"Ma'colm, Ma'colm!" he cried, and crept up wheezing. "—I beg yer leddyship's pardon, my leddy, but I wadna ha'e Ma'colm lat ye gang in there ohn tellt ye what there is inside."

"Thank you, John. I was just going to tell my lady," said Malcolm.

"Because, ye see," pursued John, "I was ae day here i' the gairden —an' I was jist graftin' a bonny wull rose buss wi' a Hector o' France—an' it grew to be the bonniest rose buss in a' the haul gairden—whan the markis, no the auld markis, but my leddy's father, cam' up the walk there, an' a bonny young leddy wi' his lordship, as it micht be yersel's twa—an' I beg yer pardon, my leddy, but I'm an auld man noo, an' whiles forgets the differs 'atween fowk—an' this yoong leddy 'at they ca'd Miss Cam'ell— ye kenned her yersel' efterhin', I daursay, Ma'colm—he was unco ta'en with her, the markis, as ilka body cud see ohn luikit that near, sae 'at some saich 'at hoo he hed no richt to gang on wi' her that gait, garrin' her believe, gien he wasna gaein' to merry her. That's naither here nor there, hooever, seein' it a' cam' to jist naething ava'. Sae up they gaed to the cave yon'er, as I was tellin' ye; an' hoo it was, was a won'er, for I 's warran' she had been aboot the place near a towmon (twelvemonth), but never had she been intil that cave, and kenned no more nor the bairn unborn what there was in 't. An' sae whan the airemite, as the auld minister ca'd him, though what for he ca'd a muckle block like yon an airy mite, I'm sure I never cud fathom—whan he gat up, as I was sayin', an' cam' foret wi' his han' oot, she gae a scraich 'at jist garred my lugs dirl, an' doon she drappit, an' there, whan I ran up, was she lyin' i' the markis his airms, as white 's a cauk eemege, an' it was lang or he brought her till hersel', for he wadna lat me rin for the hoosekeeper, but sent me fleein' to the f'untain for watter, an' gied me a gowd guinea to haud my tongue aboot it a'. Sae noo, my leddy, ye're forewarnt, an' no ill can come to ye, for there's naething to be fleyt at whan ye ken what's gauin' to meet ye."

Malcolm had turned his head aside, and now moved on without remark. Struck by his silence, Clementina looked up, and saw his face very pale, and the tears standing in his eyes.

"You must tell me the sad story, Malcolm," she murmured. "I could scarcely understand a word the old man said."

He continued silent, and seemed struggling with some emotion. But when they were within a few paces of the arbour, he stopped short, and said—"I would rather not go in there today. You would oblige me, my lady, if you would not go."

She looked up at him again, with wonder but more concern in her lovely face, put her hand on his arm, gently turned him away, and walked back with him to the fountain. Not a word more did she say about the matter.



CHAPTER LXVI: SEA

The evening came; and the company at Lossie House was still seated at table, Clementina heartily weary of the vapid talk that had been going on all through the dinner, when she was informed that a fisherman of the name of Mair was at the door, accompanied by his wife, saying they had an appointment with her. She had already acquainted her hostess, when first they sat down, with her arrangements for going a-fishing that night, and much foolish talk and would be wit had followed; now, when she rose and excused herself, they all wished her a pleasant evening, in a tone indicating the conviction that she little knew what she was about, and would soon be longing heartily enough to be back with them in the drawing room, whose lighted windows she would see from the boat. But Clementina hoped otherwise, hurriedly changed her dress, hastened to join Malcolm's messengers, and almost in a moment had made the two childlike people at home with her, by the simplicity and truth of her manner, and the directness of her utterance. They had not talked with her five minutes before they said in their hearts that here was the wife for the marquis if he could get her.

"She's jist like ane o' oorsel's," whispered Annie to her husband on the first opportunity, "only a hantle better an bonnier."

They took the nearest way to the harbour—through the town, and Lady Clementina and Blue Peter kept up a constant talk as they went. All in the streets and at the windows stared to see the grand lady from the House walking between a Scaurnose fisherman and his wife, and chatting away with them as if they were all fishers together.

"What's the wordle comin' till!" cried Mrs Mellis, the draper's wife, as she saw them pass.

"I'm glaid to see the yoong wuman—an' a bonny lass she is!—in sic guid company," said Miss Horn, looking down from the opposite side of the way. "I'm thinkin' the han' o' the markis 'ill be i' this, no'!"

All was ready to receive her, but in the present bad state of the harbour, and the tide having now ebbed a little way, the boat could not get close either to quay or shore. Six of the crew were on board, seated on the thwarts with their oars shipped, for Peter had insisted on a certain approximation to man of war manners and discipline for the evening, or at least until they got to the fishing ground. The shore itself formed one side of the harbour, and sloped down into it, and on the sand stood Malcolm with a young woman, whom Clementina recognised at once as the girl she had seen at the Findlays'.

"My lady," he said, approaching, "would you do me the favour to let Lizzy go with you. She would like to attend your ladyship, because, being a fisherman's daughter, she is used to the sea, and Mrs Mair is not so much at home upon it, being a farmer's daughter from inland."

Receiving Clementina's thankful assent, he turned to Lizzy and said —

"Min' ye tell my lady what rizon ye ken whaurfor my mistress at the Hoose sudna be merried upo' Lord Liftore—him 'at was Lord Meikleham. Ye may speyk to my lady there as ye wad to mysel'— an' better, haein' the hert o' a wuman."

Lizzy blushed a deep red, and dared but the glimmer of a glance at Clementina, but there was only shame, no annoyance in her face.

"Ye winna repent it, Lizzy," concluded Malcolm, and turned away.

He cherished a faint hope that, if she heard or guessed Lizzy's story, Clementina might yet find some way of bringing her influence to bear on his sister even at the last hour of her chance—from which, for her sake, he shrunk the more the nearer it drew. Clementina held out her hand to Lizzy, and again accepted her offered service with kindly thanks.

Now Blue Peter, having been ship's carpenter in his day, had constructed a little poop in the stern of his craft; thereon Malcolm had laid cushions and pillows and furs and blankets from the Psyche,—a grafting of Cleopatra's galley upon the rude fishing boat—and there Clementina was to repose in state. Malcolm gave a sign: Peter took his wife in his arms, and walking through the few yards of water between, lifted her into the boat, which lay with its stern to the shore. Malcolm and Clementina turned to each other: he was about to ask leave to do her the same service, but she spoke before him.

"Put Lizzy on board first," she said.

He obeyed, and when, returning, he again approached her—"Are you able, Malcolm?" she asked. "I am very heavy."

He smiled for all reply, took her in his arms like a child, and had placed her on the cushions before she had time to realize the mode of her transference. Then taking a stride deeper into the water, he scrambled on board. The same instant the men gave way. They pulled carefully through the narrow jaws of the little harbour, and away with quivering oar and falling tide, went the boat, gliding out into the measureless north, where the horizon was now dotted with the sails that had preceded it.

No sooner were they afloat than a kind of enchantment enwrapped and possessed the soul of Clementina. Everything seemed all at once changed utterly. The very ends of the harbour piers might have stood in the Divina Commedia instead of the Moray Frith. Oh that wonderful look everything wears when beheld from the other side! Wonderful surely will this world appear—strangely more, when, become children again by being gathered to our fathers—joyous day! we turn and gaze back upon it from the other side! I imagine that, to him who has overcome it, the world, in very virtue of his victory, will show itself the lovely and pure thing it was created— for he will see through the cloudy envelope of his battle to the living kernel below. The cliffs, the rocks, the sands, the dune, the town, the very clouds that hung over the hill above Lossie House, were in strange fashion transfigured. To think of people sitting behind those windows while the splendour and freedom of space with all its divine shows invited them—lay bare and empty to them! Out and still out they rowed and drifted, till the coast began to open up beyond the headlands on either side.

There a light breeze was waiting them. Up then went three short masts, and three dark brown sails shone red in the sun, and Malcolm came aft, over the great heap of brown nets, crept with apology across the poop, and got down into a little well behind, there to sit and steer the boat; for now, obedient to the wind in its sails, it went frolicking over the sea.

The bonnie Annie bore a picked crew; for Peter's boat was to him a sort of church, in which he would not with his will carry any Jonah fleeing from the will of the lord of the sea. And that boat's crew did not look the less merrily out of their blue eyes, or carry themselves the less manfully in danger, that they believed a lord of the earth and the sea and the fountains of water cared for his children and would have them honest and fearless.

And now came a scattering of rubies and topazes over the slow waves, as the sun reached the edge of the horizon, and shone with a glory of blinding red along the heaving level of green, dashed with the foam of their flight. Could such a descent as this be intended for a type of death? Clementina asked. Was it not rather as if, from a corner of the tomb behind, she saw the back parts of a resurrection and ascension: warmth, out shining, splendour; departure from the door of the tomb; exultant memory; tarnishing gold, red fading to russet; fainting of spirit, loneliness; deepening blue and green; pallor, grayness, coldness; out creeping stars; further reaching memory; the dawn of infinite hope and foresight; the assurance that under passion itself lay a better and holier mystery? Here was God's naughty child, the world, laid asleep and dreaming—if not merrily, yet contentedly; and there was the sky with all the day gathered and hidden up in its blue, ready to break forth again in laughter on the morrow, bending over its skyey cradle like a mother! and there was the aurora, the secret of life, creeping away round to the north to be ready! Then first, when the slow twilight had fairly settled into night, did Clementina begin to know the deepest marvel of this facet of the rose diamond life! God's night and sky and sea were her's now, as they had been Malcolm's from childhood! And when the nets had been paid out, and sank straight into the deep, stretched betwixt leads below and floats and buoys above, extending a screen of meshes against the rush of the watery herd; when the sails were down, and the whole vault of stars laid bare to her eyes as she lay; when the boat was still, fast to the nets, anchored as it were by hanging acres of curtain, and all was silent as a church, waiting, and she might dream or sleep or pray as she would, with nothing about her but peace and love and the deep sea, and over her but still peace and love and the deeper sky, then the soul of Clementina rose and worshipped the soul of the universe; her spirit clave to the Life of her life, the Thought of her thought, the Heart of her heart; her will bowed itself to the creator of will, worshipping the supreme, original, only Freedom—the Father of her love, the Father of Jesus Christ, the God of the hearts of the universe, the Thinker of all thoughts, the Beginner of all beginnings, the All in all. It was her first experience of speechless adoration.

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

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

The stars are steady abune; I' the water they flichter an' flee; But steady aye luikin' doon, They ken themsel's i' the sea.

A' licht, an' clear, an' free, God, thou shinest abune; Yet luik, an' see thysel' in me, God, whan thou luikest doon.

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

There was an auld fisher—he sat by the wa', An' luikit oot ower the sea; The bairnies war playin', he smilit on them a', But the tear stude in his e'e.

An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! An' it's oh to win awa' Whaur the bairns come home, an' the wives they bide, An' God is the Father o' a'!

Jocky an' Jeamy an' Tammy oot there, A' i' the boatie gaed doon; An' I'm ower auld to fish ony mair, An' I hinna the chance to droon. An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! &c.

An' Jeanie she grat to ease her hert, An' she easit hersel' awa' But I'm ower auld for the tears to stert, An' sae the sighs maun blaw. An' it's oh to win awa', awa'! &c.

Lord, steer me hame whaur my Lord has steerit, For I'm tired o' life's rockin' sea An' dinna be lang, for I'm nearhan' fearit 'At I'm 'maist ower auld to dee. An' it's oh to win awa', awe'! &c.

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

"Did you make that song, Malcolm?"

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

"Thank you," she returned.

"What for, my leddy?"

"For speaking Scotch to me."

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

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

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

"And did you succeed?"

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

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

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

"Malcolm!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER LXVII: SHORE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Never in open country," she answered.

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

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

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

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

"Indeed, Malcolm!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Rise, Malcolm; you misunderstand me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A silence fell. But he resumed.

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

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

"New groom," suggested Malcolm gently.

Clementina smiled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now the lark had seen all and heard all, and was telling it again to the universe, only in dark sayings which none but themselves could understand; therefore it is no wonder that, as she listened, his song melted into a dream, and she slept. And the dream was lovely as dream needs be, but not lovelier than the wakeful night. She opened her eyes, calm as any cradled child, and there stood her fisherman!

"I have been explaining to Lizzy, my lady," he said, "that your ladyship would rather have her company up to the door than mine. Lizzy is to be trusted, my lady."

"'Deed, my leddy," said Lizzy, "Ma'colm's been ower guid to me, no to gar me du onything he wad ha'e o' me, I can haud my tongue whan I like, my leddy. An' dinna doobt my thouchts, my leddy, for I ken Ma'colm as weel's ye du yersel', my leddy."

While she was speaking, Clementina rose, and they went straight to the door in the bank. Through the tunnel and the young wood and the dew and the morning odours, along the lovely paths the three walked to the house together. And oh, how the larks of the earth and the larks of the soul sang for two of them! And how the burn rang with music, and the air throbbed with sweetest life! while the breath of God made a little sound as of a going now and then in the tops of the fir trees, and the sun shone his brightest and best, and all nature knew that the heart of God is the home of his creatures.

When they drew near the house Malcolm left them. After they had rung a good many times, the door was opened by the housekeeper, looking very proper and just a little scandalized.

"Please, Mrs Courthope," said Lady Clementina, "will you give orders that when this young woman comes to see me today she shall be shown up to my room?"

Then she turned to Lizzy and thanked her for her kindness, and they parted—Lizzy to her baby, and Clementina to yet a dream or two. Long before her dreams were sleeping ones, however, Malcolm was out in the bay in the Psyche's dinghy, catching mackerel: some should be for his grandfather, some for Miss Horn, some for Mrs Courthope, and some for Mrs Crathie.



CHAPTER LXVIII: THE CREW OF THE BONNIE ANNIE

Having caught as many fish as he wanted, Malcolm rowed to the other side of the Scaurnose. There he landed and left the dinghy in the shelter of the rocks, the fish covered with long broad leaved tangles, climbed the steep cliff, and sought Blue Peter. The brown village was quiet as a churchyard, although the sun was now growing hot. Of the men some were not yet returned from the night's fishing, and some were asleep in their beds after it. Not a chimney smoked. But Malcolm seemed to have in his own single being life and joy enough for a world; such an intense consciousness of bliss burned within him, that, in the sightless, motionless village, he seemed to himself to stand like an altar blazing in the midst of desert Carnac. But he was not the only one awake: on the threshold of Peter's cottage sat his little Phemy, trying to polish a bit of serpentine marble upon the doorstep, with the help of water, which stood by her side in a broken tea cup.

She lifted her sweet gray eyes, and smiled him a welcome.

"Are ye up a'ready, Phemy?" he said.

"I ha'ena been doon yet," she answered. "My mither was oot last nicht wi' the boat, an' Auntie Jinse was wi' the bairn, an' sae I cud du as I likit."

"An' what did ye like, Phemy?"

"A'body kens what I like," answered the child: "I was oot an' aboot a' nicht. An' eh, Ma'colm! I hed a veesion."

"What was that, Phemy?"

"I was upo' the tap o' the Nose, jist as the sun rase, luikin' aboot me, an' awa' upo' the Boar's Tail I saw twa angels sayin' their prayers. Nae doobt they war prayin' for the haill warl', i' the quaiet o' the mornin' afore the din begud. Maybe ane them was that auld priest wi' the lang name i' the buik o' Genesis, 'at hed naither father nor mither—puir man!—him 'at gaed aboot blissin' fowk."

Malcolm thought he might take his own time to set the child right, and asked her to go and tell her father that he wanted to see him. In a few minutes Blue Peter appeared, rubbing his eyes—one of the dead called too early from the tomb of sleep.

"Freen' Peter," said Malcolm, "I'm gaein' to speak oot the day."

Peter woke up.

"Weel," he said, "I am glaid o' that, Ma'colm,—I beg yer pardon, my lord, I sud say.—Annie!"

"Haud a quaiet sough, man. I wadna hae 't come oot at Scaurnose first. I'm come noo 'cause I want ye to stan' by me."

"I wull that, my lord."

"Weel, gang an' gether yer boat's crew, an' fess them doon to the cove, an' I'll tell them, an' maybe they'll stan' by me as weel."

"There's little fear o' that, gien I ken my men," answered Peter, and went off, rather less than half clothed, the sun burning hot upon his back, through the sleeping village, to call them, while Malcolm went and waited beside the dinghy.

At length six men in a body, and one lagging behind, appeared coming down the winding path—all but Peter no doubt wondering why they were called so soon from their beds, on such a peaceful morning, after being out the night before. Malcolm went to meet them.

"Freen's," he said, "I'm in want o' yer help."

"Onything ye like, Ma'colm, sae far 's I'm concernt, 'cep' it be to. ride yer mere. That I wull no tak in han'," said Jeames Gentle.

"It's no that," returned Malcolm. "It's naething freely sae hard's that, I'm thinkin'. The hard 'll be to believe what I'm gaein' to tell ye."

"Ye'll no be gaein' to set up for a proaphet?" said Girnel, with something approaching a sneer.

Girnel was the one who came down behind the rest.

"Na, na; naething like it," said Blue Peter.

"But first ye'll promise to haud yer tongues for half a day?" said Malcolm.

"Ay, ay; we'll no clype."—"We s' haud ower tongues," cried one and another and another, and all seemed to assent.

"Weel," said Malcolm, "My name 's no Ma'colm MacPhail, but—"

"We a' ken that," said Girnel.

"An' what mair du ye ken?" asked Blue Peter, with some anger at his interruption.

"Ow, naething."

"Weel, ye ken little," said Peter, and the rest laughed.

"I'm the Markis o' Lossie," said Malcolm.

Every man but Peter laughed again: all took it for a joke precursive of some serious announcement. That which it would have least surprised them to hear, would have been that he was a natural son of the late marquis.

"My name 's Ma'colm Colonsay," resumed Malcolm, quietly; "an' I'm the saxt Markis o' Lossie."

A dead silence followed, and in doubt, astonishment, bewilderment, and vague awe, accompanied in the case of two or three by a strong inclination to laugh, with which they struggled, belief began. Always a curious observer of humanity, Malcolm calmly watched them. From discord of expression, most of their faces had grown idiotic. But after a few moments of stupefaction, first one and then another turned his eyes upon Blue Peter, and perceiving that the matter was to him not only serious but evidently no news, each began to come to his senses, the chaos within him slowly arranged itself, and his face gradually settled into an expression of sanity—the foolishness disappearing while the wonder and pleasure remained.

"Ye mauna tak it ill, my lord," said Peter, "gien the laads be ta'en aback wi' the news. It's a some suddent shift o' the win, ye see, my lord."

"I wuss yer lordship weel," thereupon said one, and held out his hand.

"Lang life to yer lordship," said another.

Each spoke a hearty word, and shook hands with him—all except Girnel, who held back, looking on, with his right hand in his trouser pocket. He was one who always took the opposite side— a tolerably honest and trustworthy soul, with a good many knots and pieces of cross grain in the timber of him. His old Adam was the most essential and thorough of dissenters, always arguing and disputing, especially on theological questions.

"Na," said Girnel; "ye maun saitisfee me first wha ye are, an' what ye want o' me. I'm no to be drawn into onything 'at I dinna ken a' aboot aforehan'. I s' no tie mysel' up wi' ony promises. Them 'at gangs whaur they kenna, may lan' at the widdie (gallows)."

"Nae doobt," said Malcolm, "yer ain jeedgement 's mair to ye nor my word, Girnel; but saw ye ever onything in me 'at wad justifee ye in no lippenin' to that sae far 's it gaed?"

"Ow na! I'm no sayin' that naither. But what ha'e ye to shaw anent the privin' o' 't?"

"I have papers signed by my father, the late marquis, and sealed and witnessed by well known gentlemen of the neighbourhood."

"Whaur are they?" said Girnel, holding out his hand.

"I don't carry such valuable things about me," answered Malcolm. "But if you go with the rest, you shall see them afterwards."

"I'll du naething i' the dark," persisted Girnel. "Whan I see the peppers, I'll ken what to du."

With a nod of the head as self important as decisive, he turned his back.

"At all events," said Malcolm, "you will say nothing about it before you hear from one of us again?"

"I mak nae promises," answered Girnel, from behind his own back.

A howl arose from the rest.

"Ye promised a'ready," said Blue Peter.

"Na, I didna that. I said never a word."

"What right then had you to remain and listen to my disclosure?" said Malcolm. "If you be guilty of such a mean trick as betray me and ruin my plans, no honest man in Portlossie or Scaurnose but will scorn you."

"There! tak ye that!" said Peter. "An' I s' promise ye, ye s' never lay leg ower the gunnel o' my boat again. I s' hae nane but Christian men i' my pey."

"Ye hired me for the sizon, Blew Peter," said Girnel, turning defiantly.

"Oh! ye s' ha'e yer wauges. I'm no ane to creep oot o' a bargain, or say 'at I didna promise. Ye s' get yer reward, never fear. But into my boat ye s' no come. We'll ha'e nae Auchans i' oor camp. Eh, Girnel, man, but ye ha'e lost yersel' the day! He'll never loup far 'at winna lippen. The auld worthies tuik their life i' their han', but ye tak yer fit (foot) i' yours. I'm clean affrontit 'at ever I hed ye amo' my men."

But with that there rushed over Peter the recollection of how he had himself mistrusted, not Malcolm's word indeed, but his heart. He turned, and clasping his hands in sudden self reproach,

"My lord, I saired ye ill mysel' ance," he cried; "for I misdoobted 'at ye wasna the same to me efter ye cam to yer ain. I beg yer pardon, my lord, here i' the face o' my freen's. It was ill temper an' pride i' me, jist the same as it's noo in Girnel there; an' ye maun forgi'e him, as ye forga'e me, my lord, as sune 's ye can."

"I'll du that, my Peter, the verra moment he wants to be forgi'en," said Malcolm.

But Girnel turned with a grunt, and moved away towards the cliff.

"This 'll never du," said Peter. "A man 'at 's honest i' the main may play the verra dog afore he gets the deevil oot o' 'im ance he 's in like that. Gang efter 'im, laads, an' kep (intercept) 'im an' keep 'im. We'll ha'e to cast a k-not or twa aboot 'im, an' lay 'im i' the boddom o' the boat."

The six had already started after him like one man. But Malcolm cried,

"Let him go: he has done me no wrong yet, and I don't believe will do me any. But for no risk must we prevent wrong with wrong."

So Girnel was allowed to depart—scarcely in peace, for he was already ashamed of himself. With the understanding that they were to be ready to his call, and that they should hear from him in the course of the day, Malcolm left them, and rowed back to the Psyche. There he took his basket of fish on his arm, which he went and distributed according to his purpose, ending with Mrs Courthope at the House. Then he fed and dressed Kelpie, saddled her and galloped to Duff Harbour, where he found Mr Soutar at breakfast, and arranged with him to be at Lossie House at two o'clock. On his way back he called on Mr Morrison, and requested his presence at the same hour. Skirting the back of the House, and riding as straight as he could, he then made for Scaurnose, and appointed his friends to be near the House at noon, so placed as not to attract observation and yet be within hearing of his whistle from door or window in the front.

Returning to the House, he put up Kelpie, rubbed her down and fed her; then, as there was yet some time to spare, paid a visit to the factor. He found his lady, for all his present of fish in the earlier morning, anything but friendly. She did all she could to humble him; insisted on paying him for the fish; and ordered him, because they smelt of the stable, to take off his boots before he went upstairs—to his master's room, as she phrased it. But Mr Crathie was cordial, and, to Malcolm's great satisfaction, much recovered. He had better than pleasant talk with him.



CHAPTER LXIX: LIZZY'S BABY

While they were out in the fishing boat together, Clementina had, with less difficulty than she had anticipated, persuaded Lizzy to tell Lady Lossie her secret. It was in the hope of an interview with her false lover that the poor girl had consented so easily.

A great longing had risen within her to have the father of her child acknowledge him—only to her, taking him once in his arms. That was all. She had no hope, thought indeed she had no desire for herself. But a kind word to him would be welcome as light. The love that covers sins had covered the multitude of his, and although hopelessness had put desire to sleep, she would gladly have given her life for a loving smile from him. But mingled with this longing to see him once with his child in his arms, a certain loyalty to the house of Lossie also influenced her to listen to the solicitation of Lady Clementina, and tell the marchioness the truth.

She cherished no resentment against Liftore, but not therefore was she willing to allow a poor young thing like Lady Lossie, whom they all liked, to be sacrificed to such a man, who would doubtless at length behave badly enough to her also.

With trembling hands, and heart now beating wildly, now failing for fear, she dressed her baby and herself as well as she could, and, about one o'clock, went to the House.

Now nothing would have better pleased Lady Clementina than that Liftore and Lizzy should meet in Florimel's presence, but she recoiled altogether from the small stratagems, not to mention the lies, necessary to the effecting of such a confrontation. So she had to content herself with bringing the two girls together, and, when Lizzy was a little rested, and had had a glass of wine, went to look for Florimel.

She found her in a little room adjoining the library, which, on her first coming to Lossie, she had chosen for her waking nest. Liftore had, if not quite the freedom of the spot, yet privileges there; but at that moment Florimel was alone in it. Clementina informed her that a fisher girl, with a sad story which she wanted to tell her, had come to the house; and Florimel, who was not only kind hearted, but relished the position she imagined herself to occupy as lady of the place, at once assented to her proposal to bring the young woman to her there.

Now Florimel and the earl had had a small quarrel the night before, after Clementina left the dinner table, and for the pleasure of keeping it up Florimel had not appeared at breakfast, and had declined to ride with his lordship, who had therefore been all the morning on the watch for an opportunity of reconciling himself. It so happened that from the end of one of the long narrow passages in which the house abounded, he caught a glimpse of Clementina's dress vanishing through the library door, and took the lady for Florimel on her way to her boudoir.

When Clementina entered with Lizzy carrying her child, Florimel instantly suspected the truth, both as to who she was and as to the design of her appearance. Her face flushed, for her heart filled with anger, chiefly indeed against Malcolm, but against the two women as well, who, she did not doubt, had lent themselves to his designs, whatever they might be. She rose, drew herself up, and stood prepared to act for both Liftore and herself.

Scarcely however had the poor girl, trembling at the evident displeasure the sight of her caused in Florimel, opened her mouth to answer her haughty inquiry as to her business, when Lord Liftore, daring an entrance without warning, opened the door behind her, and, almost as he opened it, began his apology.

At the sound of his voice Lizzy turned with a cry, and her small remaining modicum of self possession vanished at sight of him round whose phantom in her bosom whirred the leaves of her withered life on the stinging blasts of her shame and sorrow. As much from inability to stand as in supplication for the coveted favour, she dropped on her knees before him, incapable of uttering a word, but holding up her child imploringly. Taken altogether by surprise, and not knowing what to say or do, the earl stood and stared for a moment, then, moved by a dull spirit of subterfuge, fell back on the pretence of knowing nothing about her.

"Well, young woman," he said, affecting cheerfulness, "what do you want with me? I didn't advertise for a baby. Pretty child, though!"

Lizzy turned white as death, and her whole body seemed to give a heave of agony. Clementina had just taken the child from her arms when she sunk motionless at his feet. Florimel went to the bell. But Clementina prevented her from ringing.

"I will take her away," she said. "Do not expose her to your servants. Lady Lossie, my Lord Liftore is the father of this child: and if you can marry him after the way you have seen him use its mother, you are not too good for him, and I will trouble myself no more about you."

"I know the author of this calumny!" cried Florimel, panting and flushed. "You have been listening to the inventions of an ungrateful dependent! You slander my guest."

"Is it a calumny, my lord? Do I slander you?" said Lady Clementina, turning sharply upon the earl.

His lordship made her a cool obeisance. Clementina ran into the library, laid the child in a big chair, and returned for the mother. She was already coming a little to herself; and feeling about blindly for her baby, while Florimel and Liftore were looking out of the window, with their backs towards her. Clementina raised and led her from the room. But in the doorway she turned and said —"Goodbye, Lady Lossie. I thank you for your hospitality, but I can of course be your guest no longer."

"Of course not. There is no occasion for prolonged leave taking," returned Florimel, with the air of a woman of forty.

"Florimel, you will curse the day you marry that man!" cried Clementina, and closed the door.

She hurried Lizzy to the library, put the baby in her arms, and clasped them both in her own. A gush of tears lightened the oppressed heart of the mother.

"Lat me oot o' the hoose, for God's sake!" she cried; and Clementina, almost as anxious to leave it as she, helped her down to the hall. When she saw the open door, she rushed out of it as if escaping from the pit.

Now Malcolm, as he came from the factor's, had seen her go in with her baby in her arms, and suspected the hand of Clementina. Wondering and anxious, but not very hopeful as to what might come of it, he waited close by; and when now he saw Lizzy dart from the house in wild perturbation, he ran from the cover of the surrounding trees into the open drive to meet her.

"Ma'colm!" groaned the poor girl, holding out her baby, "he winna own till't. He winna alloo 'at he kens oucht aboot me or the bairn aither!"

Malcolm had taken the child from her, and was clasping him to his bosom.

"He's the warst rascal, Lizzy," he said, "'at ever God made an' the deevil blaudit."

"Na, na," cried Lizzy; "the likes o' him whiles kills the wuman, but he wadna du that. Na, he's nae the warst; there's a heap waur nor him."

"Did ye see my mistress?" asked Malcolm.

"Ow ay; but she luikit sae angry at me, I cudna speyk. Him an' her 's ower thrang for her to believe onything again' him. An' what ever the bairn 's to du wantin' a father!"

"Lizzy," said Malcolm, clasping the child again to his bosom. "I s' be a father to yer bairn—that is, as weel's ane 'at's no yer man can be."

And he kissed the child tenderly.

The same moment an undefined impulse—the drawing of eyes probably —made him lift his towards the house: half leaning from the open window of the boudoir above him, stood Florimel and Liftore; and just as he looked up, Liftore was turning to Florimel with a smile that seemed to say—"There! I told you so! He is the father himself."

Malcolm replaced the infant in his mother's arm, and strode towards the house. Imagining he went to avenge her wrongs, Lizzy ran after him.

"Ma'colm Ma'colm!" she cried; "—for my sake!—He's the father o' my bairn!"

Malcolm turned.

"Lizzy," he said solemnly, "I winna lay han' upon 'im."

Lizzy pressed her child closer with a throb of relief.

"Come in yersel' an' see," he added.

"I daurna! I daurna!" she said. But she lingered about the door.



CHAPTER LXX: THE DISCLOSURE

When the earl saw Malcolm coming, although he was no coward, and had reason to trust his skill, yet knowing himself both in the wrong and vastly inferior in strength to his enemy, it may be pardoned him that for the next few seconds his heart doubled its beats. But of all things he must not show fear before Florimel!

"What can the fellow be after now?" he said. "I must go down to him."

"No, no; don't go near him—he may be violent," objected Florimel, and laid her hand on his arm with a beseeching look in her face. "He is a dangerous man."

Liftore laughed.

"Stop here till I return," he said, and left the room.

But Florimel followed, fearful of what might happen, and enraged with her brother.

Malcolm's brief detention by Lizzy gave Liftore a little advantage, for just as Malcolm approached the top of the great staircase, Liftore gained it. Hastening to secure the command of the position, and resolved to shun all parley, he stood ready to strike. Malcolm, however, caught sight of him and his attitude in time, and, fearful of breaking his word to Lizzy, pulled himself up abruptly a few steps from the top—just as Florimel appeared.

"MacPhail," she said, sweeping to the stair like an indignant goddess, "I discharge you from my service. Leave the house instantly."

Malcolm turned, flew down, and ran to the servants' stair half the length of the house away. As he crossed the servants' hall he saw Rose. She was the only one in the house except Clementina to whom he could look for help.

"Come after me, Rose," he said without stopping.

She followed instantly, as fast as she could run, and saw him enter the drawing room. Florimel and Liftore were there. The earl had Florimel's hand in his.

"For God's sake, my lady!" cried Malcolm, "hear me one word before you promise that man anything."

His lordship started back from Florimel, and turned upon Malcolm in a fury. But he had not now the advantage of the stair, and hesitated. Florimel's eyes dilated with wrath.

"I tell you for the last time, my lady," said Malcolm, "if you marry that man, you will marry a liar and a scoundrel."

Liftore laughed, and his imitation of scorn was wonderfully successful, for he felt sure of Florimel, now that she had thus taken his part.

"Shall I ring for the servants, Lady Lossie, to put the fellow out?" he said. "The man is as mad as a March hare."

Meantime Lady Clementina, her maid having gone to send her man to get horses for her at once, was alone in her room, which was close to the drawing room: hearing Malcolm's voice, she ran to the door, and saw Rose in a listening attitude at that of the drawing room.

"What are you doing there?" she said.

"Mr MacPhail told me to follow him, my lady, and I am waiting here till he wants me."

Clementina went into the drawing room, and was present during all that now follows. Lizzy also, hearing loud voices and still afraid of mischief had come peering up the stair, and now approached the other door; behind Florimel and the earl.

"So!" cried Florimel, "this is the way you keep your promise to my father!"

"It is, my lady. To associate the name of Liftore with his would be to blot the scutcheon of Lossie. He is not fit to walk the street with men: his touch is to you an utter degradation. My lady, in the name of your father, I beg a word with you in private."

"You insult me."

"I beg of you, my lady—for your own dear sake."

"Once more I order you to leave my house, and never set foot in it again."

"You hear her ladyship?" cried Liftore. "Get out." He approached threateningly.

"Stand back," said Malcolm. "If it were not that I promised the poor girl carrying your baby out there, I should soon—"

It was unwisely said: the earl came on the bolder. For all Malcolm could do to parry, evade, or stop his blows, he had soon taken several pretty severe ones. Then came the voice of Lizzy in an agony from the door—

"Haud aff o' yersel', Ma'colm. I canna bide it. I gi'e ye back yer word."

"We'll manage yet Lizzy," answered Malcolm, and kept warily retreating towards a window. Suddenly he dashed his elbow through a pane, and gave a loud shrill whistle, the same instant receiving a blow over the eye which the blood followed. Lizzy made a rush forward, but the terror that the father would strike the child he had disowned, seized her, and she stood trembling. Already, however, Clementina and Rose had darted between, and, full of rage as he was, Liftore was compelled to restrain himself.

"Oh!" he said, "if ladies want a share in the row, I must yield my place," and drew back.

The few men servants now came hurrying all together into the room.

"Take that rascal there, and put him under the pump," said Liftore. "He is mad."

"My fellow servants know better than touch me," said Malcolm.

The men looked to their mistress.

"Do as my lord tells you," she said, "—and instantly."

"Men," said Malcolm, "I have spared that foolish lord there for the sake of this fisher girl and his child, but don't one of you touch me."

Stoat was a brave enough man, and not a little jealous of Malcolm, but he dared not obey his mistress.

And now came the tramp of many feet along the landing from the stair head, and the six fisherman entered, two and two. Florimel started forward.

"My brave fisherman!" she cried. "Take that bad man MacPhail, and put him out of my grounds ."

"I canna du't, my leddy," answered their leader.

"Take Lord Liftore," said Malcolm, "and hold him, while I make him acquainted with a fact or two which he may judge of consequence to him."

The men walked straight up to the earl. He struck right and left, but was overpowered in a moment, and held fast.

"Stan' still," said Peter, "or I ha'e a han'fu' o' twine i' my pooch 'at I'll jist cast a k-not aboot yer airms wi' in a jiffey."

His lordship stood still, muttering curses.

Then Malcolm stepped into the middle of the room approaching his sister.

"I tell you to leave the house," Florimel shrieked, beside herself with fury, yet pale as marble with a growing terror for which she could ill have accounted.

"Florimel!" said Malcolm solemnly, calling her sister by name for the first time.

"You insolent wretch!" she cried, panting. "What right have you, if you be, as you say, my base born brother, to call me by my name."

"Florimel!" repeated Malcolm, and the voice was like the voice of her father, "I have done what I could to serve you."

"And I want no more such service!" she returned, beginning to tremble.

"But you have driven me almost to extremities," he went on, heedless of her interruption. "Beware of doing so quite."

"Will nobody take pity on me?" said Florimel, and looked round imploringly. Then, finding herself ready to burst into tears, she gathered all her pride, and stepping up to Malcolm, looked him in the face, and said,

"Pray, sir! is this house yours or mine?"

"Mine," answered Malcolm. "I am the Marquis of Lossie, and while I am your elder brother and the head of the family, you shall never with my consent marry that base man—a man it would blast me to the soul to call brother."

Liftore uttered a fierce imprecation.

"If you dare give breath to another such word in my sister's presence, I will have you gagged," said Malcolm. "If my sister marries him," he continued, turning again to Florimel, "not one shilling shall she take with her beyond what she may happen to have in her purse at the moment. She is in my power, and I will use it to the utmost to protect her from that man."

"Proof!" cried Liftore sullenly. But Florimel gazed with pale dilated eyes in the face of the speaker. She knew his words were true. Her soul assured her of it.

"To my sister," answered Malcolm, "I will give all the proof she may please to require; to Lord Liftore I will not even repeat my assertion. To him I will give no shadow of proof. I will but cast him out of my house. Stoat, order horses for Lady Bellair."

"Gien ye please, sir, my Lord," replied Stoat, "the Lossie Airms horses is ordered a'ready for Lady Clementina."

"Will my Lady Clementina oblige me by yielding her horses to Lady Bellair?" said Malcolm, turning to her.

"Certainly, my lord," answered Clementina.

"You, I trust, my lady," said Malcolm, "will stay a little longer with my sister."

Lady Bellair came up.

"My lord," she said, "is this the marquis or the fisherman's way of treating a lady?"

"Neither. But do not drive me to give the rein to my tongue. Let it be enough to say that my house shall never be what your presence would make it."

He turned to the fishermen.

"Three of you take that lord to the town gate, and leave him on the other side of it. His servant shall follow as soon as the horses come."

"I will go with you," said Florimel, crossing to Lady Bellair.

Malcolm took her by the arm. For one moment she struggled, but finding no one dared interfere, submitted, and was led from the room like a naughty child.

"Keep my lord there till I return," he said as he went.

He led her into the room which had been her mother's boudoir, and when he had shut the door,

"Florimel," he said, "I have striven to serve you the best way I knew. Your father, when he confessed me his heir, begged me to be good to you, and I promised him. Would I have given all these months of my life to the poor labour of a groom, allowed my people to be wronged and oppressed, my grandfather to be a wanderer, and my best friend to sit with his lips of wisdom sealed, but for your sake? I can hardly say it was for my father's sake, for I should have done the same had he never said a word about you. Florimel, I loved my sister, and longed for her goodness. But she has foiled all my endeavours. She has not loved or followed the truth. She has been proud and disdainful, and careless of right. Yourself young and pure, and naturally recoiling from evil, you have yet cast from you the devotion of a noble, gifted, large hearted, and great souled man, for the miserable preference of the smallest, meanest, vilest of men. Nor that only! for with him you have sided against the woman he most bitterly wrongs: and therein you wrong the nature and the God of women. Once more, I pray you to give up this man; to let your true self speak and send him away."

"Sir, I go with my Lady Bellair, driven from her father's house by one who calls himself my brother. My lawyer shall make inquiries."

She would have left the room, but he intercepted her.

"Florimel," he said, "you are casting the pearl of your womanhood before a swine. He will trample it under his feet and turn again and rend you. He will treat you worse still than poor Lizzy, whom he troubles no more with his presence."

He had again taken her arm in his great grasp.

"Let me go. You are brutal. I shall scream."

"You shall not go until you have heard all the truth."

"What! more truth still? Your truth is anything but pleasant."

"It is more unpleasant yet than you surmise. Florimel, you have driven me to it. I would have prepared you a shield against the shock which must come, but you compel me to wound you to the quick. I would have had you receive the bitter truth from lips you loved, but you drove those lips of honour from you, and now there are left to utter it only the lips you hate, yet the truth you shall receive: it may help to save you from weakness, arrogance, and falsehood.—Sister, your mother was never Lady Lossie."

"You lie. I know you lie. Because you wrong me, you would brand me with dishonour, to take from me as well the sympathy of the world. But I defy you."

"Alas! there is no help, sister. Your mother indeed passed as Lady Lossie, but my mother, the true Lady Lossie, was alive all the time, and in truth, died only last year. For twenty years my mother suffered for yours in the eye of the law. You are no better than the little child his father denied in your presence. Give that man his dismissal, or he will give you yours. Never doubt it. Refuse again, and I go from this room to publish in the next the fact that you are neither Lady Lossie nor Lady Florimel Colonsay. You have no right to any name but your mother's. You are Miss Gordon."

She gave a great gasp at the word, but bravely fought the horror that was taking possession of her. She stood with one hand on the back of a chair, her face white, her eyes starting, her mouth a little open and rigid—her whole appearance, except for the breath that came short and quick, that of one who had died in sore pain.

"All that is now left you," concluded Malcolm, "is the choice between sending Liftore away, and being abandoned by him. That choice you must now make."

The poor girl tried to speak, but could not. Her fire was burning out, her forced strength fast failing her.

"Florimel," said Malcolm, and knelt on one knee and took her hand. It gave a flutter as if it would fly like a bird; but the net of his love held it, and it lay passive and cold. "Florimel, I will be your true brother. I am your brother, your very own brother, to live for you, love you, fight for you, watch and ward you, till a true man takes you for his wife." Her hand quivered like a leaf. "Sister, when you and I appear before our father, I shall hold up my face before him: will you?"

"Send him away," she breathed rather than said, and sank on the floor. He lifted her, laid her on a couch, and returned to the drawing room.

"My lady Clementina," he said, "will you oblige me by going to my sister in the room at the top of the stair?"

"I will, my lord," she answered, and went.

Malcolm walked up to Liftore.

"My lord," he said, "my sister takes leave of you."

"I must have my dismissal from her own lips."

"You shall have it from the hands of my fishermen. Take him away."

"You shall hear from me, my lord marquis, if such you be," said Liftore.

"Let it be of your repentance, then, my lord," said Malcolm. "That I shall be glad to hear of."

As he turned from him, he saw Caley gliding through the little group of servants towards the door. He walked after her, laid his hand on her shoulder, and whispered a word in her ear, she grew gray rather than white, and stood still.

Turning again to go to Florimel, he saw the fishermen stopped with their charge in the doorway by Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, entering together.

"My lord! my lord!" said the lawyer, coming hastily up to him, "there can be surely no occasion for such—such—measures!"

Catching sight of Malcolm's wounded forehead, however, he supplemented the remark with a low exclamation of astonishment and dismay— the tone saying almost as clearly as words, "How ill and foolishly everything is managed without a lawyer!"

Malcolm only smiled, and went up to the magistrate, whom he led into the middle of the room, saying,

"Mr Morrison, every one here knows you: tell them who I am."

"The Marquis of Lossie, my lord," answered Mr Morrison; "and from my heart I congratulate your people that at length you assume the rights and honours of your position."

A murmur of pleasure arose in response. Ere it ceased, Malcolm started and sprung to the door. There stood Lenorme! He seized him by the arm, and, without a word of explanation, hurried him to the room where his sister was. He called Clementina, drew her from the room, half pushed Lenorme in, and closed the door.

"Will you meet me on the sand hill at sunset, my lady?" he said.

She smiled assent. He gave her the key of the tunnel, hinted that she might leave the two to themselves for awhile, and returned to his friends in the drawing room.

Having begged them to excuse him for a little while, and desired Mrs Courthope to serve luncheon for them, he ran to his grandfather, dreading lest any other tongue than his own should yield him the opened secret. He was but just in time, for already the town was in a tumult, and the spreading ripples of the news were fast approaching Duncan's ears.

Malcolm found him, expectant and restless. When he disclosed himself he manifested little astonishment, only took him in his arms and pressed him to his bosom, saying, "Ta Lort pe praised, my son! and she wouldn't pe at aal surprised." Then he broke out in a fervent ejaculation of Gaelic, during which he turned instinctively to his pipes, for through them lay the final and only sure escape for the prisoned waters of the overcharged reservoir of his feelings. While he played, Malcolm slipped out, and hurried to Miss Horn.

One word to her was enough. The stern old woman burst into tears, crying,

"Oh, my Grisel! my Grisel! Luik doon frae yer bonny hoose amo' the stars, an' see the braw laad left ahint ye, an' praise the lord 'at ye ha'e sic a son o' yer boady to come hame to ye whan a' 's ower."

She sobbed and wept for a while without restraint. Then suddenly she rose, dabbed her eyes indignantly, and cried,

"Hoot! I'm an auld fule. A body wad think I hed feelin's efter a'!"

Malcolm laughed, and she could not help joining him.

"Ye maun come the morn an' chise yer ain room i' the Hoose," he said.

"What mean ye by that, laddie?"

"At ye'll ha'e to come an' bide wi' me noo."

"'Deed an' I s' du naething o' the kin', Ma'colm! H'ard ever onybody sic nonsense! What wad I du wi' Jean? An' I cudna thole men fowk to wait upo' me. I wad be clean affrontit."

"Weel, weel! we'll see," said Malcolm.

On his way back to the House, he knocked at Mrs Catanach's door, and said a few words to her which had a remarkable effect on the expression of her plump countenance and deep set black eyes.

When he reached home, he ran up the main staircase, knocked at the first door, opened it, and peeped in. There sat Lenorme on the couch, with Florimel on his knees, nestling her head against his shoulder, like a child that had been very naughty but was fully forgiven. Her face was blotted with her tears, and her hair was everywhere; but there was a light of dawning goodness all about her, such as had never shone in her atmosphere before. By what stormy sweet process the fountain of this light had been unsealed, no one ever knew but themselves.

She did not move when Malcolm entered—more than just to bring the palms of her hands together, and look up in his face.

"Have you told him all, Florimel?" he asked.

"Yes, Malcolm," she answered. "Tell him again yourself."

"No, Florimel. Once is enough."

"I told him all," she said with a gasp; then gave a wild little cry, and, with subdued exultation, added, "and he loves me yet! He has taken the girl without a name to his heart!"

"No wonder," said Malcolm, "when she brought it with her."

"Yes," said Lenorme, "I but took the diamond casket that held my bliss, and now I could dare the angel Gabriel to match happinesses with me."

Poor Florimel, for all her worldly ways, was but a child. Bad associates had filled her with worldly maxims and words and thoughts and judgments. She had never loved Liftore, she had only taken delight in his flatteries. And now had come the shock of a terrible disclosure, whose significance she read in remembered looks and tones and behaviours of the world. Her insolence to Malcolm when she supposed his the nameless fate, had recoiled in lurid interpretation of her own. She was a pariah—without root, without descent, without fathers to whom to be gathered. She was nobody. From the courted and flattered and high seated and powerful, she was a nobody! Then suddenly to this poor houseless, wind beaten, rain wet nobody, a house—no, a home she had once looked into with longing, had opened, and received her to its heart, that it might be fulfilled which was written of old, "A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." Knowing herself a nobody, she now first began to be a somebody. She had been dreaming pleasant but bad dreams: she woke, and here was a lovely, unspeakably blessed and good reality, which had been waiting for her all the time on the threshold of her sleep! She was baptized into it with the tears of sorrow and shame. She had been a fool, but now she knew it, and was going to be wise.

"Will you come to your brother, Florimel?" said Malcolm tenderly, holding out his arms.

Lenorme raised her. She went softly to him, and laid herself on his bosom.

"Forgive me, brother," she said, and held up her face.

He kissed her forehead and lips, took her in his arms, and laid her again on Lenorme's knees.

"I give her to you," he said, "for you are good."

With that he left them, and sought Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, who were waiting him over a glass of wine after their lunch. An hour of business followed, in which, amongst other matters, they talked about the needful arrangements for a dinner to his people, fishers and farmers and all.

After the gentlemen took their leave, nobody saw him for hours. Till sunset approached he remained alone, shut up in the Wizard's Chamber, the room in which he was born. Part of the time he occupied in writing to Mr Graham.

As the sun's orbed furnace fell behind the tumbling waters, Malcolm turned his face inland from the wet strip of shining shore on which he had been pacing, and ascended the sandhill.

From the other side Clementina, but a moment later, ascended also. On the top they met, in the red light of the sunset. They clasped each the other's hand, and stood for a moment in silence.

"Ah, my lord!" said the lady, "how shall I thank you that you kept your secret from me! But my heart is sore to lose my fisherman."

"My lady," returned Malcolm, "you have not lost your fisherman; you have only found your groom."

And the sun went down, and the twilight came, and the night followed, and the world of sea and land and wind and vapour was around them, and the universe of stars and spaces over and under them, and eternity within them, and the heart of each for a chamber to the other, and God filling all—nay, nay—God's heart containing, infolding, cherishing all—saving all, from height to height of intensest being, by the bliss of that love whose absolute devotion could utter itself only in death.



CHAPTER LXXI: THE ASSEMBLY

That same evening, Duncan, in full dress, claymore and dirk at his sides, and carrying the great Lossie pipes, marched first through the streets of the upper, then through the closes of the lower town, followed by the bellman who had been appointed crier upon his disappearance. At the proper stations, Duncan blew a rousing pibroch, after which the bellman, who, for the dignity of his calling, insisted on a prelude of three strokes of his clapper, proclaimed aloud that Malcolm, Marquis of Lossie, desired the presence of each and every of his tenants in the royal burgh of Portlossie, Newton and Seaton, in the town hall of the same, at seven of the clock upon the evening next following.

The proclamation ended, the piper sounded one note three times, and they passed to the next station. When they had gone through the Seaton, they entered a carriage waiting for them at the sea gate, and were driven to Scaurnose, and thence again to the several other villages on the coast belonging to the marquis, making at each in like manner the same announcement.

Portlossie was in a ferment of wonder, satisfaction, and pleasure. There were few in it who were not glad at the accession of Malcolm, and with every one of those few the cause lay in himself. In the shops, among the nets, in the curing sheds, in the houses and cottages, nothing else was talked about; and stories and reminiscences innumerable were brought out, chiefly to prove that Malcolm had always appeared likely to turn out somebody, the narrator not seldom modestly hinting at a glimmering foresight on his own part of what had now been at length revealed to the world. His friends were jubilant as revellers. For Meg Partan, she ran from house to house like a maniac, laughing and crying. It was as if the whole Seaton had suddenly been translated. The men came crowding about Duncan, congratulating him and asking him a hundred questions. But the old man maintained a reticence whose dignity was strangely mingled of pomp and grace; sat calm and stately as feeling the glow of reflected honour; would not, by word, gesture, tone, or exclamation, confess to any surprise; behaved as if he had known it all the time; made no pretence however of having known it, merely treated the fact as not a whit more than might have been looked for by one who had known Malcolm as he had known him.

Davy, in his yacht uniform, was the next morning appointed the marquis's personal attendant, and a running time he had of it for a fortnight.

Almost the first thing that fell to him in his office was to show into the room on the ground floor where his master sat—the same in which for ages the lords of Lossie had been wont to transact what little business any of them ever attended to—a pale, feeble man, bowed by the weight of a huge brass clasped volume under each arm. His lordship rose and met him with outstretched hand.

"I am glad indeed to see you, Mr Crathie," he said, "but I fear you are out too soon."

"I am quite well since yesterday, my lord," returned the factor, his face shining with pleasure. "Your lordship's accession has made a young man of me again. Here I am to render account of my stewardship."

"I want none, Mr Crathie—nothing, that is, beyond a summary statement of how things stand with me."

"I should like to satisfy your lordship that I have dealt honestly "—here the factor paused for a moment, then with an effort added —"by you, my lord."

"One word," said Malcolm "—the last of the sort, I believe, that will ever pass between us. Thank God! we had made it up before yesterday.—If you have ever been hard upon any of my tenants, not to say unfair, you have wronged me infinitely more than if you had taken from me. God be with me as I prefer ruin to wrong. Remember, besides, that my tenants are my charge and care. For you, my representative, therefore, to do one of them an injury is to do me a double injury—to wrong my tenant, and to wrong him in my name."

"Ah, my lord! you don't know how they would take advantage of you, if there were nobody to look after your interests."

"Then do look after them, sir. It would be bad for them to succeed, as well as crippling to me. Only be sure, with the thought of the righteous God to elevate your sense of justice, that you are in the right. If doubtful, then give in.—And now, if any man thinks he has cause of complaint, I leave it to you, with the help of the new light that has been given you, to reconsider the matter, and, where needful, to make reparation. You must be the friend of my tenant as much as of his landlord. I have no interests inimical to those of my tenants. If any man comes to me with complaint, I will send him to restate his case to you, with the understanding that, if you will not listen to him, he is to come to me again, when I shall hear both sides and judge between. If after six months you should desire me to go over the books with you, I will do so. As to your loyalty to my family and its affairs, of that I never had a shadow of suspicion."

As he ended, Malcolm held out his hand. The factor's trembled in his strong grasp.

"Mistress Crathie is sorely vexed, my lord," he said, rising to take his leave, "at things both said and done in the dark."

Malcolm laughed.

"Give Mrs Crathie my compliments," he said, "and tell her a man is more than a marquis. If she will after this treat every honest fisherman as if he might possibly turn out a lord, she and I shall be more than quits."

The next morning he carried her again a few mackerel he had just caught, and she never forgot the lesson given her. That morning, I may mention, he did not go fishing alone, but had a lady with him in the dinghy; and indeed they were together, in one place and another, the most of the day—at one time flying along the fields, she on the bay mare, and he on Kelpie.

When the evening came, the town hall was crammed—men standing on all the window sills; and so many could not get in that Malcolm proposed they should occupy the square in front. A fisherman in garb and gesture, not the less a gentleman and a marquis, he stood on the steps of the town hall and spoke to his people. They received him with wild enthusiasm.

"The open air is better for everything," he began. "Fishers, I have called you first, because you are my own people. I am, and shall be a fisherman, after such fashion, I trust, as will content my old comrades. How things have come about, I shall not now tell you. Come all of you and dine with me, and you shall hear enough to satisfy at least lawful curiosity. At present my care is that you should understand the terms upon which it is possible for us to live together as friends. I make no allusion to personal friendships. A true friend is for ever a friend. And I venture to say my old friends know best both what I am and what I shall be. As to them I have no shadow of anxiety. But I would gladly be a friend to all, and will do my endeavour to that end.

"You of Portlossie shall have your harbour cleared without delay."

In justice to the fishers I here interrupt my report to state that the very next day they set about clearing the harbour themselves. It was their business—in part at least, they said, and they were ashamed of having left it so long. This did much towards starting well for a new order of things.

"You of Scaurnose shall hear the blasting necessary for your harbour commence within a fortnight; and every house shall ere long have a small piece of land at a reasonable rate allotted to it. But I feel bound to mention that there are some among you upon whom, until I see that they carry themselves differently, I must keep an eye. That they have shown themselves unfriendly to myself in my attempts to persuade them to what they knew to be right, I shall endeavour to forget, but I give them warning that whoever shall hereafter disturb the peace or interfere with the liberty of my people, shall assuredly be cast out of my borders, and that as soon as the law will permit.

"I shall take measures that all complaints shall be heard, and all save foolish ones heeded; for, as much as in me lies, I will to execute justice and judgment and righteousness in the land. Whoever oppresses or wrongs his neighbour shall have to do with me. And to aid me in doing justice, I pray the help of every honest man. I have not been so long among you without having in some measure distinguished between the men who have heart and brain, and the men who have merely a sense of their own importance—which latter class unhappily, always takes itself for the former. I will deal with every man as I find him. I am set to rule, and rule I will. He who loves righteousness, will help me to rule; he who loves it not, shall be ruled, or depart."

The address had been every now and then interrupted by a hearty cheer; at this point the cheering was greatly prolonged; after it there was no more. For thus he went on:

"And now I am about to give you proof that I mean what I say, and that evil shall not come to the light without being noted and dealt with.

"There are in this company two women—my eyes are at this moment upon them where they stand together. One of them is already well known to you all by sight: now you shall know, not what she looks, but what she is. Her name, or at least that by which she goes among you, is Barbara Catanach. The other is an Englishwoman of whom you know nothing. Her name is Caley."

All eyes were turned upon the two. Even Mrs Catanach was cowed by the consciousness of the universal stare, and a kind of numb thrill went through her from head to foot.

"Well assured that if I brought a criminal action against them, it would hang them both, I trust you will not imagine it revenge that moves me thus to expose them. In refraining from prosecuting them, I bind myself of necessity to see that they work no more evil. In giving them time for repentance, I take the consequences upon myself. I am bound to take care that they do not employ the respite in doing mischief to their neighbours. Without precaution I could not be justified in sparing them.. Therefore those women shall not go forth to pass for harmless members of society, and see the life and honour of others lie bare to their secret attack. They shall live here, in this town, thoroughly known; and absolutely distrusted. And that they may thus be known and distrusted, I publicly declare that I hold proof against these women of having conspired to kill me. From the effects of the poison they succeeded in giving me, I fear I shall never altogether recover. I can prove also, to the extreme of circumstantial evidence, that there is the blood of one child at least upon the hands of each; and that there are mischiefs innumerable upon their lying tongues, it were an easy task to convince you. If I wrong them, let them accuse me; and whether they lose or gain their suit, I promise before you for witnesses, I will pay all; only thereby they will compel me to bring my actions for murder and conspiracy. Let them choose.

"Hear what I have determined concerning them. The woman Catanach shall take to her cottage the woman Caley. That cottage they shall have rent free: who could receive money from such hands? I will appoint them also a sufficiency for life and maintenance, bare indeed, for I would not have them comfortable. But they shall be free to work if they can find any to employ them. If, however, either shall go beyond the bounds I set, she shall be followed the moment she is missed, and that with a warrant for her apprehension. And I beg all honest people to keep an eye upon them. According as they live shall their life be. If they come to repentance, they will bless the day I resolved upon such severe measures on their behalf. Let them go to their place."

I will not try to describe the devilish look, mingled of contempt and hate, that possessed the countenance of the midwife, as, with head erect, and eyes looking straight before her, she obeyed the command. Caley, white as death, trembled and tottered, nor dared once look up as she followed her companion to their appointed hell. Whether they made it pleasant for each other my reader may debate with himself Before many months had gone by, stared at and shunned by all, even by Miss Horn's Jean, driven back upon her own memories, and the pictures that rose out of them, and deprived of every chance of indulging her dominant passion for mischievous influence, the midwife's face told such a different tale, that the schoolmaster began to cherish a feeble hope that within a few years Mrs Catanach might get so far as to begin to suspect she was a sinner—that she had actually done things she ought not to have done. One of those things that same night Malcolm heard from the lips of Duncan, a tale of horror and dismay. Not until then did he know, after all he knew concerning her, what the woman was capable of.