"See them through the fog steaming up from the shores of their Phlegethon!" he cried, warming into eloquence; "see the horrid troop, afar from the crystal walls!—if indeed ye stand on those heights of glory, and course not around them with the dogs!—hear them howl and bark as they scour along! Gaze at them more earnestly as they draw nigher; see upon the dog heads of them the signs and symbols of rank and authority which they wore when they walked erect, men—ay, women too, among men and women! see the crown jewels flash over the hanging ears, the tiara tower thrice circled over the hungry eyes! see the plumes and the coronets, the hoods and the veils!"

Here, unhappily for his eloquence, he slid off into the catalogue of women's finery given by the prophet Isaiah, at the close of which he naturally found the oratorical impulse gone, and had to sit down in the mud of an anticlimax. Presently, however, he recovered himself, and, spreading his wings, once more swung himself aloft into the empyrean of an eloquence, which, whatever else it might or might not be, was at least genuine.

"Could they but surmount those walls, whose inherent radiance is the artillery of their defence, those walls high uplifted, whose lowest foundations are such stones as make the glory of earthly crowns; could they overleap those gates of pearl, and enter the golden streets, what think ye they would do there? Think ye they would rage hither and thither at will, making horrid havoc amongst the white robed inhabitants of the sinless capital? Nay, verily; for, in the gold transparent as glass, they would see their own vile forms in truth telling reflex, and, turning in agony, would rush yelling back, out again into the darkness—the outer darkness —to go round and round the city again and for evermore, tenfold tortured henceforth with the memory of their visioned selves."

Here the girl beside Lady Florimel gave a loud cry, and fell backwards from her seat. On all sides arose noises, loud or suppressed, mingled with murmurs of expostulation. Even Lady Florimel, invaded by shrieks, had to bite her lips hard to keep herself from responding with like outcry; for scream will call forth scream, as vibrant string from its neighbour will draw the answering tone.

"Deep calleth unto deep! The wind is blowing on the slain! The Spirit is breathing on the dry bones!" shouted the preacher in an ecstacy. But one who rose from behind Lizzy Findlay, had arrived at another theory regarding the origin of the commotion—and doubtless had a right to her theory, in as much as she was a woman of experience, being no other than Mrs Catanach.

At the sound of her voice seeking to soothe the girl, Malcolm shuddered; but the next moment, from one of those freaks of suggestion which defy analysis, he burst into laughter: he had a glimpse of a she dog, in Mrs Catanach's Sunday bonnet, bringing up the rear of the preacher's canine company, and his horror of the woman found relief in an involuntary outbreak that did not spring altogether from merriment.

It attracted no attention. The cries increased; for the preacher continued to play on the harp nerves of his hearers, in the firm belief that the Spirit was being poured out upon them. The marquis, looking very pale, for he could never endure the cry of a woman even in a play, rose, and taking Florimel by the arm, turned to leave the place. Malcolm hurried to the front to make way for them. But the preacher caught sight of the movement, and, filled with a fury which seemed to him sacred, rushed to the rescue of souls.

"Stop!" he shouted. "Go not hence, I charge you. On your lives I charge you! Turn ye, turn ye: why will ye die? There is no fleeing from Satan. You must resist the devil. He that flies is lost. If you turn your backs upon Apollyon, he will never slacken pace until he has driven you into the troop of his dogs, to go howling about the walls of the city. Stop them, friends of the cross, ere they step beyond the sound of mercy; for, alas! the voice of him who is sent cannot reach beyond the particle of time wherein he speaks: now, this one solitary moment, gleaming out of the eternity before us only to be lost in the eternity behind us—this now is the accepted time; this Now and no other is the moment of salvation!"

Most of the men recognized the marquis; some near the entrance saw only Malcolm clearing the way: marquis or fisher, it was all the same when souls were at stake: they crowded with one consent to oppose their exit: yet another chance they must have, whether they would or not These men were in the mood to give—not their own —but those other men's bodies to be burnt on the poorest chance of saving their souls from the everlasting burnings.

Malcolm would have been ready enough for a fight, had he and the marquis been alone, but the presence of Lady Florimel put it out of the question. Looking round, he sought the eye of his master.

Had Lord Lossie been wise, he would at once have yielded, and sat down to endure to the end. But he jumped on the form next him, and appealed to the common sense of the assembly.

"Don't you see the man is mad?" he said, pointing to the preacher. "He is foaming at the mouth. For God's sake look after your women: he will have them all in hysterics in another five minutes. I wonder any man of sense would countenance such things!"

As to hysterics, the fisher folk had never heard of them; and though the words of the preacher were not those of soberness, they yet believed them the words of truth, and himself a far saner man than the marquis.

"Gien a body comes to oor meetin'," cried one of them, a fine specimen of the argle bargling Scotchman—a creature known and detested over the habitable globe—"he maun just du as we du, an' sit it oot. It's for yer sowl's guid."

The preacher, checked in full career, was standing with open mouth, ready to burst forth in a fresh flood of oratory so soon as the open channels of hearing ears should be again granted him; but all were now intent on the duel between the marquis and Jamie Ladle.

"If, the next time you came, you found the entrance barricaded," said the marquis, "what would you say to that?"

"Ow, we wad jist tak doon the sticks," answered Ladle.

"You would call it persecution, wouldn't you?"

"Ay; it wad be that."

"And what do you call it now, when you prevent a man from going his own way, after he has had enough of your foolery?"

"Ow, we ca' 't dissiplene!" answered the fellow.

The marquis got down, annoyed, but laughing at his own discomfiture. "I've stopped the screaming, anyhow," he said.

Ere the preacher, the tap of whose eloquence presently began to yield again, but at first ran very slow, had gathered way enough to carry his audience with him, a woman rushed up to the mouth of the cave, the borders of her cap flapping, and her grey hair flying like an old Maenad's. Brandishing in her hand a spunk with which she had been making the porridge for supper, she cried in a voice that reached every ear:

"What's this I hear o' 't! Come oot o' that, Lizzy, ye limmer! Ir ye gauin' frae ill to waur, i' the deevil's name!"

It was Meg Partan. She sent the congregation right and left from her, as a ship before the wind sends a wave from each side of her bows. Men and women gave place to her, and she went surging into the midst of the assembly.

"Whaur's that lass o' mine?" she cried, looking about her in aggravated wrath at failing to pounce right upon her.

"She's no verra weel, Mrs Findlay," cried Mrs Catanach, in a loud whisper, laden with an insinuating tone of intercession. "She'll be better in a meenute. The minister's jist ower pooerfu' the nicht."

Mrs Findlay made a long reach, caught Lizzy by the arm, and dragged her forth, looking scared and white, with a red spot upon one cheek. No one dared to bar Meg's exit with her prize; and the marquis, with Lady Florimel and Malcolm, took advantage of the opening she made, and following in her wake soon reached the open air.

Mrs Findlay was one of the few of the fisher women who did not approve of conventicles, being a great stickler for every authority in the country except that of husbands, in which she declared she did not believe: a report had reached her that Lizzy was one of the lawless that evening, and in hot haste she had left the porridge on the fire to drag her home.

"This is the second predicament you have got us into, MacPhail," said his lordship, as they walked along the Boar's Tail—the name by which some designated the dune, taking the name of the rock at the end of it to be the Boar's Craig, and the last word to mean, as it often does, not Crag, but Neck, like the German kragen, and perhaps the English scrag.

"I'm sorry for't, my lord," said Malcolm; "but I'm sure yer lordship had the worth o' 't in fun."

"I can't deny that," returned the marquis.

"And I can't get that horrid shriek out of my ears," said Lady Florimel.

"Which of them?" said her father. "There was no end to the shrieking. It nearly drove me wild."

"I mean the poor girl's who sat beside us, papa. Such a pretty nice looking creature to! And that horrid woman close behind us all the time! I hope you won't go again papa. They'll convert you if you do, and never ask your leave. You wouldn't like that, I know."

"What do you say to shutting up the place altogether?"

"Do, papa. It's shocking. Vulgar and horrid!"

"I wad think twise, my lord, afore I wad sair (serve) them as ill as they saired me."

"Did I ask your advice?" said the marquis sternly.

"It's nane the waur 'at it 's gien oonsoucht," said Malcolm. "It's the richt thing ony gait."

"You presume on this foolish report about you, I suppose, MacPhail," said his lordship; "but that won't do."

"God forgie ye, my lord, for I hae ill duin' 't!" (find it difficult) said Malcolm.

He left them and walked down to the foamy lip of the tide, which was just waking up from its faint recession. A cold glimmer, which seemed to come from nothing but its wetness, was all the sea had to say for itself.

But the marquis smiled, and turned his face towards the wind which was blowing from the south.

In a few moments Malcolm came back, but to follow behind them, and say nothing more that night.

The marquis did not interfere with the fishermen. Having heard of their rudeness, Mr Cairns called again, and pressed him to end the whole thing; but he said they would only be after something worse, and refused.

The turn things had taken that night determined their after course. Cryings out and faintings grew common, and fits began to appear. A few laid claim to visions,—bearing, it must be remarked, a strong resemblance to the similitudes, metaphors, and more extended poetic figures, employed by the young preacher, becoming at length a little more original and a good deal more grotesque. They took to dancing at last, not by any means the least healthful mode of working off their excitement. It was, however, hardly more than a dull beating of time to the monotonous chanting of a few religious phrases, rendered painfully commonplace by senseless repetition.

I would not be supposed to deny the genuineness of the emotion, or even of the religion, in many who thus gave show to their feelings. But neither those who were good before nor those who were excited now were much the better for this and like modes of playing off the mental electricity generated by the revolving cylinder of intercourse. Naturally, such men as Joseph Mair now grew shy of the assemblies they had helped to originate, and withdrew—at least into the background; the reins slipped from the hands of the first leaders, and such windbags as Ladle got up to drive the chariot of the gospel—with the results that could not fail to follow. At the same time it must be granted that the improvement of their habits, in so far as strong drink was concerned, continued: it became almost a test of faith with them, whether or not a man was a total abstainer. Hence their moral manners, so to say, improved greatly; there were no more public house orgies, no fighting in the streets, very little of what they called breaking of the Sabbath, and altogether there was a marked improvement in the look of things along a good many miles of that northern shore.

Strange as it may seem, however, morality in the deeper sense, remained very much at the same low ebb as before. It is much easier to persuade men that God cares for certain observances, than that he cares for simple honesty and truth and gentleness and loving kindness. The man who would shudder at the idea of a rough word of the description commonly called swearing, will not even have a twinge of conscience after a whole morning of ill tempered sullenness, capricious scolding, villainously unfair animadversion, or surly cross grained treatment generally of wife and children! Such a man will omit neither family worship nor a sneer at his neighbour. He will neither milk his cow on the first day of the week without a Sabbath mask on his face, nor remove it while he waters the milk for his customers. Yet he may not be an absolute hypocrite. What can be done for him, however, hell itself may have to determine.

Notwithstanding their spiritual experiences, it was, for instance, no easier to get them to pay their debts than heretofore. Of course there were, and had always been, thoroughly honest men and women amongst them; but there were others who took prominent part in their observances, who seemed to have no remotest suspicion that religion had anything to do with money or money's worth—not to know that God cared whether a child of his met his obligations or not. Such fulfilled the injunction to owe nothing by acknowledging nothing. One man, when pressed, gave as a reason for his refusal, that Christ had paid all his debts. Possibly this contemptible state of feeling had been fostered by an old superstition that it was unlucky to pay up everything, whence they had always been in the habit of leaving at least a few shillings of their shop bills to be carried forward to the settlement after the next fishing season. But when a widow whose husband had left property, would acknowledge no obligation to discharge his debts, it came to be rather more than a whim. Evidently the religion of many of them was as yet of a poor sort—precisely like that of the negroes, whose devotion so far outstrips their morality.

If there had but been some one of themselves to teach that the true outlet and sedative of overstrained feeling is right action! that the performance of an unpleasant duty, say the paying of their debts, was a far more effectual as well as more specially religious mode of working off their excitement than dancing! that feeling is but the servant of character until it becomes its child! or rather, that feeling is but a mere vapour until condensed into character! that the only process through which it can be thus consolidated is well doing—the putting forth of the right thing according to the conscience universal and individual, and that thus, and thus only, can the veil be .withdrawn from between the man and his God, and the man be saved in beholding the face of his Father!

"But have patience—give them time," said Mr Graham, who had watched the whole thing from the beginning. "If their religion is religion, it will work till it purifies; if it is not, it will show itself for what it is, by plunging them into open vice. The mere excitement and its extravagance—the mode in which their gladness breaks out—means nothing either way. The man is the willing, performing being, not the feeling shouting singing being: in the latter there may be no individuality—nothing more than receptivity of the movement of the mass. But when a man gets up and goes out and discharges an obligation, he is an individual; to him God has spoken, and he has opened his ears to hear: God and that man are henceforth in communion."

These doings, however, gave—how should they fail to give?—a strong handle to the grasp of those who cared for nothing in religion but its respectability—who went to church Sunday after Sunday, "for the sake of example" as they said—the most arrogant of Pharisaical reasons! Many a screeching, dancing fisher lass in the Seaton was far nearer the kingdom of heaven than the most respectable of such respectable people! I would unspeakably rather dance with the wildest of fanatics rejoicing over a change in their own spirits, than sit in the seat of the dull of heart, to whom the old story is an outworn tale.



CHAPTER XLIX: MOUNT PISGAH

The intercourse between Florimel and Malcolm grew gradually more familiar, until at length it was often hardly to be distinguished from such as takes place between equals, and Florimel was by degrees forgetting the present condition in the possible future of the young man. But Malcolm, on the other hand, as often as the thought of that possible future arose in her presence, flung it from him in horror, lest the wild dream of winning her should make him for a moment desire its realization.

The claim that hung over him haunted his very life, turning the currents of his thought into channels of speculation unknown before. Imagine a young fisherman meditating—as he wandered with bent head through the wilder woods on the steep banks of the burn, or the little green levels which it overflowed in winter—of all possible subjects what analogy there might be betwixt the body and the soul in respect of derivation—whether the soul was traduced as well as the body?—as his material form came from the forms of his father and mother, did his soul come from their souls? or did the Maker, as at the first he breathed his breath into the form of Adam, still, at some crisis unknown in its creation, breathe into each form the breath of individual being? If the latter theory were the true, then, be his earthly origin what it might, he had but to shuffle off this mortal coil to walk forth a clean thing, as a prince might cast off the rags of an enforced disguise, and set out for the land of his birth. If the former were the true, then the wellspring of his being was polluted, nor might he by any death fling aside his degradation, or show himself other than defiled in the eyes of the old dwellers in "those high countries," where all things seem as they are, and are as they seem.

One day when, these questions fighting in his heart, he had for the hundredth time arrived thus far, all at once it seemed as if a soundless voice in the depth of his soul replied,

"Even then—should the wellspring of thy life be polluted with vilest horrors such as, in Persian legends, the lips of the lost are doomed to drink with loathings inconceivable—the well is but the utterance of the water, not the source of its existence; the rain is its father, and comes from the sweet heavens. Thy soul, however it became known to itself is from the pure heart of God, whose thought of thee is older than thy being—is its first and eldest cause. Thy essence cannot be defiled, for in him it is eternal."

Even with the thought, the horizon of his life began to clear; a light came out on the far edge of its ocean—a dull and sombre yellow, it is true, and the clouds hung yet heavy over sea and land, while miles of vapour hid the sky; but he could now believe there might be a blue beyond, in which the sun lorded it with majesty.

He had been rambling on the waste hill in which the grounds of Lossie House, as it were, dissipated. It had a far outlook, but he had beheld neither sky or ocean. The Soutars of Cromarty had all the time sat on their stools large in his view; the hills of Sutherland had invited his gaze, rising faint and clear over the darkened water at their base, less solid than the sky in which they were set, and less a fact than the clouds that crossed their breasts; the land of Caithness had lain lowly and afar, as if, weary of great things, it had crept away in tired humility to the rigours of the north; and east and west his own rugged shore had gone lengthening out, fringed with the white burst of the dark sea; but none of all these things had he noted.

Lady Florimel suddenly encountered him on his way home, and was startled by his look.

"Where have you been, Malcolm?" she exclaimed.

"I hardly ken, my leddy: somewhaur aboot the feet o' Mount Pisgah, I 'm thinkin', if no freely upo' the heid o' 't."

"That's not the name of the hill up there!"

"Ow na; yon's the Binn."

"What have you been about? Looking at things in general, I suppose."

"Na; they've been luikin' at me, I daursay; but I didna heed them, an' they didna fash me."

"You look so strangely bright!" she said, "as if you had seen something both marvellous and beautiful!"

The words revealed a quality of insight not hitherto manifested by Florimel. In truth, Malcolm's whole being was irradiated by the flash of inward peace that had visited him—a statement intelligible and therefore credible enough to the mind accustomed to look over the battlements of the walls that clasp the fair windows of the senses. But Florimel's insight had reached its limit, and her judgment, vainly endeavouring to penetrate farther, fell floundering in the mud.

"I know!" she went on: "You've been to see your lady mother!"

Malcolm's face turned white as if blasted with leprosy. The same scourge that had maddened the poor laird fell hissing on his soul, and its knotted sting was the same word mother. He turned and walked slowly away, fighting a tyrannous impulse to thrust his fingers in his ears and run and shriek.

"Where are your manners?" cried the girl after him, but he never stayed his slow foot or turned his bowed head, and Florimel wondered.

For the moment, his new found peace had vanished. Even if the old nobility of heaven might regard him without a shadow of condescension —that self righteous form of contempt—what could he do with a mother whom he could neither honour or love? Love! If he could but cease to hate her! There was no question yet of loving.

But might she not repent? Ah, then, indeed! And might he not help her to repent?—He would not avoid her. How was it that she had never yet sought him?

As he brooded thus, on his way to Duncan's cottage, and, heedless of the sound of coming wheels, was crossing the road which went along the bottom of the glen, he was nearly run over by a carriage coming round the corner of a high bank at a fast trot Catching one glimpse of the face of its occupant, as it passed within a yard of his own, he turned and fled back through the woods, with again a horrible impulse to howl to the winds the cry of the mad laird: "I dinna ken whaur I cam frae!" When he came to himself, he found his hands pressed hard on his ears, and for a moment felt a sickening certainty that he too was a son of the lady of Gersefell.

When he returned at length to the House, Mrs Courthope informed him that Mrs Stewart had called, and seen both the marquis and Lady Florimel.

Meantime he had grown again a little anxious about the laird, but as Phemy plainly avoided him, had concluded that he had found another concealment, and that the child preferred not being questioned concerning it.

With the library of Lossie House at his disposal, and almost nothing to do, it might now have been a grand time for Malcolm's studies; but alas! he too often found it all but impossible to keep his thoughts on the track of a thought through a single sentence of any length.

The autumn now hung over the verge of its grave. Hoar frost, thick on the fields, made its mornings look as if they had turned gray with fear. But when the sun arose, grayness and fear vanished; the back thrown smile of the departing glory was enough to turn old age into a memory of youth. Summer was indeed gone, and winter was nigh with its storms and its fogs and its rotting rains and its drifting snows, but the sun was yet in the heavens, and, changed as was his manner towards her, would yet have many a half smile for the poor old earth—enough to keep her alive until he returned, bringing her youth with him. To the man who believes that the winter is but for the sake of the summer; exists only in virtue of the summer at its heart, no winter, outside or in, can be unendurable. But Malcolm sorely missed the ministrations of compulsion: he lacked labour—the most helpful and most healing of all God's holy things, of which we so often lose the heavenly benefit by labouring inordinately that we may rise above the earthly need of it. How many sighs are wasted over the toil of the sickly—a toil which perhaps lifts off half the weight of their sickness, elevates their inner life, and makes the outer pass with tenfold rapidity. Of those who honestly pity such, many would themselves be far less pitiable were they compelled to share in the toil they behold with compassion. They are unaware of the healing virtue which the thing they would not pity at all were it a matter of choice, gains from the compulsion of necessity.

All over the house big fires were glowing and blazing. Nothing pleased the marquis worse than the least appearance of stinting the consumption of coal. In the library two huge gratefuls were burning from dawn to midnight—well for the books anyhow, if their owner seldom showed his face amongst them. There were days during which, except the servant whose duty it was to attend to the fires, not a creature entered the room but Malcolm. To him it was as the cave of Aladdin to the worshipper of Mammon, and yet now he would often sit down indifferent to its hoarded splendours, and gather no jewels.

But one morning, as he sat there alone, in an oriel looking seawards, there lay on a table before him a thin folio, containing the chief works of Sir Thomas Brown—amongst the rest his well known Religio Medici, from which he had just read the following passage:

"When I take a full view and circle of myself, without this reasonable moderatour, and equall piece of justice, Death, I doe conceive my self the most miserablest person extant; were there not another life that I hoped for, all the vanities of this world should not intreat a moment's breath from me; could the Devil work my belief to imagine I could never die, I would not outlive that very thought: I have so abject a conceit of this common way of existence, this retaining to the Sun and elements, I cannot think this is to be a man, or to live according to the dignity of humanity. In expectation of a better, I can with patience embrace this life, yet in my best meditations do often desire death; I honour any man that contemnes it, nor can I highly love any that is afraid of it: this makes me naturally love a Soldier, and honour those tatter'd and contemptible Regiments that will die at the command of a Sergeant."

These words so fell in with the prevailing mood of his mind, that having gathered them, they grew upon him, and as he pondered them, he sat gazing out on the bright blowing autumn day. The sky was dimmed with a clear pallor, across which small white clouds were driving; the yellow leaves that yet cleave to the twigs were few, and the wind swept through the branches with a hiss. The far off sea was alive with multitudinous white—the rush of the jubilant oversea across the blue plain. All without was merry, healthy, radiant, strong; in his mind brooded a single haunting thought that already had almost filled his horizon, threatening by exclusion to become madness! Why should he not leave the place, and the horrors of his history with it? Then the hideous hydra might unfold itself as it pleased; he would find at least a better fortune than his birth had endowed him withal.

Lady Florimel entered in search of something to read: to her surprise, for she had heard of no arrival, in one of the windows sat a Highland gentleman, looking out on the landscape. She was on the point of retiring again, when a slight movement revealed Malcolm.

The explanation was, that the marquis, their seafaring over, had at length persuaded Malcolm to don the highland attire: it was an old custom of the house of Lossie that its lord's henchman should be thus distinguished, and the marquis himself wore the kilt when on his western estates in the summer, also as often as he went to court,—would indeed have worn it always but that he was no longer hardy enough. He would not have succeeded with Malcolm, however, but for the youth's love to Duncan, the fervent heat of which vaporized the dark heavy stone of obligation into the purple vapour of gratitude, and enhanced the desire of pleasing him until it became almost a passion. Obligation is a ponderous roll of canvas which Love spreads aloft into a tent wherein he delights to dwell.

This was his first appearance in the garments of Duncan's race.

It was no little trial to him to assume them in the changed aspect of his circumstances; for alas! he wore them in right of service only, not of birth, and the tartan of his lord's family was all he could claim.

He had not heard Lady Florimel enter. She went softly up behind him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. He started to his feet.

"A penny for your thoughts," she said, retreating a step or two.

"I wad gie twa to be rid o' them," he returned, shaking his bushy head as if to scare the invisible ravens hovering about it.

"How fine you are!" Florimel went on, regarding him with an approbation too open to be altogether gratifying. "The dress suits you thoroughly. I didn't know you at first. I thought it must be some friend of papa's. Now I remember he said once you must wear the proper dress for a henchman. How do you like it?"

"It's a' ane to me," said Malcolm. "I dinna care what I weir.— Gien only I had a richt till 't!" he added with a sigh.

"It is too bad of you, Malcolm!" rejoined Florimel in a tone of rebuke. "The moment fortune offers you favour, you fall out with her—won't give her a single smile. You don't deserve your good luck."

Malcolm was silent.

"There's something on your mind," Florimel went on, partly from willingness to serve Mrs Stewart, partly enticed by the romance of being Malcolm's comforter, or perhaps confessor.

"Ay is there, my leddy."

"What is it? Tell me. You can trust me!"

"I could trust ye, but I canna tell ye. I daurna—I maunna."

"I see you will not trust me," said Florimel, with a half pretended, half real offence.

"I wad lay doon my life—what there is o' 't—for ye, my leddy; but the verra natur o' my trouble winna be tauld. I maun beir 't my lane."

It flashed across Lady Florimel's brain, that the cause of his misery, the thing he dared not confess, was love of herself. Now, Malcolm, standing before her in his present dress, and interpreted by the knowledge she believed she had of his history, was a very different person indeed from the former Malcolm in the guise of fisherman or sailor, and she felt as well as saw the difference: if she was the cause of his misery, why should she not comfort him a little? why should she not be kind to him? Of course anything more was out of the question; but a little confession and consolation would hurt neither of them. Besides, Mrs Stewart had begged her influence, and this would open a new channel for its exercise. Indeed, if he was unhappy through her, she ought to do what she might for him. A gentle word or two would cost her nothing, and might help to heal a broken heart! She was hardly aware, however, how little she wanted it healed—all at once.

For the potency of a thought it is perhaps even better that it should not be logically displayed to the intellect; anyhow the germ of all this, undeveloped into the definite forms I have given, sufficed to the determining of Florimel's behaviour. I do not mean that she had more than the natural tendency of womankind to enjoy the emotions of which she was the object; but besides the one in the fable, there are many women with a tendency to arousing; and the idea of deriving pleasure from the sufferings of a handsome youth was not quite so repulsive to her as it ought to have been. At the same time, as there cannot be many cats capable of understanding the agonies of the mice within reach of their waving whiskers, probably many cat women are not quite so cruel as they seem.

"Can't you trust me, Malcolm?" she said, looking in his eyes very sweetly, and bending a little towards him; "Can't you trust me?"

At the words and the look it seemed as if his frame melted to ether. He dropped on his knees, and, his heart half stifled in the confluence of the tides of love and misery, sighed out between the pulses in his throat:

"There's naething I could na tell ye 'at ever I thoucht or did i' my life, my leddy; but it's ither fowk, my leddy! It's like to burn a hole i' my hert, an' yet I daurna open my mou'."

There was a half angelic, half dog-like entreaty in his up looking hazel eyes that seemed to draw hers down into his: she must put a stop to that.

"Get up, Malcolm," she said kindly, "what would my father or Mrs Courthope think?"

"I dinna ken, an' I maist dinna care; atween ae thing an' anither, I'm near han' distrackit," answered Malcolm, rising slowly, but not taking his eyes from her face. "An' there's my daddy!" he went on, "maist won ower to the enemy—an' I daurna tell even him what for I canna bide it!—Ye haena been sayin' onything till him— hiv ye, my leddy?"

"I don't quite understand you," returned Florimel, rather guiltily, for she had spoken on the subject to Duncan. "Saying anything to your grandfather? About what?"

"Aboot—aboot—Her, ye ken, my leddy."

"What her?" asked Florimel.

"Her 'at—The leddy o' Gersefell."

"And why? What of her? Why, Malcolm! what can have possessed you? You seem actually to dislike her!"

"I canna bide her," said Malcolm, with the calm earnestness of one who is merely stating an incontrovertible fact, and for a moment his eyes, at once troubled and solemn, kept looking wistfully in hers, as if searching for a comfort too good to be found, then slowly sank and sought the floor at her feet.

"And why?"

"I canna tell ye."

She supposed it an unreasoned antipathy.

"But that is very wrong," she said, almost as if rebuking a child. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What!—dislike your own mother?"

"Dinna say the word, my leddy," cried Malcolm in a tone of agony, "or ye'll gar me skirl an' rin like the mad laird. He's no a hair madder nor I wad be wi' sic a mither."

He would have passed her to leave the room.

But Lady Florimel could not bear defeat. In any contest she must win or be shamed in her own eyes, and was she to gain absolutely nothing in such a passage with a fisher lad? Was the billow of her persuasion to fall back from such a rock, self beaten into poorest foam? She would, she must subdue him! Perhaps she did not know how much the sides of her intent were pricked by the nettling discovery that she was not the cause of his unhappiness.

"You 're not going to leave me so!" she exclaimed, in a tone of injury.

"I 'll gang or bide as ye wull, my leddy," answered Malcolm resignedly.

"Bide then," she returned. "I haven't half done with you yet."

"Ye mauna jist tear my hert oot," he rejoined—with a sad half smile, and another of his dog-like looks.

"That's what you would do to your mother!" said Florimel severely.

"Say nae ill o' my mither!" cried Malcolm, suddenly changing almost to fierceness.

"Why, Malcolm!" said Florimel, bewildered, "what ill was I saying of her?"

"It's naething less than an insult to my mither to ca' yon wuman by her name," he replied with set teeth.

It was to him an offence against the idea of motherhood—against the mother he had so often imagined luminous against the dull blank of memory, to call such a woman his mother.

"She's a very ladylike, handsome woman—handsome enough to be your mother even, Mr Malcolm Stewart."

Florimel could not have dared the words but for the distance between them; but, then, neither would she have said them while the distance was greater! They were lost on Malcolm though, for never in his life having started the question whether he was handsome or not, he merely supposed her making game of him, and drew himself together in silence, with the air of one bracing himself to hear and endure the worst.

"Even if she should not be your mother," his tormentor resumed, "to show such a dislike to any woman is nothing less than cruelty."

"She maun pruv' 't," murmured Malcolm—not the less emphatically that the words were but just audible.

"Of course she will not do that; she has abundance of proof. She gave me a whole hour of proof."

"Lang's no strang," returned Malcolm "there's comfort i' that! Gang on my leddy."

"Poor woman! it was hard enough to lose her son; but to find him again such as you seem likely to turn out, I should think ten times worse."

"Nae doobt! nae doobt!—But there's ae thing waur."

"What is that?"

"To come upon a mither 'at—"

He stopped abruptly; his eyes went wandering about the room, and the muscles of his face worked convulsively.

Florimel saw that she had been driving against a stone wall. She paused a moment, and then resumed.

"Anyhow, if she is your mother," she said, "nothing you can do will alter it."

"She maun pruv' 't," was all Malcolm's dogged reply.

"Just so; and if she can't," said Florimel, "you'll be no worse than you were before—and no better," she added with a sigh.

Malcolm lifted his questioning to her searching eyes.

"Don't you .see," she went on, very softly, and lowering her look, from the half conscious shame of half unconscious falseness, "I can't be all my life here at Lossie? We shall have to say goodbye to each other—never to meet again most likely. But if you should turn out to be of good family, you know,—"

Florimel saw neither the paling of his brown cheek nor the great surge of red that followed, but, glancing up to spy the effect of her argument, did see the lightning that broke from the darkened hazel of his eyes, and again cast down her own.

"—then there might be some chance," she went on, "of our meeting somewhere—in London, or perhaps in Edinburgh, and I could ask you to my house—after I was married you know."

Heaven and earth seemed to close with a snap around his brain. The next moment, they had receded an immeasurable distance, and in limitless wastes of exhausted being he stood alone. What time had passed when he came to himself he had not an idea; it might have been hours for anything his consciousness was able to tell him. But, although he recalled nothing of what she had been urging, he grew aware that Lady Florimel's voice, which was now in his ears, had been sounding in them all the time. He was standing before her like a marble statue with a dumb thrill in its helpless heart of stone. He must end this! Parting was bad enough, but an endless parting was unendurable! To know that measureless impassable leagues lay between them, and yet to be for ever in the shroud of a cold leave taking! To look in her eyes, and know that she was not there! A parting that never broke the bodily presence—that was the form of agony which the infinite moment assumed. As to the possibility she would bribe him with—it was not even the promise of a glimpse of Abraham's bosom from the heart of hell. With such an effort as breaks the bonds of a nightmare dream, he turned from her, and, heedless of her recall, went slowly, steadily, out of the house.

While she was talking, his eyes had been resting with glassy gaze upon the far off waters: the moment he stepped into the open air, and felt the wind on his face, he knew that their turmoil was the travailing of sympathy, and that the ocean had been drawing him all the time. He walked straight to his little boat, lying dead on the sands of the harbour, launched it alive on the smooth water within the piers, rove his halliard, stepped his mast, hoisted a few inches of sail, pulled beyond the sheltering sea walls, and was tossing amidst the torn waters whose jagged edges were twisted in the loose flying threads of the northern gale. A moment more, and he was sitting on the windward gunwale of his spoon of a boat, with the tiller in one hand and the sheet in the other, as she danced like a cork over the broken tops of the waves. For help in his sore need, instinct had led him to danger.

Half way to the point of Scaurnose, he came round on the other tack, and stood for the Death Head.

Glancing from the wallowing floor beneath him, and the one wing that bore him skimming over its million deaths, away to the House of Lossie, where it stood steady in its woods, he distinguished the very window whence, hardly an hour ago, from the centre of the calm companionship of books, he had gazed out upon the wind swept waste as upon a dream.

"How strange," he thought, "to find myself now in the midst of what I then but saw! This reeling ocean was but a picture to me then— a picture framed in the window; it is now alive and I toss like a toy on its wild commotion. Then I but saw from afar the flashing of the white out of the blue water, and the blue sky overhead, which no winds can rend into pallid pains; now I have to keep eye and hand together in one consent to shun death; I meet wind and wave on their own terms, and humour the one into an evasion of the other. The wind that then revealed itself only in white blots and streaks now lashes my hair into my eyes, and only the lift of my bows is betwixt me and the throat that swallows the whales and the krakens.

"Will it be so with death? It looks strange and far off now, but it draws nigh noiselessly, and one day I meet it face to face in the grapple: shall I rejoice in that wrestle as I rejoice in this? Will not my heart grow sick within me? Shall I not be faint and fearful? And yet I could almost wish it were at hand!

"I wonder how death and this wan water here look to God! To him is it like a dream—a picture? Water cannot wet him; death cannot touch him. Yet Jesus could have let the water wet him; and he granted power to death when he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. God knows how things look to us both far off and near; he also can see them so when he pleases. What they look to him is what they are: we cannot see them so, but we see them as he meant us to see them, therefore truly, according to the measure of the created. Made in the image of God, we see things in the image of his sight."

Thoughts like these, only in yet cruder forms, swept through the mind of Malcolm as he tossed on that autumn sea. But what we call crude forms are often in reality germinal forms; and one or other of these flowered at once into the practical conclusion that God must know all his trouble, and would work for him a worthy peace. Ere he turned again towards the harbour, he had reascended the cloud haunted Pisgah whence the words of Lady Florimel had hurled him.



CHAPTER L: LIZZY FINDLAY

Leaving his boat again on the dry sand that sloped steep into the harbour, Malcolm took his way homeward along the shore. Presently he spied, at some little distance in front of him, a woman sitting on the .sand, with her head bowed upon her knees. She had no shawl, though the wind was cold and strong, blowing her hair about wildly. Her attitude and whole appearance were the very picture of misery. He drew near and recognized her.

"What on earth's gane wrang wi' ye, Lizzy?" he asked.

"Ow naething," she murmured, without lifting her head. The brief reply was broken by a sob.

"That canna be," persisted Malcolm, trouble of whose own had never yet rendered him indifferent to that of another. "Is 't onything 'at a body cun stan' by ye in?"

Another sob was the only answer.

"I'm in a peck o' troubles mysel'," said Malcolm. "I wad fain help a body gien I cud."

"Naebody can help me," returned the girl, with an agonized burst, as if the words were driven from her by a convulsion of her inner world, and therewith she gave way, weeping and sobbing aloud. "I doobt I'll hae to droon mysel'," she added with a wail, as he stood in compassionate silence, until the gust should blow over; and as she said it she lifted a face tear stained, and all white, save where five fingers had branded their shapes in red. Her eyes scarcely encountered his; again she buried her face in her hands, and rocked herself to and fro, moaning in fresh agony.

"Yer mither's been sair upo' ye, I doobt!" he said. "But it'll sune blaw ower. She cuils as fest 's she heats."

As he spoke he set himself down on the sand beside her. But Lizzy started to her feet, crying,

"Dinna come near me, Ma'colm. I'm no fit for honest man to come nigh me. Stan' awa'; I hae the plague."

She laughed, but it was a pitiful laugh, and she looked wildly about, as if for some place to run to.

"I wad na be sorry to tak it mysel', Lizzy. At ony rate I'm ower auld a freen' to be driven frae ye that gait," said Malcolm, who could not bear the thought of leaving her on the border of the solitary sea, with the waves barking at her all the cold winterly gloamin'. Who could tell what she might do after the dark came down? He rose and would have taken her hand to draw it from her face; but she turned her back quickly, saying in a hard forced voice:

"A man canna help a wuman—'cep it be till her grave." Then turning suddenly, she laid her hands on his shoulders, and cried: "For the love o' God, Ma'colm, lea' me this moment. Gien I cud tell ony man what ailed me, I wad tell you; but I canna, I canna! Rin laddie; rin' an' leap me."

It was impossible to resist her anguished entreaty and agonized look. Sore at heart and puzzled in brain, Malcolm yielding turned from her, and with eyes on the ground, thoughtfully pursued his slow walk towards the Seaton.

At the corner of the first house in the village stood three women, whom he saluted as he passed. The tone of their reply struck him a little, but, not having observed how they watched him as he approached, he presently forgot it. The moment his back was turned to them, they turned to each other and interchanged looks.

"Fine feathers mak fine birds," said one of them.

"Ay, but he luiks booed doon," said another.

"An' weel he may! What 'll his leddy mither say to sic a ploy? She 'll no sawvour bein' made a granny o' efter sic a fashion 's yon," said the third.

"'Deed, lass, there's feow oucht to think less o' 't," returned the first.

Although they took little pains to lower their voices, Malcolm was far too much preoccupied to hear what they said. Perceiving plainly enough that the girl's trouble was much greater than a passing quarrel with her mother would account for, and knowing that any intercession on his part would only rouse to loftier flames the coal pits of maternal wrath, he resolved at length to take counsel with Blue Peter and his wife, and therefore, passing the sea gate, continued his walk along the shore, and up the red path to the village of Scaurnose.

He found them sitting at their afternoon meal of tea and oatcake. A peat fire smouldered hot upon the hearth; a large kettle hung from a chain over it—fountain of plenty, whence the great china teapot, splendid in red flowers and green leaves, had just been filled; the mantelpiece was crowded with the gayest of crockery, including the never absent half shaved poodles, and the rarer Gothic castle, from the topmost story of whose keep bloomed a few late autumn flowers. Phemy too was at the table: she rose as if to leave the room, but apparently changed her mind, for she sat down again instantly.

"Man ye're unco braw the day—i' yer kilt an' tartan hose!" remarked Mair as he welcomed him.

"I pat them on to please my daddy an' the markis," said Malcolm, with a half shamed faced laugh.

"Are na ye some cauld aboot the k-nees?" asked the guidwife.

"Nae that cauld! I ken 'at they're there; but I'll sune be used till 't."

"Weel, sit ye doon an' tak a cup o' tay wi' 's"

"I haena muckle time to spare," said Malcolm; "but I'll tak a cup o' tay wi' ye. Gien 't warna for wee bit luggies (small ears) I wad fain spier yer advice aboot ane 'at wants a wuman freen', I'm thinkin'."

Phemy, who had been regarding him with compressed lips and suspended operations, deposited her bread and butter on the table, and slipped from her chair.

"Whaur are ye gaein', Phemy?" said her mother.

"Takin' awa' my lugs," returned Phemy.

"Ye cratur!" exclaimed Malcolm, "ye're ower wise. Wha wad hae thoucht ye sae gleg at the uptak!"

"Whan fowk winna lippen to me—" said Phemy and ceased.

"What can ye expec," returned Malcolm, while father and mother listened with amused faces, "whan ye winna lippen to fowk? Phemy, whaur's the mad laird?"

A light flush rose to her cheeks, but whether from embarrassment or anger could not be told from her reply.

"I ken nane o' that name," she said.

"Whaur's the laird o' Kirkbyres, than?"

"Whar ye s' never lay han' upo' 'im!" returned the child, her cheeks now rosy red, and her eyes flashing.

"Me lay han' upo' 'im!" cried Malcolm, surprised at her behaviour.

"Gien 't hadna been for you, naebody wad hae fun' oot the w'y intil the cave," she rejoined, her gray eyes, blue with the fire of anger, looking straight into his.

"Phemy! Phemy!" said her mother. "For shame!"

"There's nae shame intill 't," protested the child indignantly.

"But there is shame intill 't," said Malcolm quietly, "for ye wrang an honest man."

"Weel, ye canna deny," persisted Phemy, in mood to brave the evil one himself, "'at ye was ower at Kirkbyres on ane o' the markis's mears, an' heild a lang confab wi' the laird's mither!"

"I gaed upo' my maister's eeran'," answered Malcolm.

"Ow, ay! I daursay!—But wha kens—wi' sic a mither!"

She burst out crying, and ran into the street.

Malcolm understood it now.

"She's like a' the lave (rest)!" he said sadly, turning to her mother.

"I'm jist affrontit wi' the bairn!" she replied, with manifest annoyance in her flushed face.

"She's true to him," said Malcolm, "gien she binna fair to me. Sayna a word to the lassie. She 'll ken me better or lang. An' noo for my story."

Mrs Mair said nothing while he told how he had come upon Lizzy, the state she was in, and what had passed between them; but he had scarcely finished, when she rose, leaving a cup of tea untasted, and took her bonnet and shawl from a nail in the back of the door. Her husband rose also.

"I 'll jist gang as far 's the Boar's Craig wi' ye mysel', Annie," he said.

"I'm thinkin' ye'll fin' the puir lassie whaur I left her," remarked Malcolm. "I doobt she daured na gang hame."

That night it was all over the town, that Lizzy Findlay was in a woman's worst trouble, and that Malcolm was the cause of it.



CHAPTER LI: THE LAIRD'S BURROW

Annie Mair had a brother, a carpenter, who, following her to Scaurnose, had there rented a small building next door to her cottage, and made of it a workshop. It had a rude loft, one end of which was loosely floored, while the remaining part showed the couples through the bare joists, except where some planks of oak and mahogany, with an old door, a boat's rudder, and other things that might come in handy, were laid across them in store. There also, during the winter, hung the cumulus clouds of Blue Peter's herring nets; for his cottage, having a garret above, did not afford the customary place for them in the roof.

When the cave proved to be no longer a secret from the laird's enemies, Phemy, knowing that her father's garret could never afford him a sufficing sense of security, turned the matter over in her active little brain until pondering produced plans, and she betook herself to her uncle, with whom she was a great favourite. Him she found no difficulty in persuading to grant the hunted man a refuge in the loft. In a few days he had put up a partition between the part which was floored and that which was open, and so made for him a little room, accessible from the shop by a ladder and a trapdoor. He had just taken down an old window frame to glaze for it, when the laird coming in and seeing what he was about, scrambled up the ladder, and, a moment after, all but tumbled down again in his eagerness to put a stop to it: the window was in the gable, looking to the south, and he would not have it glazed.

In blessed compensation for much of the misery of his lot, the laird was gifted with an inborn delicate delight in nature and her ministrations such as few poets even possess; and this faculty was supplemented with a physical hardiness which, in association with his weakness and liability to certain appalling attacks, was truly astonishing. Though a rough hand might cause him exquisite pain, he could sleep soundly on the hardest floor; a hot room would induce a fit, but he would lie under an open window in the sharpest night without injury; a rude word would make him droop like a flower in frost, but he might go all day wet to the skin without taking cold. To all kinds of what are called hardships, he had readily become inured, without which it would have been impossible for his love of nature to receive such a full development. For hence he grew capable of communion with her in all her moods, undisabled either by the deadening effects of present, or the aversion consequent on past suffering. All the range of earth's shows, from the grandeurs of sunrise or thunderstorm down to the soft unfolding of a daisy or the babbling birth of a spring, was to him an open book. It is true, the delight of these things was constantly mingled with, not unfrequently broken, indeed, by the troublous question of his origin; but it was only on occasions of jarring contact with his fellows, that it was accompanied by such agonies as my story has represented. Sometimes he would sit on a rock, murmuring the words over and over, and dabbling his bare feet, small and delicately formed, in the translucent green of a tide abandoned pool. But oftener in a soft dusky wind, he might have been heard uttering them gently and coaxingly, as if he would wile from the evening zephyr the secret of his birth—which surely mother Nature must know. The confinement of such a man would have been in the highest degree cruel, and must speedily have ended in death. Even Malcolm did not know how absolute was the laird's need, not simply of air and freedom, but of all things accompanying the enjoyment of them.

There was nothing then of insanity in his preference of a windowless bedroom;—it was that airs and odours, birds and sunlight—the sound of flapping wing, of breaking wave, and quivering throat, might be free to enter. Cool clean air he must breathe, or die; with that, the partial confinement to which he was subjected was not unendurable; besides, the welcome rain would then visit him sometimes, alighting from the slant wing of the flying blast; while the sun would pour in his rays full and mighty and generous, unsifted by the presumptuous glass—green and gray and crowded with distorting lines; and the sharp flap of pigeon's wing would be mimic thunder to the flash which leapt from its whiteness as it shot by.

He not only loved but understood all the creatures, divining by an operation in which neither the sympathy nor the watchfulness was the less perfect that both were but half conscious, the emotions and desires informing their inarticulate language. Many of them seemed to know him in return—either recognizing his person, and from experience deducing safety, or reading his countenance sufficiently to perceive that his interest prognosticated no injury. The maternal bird would keep her seat in her nursery, and give back his gaze; the rabbit peeping from his burrow would not even draw in his head at his approach; the rooks about Scaurnose never took to their wings until he was within a yard or two of them: the laird, in his half acted utterance, indicated that they took him for a scarecrow and therefore were not afraid of him. Even Mrs Catanach's cur had never offered him a bite in return for a caress. He could make a bird's nest, of any sort common in the neighbourhood, so as deceive the most cunning of the nest harrying youths of the parish.*

* [See article Martin Fereol, in St. Paul's Magazine vol. iv. generally.]

Hardly was he an hour in his new abode ere the sparrows and robins began to visit him. Even strange birds of passage flying in at his hospitable window, would espy him unscared, and sometimes partake of the food he had always at hand to offer them. He relied, indeed, for the pleasures of social intercourse with the animal world, on stray visits alone; he had no pets—dog nor cat nor bird; for his wandering and danger haunted life did not allow such companionship.

He insisted on occupying his new quarters at once. In vain Phemy and her uncle showed reason against it. He did not want a bed; he much preferred a heap of spies, that is, wood shavings. Indeed, he would not have a bed; and whatever he did want he would get for himself. Having by word and gesture made this much plain, he suddenly darted up the ladder, threw down the trapdoor, and, lo! like a hermit crab, he had taken possession. Wisely they left him alone.

For a full fortnight he allowed neither to enter the little chamber. As often as they called him, he answered cheerfully, but never showed himself except when Phemy brought him food, which, at his urgent request, was only once in the twenty four hours— after nightfall, the last thing before she went to bed; then he would slide down the ladder, take what she had brought him, and hurry up again. Phemy was perplexed, and at last a good deal distressed, for he had always been glad of her company before.

At length, one day, hearing her voice in the shop, and having peeped through a hole in the floor to see that no stranger was present, he invited her to go up, and lifted the trapdoor.

"Come, come," he said hurriedly, when her head appeared and came no farther.

He stood holding the trapdoor, eager to close it again as soon as she should step clear of it, and surprise was retarding her ascent.

Before hearing his mind, the carpenter had already made for him, by way of bedstead, a simple frame of wood, crossed with laths in the form of lattice work: this the laird had taken and set up on its side, opposite the window, about two feet from it, so that, with abundant passage for air, it served as a screen. Fixing it firmly to the floor, he had placed on the top of it a large pot of the favourite cottage plant there called Humility, and trained its long pendent runners over it. On the floor between it and the window, he had ranged a row of flower pots—one of them with an ivy plant, which also he had begun to train against the trellis; and already the humility and the ivy had begun to intermingle.

At one side of the room, where the sloping roof met the floor, was his bed of fresh pine shavings, amongst which, their resinous half aromatic odour apparently not sweet enough to content him, he had scattered a quantity of dried rose leaves. A thick tartan plaid, for sole covering, lay upon the heap.

"I wad hae likit hay better," he said, pointing to this lair rather than couch, "but it's some ill to get, an' the spales they 're at han', an' they smell unco clean."

At the opposite side of the room lay a corresponding heap, differing not a little, however, in appearance and suggestion. As far as visible form and material could make it one, it was a grave —rather a short one, but abundantly long for the laird. It was in reality a heap of mould, about a foot and a half high, covered with the most delicate grass, and bespangled with daisies.

"Laird!" said Phemy, half reproachfully, as she stood gazing at the marvel, "ye hae been oot at nicht!"

"Aye—a' nicht whiles, whan naebody was aboot 'cep' the win'." He pronounced the word with a long drawn imitative sough—"an' the cloods an' the splash o' the watter."

Pining under the closer imprisonment in his garret, which the discovery of his subterranean refuge had brought upon him, the laird would often have made his escape at night but for the fear of disturbing the Mairs; and now that there was no one to disturb, the temptation to spend his nights in the open air was the more irresistible that he had conceived the notion of enticing nature herself into his very chamber. Abroad then he had gone, as soon as the first midnight closed around his new dwelling, and in the fields had with careful discrimination begun to collect the mould for his mound, a handful here and a handful there. This took him several nights, and when it was finished, he was yet more choice in his selection of turf, taking it from the natural grass growing along the roads and on the earthen dykes, or walls, the outer sides of which feed the portionless cows of that country. Searching for miles in the moonlight, he had, with eye and hand, chosen out patches of this grass, the shortest and thickest he could find, and with a pocket knife, often in pieces of only a few inches, removed the best of it and carried it home, to be fitted on the heap, and with every ministration and blandishment enticed to flourish. He pressed it down with soft firm hands, and beshowered it with water first warmed a little in his mouth; when the air was soft, he guided the wind to blow upon it; and as the sun could not reach it where it lay, he gathered a marvellous heap of all the bright sherds he could find—of crockery and glass and mirror, so arranging them in the window, that each threw its tiny reflex upon the turf. With this last contrivance, Phemy was specially delighted; and the laird, happy as a child in beholding her delight, threw himself in an ecstasy on the mound and clasped it in his arms. I can hardly doubt that he regarded it as representing his own grave, to which in his happier moods he certainly looked forward as a place of final and impregnable refuge.

As he lay thus, foreshadowing his burial, or rather his resurrection, a young canary which had flown from one of the cottages, flitted in with a golden shiver and flash, and alighted on his head. He took it gently in his hand and committed it to Phemy to carry home, with many injunctions against disclosing how it had been captured.

His lonely days were spent in sleep, in tending his plants, or in contriving defences; but in all weathers he wandered out at midnight, and roamed or rested among fields or rocks till the first signs of the breaking day, when he hurried like a wild creature to his den.

Before long he had contrived an ingenious trap, or man spider web, for the catching of any human insect that might seek entrance at his window: the moment the invading body should reach a certain point, a number of lines would drop about him, in making his way through which he would straightway be caught by the barbs of countless fishhooks—the whole strong enough at least to detain him until its inventor should have opened the trapdoor and fled.



CHAPTER LII: CREAM OR SCUM?

Of the new evil report abroad concerning him, nothing had as yet reached Malcolm. He read, and pondered, and wrestled with difficulties of every kind; saw only a little of Lady Florimel, who, he thought, avoided him; saw less of the marquis; and, as the evenings grew longer, spent still larger portions of them with Duncan—now and then reading to him, but oftener listening to his music or taking a lesson in the piper's art. He went seldom into the Seaton, for the faces there were changed towards him. Attributing this to the reports concerning his parentage, and not seeing why he should receive such treatment because of them, hateful though they might well be to himself, he began to feel some bitterness towards his early world, and would now and then repeat to himself a misanthropical thing he had read, fancying he too had come to that conclusion. But there was not much danger of such a mood growing habitual with one who knew Duncan MacPhail, Blue Peter, and the schoolmaster— not to mention Miss Horn. To know one person who is positively to be trusted, will do more for a man's moral nature—yes, for his spiritual nature—than all the sermons he has ever heard or ever can hear.

One evening, Malcolm thought he would pay Joseph a visit, but when he reached Scaurnose, he found it nearly deserted: he had forgotten that this was one of the nights of meeting in the Baillies' Barn. Phemy indeed had not gone with her father and mother, but she was spending the evening with the laird. Lifting the latch, and seeing no one in the house, he was on the point of withdrawing when he caught sight of an eye peeping through an inch opening of the door of the bed closet, which the same moment was hurriedly closed. He called, but received no reply, and left the cottage wondering. He had not heard that Mrs Mair had given Lizzy Findlay shelter for a season. And now a neighbour had observed and put her own construction on the visit, her report of which strengthened the general conviction of his unworthiness.

Descending from the promontory, and wandering slowly along the shore, he met the Scaurnose part of the congregation returning home. The few salutations dropped him as he passed were distant, and bore an expression of disapproval. Mrs Mair only, who was walking with a friend, gave him a kind nod. Blue Peter, who followed at a little distance, turned and walked back with him.

"I'm exerceesed i' my min'," he said, as soon as they were clear of the stragglers, "aboot the turn things hae taen, doon by at the Barn."

"They tell me there's some gey queer customers taen to haudin' furth," returned Malcolm.

"It's a fac'," answered Peter. "The fowk 'll hardly hear a word noo frae ony o' the aulder an' soberer Christians. They haena the gift o' the Speerit, they say. But in place o' steerin' them up to tak hold upo' their Maker, thir new lichts set them up to luik doon upo' ither fowk, propheseein' an' denuncin', as gien the Lord had committit jeedgment into their han's."

"What is 't they tak haud o' to misca' them for?" asked Malcolm.

"It's no sae muckle," answered Peter, "for onything they du, as for what they believe or dinna believe. There's an 'uman frae Clamrock was o' their pairty the nicht. She stude up an' spak weel, an' weel oot, but no to muckle profit, as 't seemed to me; only I'm maybe no a fair jeedge, for I cudna be rid o' the notion 'at she was lattin' at mysel' a' the time. I dinna ken what for. An' I cudna help wonnerin' gien she kent what fowk used to say aboot hersel' whan she was a lass; for gien the sma' half o' that was true, a body micht think the new grace gien her wad hae driven her to hide her head, i' place o' exaltin' her horn on high. But maybe it was a' lees—she kens best hersel'."

"There canna be muckle worship gaein' on wi' ye by this time, than, I'm thinkin'," said Malcolm.

"I dinna like to say 't," returned Joseph; "but there's a speerit o' speeritooal pride abroad amang 's, it seems to me, 'at's no fawvourable to devotion. They hae taen 't intill their heids, for ae thing—an that's what Dilse's Bess lays on at—'at 'cause they're fisher fowk, they hae a speecial mission to convert the warl'."

"What foon' they that upo'?" asked Malcolm.

"Ow, what the Saviour said to Peter an' the lave o' them 'at was fishers—to come to him, an' he would mak them fishers o' men."

"Ay, I see!—What for dinna ye bide at hame, you an' the lave o' the douce anes?"

"There ye come upo' the thing 'at 's troublin' me. Are we 'at begude it to brak it up? Or are we to stan' aside an' lat it a' gang to dirt an' green bree? Or are we to bide wi' them, an warsle aboot holy words till we tyne a' stamach for holy things?"

"Cud ye brak it up gien ye tried?" asked Malcolm.

"I doobt no. That's ane o' the considerations 'at hings some sair upo' me: see what we hae dune!"

"What for dinna ye gang ower to Maister Graham, an' speir what he thinks?"

"What for sud I gang till him? What's he but a fine moaral man? I never h'ard 'at he had ony discernment o' the min' o' the speerit."

"That's what Dilse's Bess frae Clamrock wad say aboot yersel', Peter."

"An' I doobt she wadna be far wrang."

"Ony gait, she kens nae mair aboot you nor ye ken aboot the maister. Ca' ye a man wha cares for naething in h'aven or in earth but the wull o' 's Creator—ca' ye sic a man no speeritual? Jist gang ye till 'im, an' maybe he'll lat in a glent upo' ye 'at 'll astonish ye."

"He's taen unco little enterest in onything 'at was gaein' on."

"Arena ye some wissin' ye hadna taen muckle mair yersel, Peter?"

"'Deed am I! But gien he be giftit like that ye say, what for didna he try to haud 's richt?"

"Maybe he thoucht ye wad mak yer mistaks better wantin' him."

"Weel, ye dinna ca' that freenly!"

"What for no? I hae h'ard him say fowk canna come richt 'cep' by haein' room to gang wrang. But jist ye gang till him noo. Maybe he'll open mair een i' yer heids nor ye kent ye had."

"Weel, maybe we micht du waur. I s' mention the thing to Bow o' meal an' Jeames Gentle, an' see what they say—There's nae guid to be gotten o' gaein' to the minister, ye see: there's naething in him, as the saw says, but what the spune pits intill him."

With this somewhat unfavourable remark, Blue Peter turned homewards. Malcolm went slowly back to his room, his tallow candle, and his volume of Gibbon.

He read far into the night, and his candle was burning low in the socket. Suddenly he sat straight up in his chair, listening: he thought he heard a sound in the next room—it was impossible even to imagine of what—it was such a mere abstraction of sound. He listened with every nerve, but heard nothing more; crept to the door of the wizard's chamber, and listened again; listened until he could no longer tell whether he heard or not, and felt like a deaf man imagining sounds; then crept back to his own room and went to bed—all but satisfied that, if it was anything, it must have been some shaking window or door he had heard.

But he could not get rid of the notion that he had smelt sulphur.



CHAPTER LIII: THE SCHOOLMASTER'S COTTAGE

The following night, three of the Scaurnose fishermen—Blue Peter, Bow o' meal, and Jeames Gentle—called at the schoolmaster's cottage in the Alton, and were soon deep in earnest conversation with him around his peat fire, in the room which served him for study, dining room, and bed chamber. All the summer a honeysuckle outside watched his back window for him; now it was guarded within by a few flowerless plants. It was a deep little window in a thick wall, with an air of mystery, as if thence the privileged might look into some region of strange and precious things. The front window was comparatively commonplace, with a white muslin curtain across the lower half. In the middle of the sanded floor stood a table of white deal, much stained with ink. The green painted doors of the box bed opposite the hearth stood open, revealing a spotless white counterpane. On the wall beside the front window hung by red cords three shelves of books; and near the back window stood a dark, old fashioned bureau, with pendant brass handles as bright as new, supporting a bookcase with glass doors, crowded with well worn bindings. A few deal chairs completed the furniture.

"It's a sair vex, sir, to think o' what we a' jeedged to be the wark o' the speerit takin' sic a turn! I'm feart it 'll lie heavy at oor door," said Blue Peter, after a sketch of the state of affairs.

"I don't think they can have sunk so low as the early Corinthian Church yet," said Mr Graham, "and St. Paul never seems to have blamed himself for preaching the gospel to the Corinthians."

"Weel, maybe!" rejoined Mair. "But, meantime, the practical p'int is—are we to tyauve (struggle) to set things richt again, or are we to lea' them to their ain devices?"

"What power have you to set things right?"

"Nane, sir. The Baillies' Barn 's as free to them as to oorsel's."

"What influence have you, then?"

"Unco little," said Bow o' meal, taking the word. "They're afore the win'. An' it 's plain eneuch 'at to stan' up an' oppose them wad be but to breed strife an' debate."

"An' that micht put mony a waukent conscience soon' asleep again —maybe no to be waukent ony mair," said Blue Peter.

"Then you don't think you can either communicate or receive benefit by continuing to take a part in those meetings?"

"I dinna think it," answered all three.

"Then the natural question is—'Why should you go?'"

"We're feart for the guilt o' what the minister ca's shism," said Blue Peter.

"That might have occurred to you before you forsook the parish church," said the schoolmaster, with a smile.

"But there was nae speeritooal noorishment to be gotten i' that houff (haunt)," said Jeames Gentle.

"How did you come to know the want of it?"

"Ow, that cam frae the speerit himsel'-what else?" replied Gentle.

"By what means?"

"By the readin' o' the word an' by prayer," answered Gentle.

"By his ain v'ice i' the hert," said Bow o' meal.

"Then a public assembly is not necessary for the communication of the gifts of the spirit?"

They were silent.

"Isn't it possible that the eagerness after such assemblies may have something to do with a want of confidence in what the Lord says of his kingdom—that it spreads like the hidden leaven— grows like the buried seed? My own conviction is, that if a man would but bend his energies to live, if he would but try to be a true, that is, a godlike man, in all his dealings with his fellows, a genuine neighbour and not a selfish unit, he would open such channels for the flow of the spirit as no amount of even honest and so called successful preaching could."

"Wha but ane was ever fit to lead sic a life 's that?"

"All might be trying after it. In proportion as our candle burns it will give light. No talking about light will supply the lack of its presence either to the talker or the listeners."

"There 's a heap made o' the preachin' o' the word i' the buik itsel'," said Peter with emphasis.

"Undoubtedly. But just look at our Lord: he never stopped living amongst his people—hasn't stopped yet; but he often refused to preach, and personally has given it up altogether now."

"Ay, but ye see he kent what he was duin'."

"And so will every man in proportion as he partakes of his spirit."

"But dinna ye believe there is sic a thing as gettin' a call to the preachin'?"

"I do; but even then a man's work is of worth only as it supplements his life. A network of spiritual fibres connects the two, makes one of them."

"But surely, sir, them 'at 's o' the same min' oucht to meet an' stir ane anither up? 'They that feart the Lord spak aften thegither,' ye ken."

"What should prevent them? Why should not such as delight in each other's society, meet, and talk, and pray together,—address each the others if they like? There is plenty of opportunity for that, without forsaking the church or calling public meetings. To continue your quotation—'The Lord hearkened and heard:' observe, the Lord is not here said to hearken to sermons or prayers, but to the talk of his people. This would have saved you from false relations with men that oppose themselves, caring nothing for the truth—perhaps eager to save their souls, nothing more at the very best."

"Sir! sir! what wad ye hae? Daur ye say it's no a body's first duty to save his ain sowl alive?" exclaimed Bow o' meal.

"I daur't—but there 's little daur intill 't!" said Mr Graham, breaking into Scotch.

Bow o' meal rose from his chair in indignation, Blue Peter made a grasp at his bonnet, and Jeames Gentle gave a loud sigh of commiseration.

"I allow it to be a very essential piece of prudence," added the schoolmaster, resuming his quieter English—"but the first duty! —no. The Catechism might have taught you better than that! To mind his chief end must surely be man's first duty; and the Catechism says-. 'Man's chief end is to glorify God.'"

"And to enjoy him for ever," supplemented Peter.

"That 's a safe consequence. There's no fear of the second if he does the first. Anyhow he cannot enjoy him for ever this moment, and he can glorify him at once."

"Ay, but hoo?" said Bow o' meal, ready to swoop upon the master's reply.

"Just as Jesus Christ did—by doing his will—by obedience."

"That's no faith—it's works! Ye'll never save yer sowl that gait."

"No man can ever save his soul. God only can do that. You can glorify him by giving yourself up heart and soul and body and life to his Son. Then you shall be saved. That you must leave to him, and do what he tells you. There will be no fear of the saving then —though it 's not an easy matter—even for him, as has been sorely proved."

"An' hoo are we to gie oorsel's up till him?—for ye see we're practical kin' o' fowk, huz fisher fowk, Maister Graham," said Bow o' meal.

The tone implied that the schoolmaster was not practical.

"I say again—In doing his will and not your own."

"An' what may his wull be?"

"Is he not telling you himself at this moment? Do you not know what his will is? How should I come between him and you! For anything I know, it may be that you pay your next door neighbour a crown you owe him, or make an apology to the one on the other side. I do not know: you do."

"Dinna ye think aboot savin' yer ain sowl noo, Maister Graham?" said Bow o' meal, returning on their track.

"No, I don't. I've forgotten all about that. I only desire and pray to do the will of my God—which is all in all to me."

"What say ye than aboot the sowls o' ither fowk? Wadna ye save them, no?"

"Gladly would I save them—but according to the will of God. If I were, even unwittingly, to attempt it in any other way, I should be casting stumbling blocks in their path, and separating myself from my God—doing that which is not of faith, and therefore is sin. It is only where a man is at one with God that he can do the right thing or take the right way. Whatever springs from any other source than the spirit that dwelt in Jesus, is of sin, and works to thwart the divine will. Who knows what harm may be done to a man by hurrying a spiritual process in him?"

"I doobt, sir, gien yer doctrine was to get a hearin', there wad be unco little dune for the glory o' God i' this place!" remarked Bow o' meal, with sententious reproof.

"But what was done would be of the right sort, and surpassingly powerful."

"Weel, to come back to the business in han'—what wad be yer advice?" said Bow o' meal.

"That's a thing none but a lawyer should give. I have shown you what seem to me the principles involved: I can do no more."

"Ye dinna ca' that neebourly, whan a body comes speirin' 't?"

"Are you prepared then to take my advice?"

"Ye wadna hae a body du that aforehan'! We micht as weel a' be Papists, an' believe as we 're tauld."

"Precisely so. But you can exercise your judgment upon the principles whereon my opinion is founded, with far more benefit than upon my opinion itself—which I cannot well wish you to adopt, seeing I think it far better for a man to go wrong upon his own honest judgment, than to go right upon anybody else's judgment, however honest also."

"Ye hae a heap o' queer doctrines, sir."

"And yet you ask advice of me?"

"We haena ta'en muckle, ony gait," returned Bow o' meal rudely, and walked from the cottage.

Jeames Gentle and Blue Peter bade the master a kindly good night, and followed Bow o' meal.

The next Sunday evening Blue Peter was again at the Alton, accompanied by Gentle and another fisherman, not Bow o' meal, and had another and longer conversation with the schoolmaster. The following Sunday he went yet again; and from that time, every Sunday evening, as soon as he had had his tea, Blue Peter took down his broad bonnet, and set out to visit Mr Graham. As he went, one and another would join him as he passed, the number increasing every time, until at last ten or twelve went regularly.

But Mr Graham did not like such a forsaking of wives and children on the Sunday.

"Why shouldn't you bring Mrs Mair with you?" he said one evening, addressing Joseph first. Then turning to the rest—"I should be happy to see any of your wives who can come," he added; "and some of you have children who would be no trouble. If there is any good in gathering this way, why shouldn't we have those with us who are our best help at all other times?"

"'Deed, sir," said Joseph, "we're sae used to oor wives 'at we're ower ready to forget hoo ill we cud du wantin' them."

Mrs Mair and two other wives came the next night. A few hung back from modesty and dread of being catechized; but ere long about half a dozen went when they could.

I need hardly say that Malcolm, as soon as he learned what was going on, made one of the company. And truly, although he did not know even yet all the evil that threatened him, he stood in heavy need of the support and comfort to be derived from such truths as Mr Graham unfolded. Duncan also, although he took little interest in what passed, went sometimes, and was welcomed.

The talk of the master not unfrequently lapsed into monologue, and sometimes grew eloquent. Seized occasionally by the might of the thoughts which arose in him,—thoughts which would, to him, have lost all their splendour as well as worth, had he imagined them the offspring of his own faculty, meteors of his own atmosphere instead of phenomena of the heavenly region manifesting themselves on the hollow side of the celestial sphere of human vision,—he would break forth in grand poetic speech that roused to aspiration Malcolm's whole being, while in the same instant calming him with the summer peace of profoundest faith.

To no small proportion of his hearers some of such outbursts were altogether unintelligible—a matter of no moment; but there were of them who understood enough to misunderstand utterly: interpreting his riches by their poverty, they misinterpreted them pitifully, and misrepresented them worse. And, alas! in the little company there were three or four men who, for all their upward impulses, yet remained capable of treachery, because incapable of recognizing the temptation to it for what it was. These by and by began to confer together and form an opposition—in this at least ungenerous, that they continued to assemble at his house, and show little sign of dissension. When, however, they began at length to discover that the master did not teach that interpretation of atonement which they had derived—they little knew whence, but delivered another as the doctrine of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John, they judged themselves bound to take measures towards the quenching of a dangerous heresy. For the more ignorant a man is, the more capable is he of being absolutely certain of many things—with such certainty, that is, as consists in the absence of doubt. Mr Graham, in the meantime, full of love, and quiet solemn fervour, placed completest confidence in their honesty, and spoke his mind freely and faithfully.



CHAPTER LIV: ONE DAY

The winter was close at hand—indeed, in that northern region, might already have claimed entire possession; but the trailing golden fringe of the skirts of autumn was yet visible behind him, as he wandered away down the slope of the world. In the gentle sadness of the season, Malcolm could not help looking back with envy to the time when labour, adventure, and danger, stormy winds and troubled waters, would have helped him to bear the weight of the moral atmosphere which now from morning to night oppressed him. Since their last conversation, Lady Florimel's behaviour to him was altered. She hardly ever sent for him now, and when she did, gave her orders so distantly that at length, but for his grandfather's sake, he could hardly have brought himself to remain in the house even until the return of his master who was from home, and contemplated proposing to him as soon as he came back, that he should leave his service and resume his former occupation, at least until the return of summer should render it fit to launch the cutter again.

One day, a little after noon, Malcolm stepped from the house. The morning had broken gray and squally, with frequent sharp showers, and had grown into a gurly gusty day. Now and then the sun sent a dim yellow glint through the troubled atmosphere, but it was straightway swallowed up in the volumes of vapour seething and tumbling in the upper regions. As he crossed the threshold, there came a moaning wind from the west, and the water laden branches of the trees all went bending before it, shaking their burden of heavy drops on the ground. It was dreary, dreary, outside and in. He turned and looked at the house. If he might have but one peep of the goddess far withdrawn! What did he want of her? Nothing but her favour—something acknowledged between them—some understanding of accepted worship! Alas it was all weakness, and the end thereof dismay! It was but the longing of the opium eater or the drinker for the poison which in delight lays the foundations of torture. No; he knew where to find food—something that was neither opium nor strong drink—something that in torture sustained, and, when its fruition came, would, even in the splendours of delight, far surpass their short lived boon! He turned towards the schoolmaster's cottage.

Under the trees, which sighed aloud in the wind, and, like earth clouds, rained upon him as he passed, across the churchyard, bare to the gray, hopeless looking sky, through the iron gate he went, and opened the master's outer door. Ere he reached that of his room, he heard his voice inviting him to enter.

"Come to condole with me, Malcolm?" said Mr Graham cheerily.

"What for, sir?" asked Malcolm.

"You haven't heard, then, that I'm going to be sent about my business? At least, it's more than likely."

Malcolm dropped into a seat, and stared like an idol. Could he have heard the words? In his eyes Mr Graham was the man of the place— the real person of the parish. He dismissed! The words breathed of mingled impiety and absurdity.