still. His heart gave a throb. Could -
be? Or was the moon weaving some hallucination in his —
troubled brain? If it was a phantom, it was that of Lac
Clementina ; if but modelled of the filmy vapours of the moon- —
light, and the artist his own brain, the phantom was welcome as
joy! His spirit seemed to soar aloft in the yellow air, and bane 5
_ 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. cc 3
Malcolm bethought himself that she could not know him in his |
is _ 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. ia om
“ My lady !” he said. a
She did not start. Neither did she speak. She did not even i
_ 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
tull on Clementina’s face. There was no illumination fitter ee
_ that face than the moonlight, and to Malcolm it was lovelier i:
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 aa)
dumb show of invitation. The place where she sat was a little eS
terraced hollow in the slope, forming a convenient seat. Mal- —
colm saw but could not believe she actually made room for him — ia
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. Ss.
Clementina, and instead of the sun was the moon. And crea-~
ture of the sunlight as Florimel was, bright and gay and hedaciaae
- ful, she paled into a creature of the cloud beside this maiden. of ©
ing the moonlight, tall and stately, silent and soft and grand. —
ras 3 aye
iba! ~
et oie
i A ‘, ar, he
THE DUNE. 319
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 hesi-
tation, she said at last, with a slight tremble i in the voice that was
music itself in his ears.
**T have been catching fish, my lady,” he answered, “and my
ciothes must be unpleasant. I will sit here.”
He went a little lower on the slope, and laid himself down,
leaning on his elbow.
“To fresh water fishes smell the same as the sea-fishes, Mal.
colm ?” 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 saw- mill 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.
“Tt zs 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 moonfilled silence fell; and once more it was the
lady who broke it.
“ Do you know who are at the house ?” she asked.
~“T do, my\lady,” he replied.
=e | 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?”
“T 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 back
ward. But her voice was steadier than it had yet been as she
returned—
“Why should you be miserable for Lady Lossie ?”
“T 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.
“TJ do,’ answered Malcolm, emphatically, “but not that —
fellow.”
“Whom then, if I may ask ?” ventured Clementina, trembling.
Lae 74% ors a ee Mee Wain ee eg CAS PS A aN a ae me Si, a 2 eee Pe ae UN ae ae
eens 2 > ME Rage Be Pe se Ey as pe Fy ee eee Se Rey Bi BY ad tek - pre eT
he > ONL AL Co Villian HE 5 A ; a ae
a ee
Rois
7a DS
“at
ey ¢
7 f
-
-
s
xs
4
. s %
1S gh a A oe ee
i Pe PE
> ss ’
Fas Pee
ox el?
> ne
ey
roe’ Ms Mons ey
be, Olt teh tte?
ae? da
> eg S
jaar *
320 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIR.
But Malcolm was silent. He did not feel it would be right to a
say. Clementina turned sick at heart.
“‘T have heard there is something dangerous about the moon-
light,” she said. “I think it does not suit me to-night. I will
go—home.” om
Malcolm sprung to his feet and offered his hand. She did
not take it, but rose more lightly, though more slowly than he.
“Flow did you come from the park, my lady 2?” he asked.
“ By a gate over there,” she answered, pointing. ‘‘I wandered —
out after dinner, and the sea drew me.”
“Tf 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
having to go back to her fellow-guesis. 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 ita 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. 7
“ 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
[ 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 it 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
THE DUNE. aay aes
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.
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 2?” she asked.
“JT 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.”
“What! that woman Caley?”
“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. “Tf 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!”
“Tt 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 toit. 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.
Eee pees, eA
322 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 opera-
tive 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 day-spring 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 neighbour-
hood, 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
CONFESSION OF SIN. — 39%
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 itis. 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 determin-
ate, 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 Lzble always with
him,—never ¢he will of Christ. But although he could dispose
of the question thus satisfactorily, yet, as he lay ill, supine, with-
out 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
a?
‘ a @.
ye MS OE eR ee Pee a
324 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 suc-
cess. One word only he heard from the lips of the Man—
“Worker of iniquity,”—and woke with a great start. From that
moment truths dean 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 appre-
ciable 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,
“nn
CONFESSION OF SIN. 325
“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.
“Ve see, Ma’colm,” she said, as if pursuing instead of com-
mencing a conversation, “he’s some sore about the little frazcass
between him ’an you. Jest make your apoalogies till im and tell
77m 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.
“Tf 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
ekich side he wished it closed from. as
“Ye was some sair upo’ me, Ma’colm,” he went on, srasniies
the youth’s hand. af!
_ “T 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 if
was me: it bude to be the drink.”
- ©ITt was the drink,” rejoined Malcolm ; “an’ eh sir! afone 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’.”
“ T sweir't; I sweir’t, Ma’colm!” cried the factor. 5
pult's easy to sweir't noo, sir, but whan re re uy again it'll be.
ee almost involuntary prayer, « help this man to dud troth wl?
thee.—An’ noo, Maister Crathie,” he resumed, “I’m yer servan’,
ready to do onything I can. Forgi’e me, sir, for ee on ower
sair.” |
to have eae to ee
oS
nee. ee ee
:
SEA. : . 337
-. ing, 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 messen-
gers, 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.
«She's jist like ane o’ oorsel’s,” whispered Annie to her hus-
band 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 Scaur-
nose 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.
‘¢T’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
+f
338 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
Lord Meikleham. Ve may speyk to my lady there as ye wad to a:
mysel’—an’ better, haein’ the hert o’ a wuman.” os
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.
“Ve winna repent it, Lizzy,’
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
,
concluded Malcolm, and turned
—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 Mal-
colm had laid cushions and pillows and furs and blankets from
the Psyche,—a grafting of Cleopatra’s galley upon the rude fish- —
ing-boat—and there Clementina was to repose in state. Mal-
colm 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 en-
wrapped 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.
SEA, 339
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
9pen 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 des-
cent 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; ex-
nltant 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 ; 3 and there was the sky with all the da:
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
-
340 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
been Maicolm’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
‘he hearts of the universe, the Thinker of all thoughts, the Be-
ginner of all beginnings, the All-in-all. It was her first experience
of speechless adoration. 7 :
_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 sleep- —
ing 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 3
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. ;
SEA 341
An it’s oh to win awa, awa ?t
An it’s oh to win awn
Whaur the bairns come hame, an’ the wives they bide,
An’ God is the Father ao a!
Jocky an’ Jeamy an’ Tammy oot there,
A’ ? 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’! &¢.
An’ Jeanie she grat to ease her hext,
An’ she easit hersel’ aw2’ ;
But I’m ower auld for the tears to stert,
An’ sae the sighs maun blaw.
An it’s oh to win awa’, awa’! &¢.
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, awa! &¢.
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.”
“T 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
Beals Anbeiah au epee ae Mii al ENE aka Cle aN diary ce Senet Ame RS oy a oe aetna s Mises
4 Md * : eee SEN ee On aye " *% =
iy hi NEA a
Us ite aly Sits! Od?
342 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
know pretty nearly how “e 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.” 3
“ Malcolm! ” ‘re
“Which is worse, my lady—to distrust God, or to think life
worth having without him P” ,
“‘ 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, ifI
can help it. And I think that so long as [kept my reason, [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-——”
“ih, 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 grue-
some: 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.”
“Y’m no sleepin’, Annie,’ said Lizzy, “—though like —
Ma’colm’s auld man,” she added with a sigh, ‘I wad whiles fain ~
be.” 4 ee
Now there were reasons why Malcolm should not be un-
willing to tell the strange wild story requested of him, and he com-
menced it at once, but modified the Scotch of it considerably for
the sake of the unaccustomed ears. When it was ended Clemen-
tina 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’, ’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,
é
oe
Piet
—_—
8 eee ee oe
- * - noo ,
- ! ae r nee f
> * & te wi F
. ‘
‘
SEA. | | 343
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.
“IT cannot understand it,” said Clementina. “ There are multi-
tudes 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 szzffocated 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 othef 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 destina.
tion 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
344 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 herand 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 invad-
ing 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 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
‘-..7 tt SM eel gs Oe, Se uk D. N vi We RA Ne tA ey eo a DER eee Te See ee = 25
yk Si, eal Bate) Re pea: Py tare a ay } net) Ca ee ee ~ es eS. Wi ee
Ps eh Sige oe Danae eae ey te aM PEA tegen ah ce agate CAL es
ai a a : . s he pee ‘
SOY ae ae ts ‘ 5 ‘
ye : SHORE.
| . 345
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. hat a joy tc 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,
SPR ed OF Te . < a Stee NS ve = > SY ee
“ ; * - » ” ¥ N a ee wy ,
5 ; ae oe he Se eS
“te
oa THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
and the sky-night above and the sea-night beneath rolled them:
selves out and rushed silently together, Malcolm said, as if think-
ing 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 likea |
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 feel-
ings 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,
“T think of changing my service, my lady.”
“Indeed, Malcolm!”
“Yes, my lady. My—amistress 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?” f
“What would become of Kelpie, my lady?” rejoined Malcolm,
smiling to himself. .
“Ah!” said Clementina, bewildered ; “I had not thought of
SHORE. | 347
her—But yoa cannot take her with you,” she added, coming a
M4 y: §
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.”
“© 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
ery 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 zwz2// 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.
{ 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 /z7m ?”
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, penny Clementina knelt before him. He was bew ildered,
and thought she was going to pray. In sweet, clear, unsha -
tones, for she feared nothing now, she said, ie
“Malcolm, I am not worthy of you. But take mecsake a
i ‘
on:
ae very soul if you will, for it is yours.’ ee
i ae Now Malcolm saw that he had no right to raise a kneeling
RAS lady ; all he could do was to kneel beside her. When people
ie kneel, they lift up their hearts; and the creating heart of hea $i
joy was forgotten of neither. And well for them, for the love —
og where God is not, be the lady lovely as Cordelia, the man gent =} :
ve as Philip Sidney, ‘will fare as the overkept manna. aes
ete When the huge tidal wave from the ocean of infinite deli rht i
oe
had broken at last upon the shore of the finite, and withdraw nt
again into the deeps, leaving every cistern brimming, evel a
fountain overflowing, the two entranced souls opened thei 7
bodily eyes, looked at each other, rose, and stood hand in hand a
speechless.
+ “ Ah, my lady!” said Malcolm at length, “ what is to becon i.
bees, .2°-Of this delicate smoothness in my great rough hand? Will it not :
Renee. .>- be hurt?”
eee “You don’t know how strong it is, Malcolm. There!” _ ws 3
“T can scarcely feel it with my ‘hand, my lady; it all ee
through to my heart. It shall lie in mine as the diamond 1 int he
rock.” ?
‘No, no, Malcolm! Now that I am going to be a fishertnaala
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 a and
money? And shall I live with you in the Seaton? or will y you
come and fish at Wastbeach P” ie
‘Forgive me, my lady ; I can’t think about things now—eyven
with you in them. There is neither past nor future to mend Ww
—only this one eternal morning. Sit here, and look up, Lady
Clementina :—see all those worlds :—something in me const y
oa ee
tity; ey
ee ee
Site a
~~.
Ved
tad says that I shall know every one of them one day; that they < re
i all but rooms in the house of my spirit, that is, the house of ou ir
bia. Father. Let us not now, when your love makes me twice
eternal, talk of time and places. Come, let us faricy ourselves
ae two blessed spirits, lying full in the sight and light of our God, —
as indeed what else are we ?—warming our hearts in his presen ce
and peace; and that we have but to rise and spread our win, a8
to soar aloft and find—what shall it be, my lady? Worlds upon
worlds? No, no. What are worlds upon worlds in infini ite
show until we have seen the face of the Son of Man?” _ i
. Ai. nl ri
x Rage ty wate yy,
as. , ¢ wt Reuse . id 4
wn . as ne. ht ote
a ee ee te eh a eee eee Oe mee ae 1st Pubes eet jh eset as
SHORE, 349
A silence fell. But he resumed.
“Tet us imagine our earthly life behind us, our hearts clean,
tove 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 in-
dignations! 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 tome. Itis avery oldlove. 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. 1 would there-
fore 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 4
“ 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
350 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 thessun. 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.
“Vou 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 !
“T have been explaining to Lizzy, my lady,” he said, “ that
THE CREW OF THE BONNIE ANNIE. 351
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 to-day
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.
PAviINc caught as many fish ag_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 ¢avgdes, 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
352 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE,
returned from the night’s fishing, and some were asleep in their
beds after it. Not achimney 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.
*T 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 hikit.”
“ 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 ?”
“T 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’, ”
the quaiet o’ the mornin’ afore the din begud. Maybe ane o’
them was that auld priest wi’ the lang name 1’ 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.”
**T wull that, my lord.”
“ Weel, gang an’ gether yer boat’s crew, an’ fess them doon to
the cove, an’ [’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
a4 ENE COs
On. AE T,
fe pew TAR
: Mae
Sere
THE CREW OF THE BONNIE ANNIE. 353
coming down the winding path—all but Peter no doubt wonder-
ing 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.
fe reens,” he said, “I’m in want 0’ 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 wer 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.
“Tm the Markis or 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, bewilder-
ment, 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 per-
ceiving that the matter was to him not only serious but evi-
dently 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.
7
354 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“ 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.”
‘“¢T 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 disput-
ing, 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 (ga//ows).” 7
“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 ?”
“T have papers signed by my father, the late marquis, and |
sealed and witnessed by well-known gentlemen of the neighbour-
hood.”
“ Whaur are they?” said Girnel, holding out his hand.
“JT don’t carry such valuable things about me,” answered
Malcolm. “But if you go with the rest, you shall see them
afterwards.” |
“Tl 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?”
“‘T 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 tomy dis- —_—
closure P” said Malcolm. “If you be guilty of such a mean trick
. THE CREW OF THE BONNIE ANNIE. 355
as betray me and ruin my plans, no honest man in Portlossie ot
Scaurnose but will scorn you.”
“There! tak ye that !” said Peter. An’ Is’ promise ye, ye 9’
never lay leg ower the gunnel o’ my boat again. I s’ hae nane
but Christi-an men 1’ my pey.”
“ Ye hired me for the sizon, Blew Peter,” said Girnel, turning
defiantly.
“Oh! yes’ ha’e yer wauges. I’m no ane to creep oot 0’ a
bargain, or say ’at I didna promise. Yes’ get yer reward, never
fear. But into my boat yes’ no come. We'll ha’e nae Auchans
VY 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 7 their han’, but ye tak yer fit (foot) 7 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 mis-
doobted ’at ye wasna the same to me efter ye cam to yer ain. I
beg yer pardon, my lord, here 1’ the face o’ my freen’s. It was
ill-temper an’ pride 7’ me, jist the same asi t’s noo in Girnel
there ;.an’ ye maun forgi’e him, as ye forga’e me, my lord, as
sune ’s ye can.”
“Tl 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 7’ 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 (zzdercept)
im an’ keep ‘im. We'll ha’e to cast a k-not or twa aboot ’im, an’
lay “im 7’ the boddom o’ the boat.” i
The six had already started after him hke one man. But
Malcolm cried,
“Let him go: he has done me no wrong yet, and I dont
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 2nd distributed according to his purpose, ending with
356 THE MAROUIS OF LOSSIE.
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. Return-
ing 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, be-
cause 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.
WuIiLe 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.
LIZZV’S BABY. 307
With trembling hands, and heart now beating wildly, now fail-
ing 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
hier 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 be-
hind 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 eke cone blasts of her shae ange sorrow. S
much from inability to stand as in supplication for the covete qd
favour, she dropped on her knees before him, incapable of ee :
fe ing-a word, but holding up her child imploringly. Taken alto- os.
oe. gether by surprise, and not knowing what to say or do, the carl a
stood and stared for a moment, then, moved by a dull spirit of —
subterfuge, fell back on the pretence of knowing nothing about heroes *
“Well, young woman,” he said, affecting cheerfulness, “what —
do you want with me? I didn’t advertise for a baby. Prey ae
child, though !”
S. 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. :
_ “TJ will take her away,” she said. “ Do not expose her to your Ay
servants. Lady Lossie, my Lord Liftore is the father of this
child: and if you can marry him after the way you have seenhim
use its mother, you are not too good for him, and I will trouble
myself no more about you.” ‘
“ { 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.” ;
“Ts it a calumny, my lord? Do I slander you?” said Lady Bee
-Clementina, turning sharply upon the earl. a
His lordship made her a cool obeisance. : ce =
Clementina ran into the library, laid the child in a big chair, and
returned for the mother. She was already coming a little to hen Bx.
self, and feeling about blindly for her baby, while Florimel and Dy
Liftore were looking out of the window, with their backs towards — a
her. Clementina raised and led her from the room. But in the a
doorway she turned and said— ed
“Good-bye, Lady Lossie. I thank you for your hospitality, a
____ but I can of course be your guest no longer.” ee.
y, “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, anda
__ clasped them both in her own. A gush of tears lightened the
oppressed heart of the mother. ee
e “Lat me oot o’ the hoose, for God’s sake!” she cried; ane
_ 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. ay
ie Te EY-"s bs = ~~ a ~ Wig SD ee Ne pA
we ot v4 - r OS
ake
LIZZV’S BABY, 350
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. 3
“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.
“JY daurna! J daurna!” she said. But she lingered about
the door. |
CHARTER CAS
THE DISCLOSURE.
WHEN the earl saw Malcolm coming, siecuee 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 cena
it may be pardoned him that for the next few seconds his heart aa
doubled its beats. But of all things he must OE show feat 2
before Florimel ! Ray
“What can the fellow be after now?” he said. ok must 0 Ee
down to him.”
LS ‘““No, no; don’t go near him—he may be violent,” objected =
Pet Florimel, and laid her hand on his arm with a beseeching look =
ee... Inher face. “Heisa dangerous man.’ ,
__-._ Liftore laughed.
ey “Stop here till I return,” he said, and left the room.
But Florimel followed, fearful of what might happen, and 2
enraged with her brother.
| Malcolm’s brief detention by Lizzy gave Liftore a ane
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 — e:
to strike. Malcolm, however, caught sight of him and _his a
attitude in time, and, fearful of breaking his word to Lizzy,
pulled himself up abruptly a few steps from the top—just as te
Florimel appeared. Sal
“MacPhail,” she said, sweeping to the stair like an indigna :
goddess, “I discharge you from my service. Leave the house .
instantly.” “oy
Malcolm turned, flew down, and ran to the servants’ pit in
half the length of the house away. As he crossed the servants’
hall he saw Rose. She was the only one in the house excel
_..__Clementina to whom he could look for help. | x fess
ae “Come after me, Rose,” he said without stopping.
os _ She followed instantly, as fast as she could run, and saw hie
enter the drawing-room. Florimel and Liftore were there. as he |
earl had Florimel’s hand in his. ee
*2 “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 timed: upon —
Malcolm in a fury. But he had not now the advantage of the —
stair, and hesitated. Florimel’s eyes dilated with Tyee eal
v
THE DISCLOSURE. 361
~“T 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 eazl.
~ 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.”
“1 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 give 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
ayes ives however, Clementina and Rose had darted 3
between, and, full of rage as he was, Liftore was compelled to.
restrain eels ~ ee
“Oh!” he said, “if ladies want a share in the row, I must 2
=. ‘yield my place,” and drew back.
sits The few men servants now came hurrying all together into the
room.
¢ “'Take that rascal there, and put him under the pump,”
fee uittore, ‘He is mad.” ”
“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.
\ »
Fah
364 |. THE MAROUIS OF LOSSIE.
“Three of you take that lord to the town gate, and leave him — Bai:
on the other side of it. Huis servant shall follow as soon as the
horses come.”
“JT 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 might.
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 spcak 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.
“Tet 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
THE DISCLOSURE. 365
&
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?”
366 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
“T will, my lord,” she answered, and went.
Malcolm walked up to Liftore.
_ “My lord,” he said, “ my sister takes leave of you.”
“‘T must have my dismissal from her own lips.”
~LOu shall have it from the hands of my fishermen. Take
him away.
“You shall hear from me, my lord marquis, if ag 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
il 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,
THE DISCLOSURE. 367
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 0’ 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
a
Malcolm laughed, and she could not help joining him.
“Ye maun come the morn an’ chise yer ain room ? 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! Hard
ever onybody sic nonsense! What wad I du wi’ Jean? An’ I
cudna thole men-fowk to wait upo’ me. I wad be cleah
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.
te F as ah
368 _ THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 a@//, Florimel?” he asked.
“Yes, Malcolm,” she answered. ‘Tell him again yourself.” ~
“No, Florimel. Once is enough.”
“T told him a//,” she said with a gasp; then gave a wild little
cry, and, with subdued exultation, added, ‘‘and-he doves me yet!
_ He has taken the girl without a name to hale heart !”
“ No wonder,” said Malcolm, ‘‘ when she brought it with her.”
“Yes,” said Lenorme, “I Hit 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
= Re te
«
er
THE ASSEMBLY. 369
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 fisher-
man; 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 LXXI1
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
2A
B70 a THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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 mar~1is,
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 him-
self. 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 fore-
sight 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 trans-
lated. The men came crowdirg 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 exclama-
tion, 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 out-
stretched hand.
“T am glad indeed to see you, Mr Crathie,” he said, “but I
fear you are out too soon.”
“‘T 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.”
THE ASSEMBLY. 37)
*T 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 deal
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 meas 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 fhjury 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
aman 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
ladv with him in the dinghy; and indeed they were together, in
¥ bm x ; . : aaa re
45 ‘ . E cus
ee
392 0) THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
one place and another, the most of the day—at one time flying he
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.
“T 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
THE ASSEMBLY. 373
in Some measure distinguished between the men who have heart
and brain, and the men who have merely a sense of their own im-
portance—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 pro-
longed ; 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 refrain-
ing 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 /ere, in this town, thoroughly known, and abso-
lutely distrusted. And that they may thus be known and dis-
trusted, 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 re-
cover. 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
THE MARQUIS oF LOSSIE,
oe thereby they will compel me to bring my actions for murder
conspiracy. Let them choose.
_ “Hear what I have determined concerning them. The womat
cottage they shall have rent free : Alo could receive money fror
such hands? Iwill appoint them also a sufficiency for life anc ;
maintenance, bare indeed, for I would not have them comfortable. —
oe > Butithey shall be free to work if they can find any to employ ~
them. If, however, either shall go beyond the bounds I set, she
=. 2 shall be followed the moment she is missed, and that with.
-__ warrant for her apprehension. And I beg all “honest people tous
keep an eye upon them. According as they live shall their lif 4
be. If they come to repentance, they will bless the day I re
resolved upon such severe measures on their behalf. Let. then
go to their place.”
I will not try to describe the devilish look, mingled of convene .
and hate, that possessed the countenance of the midwife, as,
with head erect, and eyes looking straight before her, she obeye
the command. Caley, white as death, trembled and tottered
nor dared once look up as she followed her companion to thei
appointed hell. Whether they made it pleasant for each other
ae: 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 m
rose out of them, and deprived of every chance of indulging her —
_ dominant passion for mischievous influence, the midwife’s face told |
sucha different tale, that the schoolmaster began to cherish a feeble. eo
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 —
2 horror and dismay. Not until then did he know, after all he ~
__knew concerning her, what the woman was capable of. ¥
er At his own entreaty, Duncan was formally recognized as piper 34
Ay: to the Marquis of Lossie. His ambition reached no higher.
: ‘Malcolm himself saw to his perfect equipment, heedful specially — 4
e
that his kilt and plaid should be of Duncan’s own tartan of ted
he and blue and green. His dirk and brc* ‘sword he had new
sheathed, with silver mountings. A great silver ‘brooch witha
____ a big cairngorm in the centre, took the place of the brass one, re
Oa which henceforth was laid up among the precious things in the
ve little armoury, and the badge of his clan in gold, with rubies an d
.. 3 ees for the bells of the heather, glowed on his bonnet.
he: _ And Malcolm’s guests, as long as Duncan continued able to It
THE ASSEMBLY. 375.
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 Eng-
lish 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
*he truth. Many men who would not tell a lie, yet seem to
tave faith in concealment: they would rather not reveal the
cruth ; 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 din-
ner, 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 de-
lighted 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 ad-
jacent 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. Tedérme Sar nea Flo
PA Bid Amie Mair next to Lenorme. On the other side, ;
_ Graham sat next to Clementina, Miss Horn next to Mr Graha hye
- and Blue Peter next to Miss Horn. Except Mr Morrison
“8 * he. had asked none who were not his tenants or servants,
or in some way connected with the estates, except inde
afew whom he counted old friends, amongst them some age’
_ beggar-folk, waiting their summons to Abraham’s bosom—in
which there was no such exceptional virtue on the marquis’
_ part, for, the poor law not having yet invaded Scotland, a ma
was not without the respect of his neighbours merely because h
was a beggar. He set Mr Morrison to preside at the farmers
Raailes: and had all the fisher-folk about himself.
When the main part of the dinner was over, he rose, and wit
-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 o
the world, that evil should bring ‘forth good, and his poor littl
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
covered with a rich cloth by his side.
“You all know my grandfather,” he went on, “ and you al
respect him.”
At this rose a great shout.
“T thank you, my friends,” he continued. “My desire is
that every soul upon land of mine should carry himself
Duncan MacPhail as if he were in blood that which he is
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. -, Nee
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
Be lice of the confidence and companionship of ‘honourables
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. ae,
Then he turned again to his narrative, and told how his
Bh father, falsely informed that his wife and child were dead,
fe married Florimel’s mother ; how his mother, out of on n
et:
THE ASSEMBLY. CVE Le
- 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
378 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
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
tome. 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 con-
senting to become its marchioness? Lady Clementina Thorni-
croft 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 LXXIL.
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
KNOTTED STRANDS, 379
‘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 unspeak-
able 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
a
_ 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. se
Alone at length in their somewhat strange quarters, concern- _
ing 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. a
“Can there be such a stair in this room?” she asked in surpise. _
__. 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. |
«Tet us go down,” said Clementina.
“‘ Are you not afraid? Look,” said Malcolm. Pe
“ Afraid, and you with me!” she exclaimed. =
“ But it is dark and the steps are broken.” : te
“Tf it led to Hades, I would go with my fisherman. The —
only horror would be to be left behind.” ~
ae “Come then,” said Malcolm, “ only you must be very careful.”
a He laid a shawl on her shoulders, and down they went,
_ Malcolm a few steps in front, holding a candle to every step
_ for her, many being broken. 2.
) 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 downthestepsand _
_ the winding path into the valley of the burn, and up to the flower- ae
_ garden they wandered, Clementina telling him how sick themoon-
light had made her feel that night she met him first on the Boars
__ ‘Tail, when his words concerning her revived the conviction that
he loved Florimel. At the great stone basin Malcolm set the Seam
_ 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.
‘9 Clementina venturing to remind him of the sexton-like gate.
-
KNOTTHD STRANDS. 381
dener’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.
“T have ever since felt ashamed of the weakness,” he con-
cluded: “but at this moment I believe I could walk in with
perfect coolness.”
“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.
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.
382 THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.
Every summer for years, Florimel and her husband spent weal |
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 recon-
verting. 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, some-
times 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.
ms
= re
ptt
b thie
Pa” Fie Tow athe
By ie Rd) ble
KNOTTED STRANDS. 383
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 every-
thing 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 1 marquis’s
_ warnings, his wife’s encouragements, and the master’s expostula-
tions, 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 ws
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 hy
anybody, was to be good herself.
Rose married a young fisherman, and made a brave wife fy
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 tide. Her foal turned out a magnificent horse. Malcolm
“for when Goblin was thirty he ‘ode him ‘still, and to ju
_ appearances, might but for an accident have ridden him te
“>> moore. A...
It was not long ere people began to remark that no one t
‘ever heard the piper utter the name Campéell. An ill-bred you
~ once—it was well for him that Malcolm was not near—dared t
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 Phen and Davy
were married, and made the quaintest, oldest-fashioned little
couple, with ‘hearts which king or beggar might oq 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 ita point to be always at home
F during the herring- ‘fishing. Whatever might be going on ee
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 3
_ 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, up-
on 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 ;” Apu offen such a one came to allow that it was no 'OmeR 5
-. KNOTTED STRANDS. ~ 385
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 ton-
nage 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
2B
Dick to the fete
For such Monday mornings, Her marquis wrote a little s n
| and his Clemency made an air to it, and harmonized it for
; ape Here is the last stanza of it :— on.”
Wainer Gob. Like the fish that brought the coin,
Bos We in ministry will join—
. Bring what pleases Ae the best $
= Ev Help from each to all the rest,
_s
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ome
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RAN Sh SN SSS
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SS AC AN S
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