Malcolm

Lovely still peered the dim face of his girl wife upon him, through the dusty lattice of his memory; and a mighty corroboration of Malcolm's asserted birth lay in the look upon his face as he hurried aghast from the hermit 's cell; for not on his first had the marquis seen that look and in those very circumstances! And the youth was one to be proud of—one among a million! But there were other and terrible considerations.

Incapable as he naturally was of doing justice to a woman of Miss Horn's inflexibility in right, he could yet more than surmise the absoluteness of that inflexibility—partly because it was hostile to himself, and he was in the mood to believe in opposition and harshness, and deny—not providence, but goodness. Convenient half measures would, he more than feared, find no favour with her. But she had declared her inability to prove Malcolm his son without the testimony of Mrs Catanach, and the latter was even now representing him as the son of Mrs Stewart! That Mrs Catanach at the same time could not be ignorant of what had become of the child born to him, he was all but certain; for, on that night when Malcolm and he found her in the wizard's chamber, had she not proved her strange story—of having been carried to that very room blindfolded, and, after sole attendance on the birth of a child, whose mother's features, even in her worst pains, she had not once seen, in like manner carried away again,—had she not proved the story true by handing him the ring she had drawn from the lady's finger, and sewn, for the sake of future identification, into the lower edge of one of the bed curtains—which ring was a diamond he had given his wife from his own finger when they parted? She probably believed the lady to have been Mrs Stewart, and the late marquis the father of the child. Should he see Mrs Catanach? And what then?

He found no difficulty in divining the reasons which must have induced his brother to provide for the secret accouchement of his wife in the wizard's chamber, and for the abduction of the child —if indeed his existence was not owing to Mrs Catanach's love of intrigue. The elder had judged the younger brother unlikely to live long, and had expected his own daughter to succeed himself. But now the younger might any day marry the governess, and legalize the child; and the elder had therefore secured the disappearance of the latter, and the belief of his brother in the death of both.

Lord Lossie was roused from his reverie by a tap at the door, which he knew for Malcolm's, and answered with admission.

When he entered, his master saw that a change had passed upon him, and for a moment believed Miss Horn had already broken faith with him and found communication with Malcolm. He was soon satisfied of the contrary, however, but would have found it hard indeed to understand, had it been represented to him, that the contentment, almost elation, of the youth's countenance had its source in the conviction that he was not the son of Mrs Stewart.

"So here you are at last!" said the marquis.

"Ay, my lord."

"Did you find Stewart?"

"Ay did we at last, my lord; but we made naething by 't, for he kent noucht aboot the lassie, an 'maist lost his wuts at the news."

"No great loss, that!" said the marquis. "Go and send Stoat here."

"Is there ony hurry aboot Sto't, my lord?" asked Malcolm, hesitating. "I had a word to say to yer lordship mysel'."

"Make haste then."

" some fain to gang back to the fishin', my lord," said Malcolm. "This is ower easy a life for me. The deil wins in for the liftin' o' the sneck. Forbye, my lord, a life wi'oot aither danger or wark 's some wersh-like (insipid); it wants saut, my lord. But a' that's naither here nor there, I ken, sae lang's ye want me oot o' the hoose, my lord."

"Who told you I wanted you out of the house? By Jove! I should have made shorter work of it. What put that in your head? Why should I?"

"Gien yer lordship kens nane, sma' occasion hae I to baud a rizzon to yer han'. I thoucht—but the thoucht itsel's impidence."

"You young fool! You thought, because I came upon you as I did in the garret the other night—Bah!—You damned ape! As if I could not trust—! Pshaw!"

For the moment Malcolm forgot how angry his master had certainly been, although, for Florimel's sake doubtless, he had restrained himself; and fancied that, in the faint light of the one candle, he had seen little to annoy him, and had taken the storm and its results, which were indeed the sole reason, as a sufficient one for their being alone together. Everything seemed about to come right again. But his master remained silent.

"I houp my leddy's weel," ventured Malcolm at length.

"Quite well. She's with Lady Bellair, in Edinburgh."

Lady Bellair was the bold faced countess.

"I dinna like her," said Malcolm.

"Who the devil asked you to like her?" said the marquis. But he laughed as he said it.

"I beg yer lordship's pardon," returned Malcolm. "I said it 'or I kent. It was nane o' my business wha my leddy was wi'."

"Certainly not. But I don't mind confessing that Lady Bellair is not one I should choose to give authority over Lady Florimel. You have some regard for your young mistress, I know, Malcolm."

"I wad dee for her, my lord."

"That's a common assertion," said the marquis.

"No wi' fisher fowk. I kenna hoo it may be wi' your fowk, my lord."

"Well, even with us it means something. It implies at least that he who uses it would risk his life for her whom he wishes to believe it. But perhaps it may mean more than that in the mouth of a fisherman? Do you fancy there is such a thing as devotion—real devotion, I mean—self sacrifice, you know?"

"I daurna doobt it, my lord."

"Without fee or hope of reward?"

"There maun be some cawpable o' 't, my lord, or what for sud the warl' be? What ither sud haud it ohn been destroyt as Sodom was for the want o' the ten richteous? There maun be saut whaur corruption hasna the thing a' its ain gait."

"You certainly have pretty high notions of things, MacPhail. For my part, I can easily enough imagine a man risking his life; but devoting it!—that's another thing altogether."

"There maun be 'at wad du a' 't cud be dune, my lord."

"What, for instance, would you do for Lady Florimel, now? You say you would die for her: what does dying mean on a fisherman's tongue?"

"It means a' thing, my lord—short o' ill. I wad sterve for her, but I wadna steal. I wad fecht for her, but I wadna lee."

"Would ye be her servant all your days? Come, now."

"Mair nor willin'ly, my lord—gien she wad only hae me, an' keep me."

"But supposing you came to inherit the Kirkbyres property?"

"My lord," said Malcolm solemnly, "that's a puir test to put me till. It gangs for naething. I wad raither clean my leddie's butes frae mornin' to nicht, nor be the son o' that wuman, gien she war a born duchess. Try me wi' something worth yer lordship's mou'."

But the marquis seemed to think he had gone far enough for the present. With gleaming eyes he rose, took his withered love letter from the table, put it in his waistcoat pocket, and saying "Well, find out for me what this is they're about with the schoolmaster," walked to the door.

"I ken a' aboot that, my lord," answered Malcolm, "ohn speirt at onybody."

Lord Lossie turned from the door, ordered him to bring his riding coat and boots, and, ringing the bell, sent a message to Stoat to saddle the bay mare.

CHAPTER LXIV: THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER

When Malcolm and Joseph set out from Duff Harbour to find the laird, they could hardly be said to have gone in search of him: all in their power was to seek the parts where he was occasionally seen in the hope of chancing upon him; and they wandered in vain about the woods of Fife House all that week, returning disconsolate every evening to the little inn on the banks of the Wan Water. Sunday came and went without yielding a trace of him; and, almost in despair, they resolved, if unsuccessful the next day, to get assistance and organize a search for him. Monday passed like the days that had preceded it, and they were returning dejectedly down the left bank of the Wan Water, in the gloamin', and nearing a part where it is hemmed in by precipitous rocks, and is very narrow and deep, crawling slow and black under the lofty arch of an ancient bridge that spans it at one leap, when suddenly they caught sight of a head peering over the parapet. They dared not run for fear of terrifying him, if it should be the laird, and hurried quietly to the spot. But when they reached the end of the bridge its round back was bare from end to end. On the other side of the river, the trees came close up, and pursuit was hopeless in the gathering darkness.

"Laird, laird! they've taen awa' Phemy, an' we dinna ken whaur to luik for her," cried the poor father aloud.

Almost the same instant, and as if he had issued from the ground, the laird stood before them. The men started back with astonishment—soon changed into pity, for there was light enough to see how miserable the poor fellow looked. Neither exposure nor privation had thus wrought upon him: he was simply dying of fear. Having greeted Joseph with embarrassment, he kept glancing doubtfully at Malcolm, as if ready to run on his least movement. In a few words Joseph explained their quest, with trembling voice and tears that would not be denied enforcing the tale. Ere he had done, the laird's jaw had fallen, and further speech was impossible to him. But by gestures sad and plain enough, he indicated that he knew nothing of her, and had supposed her safe at home with her parents. In vain they tried to persuade him to go back with them, promising every protection: for sole answer he shook his head mournfully.

There came a sudden gust of wind among the branches. Joseph, little used to trees and their ways with the wind, turned towards the sound, and Malcolm unconsciously followed his movement. When they turned again, the laird had vanished, and they took their way homeward in sadness.

What passed next with the laird, can be but conjectured. It came to be well enough known afterwards where he had been hiding; and had it not been dusk as they came down the riverbank, the two men might, looking up to the bridge from below, have had it suggested to them. For in the half spandrel wall between the first arch and the bank, they might have spied a small window, looking down on the sullen, silent gloom, foam flecked with past commotion, that crept languidly away from beneath. It belonged to a little vaulted chamber in the bridge, devised by some banished lord as a kind of summer house—long neglected, but having in it yet a mouldering table, a broken chair or two, and a rough bench. A little path led steep from the end of the parapet down to its hidden door. It was now used only by the gamekeepers for traps and fishing gear, and odds and ends of things, and was generally supposed to be locked up. The laird had, however, found it open, and his refuge in it had been connived at by one of the men, who, as they heard afterwards, had given him the key, and assisted him in carrying out a plan he had devised for barricading the door. It was from this place he had so suddenly risen at the call of Blue Peter, and to it he had as suddenly withdrawn again—to pass in silence and loneliness through his last purgatorial pain.5

Mrs Stewart was sitting in her drawing room alone: she seldom had visitors at Kirkbyres—not that she liked being alone, or indeed being there at all, for she would have lived on the Continent, but that her son's trustees, partly to indulge their own aversion to her, taking upon them a larger discretionary power than rightly belonged to them, kept her too straitened, which no doubt in the recoil had its share in poor Stephen's misery. It was only after scraping for a whole year that she could escape to Paris or Hamburg, where she was at home. There her sojourn was determined by her good or ill fortune at faro.

What she meditated over her knitting by the firelight,—she had put out her candles,—it would be hard to say, perhaps unwholesome to think:—there are souls to look into which is, to our dim eyes, like gazing down from the verge of one of the Swedenborgian pits.

But much of the evil done by human beings is as the evil of evil beasts: they know not what they do—an excuse which, except in regard of the past, no man can make for himself, seeing the very making of it must testify its falsehood.

She looked up, gave a cry, and started to her feet: Stephen stood before her, halfway between her and the door. Revealed in a flicker of flame from the fire, he vanished in the following shade, and for a moment she stood in doubt of her seeing sense. But when the coal flashed again, there was her son, regarding her out of great eyes that looked as if they had seen death. A ghastly air hung about him as if he had just come back from Hades, but in his silent bearing there was a sanity, even dignity, which strangely impressed her. He came forward a pace or two, stopped, and said—

"Dinna be frichtit, mem. come. Sen' the lassie hame, an' du wi' me as ye like. I canna haud aff o' me. But I think deein', an ye needna misguide me."

His voice, although it trembled a little, was clear and unimpeded, and though weak, in its modulation manly.

Something in the woman's heart responded. Was it motherhood— or the deeper godhead? Was it pity for the dignity housed in the crumbling clay, or repentance for the son of her womb? Or was it that sickness gave hope, and she could afford to be kind?

"I don't know what you mean, Stephen," she said, more gently than he had ever heard her speak.

Was it an agony of mind or of body, or was it but a flickering of the shadows upon his face? A moment, and he gave a half choked shriek, and fell on the floor. His mother turned from him with disgust, and rang the bell.

"Send Tom here," she said.

An elderly, hard featured man came.

"Stephen is in one of his fits," she said.

The man looked about him: he could see no one in the room but his mistress.

"There he is," she continued, pointing to the floor. "Take him away. Get him up to the loft and lay him in the hay."

The man lifted his master like an unwieldy log, and carried him convulsed from the room.

Stephen's mother sat down again by the fire, and resumed her knitting.

CHAPTER LXV: THE LAIRD'S VISION

Malcolm had just seen his master set out for his solitary ride, when one of the maids informed him that a man from Kirkbyres wanted him. Hiding his reluctance, he went with her and found Tom, who was Mrs Stewart's grieve, and had been about the place all his days.

"Mr Stephen's come hame, sir," he said, touching his bonnet, a civility for which Malcolm was not grateful.

"It's no possible!" returned Malcolm. "I saw him last nicht."

"He cam about ten o'clock, sir, an' hed a turn o' the fa'in' sickness o' the spot. He 's verra ill the noo, an' the mistress sent me ower to speir gien ye wad obleege her by gaein' to see him."

"Has he ta'en till 's bed?" asked Malcolm.

"We pat him till 't, sir. He 's ravin' mad, an' thinkin' he 's no far frae his hin'er en'."

"I 'll gang wi' ye direckly," said Malcolm.

In a few minutes they were riding fast along the road to Kirkbyres, neither with much to say to the other, for Malcolm distrusted every one about the place, and Tom was by nature taciturn.

"What garred them sen' for me—div ye ken?" asked Malcolm at length, when they had gone about halfway.

"He cried oot upo' ye i' the nicht," answered Tom.

When they arrived, Malcolm was shown into the drawing room, where Mrs Stewart met him with red eyes.

"Will you come and see my poor boy?" she said.

"I wull du that, mem. Is he verra ill?"

"Very. afraid he is in a bad way."

She led him to a dark old fashioned chamber, rich and gloomy. There, sunk in the down of a huge bed with carved ebony posts, lay the laird, far too ill to be incommoded by the luxury to which he was unaccustomed. His head kept tossing from side to side, and his eyes seemed searching in vacancy.

"Has the doctor been to see 'im, mem?" asked Malcolm.

"Yes; but he says he can't do anything for him."

"Wha waits upon 'im, mem?"

"One of the maids and myself."

I 'll jist bide wi' 'im."

"That will be very kind of you."

"I s' bide wi' 'im till I see 'im oot o' this, ae w'y or ither," added Malcolm, and sat down by the bedside of his poor distrustful friend. There Mrs Stewart left him.

The laird was wandering in the thorny thickets and slimy marshes which, haunted by the thousand misshapen honors of delirium, beset the gates of life. That one so near the light, and slowly drifting into it, should lie tossing in hopeless darkness! Is it that the delirium falls, a veil of love, to hide other and more real terrors?

His eyes would now and then meet those of Malcolm, as they gazed tenderly upon him, but the living thing that looked out of the windows was darkened, and saw him not. Occasionally a word would fall from him, or a murmur of half articulation float up, like the sound of a river of souls; but whether Malcolm heard, or only seemed to hear, something like this, he could not tell, for he could not be certain that he had not himself shaped the words by receiving the babble into the moulds of the laird's customary thought and speech.

"I dinna ken whaur I cam frae!—I kenna whaur gaein' till.—Eh, gien he wad but come oot an' shaw himsel'!—O Lord! tak the deevil aff o' my puir back.—O Father o' lichts! gar him tak the hump wi' him. I hae nae fawvour for 't, though it 's been my constant companion this mony a lang."

But in general, he only moaned, and after the words thus heard or fashioned by Malcolm, lay silent and nearly still for an hour.

All the waning afternoon Malcolm sat by his side, and neither mother, maid, nor doctor came near them.

"Dark wa's an' no a breath!" he murmured or seemed to murmur again. "Nae gerse, nor flooers, nor bees!—I hae na room for my hump, an' I canna lie upo' 't, for that wad kill me!—Wull I ever ken whaur I cam frae?—The wine 's unco guid. Gie me a drap mair, gien ye please, Lady Horn.—I thought the grave was a better place. I hae lain safter afore I dee'd!—Phemy! Phemy! Rin, Phemy, rin! I s' bide wi' them this time. Ye rin, Phemy!"

As it grew dark, the air turned very chill, and snow began to fall thick and fast. Malcolm laid a few sticks on the smouldering peat fire, but they were damp and did not catch. All at once the laird gave a shriek, and crying out, "Mither, mither!" fell into a fit so violent that the heavy bed shook with his convulsions. Malcolm held his wrists and called aloud. No one came, and bethinking himself that none could help, he waited in silence, for what would follow.

The fit passed quickly, and he lay quiet. The sticks had meantime dried, and suddenly they caught fire and blazed up. The laird turned his face towards the flame; a smile came over it; his eyes opened wide, and with such an expression of seeing gazed beyond Malcolm, that he turned his in the same direction.

"Eh, the bonny man! The bonny man!" murmured the laird.

But Malcolm saw nothing, and turned again to the laird: his jaw had fallen, and the light was fading out of his face like the last of a sunset. He was dead.

Malcolm rang the bell, told the woman who answered it what had taken place, and hurried from the house, glad at heart that his friend was at rest.

He had ridden but a short distance when he was overtaken by a boy on a fast pony, who pulled up as he neared him.

"Whaur are ye for?" asked Malcolm.

" gaein' for Mistress Cat'nach," answered the boy.

"Gang yer wa's than, an' dinna haud the deid waitin'," said Malcolm, with a shudder.

The boy cast a look of dismay behind him, and galloped off.

The snow still fell, and the night was dark. Malcolm spent nearly two hours on the way, and met the boy returning, who told him that Mrs Catanach was not to be found.

His road lay down the glen, past Duncan's cottage, at whose door he dismounted, but he did not find him. Taking the bridle on his arm he walked by his horse the rest of the way. It was about nine o'clock, and the night very dark. As he neared the house, he heard Duncan's voice.

"Malcolm, my son! Will it pe your own self?" it said.

"It wull that, daddy," answered Malcolm.

The piper was sitting on a fallen tree, with the snow settling softly upon him.

"But it 's ower cauld for ye to be sittin' there i' the snaw, an' the mirk tu!" added Malcolm.

"Ta tarkness will not be ketting to ta inside of her," returned the seer. "Ah, my poy! where ta light kets in, ta tarkness will pe ketting in too. Tis now, your whole pody will pe full of tarkness, as ta piple will say, and Tuncan's pody—tat will pe full of ta light." Then with suddenly changed tone he said "Listen, Malcolm, my son! she'll pe fery uneasy till you 'll wass pe come home."

"What's the maitter noo, daddy?" returned Malcolm. "Ony thing wrang aboot the hoose?"

"Someting will pe wrong, yes, put she'll not can tell where. No, her pody will not pe full of light! For town here in ta curset Lowlands, ta sight has peen almost cone from her, my son. It will now pe no more as a co creeping troo' her, and she'll nefer see plain no more till she'll pe cone pack to her own mountains."

"The puir laird's gane back to his," said Malcolm. "I won'er gien he kens yet, or gien he gangs speirin' at ilk ane he meets gien he can tell him whaur he cam frae. He's mad nae mair, ony gait."

"How? Will he pe not tead? Ta poor lairt! Ta poor maad lairt!"

"Ay, he's deid: maybe that's what 'll be troublin' yer sicht, daddy."

"No, my son. Ta maad lairt was not fery maad, and if he was maad he was not paad, and it was not to ta plame of him; he wass coot always however."

"He was that, daddy."

"But it will pe something fery paad, and it will pe troubling her speerit. When she'll pe take ta pipes, to pe amusing herself, and will plow Till an crodh a' Dhonnachaidh (Turn the cows, Duncan), out will pe come Cumhadh an fhir mhoir (The Lament of the Big Man). All is not well, my son."

"Weel, dinna distress yersel', daddy. Lat come what wull come. Foreseein' 's no forefen'in'. Ye ken yersel' 'at mony 's the time the seer has broucht the thing on by tryin' to haud it aff."

"It will pe true, my son. Put it would aalways haf come."

"Nae doobt; sae ye jist come in wi' me, daddy, an' sit doon by the ha' fire, an' I 'll come to ye as sune 's I've been to see 'at the maister disna want me. But ye'll better come up wi' me to my room first," he went on, "for the maister disna like to see me in onything but the kilt."

"And why will he no pe in ta kilts aal as now?"

"I hae been ridin', ye ken, daddy, an' the trews fits the saiddle better nor the kilts."

"She'll not pe knowing tat. Old Allister, your creat—her own crandfather, was ta pest horseman ta worrlt efer saw, and he 'll nefer pe hafing ta trews to his own lecks nor ta saddle to his horse's pack. He 'll chust make his men pe strap on an old plaid, and he 'll pe kive a chump, and away they wass, horse and man, one peast, aal two of tem poth together."

Thus chatting they went to the stable, and from the stable to the house, where they met no one, and went straight up to Malcolm's room—the old man making as little of the long ascent as Malcolm himself.

CHAPTER LXVI: THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER

Brooding, if a man of his temperament may ever be said to brood, over the sad history of his young wife and the prospects of his daughter, the marquis rode over fields and through gates—he never had been one to jump a fence in cold blood—till the darkness began to fall; and the bearings of his perplexed position came plainly before him.

First of all, Malcolm acknowledged, and the date of his mother's death known, what would Florimel be in the eyes of the world? Supposing the world deceived by the statement that his mother died when he was born, where yet was the future he had marked out for her? He had no money to leave her, and she must be helplessly dependent on her brother.

Malcolm, on the other hand, might make a good match, or, with the advantages he could secure him, in the army, still better in the navy, well enough push his way in the world.

Miss Horn could produce no testimony; and Mrs Catanach had asserted him the son of Mrs Stewart. He had seen enough, however, to make him dread certain possible results if Malcolm were acknowledged as the laird of Kirkbyres. No; there was but one hopeful measure, one which he had even already approached in a tentative way—an appeal, namely, to Malcolm himself—in which, acknowledging his probable rights, but representing in the strongest manner the difficulty of proving them, he would set forth, in their full dismay, the consequences to Florimel of their public recognition, and offer, upon the pledge of his word to a certain line of conduct, to start him in any path he chose to follow.