"It's a comfort to hear that, my lord; for I canna aye be sure o' my auld watch, an' may weel be oot a five minutes or twa whiles. Sae, in future, seem' it's o' sic sma' consequence to yer lordship, I s' jist let her aff whan it's convenient. A feow minutes winna maitter muckle to the bailie bodies."

There was something in Malcolm's address that pleased Lord Lossie —the mingling of respect and humour, probably—the frankness and composure, perhaps. He was not self conscious enough to be shy, and was so free from design of any sort that he doubted the good will of no one.

"What's your name?" asked the marquis abruptly.

"Malcolm MacPhail, my lord."

"MacPhail? I heard the name this very day! Let me see."

"My gran'father's the blin' piper, my lord."

"Yes, yes. Tell him I shall want him at the House. I left my own piper at Ceanglas."

"I'll fess him wi' me the morn, gien ye like, my lord, for I'll be ower wi' some fine troot or ither, gien I haena the waur luck, the morn's mornin': Mistress Courthope says she'll be aye ready for ane to fry to yer lordship's brakfast. But I'm thinkin' that'll be ower ear' for ye to see him."

"I'll send for him when I want him. Go on with your brazen serpent there, only mind you don't give her too much supper."

"Jist look at her ribs, my lord! she winna rive!" was the youth's response; and the marquis was moving off with a smile, when Malcolm called after him.

"Gien yer lordship likes to see yer ain ferlies, I ken whaur some o' them lie," he said.

"What do you mean by ferlies?" asked the marquis.

"Ow! keeriosities, ye ken. For enstance, there's some queer caves alang the cost—twa or three o' them afore ye come to the Scaurnose. They say the water bude till ha' howkit them ance upon a time, an' they maun hae been fu' o' partans, an' lobsters, an' their frien's an' neebours; but they're heigh an' dreigh noo, as the fule said o' his minister, an' naething intill them but foumarts, an' otters, an' sic like."

"Well, well, my lad, we'll see," said his lordship kindly and turning once more, he resumed his walk.

"At yer lordship's will," answered Malcolm in a low voice as he lifted his bonnet and again bent to the swivel.

The next morning, he was rowing slowly along in the bay, when he was startled by the sound of his grandfather's pipes, wafted clear and shrill on a breath of southern wind, from the top of the town. He looked at his watch: it was not yet five o'clock. The expectation of a summons to play at Lossie House, had so excited the old man's brain that he had waked long before his usual time, and Portlossie must wake also. The worst of it was, that he had already, as Malcolm knew from the direction of the sound, almost reached the end of his beat, and must even now be expecting the report of the swivel, until he heard which he would not cease playing, so long as there was a breath in his body. Pulling, therefore, with all his might, Malcolm soon ran his boat ashore, and in another instant the sharp yell of the swivel rang among the rocks of the promontory. He was still standing, lapped in a light reverie as he watched the smoke flying seaward, when a voice, already well known to him said, close at his side:

"What are you about with that horrid cannon?"

Malcolm started.

"Ye garred me loup, my leddy!" he returned with a smile and an obeisance.

"You told me," the girl went on emphatically, and as she spoke she disengaged her watch from her girdle, "that you fired it at six o'clock. It is not nearly six."

"Didna ye hear the pipes, my leddy?" he rejoined.

"Yes, well enough; but a whole regiment of pipes can't make it six o'clock when my watch says ten minutes past five."

"Eh, sic a braw watch!" exclaimed Malcolm. "What's a' thae bonny white k-nots about the face o' 't?"

"Pearls," she answered, in a tone that implied pity of his ignorance.

"Jist look at it aside mine!" he exclaimed in admiration, pulling out his great old turnip.

"There!" cried the girl; "your own watch says only a quarter past five."

"Ow, ay! my leddy; I set it by the toon clock 'at hings i' the window o' the Lossie Airms last nicht. But I maun awa' an' luik efter my lines, or atween the deil an' the dogfish my lord'll fare ill."

"You haven't told me why you fired the gun," she persisted.

Thus compelled, Malcolm had to explain that the motive lay in his anxiety lest his grandfather should over exert himself, seeing he was subject to severe attacks of asthma.

"He could stop when he was tired," she objected.

"Ay, gien his pride wad lat him," answered Malcolm, and turned away again, eager to draw his line.

"Have you a boat of your own?" asked the lady.

"Ay; yon's her, doon on the shore yonner. Wad ye like a row? She's fine an' quaiet."

"Who? The boat?"

"The sea, my leddy."

"Is your boat clean?"

"O' a' thing but fish. But na, it's no fit for sic a bonny goon as that. I winna lat ye gang the day, my leddy; but gien ye like to be here the morn's mornin', I s' be here at this same hoor, an' hae my boat as clean's a Sunday sark."

"You think more of my gown than of myself," she returned.

"There's no fear o' yersel', my leddy. Ye're ower weel made to bland (spoil). But wae's me for the goon or (before) it had been an hoor i' the boat the day!—no to mention the fish comin' walopin' ower the gunnel ane efter the ither. But 'deed I maun say good mornin', mem!"

"By all means. I don't want to keep you a moment from your precious fish."

Feeling rebuked, without well knowing why, Malcolm accepted the dismissal, and ran to his boat. By the time he had taken his oars, the girl had vanished.

His line was a short one; but twice the number of fish he wanted were already hanging from the hooks. It was still very early when he reached the harbour. At home he found his grandfather waiting for him, and his breakfast ready.

It was hard to convince Duncan that he had waked the royal burgh a whole hour too soon. He insisted that, as he had never made such a blunder before, he could not have made it now.

"It's ta watch 'at 'll pe telling ta lies, Malcolm, my poy," he said thoughtfully. "She was once pefore."

"But the sun says the same 's the watch, daddy," persisted Malcolm.

Duncan understood the position of the sun and what it signified, as well as the clearest eyed man in Port Lossie, but he could not afford to yield.

"It was peing some conspeeracy of ta cursit Cawmills, to make her loss her poor pension," he said. "Put never you mind, Malcolm; I'll pe making up for ta plunder ta morrow mornin'. Ta coot peoples shall haf teir sleeps a whole hour after tey ought to be at teir works."



CHAPTER IX: THE SALMON TROUT

Malcolm walked up through the town with his fish, hoping to part with some of the less desirable of them, and so lighten his basket, before entering the grounds of Lossie House. But he had met with little success, and was now approaching the town gate, as they called it, which closed a short street at right angles to the principal one, when he came upon Mrs Catanach—on her knees, cleaning her doorstep.

"Weel, Malcolm, what fish hae ye?" she said, without looking up.

"Hoo kent ye it was me, Mistress Catanach?" asked the lad.

"Kent it was you!" she repeated. "Gien there be but twa feet at ance in ony street o' Portlossie, I'll tell ye whase heid's abune them, an' my een steekit (closed)."

"Hoot! ye're a witch, Mistress Catanach!" said Malcolm merrily.

"That's as may be," she returned, rising, and nodding mysteriously; "I hae tauld ye nae mair nor the trowth. But what garred ye whup's a' oot o' oor nakit beds by five o'clock i' the mornin', this mornin', man! That's no what ye're paid for."

"Deed, mem, it was jist a mistak' o' my puir daddy's. He had been feart o' sleepin' ower lang, ye see, an' sae had waukit ower sune. I was oot efter the fish mysel."

"But ye fired the gun 'gen the chap (before the stroke) o' five."

"Ow, ay! I fired the gun. The puir man wod hae bursten himsel' gien I hadna."

"Deil gien he had bursten himsel'—the auld heelan' sholt!" exclaimed Mrs Catanach spitefully.

"Ye sanna even sic words to my gran'father, Mrs Catanach," said Malcolm with rebuke.

She laughed a strange laugh.

"Sanna!" she repeated contemptuously. "An' wha's your gran'father, that I sud tak tent (heed) hoo I wag my tongue ower his richtousness?"

Then, with a sudden change of her tone to one of would be friendliness —"But what'll ye be seekin' for that bit sawmon trooty, man?" she said.

As she spoke she approached his basket, and would have taken the fish in her hands, but Malcolm involuntarily drew back.

"It's gauin' to the Hoose to my lord's brakfast," he said.

"Hoots! ye'll jist lea' the troot wi' me.—Ye'll be seekin' a saxpence for 't, I reckon," she persisted, again approaching the basket.

"I tell ye, Mistress Catanach," said Malcolm, drawing back now in the fear that if she once had it she would not yield it again, "it's gauin' up to the Hoose!"

"Hoots! there's naebody there seen 't yet. It's new oot o' the watter."

"But Mistress Courthope was doon last nicht, an' wantit the best I cud heuk."

"Mistress Courthope! Wha cares for her? A mim, cantin' auld body! Gie me the trootie, Ma'colm. Ye're a bonny laad, an 'it s' be the better for ye."

"Deed I cudna du 't, Mistress Catanach—though I'm sorry to disobleege ye. It's bespoken, ye see. But there's a fine haddie, an' a bonny sma' coddie, an' a goukmey (gray gurnard)."

"Gae 'wa' wi' yer haddies, an' yer goukmeys! Ye sanna gowk me wi' them."

"Weel, I wadna wonner," said Malcolm, "gien Mrs Courthope wad like the haddie tu, an' maybe the lave o' them as weel. Hers is a muckle faimily to haud eatin.' I'll jist gang to the Hoose first afore I mak ony mair offers frae my creel."

"Ye'll lea' the troot wi' me," said Mrs Catanach imperiously.

"Na; I canna du that. Ye maun see yersel' 'at I canna."

The woman's face grew dark with anger. "It s' be the waur for ye," she cried.

"I'm no gauin' to be fleyt (frightened) at ye. Ye're no sic a witch as that comes till, though ye div ken a body's fit upo' the flags! My blin' luckie deddy can du mair nor that!" said Malcolm, irritated by her persistency, threats and evil looks.

"Daur ye me?"' she returned, her pasty cheeks now red as fire, and her wicked eyes flashing as she shook her clenched fist at him.

"What for no?" he answered coolly, turning his head back over his shoulder, for he was already on his way to the gate.

"Ye s' ken that, ye misbegotten funlin'!" shrieked the woman, and waddled hastily into the house.

"What ails her?" said Malcolm to himself. "She micht ha' seen 'at I bude to gie Mrs Courthope the first offer."

By a winding carriage drive, through trees whose growth was stunted by the sea winds, which had cut off their tops as with a keen razor, Malcolm made a slow descent, yet was soon shadowed by timber of a more prosperous growth, rising as from a lake of the loveliest green, spangled with starry daisies. The air was full of sweet odours uplifted with the ascending dew, and trembled with a hundred songs at once, for here was a very paradise for birds. At length he came in sight of a long low wing of the house, and went to the door that led to the kitchen. There a maid informed him that Mrs Courthope was in the hall, and he had better take his basket there, for she wanted to see him. He obeyed, and sought the main entrance.

The house was an ancient pile, mainly of two sides at right angles, but with many gables, mostly having corbel steps—a genuine old Scottish dwelling, small windowed and gray, with steep slated roofs, and many turrets, each with a conical top. Some of these turrets rose from the ground, encasing spiral stone stairs; others were but bartizans, their interiors forming recesses in rooms. They gave the house something of the air of a French chateau, only it looked stronger and far grimmer. Carved around some of the windows, in ancient characters, were Scripture texts and antique proverbs. Two time worn specimens of heraldic zoology, in a state of fearful and everlasting excitement, stood rampant and gaping, one on each side of the hall door, contrasting strangely with the repose of the ancient house, which looked very like what the oldest part of it was said to have been—a monastery. It had at the same time, however, a somewhat warlike expression, wherein consisting it would have been difficult to say; nor could it ever have been capable of much defence, although its position in that regard was splendid. In front was a great gravel space, in the centre of which lay a huge block of serpentine, from a quarry on the estate, filling the office of goal, being the pivot, as it were, around which all carriages turned.

On one side of the house was a great stone bridge, of lofty span, stretching across a little glen, in which ran a brown stream spotted with foam—the same that entered the frith beside the Seaton; not muddy, however, for though dark it was clear—its brown being a rich transparent hue, almost red, gathered from the peat bogs of the great moorland hill behind. Only a very narrow terrace walk, with battlemented parapet, lay between the back of the house, and a precipitous descent of a hundred feet to this rivulet. Up its banks, lovely with flowers and rich with shrubs and trees below, you might ascend until by slow gradations you left the woods and all culture behind, and found yourself, though still within the precincts of Lossie House, on the lonely side of the waste hill, a thousand feet above the sea.

The hall door stood open, and just within hovered Mrs Courthope, dusting certain precious things not to be handled by a housemaid. This portion of the building was so narrow that the hall occupied its entire width, and on the opposite side of it another door, standing also open, gave a glimpse of the glen.

"Good morning, Malcolm," said Mrs Courthope, when she turned and saw whose shadow fell on the marble floor. "What have you brought me?"

"A fine salmon troot, mem. But gien ye had hard boo Mistress Catanach flytit (scolded) at me 'cause I wadna gie't to her! You wad hae thocht, mem, she was something no canny—the w'y 'at she first beggit, an' syne fleecht (flattered), an syne a' but banned an' swore."

"She's a peculiar person, that, Malcolm. Those are nice whitings. I don't care about the trout. Just take it to her as you go back."

"I doobt gien she'll take it, mem. She's an awfu' vengefu' cratur, fowk says."

"You remind me, Malcolm," returned Mrs Courthope, "that I'm not at ease about your grandfather. He is not in a Christian frame of mind at all—and he is an old man too. If we don't forgive our enemies, you know, the Bible plainly tells us we shall not be forgiven ourselves."

"I'm thinkin' it was a greater nor the Bible said that, mem," returned Malcolm, who was an apt pupil of Mr Graham. "But ye'll be meanin' Cawmill o' Glenlyon," he went on with a smile. "It canna maitter muckle to him whether my gran'father forgie him or no, seein' he's been deid this hunner year."

"It's not Campbell of Glenlyon, it's your grandfather I am anxious about," said Mrs Courthope. "Nor is it only Campbell of Glenlyon he's so fierce against, but all his posterity as well."

"They dinna exist, mem. There's no sic a bein' o' the face o' the yearth, as a descendant o' that Glenlyon."

"It makes little difference, I fear," said Mrs Courthope, who was no bad logician. "The question isn't whether or not there's anybody to forgive, but whether Duncan MacPhail is willing to forgive."

"That I do believe he is, mem; though he wad be as sair astonished to hear 't as ye are yersel'."

"I don't know what you mean by that, Malcolm."

"I mean, mem, 'at a blin' man, like my gran'father, canna ken himsel' richt, seein' he canna ken ither fowk richt. It's by kennin' ither fowk 'at ye come to ken yersel, mem—isna't noo?"

"Blindness surely doesn't prevent a man from knowing other people. He hears them, and he feels them, and indeed has generally more kindness from them because of his affliction."

"Frae some o' them, mem; but it's little kin'ness my gran'father has expairienced frae Cawmill o' Glenlyon, mem."

"And just as little injury, I should suppose," said Mrs Courthope.

"Ye're wrang there, mem: a murdered mither maun be an unco skaith to oye's oye (grandson's grandson). But supposin' ye to be richt, what I say's to the pint for a' that I maun jist explain a wee.— When I was a laddie at the schule, I was ance tell't that ane o' the loons was i' the wye o' mockin' my gran'father. Whan I hard it, I thocht I cud jist rive the hert o' 'im, an' set my teeth in't, as the Dutch sodger did to the Spainiard. But whan I got a grip o' 'im, an' the rascal turned up a frichtit kin' o' a dog-like face to me, I jist could not drive my steikit neive (clenched fist) intil't. Mem, a face is an awfu' thing! There's aye something luikin' oot o' 't 'at ye canna do as ye like wi'. But my gran'father never saw a face in's life—lat alane Glenlyon's 'at's been dirt for sae mony a year. Gien he war luikin' intil the face o' that Glenlyon even, I do believe he wad no more drive his durk intill him."

"Drive his dirk into him!" echoed Mrs Courthope, in horror at the very disclaimer.

"No, I'm sure he wad not," persisted Malcolm, innocently. "He micht not tak him oot o' a pot (hole in a riverbed), but he wad neither durk him nor fling him in. I'm no that sure he wadna even ran (reach) him a han'. Ae thing I am certain o',—that by the time he meets Glenlyon in haven, he'll be no that far frae lattin' byganes be byganes."

"Meets Glenlyon in heaven!" again echoed Mrs Courthope, who knew enough of the story to be startled at the taken for granted way in which Malcolm spoke. "Is it probable that a wretch such as your legends describe him should ever get there?"

"Ye dinna think God's forgien him, than, mem?"

"I have no right to judge Glenlyon, or any other man; but, as you ask me, I must say I see no likelihood of it."

"Hoo can ye compleen o' my puir blin' grandfather for no forgiein' him, than?—I hae ye there, mem!"

"He may have repented, you know," said Mrs Courthope feebly, finding herself in less room than was comfortable.

"In sic case," returned Malcolm, "the auld man 'ill hear a' aboot it the meenit he wins there; an' I mak nae doobt he'll du his best to perswaud himsel'."

"But what if he shouldn't get there?" persisted Mrs Courthope, in pure benevolence.

"Hoot toot, mem! I wonner to hear ye! A Cawmill latten in, and my gran'father hauden oot! That wad be jist yallow faced Willie ower again!*—Na, na; things gang anither gait up there. My gran'father's a rale guid man, for a' 'at he has a wye o' luikin' at things 'at's mair efter the law nor the gospel."

*[Lord Stair, the prime mover in the Massacre of Glenco.]

Apparently Mrs Courthope had come at length to the conclusion that Malcolm was as much of a heathen as his grandfather, for in silence she chose her fish, in silence paid him his price, and then with only a sad Good day, turned and left him.

He would have gone back by the river side to the sea gate, but Mrs Courthope having waived her right to the fish in favour of Mrs Catanach, he felt bound to give her another chance, and so returned the way he had come.

"Here's yer troot, Mistress Cat'nach," he called aloud at her door, which generally stood a little ajar. "Ye s' hae't for the saxpence —an' a guid bargain tu, for ane o' sic dimensions!"

As he spoke, he held the fish in at the door, but his eyes were turned to the main street, whence the factor's gig was at the moment rounding the corner into that in which he stood; when suddenly the salmon trout was snatched from his hand, and flung so violently in his face, that he staggered back into the road: the factor had to pull sharply up to avoid driving over him. His rout rather than retreat was followed by a burst of insulting laughter, and at the same moment, out of the house rushed a large vile looking mongrel, with hair like an ill used doormat and an abbreviated nose, fresh from the ashpit, caught up the trout, and rushed with it towards the gate.

"That's richt, my bairn!" shouted Mrs Catanach to the brute as he ran: "tak it to Mrs Courthope. Tak it back wi' my compliments."

Amidst a burst of malign laughter she slammed her door, and from a window sideways watched the young fisherman.

As he stood looking after the dog in wrath and bewilderment, the factor, having recovered from the fit of merriment into which the sudden explosion of events had cast him, and succeeded in quieting his scared horse, said, slackening his reins to move on,

"You sell your fish too cheap, Malcolm."

"The deil's i' the tyke," rejoined Malcolm, and, seized at last by a sense of the ludicrousness of the whole affair, burst out laughing, and turned for the High Street. .

"Na, na, laddie; the deil's no awa' in sic a hurry: he bed (remained)," said a voice behind him.

Malcolm turned again and lifted his bonnet. It was Miss Horn, who had come up from the Seaton.

"Did ye see yon, mem?" he asked.

"Ay, weel that, as I cam up the brae. Dinna stan' there, laddie. The jaud 'll be watchin' ye like a cat watchin' a mouse. I ken her! She's a cat wuman, an' I canna bide her. She's no mowse (safe to touch). She's in secrets mair nor guid, I s' wad (wager). Come awa' wi' me; I want a bit fish. I can ill eat an' her lyin' deid I' the hoose—it winna gang ower; but I maun get some strength pitten intil me afore the berial. It's a God's mercy I wasna made wi' feelin's, or what wad hae come o' me! Whaur's the gude o' greetin? It's no worth the saut i' the watter o' 't, Ma'colm. It's an ill wardle, an micht be a bonny ane—gien't warna for ill men."

"'Deed, mem! I'm thinkin' mair aboot ill women, at this prasent," said Malcolm. "Maybe there's no sic a thing, but yon's unco like ane. As bonny a sawmon troot 's ever ye saw, mem! It's a' I'm cawpable o' to haud ohn cursed that foul tyke o' hers."

"Hoot, laddie! haud yer tongue."

"Ay will I. I'm na gaun to du 't, ye ken. But sic a fine troot 's that—the verra ane ye wad hae likit, mem!"

"Never ye min' the troot. There's mair whaur that cam frae. What anger't her at ye?"

"Naething mair nor that I bude to gie Mistress Courthope the first wale (choice) o' my fish."

"The wuman's no worth yer notice, 'cep to haud oot o' her gait, laddie; an' that ye had better luik till, for she's no canny. Dinna ye anger her again gien ye can help it. She has an ill luik, an' I canna bide her.—Hae, there's yer siller. Jean, tak in this fish."

During the latter part of the conversation they had been standing at the door, while Miss Horn ferreted the needful pence from a pocket under her gown. She now entered, but as Malcolm waited for Jean to take the fish, she turned on the threshold, and said:

"Wad ye no like to see her, Ma'colm?—A guid frien' she was to you, sae lang's she was here," she added after a short pause.

The youth hesitated.

"I never saw a corp i' my life, mem, an' I'm jist some feared," he said, after another brief silence.

"Hoot, laddie!" returned Miss Horn, in a somewhat offended tone. —"That'll be what comes o' haein' feelin's. A bonny corp 's the bonniest thing in creation,—an' that quaiet!—Eh! sic a heap o' them as there has been sin' Awbel," she went on—"an ilk ane them luikin, as gien there never had been anither but itsel'! Ye oucht to see a corp, Ma'colm. Ye'll hae't to du afore ye're ane yersel', an' ye'll never see a bonnier nor my Grizel."

"Be 't to yer wull, mem," said Malcolm resignedly.

At once she led the way, and he followed her in silence up the stair and into the dead chamber.

There on the white bed lay the long, black, misshapen thing she had called "the bit boxie:" and with a strange sinking at the heart, Malcolm approached it.

Miss Horn's hand came from behind him, and withdrew a covering; there lay a vision lovely indeed to behold!—a fixed evanescence —a listening stillness,—awful, yet with a look of entreaty, at once resigned and unyielding, that strangely drew the heart of Malcolm. He saw a low white forehead, large eyeballs upheaving closed lids, finely modelled features of which the tightened skin showed all the delicacy, and a mouth of suffering whereon the vanishing Psyche had left the shadow of the smile with which she awoke. The tears gathered in his eyes, and Miss Horn saw them.

"Ye maun lay yer han' upo' her, Ma'colm," she said. "Ye ma' aye touch the deid, to hand ye ohn dreamed aboot them."

"I wad be laith," answered Malcolm; "she wad be ower bonny a dream to miss.—Are they a' like that?" he added, speaking under his breath.

"Na, 'deed no!" replied Miss Horn, with mild indignation. "Wad ye expec' Bawby Cat'nach to luik like that, no?—I beg yer pardon for mentionin' the wuman, my dear," she added with sudden divergence, bending towards the still face, and speaking in a tenderly apologetic tone; "I ken weel ye canna bide the verra name o' her; but it s' be the last time ye s' hear 't to a' eternity, my doo." Then turning again to Malcolm.—"Lay yer han' upon her broo, I tell ye," she said.

"I daurna," replied the youth, still under his breath; "my han's are no clean. I wadna for the warl' touch her wi' fishy han's."

The same moment, moved by a sudden impulse, whose irresistibleness was veiled in his unconsciousness, he bent down, and put his lips to the forehead.

As suddenly he started back erect with dismay on every feature.

"Eh, mem!" he cried in an agonised whisper, "she's dooms cauld!"

"What sud she be?" retorted Miss Horn. "Wad ye hae her beeried warm?"

He followed her from the room in silence, with the sense of a faint sting on his lips. She led him into her parlour, and gave him a glass of wine.

"Ye'll come to the beerial upo' Setterday?" she asked, half inviting, half enquiring.

"I'm sorry to say, mem, 'at I canna," he answered. "I promised Maister Graham to tak the schule for him, an' lat him gang."

"Weel, weel! Mr Graham's obleeged to ye, nae doobt, an' we canna help it. Gie my compliments to yer gran'father."

"I'll du that, mem. He'll be sair pleased, for he's unco gratefu' for ony sic attention," said Malcolm, and with the words took his leave.



CHAPTER X: THE FUNERAL

That night the weather changed, and grew cloudy and cold. Saturday morning broke drizzly and dismal. A northeast wind tore off the tops of the drearily tossing billows. All was gray—enduring, hopeless gray. Along the coast the waves kept roaring on the sands, persistent and fateful; the Scaurnose was one mass of foaming white: and in the caves still haunted by the tide, the bellowing was like that of thunder.

Through the drizzle shot wind and the fog blown in shreds from the sea, a large number of the most respectable of the male population of the burgh, clothed in Sunday gloom deepened by the crape on their hats, made their way to Miss Horn's, for, despite her rough manners, she was held in high repute. It was only such as had reason to dread the secret communication between closet and housetop that feared her tongue; if she spoke loud, she never spoke false, or backbit in the dark. What chiefly conduced however to the respect in which she was held, was that she was one of their own people, her father having died minister of the parish some twenty years before.

Comparatively little was known of her deceased cousin, who had been much of an invalid, and had mostly kept to the house, but all had understood that Miss Horn was greatly attached to her; and it was for the sake of the living mainly that the dead was thus honoured.

As the prayer drew to a close, the sounds of trampling and scuffling feet bore witness that Watty Witherspail and his assistants were carrying the coffin down the stair. Soon the company rose to follow it, and trooping out, arranged themselves behind the hearse, which, horrid with nodding plumes and gold and black panelling, drew away from the door to make room for them.

Just as they were about to move off, to the amazement of the company and the few onlookers who, notwithstanding the weather, stood around to represent the commonalty, Miss Horn herself, solitary, in a long black cloak and somewhat awful bonnet, issued, and made her way through the mourners until she stood immediately behind the hearse, by the side of Mr Cairns, the parish minister. The next moment, Watty Witherspail, who had his station at the further side of the hearse, arriving somehow at a knowledge of the apparition, came round by the horses' heads, and with a look of positive alarm at the glaring infringement of time honoured customs, addressed her in half whispered tones expostulatory:

"Ye'll never be thinkin' o' gauin' yersel', mem!" he said.

"What for no, Watty, I wad like to ken," growled Miss Horn from the vaulted depths of her bonnet.

"The like was never hard tell o'!" returned Watty, with the dismay of an orthodox undertaker, righteously jealous of all innovation.

"It'll be to tell o' hencefurth," rejoined Miss Horn, who in her risen anger spoke aloud, caring nothing who heard her. "Daur ye preshume, Watty Witherspaill," she went on, "for no rizzon but that I ga'e you the job, an' unnertook to pay ye for't—an' that far abune its market value,—daur ye preshume, I say, to dictate to me what I'm to du an' what I'm no to du anent the maitter in han'? Think ye I hae been a mither to the puir yoong thing for sae mony a year to lat her gang awa' her lane at the last wi' the likes o' you for company!"

"Hoot, mem! there's the minister at yer elbuck."

"I tell ye, ye're but a wheen rouch men fowk! There's no a wuman amon' ye to haud things dacent, 'cep I gang mysel'. I'm no beggin' the minister's pardon ather. I'll gang. I maun see my puir Grizel till her last bed."

"I dread it may be too much for your feelings, Miss Horn," said the minister, who being an ambitious young man of lowly origin, and very shy of the ridiculous, did not in the least wish her company.

"Feelin's!" exclaimed Miss Horn, in a tone of indignant repudiation; "I'm gauin' to du what's richt. I s' gang, and gien ye dinna like my company, Mr Cairns, ye can gang hame, an' I s' gang withoot ye. Gien she sud happen to be luikin doon, she sanna see me wantin' at the last o' her. But I s' mak' no wark aboot it. I s' no putt mysel' ower forret."

And. ere the minister could utter another syllable, she had left her place to go to the rear. The same instant the procession began to move, corpse marshalled, towards the grave; and stepping aside, she stood erect, sternly eyeing the irregular ranks of two and three and four as they passed her, intending to bring up the rear alone. But already there was one in that solitary position: with bowed head, Alexander Graham walked last and single. The moment he caught sight of Miss Horn, he perceived her design, and, lifting his hat, offered his arm. She took it almost eagerly, and together they followed in silence, through the gusty wind and monotonous drizzle.

The school house was close to the churchyard. An instant hush fell upon the scholars when the hearse darkened the windows, lasting while the horrible thing slowly turned to enter the iron gates,— a deep hush, as if a wave of the eternal silence which rounds all our noises had broken across its barriers. The mad laird, who had been present all the morning, trembled from head to foot; yet rose and went to the door with a look of strange, subdued eagerness. When Miss Horn and Mr Graham had passed into the churchyard, he followed.

With the bending of uncovered heads, in a final gaze of leave taking, over the coffin at rest in the bottom of the grave, all that belonged to the ceremony of burial was fulfilled; but the two facts that no one left the churchyard, although the wind blew and the rain fell, until the mound of sheltering earth was heaped high over the dead, and that the hands of many friends assisted with spade and shovel, did much to compensate for the lack of a service.

As soon as this labour was ended, Mr Graham again offered his arm to Miss Horn, who had stood in perfect calmness watching the whole with her eagle's eyes. But although she accepted his offer, instead of moving towards the gate, she kept her position in the attitude of a hostess who will follow her friends. They were the last to go from the churchyard. When they reached the schoolhouse she would have had Mr Graham leave her, but he insisted on seeing her home. Contrary to her habit she yielded, and they slowly followed the retiring company.

"Safe at last!" half sighed Miss Horn, as they entered the town— her sole remark on the way.

Rounding a corner, they came upon Mrs Catanach standing at a neighbour's door, gazing out upon nothing, as was her wont at times, but talking to some one in the house behind her. Miss Horn turned her head aside as she passed. A look of low, malicious, half triumphant cunning lightened across the puffy face of the howdy. She cocked one bushy eyebrow, setting one eye wide open, drew down the other eyebrow, nearly closing the eye under it, and stood looking after them until they were out of sight. Then turning her head over her shoulder, she burst into a laugh, softly husky with the general flabbiness of her corporeal conditions.

"What ails ye, Mistress Catanach?" cried a voice from within.

"Sic a couple 's yon twasum wad mak!" she replied, again bursting into gelatinous laughter.

"Wha, than? I canna lea' my milk parritch to come an' luik."

"Ow! jist Meg Horn, the auld kail runt, an' Sanny Graham, the stickit minister. I wad like weel to be at the beddin' o' them. Eh! the twa heids o' them upon ae bowster!"

And chuckling a low chuckle, Mrs Catanach moved for her own door.

As soon as the churchyard was clear of the funeral train, the mad laird peeped from behind a tall stone, gazed cautiously around him, and then with slow steps came and stood over the new made grave, where the sexton was now laying the turf, "to mak a' snod (trim) for the Sawbath."

"Whaur is she gane till?" he murmured to himself—He could generally speak better when merely uttering his thoughts without attempt at communication.—"I dinna ken whaur I cam frae, an' I dinna ken whaur she's gane till; but whan I gang mysel', maybe I'll ken baith. —I dinna ken, I dinna ken, I dinna ken whaur I cam frae."

Thus muttering, so lost in the thoughts that originated them that he spoke the words mechanically, he left the churchyard and returned to the school, where, under the superintendence of Malcolm, everything had been going on in the usual Saturday fashion—the work of the day which closed the week's labours, being to repeat a certain number of questions of the Shorter Catechism (which term, alas! included the answers), and next to buttress them with a number of suffering caryatids, as it were—texts of Scripture, I mean, first petrified and then dragged into the service. Before Mr Graham returned, every one had done his part except Sheltie, who, excellent at asking questions for himself, had a very poor memory for the answers to those of other people, and was in consequence often a keepie in. He did not generally heed it much, however, for the master was not angry with him on such occasions, and they gave him an opportunity of asking in his turn a multitude of questions of his own.

When he entered, he found Malcolm reading The Tempest and Sheltie sitting in the middle of the waste schoolroom, with his elbows on the desk before him, and his head and the Shorter Catechism between them; while in the farthest corner sat Mr Stewart, with his eyes fixed on the ground, murmuring his answerless questions to himself.

"Come up, Sheltie," said Mr Graham, anxious to let the boy go. "Which of the questions did you break down in today?"

"Please, sir, I cudna rest i' my grave till the resurrection," answered Sheltie, with but a dim sense of the humour involved in the reply.

"'What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?'" said Mr Graham, putting the question with a smile.

"'The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection,'" replied Sheltie, now with perfect accuracy; whereupon the master, fearing the outbreak of a torrent of counter questions, made haste to dismiss him.

"That'll do, Sheltie," he said. "Run home to your dinner."

Sheltie shot from the room like a shell from a mortar.

He had barely vanished when Mr Stewart rose and came slowly from his corner, his legs appearing to tremble under the weight of his hump, which moved fitfully up and down in his futile attempts to utter the word resurrection. As he advanced, he kept heaving one shoulder forward, as if he would fain bring his huge burden to the front, and hold it out in mute appeal to his instructor; but before reaching him he suddenly stopped, lay down on the floor on his back, and commenced rolling from side to side, with moans and complaints. Mr Graham interpreted the action into the question— How was such a body as his to rest in its grave till the resurrection —perched thus on its own back in the coffin? All the answer he could think of was to lay hold of his hand, lift him, and point upwards. The poor fellow shook his head, glanced over his shoulder at his hump, and murmured "Heavy, heavy!" seeming to imply that it would be hard for him to rise and ascend at the last day.

He had doubtless a dim notion that all his trouble had to do with his hump.



CHAPTER XI: THE OLD CHURCH

The next day, the day of the Resurrection, rose glorious from its sepulchre of sea fog and drizzle. It had poured all night long, but at sunrise the clouds had broken and scattered, and the air was the purer for the cleansing rain, while the earth shone with that peculiar lustre which follows the weeping which has endured its appointed night. The larks were at it again, singing as if their hearts would break for joy as they hovered in brooding exultation over the song of the future; for their nests beneath hoarded a wealth of larks for summers to come. Especially about the old church— half buried in the ancient trees of Lossie House, the birds that day were jubilant; their throats seemed too narrow to let out the joyful air that filled all their hollow bones and quills: they sang as if they must sing, or choke with too much gladness. Beyond the short spire and its shining cock, rose the balls and stars and arrowy vanes of the House, glittering in gold and sunshine.

The inward hush of the Resurrection, broken only by the prophetic birds, the poets of the groaning and travailing creation, held time and space as in a trance; and the centre from which radiated both the hush and the carolling expectation seemed to Alexander Graham to be the churchyard in which he was now walking in the cool of the morning. It was more carefully kept than most Scottish churchyards, and yet was not too trim. Nature had a word in the affair— was allowed her part of mourning, in long grass and moss and the crumbling away of stone. The wholesomeness of decay, which both in nature and humanity is but the miry road back to life, was not unrecognized here; there was nothing of the hideous attempt to hide death in the garments of life. The master walked about gently, now stopping to read some well known inscription and ponder for a moment over the words; and now wandering across the stoneless mounds, content to be forgotten by all but those who loved the departed. At length he seated himself on a slab by the side of the mound that rose but yesterday: it was sculptured with symbols of decay— needless surely where the originals lay about the mouth of every newly opened grave, and as surely ill befitting the precincts of a church whose indwelling gospel is of life victorious over death!

"What are these stones," he said to himself, "but monuments to oblivion? They are not memorials of the dead, but memorials of the forgetfulness of the living. How vain it is to send a poor forsaken name, like the title page of a lost book, down the careless stream of time! Let me serve my generation, and let God remember me!"

The morning wore on; the sun rose higher and higher. He drew from his pocket the Nosce Teipsum. of Sir John Davies, and was still reading, in quiet enjoyment of the fine logic of the lawyer poet, when he heard the church key, in the trembling hand of Jonathan Auld, the sexton, jar feebly battling with the reluctant lock. Soon the people began to gather, mostly in groups and couples. At length came solitary Miss Horn, whom the neighbours, from respect to her sorrow, had left to walk alone. But Mr Graham went to meet her, and accompanied her into the church.

It was a cruciform building, as old as the vanished monastery, and the burial place of generations of noble blood; the dust of royalty even lay under its floor. A knight of stone reclined cross legged in a niche with an arched Norman canopy in one of the walls, the rest of which was nearly encased in large tablets of white marble, for at his foot lay the ashes of barons and earls whose title was extinct, and whose lands had been inherited by the family of Lossie. Inside as well as outside of the church the ground had risen with the dust of generations, so that the walls were low; and heavy galleries having been erected in parts, the place was filled with shadowy recesses and haunted with glooms. From a window in the square pew where he sat, so small and low that he had to bend his head to look out of it, the schoolmaster could see a rivulet of sunshine, streaming through between two upright gravestones, and glorifying the long grass of a neglected mound that lay close to the wall under the wintry drip from the eaves: when he raised his head, the church looked very dark. The best way there to preach the Resurrection, he thought, would be to contrast the sepulchral gloom of the church, its dreary psalms and drearier sermons, with the sunlight on the graves, the lark filled sky, and the wind blowing where it listed. But although the minister was a young man of the commonest order, educated to the church that he might eat bread, hence a mere willing slave to the beck of his lord and master, the patron, and but a parrot in the pulpit, the schoolmaster not only endeavoured to pour his feelings and desires into the mould of his prayers, but listened to the sermon with a countenance that revealed no distaste for the weak and unsavoury broth ladled out him to nourish his soul withal. When however the service—though whose purposes the affair could be supposed to serve except those of Mr Cairns himself, would have been a curious question—was over, he did breathe a sigh of relief; and when he stepped out into the sun and wind which had been shining and blowing all the time of the dreary ceremony, he wondered whether the larks might not have had the best of it in the God praising that had been going on for two slow paced hours. Yet, having been so long used to the sort of thing, he did not mind it half so much as his friend Malcolm, who found the Sunday observances an unspeakable weariness to both flesh and spirit.

On the present occasion, however, Malcolm did not find the said observances dreary, for he observed nothing but the vision which radiated from the dusk of the small gallery forming Lossie pew, directly opposite the Norman canopy and stone crusader. Unconventional, careless girl as Lady Florimel had hitherto shown herself to him, he saw her sit that morning like the proudest of her race, alone, and, to all appearance, unaware of a single other person's being in the church besides herself. She manifested no interest in what was going on, nor indeed felt any—how could she? never parted her lips to sing; sat during the prayer; and throughout the sermon seemed to Malcolm not once to move her eyes from the carved crusader. When all was over, she still sat motionless—sat until the last old woman had hobbled out. Then she rose, walked slowly from the gloom of the church, flashed into the glow of the churchyard, gleamed across it to a private door in the wall, which a servant held for her, and vanished. If a moment after, the notes of a merry song invaded the ears of those who yet lingered, who could dare suspect that proudly sedate damsel thus suddenly breaking the ice of her public behaviour?

For a mere school girl she had certainly done the lady's part well. What she wore I do not exactly know; nor would it perhaps be well to describe what might seem grotesque to such prejudiced readers as have no judgment beyond the fashions of the day. But I will not let pass the opportunity of reminding them how sadly old fashioned we of the present hour also look in the eyes of those equally infallible judges who have been in dread procession towards us ever since we began to be—our posterity—judges who perhaps will doubt with a smile whether we even knew what love was, or ever had a dream of the grandeur they are on the point of grasping. But at least bethink yourselves, dear posterity: we have not ceased because you have begun.

Out of the church the blind Duncan strode with long, confident strides. He had no staff to aid him, for he never carried one when in his best clothes; but he leaned proudly on Malcolm's arm, if one who walked so erect could be said to lean. He had adorned his bonnet the autumn before with a sprig of the large purple heather, but every bell had fallen from it, leaving only the naked spray, pitiful analogue of the whole withered exterior of which it formed part. His sporran, however, hid the stained front of his kilt, and his Sunday coat had been new within ten years—the gift of certain ladies of Portlossie, some of whom, to whose lowland eyes the kilt was obnoxious, would have added a pair of trowsers, had not Miss Horn stoutly opposed them, confident that Duncan would regard the present as an insult. And she was right; for rather than wear anything instead of the philibeg, Duncan would have plaited himself one with his own blind fingers out of an old sack. Indeed, although the trews were never at any time unknown in the Highlands, Duncan had always regarded them as effeminate, and especially in his lowland exile would have looked upon the wearing of them as a disgrace to his highland birth.

"Tat wass a fery coot sairmon today, Malcolm," he said, as they stepped from the churchyard upon the road.

Malcolm, knowing well whither conversation on the subject would lead, made no reply. His grandfather, finding him silent, iterated his remark, with the addition—"Put how could it pe a paad one, you'll pe thinking, my poy, when he'd pe hafing such a text to keep him straight."

Malcolm continued silent, for a good many people were within hearing, whom he did not wish to see amused with the remarks certain to follow any he could make. But Mr Graham, who happened to be walking near the old man on the other side, out of pure politeness made a partial response.

"Yes, Mr MacPhail," he said, "it was a grand text."

"Yes, and it wass'll pe a cran' sairmon," persisted Duncan. "'Fenchence is mine—I will repay.' Ta Lord loves fenchence. It's a fine thing, fenchence. To make ta wicked know tat tey'll pe peing put men! Yes; ta Lord will slay ta wicked. Ta Lord will gif ta honest man fenchence upon his enemies. It wass a cran' sairmon!"

"Don't you think vengeance a very dreadful thing, Mr MacPhail?" said the schoolmaster.

"Yes, for ta von tat'll pe in ta wrong—I wish ta fenchence was mine!" he added with a loud sigh.

"But the Lord doesn't think any of us fit to be trusted with it, and so keeps it to himself, you see."

"Yes, and tat'll pe pecause it 'll pe too coot to be gifing to another. And some people would be waik of heart, and be letting teir enemies co."

"I suspect it's for the opposite reason, Mr MacPhail:—we would go much too far, making no allowances, causing the innocent to suffer along with the guilty, neither giving fair play nor avoiding cruelty,—and indeed"

"No fear!" interrupted Duncan eagerly,—"no fear, when ta wrong wass as larch as Morven!"

In the sermon there had not been one word as to St Paul's design in quoting the text. It had been but a theatrical setting forth of the vengeance of God upon sin, illustrated with several common tales of the discovery of murder by strange means—a sermon after Duncan's own heart; and nothing but the way in which he now snuffed the wind with head thrown back and nostrils dilated, could have given an adequate idea of how much he enjoyed the recollection of it.

Mr Graham had for many years believed that he must have some personal wrongs to brood over,—wrongs, probably, to which were to be attributed his loneliness and exile; but of such Duncan had never spoken, uttering no maledictions except against the real or imagined foes of his family.*

*[What added to the likelihood of Mr Graham's conjecture was the fact, well enough known to him, though to few lowlanders besides, that revenge is not a characteristic of the Gael. Whatever instances of it may have appeared, and however strikingly they may have been worked up in fiction, such belong to the individual and not to the race. A remarkable proof of this occurs in the history of the family of Glenco itself. What remained of it after the massacre in 1689, rose in 1745, and joined the forces of Prince Charles Edward. Arriving in the neighbourhood of the residence of Lord Stair, whose grandfather had been one of the chief instigators of the massacre, the prince took special precautions lest the people of Glenco should wreak inherited vengeance on the earl. But they were so indignant at being supposed capable of visiting on the innocent the guilt of their ancestors, that it was with much difficulty they were prevented from forsaking the standard of the prince, and returning at once to their homes. Perhaps a yet stronger proof is the fact, fully asserted by one Gaelic scholar at least, that their literature contains nothing to foster feelings of revenge.]

The master placed so little value on any possible results of mere argument, and had indeed so little faith in any words except such as came hot from the heart, that he said no more, but, with an invitation to Malcolm to visit him in the evening, wished them good day, and turned in at his own door.

The two went slowly on towards the sea town. The road was speckled with home goers, single and in groups, holding a quiet Sunday pace to their dinners. Suddenly Duncan grasped Malcolm's arm with the energy of perturbation, almost of fright, and said in a loud whisper:

"Tere'll be something efil not far from her, Malcolm, my son! Look apout, look apout, and take care how you'll pe leading her."

Malcolm looked about, and replied, pressing Duncan's arm, and speaking in a low voice, far less audible than his whisper,

"There's naebody near, daddy—naebody but the howdie wife."

"What howdie wife do you mean, Malcolm?"

"Hoot! Mistress Catanach, ye ken. Dinna lat her hear ye."

"I had a feeshion, Malcolm—one moment, and no more; ta darkness closed arount it: I saw a ped, Malcolm, and—"

"Wheesht, wheesht; daddy!" pleaded Malcolm importunately. "She hears ilka word ye're sayin'. She's awfu' gleg, and she's as poozhonous as an edder. Haud yer tongue, daddy; for guid sake haud yer tongue."

The old man yielded, grasping Malcolm's arm, and quickening his pace, though his breath came hard, as through the gathering folds of asthma. Mrs. Catanach also quickened her pace, and came gliding along the grass by the side of the road, noiseless as the adder to which Malcolm had likened her, and going much faster than she seemed. Her great round body looked a persistent type of her calling, and her arms seemed to rest in front of her as upon a ledge. In one hand she carried a small bible, round which was folded her pocket handkerchief, and in the other a bunch of southernwood and rosemary. She wore a black silk gown, a white shawl, and a great straw bonnet with yellow ribbons in huge bows, and looked the very pattern of Sunday respectability; but her black eyebrows gloomed ominous, and an evil smile shadowed about the corners of her mouth as she passed without turning her head or taking the least notice of them. Duncan shuddered, and breathed yet harder, but seemed to recover as she increased the distance between them. They walked the rest of the way in silence, however; and even after they reached home, Duncan made no allusion to his late discomposure.

"What was't ye thocht ye saw, as we cam frae the kirk, daddy?" asked Malcolm when they were seated at their dinner of broiled mackerel and boiled potatoes.

"In other times she'll pe hafing such feeshions often, Malcolm, my son," he returned, avoiding an answer. "Like other pards of her race she would pe seeing—in the speerit, where old Tuncan can see. And she'll pe telling you, Malcolm—peware of tat voman; for ta voman was thinking pad thoughts; and tat will pe what make her shutter and shake, my son, as she'll pe coing py."



CHAPTER XII: THE CHURCHYARD

On Sundays, Malcolm was always more or less annoyed by the obtrusive presence of his arms and legs, accompanied by a vague feeling that, at any moment, and no warning given, they might, with some insane and irrepressible flourish, break the Sabbath on their own account, and degrade him in the eyes of his fellow townsmen, who seemed all silently watching how he bore the restraints of the holy day. It must be conceded, however, that the discomfort had quite as much to do with his Sunday clothes as with the Sabbath day, and that it interfered but little with an altogether peculiar calm which appeared to him to belong in its own right to the Sunday, whether its light flowed in the sunny cataracts of June, or oozed through the spongy clouds of November. As he walked again to the Alton, or Old Town in the evening, the filmy floats of white in the lofty blue, the droop of the long dark grass by the side of the short brown corn, the shadows pointing like all lengthening shadows towards the quarter of hope, the yellow glory filling the air and paling the green below, the unseen larks hanging aloft—like air pitcher plants that overflowed in song—like electric jars emptying themselves of the sweet thunder of bliss in the flashing of wings and the trembling of melodious throats; these were indeed of the summer but the cup of rest had been poured out upon them; the Sabbath brooded like an embodied peace over the earth, and under its wings they grew sevenfold peaceful—with a peace that might be felt, like the hand of a mother pressed upon the half sleeping child. The rusted iron cross on the eastern gable of the old church stood glowing lustreless in the westering sun; while the gilded vane, whose business was the wind, creaked radiantly this way and that, in the flaws from the region of the sunset: its shadow flickered soft on the new grave, where the grass of the wounded sod was drooping. Again seated on a neighbour stone, Malcolm found his friend.

"See," said the schoolmaster as the fisherman sat down beside him, "how the shadow from one grave stretches like an arm to embrace another! In this light the churchyard seems the very birthplace of shadows: see them flowing out of the tombs as from fountains, to overflow the world! Does the morning or the evening light suit such a place best, Malcolm?"

The pupil thought for a while.

"The evenin' licht, sir," he answered at length; "for ye see the sun's deem' like, an' deith's like a fa'in asleep, an' the grave's the bed, an' the sod's the bedclaes, an' there's a lang nicht to the fore."

"Are ye sure o' that, Malcolm?"

"It's the wye folk thinks an' says aboot it, sir."

"Or maybe doesna think, an' only says?"

"Maybe, sir; I dinna ken."

"Come here, Malcolm," said Mr Graham, and took him by the arm, and led him towards the east end of the church, where a few tombstones were crowded against the wall, as if they would press close to a place they might not enter.

"Read that," he said, pointing to a flat stone, where every hollow letter was shown in high relief by the growth in it of a lovely moss. The rest of the stone was rich in gray and green and brown lichens, but only in the letters grew the bright moss; the inscription stood as it were in the hand of nature herself—"He is not here; he is risen."

While Malcolm gazed, trying to think what his master would have him think, the latter resumed.

"If he is risen—if the sun is up, Malcolm—then the morning and not the evening is the season for the place of tombs; the morning when the shadows are shortening and separating, not the evening when they are growing all into one. I used to love the churchyard best in the evening, when the past was more to me than the future; now I visit it almost every bright summer morning, and only occasionally at night."

"But, sir, isna deith a dreidfu' thing?" said Malcolm.

"That depends on whether a man regards it as his fate, or as the will of a perfect God. Its obscurity is its dread; but if God be light, then death itself must be full of splendour—a splendour probably too keen for our eyes to receive."

"But there's the deein' itsel': isna that fearsome? It's that I wad be fleyed at."

"I don't see why it should be. It's the want of a God that makes it dreadful, and you will be greatly to blame, Malcolm, if you haven't found your God by the time you have to die."

They were startled by a gruff voice near them. The speaker was. hidden by a corner of the church.

"Ay, she's weel happit (covered)," it said. "But a grave never luiks richt wantin' a stane, an' her auld cousin wad hear o' nane bein' laid ower her. I said it micht be set up at her heid, whaur she wad never fin' the weicht o' 't; but na, na! nane o' 't for her! She's ane 'at maun tak her ain gait, say the ither thing wha likes."

It was Wattie Witherspail who spoke—a thin shaving of a man, with a deep, harsh, indeed startling voice.

"An' what ailed her at a stane?" returned the voice of Jonathan Auldbuird, the sexton. "—Nae doobt it wad be the expense?"

"Amna I tellin' ye what it was? Deil a bit o' the expense cam intil the calcalation! The auld maiden's nane sae close as fowk 'at disna ken her wad mak her oot. I ken her weel. She wadna hae a stane laid upon her as gien she wanted to hand her doon, puir thing! She said, says she, 'The yerd's eneuch upo' the tap o' her, wantin' that!'"

"It micht be some sair, she wad be thinkin' doobtless, for sic a waik worn cratur to lift whan the trump was blawn," said the sexton, with the feeble laugh of one who doubts the reception of his wit.

"Weel, I div whiles think," responded Wattie,—but it was impossible from his tone to tell whether or not he spoke in earnest,—"'at maybe my boxies is a wheen ower weel made for the use they're pitten till. They sudna be that ill to rive—gien a' be true 'at the minister says. Ye see, we dinna ken whan that day may come, an' there may na be time for the wat an' the worm to ca (drive) the boords apairt."

"Hoots, man! it's no your lang nails nor yet yer heidit screws 'll haud doon the redeemt, gien the jeedgement war the morn's mornin'," said the sexton; "an' for the lave, they wad be glaid eneuch to bide whaur they are; but they'll a' be howkit oot,—fear na ye that."

"The Lord grant a blessed uprisin' to you an' me, Jonathan, at that day!" said Wattie, in the tone of one who felt himself uttering a more than ordinarily religious sentiment and on the word followed the sound of their retreating footsteps.

"How closely together may come the solemn and the grotesque! the ludicrous and the majestic!" said the schoolmaster. "Here, to us lingering in awe about the doors beyond which lie the gulfs of the unknown—to our very side come the wright and the grave digger with their talk of the strength of coffins and the judgment of the living God!"

"I hae whiles thoucht mysel', sir," said Malcolm, "it was gey strange like to hae a wuman o' the mak o' Mistress Catanach sittin' at the receipt o' bairns, like the gatekeeper o' the ither wan', wi' the hasp o' 't in her han': it doesna promise ower weel for them 'at she lats in. An' noo ye hae pitten't intil my heid that there's Wattie Witherspail an' Jonathan Auldbuird for the porters to open an' lat a' that's left o' 's oot again! Think o' sic like haein' sic a han' in sic solemn maitters!"

"Indeed some of us have strange porters," said Mr Graham, with a smile, "both to open to us and to close behind us! yet even in them lies the human nature, which, itself the embodiment of the unknown, wanders out through the gates of mystery, to wander back, it may be, in a manner not altogether unlike that by which it came."

In contemplative moods, the schoolmaster spoke in a calm and loftily sustained style of book English—quite another language from that he used when he sought to rouse the consciences of his pupils, and strangely contrasted with that in which Malcolm kept up his side of the dialogue.

"I houp, sir," said the latter, "it'll be nae sort o' a celestial Mistress Catanach 'at 'll be waiting for me o' the ither side; nor yet for my puir daddy, wha cud ill bide bein' wamled aboot upo' her knee."

Mr Graham laughed outright.

"If there be one to act the nurse," he answered, "I presume there will be one to take the mother's part too."

"But speakin' o' the grave, sir," pursued Malcolm, "I wiss ye cud drop a word 'at micht be o' some comfort to my daddy. It's plain to me, frae words he lats fa' noo an' than, that, instead o' lea'in' the warl' ahint him whan he dees, he thinks to lie smorin' an' smocherin' i' the mools, clammy an' weet, but a' there, an' trimlin' at the thocht o' the suddent awfu' roar an' din o' the brazen trumpet o' the archangel. I wiss ye wad luik in an' say something till him some nicht. It's nae guid mentionin' 't to the minister; he wad only gie a lauch an' gang awa'. An' gien ye cud jist slide in a word aboot forgiein' his enemies, sir! I made licht o' the maitter to Mistress Courthope, 'cause she only maks him waur. She does weel wi' what the minister pits intill her, but she has little o' her ain to mix't up wi', an' sae has but sma' weicht wi' the likes o' my gran'father. Only ye winna lat him think ye called on purpose."

They walked about the churchyard until the sun went down in what Mr Graham called the grave of his endless resurrection—the clouds on the one side bearing all the pomp of his funeral, the clouds on the other all the glory of his uprising; and when now the twilight trembled filmy on the borders of the dark, the master once more seated himself beside the new grave, and motioned to Malcolm to take his place beside him: there they talked and dreamed together of the life to come, with many wanderings and returns; and little as the boy knew of the ocean depths of sorrowful experience in the bosom of his companion whence floated up the breaking bubbles of rainbow hued thought, his words fell upon his heart—not to be provender for the birds of flitting fancy and airy speculation, but the seed—it might be decades ere it ripened—of a coming harvest of hope. At length the master rose and said, "Malcolm, I'm going in: I should like you to stay here half an hour alone, and then go straight home to bed."

For the master believed in solitude and silence. Say rather, he believed in God. What the youth might think, feel, or judge, he could not tell; but he believed that when the Human is still, the Divine speaks to it, because it is its own.

Malcolm consented willingly. The darkness had deepened, the graves all but vanished; an old setting moon appeared, boatlike over a great cloudy chasm, into which it slowly sank; blocks of cloud, with stars between, possessed the sky; all nature seemed thinking about death; a listless wind began to blow, and Malcolm began to feel as if he were awake too long, and ought to be asleep—as if he were out in a dream—a dead man that had risen too soon or lingered too late—so lonely, so forsaken! The wind, soft as it was, seemed to blow through his very soul. Yet something held him, and his half hour was long over when he left the churchyard.

As he walked home, the words of a German poem, a version of which Mr Graham had often repeated to him, and once more that same night, kept ringing in his heart:

Uplifted is the stone, And all mankind arisen! We men remain thine own, And vanished is our prison! What bitterest grief can stay Before thy golden cup, When earth and life give way, And with our Lord we sup.

To the marriage Death doth call. The maidens are not slack; The lamps are burning all— Of oil there is no lack. Afar I hear the walking Of thy great marriage throng And hark! the stars are talking With human tone and tongue!

Courage! for life is hasting To endless life away; The inner fire, unwasting, Transfigures our dull clay See the stars melting, sinking, In life wine, golden bright We, of the splendour drinking, Shall grow to stars of light.

Lost, lost are all our losses; Love set for ever free; The full life heaves and tosses Like an eternal sea! One endless living story! One poem spread abroad! And the sun of all our glory Is the countenance of God.



CHAPTER XIII: THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE

The next morning rose as lovely as if the mantle of the departing Resurrection day had fallen upon it. Malcolm rose with it, hastened to his boat, and pulled out into the bay for an hour or two's fishing. Nearly opposite the great conglomerate rock at the western end of the dune, called the Bored Craig (Perforated Crag) because of a large hole that went right through it, he began to draw in his line. Glancing shoreward as he leaned over the gunwale, he spied at the foot .of the rock, near the opening, a figure in white, seated, with bowed head. It was of course the mysterious lady, whom he had twice before seen thereabout at this unlikely if not untimely hour; but with yesterday fresh in his mind, how could he fail to see in her an angel of the resurrection waiting at the sepulchre to tell the glad news that the Lord was risen?

Many were the glances he cast shoreward as he rebaited his line, and, having thrown it again into the water, sat waiting until it should be time to fire the swivel. Still the lady sat on, in her whiteness a creature of the dawn, without even lifting her head. At length, having added a few more fishes to the little heap in the bottom of his boat, and finding his watch bear witness that the hour was at hand, he seated himself on his thwart, and rowed lustily to the shore, his bosom filled with the hope of yet another sight of the lovely face, and another hearing of the sweet English voice and speech. But the very first time he turned his head to look, he saw but the sloping foot of the rock sink bare into the shore. No white robed angel sat at the gate of the resurrection; no moving thing was visible on the far vacant sands. When he reached the top of the dune, there was no living creature beyond but a few sheep feeding on the thin grass. He fired the gun, rowed back to the Seaton, ate his breakfast, and set out to carry the best of his fish to the House.

The moment he turned the corner of her street, he saw Mrs Catanach standing on her threshold with her arms akimbo; although she was always tidy, and her house spotlessly trim, she yet seemed forever about the door, on the outlook at least, if not on the watch.

"What hae ye in yer bit basket the day, Ma'colm?" she said, with a peculiar smile, which was not sweet enough to restore vanished confidence.

"Naething guid for dogs," answered Malcolm, and was walking past.

But she made a step forward, and, with a laugh meant to indicate friendly amusement, said,

"Let's see what's intill't, ony gait (anyhow).—The doggie's awa on 's traivels the day."

"'Deed, Mistress Catanach," persisted Malcolm, "I canna say I like to hae my ain fish flung i' my face, nor yet to see ill-faured tykes rin awa' wi' 't afore my verra een."

After the warning given him by Miss Horn, and the strange influence her presence had had on his grandfather, Malcolm preferred keeping up a negative quarrel with the woman.

"Dinna ca' ill names," she returned: "my dog wad tak it waur to be ca'd an ill faured tyke, nor to hae fish flung in his face. Lat's see what's i' yer basket, I say."

As she spoke, she laid her hand on the basket, but Malcolm drew back, and turned away towards the gate.

"Lord safe us!" she cried, with a yelling laugh; "ye're no feared at an auld wife like me?"

"I dinna ken; maybe ay an' maybe no—I wadna say. But I dinna want to hae onything to du wi' ye, mem."

"Ma'colm MacPhail," said Mrs Catanach, lowering her voice to a hoarse whisper, while every trace of laughter vanished from her countenance, "ye hae had mair to du wi' me nor ye ken, an' aiblins ye'll hae mair yet nor ye can weel help. Sae caw canny, my man."

"Ye may hae the layin' o' me oot," said Malcolm, "but it sanna be wi' my wull; an' gien I hae ony life left i' me, I s' gie ye a fleg (fright)."

"Ye may get a war yersel': I hae frichtit the deid afore noo. Sae gang yer wa's to Mistress Coorthoup, wi' a flech (flea) i' yer lug (ear). I wuss ye luck—sic luck as I wad wuss ye I—"

Her last words sounded so like a curse, that to overcome a cold creep, Malcolm had to force a laugh.

The cook at the House bought all his fish, for they had had none for the last few days, because of the storm; and he was turning to go home by the river side, when he heard a tap on a window, and saw Mrs Courthope beckoning him to another door.

"His lordship desired me to send you to him, Malcolm, the next time you called," she said.

"Weel, mem, here I am," answered the youth.

"You'll find him in the flower garden," she said. "He's up early today for a wonder."

He left his basket at the top of the stairs that led down the rock to the level of the burn, and walked up the valley of the stream.

The garden was a curious old fashioned place, with high hedges, and close alleys of trees, where two might have wandered long without meeting, and it was some time before he found any hint of the presence of the marquis. At length, however, he heard voices, and following the sound, walked along one of the alleys till he came to a little arbour, where he discovered the marquis seated, and, to his surprise, the white robed lady of the sands beside him. A great deer hound at his master's feet was bristling his mane, and baring his eye teeth with a growl, but the girl had a hold of his collar.

"Who are you?" asked the marquis rather gruffly, as if he had never seen him before.

"I beg yer lordship's pardon," said Malcolm, "but they telled me yer lordship wantit to see me, and sent me to the flooer garden. Will I gang, or will I bide?"

The marquis looked at him for a moment, frowningly, and made no reply. But the frown gradually relaxed before Malcolm's modest but unflinching gaze, and the shadow of a smile slowly usurped its place. He still kept silent, however.

"Am I to gang or bide, my lord?" repeated Malcolm.

"Can't you wait for an answer?"

"As lang's yer lordship likes—Will I gang an' walk aboot, mem —my leddy, till his lordship's made up his min'? Wad that please him, duv ye think?" he said, in the tone of one who seeks advice.

But the girl only smiled, and the marquis said, "Go to the devil."

"I maun luik to yer lordship for the necessar' directions," rejoined Malcolm.

"Your tongue's long enough to inquire as you go," said the marquis.

A reply in the same strain rushed to Malcolm's lips, but he checked himself in time, and stood silent, with his bonnet in his band, fronting the two. The marquis sat gazing as if he had nothing to say to him, but after a few moments the lady spoke—not to Malcolm, however.

"Is there any danger in boating here, papa?" she said.

"Not more, I daresay, than there ought to be," replied the marquis listlessly. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I should so like a row! I want to see how the shore looks to the mermaids."

"Well, I will take you some day, if we can find a proper boat."

"Is yours a proper boat?" she asked, turning to Malcolm with a sparkle of fun in her eyes.

"That depen's on my lord's definition o' proper."

"Definition!" repeated the marquis.

"Is 't ower lang a word, my lord?" asked Malcolm.

The marquis only smiled.

"I ken what ye mean. It's a strange word in a fisher lad's mou', ye think. But what for should na a fisher lad hae a smatterin' o' loagic, my lord? For Greek or Laitin there's but sma' opportunity o' exerceese in oor pairts; but for loagic, a fisher body may aye haud his ban' in i' that. He can aye be tryin' 't upo' 's wife, or 's guid mother, or upo' 's boat, or upo' the fish whan they winna tak. Loagic wad save a heap o' cursin' an' ill words—amo' the fisher fowk, I mean, my lord."

"Have you been to college?"

"Na, my lord—the mair's the pity! But I've been to the school sin' ever I can min'."

"Do they teach logic there?"

"A kin' o' 't. Mr Graham sets us to try oor ban' whiles—jist to mak 's a bit gleg (quick and keen), ye ken."

"You don't mean you go to school still?"

"I dinna gang reg'lar; but I gang as aften as Mr Graham wants me to help him, an' I aye gether something."

"So it's schoolmaster you are as well as fisherman? Two strings to your bow!—Who pays you for teaching?"

"Ow! naebody. Wha wad pay me for that?"

"Why, the schoolmaster."

"Na, but that wad be an affront, my lord!"

"How can you afford the time for nothing?"

"The time comes to little, compairt wi' what Mr Graham gies me i' the lang forenichts—i' the winter time, ye ken, my lord, whan the sea's whiles ower contumahcious to be meddlet muckle wi'."

"But you have to support your grandfather."

"My gran'father wad be ill pleased to hear ye say 't, my lord. He's terrible independent; an' what wi' his pipes, an' his lamps, an' his shop, he could keep's baith. It's no muckle the likes o' us wants. He winna lat me gang far to the fishin', so that I hae the mair time to read an' gang to Mr Graham."

As the youth spoke, the marquis eyed him with apparently growing interest.

"But you haven't told me whether your boat is a proper one," said the lady.

"Proper eneuch, mem, for what's required o' her. She taks guid fish."

"But is it a proper boat for me to have a row in?"

"No wi' that goon on, mem, as I telled ye afore."

"The water won't get in, will it?"

"No more than's easy gotten oot again."

"Do you ever put up a sail?"

"Whiles—a wee bit o' a lug sail."



"Nonsense, Flow!" said the marquis. "I'll see about it."

Then turning to Malcolm,—"You may go," he said. "When I want you I will send for you."

Malcolm thought with himself that he had sent for him this time before he wanted him; but he made his bow, and departed—not without disappointment, for he had expected the marquis to say something about his grandfather going to the House with his pipes, a request he would fain have carried to the old man to gladden his heart withal.

Lord Lossie had been one of the boon companions of the Prince of Wales—considerably higher in type, it is true, yet low enough to accept usage for law, and measure his obligation by the custom of his peers: duty merely amounted to what was expected of him, and honour, the flitting shadow of the garment of truth, was his sole divinity. Still he had a heart, and it would speak,—so long at least, as the object affecting it was present. But, alas! it had no memory. Like the unjust judge, he might redress a wrong that cried to him, but out of sight and hearing it had for him no existence. To a man he would not have told a deliberate lie—except, indeed, a woman was in the case; but to women he had lied enough to sink the whole ship of fools. Nevertheless, had the accusing angel himself called him a liar, he would have instantly offered him his choice of weapons.

There was in him by nature, however, a certain generosity which all the vice he had shared in had not quenched. Overbearing, he was not yet too overbearing to appreciate a manly carriage, and had been pleased with what some would have considered the boorishness of Malcolm's behaviour—such not perceiving that it had the same source as the true aristocratic bearing—namely, a certain unselfish confidence which is the mother of dignity.

He had, of course, been a spendthrift—and so much the better, being otherwise what he was; for a cautious and frugal voluptuary is about the lowest style of man. Hence he had never been out of difficulties, and when, a year or so agone, he succeeded to his brother's marquisate, he was, notwithstanding his enlarged income, far too much involved to hope any immediate rescue from them. His new property, however, would afford him a refuge from troublesome creditors; there he might also avoid expenditure for a season, and perhaps rally the forces of a dissolute life; the place was not new to him, having, some twenty years before, spent nearly twelve months there, of which time the recollections were not altogether unpleasant: weighing all these things he had made up his mind, and here he was at Lossie House.

The marquis was about fifty years of age, more worn than his years would account for, yet younger than his years in expression, for his conscience had never bitten him very deep. He was middle sized, broad shouldered but rather thin, with fine features of the aquiline Greek type, light blue hazy eyes, and fair hair, slightly curling and streaked with gray. His manners were those of one polite for his own sake. To his remote inferiors he was kind—would even encourage them to liberties, but might in turn take greater with them than they might find agreeable. He was fond of animals— would sit for an hour stroking the head of Demon, his great Irish deerhound; but at other times would tease him to a wrath which touched the verge of dangerous. He was fond of practical jokes, and would not hesitate to indulge himself even in such as were incompatible with any genuine refinement: the sort had been in vogue in his merrier days, and Lord Lossie had ever been one of the most fertile in inventing, and loudest in enjoying them. For the rest, if he was easily enraged, he was readily appeased; could drink a great deal, but was no drunkard; and held as his creed that a God had probably made the world and set it going, but that he did not care a brass farthing, as he phrased it, how it went on, or what such an insignificant being as a man did or left undone in it. Perhaps he might amuse himself with it, he said, but he doubted it. As to men, he believed every man loved himself supremely, and therefore was in natural warfare with every other man. Concerning women he professed himself unable to give a definite utterance of any sort—and yet, he would add, he had had opportunities.

The mother of Florimel had died when she was a mere child, and from that time she had been at school until her father brought her away to share his fresh honours. She knew little, that little was not correct, and had it been, would have yet been of small value. At school she had been under many laws, and had felt their slavery: she was now in the third heaven of delight with her liberty. But the worst of foolish laws is, that when the insurgent spirit casts them off, it is but too ready to cast away with them the genial self-restraint which these fretting trammels have smothered beneath them.

Her father regarded her as a child, of whom it was enough to require that she should keep out of mischief. He said to himself now and then that he must find a governess for her; but as yet he had not begun to look for one. Meantime he neither exercised the needful authority over her, nor treated her as a companion. His was a shallow nature, never very pleasantly conscious of itself except in the whirl of excitement, and the glitter of crossing lights: with a lovely daughter by his side, he neither sought to search into her being, nor to aid its unfolding, but sat brooding over past pleasures, or fancying others yet in store for him—lost in the dull flow of life along the lazy reach to whose mire its once tumultuous torrent had now descended. But, indeed, what could such a man have done for the education of a young girl? How many of the qualities he understood and enjoyed in women could he desire to see developed in his daughter? There was yet enough of the father in him to expect those qualities in her to which in other women he had been an insidious foe; but had he not done what in him lay to destroy his right of claiming such from her?

So Lady Florimel was running wild, and enjoying it. As long as she made her appearance at meals, and looked happy, her father would give himself no trouble about her. How he himself managed to live in those first days without company—what he thought about or speculated upon, it were hard to say. All he could be said to do was to ride here and there over the estate with his steward, Mr Crathie, knowing little and caring less about farming, or crops, or cattle. He had by this time, however, invited a few friends to visit him, and expected their arrival before long.

"How do you like this dull life, Flory?" he said, as they walked up the garden to breakfast.

"Dull, papa!" she returned. "You never were at a girls' school, or you wouldn't call this dull. It is the merriest life in the world. To go where you like, and have miles of room! And such room! It's the loveliest place in the world, papa!"

He smiled a small, satisfied smile, and stooping stroked his Demon.



CHAPTER XIV: MEG PARTAN'S LAMP

Malcolm went down the riverside, not over pleased with the marquis; for, although unconscious of it as such, he had a strong feeling of personal dignity.

As he threaded the tortuous ways of the Seaton towards his own door, he met sounds of mingled abuse and apology. Such were not infrequent in that quarter, for one of the women who lived there was a termagant, and the door of her cottage was generally open. She was known as Meg Partan. Her husband's real name was of as little consequence in life as it is in my history, for almost everybody in the fishing villages of that coast was and is known by his to-name, or nickname, a device for distinction rendered absolutely necessary by the paucity of surnames occasioned by the persistent intermarriage of the fisher folk. Partan is the Scotch for crab, but the immediate recipient of the name was one of the gentlest creatures in the place, and hence it had been surmised by some that, the grey mare being the better horse, the man was thus designated from the crabbedness of his wife; but the probability is he brought the agnomen with him from school, where many such apparently misfitting names are unaccountably generated.

In the present case, however, the apologies were not issuing as usual from the mouth of Davy Partan, but from that of the blind piper. Malcolm stood for a moment at the door to understand the matter of contention, and prepare him to interfere judiciously.

"Gien ye suppose, piper, 'at ye're peyed to drive fowk oot o' their beds at sic hoors as yon, it's time the toon cooncil was informed o' yer mistak," said Meg Partan, with emphasis on the last syllable.

"Ta coot peoples up in ta town are not half so hart upon her as you, Mistress Partan," insinuated poor Duncan, who, knowing himself in fault, was humble; "and it's tere tat she's paid," he added, with a bridling motion, "and not town here pelow."