Malcolm Part 21

And again he offered the coin.

"I don't in the least see why, on your own principles, you shouldn't take the money," said the girl, with more than the coldness of an uninterested umpire. "You worked for it, I'm sure--first accompanying me home in such a storm, and then finding the book and bringing it back all the way to the house!"

"'Deed, my leddy, sic a doctrine wad tak a' grace oot o' the earth!

What wad this life be worth gien a' was to be peyed for? I wad cut my throat afore I wad bide in sic a warl'.--Tak yer half croon, my leddy," he concluded, in a tone of entreaty.

But the energetic outburst was sufficing, in such her mood, only to the disgust of Lady Florimel.

"Do anything with the money you please; only go away, and don't plague me about it," she said freezingly.

"What can I du wi' what I wadna pa.s.s throu' my fingers?" said Malcolm with the patience of deep disappointment.

"Give it to some poor creature: you know some one who would be glad of it, I daresay."

"I ken mony ane, my leddy, wham it wad weel become yer am bonny han'

to gie 't till; but I'm no gaein' to tak' credit fer a leeberality that wad ill become me."

"You can tell how you earned it."

"And profess mysel' disgraced by takin' a reward frae a born leddy for what I wad hae dune for ony beggar wife i' the lan'. Na, na, my leddy."

"Your services are certainly flattering, when you put me on a level with any beggar in the country!"

"In regaird o' sic service, my leddy: ye ken weel eneuch what I mean. Obleege me by takin' back yer siller."

"How dare you ask me to take back what I once gave?"

"Ye cudna hae kent what ye was doin' whan ye gae 't, my leddy. Tak it back, an tak a hunnerweicht aff o' my hert."

He actually mentioned his heart!--was it to be borne by a girl in Lady Florimel's mood?

"I beg you will not annoy me," she said, m.u.f.fling her anger in folds of distance, and again sought her book.

Malcolm looked at her for a moment, then turned his face towards the sea, and for another moment stood silent. Lady Florimel glanced up, but Malcolm was unaware of her movement. He lifted his hand, and looked at the half crown gleaming on his palm; then, with a sudden poise of his body, and a sudden fierce action of his arm, he sent the coin, swift with his heart's repudiation, across the sands into the tide. Ere it struck the water he had turned, and, with long stride but low bent head, walked away. A pang shot to Lady Florimel's heart. "Malcolm!" she cried.

He turned instantly, came slowly back, and stood erect and silent before her.

She must say something. Her eye fell on the little parcel beside her, and she spoke the first thought that came.

"Will you take this?" she said, and offered him the handkerchief.

In a dazed way he put out his hand and took it, staring at it as if he did not know what it was.

"It's some sair!" he said at length, with a motion of his hands as if to grasp his head between them. "Ye winna tak even the was.h.i.+n'

o' a pocket nepkin frae me, an' ye wad gar me tak a haill half croon frae yersel'! Mem, ye're a gran' leddy an' a bonny; an ye hae turns aboot ye, gien 'twar but the set o' yer heid, 'at micht gar an angel lat fa' what he was carryin', but afore I wad affront ane that want.i.t naething o' me but gude will, I wad--I wad-- raither be the fisher lad that I am."

A weak kneed peroration, truly; but Malcolm was over burdened at last. He laid the little parcel on the sand at her feet, almost reverentially, and again turned. But Lady Florimel spoke again.

"It is you who are affronting me now," she said gently. "When a lady gives her handkerchief to a gentleman, it is commonly received as a very great favour indeed."

"Gien I hae made a mistak, my leddy, I micht weel mak it, no bein' a gentleman, and no bein' used to the traitment o' ane. But I doobt gien a gentleman wad ha' surmised what ye was efter wi' yer nepkin', gien ye had offert him half a croon first."

"Oh, yes, he would--perfectly!" said Florimel with an air of offence.

"Then, my leddy, for the first time i' my life, I wish I had been born a gentleman."

"Then I certainly wouldn't have given it you," said Florimel with perversity.

"What for no, my leddy? I dinna unnerstan' ye again. There maun be an unco differ atween 's!"

"Because a gentleman would have presumed on such a favour."

"I'm glaidder nor ever 'at I wasna born ane," said Malcolm, and, slowly stooping, he lifted the handkerchief; "an' I was aye glaid o' that, my leddy, 'cause gien I had been, I wad hae been luikin'

doon upo' workin' men like mysel' as gien they warna freely o' the same flesh an' blude. But I beg yer leddys.h.i.+p's pardon for takin'

ye up amiss. An' sae lang's I live, I'll regaird this as ane o'

her fedders 'at the angel mout.i.t as she sat by the bored craig.

An' whan I'm deid, I'll hae 't laid upo' my face, an' syne, maybe, I may get a sicht o' ye as I pa.s.s. Guid day my leddy."

"Good day," she returned kindly. "I wish my father would let me have a row in your boat."

"It's at yer service whan ye please, my leddy," said Malcolm.

One who had caught a glimpse of the s.h.i.+ning yet solemn eyes of the youth, as he walked home, would wonder no longer that he should talk as he did--so sedately, yet so poetically--so long windedly, if you like, yet so sensibly--even wisely.

Lady Florimel lay on the sand, and sought again to read the "Faerie Queene." But for the last day or two she had been getting tired of it, and now the forms that entered by her eyes dropped half their substance and all their sense in the porch, and thronged her brain with the mere phantoms of things, with words that came and went and were nothing. Abandoning the harvest of chaff, her eyes rose and looked out upon the sea. Never, even from tropical sh.o.r.e, was richer hued ocean beheld. Gorgeous in purple and green, in shadowy blue and flas.h.i.+ng gold, it seemed to Malcolm, as if at any moment the ever newborn Anadyomene might lift her s.h.i.+ning head from the wandering floor, and float away in her pearly l.u.s.tre to gladden the regions where the glaciers glide seawards in irresistible silence, there to give birth to the icebergs in tumult and thunderous uproar.

But Lady Florimel felt merely the loneliness. One deserted boat lay on the long sand, like the bereft and useless half of a double sh.e.l.l. Without show of life the moveless cliffs lengthened far into a sea where neither white sail deepened the purple and gold, nor red one enriched it with a colour it could not itself produce.

Neither hope nor aspiration awoke in her heart at the sight. Was she beginning to be tired of her companionless liberty? Had the long stanzas, bound by so many interwoven links of rhyme, ending in long Alexandrines, the long cantos, the lingering sweetness long drawn out through so many unended books, begun to weary her at last? Had even a quarrel with a fisher lad been a little pastime to her? and did she now wish she had detained him a little longer?

Could she take any interest in him beyond such as she took in Demon, her father's dog, or Brazenose, his favourite horse?

Whatever might be her thoughts or feelings at this moment, it remained a fact, that Florimel Colonsay, the daughter of a marquis, and Malcolm, the grandson of a blind piper, were woman and man-- and the man the finer of the two this time.

As Malcolm pa.s.sed on his way one of the three or four solitary rocks which rose from the sand, the skeleton remnants of larger ma.s.ses worn down by wind, wave, and weather, he heard his own name uttered by an unpleasant voice, and followed by a more unpleasant laugh.

He knew both the voice and the laugh, and, turning, saw Mrs Catanach, seated, apparently busy with her knitting, in the shade of the rock.

"Weel?" he said curtly.

"Weel!--Set ye up!--Wha's yon ye was play actin' wi' oot yonner?"

"Wha telled ye to speir, Mistress Catanach?"

"Ay, ay, laad! Ye'll be abune speykin' till an auld wife efter colloguin' wi' a yoong ane, an' sic a ane! Isna she bonny, Malkie?

Isna hers a winsome shape an' a lauchin' ee? Didna she draw ye on, an' luik i' the hawk's een o' ye, an' lay herself oot afore ye, an' ?"

"She did naething o' the sort, ye ill tongued wuman!" said Malcolm in anger.

"Ho! ho!" trumpeted Mrs Catanach. "Ill tongued, am I? An' what neist?"

"Ill deedit," returned Malcolm, "--whan ye flang my bonny salmon troot till yer oogly deevil o' a dog."