CHAPTER XX: ADVANCES

When he woke, Duncan still slept, and Malcolm having got ready some tea for his grandfather's, and a little brose for his own breakfast, sat down again by the bedside, and awaited the old man's waking. The first sign of it that reached him was the feebly uttered question, —"Will ta tog be tead, Malcolm?"

"As sure 's ye stabbit him," answered Malcolm.

"Then she 'll pe getting herself ready," said Duncan, making a motion to rise.

"What for, daddy?"

"For ta hanging, my son," answered Duncan coolly.

"Time eneuch for that, daddy, whan they sen' to tell ye," returned Malcolm, cautious of revealing the facts of the case.

"Ferry coot!" said Duncan, and fell asleep again.

In a little while he woke with a start.

"She 'll be hafing an efil tream, my son Malcolm," he said; "or it was 'll pe more than a tream. Cawmill of Clenlyon, Cod curse him! came to her pedside; and he'll say to her, 'MacDhonuill,' he said, for pein' a tead man he would pe knowing my name,—'MacDhonuill,' he said, 'what tid you'll pe meaning py turking my posterity?' And she answered and said to him, 'I pray it had peen yourself, you tamned Clenlyon.' And he said to me, 'It 'll pe no coot wishing tat; it would be toing you no coot to turk me, for I'm a tead man.'— 'And a tamned man,' says herself, and would haf taken him py ta troat, put she couldn't mofe. 'Well, I'm not so sure of tat,' says he, 'for I 'fe pecked all teir partons.'—'And tid tey gif tem to you, you tog?' says herself.—'Well, I'm not sure,' says he; 'anyhow, I'm not tamned fery much yet.'—'She'll pe much sorry to hear it,' says herself. And she took care aalways to pe calling him some paad name, so tat he shouldn't say she 'll be forgifing him, whatever ta rest of tem might be toing. 'Put what troubles me,' says he, 'it 'll not pe apout myself at aall.'—'Tat 'll pe a wonter,' says her nain sel': 'and what may it pe apout, you cuttroat?'—'It 'll pe apout yourself,' says he. 'Apout herself?' —'Yes; apout yourself' says he. 'I'm sorry for you—for ta ting tat's to pe tone with him tat killed a man aal pecaase he pore my name, and he wasn't a son of mine at aall! Tere is no pot in hell teep enough to put him in!'—'Ten tey must make haste and tig one,' says herself; 'for she 'll pe hangt in a tay or two.'—So she 'll wake up, and beholt it was a tream!"

"An' no sic an ill dream efter a', daddy!" said Malcolm.

"Not an efil tream, my son, when it makes her aalmost wish that she hadn't peen quite killing ta tog! Last night she would haf made a puoy of his skin like any other tog's skin, and totay—no, my son, it wass a fery efil tream. And to be tolt tat ta creat tefil, Clenlyon herself, was not fery much tamned!—it wass a fery efil tream, my son."

"Weel, daddy—maybe ye 'll tak it for ill news, but ye killed naebody."

"Tid she'll not trive her turk into ta tog?" cried Duncan fiercely. "Och hone! och hone!—Then she 's ashamed of herself for efer, when she might have tone it. And it 'll hafe to be tone yet!"

He paused a few moments, and then resumed:

"And she'll not pe coing to be hangt?—Maype tat will pe petter, for you wouldn't hafe liket to see your olt cranfather to pe hangt, Malcolm, my son. Not tat she would hafe minted it herself in such a coot caause, Malcolm! Put she tidn't pe fery happy after she tid think she had tone it, for you see he wasn't ta fery man his ownself, and tat must pe counted. But she tid kill something: what was it, Malcolm?"

"Ye sent a gran' dish fleein'," answered Malcolm. "I s' warran' it cost a poun', to jeedge by the gowd upo' 't."

"She'll hear a noise of preaking; put she tid stap something soft."

"Ye stack yer durk intill my lord's mahogany table," said Malcolm. "It nott (needed) a guid rug (pull) to haul't oot."

"Then her arm has not lost aal its strength, Malcolm! I pray ta taple had peen ta rips of Clenlyon!"

"Ye maunna pray nae sic prayers, daddy. Min' upo' what Glenlyon said to ye last nicht. Gien I was you I wadna hae a pot howkit express for mysel'—doon yonner—i' yon place 'at ye dreamed aboot."

"Well, I'll forgife him a little, Malcolm—not ta one tat's tead, but ta one tat tidn't do it, you know.—Put how will she pe forgifing him for ripping her poor pag? Och hone! och hone! No more musics for her tying tays, Malcolm! Och hone! och hone! I shall co creeping to ta crafe with no loud noises to defy ta enemy. Her pipes is tumb for efer and efer. Och hone! och hone!"

The lengthening of his days had restored bitterness to his loss.

"I'll sune set the bag richt, daddy. Or, gien I canna du that, we'll get a new ane. Mony a pibroch 'll come skirlin' oot o' that chanter yet er' a' be dune."

They were interrupted by the unceremonious entrance of the same footman who had brought the invitation. He carried a magnificent set of ebony pipes, with silver mountings.

"A present from my lord, the marquis," he said bumptiously, almost rudely, and laid them on the table.

"Dinna lay them there; tak them frae that, or I'll fling them yer poothered wig," said Malcolm. "—It's a stan' o' pipes," he added, "an' that a gran' ane, daddy."

"Take tem away!" cried the old man, in a voice too feeble to support the load of indignation it bore. "She'll pe taking no presents from marquis or tuke tat would pe teceifing old Tuncan, and making him trink with ta cursed Clenlyon. Tell ta marquis he 'll pe sending her cray hairs with sorrow to ta crafe; for she 'll pe tishonoured for efer and henceforth."

Probably pleased to be the bearer of a message fraught with so much amusement, the man departed in silence with the pipes.

The marquis, although the joke had threatened, and indeed so far taken a serious turn, had yet been thoroughly satisfied with its success. The rage of the old man had been to his eyes ludicrous in the extreme, and the anger of the young one so manly as to be even picturesque. He had even made a resolve, half dreamy and of altogether improbable execution, to do something for the fisher fellow.

The pipes which he had sent as a solatium to Duncan, were a set that belonged to the house—ancient, and in the eyes of either connoisseur or antiquarian, exceedingly valuable; but the marquis was neither the one nor the other, and did not in the least mind parting with them. As little did he doubt a propitiation through their means, was utterly unprepared for a refusal of his gift, and was nearly as much perplexed as annoyed thereat.

For one thing, he could not understand such offence taken by one in Duncan's lowly position; for although he had plenty of highland blood in his own veins, he had never lived in the Highlands, and understood nothing of the habits or feelings of the Gael. What was noble in him, however, did feel somewhat rebuked, and he was even a little sorry at having raised a barrier between himself and the manly young fisherman, to whom he had taken a sort of liking from the first.

Of the ladies in the drawing room, to whom he had recounted the vastly amusing joke with all the graphic delineation for which he had been admired at court, none, although they all laughed, had appeared to enjoy the bad recital thoroughly, except the bold faced countess. Lady Florimel regarded the affair as undignified at the best, was sorry for the old man, who must be mad, she thought, and was pleased only with the praises of her squire of low degree. The wound in his hand the marquis either thought too trifling to mention, or serious enough to have clouded the clear sky of frolic under which he desired the whole transaction to be viewed.

They were seated at their late breakfast when the lackey passed the window on his return from his unsuccessful mission, and the marquis happened to see him, carrying the rejected pipes. He sent for him, and heard his report, then with a quick nod dismissed him —his way when angry, and sat silent.

"Wasn't it spirited—in such poor people too?" said Lady Florimel, the colour rising in her face, and her eyes sparkling.

"It was damned impudent," said the marquis.

"I think it was damned dignified," said Lady Florimel.

The marquis stared. The visitors, after a momentary silence, burst into a great laugh.

"I wanted to see," said Lady Florimel calmly, "whether I couldn't swear if I tried. I don't think it tastes nice. I shan't take to it, I think."

"You'd better not in my presence, my lady," said the marquis, his eyes sparkling with fun.

"I shall certainly not do it out of your presence, my lord," she returned. "—Now I think of it," she went on, "I know what I will do: every time you say a bad word in my presence, I shall say it after you. I shan't mind who's there—parson or magistrate. Now you'll see."

"You will get into the habit of it."

"Except you get out of the habit of it first, papa," said the girl, laughing merrily.

"You confounded little Amazon!" said her father.

"But what's to be done about those confounded pipes?" she resumed. "You can't allow such people to serve you so! Return your presents, indeed! Suppose I undertake the business?"

"By all means. What will you do?"

"Make them take them, of course. It would be quite horrible never to be quits with the old lunatic."

"As you please, puss."

"Then you put yourself in my hands, papa?"

"Yes; only you must mind what you're about, you know."

"That I will, and make them mind too," she answered, and the subject was dropped.

Lady Florimel counted upon her influence with Malcolm, and his again with his grandfather; but careful of her dignity, she would not make direct advances; she would wait an opportunity of speaking to him. But, although she visited the sand hill almost every morning, an opportunity was not afforded her. Meanwhile, the state of Duncan's bag and of Malcolm's hand forbidding, neither pipes were played nor gun was fired to arouse marquis or burgess. When a fortnight had thus passed, Lady Florimel grew anxious concerning the justification of her boast, and the more so that her father seemed to avoid all reference to it.



CHAPTER XXI: MEDIATION

At length it was clear to Lady Florimel that if her father had not forgotten her undertaking, but was, as she believed, expecting from her some able stroke of diplomacy, it was high time that something should be done to save her credit. Nor did she forget that the unpiped silence of the royal burgh was the memento of a practical joke of her father, so cruel that a piper would not accept the handsome propitiation offered on its account by a marquis.

On a lovely evening, therefore, the sunlight lying slant on waters that heaved and sunk in a flowing tide, now catching the gold on lifted crests, now losing it in purple hollows, Lady Florimel found herself for the first time, walking from the lower gate towards the Seaton. Rounding the west end of the village, she came to the sea front, where, encountering a group of children, she requested to be shown the blind piper's cottage. Ten of them started at once to lead the way, and she was presently knocking at the half open door, through which she could not help seeing the two at their supper of dry oat cake and still drier skim milk cheese, with a jug of cold water to wash it down. Neither, having just left the gentlemen at their wine, could she help feeling the contrast between the dinner just over at the House and the meal she now beheld.

At the sound of her knock, Malcolm, who was seated with his back to the door, rose to answer the appeal;—the moment he saw her, the blood rose from his heart to his cheek in similar response. He opened the door wide, and in low, something tremulous tones, invited her to enter; then caught up a chair, dusted it with his bonnet, and placed it for her by the window, where a red ray of the setting sun fell on a huge flowered hydrangea. Her quick eye caught sight of his bound up hand.

"How have you hurt your hand?" she asked kindly.

Malcolm made signs that prayed for silence, and pointed to his grandfather. But it was too late.

"Hurt your hand, Malcolm, my son," cried Duncan, with surprise and anxiety mingled. "How will you pe toing tat?"

"Here's a bonny yoong leddy come to see ye, daddy," said Malcolm, seeking to turn the question aside.

"She'll pe fery clad to see ta ponny young laty, and she's creatly obleeched for ta honour: put if ta ponny young laty will pe excusing her—what'll pe hurting your hand, Malcolm!"

"I'll tell ye efterhin, daddy. This is my Leddy Florimel, frae the Hoose."

"Hm!" said Duncan, the pain of his insult keenly renewed by the mere mention of the scene of it. "Put," he went on, continuing aloud the reflections of a moment of silence, "she'll pe a laty, and it's not to pe laid to her charch. Sit town, my laty. Ta poor place is your own."

But Lady Florimel was already seated, and busy in her mind as to how she could best enter on the object of her visit. The piper sat silent, revolving a painful suspicion with regard to Malcolm's hurt.

"So you won't forgive my father, Mr MacPhail?" said Lady Florimel.

"She would forgife any man put two men," he answered, "—Clenlyon, and ta man, whoefer he might pe, who would put upon her ta tiscrace of trinking in his company."

"But you're quite mistaken," said Lady Florimel, in a pleading tone. "I don't believe my father knows the gentleman you speak of."

"Chentleman!" echoed Duncan. "He is a tog!—No, he is no tog: togs is coot. He is a mongrel of a fox and a volf!"

"There was no Campbell at our table that evening," persisted Lady Florimel.

"Ten who tolt Tuncan MacPhail a lie!"

"It was nothing but a joke—indeed!" said the girl, beginning to feel humiliated.

"It wass a paad choke, and might have peen ta hanging of poor Tuncan," said the piper.

Now Lady Florimel had heard a rumour of some one having been, hurt in the affair of the joke, and her quick wits instantly brought that and Malcolm's hand together.

"It might have been," she said, risking a miss for the advantage. "It was well that you hurt nobody but your own grandson."

"Oh, my leddy!" cried Malcolm with despairing remonstrance; "—an' me haudin' 't frae him a' this time! Ye sud ha' considert an auld man's feelin's! He's as blin' 's a mole, my leddy!"

"His feelings!" retorted the girl angrily. "He ought to know the mischief he does in his foolish rages."

Duncan had risen, and was now feeling his way across the room. Having reached his grandson, he laid hold of his head and pressed it to his bosom.

"Malcolm!" he said, in a broken and hollow voice, not to be recognized as his, "Malcolm, my eagle of the crag! my hart of the heather! was it yourself she stapped with her efil hand, my son? Tid she'll pe hurting her own poy!—She'll nefer wear turk more. Och hone! Och hone!"

He turned, and, with bowed head seeking his chair, seated himself and wept.

Lady Florimel's anger vanished. She was by his side in a moment, with her lovely young hand on the bony expanse of his, as it covered his face. On the other side, Malcolm laid his lips to his ear, and whispered with soothing expostulation,—

"It's maist as weel 's ever daddy. It's nane the waur. It was but a bit o' a scart. It's nae worth twise thinkin' o'."

"Ta turk went trough it, Malcolm! It went into ta table! She knows now! O Malcolm! Malcolm! would to Cod she had killed herself pefore she hurted her poy!"

He made Malcolm sit down beside him, and taking the wounded hand in both of his, sunk into a deep silence, utterly forgetful of the presence of Lady Florimel, who retired to her chair, kept silence also, and waited.

"It was not a coot choke," he murmured at length, "upon an honest man, and might pe calling herself a chentleman. A rache is not a choke. To put her in a rache was not coot. See to it. And it was a ferry paad choke, too, to make a pig hole in her poor pag! Och hone! och hone!—Put I'm clad Clenlyon was not there, for she was too plind to kill him."

"But you will surely forgive my father, when he wants to make it up! Those pipes have been in the family for hundreds of years," said Florimel.

"Her own pipes has peen in her own family for five or six chenerations at least," said Duncan. "—And she was wondering why her poy tidn't pe mending her pag! My poor poy! Och hone! Och hone!"

"We'll get a new bag, daddy," said Malcolm. "It's been lang past men'in' wi' auld age."

"And then you will be able to play together," urged Lady Florimel.

Duncan's resolution was visibly shaken by the suggestion. He pondered for a while. At last he opened his mouth solemnly, and said, with the air of one who had found a way out of a hitherto impassable jungle of difficulty:

"If her lord marquis will come to Tuncan's house, and say to Tuncan it was put a choke and he is sorry for it, then Tuncan will shake hands with ta marquis, and take ta pipes."

A smile of pleasure lighted up Malcolm's face at the proud proposal. Lady Florimel smiled also, but with amusement.

"Will my laty take Tuncan's message to my lord, ta marquis?" asked the old man.

Now Lady Florimel had inherited her father's joy in teasing; and the thought of carrying him such an overture was irresistibly delightful.

"I will take it," she said. "But what if he should be angry?"

"If her lord pe angry, Tuncan is angry too," answered the piper.

Malcolm followed Lady Florimel to the door.

"Put it as saft as ye can, my leddy," he whispered. "I canna bide to anger fowk mair than maun be."

"I shall give the message precisely as your grandfather gave it to me," said Florimel, and walked away.

While they sat at dinner the next evening, she told her father from the head of the table, all about her visit to the piper, and ended with the announcement of the condition—word for word— on which the old man would consent to a reconciliation.

Could such a proposal have come from an equal whom he had insulted, the marquis would hardly have waited for a challenge: to have done a wrong was nothing; to confess it would be disgrace. But here the offended party was of such ludicrously low condition, and the proposal therefore so ridiculous, that it struck the marquis merely as a yet more amusing prolongation of the joke. Hence his reception of it was with uproarious laughter, in which all his visitors joined.

"Damn the old windbag!" said the marquis.

"Damn the knife that made the mischief," said Lady Florimel.

When the merriment had somewhat subsided, Lord Meikleham, the youth of soldierly aspect, would have proposed whipping the highland beggar, he said, were it not for the probability the old clothes horse would fall to pieces; whereupon Lady Florimel recommended him to try it on the young fisherman, who might possibly hold together; whereat the young lord looked both mortified and spiteful.

I believe some compunction, perhaps even admiration, mingled itself, in this case, with Lord Lossie's relish of an odd and amusing situation, and that he was inclined to compliance with the conditions of atonement, partly for the sake of mollifying the wounded spirit of the highlander. He turned to his daughter and said,—

"Did you fix an hour, Flory, for your poor father to make amende honorable?"

"No, papa; I did not go so far as that."

The marquis kept a few moments' grave silence.

"Your lordship is surely not meditating such a solecism?" said Mr Morrison, the justice laird.

"Indeed I am," said the marquis.

"It would be too great a condescension," said Mr Cavins; "and your lordship will permit me to doubt the wisdom of it. These fishermen form a class by themselves; they are a rough set of men, and only too ready to despise authority. You will not only injure the prestige of your rank, my lord, but expose yourself to endless imposition."

"The spirit moves me, and we are commanded not to quench the spirit," rejoined the marquis with a merry laugh, little thinking that he was actually describing what was going on in him-that the spirit of good concerning which he jested, was indeed not working in him, but gaining on him, in his resolution of that moment.

"Come, Flory," said the marquis, to whom it gave a distinct pleasure to fly in the face of advice, "we'll go at once, and have it over."

So they set out together for the Seaton, followed by the bagpipes, carried by the same servant as before, and were received by the overjoyed Malcolm, and ushered into his grandfather's presence.

Whatever may have been the projected attitude of the marquis, the moment he stood on the piper's floor, the generous, that is the gentleman, in him, got the upper hand, and his behaviour to the old man was not polite merely, but respectful. At no period in the last twenty years had he been so nigh the kingdom of heaven as he was now when making his peace with the blind piper.

When Duncan heard his voice, he rose with dignity and made a stride or two towards the door, stretching forth his long arm to its full length, and spreading wide his great hand with the brown palm upwards:

"Her nainsel will pe proud to see my lord ta marquis under her roof;" he said.

The visit itself had already sufficed to banish all resentment from his soul.

The marquis took the proffered hand kindly:

"I have come to apologise," he said.

"Not one vord more, my lort, I peg," interrupted Duncan. "My lort is come, out of his cootness, to pring her a creat kift; for he'll pe hearing of ta sad accident which pefell her poor pipes one efening lately. Tey was ferry old, my lort, and easily hurt."

"I am sorry—" said the marquis—but again Duncan interrupted him.

"I am clad, my lort," he said, "for it prings me ta creat choy. If my lady and your lordship will honour her poor house py sitting town, she will haf ta pleasure of pe offering tem a little music."

His hospitality would give them of the best he had; but ere the entertainment was over, the marquis judged himself more than fairly punished by the pipes for all the wrong he had done the piper.

They sat down, and, at a sign from his lordship, the servant placed his charge in Duncan's hands, and retired. The piper received the instrument with a proud gesture of gratification, felt it all over, screwed at this and that for a moment, then filled the great bag gloriously full. The next instant a scream invaded the astonished air fit to rival the skirl produced by the towzie tyke of Kirk Alloway; another instant, and the piper was on his legs, as full of pleasure and pride as his bag of wind, strutting up and down the narrow chamber like a turkey cock before his hens, and turning ever, after precisely so many strides, with a grand gesture and mighty sweep, as if he too had a glorious tail to mind, and was bound to keep it ceaselessly quivering to the tremor of the reed in the throat of his chanter.

Malcolm, erect behind their visitors, gazed with admiring eyes at every motion of his grandfather. To one who had from earliest infancy looked up to him with reverence, there was nothing ridiculous in the display, in the strut, in all that to other eyes too evidently revealed the vanity of the piper: Malcolm regarded it all only as making up the orthodox mode of playing the pipes. It was indeed well that he could not see the expression upon the faces of those behind whose chairs he stood, while for moments that must have seemed minutes, they succumbed to the wild uproar which issued from those splendid pipes. On an opposite hillside, with a valley between, it would have sounded poetic; in a charging regiment, none could have wished for more inspiriting battle strains; even in a great hall, inspiring and guiding the merry reel, it might have been in place and welcome; but in a room of ten feet by twelve, with a wooden ceiling, acting like a drumhead, at the height of seven feet and a half!—It was little below torture to the marquis and Lady Florimel. Simultaneously they rose to make their escape.

"My lord an' my leddy maun be gauin', daddy," cried Malcolm.

Absorbed in the sound which his lungs created and his fingers modulated, the piper had forgotten all about his visitors; but the moment his grandson's voice reached him, the tumult ceased; he took the port vent from his lips, and with sightless eyes turned full on Lord Lossie, said in a low earnest voice,—

"My lort, she 'll pe ta craandest staand o' pipes she efer blew, and proud and thankful she'll pe to her lort marquis, and to ta Lort of lorts, for ta kift. Ta pipes shall co town from cheneration to cheneration to ta ent of time; yes, my lort, until ta loud cry of tem pe trownt in ta roar of ta trump of ta creat archanchel, when he'll pe setting one foot on ta laand and ta other foot upon ta sea, and Clenlyon shall pe cast into ta lake of fire."

He ended with a low bow. They shook hands with him, thanked him for his music, wished him goodnight, and, with a kind nod to Malcolm, left the cottage.

Duncan resumed his playing the moment they were out of the house, and Malcolm, satisfied of his well being for a couple of hours at least—he had been music starved so long, went also out, in quest of a little solitude.



CHAPTER XXII: WHENCE AND WHITHER?

He wandered along the shore on the land side of the mound, with a favourite old book of Scottish ballads in his hand, every now and then stooping to gather a sea anemone—a white flower something like a wild geranium, with a faint sweet smell, or a small, short stalked harebell, or a red daisy, as large as a small primrose; for along the coast there, on cliff or in sand, on rock or in field, the daisies are remarkable for size, and often not merely tipped, but dyed throughout with a deep red.

He had gathered a bunch of the finest, and had thrown himself down on the side of the dune, whence, as he lay, only the high road, the park wall, the temple of the winds, and the blue sky were visible. The vast sea, for all the eye could tell, was nowhere—not a ripple of it was to be seen, but the ear was filled with the night gush and flow of it. A sweet wind was blowing, hardly blowing, rather gliding, like a slumbering river, from the west. The sun had vanished, leaving a ruin of gold and rose behind him, gradually fading into dull orange and lead and blue sky and stars. There was light enough to read by, but he never opened his book. He was thinking over something Mr Graham had said to him a few days before, namely, that all impatience of monotony, all weariness of best things even, are but signs of the eternity of our nature—the broken human fashions of the divine everlastingness.

"I dinna ken whaur it comes frae," said a voice above him.

He looked up. On the ridge of the mound, the whole of his dwarfed form relieved against the sky and looking large in the twilight, stood the mad laird, reaching out his forehead towards the west with his arms expanded as if to meet the ever coming wind.

"Naebody kens whaur the win' comes frae, or whaur it gangs till," said Malcolm. "Ye're no a hair waur aff nor ither fowk, there, laird."

"Does't come frae a guid place, or frae an ill?" said the laird, doubtingly.

"It's saft an' kin'ly i' the fin' o' 't," returned Malcolm suggestively, rising and joining the laird on the top of the dune, and like him spreading himself out to the western air.

The twilight had deepened, merging into such night as the summer in that region knows—a sweet pale memory of the past day. The sky was full of sparkles of pale gold in a fathomless blue; there was no moon; the darker sea lay quiet below, with only a murmur about its lip, and fitfully reflected the stars. The soft wind kept softly blowing. Behind them shone a light at the harbour's mouth, and a twinkling was here and there visible in the town above; but all was as still as if there were no life save in the wind and the sea and the stars. The whole feeling was as if something had been finished in heaven, and the outmost ripples of the following rest had overflowed and were now pulsing faintly and dreamily across the bosom of the labouring earth, with feeblest suggestion of the mighty peace beyond. Alas, words can do so little! even such a night is infinite.

"Ay," answered the laird; "but it maks me dowfart (melancholy) like, i' the inside."

"Some o' the best things does that," said Malcolm. "I think a kiss frae my mither wad gar me greet."

He knew the laird's peculiarities well; but in the thought of his mother had forgotten the antipathy of his companion to the word. Stewart gave a moaning cry, put his fingers in his ears, and glided down the slope of the dune seawards.

Malcolm was greatly distressed. He had a regard for the laird far beyond pity, and could not bear the thought of having inadvertently caused him pain. But he dared not follow him, for that would be but to heighten the anguish of the tortured mind and the suffering of the sickly frame; for, when pursued, he would accomplish a short distance at an incredible speed, then drop suddenly and lie like one dead. Malcolm, therefore, threw off his heavy boots, and starting at full speed along the other side of the dune, made for the bored craig; his object being to outrun the laird without being seen by him, and so, doubling the rock, return with leisurely steps, and meet him. Sweetly the west wind whistled about his head as he ran. In a few moments he had rounded the rock, towards which the laird was still running, but now more slowly. The tide was high and came near its foot, leaving but a few yards of passage between, in which space they approached each other, Malcolm with sauntering step as if strolling homewards. Lifting his bonnet, a token of respect he never omitted when he met the mad laird, he stood aside in the narrow way. Mr Stewart stopped abruptly, took his fingers from his ears, and stared in perplexity.

"It's a richt bonny nicht, laird," said Malcolm.

The poor fellow looked hurriedly behind him, then stared again, then made gestures backward, and next pointed at Malcolm with rapid pokes of his forefinger. Bewilderment had brought on the impediment in his speech, and all Malcolm could distinguish in the babbling efforts at utterance which followed, were the words,—"Twa o' them! Twa o' them! Twa o' them!" often and hurriedly repeated.

"It's a fine, saft sleekit win,' laird," said Malcolm, as if they were meeting for the first time that night. "I think it maun come frae the blue there, ayont the stars. There's a heap o' wonnerfu' things there, they tell me; an' whiles a strokin win' an' whiles a rosy smell, an' whiles a bricht licht, an' whiles, they say, an auld yearnin' sang, 'ill brak oot, an' wanner awa doon, an' gang flittin' an' fleein' amang the sair herts o' the men an' women fowk 'at canna get things putten richt."

"I think there are two fools of them!" said the marquis, referring to the words of the laird.

He was seated with Lady Florimel on the town side of the rock, hidden from them by one sharp corner. They had seen the mad laird coming, and had recognised Malcolm's voice.

"I dinna ken whaur I come frae," burst from the laird, the word whaur drawn out and emphasized almost to a howl; and as he spoke he moved on again, but gently now, towards the rocks of the Scaurnose. Anxious to get him thoroughly soothed before they parted, Malcolm accompanied him. They walked a little way side by side in silence, the laird every now and then heaving his head like a fretted horse towards the sky, as if he sought to shake the heavy burden from his back, straighten out his poor twisted spine, and stand erect like his companion:

"Ay!" Malcolm began again, as if he had in the meantime been thinking over the question, and was now assured upon it, "—the win' maun come frae yont the stars; for dinna ye min', laird? Ye was at the kirk last Sunday—wasna ye?"

The laird nodded an affirmative, and Malcolm went on.

"An' didna ye hear the minister read frae the buik 'at hoo ilka guid an' ilka perfit gift was frae abune, an' cam frae the Father o' lichts?"

"Father o' lichts!" repeated the laird, and looked up at the stars. "I dinna ken whaur I cam frae. I hae nae father. I hae only a ... I hae only a wuman."

The moment he had said the word, he began to move his head from side to side like a scared animal seeking where to conceal itself.

"The Father o' lichts is your father an' mine—The Father o' a' o' 's," said Malcolm.

"O' a' guid fowk, I daursay," said the laird, with a deep and quivering sigh.

"Mr Graham says—o' a'body," returned Malcolm, "guid an' ill; —o' the guid to haud them guid an' mak them better—o' the ill to mak them guid."

"Eh! gien that war true!" said the laird.

They walked on in silence for a minute. All at once the laird threw up his hands, and fell flat on his face on the sand, his poor hump rising skywards above his head. Malcolm thought he had been seized with one of the fits to which he was subject, and knelt down beside him, to see if he could do anything for him. Then he found he was praying: he heard him—he could but just hear him—murmuring over and over, all but inaudibly, "Father o' lichts! Father o' lichts! Father o' lichts!" It seemed as if no other word dared mingle itself with that cry. Maniac or not—the mood of the man was supremely sane, and altogether too sacred to disturb. Malcolm retreated a little way, sat down in the sand and watched beside him. It was a solemn time—the full tide lapping up on the long yellow sand from the wide sea darkening out to the dim horizon: the gentle wind blowing through the molten darkness; overhead, the great vault without arch or keystone, of dim liquid blue, and sown with worlds so far removed they could only shine; and, on the shore, the centre of all the cosmic order, a misshapen heap of man, a tumulus in which lay buried a live and lovely soul! The one pillar of its chapter house had given way, and the downrushing ruin had so crushed and distorted it, that thenceforth until some resurrection should arrive, disorder and misshape must appear to it the law of the universe, and loveliness but the passing dream of a brain glad to deceive its own misery, and so to fancy it had received from above what it had itself generated of its own poverty from below. To the mind's eye of Malcolm, the little hump on the sand was heaved to the stars, higher than ever Roman tomb or Egyptian pyramid, in silent appeal to the sweet heavens, a dumb prayer for pity, a visible groan for the resurrection of the body. For a few minutes he sat as still as the prostrate laird.

But bethinking himself that his grandfather would not go to bed until he went back, also that the laird was in no danger, as the tide was now receding, he resolved to go and get the old man to bed, and then return. For somehow he felt in his heart that he ought not to leave him alone. He could not enter into his strife to aid him, or come near him in any closer way than watching by his side until his morning dawned, or at least the waters of his flood assuaged, yet what he could he must: he would wake with him in his conflict.

He rose and ran for the bored craig, through which lay the straight line to his abandoned boots.

As he approached the rock, he heard the voices of Lord Lossie and Lady Florimel, who, although the one had not yet verified her being, the other had almost ruined his, were nevertheless enjoying the same thing, the sweetness of the night, together. Not hearing Malcolm's approach, they went on talking, and as he was passing swiftly through the bore, he heard these words from the marquis, —"The world's an ill baked cake, Flory, and all that a woman, at least, can do, is to cut as large a piece of it as possible, for immediate use."

The remark being a general one, Malcolm cannot be much blamed if he stood with one foot lifted to hear Florimel's reply.

"If it 's an ill baked one, papa," she returned, "I think it would be better to cut as small a piece of it as will serve for immediate use."

Malcolm was delighted with her answer, never thinking whether it came from her head or her heart, for the two were at one in himself.

As soon as he appeared on the other side of the rock, the marquis challenged him: "Who goes there?" he said.

"Malcolm MacPhail, my lord."

"You rascal!" said his lordship, good humouredly; "you've been listening!"

"No muckle, my lord. I heard but a word apiece. An' I maun say my leddy had the best o' the loagic."

"My lady generally has, I suspect," laughed the marquis. "How long have you been in the rock there?"

"No ae meenute, my lord. I flang aff my butes to rin efter a freen', an' that's hoo ye didna hear me come up. I'm gaein' efter them noo, to gang hame i' them. Guid nicht, my lord. Guid nicht, my leddy."

He turned and pursued his way; but Florimel's face, glimmering through the night, went with him as he ran.

He told his grandfather how he had left the mad laird lying on his face, on the sands between the bored craig and the rocks of the promontory, and said he would like to go back to him.

"He'll be hafing a fit, poor man," said Duncan. "Yes, my son, you must co to him and to your pest for him. After such an honour as we 'fe had this day, we mustn't pe forgetting our poor neighpours. Will you pe taking to him a trop of uisgebeatha?"

"He taks naething o' that kin'," said Malcolm.

He could not tell him that the madman, as men called him, lay wrestling in prayer with the Father of lights. The old highlander was not irreverent, but the thing would have been unintelligible to him. He could readily have believed that the supposed lunatic might be favoured beyond ordinary mortals; that at that very moment, lost in his fit, he might be rapt in a vision of the future—a wave of time, far off as yet from the souls of other men, even now rolling over his; but that a soul should seek after vital content by contact with its maker, was an idea belonging to a region which, in the highlander's being, lay as yet an unwatered desert, an undiscovered land, whence even no faintest odour had been wafted across the still air of surprised contemplation.

About the time when Malcolm once more sped through the bored craig, the marquis and Lady Florimel were walking through the tunnel on their way home, chatting about a great ball they were going to give the tenants.

He found the laird where he had left him, and thought at first he must now surely be asleep; but once more bending over him, he could hear him still murmuring at intervals, "Father o' lichts! Father o' lichts!"

Not less compassionate, and more sympathetic than Eliphaz or Bildad or Zophar, Malcolm again took his place near him, and sat watching by him until the gray dawn began in the east. Then all at once the laird rose to his feet, and without a look on either side walked steadily away towards the promontory. Malcolm rose also, and gazed after him until he vanished amongst the rocks, no motion of his distorted frame witnessing other than calmness of spirit. So his watcher returned in peace through the cool morning air to the side of his slumbering grandfather.

No one in the Seaton of Portlossie ever dreamed of locking door or window at night.



CHAPTER XXIII: ARMAGEDDON

The home season of the herring fishery was to commence a few days after the occurrences last recorded. The boats had all returned from other stations, and the little harbour was one crowd of stumpy masts, each with its halliard, the sole cordage visible, rove through the top of it, for the hoisting of a lug sail, tanned to a rich red brown. From this underwood towered aloft the masts of a coasting schooner, discharging its load of coal at the little quay. Other boats lay drawn up on the beach in front of the Seaton, and beyond it on the other side of the burn. Men and women were busy with the brown nets, laying them out on the short grass of the shore, mending them with netting needles like small shuttles, carrying huge burdens of them on their shoulders in the hot sunlight; others were mending, calking, or tarring their boats, and looking to their various fittings. All was preparation for the new venture in their own waters, and everything went merrily and hopefully. Wives who had not accompanied their husbands now had them home again, and their anxieties would henceforth endure but for a night —joy would come with the red sails in the morning, lovers were once more together, the one great dread broken into a hundred little questioning fears; mothers had their sons again, to watch with loving eyes as they swung their slow limbs at their labour, or in the evenings sauntered about, hands in pockets, pipe in mouth, and blue bonnet cast carelessly on the head: it was almost a single family, bound together by a network of intermarriages, so intricate as to render it impossible for any one who did not belong to the community to follow the threads or read the design of the social tracery.

And while the Seaton swarmed with "the goings on of life," the town of Portlossie lay above it still as a country hamlet, with more odours than people about: of people it was seldom indeed that three were to be spied at once in the wide street, while of odours you would always encounter a smell of leather from the saddler's shop, and a mingled message of bacon and cheese from the very general dealer's—in whose window hung what seemed three hams, and only he who looked twice would discover that the middle object was no ham, but a violin—while at every corner lurked a scent of gillyflowers and southernwood. Idly supreme, Portlossie the upper looked down in condescension, that is in half concealed contempt, on the ant heap below it.

The evening arrived on which the greater part of the boats was to put off for the first assay. Malcolm would have made one in the little fleet, for he belonged to his friend Joseph Mair's crew, had it not been found impossible to get the new boat ready before the following evening; whence, for this one more, he was still his own master, with one more chance of a pleasure for which he had been on the watch ever since Lady Florimel had spoken of having a row in his boat. True, it was not often she appeared on the shore in the evening; nevertheless he kept watching the dune with his keen eyes, for he had hinted to Mrs Courthope that perhaps her young lady would like to see the boats go out.

Although it was the fiftieth time his eyes had swept the links in vague hope, he could hardly believe their testimony when now at length he spied a form, which could only be hers, looking seaward from the slope, as still as a sphinx on Egyptian sands.

He sauntered slowly towards her by the landward side of the dune, gathering on his way a handful of the reddest daisies he could find; then, ascending the sandhill, approached her along the top.

"Saw ye ever sic gowans in yer life, my leddy?" he said, holding out his posy.

"Is that what you call them?" she returned.

"Ow ay, my leddy—daisies ye ca' them. I dinna ken but yours is the bonnier name o' the twa—gien it be what Mr Graham tells me the auld poet Chaucer maks o' 't."

"What is that?"

"Ow, jist the een o' the day.—the day's eyes, ye ken. They're sma' een for sic a great face, but syne there's a lot o' them to mak up for that. They've begun to close a'ready, but the mair they close the bonnier they luik, wi' their bits o' screwed up mooies (little mouths). But saw ye ever sic reid anes, or ony sic a size, my leddy?"

"I don't think I ever did. What is the reason they are so large and red?"

"I dinna ken. There canna be muckle nourishment in sic a thin soil, but there maun be something that agrees wi' them. It's the same a' roon' aboot here."

Lady Florimel sat looking at the daisies, and Malcolm stood a few yards off watching for the first of the red sails, which must soon show themselves, creeping out on the ebb tide. Nor had he waited long before a boat appeared, then another and another—six huge oars, ponderous to toil withal, urging each from the shelter of the harbour out into the wide weltering plain. The fishing boat of that time was not decked as now, and each, with every lift of its bows, revealed to their eyes a gaping hollow, ready, if a towering billow should break above it, to be filled with sudden death. One by one the whole fleet crept out, and ever as they gained the breeze, up went the red sails, and filled: aside leaned every boat from the wind, and went dancing away over the frolicking billows towards the sunset, its sails, deep dyed in oak bark, shining redder and redder in the growing redness of the sinking sun.

Nor did Portlossie alone send out her boats, like huge seabirds warring on the live treasures of the deep; from beyond the headlands east and west, out they glided on slow red wing,—from Scaurnose, from Sandend, from Clamrock, from the villages all along the coast, —spreading as they came, each to its work apart through all the laborious night, to rejoin its fellows only as home drew them back in the clear gray morning, laden and slow with the harvest of the stars. But the night lay between, into which they were sailing over waters of heaving green that for ever kept tossing up roses —a night whose curtain was a horizon built up of steady blue, but gorgeous with passing purple and crimson, and flashing with molten gold.

Malcolm was not one of those to whom the sea is but a pond for fish, and the sky a storehouse of wind and rain, sunshine and snow: he stood for a moment gazing, lost in pleasure. Then he turned to Lady Florimel: she had thrown her daisies on the sand, appeared to be deep in her book, and certainly caught nothing of the splendour before her beyond the red light on her page.

"Saw ye ever a bonnier sicht, my leddy?" said Malcolm.

She looked up, and saw, and gazed in silence. Her nature was full of poetic possibilities; and now a formless thought foreshadowed itself in a feeling she did not understand: why should such a sight as this make her feel sad? The vital connection between joy and effort had begun from afar to reveal itself with the question she now uttered.

"What is it all for?" she asked dreamily, her eyes gazing out on the calm ecstasy of colour, which seemed to have broken the bonds of law, and ushered in a new chaos, fit matrix of new heavens and new earth.

"To catch herrin'," answered Malcolm, ignorant of the mood that prompted the question, and hence mistaking its purport.

But a falling doubt had troubled the waters of her soul, and through the ripple she could descry it settling into form. She was silent for a moment.

"I want to know," she resumed, "why it looks as if some great thing were going on. Why is all this pomp and show? Something ought to be at hand. All I see is the catching of a few miserable fish! If it were the eve of a glorious battle now, I could understand it —if those were the little English boats rushing to attack the Spanish Armada, for instance. But they are only gone to catch fish. Or if they were setting out to discover the Isles of the West, the country beyond the sunset!—but this jars."

"I canna answer ye a' at ance, my leddy," said Malcolm; "I maun tak time to think aboot it. But I ken brawly what ye mean." Even as he spoke he withdrew, and, descending the mound, walked away beyond the bored craig, regardless now of the far lessening sails and the sinking sun. The motes of the twilight were multiplying fast as he returned along the shore side of the dune, but Lady Florimel had vanished from its crest. He ran to the top: thence, in the dim of the twilight, he saw her slow retreating form, phantom-like, almost at the grated door of the tunnel, which, like that of a tomb, appeared ready to draw her in, and yield her no more.

"My leddy, my leddy," he cried, "winna ye bide for 't?"

He went bounding after her like a deer. She heard him call, and stood holding the door half open.

"It's the battle o' Armageddon, my leddy," he cried, as he came within hearing distance.

"The battle of what?" she exclaimed, bewildered. "I really can't understand your savage Scotch."

"Hoot, my leddy! the battle o' Armageddon 's no ane o' the Scots battles; it's the battle atween the richt and the wrang, 'at ye read aboot i' the buik o' the Revelations."

"What on earth are you talking about?" returned Lady Florimel in dismay, beginning to fear that her squire was losing his senses.

"It's jist what ye was sayin,' my leddy: sic a pomp as yon bude to hing abune a gran' battle some gait or ither."

"What has the catching of fish to do with a battle in the Revelations?" said the girl, moving a little within the door.

"Weel, my leddy, gien I took in han' to set it furth to ye, I wad hae to tell ye a' that Mr Graham has been learnin' me sin ever I can min.' He says 'at the whole economy o' natur is fashiont unco like that o' the kingdom o' haven: its jist a gradation o' services, an' the highest en' o' ony animal is to contreebute to the life o' ane higher than itsel'; sae that it's the gran' preevilege o' the fish we tak, to be aten by human bein's, an' uphaud what's abune them."

"That's a poor consolation to the fish," said Lady Florimel.

"Hoo ken ye that, my leddy? Ye can tell nearhan' as little aboot the hert o' a herrin'—sic as it has—as the herrin' can tell aboot yer ain, whilk, I'm thinkin', maun be o' the lairgest size."

"How should you know anything about my heart, pray?" she asked, with more amusement than offence.

"Jist by my ain," answered Malcolm.

Lady Florimel began to fear she must have allowed the fisher lad more liberty than was proper, seeing he dared avow that he knew the heart of a lady of her position by his own. But indeed Malcolm was wrong, for in the scale of hearts, Lady Florimel's was far below his. She stepped quite within the door, and was on the point of shutting it, but something about the youth restrained her, exciting at least her curiosity; his eyes glowed with a deep, quiet light, and his face, even grand at the moment, had a greater influence upon her than she knew. Instead therefore of interposing the door between them, she only kept it poised, ready to fall to the moment the sanity of the youth should become a hair's breadth more doubtful than she already considered it.

"It's a' pairt o' ae thing, my leddy," Malcolm resumed. "The herrin 's like the fowk 'at cairries the mate an' the pooder an' sic like for them 'at does the fechtin'. The hert o' the leevin' man's the place whaur the battle's foucht, an' it's aye gaein' on an' on there atween God an' Sawtan; an' the fish they haud fowk up till 't."

"Do you mean that the herrings help you to fight for God?" said Lady Florimel with a superior smile.

"Aither for God or for the deevil, my leddy—that depen's upo' the fowk themsel's. I say it hauds them up to fecht, an' the thing maun be fouchten oot. Fowk to fecht maun live, an' the herrin' hauds the life i' them, an' sae the catchin' o' the herrin' comes in to be a pairt o' the battle."

"Wouldn't it be more sensible to say that the battle is between the fishermen and the sea, for the sake of their wives and children?" suggested Lady Florimel supremely.

"Na, my leddy, it wadna he half sae sensible, for it wadna justifee the grandur that hings ower the fecht. The battle wi' the sea 's no sae muckle o' an affair. An', 'deed, gien it warna that the wives an' the verra weans hae themsel's to fecht i' the same battle o' guid an' ill, I dinna see the muckle differ there wad be atween them an' the fish, nor what for they sudna ate ane anither as the craturs i' the watter du. But gien 't be the battle I say, there can be no pomp o' sea or sky ower gran' for 't; an' it's a weel waured (expended) gien it but haud the gude anes merry an' strong, an' up to their work. For that, weel may the sun shine a celestial rosy reid, an' weel may the boatie row, an' weel may the stars luik doon, blinkin' an' luikin' again—ilk ane duin' its bonny pairt to mak a man a richt hertit guid willed sodger!"

"And, pray, what may be your rank in this wonderful army?" asked Lady Florimel, with the air and tone of one humouring a lunatic.

"I'm naething but a raw recruit, my leddy; but gien I hed my chice, I wad be piper to my reg'ment."

"How do you mean?"

"I wad mak sangs. Dinna lauch at me, my leddy, for they're the best kin' o' wapon for the wark 'at I ken. But I'm no a makar (poet), an' maun content mysel' wi' duin' my wark."

"Then why," said Lady Florimel, with the conscious right of social superiority to administer good counsel,—"why don't you work harder, and get a better house, and wear better clothes?"

Malcolm's mind was so full of far other and weightier things that the question bewildered him; but he grappled with the reference to his clothes.

"'Deed, my leddy," he returned, "ye may weel say that, seein' ye was never aboord a herrin' boat! but gien ye ance saw the inside o' ane fu' o' fish, whaur a body gangs slidderin' aboot, maybe up to the middle o' 's leg in wamlin' herrin,' an' the neist meenute, maybe, weet to the skin wi' the splash o' a muckle jaw (wave), ye micht think the claes guid eneuch for the wark—though ill fit, I confess wi' shame, to come afore yer leddyship."

"I thought you only fished about close by the shore in a little boat; I didn't know you went with the rest of the fishermen: that's very dangerous work—isn't it?"

"No ower dangerous my leddy. There's some gangs doon ilka sizzon; but it's a' i' the w'y o' yer wark."

"Then how is it you're not gone fishing tonight?"

"She's a new boat, an' there's anither day's wark on her afore we win oot.—Wadna ye like a row the nicht, my leddy?"

"No, certainly; it's much too late."

"It'll be nane mirker nor 'tis; but I reckon ye're richt. I cam ower by jist to see whether ye wadna like to gang wi' the boats a bit; but yer leddyship set me aff thinkin' an' that pat it oot o' my heid."

"It's too late now anyhow. Come tomorrow evening, and I'll see if I can't go with you."

"I canna, my leddy—that's the fash o' 't! I maun gang wi' Blue Peter the morn's nicht. It was my last chance, I'm sorry to say."

"It's not of the slightest consequence," Lady Florimel returned; and, bidding him goodnight, she shut and locked the door.

The same instant she vanished, for the tunnel was now quite dark. Malcolm turned with a sigh, and took his way slowly homeward along the top of the dune. All was dim about him—dim in the heavens, where a thin veil of gray had gathered over the blue; dim on the ocean, where the stars swayed and swung, in faint flashes of dissolving radiance, cast loose like ribbons of seaweed: dim all along the shore, where the white of the breaking wavelet melted into the yellow sand; and dim in his own heart, where the manner and words of the lady had half hidden her starry reflex with a chilling mist.



CHAPTER XXIV: THE FEAST

To the entertainment which the marquis and Lady Florimel had resolved to give, all classes and conditions in the neighbourhood now began to receive invitations—shopkeepers, there called merchants, and all socially above them, individually, by notes, in the name of the marquis and Lady Florimel, but in the handwriting of Mrs Crathie and her daughters; and the rest generally, by the sound of bagpipes, and proclamation from the lips of Duncan MacPhail. To the satisfaction of Johnny Bykes the exclusion of improper persons was left in the hands of the gatekeepers.

The thing had originated with the factor. The old popularity of the lords of the land had vanished utterly during the life of the marquis's brother, and Mr Crathie, being wise in his generation, sought to initiate a revival of it by hinting the propriety of some general hospitality, a suggestion which the marquis was anything but loath to follow. For the present Lord Lossie, although as unready as most men to part with anything he cared for, could yet cast away magnificently, and had always greatly prized a reputation for liberality.

For the sake of the fishermen, the first Saturday after the commencement of the home fishing was appointed. The few serious ones, mostly Methodists, objected on the ground of the proximity of the Sunday; but their attitude was, if possible, of still less consequence in the eyes of their neighbours that it was well known they would in no case have accepted such an invitation.

The day dawned propitious. As early as five o'clock Mr Crathie was abroad, booted and spurred—now directing the workmen who were setting up tents and tables; now conferring with house steward, butler, or cook; now mounting his horse and galloping off to the home farm or the distillery, or into the town to the Lossie Arms, where certain guests from a distance were to be accommodated, and whose landlady had undertaken the superintendence of certain of the victualling departments; for canny Mr Crathie would not willingly have the meanest guest ask twice for anything he wanted—so invaluable did he consider a good word from the humblest quarter —and the best labours of the French cook, even had he reverenced instead of despising Scotch dishes, would have ill sufficed for the satisfaction of appetites critically appreciative of hotch potch, sheep's head, haggis, and black puddings.

The neighbouring nobility and landed gentlemen, the professional guests also, including the clergy, were to eat with the marquis in the great hall. On the grass near the house, tents were erected for the burgesses of the burgh, and the tenants of the marquis's farms. I would have said on the lawn, but there was no lawn proper about the place, the ground was so picturesquely broken—in parts with all but precipices—and so crowded with trees. Hence its aspect was specially unlike that of an English park and grounds. The whole was Celtic, as distinguished in character from Saxon. For the lake-like lawn, for the wide sweeps of airy room in which expand the mighty boughs of solitary trees, for the filmy gray blue distances, and the far off segments of horizon, here were the tree crowded grass, the close windings of the long glen of the burn, heavily overshadowed, and full of mystery and covert, but leading at last to the widest vantage of outlook—the wild heathery hill down which it drew its sharp furrow; while, in front of the house, beyond hidden river, and plane of treetops, and far sunk shore with its dune and its bored crag and its tortuous caves, lay the great sea, a pouting under lip, met by the thin, reposeful—shall I say sorrowful?—upper lip of the sky.

A bridge of stately span, level with the sweep in front, honourable embodiment of the savings of a certain notable countess, one end resting on the same rock with the house, their foundations almost in contact, led across the burn to more and more trees, their roots swathed in the finest grass, through which ran broad carriage drives and narrower footways, hard and smooth with yellow gravel. Here amongst the trees were set long tables for the fishermen, mechanics, and farm labourers. Here also was the place appointed for the piper.

As the hour drew near, the guests came trooping in at every entrance. By the sea gate came the fisher folk, many of the men in the blue jersey, the women mostly in short print gowns, of large patterns —the married with huge, wide filled caps, and the unmarried with their hair gathered in silken nets:—bonnets there were very few. Each group that entered had a joke or a jibe for Johnny Bykes, which he met in varying, but always surly fashion—in that of utter silence in the case of Duncan and Malcolm, at which the former was indignant, the latter merry. By the town gate came the people of Portlossie. By the new main entrance from the high road beyond the town, through lofty Greekish gates, came the lords and lairds, in yellow coaches, gigs, and post chaises. By another gate, far up the glen, came most of the country folk, some walking, some riding, some driving, all merry, and with the best intentions of enjoying themselves. As the common people approached the house, they were directed to their different tables by the sexton, for he knew everybody.

The marquis was early on the ground, going about amongst his guests, and showing a friendly offhand courtesy which prejudiced every one in his favour. Lady Florimel soon joined him, and a certain frank way she inherited from her father, joined to the great beauty her mother had given her, straightway won all hearts. She spoke to Duncan with cordiality; the moment he heard her voice, he pulled off his bonnet, put it under his arm, and responded with what I can find no better phrase to describe than a profuse dignity. Malcolm she favoured with a smile which swelled his heart with pride and devotion. The bold faced countess next appeared; she took the marquis's other arm, and nodded to his guests condescendingly and often, but seemed, after every nod, to throw her head farther back than before. Then to haunt the goings of Lady Florimel came Lord Meikleham, receiving little encouragement, but eager after such crumbs as he could gather. Suddenly the great bell under the highest of the gilded vanes rang a loud peal, and the marquis having led his chief guests to the hall, as soon as he was seated, the tables began to be served simultaneously.

At that where Malcolm sat with Duncan, grace was grievously foiled by the latter, for, unaware of what was going on, he burst out, at the request of a waggish neighbour, with a tremendous blast, of which the company took advantage to commence operations at once, and presently the clatter of knives and forks and spoons was the sole sound to be heard in that division of the feast: across the valley, from the neighbourhood of the house, came now and then a faint peal of laughter, for there they knew how to be merry while they ate; but here, the human element was in abeyance, for people who work hard, seldom talk while they eat. From the end of an overhanging bough a squirrel looked at them for one brief moment, wondering perhaps that they should not prefer cracking a nut in private, and vanished—but the birds kept singing, and the scents of the flowers came floating up from the garden below, and the burn went on with its own noises and its own silences, drifting the froth of its last passion down towards the doors of the world.

In the hall, ancient jokes soon began to flutter their moulted wings, and musty compliments to offer themselves for the acceptance of the ladies, and meet with a reception varied by temperament and experience: what the bold faced countess heard with a hybrid contortion, half sneer and half smile, would have made Lady Florimel stare out of big refusing eyes.

Those more immediately around the marquis were soon laughing over the story of the trick he had played the blind piper, and the apology he had had to make in consequence; and perhaps something better than mere curiosity had to do with the wish of several of the guests to see the old man and his grandson. The marquis said the piper himself would take care they should not miss him, but he would send for the young fellow, who was equally fitted to amuse them, being quite as much of a character in his way as the other.

He spoke to the man behind his chair, and in a few minutes Malcolm made his appearance, following the messenger.

"Malcolm," said the marquis kindly, "I want you to keep your eyes open, and see that no mischief is done about the place."

"I dinna think there's ane o' oor ain fowk wad dee ony mischeef, my lord," answered Malcolm; "but whan ye keep open yett, ye canna be sure wha wins in, specially wi' sic a gowk as Johnny Bykes at ane o' them. No 'at he wad wrang yer lordship a hair, my lord!"

"At all events you'll be on the alert," said the marquis.

"I wull that, my Lord. There's twa or three aboot a'ready 'at I dinna a'thegither like the leuks o'. They're no like country fowk, an' they're no fisher fowk. It's no far aff the time o' year whan the gipsies are i' the w'y o' payin' 's a veesit, an' they may ha' come in at the Binn yett (gate), whaur there's nane but an auld wife to haud them oot."

"Well, well," said the marquis, who had no fear about the behaviour of his guests, and had only wanted a colour for his request of Malcolm's presence. "In the meantime," he added, "we are rather short handed here. Just give the butler a little assistance—will you?"

"Willin'ly, my lord," answered Malcolm, forgetting altogether, in the prospect of being useful and within sight of Lady Florimel, that he had but half finished his own dinner. The butler, who had already had an opportunity of admiring his aptitude, was glad enough to have his help; and after this day used to declare that in a single week he could make him a better servant than any of the men who waited at table. It was indeed remarkable how, with such a limited acquaintance with the many modes of an artificial life, he was yet, by quickness of sympathetic insight, capable not only of divining its requirements, but of distinguishing, amid the multitude of appliances around, those fitted to their individual satisfaction.

It was desirable, however, that the sitting in the hall should not be prolonged, and after a few glasses of wine, the marquis rose, and went to make the round of the other tables. Taking them in order, he came last to those of the rustics, mechanics, and fisher folk. These had advanced considerably in their potations, and the fun was loud. His appearance was greeted with shouts, into which Duncan struck with a paean from his pipes; but in the midst of the tumult, one of the oldest of the fishermen stood up, and in a voice accustomed to battle with windy uproars, called for silence. He then addressed their host.

"Ye'll jist mak 's prood by drinkin' a tum'ler wi' 's, yer lordship," he said. "It's no ilka day we hae the honour o' yer lordship's company."

"Or I of yours," returned the marquis with hearty courtesy. "I will do it with pleasure—or at least a glass: my head's not so well seasoned as some of yours."

"Gien your lordship's hed hed as mony blasts o' nicht win', an' as mony jaups o' cauld sea watter aboot its lugs as oors, it wad hae been fit to stan' as muckle o' the barley bree as the stievest o' the lot, I s' warran'."

"I hope so," returned Lord Lossie, who, having taken a seat at the end of the table, was now mixing a tumbler of toddy. As soon as he had filled his glass, he rose, and drank to the fishermen of Portlossie, their wives and their sweethearts, wishing them a mighty conquest of herring, and plenty of children to keep up the breed and the war on the fish. His speech was received with hearty cheers, during which he sauntered away to rejoin his friends.

Many toasts followed, one of which, "Damnation to the dogfish," gave opportunity to a wag, seated near the piper, to play upon the old man's well known foible by adding, "an' Cawmill o' Glenlyon;" whereupon Duncan, who had by this time taken more whisky than was good for him, rose, and made a rambling speech, in which he returned thanks for the imprecation, adding thereto the hope that never might one of the brood accursed go down with honour to the grave.

The fishermen listened with respectful silence, indulging only in nods, winks, and smiles for the interchange of amusement, until the utterance of the wish recorded, when, apparently carried away for a moment by his eloquence, they broke into loud applause. But, from the midst of it, a low gurgling laugh close by him reached Duncan's ear: excited though he was with strong drink and approbation, he shivered, sunk into his seat, and clutched at his pipes convulsively, as if they had been a weapon of defence.

"Malcolm! Malcolm, my son," he muttered feebly, "tere is a voman will pe laughing! She is a paad voman: she makes me cold!"

Finding from the no response that Malcolm had left his side, he sat motionless, drawn into himself, and struggling to suppress the curdling shiver. Some of the women gathered about him, but he assured them it was nothing more than a passing sickness.

Malcolm's attention had, a few minutes before, been drawn to two men of somewhat peculiar appearance, who, applauding louder than any, only pretended to drink, and occasionally interchanged glances of intelligence. It was one of these peculiar looks that first attracted his notice. He soon discovered that they had a comrade on the other side of the table, who apparently, like themselves, had little or no acquaintance with any one near him. He did not like either their countenances or their behaviour, and resolved to watch them. In order therefore to be able to follow them when they moved, as he felt certain they would before long, without attracting their attention, he left the table and making a circuit took up his position behind a neighbouring tree. Hence it came that he was not, at the moment of his need, by his grandfather's side, whither he had returned as soon as dinner was over in the hall.

Meantime it became necessary to check the drinking by the counter attraction of the dance. Mr Crathie gave orders that a chair should be mounted on a table for Duncan; and the young hinds and fishermen were soon dancing zealously with the girls of their company to his strathspeys and reels. The other divisions of the marquis's guests made merry to the sound of a small brass band, a harp, and two violins.

When the rest forsook the toddy for the reel, the objects of Malcolm's suspicion remained at the table, not to drink, but to draw nearer to each other and confer. At length, when the dancers began to return in quest of liquor, they rose and went away loiteringly through the trees. As the twilight was now deepening, Malcolm found it difficult to keep them in sight, but for the same reason he was able the more quickly to glide after them from tree to tree. It was almost moonrise, he said to himself, and if they meditated mischief, now was their best time.

Presently he heard the sound of running feet, and in a moment more spied the unmistakeable form of the mad laird, darting through the thickening dusk of the trees, with gestures of wild horror. As he passed the spot where Malcolm stood, he cried out in a voice like a suppressed shriek,—"It's my mither! It's my mither! I dinna ken whaur I come frae."

His sudden appearance and outcry so startled Malcolm that for a moment he forgot his watch, and when he looked again the men had vanished. Not having any clue to their intent, and knowing only that on such a night the house was nearly defenceless, he turned at once and made for it. As he approached the front, coming over the bridge, he fancied he saw a figure disappear through the entrance, and quickened his pace. Just as he reached it, he heard a door bang, and supposing it to be that which shut off the second hall, whence rose the principal staircase, he followed this vaguest of hints, and bounded to the top of the stair. Entering the first passage he came to, he found it almost dark, with a half open door at the end, through which shone a gleam from some window beyond: this light was plainly shut off for a moment, as if by some one passing the window. He hurried after noiselessly, for the floor was thickly carpeted—and came to the foot of a winding stone stair. Afraid beyond all things of doing nothing, and driven by the formless conviction that if he stopped to deliberate he certainly should do nothing, he shot up the dark screw like an ascending bubble, passed the landing of the second floor without observing it, and arrived in the attic regions of the ancient pile, under low, irregular ceilings, here ascending in cones, there coming down in abrupt triangles, or sloping away to a hidden meeting with the floor in distant corners. His only light was the cold blue glimmer from here and there a storm window or a skylight. As the conviction of failure grew on him, the ghostly feeling of the place began to invade him. All was vague, forsaken, and hopeless, as a dreary dream, with the superadded miserable sense of lonely sleepwalking. I suspect that the feeling we call ghostly is but the sense of abandonment in the lack of companion life; but be this as it may, Malcolm was glad enough to catch sight of a gleam as from a candle, at the end of a long, low passage on which he had come after mazy wandering. Another similar passage crossed its end, somewhere in which must be the source of the light: he crept towards it, and laying himself flat on the floor, peeped round the corner. His very heart stopped to listen: seven or eight yards from him, with a small lantern in her hand, stood a short female figure, which, the light falling for a moment on her soft evil countenance, he recognised as Mrs Catanach. Beside her stood a tall graceful figure, draped in black from head to foot. Mrs Catanach was speaking in a low tone, and what Malcolm was able to catch was evidently the close of a conversation.

"I'll do my best, ye may be sure, my leddy," she said. "There's something no canny aboot the cratur, an' doobtless ye was an ill used wuman, an' ye're i' the richt. But it's a some fearsome ventur, an' may be luikit intill, ye ken. There I s' be yer scoug. Lippen to me, an' ye s' no repent it."

As she ended speaking, she turned to the door, and drew from it a key, evidently after a foiled attempt to unlock it therewith; for from a bunch she carried she now made choice of another, and was already fumbling with it in the keyhole, when Malcolm bethought himself that, whatever her further intent, he ought not to allow her to succeed in opening the door. He therefore rose slowly to his feet, and stepping softly out into the passage, sent his round blue bonnet spinning with such a certain aim, that it flew right against her head. She gave a cry of terror, smothered by the sense of evil secrecy, and dropped her lantern. It went out. Malcolm pattered with his hands on the floor, and began to howl frightfully. Her companion had already fled, and Mrs Catanach picked up her lantern and followed. But her flight was soft footed, and gave sign only in the sound of her garments, and a clank or two of her keys.

Gifted with a good sense of relative position, Malcolm was able to find his way back to the hall without much difficulty, and met no one on the way. When he stepped into the open air a round moon was visible through the trees, and their shadows were lying across the sward. The merriment had grown louder; for a good deal of whisky having been drunk by men of all classes, hilarity had ousted restraint, and the separation of classes having broken a little, there were many stragglers from the higher to the lower divisions, whence the area of the more boisterous fun had considerably widened. Most of the ladies and gentlemen were dancing in the chequer of the trees and moonlight, but, a little removed from the rest, Lady Florimel was seated under a tree, with Lord Meikleham by her side, probably her partner in the last dance. She was looking at the moon, which shone upon her from between two low branches, and there was a sparkle in her eyes and a luminousness upon her cheek which to Malcolm did not seem to come from the moon only. He passed on, with the first pang of jealousy in his heart, feeling now for the first time that the space between Lady Florimel and himself was indeed a gulf. But he cast the whole thing from him for the time with an inward scorn of his foolishness, and hurried on from group to group, to find the marquis.

Meeting with no trace of him, and thinking he might be in the flower garden, which a few rays of the moon now reached, he descended thither. But he searched it through with no better success, and at the farthest end was on the point of turning to leave it and look elsewhere, when he heard a moan of stifled agony on the other side of a high wall which here bounded the garden. Climbing up an espalier, he soon reached the top, and looking down on the other side, to his horror and rage espied the mad laird on the ground, and the very men of whom he had been in pursuit, standing over him and brutally tormenting him, apparently in order to make him get up and go along with them. One was kicking him, another pulling his head this way and that by the hair, and the third punching and poking his hump, which last cruelty had probably drawn from him the cry Malcolm had heard.

Three might be too many for him: he descended swiftly, found some stones, and a stake from a bed of sweet peas, then climbing up again, took such effectual aim at one of the villains that he fell without uttering a sound. Dropping at once from the wall, he rushed at the two with stick upheaved.

"Dinna be in sic a rage, man," cried the first, avoiding his blow; "we're aboot naething ayont the lawfu'. It's only the mad laird. We're takin' 'im to the asylum at Ebberdeen. By the order o' 's ain mither!"

At the word a choking scream came from the prostrate victim. Malcolm uttered a huge imprecation, and struck at the fellow again, who now met him in a way that showed it was noise more than wounds he had dreaded. Instantly the other came up, and also fell upon him with vigour. But his stick was too much for them, and at length one of them, crying out—"It's the blin' piper's bastard—I'll mark him yet!" took to his heels, and was followed by his companion.

More eager after rescue than punishment, Malcolm turned to the help of the laird, whom he found in utmost need of his ministrations— gagged, and with his hands tied mercilessly tight behind his back. His knife quickly released him, but the poor fellow was scarcely less helpless than before. He clung to Malcolm, and moaned piteously, every moment glancing over his shoulder in terror of pursuit. His mouth hung open as if the gag were still tormenting him; now and then he would begin his usual lament and manage to say "I dinna ken;" but when he attempted the whaur, his jaw fell and hung as before. Malcolm sought to lead him away, but he held back, moaning dreadfully; then Malcolm would have him sit down where they were, but he caught his hand and pulled him away, stopping instantly, however, as if not knowing whither to turn from the fears on every side. At length the prostrate enemy began to move, when the laird, who had been unaware of his presence, gave a shriek, and took to his heels. Anxious not to lose sight of him, Malcolm left the wounded man to take care of himself; and followed him up the steep side of the little valley.

They had not gone many steps from the top of the ascent, however, before the fugitive threw himself on the ground exhausted, and it was all Malcolm could do to get him to the town, where, unable to go a pace further, he sank down on Mrs Catanach's doorstep. A light was burning in the cottage, but Malcolm would seek shelter for him anywhere rather than with her, and, in terror of her quick ears, caught him up in his arms like a child, and hurried away with him to Miss Horn s.

"Eh sirs!" exclaimed Miss Horn, when she opened the door—for Jean was among the merrymakers—"wha 's this 'at 's killt noo?"

"It's the laird—Mr Stewart," returned Malcolm. "He's no freely killt, but nigh han'."

"Na! weel I wat! Come in an' set him doon till we see," said Miss Horn, turning and leading the way up to her little parlour.

There Malcolm laid his burden on the sofa, and gave a brief account of the rescue.

"Lord preserve 's, Ma'colm!" cried Miss Horn, as soon as he had ended his tale, to which she had listened in silence, with fierce eyes and threatening nose; "isna 't a mercy I wasna made like some fowk, or I couldna ha' bidden to see the puir fallow misguidet that gait! It's a special mercy, Ma'colm MacPhail, to be made wantin' ony sic thing as feelin's."

She was leaving the room as she spoke—to return instantly with brandy. The laird swallowed some with an effort, and began to revive.

"Eh, sirs!" exclaimed Miss Horn, regarding him now more narrowly —"but he's in an awfu' state o' dirt! I maun wash his face an' han's, an' pit him till 's bed. Could ye help aff wi' 's claes, Ma'colm? Though I haena ony feelin's, I 'm jist some eerie-like at the puir body's back."

The last words were uttered in what she judged a safe aside.

As if she had been his mother, she washed his face and hands, and dried them tenderly, the laird submitting like a child. He spoke but one word—when she took him by the hand to lead him to the room where her cousin used to sleep: "Father o' lichts!" he said, and no more. Malcolm put him to bed, where he lay perfectly still, whether awake or asleep they could not tell.

He then set out to go back to Lossie House, promising to return after he had taken his grandfather home, and seen him also safe in bed.



CHAPTER XXV: THE NIGHT WATCH

When Malcolm returned, Jean had retired for the night, and again it was Miss Horn who admitted him, and led him to her parlour. It was a low ceiled room, with lean spider legged furniture and dingy curtains. Everything in it was suggestive of a comfort slowly vanishing. An odour of withered rose leaves pervaded the air. A Japanese cabinet stood in one corner, and on the mantelpiece a pair of Chinese fans with painted figures whose faces were embossed in silk, between which ticked an old French clock, whose supporters were a shepherd and shepherdess in prettily painted china. Long faded as was everything in it, the room was yet very rich in the eyes of Malcolm, whose home was bare even in comparison with that of the poorest of the fisher women, they had a passion for ornamenting their chimneypieces with china ornaments, and their dressers with the most gorgeous crockery that their money could buy—a certain metallic orange being the prevailing hue; while in Duncan's cottage, where woman had never initiated the taste, there was not even a china poodle to represent the finished development of luxury in the combination of the ugly and the useless.

Miss Horn had made a little fire in the old fashioned grate, whose bars bellied out like a sail almost beyond the narrow chimney shelf, and a tea kettle was singing on the hob, while a decanter, a sugar basin, a nutmeg grater, and other needful things on a tray, suggested negus, beyond which Miss Horn never went in the matter of stimulants, asserting that, as she had no feelings, she never required anything stronger. She made Malcolm sit down at the opposite side of the fire, and mixing him a tumbler of her favourite drink, began to question him about the day, and how things had gone.

Miss Horn had the just repute of discretion, for, gladly hearing all the news, she had the rare virtue of not repeating things to the prejudice of others without some good reason for so doing; Malcolm therefore, seated thus alone with her in the dead of the night, and bound to her by the bond of a common well doing, had no hesitation in unfolding to her all his adventures of the evening. She sat with her big hands in her lap, making no remark, not even an exclamation, while he went on with the tale of the garret; but her listening eyes grew—not larger—darker and fiercer as he spoke; the space between her nostrils and mouth widened visibly; the muscles knotted on the sides of her neck; and her nose curved more and more to the shape of a beak.

"There's some deevilry there!" she said at length after he had finished, breaking a silence of some moments, during which she had been staring into the fire. "Whaur twa ill women come thegither, there maun be the auld man himsel' atween them."

"I dinna doobt it," returned Malcolm. "An' ane o' them 's an ill wuman, sure eneuch; but I ken naething aboot the tither—only 'at she maun be a leddy, by the w'y the howdy wife spak till her."

"The waur token, when a leddy collogues wi' a wuman aneth her ain station, an' ane 'at has keppit (caught in passing) mony a secret in her day, an' by her callin' has had mair opportunity—no to say farther—than ither fowk o' duin' ill things! An' gien ye dinna ken her, that's no rizzon 'at I sudna hae a groff guiss at her by the marks ye read aff o' her. I'll jist hae to tell ye a story sic as an auld wife like me seldom tells till a young man like yersel'."

"Yer ain bridle sail rule my tongue, mem," said Malcolm.

"I s' lippen to yer discretion," said Miss Horn, and straightway began.—"Some years ago—an' I s' warran' it's weel ower twinty —that same wuman, Bawby Cat'nach,—wha was nae hame born wuman, nor had been lang aboot the toon—comin' as she did frae naebody kent whaur, 'cep maybe it was the markis 'at than was, preshumed to mak up to me i' the w'y o' frien'ly acquantance—sic as a maiden leddy micht hae wi' a howdy—an' no 'at she forgot her proaper behaviour to ane like mysel'. But I cudna hae bidden (endured) the jaud, 'cep 'at I had rizzons for lattin' her jaw wag. She was cunnin', the auld vratch,—no that auld—maybe aboot forty,— but I was ower mony for her. She had the design to win at something she thoucht I kent, an' sae, to enteece me to open my pock, she opent hers, an' tellt me story efter story about this neebour an' that—a' o' them things 'at ouchtna to ha' been true, an 'at she ouchtna to ha' loot pass her lips gien they war true, seein' she cam by the knowledge o' them so as she said she did. But she gat naething o' me—the fat braint cat!—an' she hates me like the verra mischeef."