The Marquis of Lossie Part 19

"That's true, my lady; and so long as my mare is not able to be a law to herself, I must be a law to her too."

"But have you never heard of the law of kindness? You could do so much more without the severity."

"With some natures I grant you, my lady, but not with such as she.

Horse or man--they never show kindness till they have learned fear. Kelpie would have torn me to pieces before now if I had taken your way with her. But except I can do a great deal more with her yet she will be nothing better than a natural brute beast made to be taken and destroyed."

"The Bible again!" murmured the lady to herself. "Of how much cruelty has not that book to bear the blame!"

All this time Kelpie was trying hard to get at the lady's horse to bite him. But she did not see that. She was much too distressed-- and was growing more and more so.

"I wish you would let my groom try her," she said, after a pitiful pause. "He's an older and more experienced man than you. He has children. He would show you what can be done by gentleness."

From Malcolm's words she had scarcely gathered even a false meaning --not a glimmer of his nature--not even a suspicion that he meant something. To her he was but a handsome, brutal young groom. From the world of thought and reasoning that lay behind his words, not an echo had reached her.

"It would be a great satisfaction to my old Adam to let him try her," said Malcolm.

"The Bible again!" said the lady to herself.

"But it would be murder," he added, "not knowing myself what experience he has had."

"I see," said the lady to herself; but loud enough for Malcolm to hear, for her tender heartedness had made her both angry and unjust, "his self conceit is equal to his cruelty--just what I might have expected!"

With the words she turned her horse's head and rode away, leaving a lump in Malcolm's throat.

"I wuss fowk"--he still spoke in Scotch in his own chamber-- "wad du as they're tell't, an' no jeedge ane anither. I'm sure it's Kelpie's best chance o' salvation 'at I gang on wi' her. Stable men wad ha'e had her brocken doon a'thegither by this time; an' life wad ha'e had little relish left."

It added hugely to the bitterness of being thus rebuked, that he had never in his life seen such a radiance of beauty's softest light as shone from the face and form of the reproving angel.-- "Only She canna be an angel," he said to himself; "or she wad ha'e ken't better."

She was young--not more than twenty, tall and graceful, with a touch of the matronly, which she must have had even in childhood, for it belonged to her--so staid, so stately was she in all her grace. With her brown hair, her lily complexion, her blue gray eyes, she was all of the moonlight and its shadows--even now, in the early morning, and angry. Her nose was so nearly perfect that one never thought of it. Her mouth was rather large, but had gained in value of shape, and in the expression of indwelling sweetness, with every line that carried it beyond the measure of smallness.

Most little mouths are pretty, some even lovely, but not one have I seen beautiful. Her forehead was the sweetest of half moons. Of those who knew her best some absolutely believed that a radiance resembling moonlight s.h.i.+mmered from its precious expanse.

"Be ye angry and sin not," had always been a puzzle to Malcolm, who had, as I have said, inherited a certain Celtic fierceness; but now, even while he knew himself the object of the anger, he understood the word. It tried him sorely, however, that such gentleness and beauty should be unreasonable. Could it be that he should never have a chance of convincing her how mistaken she was concerning his treatment of Kelpie! What a celestial rosy red her face had glowed! and what summer lightnings had flashed up in her eyes, as if they had been the horizons of heavenly worlds up which flew the dreams that broke from the brain of a young sleeping G.o.ddess, to make the worlds glad also in the night of their slumber.

Something like this Malcolm felt: whoever saw her must feel as he had never felt before. He gazed after her long and earnestly.

"It's an awfu' thing to ha'e a wuman like that angert at ye!", he said to himself when at length she had disappeared, "--as bonny as she is angry! G.o.d be praised 'at he kens a'thing, an' 's no angert wi' ye for the luik o' a thing! But the wheel may come roon'

again--wha kens? Ony gait I s' mak' the best o' Kelpie I can.-- I won'er gien she kens Leddy Florimel! She's a heap mair boontifu'

like in her beauty nor her. The man micht haud 's ain wi' an archangel 'at had a woman like that to the wife o' 'm.--Hoots!

I'll be wussin' I had had anither upbringin', 'at I micht ha' won a step nearer to the hem o' her garment! an' that wad be to deny him 'at made an' ordeen't me. I wull not du that. But I maun hae a crack wi' Maister Graham, anent things twa or three, just to haud me straucht, for I'm jist girnin' at bein' sae regairdit by sic a Revelation. Gien she had been an auld wife, I wad ha'e only lauchen: what for 's that? I doobt I'm no muckle mair rizzonable nor hersel'!

The thing was this, I fancy it was sae clear she spak frae no ill natur', only frae pure humanity. She's a gran' ane yon, only some saft, I doobt."

For the lady, she rode away sadly strengthened in her doubts whether there could be a G.o.d in the world--not because there were in it such men as she took Malcolm for, but because such a lovely animal had fallen into his hands.

"It's a sair thing to be misjeedged," said Malcolm to himself as he put the demoness in her stall; "but it's no more than the Macker o' 's pits up wi' ilka hoor o' the day, an' says na a word. Eh, but G.o.d's unco quaiet! Sae lang as he kens till himsel' 'at he's a' richt, he lats fowk think 'at they like--till he has time to lat them ken better. Lord, mak' clean my hert within me, an' syne I'll care little for ony jeedgement but thine."

CHAPTER XXV: THE PSYCHE

It was a lovely day, but Florimel would not ride: Malcolm must go at once to Mr Lenorme; she would not go out again until she could have a choice of horses to follow her.

"Your Kelpie is all very well in Richmond Park, and I wish I were able to ride her myself, Malcolm, but she will never do in London."

His name sounded sweet on her lips, but somehow today, for the first time since he saw her first, he felt a strange sense of superiority in his protection of her: could it be because he had that morning looked unto a higher orb of creation? It mattered little to Malcolm's generous nature that the voice that issued therefrom had been one of unjust rebuke.

"Who knows, my lady," he answered his mistress, "but you may ride her some day! Give her a bit of sugar every time you see her-- on your hand, so that she may take it with her lips, and not catch your fingers."

"You shall show me how," said Florimel, and gave him a note for Mr Lenorme.

When he came in sight of the river, there, almost opposite the painter's house, lay his own little yacht! He thought of Kelpie in the stable, saw Psyche floating like a swan in the reach, made two or three long strides, then sought to exhale the pride of life in thanksgiving.

The moment his arrival was announced to Lenorme, he came down and went with him, and in an hour or two they had found very much the sort of horse they wanted. Malcolm took him home for trial, and Florimel was pleased with him. The earl's opinion was not to be had, for he had hurt his shoulder when he fell from the rearing Kelpie the day before, and was confined to his room in Curzon Street.

In the evening Malcolm put on his yachter's uniform, and set out again for Chelsea. There he took a boat, and crossed the river to the yacht, which lay near the other side, in charge of an old salt whose acquaintance Blue Peter had made when lying below the bridges.. On board he found all tidy and s.h.i.+pshape He dived into the cabin, lighted a candle, and made some measurements: all the little luxuries of the nest, carpets, cus.h.i.+ons, curtains, and other things, were at Lossie House, having been removed when the Psyche was laid up for the winter: he was going to replace them. And he was anxious to see whether be could not fulfil a desire he had once heard Florimel express to her father--that she had a bed on board, and could sleep there. He found it possible, and had soon contrived a berth: even a tiny stateroom was within the limits of construction.

Returning to the deck, he was consulting Travers about a carpenter, when, to his astonishment, he saw young Davy, the boy he had brought from Duff Harbour, and whom he understood to have gone back with Blue Peter, gazing at him from before the mast.

"Gien ye please, Maister MacPhail," said Davy, and said no more.

"How on earth do you come to be here, you rascal?" said Malcolm.

"Peter was to take you home with him!"

"I garred him think I was gauin'," answered the boy, scratching his red poll, which glowed in the dusk.

"I gave him your wages," said Malcolm.

"Ay, he tauld me that, but I loot them gang an' gae him the slip, an' was ash.o.r.e close ahint yersel', sir, jist as the smack set sail. I cudna gang ohn hed a word wi' yersel', sir, to see whether ye wadna lat me bide wi' ye, sir. I haena muckle wut, they tell me, sir, but gien I michtna aye be able to du what ye tell't me to du, I cud aye haud ohn dune what ye tell't me no to."

The words of the boy pleased Malcolm more than he judged it wise to manifest. He looked hard at Davy. There was little to be seen in his face except the best and only thing--truth. It shone from his round pale blue eyes; it conquered the self a.s.sertion of his unhappy nose; it seemed to glow in every freckle of his sunburnt cheeks, as earnestly he returned Malcolm's gaze.

"But," said Malcolm, almost satisfied, "how is this, Travers? I never gave you any instructions about the boy."

"There's where it is, sir," answered Travers. "I seed the boy aboard before, and when he come aboard again, jest arter you left, I never as much as said to myself, It's all right. I axed him no questions, and he told me no lies."

"Gien ye please, sir," struck in Davy, "Maister Trahvers gied me my mait, an' I tuik it, 'cause I hed no sil'er to buy ony: I houp it wasna stealin', sir. An' gien ye wad keep me, ye cud tak it aft o' my wauges for three days."

"Look here, Davy," said Malcolm, turning sharp upon him, "can you swim?"

"Ay can I, sir,--weel that," answered Davy.

"Jump overboard then, and swim ash.o.r.e," said Malcolm, pointing to the Chelsea bank.

The boy made two strides to the larboard gunwale, and would have been over the next instant, but Malcolm caught him by the shoulder.

"That'll do, Davy; I'll give you a chance, Davy," he said, "and if I get a good account of you from Travers, I'll rig you out like myself here."

"Thank you, sir," said Davy. "I s' du what I can to please ye, sir.