Malcolm

About ten o'clock he was summoned to the marquis's presence, and found him at breakfast with Lady Florimel.

"Where did you sleep last night?" asked the marquis.

"Neist door to the auld warlock," answered Malcolm.

Lady Florimel looked up with a glance of bright interest: her father had just been telling her the story.

"You did!" said the marquis. "Then Mrs Courthope—did she tell you the legend about him?"

"Ay did she, my lord."

"Well, how did you sleep?"

"Middlin' only."

"How was that?"

"I dinna ken, 'cep it was 'at I was fule eneuch to fin' the place gey eerie like."

"Aha!" said the marquis. "You've had enough of it! You won't try it again!"

"What 's that ye say, my lord?" rejoined Malcolm. "Wad ye hae a man turn 's back at the first fleg? Na, na, my lord; that wad never du!"

"Oh! then, you did have a fright?"

"Na, I canna say that aither. Naething waur cam near me nor a dream 'at plaguit me—an' it wasna sic an ill ane efter a'."

"What was it?"

"I thocht there was a bonny leddy sittin' o' the bed i' the neist room, in her nichtgoon like, an' she was greitin' sair in her heirt, though she never loot a tear fa' doon. She was greitin' about a bairnie she had lost, an' I kent weel whaur the bairnie was—doon in a cave upo' the shore, I thoucht—an' was jist yirnin' to gang till her an' tell her, an' stop the greitin' o' her hert, but I cudna muv han' nor fit, naither cud I open my mou' to cry till her. An' I gaed dreamin' on at the same thing ower an' ower, a' the time I was asleep. But there was naething sae frichtsome aboot that, my lord."

"No, indeed," said his lordship.

"Only it garred me greit tu, my lord, 'cause I cudna win at her to help her."

His lordship laughed, but oddly, and changed the subject.

"There's no word of that boat yet," he said. "I must write again."

"May I show Malcolm the library, papa?" asked Lady Florimel.

"I wad fain see the buiks," adjected Malcolm.

"You don't know what a scholar he is, papa!"

"Little eneuch o' that!" said Malcolm.

"Oh yes! I do," said the marquis, answering his daughter. "But he must keep the skipper from my books and the scholar from my boat."

"Ye mean a scholar wha wad skip yer buiks, my lord! Haith! sic wad be a skipper wha wad ill scull yer boat!" said Malcolm, with a laugh at the poor attempt.

"Bravo!" said the marquis, who certainly was not over critical. "Can you write a good hand?"

"No ill, my lord."

"So much the better! I see you'll be worth your wages."

"That depen's on the wages," returned Malcolm.

"And that reminds me you 've said nothing about them yet."

"Naither has yer lordship."

"Well, what are they to be?"

"Whatever ye think proper, my lord. Only dinna gar me gang to Maister Crathie for them."

The marquis had sent away the man who was waiting when Malcolm entered, and during this conversation Malcolm had of his own accord been doing his best to supply his place. The meal ended, Lady Florimel desired him to wait a moment in the hall.

"He 's so amusing, papa!" she said. "I want to see him stare at the books. He thinks the schoolmaster's hundred volumes a grand library! He 's such a goose! It's the greatest fun in the world watching him."

"No such goose!" said the marquis; but he recognized himself in his child, and laughed.

Florimel ran off merrily, as bent on a joke, and joined Malcolm.

"Now, going to show you the library," she said.

"Thank ye, my leddy; that will be gran'!" replied Malcolm.

He followed her up two staircases, and through more than one long narrow passage: all the ducts of the house were long and narrow, causing him a sense of imprisonment—vanishing ever into freedom at the opening of some door into a great room. But never had be had a dream of such a room as that at which they now arrived. He started with a sort of marvelling dismay when she threw open the door of the library, and he beheld ten thousand volumes at a glance, all in solemn stillness. It was like a sepulchre of kings. But his astonishment took a strange form of expression, the thought in which was beyond the reach of his mistress.

"Eh, my leddy!" he cried, after staring for a while in breathless bewilderment, "it 's jist like a byke o' frozen bees! Eh! gien they war a' to come to life an' stick their stangs o' trowth intill a body, the waukin' up wad be awfu'!—It jist gars my heid gang roon'!" he added, after a pause.

"It is a fine thing," said the girl, "to have such a library."

"'Deed is 't, my leddy! It's ane o' the preevileeges o' rank," said Malcolm. "It taks a faimily that hauds on throu' centeries in a hoose whaur things gether, to mak sic an unaccoontable getherin' o' buiks as that. It's a gran' sicht—worth livin' to see."

"Suppose you were to be a rich man some day," said Florimel, in the condescending tone she generally adopted when addressing him, "it would be one of the first things you would set about—wouldn't it—to get such a library together?"

"Na, my leddy; I wad hae mair wut. A leebrary canna be made a' at ance, ony mair nor a hoose, or a nation, or a muckle tree: they maun a' tak time to grow, an' sae maun a leebrary. I wadna even ken what buiks to gang an' speir for.  I daursay, gien I war to try, I cudna at a moment's notice tell ye the names o' mair nor a twa score o' buiks at the ootside. Fowk maun mak acquantance amo' buiks as they wad amo' leevin' fowk."

"But you could get somebody who knew more about them than yourself to buy for you."

"I wad as sune think o' gettin' somebody to ate my denner for me."

"No, that's not fair," said Florimel. "It would only be like getting somebody who knew more of cookery than yourself, to order your dinner for you."

"ye're richt, my leddy; but still I wad as sune think o' the tane 's the tither. What wad come o' the like o' me, div ye think, broucht up upo' meal brose, an' herrin', gien ye was to set me doon to sic a denner as my lord, yer father, wad ait ilka day, an' think naething o'? But gien some fowk hed the buyin' o' my buiks, thinkin' the first thing I wad hae to du, wad be to fling the half o' them into the burn."

"What good would that do?"

"Clear awa' the rubbitch. Ye see, my leddy, it 's no buiks, but what buiks. Eh! there maun be mony ane o' the richt sort here, though. I wonner gien Mr Graham ever saw them. He wad surely hae made mention o them i' my hearin'!"

"What would be the first thing you would do, then, Malcolm, if you happened to turn out a great man after all?" said Florimel, seating herself in a huge library chair, whence, having arranged her skirt, she looked up in the young fisherman's face.

"I doobt I wad hae to sit doon, an' turn ower the change a feow times afore I kent aither mysel' or what wad become me," he said.

"That's not answering my question," retorted Florimel.

"Weel, the second thing I wad du," said Malcolm, thoughtfully, and pausing a moment, "wad be to get Mr Graham to gang wi' me to Ebberdeen, an' cairry me throu' the classes there. Of coorse, I wadna try for prizes; that wadna be fair to them 'at cudna affoord a tutor at their lodgin's."

"But it 's the first thing you would do that I want to know," persisted the girl.

"I tell't ye I wad sit doon an' think aboot it."

"I don't count that doing anything."

"'Deed, my leddy! thinkin 's the hardest wark I ken."

"Well, what is it you would think about first?" said Florimel—not to be diverted from her course.

"Ow, the third thing I wad du—"

"I want to know the first thing you would think about."

"I canna say yet what the third thing wad be. Fower year at the college wad gie me time to reflec upon a hantle o' things."

"I insist on knowing the first thing you would think about doing," cried Florimel, with mock imperiousness, but real tyranny.

"Weel, my leddy, gien ye wull hae 't—but hoo great a man wad ye be makin' o' me?"

"Oh!—let me see;—yes—yes—the heir to an earldom.—That's liberal enough—is it not?"

"that's as muckle as say I wad come to be a yerl some day, sae be I didna dee upo' the ro'd?"

"Yes—that's what it means."

"An' a yerl's neist door till a markis—isna he?"

"Yes—he's in the next lower rank."

"Lower?—Ay!—No that muckle, maybe?"

"No," said Lady Florimel consequentially; "the difference is not so great as to prevent their meeting on a level of courtesy."

"I dinna freely ken what that means; but gien 't be yer leddyship's wull to mak a yerl o' me, no to raise ony objections."

He uttered it definitively, and stood silent.

"Well?" said the girl.

"What's yer wull, my leddy?" returned Malcolm, as if roused from a reverie.

"Where's your answer?"

"I said I wad be a yerl to please yer leddyship.—I wad be a flunky for the same rizzon, gien 't was to wait upo' yersel' an' nae ither."

"I ask you," said Florimel, more imperiously than ever, "what is the first thing you would do, if you found yourself no longer a fisherman, but the son of an earl?"

"But it maun be that I was a fisherman—to the en' o' a' creation, my leddy."

"You refuse to answer my question?"

"By no means, my leddy, gien ye wull hae an answer."

"I will have an answer."

"Gien ye wull hae 't than—But—"

"No buts, but an answer!"

"Weel—it 's yer am wyte, my leddy!—I wad jist gang doon upo' my k-nees, whaur I stude afore ye, and tell ye a heap o' things 'at maybe by that time ye wad ken weel eneuch a'ready ."

"What would you tell me?"

"I wad tell ye 'at yer een war like the verra leme o' the levin (brightness of the lightning) itsel'; yer cheek like a white rose the licht frae a reid ane; yer hair jist the saft lattin' gang o' his han's whan the Maker cud du nae mair; yer mou' jist fashioned to drive fowk daft 'at daurna come nearer nor luik at it; an' for yer shape, it was like naething in natur' but itsel'.—Ye wad hae't my leddy!" he added apologetically—and well he might, for Lady Florimel's cheek had flushed, and her eye had been darting fire long before he got to the end of his Celtic outpouring. Whether she was really angry or not, she had no difficulty in making Malcolm believe she was. She rose from her chair—though not until he had ended—swept halfway to the door, then turned upon him with a flash.

"How dare you?" she said, her breed well obeying the call of the game.

" verra sorry, my leddy," faltered Malcolm, trying to steady himself against a strange trembling that had laid hold upon him, "—but ye maun alloo it was a' yer ain wyte."

"Do you dare to say 1 encouraged you to talk such stuff to me?"

"Ye did gar me, my leddy."

Florimel turned and undulated from the room, leaving the poor fellow like a statue in the middle of it, with the books all turning their backs upon him.

"Noo," he said to himself, "she's aff to tell her father, and there'll be a bonny bane to pyke atween him an' me! But haith! I'll jist tell him the trowth o' 't, an' syne he can mak a kirk an' a mill o' 't, gien he likes."

With this resolution he stood his ground, every moment expecting the wrathful father to make his appearance and at the least order him out of the house. But minute passed after minute, and no wrathful father came. He grew calmer by degrees, and at length began to peep at the titles of the books.

When the great bell rang for lunch, he was embalmed rather than buried in one of Milton's prose volumes—standing before the shelf on which he had found it—the very incarnation of study.

My reader may well judge that Malcolm could not have been very far gone in love, seeing he was thus able to read, remark in return that it was not merely the distance between him and Lady Florimel that had hitherto preserved his being from absorption and his will from annihilation, but also the strength of his common sense, and the force of his individuality.

CHAPTER XXXIV: MILTON, AND THE BAY MARE

For some days Malcolm saw nothing more of Lady Florimel; but with his grandfather's new dwelling to see to, the carpenter's shop and the blacksmith's forge open to him, and an eye to detect whatever wanted setting right, the hours did not hang heavy on his hands. At length, whether it was that she thought she had punished him sufficiently for an offence for which she was herself only to blame, or that she had indeed never been offended at all and had only been keeping up her one sided game, she began again to indulge the interest she could not help feeling in him, an interest heightened by the mystery which hung over his birth, and by the fact that she knew that concerning him of which he was himself ignorant. At the same time, as I have already said, she had no little need of an escape from the ennui which, now that the novelty of a country life had worn off did more than occasionally threaten her. She began again to seek his company under the guise of his help, half requesting, half commanding his services; and Malcolm found himself admitted afresh to the heaven of her favour. Young as he was, he read himself a lesson suitable to the occasion.

One afternoon the marquis sent for him to the library, but when he reached it his master was not yet there. He took down the volume of Milton in which he had been reading before, and was soon absorbed in it again.

"Faith! it 's a big shame," he cried at length almost unconsciously, and closed the book with a slam.

"What is a big shame?" said the voice of the marquis close behind him.

Malcolm started, and almost dropped the volume.

"I beg yer lordship's pardon," he said; "I didna hear ye come in.

"What is the book you were reading?" asked the marquis.

"I was jist readin' a bit o' Milton's Eikonoklastes," answered Malcolm, "—a buik I hae hard tell o', but never saw wi' my ain een afore."

"And what's your quarrel with it?" asked his lordship.

"I canna mak oot what sud set a great man like Milton sae sair agane a puir cratur like Cherles."

"Read the history, and you'll see."

"Ow! I ken something aboot the politics o' the time, an' no sayin' they war that wrang to tak the heid frae him, but what for sud Milton hate the man efter the king was deid?"

"Because he didn't think the king dead enough, I suppose."

"I see!—an' they war settin' him up for a saint. Still he had a richt to fair play.—Jist hearken, my lord."

So saying, Malcolm reopened the volume, and read the well known passage, in the first chapter, in which Milton censures the king as guilty of utter irreverence, because of his adoption of the prayer of Pamela in the Arcadia.

"Noo, my lord," he said, half closing the book, "what wad ye expec' to come upo', efter sic a denunciation as that, but some awfu' haithenish thing? Weel, jist hearken again, for here's the verra prayer itsel' in a futnote."

His lordship had thrown himself into a chair, had crossed one leg over the other, and was now stroking its knee.

"Noo, my lord," said Malcolm again, as he concluded, "what think ye o' the jeedgment passed?"

"Really I have no opinion to give about it," answered the marquis. " no theologian. I see no harm in the prayer."

"Hairm in 't, my lord! It's perfetly gran'! It's sic a prayer as cudna weel be aiqualt. It vexes me to the verra hert o' my sowl that a michty man like Milton—ane whase bein' was a crood o' hermonies—sud ca' that the prayer o' a haithen wuman till a haithen God. 'O all seein' Licht, an' eternal Life o' a' things!'—Ca's he that a haithen God?—or her 'at prayed sic a prayer a haithen wuman?"

"Well, well," said the marquis, "I do n't want it all over again. I see nothing to find fault with, myself, but I do n't take much interest in that sort of thing."

"There's a wee bitty o' Laitin, here i' the note, 'at I canna freely mak oot," said Malcolm, approaching Lord Lossie with his finger on the passage, never doubting that the owner of such a library must be able to read Latin perfectly: Mr Graham would have put him right at once, and his books would have been lost in one of the window corners of this huge place. But his lordship waved him back.

"I can't be your tutor," he said, not unkindly. "My Latin is far too rusty for use."

The fact was that his lordship had never got beyond Maturin Cordier's Colloquies.

"Besides," he went on, "I want you to do something for me."

Malcolm instantly replaced the book on its shelf, and approached his master, saying—

"Wull yer lordship lat me read whiles, i' this gran' place? I mean whan no wantit ither gaits, an' there's naebody here."

"To be sure," answered the marquis; "—only the scholar must n't come with the skipper's hands."

"I s' tak guid care o' that, my lord. I wad as sune think o' han'lin' a book wi' wark-like han's as I wad o' branderin' a mackeral ohn cleaned it oot."

"And when we have visitors, you'll be careful not to get in their way."

"I wull that, my lord."

"And now," said his lordship rising, "I want you to take a letter to Mrs Stewart of Kirkbyres.—Can you ride?"

"I can ride the bare back weel eneuch for a fisher loon," said Malcolm; "but I never was upon a saiddle i' my life."

"The sooner you get used to one the better. Go and tell Stoat to saddle the bay mare. Wait in the yard: I will bring the letter out to you myself."

"Verra weel, my lord!" said Malcolm. He knew, from sundry remarks he had heard about the stables, that the mare in question was a ticklish one to ride, but would rather have his neck broken than object.

Hardly was she ready, when the marquis appeared, accompanied by Lady Florimel—both expecting to enjoy a laugh at Malcolm's expense. But when the mare was brought out, and he was going to mount her where she stood, something seemed to wake in the marquis's heart, or conscience, or wherever the pigmy Duty slept that occupied the all but sinecure of his moral economy: he looked at Malcolm for a moment, then at the ears of the mare hugging her neck, and last at the stones of the paved yard.

"Lead her on to the turf, Stoat," he said.

The groom obeyed, all followed, and Malcolm mounted. The same instant he lay on his back on the grass, amidst a general laugh, loud on the part of marquis and lady, and subdued on that of the servants. But the next he was on his feet, and, the groom still holding the mare, in the saddle again: a little anger is a fine spur for the side of even an honest intent. This time he sat for half a minute, and then found himself once more on the grass. It was but once more: his mother earth had claimed him again only to complete his strength. A third time he mounted—and sat. As soon as she perceived it would be hard work to unseat him, the mare was quiet.

"Bravo!" cried the marquis, giving him the letter.

"Will there be an answer, my lord?"

"Wait and see."

"I s' gar you pey for't, gien we come upon a broon rig atween this an' Kirkbyres," said Malcolm, addressing the mare, and rode away.

Both the marquis and Lady Florimel, whose laughter had altogether ceased in the interest of watching the struggle, stood looking after him with a pleased expression, which, as he vanished up the glen, changed to a mutual glance and smile.

"He's got good blood in him, however he came by it," said the marquis. "The country is more indebted to its nobility than is generally understood."

Otherwise indebted at least than Lady Florimel could gather from her father's remark!

CHAPTER XXXV: KIRKBYRES

Malcolm felt considerably refreshed after his tussle with the mare and his victory over her, and much enjoyed his ride of ten miles. It was a cool autumn afternoon. A few of the fields were being reaped, one or two were crowded with stooks, while many crops of oats yet waved and rustled in various stages of vanishing green. On all sides kine were lowing; overhead rooks were cawing; the sun was nearing the west, and in the hollows a thin mist came steaming up. Malcolm had never in his life been so far from the coast before: his road led southwards into the heart of the country.

The father of the late proprietor of Kirkbyres had married the heiress of Gersefell, an estate which marched with his own, and was double its size, whence the lairdship was sometimes spoken of by the one name, sometimes by the other. The combined properties thus inherited by the late Mr Stewart were of sufficient extent to justify him, although a plain man, in becoming a suitor for the hand of the beautiful daughter of a needy baronet in the neighbourhood—with the already somewhat tarnished condition of whose reputation, having come into little contact with the world in which she moved, he was unacquainted. Quite unexpectedly she also, some years after their marriage, brought him a property of considerable extent, a fact which doubtless had its share in the birth and nourishment of her consuming desire to get the estates into her own management.

Towards the end of his journey, Malcolm came upon a bare moorland waste, on the long ascent of a low hill,—very desolate, with not a tree or house within sight for two miles. A ditch, half full of dark water, bordered each side of the road, which went straight as a rod through a black peat moss lying cheerless and dreary on all sides—hardly less so where the sun gleamed from the surface of some stagnant pool filling a hole whence peats had been dug, or where a patch of cotton grass waved white and lonely in the midst of the waste expanse. At length, when he reached the top of the ridge, he saw the house of Kirkbyres below him; and, with a small modern lodge near by, a wooden gate showed the entrance to its grounds. Between the gate and the house he passed through a young plantation of larches and other firs for a quarter of a mile, and so came to an old wall with an iron gate in the middle of it, within which the old house, a gaunt meagre building—a bare house in fact, relieved only by four small turrets or bartizans, one at each corner—lifted its grey walls, pointed gables, and steep roof high into the pale blue air. He rode round the outer wall, seeking a back entrance, and arrived at a farm yard, where a boy took his horse. Finding the kitchen door open, he entered, and having delivered his letter to a servant girl, sat down to wait the possible answer.

In a few minutes she returned and requested him to follow her. This was more than he had calculated upon, but he obeyed at once. The girl led him along a dark passage, and up a winding stone stair, much worn, to a room richly furnished, and older fashioned, he thought, than any room he had yet seen in Lossie House.

On a settee, with her back to a window, sat Mrs Stewart, a lady tall and slender, with well poised, easy carriage, and a motion that might have suggested the lithe grace of a leopard. She greeted him with a bend of the head and a smile, which, even in the twilight and her own shadow, showed a gleam of ivory, and spoke to him in a hard sweet voice, wherein an ear more experienced than Malcolm's might have detected an accustomed intent to please. Although he knew nothing of the so called world, and hence could recognize neither the Parisian air of her dress nor the indications of familiarity with fashionable life prominent enough in her bearing, he yet could not fail to be at least aware of the contrast between her appearance and her surroundings. Yet less could the far stronger contrast escape him, between the picture in his own mind of the mother of the mad laird, and the woman before him; he could not by any effort cause the two to coalesce.

"You have had a long ride, Mr MacPhail," she said; "you must be tired."

"What wad tire me, mem?" returned Malcolm. "It's a fine caller evenin', an' I hed ane o' the marquis's best mears to carry me."

"You'll take a glass of wine, anyhow," said Mrs Stewart. "Will you oblige me by ringing the bell?"

"No, I thank ye, mem. The mear wad be better o' a mou'fu' o' meal an' watter, but I want naething mysel'."

A shadow passed over the lady's face. She rose and rang the bell, then sat in silence until it was answered.

"Bring the wine and cake," she said, then turned to Malcolm. "Your master speaks very kindly of you. He seems to trust you thoroughly."

" verra glaid to hear 't, mem; but he has never had muckle cause to trust or distrust me yet."

"He seems even to think that I might place equal confidence in you."

"I dinna ken. I wadna hae ye lippen to me owre muckle," said Malcolm.

"You do not mean to contradict the good character your master gives you?" said the lady, with a smile and a look right into his eyes.