The Marquis of Lossie

"Better that than live with such usage."

"I don't think she would agree with you, my lady. My fear is that, for as cruel as it looks to your ladyship, take it altogether, she enjoys the fight. In any case, I am certain she has more regard for me than any other being in the universe."

"Who can have any regard for you," said the lady very gently, in utter mistake of his meaning, "if you have no command of your temper? You must learn to rule yourself first."

"That's true, my lady; and so long as my mare is not able to be a law to herself, I must be a law to her too."

"But have you never heard of the law of kindness? You could do so much more without the severity."

"With some natures I grant you, my lady, but not with such as she. Horse or man – they never show kindness till they have learned fear. Kelpie would have torn me to pieces before now if I had taken your way with her. But except I can do a great deal more with her yet she will be nothing better than a natural brute beast made to be taken and destroyed."

"The Bible again!" murmured the lady to herself. "Of how much cruelty has not that book to bear the blame!"

All this time Kelpie was trying hard to get at the lady's horse to bite him. But she did not see that. She was much too distressed – and was growing more and more so.

"I wish you would let my groom try her," she said, after a pitiful pause. "He's an older and more experienced man than you. He has children. He would show you what can be done by gentleness."

From Malcolm's words she had scarcely gathered even a false meaning – not a glimmer of his nature – not even a suspicion that he meant something. To her he was but a handsome, brutal young groom. From the world of thought and reasoning that lay behind his words, not an echo had reached her.

"It would be a great satisfaction to my old Adam to let him try her," said Malcolm.

"The Bible again!" said the lady to herself.

"But it would be murder," he added, "not knowing myself what experience he has had."

"I see," said the lady to herself; but loud enough for Malcolm to hear, for her tender heartedness had made her both angry and unjust, "his self conceit is equal to his cruelty – just what I might have expected!"

With the words she turned her horse's head and rode away, leaving a lump in Malcolm's throat.

"I wuss fowk" – he still spoke in Scotch in his own chamber – "wad du as they're tell't, an' no jeedge ane anither. I'm sure it's Kelpie's best chance o' salvation 'at I gang on wi' her. Stable men wad ha'e had her brocken doon a'thegither by this time; an' life wad ha'e had little relish left."

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