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 misdoobted 'at ye wasna the same to me efter ye cam to yer ain. I beg yer pardon, my lord, here i' the face o' my freen's. It was ill-temper an' pride i' me, jist the same as it's noo in Girnel there; an' ye maun forgie him, as ye forgae me, my lord, as sune 's ye can."
"I'll du that, my Peter, the verra moment he wants to be forgi'en," said Malcolm.
But Girnel turned with a grunt, and moved away toward the cliff.
"This'll never du," said Peter. "A man 'at's honest i' 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 (intercept) 'im an' keep 'im. We'll hae to cast a k-not or twa aboot 'im an' lay 'im i' the boddom o' the boat."
The six had already started after him like one man. But Malcolm cried, "Let him go: he has done me no wrong yet, and I don't 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 and distributed according to his purpose, ending with Mrs. Courthope at the House. Then he fed and dressed Kelpie, saddled her and galloped to Duff Harbor, 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. Returning to the House, he put up Kelpie, rubbed her down and fed her; then, finding 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, because they smelt of the stable, to take off his boots before he went up stairs—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.
While 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.
With trembling hands, and heart now beating wildly, now failing 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 her 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 behind 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 the stinging blasts of her shame and sorrow. As much from inability to stand as in supplication for the coveted favor, she dropped on her knees before him, incapable of uttering a word, but holding up her child imploringly. Taken altogether by surprise, and not knowing what to say or do, the earl stood and stared for a moment; then, moved by a dull spirit of subterfuge, fell back on the pretence of knowing nothing about her. "Well, young woman," he said, affecting cheerfulness, "what do you want with me? I didn't advertise for a baby. Pretty child though!"
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 sank motionless at his feet. Florimel went to the bell.
But Clementina prevented her from ringing. "I will take her away," she said. "Do not expose her to your servants. Lady Lossie, my Lord Liftore is the father of this child; and if you can marry him after the way you have seen him use its mother, you are not too good for him, and I will trouble myself no more about you."
"I know the author of this calumny," cried Florimel, panting and flushed. "You have been listening to the inventions of an ungrateful dependant. You slander my guest."
"Is it a calumny, my lord? Do I slander you?" said Lady Clementina, turning sharply upon the earl.
His lordship made her a cool obeisance.
Clementina ran into the library, laid the child in a big chair, and returned for the mother. She was already coming a little to herself and feeling about blindly for her baby, while Florimel and Liftore were looking out of the window, with their backs toward her. Clementina raised and led her from the room. But in the doorway she turned and said, "Good-bye, Lady Lossie. I thank you for your hospitality, but I can of course be your guest no longer."
"Of course not. There is no occasion for prolonged leave-taking," Florimel returned 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, and clasped them both in her own.
A gush of tears lightened the oppressed heart of the mother. "Lat me oot o' the hoose, for God's sake!" she cried; and 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.
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.
"Ma'colm!" groaned the poor girl, holding out her baby, "he winna own till 't! He winna alloo 'at he kens aucht 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, 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' 'im. An' whatever 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 toward 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 arms and strode toward 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.
"I daurna! I daurna!" she said. But she lingered about the door.
When the earl saw Malcolm coming, although 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 enemy, it may be pardoned him that for the next few seconds his heart doubled its beats. But of all things he must not show fear before Florimel. "What can the fellow be after now?" he said. "I must go down to him."
"No, no! don't go near him: he may be violent," objected Florimel, and laid her hand on his arm with a beseeching look in her face. "He is a dangerous man."
Liftore laughed. "Stop here till I return," he said, and left the room.
But Florimel followed, fearful of what might happen, and enraged with her brother.
Malcolm's brief detention by Lizzy gave Liftore a little 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 to strike. Malcolm, however, caught sight of him and his attitude in time, and, fearful of breaking his word to Lizzy, pulled himself up abruptly a few steps from the top just as Florimel appeared.
"MacPhail," she said, sweeping to the stair like an indignant goddess, "I discharge you from my service. Leave the house instantly."
Malcolm turned, flew down, and ran to the servants' stair, half the length of the house away. As he crossed the servants' hall he saw Rose. She was the only one in the house except Clementina to whom he could look for help. "Come after me, Rose," he said, without stopping.
She followed instantly, as fast as she could run, and saw him enter the drawing-room. Florimel and Liftore were there. The earl had Florimel's hand in his.
"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 turned upon Malcolm in a fury. But he had not now the advantage of the stair, and hesitated. Florimel's eyes dilated with wrath.
"I 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 earl.
"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."
"I 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 gie ye back yer word."
"We'll manage yet, Lizzy," answered Malcolm, and kept warily retreating toward a window. Suddenly he dashed his elbow through a pane, and gave a loud shrill whistle, the same instant receiving a blow over the eye which the blood followed. Lizzy made a rush forward, but the terror that the father would strike the child he had disowned seized her, and she stood trembling.
Already, however, Clementina and Rose had darted between, and, full of rage as he was, Liftore was compelled to restrain himself. "Oh!" he said, "if ladies want a share in the row, I must yield my place," and drew back.
The few men-servants now came hurrying all together into the room.
"Take that rascal there and put him under the pump," said Liftore. "He is mad."
"My fellow-servants know better than touch me," said Malcolm.
The men looked to their mistress. "Do as my lord tells you," she said, "and instantly."
"Men," said Malcolm, "I have spared that foolish lord there for the sake of this fisher-girl and his child, but don't one of you touch me."
Stoat was a brave-enough man, and not a little jealous of Malcolm, but he dared not obey his mistress.
And now came the tramp of many feet along the landing from the stair-head, and the six fishermen entered, two and two.
Florimel started forward. "My brave fishermen!" she cried, "take that bad man, MacPhail, and put him out of my grounds."
"I canna du 't, my leddy," answered their leader.
"Take Lord Liftore," said Malcolm, "and hold him while I make him acquainted with a fact or two which he may judge of consequence to him."
The men walked straight up to the earl. He struck right and left, but was overpowered in a moment and held fast.
"Stan' still," said Peter, "or I hae a han'fu' o' twine i' my pooch 'at I'll jist cast a k-not aboot yer airms wi' in a jiffey."
His lordship stood still, muttering curses.
Then Malcolm stepped into the middle of the room, approaching his sister.
"I tell you to leave the house," Florimel shrieked, beside herself with fury, yet pale as marble with a growing terror for which she could ill have accounted.
"Florimel!" said Malcolm solemnly, calling his sister by her name for the first time.
"You insolent wretch!" she cried, panting. "What right have you, if you be, as you say, my base-born brother, to call me by my name?"
"Florimel!" repeated Malcolm—and the voice was like the voice of her father—"I have done what I could to serve you."
"And I want no more such service," she returned, beginning to tremble.
"But you have driven me almost to extremities," he went on, heedless of her interruption. "Beware of doing so quite."
"Will nobody take pity on me?" said Florimel, and looked round imploringly. Then, finding herself ready to burst into tears, she gathered all her pride, and stepping up to Malcolm, looked him in the face, and said, "Pray, sir, is this house yours or mine?"
"Mine," answered Malcolm. "I am the marquis of Lossie, and while I am your elder brother and the head of the family you shall never with my consent marry that base man—a man it would blast me to the soul to call brother."
Liftore uttered a fierce imprecation.
"If you dare give breath to another such word in my sister's presence I will have you gagged," said Malcolm.—"If my sister marries him," he continued, turning again to Florimel, "not one shilling shall she take with her beyond what she may happen to have in her purse at the moment. She is in my power, and I will use it to the utmost to protect her from that man."
"Proof!" cried Liftore sullenly. But Florimel gazed with pale dilated eyes in the face of the speaker. She knew his words were true. Her soul assured her of it.
"To my sister," answered Malcolm, "I will give all the proof she may please to require—to Lord Liftore I will not even repeat my assertion: to him I will give no shadow of proof. I will but cast him out of my house.—Stoat, order horses for Lady Bellair."
"Gien ye please, sir, my lord," replied Stoat, "the Lossie Airms' horses is ordered a'ready for Lady Clementina."
"Will my Lady Clementina oblige me by yielding her horses to Lady Bellair?" said Malcolm, turning to her.
"Certainly, my lord," answered Clementina.
"You, I trust, my lady," said Malcolm, "will stay a little longer with my sister."
Lady Bellair came up. "My lord," she said, "is this the marquis or the fisherman's way of treating a lady?"
"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: "Three of you take that lord to the town-gate, and leave him on the other side of it. His servant shall follow as soon as the horses come."
"I 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 labor 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 endeavors. She has not loved or followed the truth. She has been proud and disdainful, and careless of right. 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 speak and send him away."
"Sir, I go with my Lady Bellair, driven from my 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.
"Let 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 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 honor 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 dishonor, 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?"
"I will, my lord," she answered, and went.
Malcolm walked up to Liftore. "My lord," he said, "my sister takes her leave of you."
"I must have my dismissal from her own lips."
"You shall have it from the hands of my fishermen.—Take him away."
"You shall hear from me, my lord marquis, if such 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 toward 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 surely be 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 ill 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 honors 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, half drew her from the room, pushed Lenorme in, and closed the door.
"Will you meet me on the sandhill 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 a while, 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, 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 hae sic a son o' yer boady to come hame to ye when 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, efter a'!"
Malcolm laughed, and she could not help joining him.
"Ye maun come the morn an' chise yer ain room i' the Hoose," he said.
"What mean ye by that, laddie?"
"'At ye'll hae to come an' bide wi' me noo."
"'Deed an' I s' du naething o' the kin', Ma'colm. H'ard ever onybody sic nonsense? What wad I du wi' Jean? An' I cudna thole men-fowk to wait upo' me: I wad be clean 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.
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 all, Florimel?" he asked.
"Yes, Malcolm," she answered. "Tell him again yourself."
"No, Florimel: once is enough."
"I told him all," she said with a gasp, then gave a wild little cry, and, with subdued exultation, added, "and he loves me yet! He has taken the girl without a name to his heart!"
"No wonder," said Malcolm, "when she brought it with her."
"Yes," said Lenorme, "I but 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 behaviors 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 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 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 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 fisherman: 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 vapor 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.
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 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 marquis, 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 himself. 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 foresight 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 translated. The men came crowding 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 honor; would not, by word, gesture, tone or exclamation, 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 outstretched hand. "I am glad indeed to see you, Mr. Crathie," he said, "but I fear you are out too soon."
"I 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."
"I 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 dealt 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 me as 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 injury 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 re-state 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 a man 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 lady with him in the dinghy; and indeed they were together, in one place and another, the most of the day—at one time flying 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 endeavor to that end.
"You of Portlossie shall have your harbor 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 harbor themselves. It was their business—in part, at least, they said—and they were ashamed of having left it so long. This did much toward starting well for a new order of things.
"You of Scaurnose shall hear the blasting necessary for your harbor commence within a fortnight; and every house shall ere long have a small piece of land at a reasonable rate allotted 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 endeavor 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.
"I 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 neighbor 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 in some measure distinguished between the men who have heart and brain, and the men who have merely a sense of their own importance; 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 than interrupted by a hearty cheer: at this point the cheering was greatly prolonged: 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 refraining 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 neighbors. 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 honor of others lie bare to their secret attack. They shall live here, in this town, thoroughly known and absolutely distrusted. And that they may thus be known and distrusted, 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 recover. 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 thereby they will compel me to bring my actions for murder and conspiracy. Let them choose.
"Hear what I have determined concerning them. The woman Catanach shall take to her cottage the woman Caley. That cottage they shall have rent free: who could receive money from such hands? I will appoint them also a sufficiency for life and maintenance, bare indeed, for I would not have them comfortable. But they shall be free to work if they can find any to employ them. If, however, either shall go beyond the bounds I set she shall be followed the moment she is missed, and that with a warrant for her apprehension. And I beg all honest people to keep an eye upon them. According as they live shall their life be. If they come to repentance, they will bless the day I resolved upon such severe measures on their behalf. Let them go to their place."
I will not try to describe the devilish look, mingled of contempt and hate, that possessed the countenance of the midwife as, with head erect and eyes looking straight before her, she obeyed the command. Caley, white as death, trembled and tottered, nor dared once look up as she followed her companion to their appointed hell. Whether they made it pleasant for each other 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 rose out of them, and deprived of every chance of indulging her dominant passion for mischievous influence, the midwife's face told such a different tale that the schoolmaster began to cherish a feeble hope that within a few years Mrs. Catanach might get so far as to begin to suspect that 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 horror and dismay. Not until then did he know, after all he knew concerning her, what the woman was capable of.
At his own entreaty, Duncan was formally recognized as piper to the marquis of Lossie. His ambition reached no higher. Malcolm himself saw to his perfect equipment, heedful specially that his kilt and plaid should be of Duncan's own tartan of red and blue and green. His dirk and broadsword he had new sheathed, with silver mountings. A great silver brooch with a big cairngorm in the centre took the place of the brass one, which henceforth was laid up among the precious things in the little armory, and the badge of his clan in gold, with rubies and amethysts for the bells of the heather, glowed on his bonnet. And Malcolm's guests, as long as Duncan continued able to fill the bag, had to endure as best they might, between each course at 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 English 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 the truth. Many men would not tell a lie, yet seem to have faith in concealment; they would rather not reveal the truth; darkness seems to offer them the cover of a friendly wing. But there is no veil like light—no adamantine armor 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 dinner 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 delighted 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 adjacent 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 honor at his right hand and Clementina on his left. Lenorme sat next to Florimel, and Annie Mair next to Lenorme. On the other side, Mr. Graham sat next to Clementina, Miss Horn next to Mr. Graham, and Blue Peter next to Miss Horn. Except Mr. Morrison, he had asked none who were not his tenants or servants, or in some way connected with the estates, except indeed a few whom he counted old friends, amongst them some aged beggar-folk waiting their summons to Abraham's bosom; in which there was no such exceptional virtue on the marquis's part, for, the poor law not having yet invaded Scotland, a man was not without the respect of his neighbors merely because he was a pauper. He set Mr. Morrison to preside at the farmers' tables, and had all the fisher-folk about himself.
When the main part of the dinner was over, he rose, and with 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 of the world that evil should bring forth good, and his poor little cockboat had been set adrift upon an ocean of blessing. For had he not been taken to the heart of one of the noblest and simplest of men, who had brought him up in honorable poverty and rectitude? When he had said this he turned to Duncan, who sat at his own table behind him with his pipes on a stool covered with a rich cloth by his side. "You all know my grandfather," he went on, "and you all respect him."
At this rose a great shout.
"I thank you, my friends," he continued. "My desire is that every soul upon land of mine should carry himself to Duncan MacPhail as if he were in blood that which he is in 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.
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 privilege of the confidence and companionship of honorable laboring 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.
Then he turned again to his narrative, and told how his father, falsely informed that his wife and child were dead, married Florimel's mother; how his mother, out of compassion 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 afterward made affidavit concerning it; and how his father had upon his deathbed, 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 honored sister—loved and honored 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 which will bring her honor 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 labor 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 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 toward him, let him come to me. Should I find myself in doubt, I have here at my side my loved and honored 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 honored the house of Lossie by consenting to become its marchioness? Lady Clementina Thornicroft possesses large estates in the south of England, but not for them did I seek her favor, 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.
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 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 unspeakable 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 Harbor, 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 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.
Alone at length in their somewhat strange quarters—concerning 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.
"Can there be such a stair to this room?" she asked in surprise.
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.
"Let us go down," said Clementina.
"Are you not afraid? Look!" said Malcolm.
"Afraid, and you with me!" she exclaimed.
"But it is dark, and the steps are broken."
"If it led to Hades I would go with my fisherman. The only horror would be to be left behind."
"Come, then," said Malcolm; "only you must be very careful."
He laid a shawl on her shoulders, and down they went, Malcolm a few steps in front, holding the candle to every step for her, many being broken.
They came at length where the stair ceased in ruin. He leaped down: she stooped, put her hands on his shoulders 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 down the steps and the winding path into the valley of the burn, and up to the flower-garden, they wandered, Clementina telling him how sick the moonlight had made her feel that night she met him first on the Boar's Tail, when his words concerning her revived the conviction that he loved Florimel. At the great stone basin Malcolm set the 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.
Clementina venturing to remind him of the sexton-like gardener'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.
"I have ever since felt ashamed of the weakness," he concluded; "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, top-most crown of all, there, flaming far into the northern night, shone a splendid beacon-lamp to guide the fisherman when his way was hid. Every summer for years Florimel and her husband spent weeks 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 endeavors of Mr. Graham he should say so; whereupon the marquis would endeavor 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 reconverting. 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 neighborhood, 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, sometimes 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 neighborhood.
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 everything 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 marquis's warnings, his wife's encouragements and the master's expostulations 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 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 anybody, was to be good herself.
Rose married a young fisherman, and made a brave wife and 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 ride. Her foal turned out a magnificent horse. Malcolm did not allow him to do anything that could be called work before he was eight years old, and had the return at the other end, for when Goblin was thirty he rode him still, and, to judge by appearances, might but for an accident have ridden him ten years more.