The Marquis of Lossie

Most of the men were asleep in the bows of the boat; all were lying down but one. That one was Malcolm. He had come aft, and seated himself under the platform leaning against it.

The boat rose and sank a little, just enough to rock the sleeping children a little deeper into their sleep; Malcolm thought all slept. He did not see how Clementina's eyes shone back to the heavens – no star in them to be named beside those eyes. She knew that Malcolm was near her, but she would not speak; she would not break the peace of the presence. A minute or two passed. Then softly woke a murmur of sound, that strengthened and grew, and swelled at last into a song. She feared to stir lest she should interrupt its flow. And thus it flowed:

The stars are steady abune;I' the water they flichter an' flee;But steady aye luikin' doon,They ken themsel's i' the sea.A' licht, an' clear, an' free,God, thou shinest abune;Yet luik, an' see thysel' in me,God, whan thou luikest doon.

A silence followed, but a silence that seemed about to be broken. And again Malcolm sang:

There was an auld fisher – he sat by the wa',An' luikit oot ower the sea;The bairnies war playin', he smilit on them a',But the tear stude in his e'e.An' it's oh to win awa', awa'!An' it's oh to win awa'Whaur the bairns come home, an' the wives they bide,An' God is the Father o' a'!Jocky an' Jeamy an' Tammy oot there,A' i' the boatie gaed doon;An' I'm ower auld to fish ony mair,An' I hinna the chance to droon.An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! &c.An' Jeanie she grat to ease her hert,An' she easit hersel' awa'But I'm ower auld for the tears to stert,An' sae the sighs maun blaw.An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! &c.Lord, steer me hame whaur my Lord has steerit,For I'm tired o' life's rockin' seaAn' dinna be lang, for I'm nearhan' fearit'At I'm 'maist ower auld to dee.An' it's oh to win awa', awe'! &c.

Again the stars and the sky were all, and there was no sound but the slight murmurous lipping of the low swell against the edges of the planks. Then Clementina said:

"Did you make that song, Malcolm?"

"Whilk o' them, my leddy? – But it's a' ane – they're baith mine, sic as they are."

"Thank you," she returned.

"What for, my leddy?"

"For speaking Scotch to me."

"I beg your pardon, my lady. I forgot your ladyship was English."

"Please forget it," she said. "But I thank you for your songs too. It was the second I wanted to know about; the first I was certain was your own. I did not know you could enter like that into the feelings of an old man."

"Why not, my lady? I never can see living thing without asking it how it feels. Often and often, out here at such a time as this, have I tried to fancy myself a herring caught by the gills in the net down below, instead of the fisherman in the boat above going to haul him out."

"And did you succeed?"

"Well, I fancy I came to understand as much of him as he does himself. It's a merry enough life down there. The flukes – plaice, you call them, my lady, – bother me, I confess. I never contemplate one without feeling as if I had been sat upon when I was a baby. But for an old man! – Why, that's what I shall be myself one day most likely, and it would be a shame not to know pretty nearly how he felt – near enough at least to make a song about him."

"And shan't you mind being an old man, then, Malcolm?"

"Not in the least, my lady. I shall mind nothing so long as I can trust in the maker of me. If my faith should give way – why then there would be nothing worth minding either! I don't know but I should kill myself."

"Malcolm!"

"Which is worse, my lady – to distrust God, or to think life worth having without him?"

"But one may hope in the midst of doubt – at least that is what Mr Graham – and you – have taught me to do."

"Yes, surely, my lady. I won't let anyone beat me at that, if I can help it. And I think that so long as I kept my reason, I should be able to cry out, as that grandest and most human of all the prophets did – 'Though he slay me yet will I trust in him.' But would you not like to sleep, my lady?"

"No, Malcolm. I would much rather hear you talk, – Could you not tell me a story now? Lady Lossie mentioned one you once told her about an old castle somewhere not far from here."

"Eh, my leddy!" broke in Annie Mair, who had waked up while they were speaking, "I wuss ye wad gar him tell ye that story, for my man he's h'ard 'im tell't, an' he says it's unco gruesome: I wad fain hear 't. – Wauk up, Lizzy," she went on, in her eagerness waiting for no answer; "Ma'colm's gauin' to tell 's the tale o' the auld castel o' Colonsay. – It's oot by yon'er, my leddy – 'no that far frae the Deid Heid. – Wauk up, Lizzy."

"I'm no sleepin', Annie," said Lizzy, "– though like Ma'colm's auld man," she added with a sigh, "I wad whiles fain be."

Now there were reasons why Malcolm should not be unwilling to tell the strange wild story requested of him, and he commenced it at once, but modified the Scotch of it considerably for the sake of the unaccustomed ears. When it was ended Clementina said nothing; Annie Mair said "Hech, sirs!" and Lizzy with a great sigh, remarked,

"The deil maun be in a'thing whaur God hasna a han', I'm thinkin'."

"Ye may tak yer aith upo' that," rejoined Malcolm.

It was a custom in Peter's boat never to draw the nets without a prayer, uttered now by one and now by another of the crew. Upon this occasion, whether it was in deference to Malcolm, who, as he well understood, did not like long prayers, or that the presence of Clementina exercised some restraint upon his spirit, out of the bows of the boat came now the solemn voice of its master, bearing only this one sentence:

"Oh Thoo, wha didst tell thy dissiples to cast the net upo' the side whaur swam the fish, gien it be thy wull 'at we catch the nicht, lat 's catch; gien it binna thy wull, lat 's no catch. – Haul awa', my laads."

Up sprang the men, and went each to his place, and straight a torrent of gleaming fish was pouring in over the gunwale of the boat. Such a take it was ere the last of the nets was drawn, as the oldest of them had seldom seen. Thousands of fish there were that had never got into the meshes at all.

"I cannot understand it," said Clementina. "There are multitudes more fish than there are meshes in the nets to catch them: if they are not caught, why do they not swim away?"

"Because they are drowned, my lady," answered Malcolm.

"What do you mean by that? How can you drown a fish?"

"You may call it suffocated if you like, my lady; it is all the same. You have read of panic stricken people, when a church or a theatre is on fire, rushing to the door all in a heap, and crowding each other to death? It is something like that with the fish. They are swimming along in a great shoal, yards thick; and when the first can get no farther, that does not at once stop the rest, any more than it would in a crowd of people; those that are behind come pressing up into every corner, where there is room, till they are one dense mass. Then they push and push to get forward, and can't get through, and the rest come still crowding on behind and above and below, till a multitude of them are jammed so tight against each other that they can't open their gills; and even if they could, there would not be air enough for them. You've seen the goldfish in the swan basin, my lady, how they open and shut their gills constantly: that's their way of getting air out of the water by some wonderful contrivance nobody understands, for they need breath just as much as we do: and to close their gills is to them the same as closing a man's mouth and nose. That's how the most of those herrings are taken."

All were now ready to seek the harbour. A light westerly wind was still blowing, with the aid of which, heavy laden, they crept slowly to the land. As she lay snug and warm, with the cool breath of the sea on her face, a half sleep came over Clementina, and she half dreamed that she was voyaging in a ship of the air, through infinite regions of space, with a destination too glorious to be known. The herring boat was a living splendour of strength and speed, its sails were as the wings of a will, in place of the instruments of a force, and softly as mightily it bore them through the charmed realms of dreamland towards the ideal of the soul. And yet the herring boat but crawled over the still waters with its load of fish, as the harvest waggon creeps over the field with its piled up sheaves; and she who imagined its wondrous speed was the only one who did not desire it should move faster.

No word passed between her and Malcolm all their homeward way. Each was brooding over the night and its joy that enclosed them together, and hoping for that which was yet to be shaken from the lap of the coming time.

Also Clementina had in her mind a scheme for attempting what Malcolm had requested of her; the next day must see it carried into effect; and ever and anon, like a cold blast of doubt invading the bliss of confidence, into the heart of that sea borne peace darted the thought, that, if she failed, she must leave at once for England, for she would not again meet Liftore.

CHAPTER LXVII: SHORE

At last they glided once more through the stony jaws of the harbour, as if returning again to the earth from a sojourn in the land of the disembodied. When Clementina's foot touched the shore she felt like one waked out of a dream, from whom yet the dream has not departed – but keeps floating about him, waved in thinner and yet thinner streams from the wings of the vanishing sleep.

It seemed almost as if her spirit, instead of having come back to the world of its former abode, had been borne across the parting waters and landed on the shore of the immortals. There was the ghostlike harbour of the spirit land, the water gleaming betwixt its dark walls, one solitary boat motionless upon it, the men moving about like shadows in the star twilight! Here stood three women and a man on the shore, and save the stars no light shone, and from the land came no sound of life. Was it the dead of the night, or a day that had no sun? It was not dark, but the light was rayless. Or, rather, it was as if she had gained the power of seeing in the dark.

Suppressed sleep wove the stuff of a dream around her, and the stir at her heart kept it alive with dream forms. Even the voice of Peter's Annie, saying, "I s' bide for my man. Gude nicht, my leddy," did not break the charm. Her heart shaped that also into the dream. Turning away with Malcolm and Lizzy, she passed along the front of the Seaton.

How still, how dead, how empty like cenotaphs, all the cottages looked! How the sea which lay like a watcher at their doors, murmured in its sleep! Arrived at the entrance to her own close, Lizzy next bade them good night, and Clementina and Malcolm were left.

And now drew near the full power, the culmination of the mounting enchantment of the night for Malcolm. When once the Scaurnose people should have passed them, they would be alone – alone as in the spaces between the stars. There would not be a living soul on the shore for hours. From the harbour the nearest way to the House was by the sea gate, but where was the haste – with the lovely night around them, private as a dream shared only by two? Besides, to get in by that, they would have had to rouse the cantankerous Bykes, and what a jar would not that bring into the music of the silence! Instead, therefore, of turning up by the side of the stream where it crossed the shore, he took Clementina once again in his arms unforbidden, and carried her over. Then the long sands lay open to their feet. Presently they heard the Scaurnose party behind them, coming audibly, merrily on. As by a common resolve they turned to the left, and crossing the end of the Boar's Tail, resumed their former direction, with the dune now between them and the sea. The voices passed on the other side, and they heard them slowly merge into the inaudible. At length, after an interval of silence, on the westerly air came one quiver of laughter – by which Malcolm knew his friends were winding up the red path to the top of the cliff. And now the shore was bare of presence, bare of sound save the soft fitful rush of the rising tide. But behind the long sandhill, for all they could see of the sea, they might have been in the heart of a continent.

"Who would imagine the ocean so near us, my lady!" said Malcolm, after they had walked for some time without word spoken.

"Who can tell what may be near us?" she returned.

"True, my lady. Our future is near us, holding thousands of things unknown. Hosts of thinking beings with endless myriads of thoughts may be around us. What a joy to know that, of all things and all thoughts, God is nearest to us – so near that we cannot see him, but, far beyond seeing him, can know of him infinitely!"

As he spoke they came opposite the tunnel, but he turned from it and they ascended the dune. As their heads rose over the top, and the sky night above and the sea night beneath rolled themselves out and rushed silently together, Malcolm said, as if thinking aloud:

"Thus shall we meet death and the unknown, and the new that breaks from the bosom of the invisible will be better than the old upon which the gates close behind us. The Son of man is content with my future, and I am content."

There was a peace in the words that troubled Clementina: he wanted no more than he had – this cold, imperturbable, devout fisherman! She did not see that it was the confidence of having all things that held his peace rooted. From the platform of the swivel, they looked abroad over the sea. Far north in the east lurked a suspicion of dawn, which seemed, while they gazed upon it, to "languish into life," and the sea was a shade less dark than when they turned from it to go behind the dune. They descended a few paces, and halted again.

"Did your ladyship ever see the sun rise?" asked Malcolm.

"Never in open country," she answered.

"Then stay and see it now, my lady. He'll rise just over yonder, a little nearer this way than that light from under his eyelids. A more glorious chance you could not have. And when he rises, just observe, one minute after he is up, how like a dream all you have been in tonight will look. It is to me strange even to awfulness how many different phases of things, and feelings about them, and moods of life and consciousness, God can tie up in the bundle of one world with one human soul to carry it."

Clementina slowly sank on the sand of the slope, and like lovely sphinx of northern desert, gazed in immovable silence out on the yet more northern sea. Malcolm took his place a little below, leaning on his elbow, for the slope was steep, and looking up at her. Thus they waited the sunrise.

Was it minutes or only moments passed in that silence – whose speech was the soft ripple of the sea on the sand? Neither could have answered the question. At length said Malcolm,

"I think of changing my service, my lady."

"Indeed, Malcolm!"

"Yes, my lady. My – mistress does not like to turn me away, but she is tired of me, and does not want me any longer."

"But you would never think of finally forsaking a fisherman's life for that of a servant, surely, Malcolm?"

"What would become of Kelpie, my lady?" rejoined Malcolm, smiling to himself.

"Ah!" said Clementina, bewildered; "I had not thought of her. – But you cannot take her with you," she added, coming a little to her senses.

"There is nobody about the place who could, or rather, who would do anything with her. They would sell her. I have enough to buy her, and perhaps somebody might not object to the encumbrance, but hire me and her together. – Your groom wants a coachman's place, my lady."

"0 Malcolm! do you mean you would be my groom?" cried Clementina, pressing her palms together.

"If you would have me, my lady; but I have heard you say you would have none but a married man."

"But – Malcolm – don't you know anybody that would? – Could you not find some one – some lady – that? – I mean, why shouldn't you be a married man?"

"For a very good and to me rather sad reason, my lady; the only woman I could marry, or should ever be able to marry, – would not have me. She is very kind and very noble, but – it is preposterous – the thing is too preposterous. I dare not have the presumption to ask her."

Malcolm's voice trembled as he spoke, and a few moments' pause followed, during which he could not lift his eyes. The whole heaven seemed pressing down their lids. The breath which he modelled into words seemed to come in little billows.

But his words had raised a storm in Clementina's bosom. A cry broke from her, as if driven forth by pain. She called up all the energy of her nature, and stilled herself to speak. The voice that came was little more than a sob scattered whisper, but to her it seemed as if all the world must hear.

"Oh Malcolm!" she panted, "I will try to be good and wise. Don't marry anybody else – anybody, I mean; but come with Kelpie and be my groom, and wait and see if I don't grow better."

Malcolm leaped to his feet and threw himself at hers. He had heard but in part, and he must know all.

"My lady," he said, with intense quiet, "Kelpie and I will be your slaves. Take me for fisherman – groom – what you will. I offer the whole sum of service that is in me." He kissed her feet.

"My lady, I would put your feet on my head," he went on, "only then what should I do when I see my Lord, and cast myself before Him?"

But Clementina, again her own to give, rose quickly, and said with all the dignity born of her inward grandeur,

"Rise, Malcolm; you misunderstand me."

Malcolm rose abashed, but stood erect before her, save that his head was bowed, for his heart was sunk in dismay. Then slowly, gently, Clementina knelt before him. He was bewildered, and thought she was going to pray. In sweet, clear, unshaken tones, for she feared nothing now, she said,

"Malcolm, I am not worthy of you. But take me – take my very soul if you will, for it is yours."

Now Malcolm saw that he had no right to raise a kneeling lady; all he could do was to kneel beside her. When people kneel, they lift up their hearts; and the creating heart of their joy was forgotten of neither. And well for them, for the love where God is not, be the lady lovely as Cordelia, the man gentle as Philip Sidney, will fare as the overkept manna.

When the huge tidal wave from the ocean of infinite delight had broken at last upon the shore of the finite, and withdrawn again into the deeps, leaving every cistern brimming, every fountain overflowing, the two entranced souls opened their bodily eyes, looked at each other, rose, and stood hand in hand, speechless.

"Ah, my lady!" said Malcolm at length, "what is to become of this delicate smoothness in my great rough hand? Will it not be hurt?"

"You don't know how strong it is, Malcolm. There!"

"I can scarcely feel it with my hand, my lady; it all goes through to my heart. It shall lie in mine as the diamond in the rock."

"No, no, Malcolm! Now that I am going to be a fisherman's wife, it must be a strong hand – it must work. What homage shall you require of me, Malcolm? What will you have me do to rise a little nearer your level? Shall I give away lands and money? And shall I live with you in the Seaton? or will you come and fish at Wastbeach?"

"Forgive me, my lady; I can't think about things now – even with you in them. There is neither past nor future to me now – only this one eternal morning. Sit here, and look up, Lady Clementina: – see all those worlds: – something in me constantly says that I shall know every one of them one day; that they are all but rooms in the house of my spirit, that is, the house of our Father. Let us not now, when your love makes me twice eternal, talk of time and places. Come, let us fancy ourselves two blessed spirits, lying full in the sight and light of our God, – as indeed what else are we? – warming our hearts in his presence and peace; and that we have but to rise and spread our wings to sear aloft and find – what shall it be, my lady? Worlds upon worlds? No, no. What are worlds upon worlds in infinite show until we have seen the face of the Son of Man?"

A silence fell. But he resumed.

"Let us imagine our earthly life behind us, our hearts clean, love all in all. – But that sends me back to the now. My lady, I know I shall never love you aright until you have helped me perfect. When the face of the least lovely of my neighbours needs but appear to rouse in my heart a divine tenderness, then it must be that I shall love you better than now. Now, alas! I am so pervious to wrong! so fertile of resentments and indignations! You must cure me, my divine Clemency. – Am I a poor lover to talk, this first glorious hour, of anything but my lady love? Ah! but let it excuse me that this love is no new thing to me. It is a very old love. I have loved you a thousand years. I love every atom of your being, every thought that can harbour in your soul, and I am jealous of hurting your blossoms with the over jubilant winds of that very love. I would therefore behold you folded in the atmosphere of the Love eternal. My lady, if I were to talk of your beauty, I should but offend you, for you would think I raved, and spoke not the words of truth and soberness. But how often have I not cried to the God who breathed the beauty into you that it might shine out of you, to save my soul from the tempest of its own delight therein. And now I am like one that has caught an angel in his net, and fears to come too nigh, lest fire should flash from the eyes of the startled splendour, and consume the net and him who holds it. But I will not rave, because I would possess in grand peace that which I lay at your feet. I am yours, and would be worthy of your moonlight calm."

"Alas! I am beside you but a block of marble!" said Clementina. "You are so eloquent, my –"

"New groom," suggested Malcolm gently.

Clementina smiled.

"But my heart is so full," she went on, "that I cannot think the filmiest thought. I hardly know that I feel. I only know that I want to weep."

"Weep then, my word ineffable!" cried Malcolm, and laid himself again at her feet, kissed them, and was silent.

He was but a fisher poet; no courtier, no darling of society, no dealer in the fine speeches, no clerk of compliments. All the words he had were the living blossoms of thought rooted in feeling. His pure clear heart was as a crystal cup, through which shone the red wine of his love. To himself Malcolm stammered as a dumb man, the string of whose tongue has but just been loosed; to Clementina his speech was as the song of the Lady to Comus, "divine enchanting ravishment." The God of truth is surely present at every such marriage feast of two radiant spirits. Their joy was that neither had fooled the hope of the other.

And so the herring boat had indeed carried Clementina over into paradise, and this night of the world was to her a twilight of heaven. God alone can tell what delights it is possible for him to give to the pure in heart who shall one day behold him. Like two that had died and found each other, they talked until speech rose into silence, they smiled until the dews which the smiles had sublimed claimed their turn and descended in tears.

All at once they became aware that an eye was upon them. It was the sun. He was ten degrees up the slope of the sky, and they had never seen him rise.

With the sun came a troublous thought, for with the sun came "a world of men." Neither they nor the simple fisher folk, their friends, had thought of the thing, but now at length it occurred to Clementina that she would rather not walk up to the door of Lossie House with Malcolm at this hour of the morning. Yet neither could she well appear alone. Ere she had spoken Malcolm rose.

"You won't mind being left, my lady," he said, "for a quarter of an hour or so – will you? I want to bring Lizzy to walk home with you."

He went, and Clementina sat alone on the dune in a reposeful rapture, to which the sleeplessness of the night gave a certain additional intensity and richness and strangeness. She watched the great strides of her fisherman as he walked along the sands, and she seemed not to be left behind, but to go with him every step. The tide was again falling, and the sea shone and sparkled and danced with life, and the wet sand gleamed, and a soft air blew on her cheek, and the lordly sun was mounting higher and higher, and a lark over her head was sacrificing all nature in his song; and it seemed as if Malcolm were still speaking strange, half intelligible, altogether lovely things in her ears. She felt a little weary, and laid her head down upon her arm to listen more at her ease.