The Marquis of Lossie Part 59

"Oh, thank you!" said Clementina. "It will be a great delight."

"And now," suggested Malcolm, "would you like to go through the village, and see some of the cottages, and how the fishers live?"

"If they would not think me inquisitive, or intrusive," answered Clementina.

"There is no danger of that," rejoined Malcolm. "If it were my Lady Bellair, to patronize, and deal praise and blame, as if what she calls poverty were fault and childishness, and she their spiritual as well as social superior, they might very likely be what she would call rude. She was here once before, and we have some notion of her about the Seaton. I venture to say there is not a woman in it who is not her moral superior, and many of them are her superiors in intellect and true knowledge, if they are not so familiar with London scandal. Mr Graham says that in the kingdom of heaven every superior is a ruler, for there to rule is to raise, and a man's rank is his power to uplift."

"I would I were in the kingdom of heaven, if it be such as you and Mr Graham take it for," said Clementina.

"You must be in it, my lady, or you couldn't wish it to be such as it is."

"Can one then be in it, and yet seem to be out of it, Malcolm?"

"So many are out of it that seem to be in it, my lady, that one might well imagine it the other way with some."

"Are you not uncharitable, Malcolm?"

"Our Lord speaks of many coming up to his door confident of admission, whom yet he sends from him. Faith is obedience, not confidence."

"Then I do well to fear."

"Yes, my lady, so long as your fear makes you knock the louder."

"But if I be in, as you say, how can I go on knocking?"

"There are a thousand more doors to knock at after you are in, my lady. No one content to stand just inside the gate will be inside it long. But it is one thing to be in, and another to be satisfied that we are in. Such a satisfying as comes from our own feelings may, you see from what our Lord says, be a false one. It is one thing to gather the conviction for ourselves, and another to have it from G.o.d. What wise man would have it before he gives it? He who does what his Lord tells him, is in the kingdom, if every feeling of heart or brain told him he was out. And his Lord will see that he knows it one day. But I do not think, my lady, one can ever be quite sure, until the king himself has come in to sup with him, and has let him know that he is altogether one with him."

During the talk of which this is the substance, they reached the Seaton, and Malcolm took her to see his grandfather.

"Taal and faer and chentle and coot!" murmured the old man as he held her hand for a moment in his. With a start of suspicion he dropped it, and cried out in alarm--"She'll not pe a Cam'ell, Malcolm?"

"Na, na, daddy--far frae that," answered Malcolm.

"Then my laty will pe right welcome to Tuncan's heart," he replied, and taking her hand again led her to a chair.

When they left, she expressed herself charmed with the piper, but when she learned the cause of his peculiar behaviour at first, she looked grave, and found his feeling difficult to understand.

They next visited the Partaness, with whom she was far more amused than puzzled. But her heart was drawn to the young woman who sat in a corner, rocking her child in its wooden cradle, and never lifting her eyes from her needlework: she knew her for the fisher girl of Malcolm's picture.

From house to house he took her, and where they went, they were welcomed. If the man was smoking, he put away his pipe, and the woman left her work and sat down to talk with her. They did the honours of their poor houses in a homely and dignified fas.h.i.+on.

Clementina was delighted. But Malcolm told her he had taken her only to the best houses in the place to begin with. The village, though a fair sample of fis.h.i.+ng villages, was no ex-sample, he said: there were all kinds of people in it as in every other. It was a cla.s.s in the big life school of the world, whose special masters were the sea and the herrings.

"What would you do now, if you were lord of the place?" asked Clementina, as they were walking back by the sea gate; "--I mean, what would be the first thing you would do?"

"As it would be my business to know my tenants that I might rule them," he answered, "I would first court the society and confidence of the best men among them. I should be in no hurry to make changes, but would talk openly with them, and try to be worthy of their confidence. Of course I would see a little better to their houses, and improve their harbour: and I would build a boat for myself that would show them a better kind; but my main hope for them would be the same as for myself--the knowledge of him whose is the sea and all its store, who cares for every fish in its bosom, but for the fisher more than many herrings. I would spend my best efforts to make them follow him whose first servants were the fishermen of Galilee, for with all my heart I believe that that Man holds the secret of life, and that only the man who obeys him can ever come to know the G.o.d who is the root and crown of our being, and whom to know is freedom and bliss."

A pause followed.

"But do you not sometimes find it hard to remember G.o.d all through your work?" asked Clementina.

"Not very hard, my lady. Sometimes I wake up to find that I have been in an evil mood and forgetting him, and then life is hard until I get near him again. But it is not my work that makes me forget him. When I go a-fis.h.i.+ng, I go to catch G.o.d's fish; when I take Kelpie out, I am teaching one of G.o.d's wild creatures; when I read the Bible or Shakspere, I am listening to the word of G.o.d, uttered in each after its kind. When the wind blows on my face, what matter that the chymist pulls it to pieces! He cannot hurt it, for his knowledge of it cannot make my feeling of it a folly, so long as he cannot pull that to pieces with his retorts and crucibles: it is to me the wind of him who makes it blow, the sign of something in him, the fit emblem of his spirit, that breathes into my spirit the breath of life. When Mr Graham talks to me, it is a prophet come from G.o.d that teaches me, as certainly as if his fiery chariot were waiting to carry him back when he had spoken; for the word he utters at once humbles and uplifts my soul, telling it that G.o.d is all in all and my G.o.d--that the Lord Christ is the truth and the life, and the way home to the Father."

After a little pause,

"And when you are talking to a rich, ignorant, proud lady?" said Clementina, "--what do you feel then?"

"That I would it were my lady Clementina instead," answered Malcolm with a smile.

She held her peace.

When he left her, Malcolm hurried to Scaurnose and arranged with Blue. Peter for his boat and crew the next night. Returning to his grandfather, he found a note waiting him from Mrs Courthope, to the effect that, as Miss Caley, her ladys.h.i.+p's maid, had preferred another room, there was no reason why, if he pleased, he should not re-occupy his own.

CHAPTER LXV: THE EVE OF THE CRISIS

It was late in the sweetest of summer mornings when the Partan's boat slipped slowly back with a light wind to the harbour of Portlossie.

Malcolm did not wait to land the fish, but having changed his clothes and taken breakfast with Duncan, who was always up early, went to look after Kelpie. When he had done with her, finding some of the household already in motion, he went through the kitchen, and up the old corkscrew stone stair to his room to have the sleep he generally had before his breakfast. Presently came a knock at his door, and there was Rose.

The girl's behaviour to Malcolm was much changed. The conviction had been strengthened in her that he was not what he seemed, and she regarded him now with a vague awe. She looked this way and that along the pa.s.sage, with fear in her eyes, then stepped timidly inside the room to tell him, in a hurried whisper, that she had seen the woman who gave her the poisonous philtre, talking to Caley the night before, at the foot of the bridge, after everybody else was in bed. She had been miserable till she could warn him. He thanked her heartily, and said he would be on his guard; he would neither eat nor drink in the house. She crept softly away. He secured the door, lay down, and trying to think fell asleep.

When he woke his brain was clear. The very next day, whether Lenorme came or not, he would declare himself. That night he would go fis.h.i.+ng with Lady Clementina, but not one day longer would he allow those people to be about his sister. Who could tell what might not be brewing, or into what abyss, with the help of her friends, the woman Catanach might not plunge Florimel?

He rose, took Kelpie out, and had a good gallop. On his way back he saw in the distance Florimel riding with Liftore. The earl was on his father's bay mare. He could not endure the sight, and dashed home at full speed.

Learning from Rose that Lady Clementina was in the flower garden, he found her at the swan basin, feeding the gold and silver fishes.

An under gardener who had been about the place for thirty years, was at work not far off. The light splash of the falling column which the marble swan spouted from its upturned beak, prevented her from hearing his approach until he was close behind her. She turned, and her fair face took the flush of a white rose.

"My lady," he said, "I have got everything arranged for tonight."

"And when shall we go?" she asked eagerly.

"At the turn of the tide, about half past seven. But seven is your dinner hour."

"It is of no consequence.--But could you not make it half an hour later, and then I should not seem rude?"

"Make it any hour you please, my lady, so long as the tide is falling."

"Let it be eight then, and dinner will be almost over. They will not miss me after that. Mr Cairns is going to dine with them. I think, except Liftore, I never disliked a man so much. Shall I tell them where I am going?"

"Yes, my lady. It will be better.--They will look amazed--for all their breeding!"

"Whose boat is it, that I may be able to tell them if they should ask me?"

"Joseph Mair's. He and his wife will come and fetch you. Annie Mair will go with us--if I may say us: will you allow me to go in your boat, my lady?"

"I couldn't go without you, Malcolm."