Malcolm

CHAPTER XXXVII: THE CUTTER

Some days passed during which Malcolm contrived that no one should see him: he stole down to his grandfather's early in the morning, and returned to his own room at night. Duncan told the people about that he was not very well, but would be all better in a day or two. It was a time of jubilation to the bard, and he cheered his grandson's retirement with music, and with wild stories of highland lochs and moors, chanted or told.

Malcolm's face was now much better, though the signs of the blow were still plain enough upon it, when a messenger came one afternoon to summon him to the marquis's presence.

"Where have you been sulking all this time?" was his master's greeting.

"I havena been sulkin', my lord," answered Malcolm. "Yer lordship tauld me to haud oot o' the gait till I was fit to be seen, an' no a sowl has set an ee upo' me till this verra moment 'at yer lordship has me in yer ain."

"Where have you been then?"

"I' my ain room at nicht, and doon at my gran'father's as lang's fowk was aboot—wi' a bit dauner (stroll) up the burn i' the mirk."

"You couldn't encounter the shame of being seen with such a face—eh?"

"It micht ha' been thoucht a disgrace to the tane or the tither o' 's, my lord—maybe to baith."

"If you don't learn to curb that tongue of yours, it will bring you to worse."

"My lord, I confessed my faut, and I pat up wi' the blow. But if it hadna been that I was i' the wrang—weel, things micht hae differt."

"Hold your tongue, I tell you. You're an honest, good fellow, and sorry I struck you. There!"

"I thank yer lordship."

"I sent for you because I've just heard from Aberdeen that the boat is on her way round. You must be ready to take charge of her the moment she arrives."

"I wull be that, my lord. It doesna shuit me at a' to be sae lang upo' the solid: like a cowt upon a toll ro'd."

The next morning he got a telescope, and taking with him his dinner of bread and cheese, and a book in his pocket, went up to the Temple of the Winds, to look out for the boat. Every few minutes he swept the offing, but morning and afternoon passed, and she did not appear. The day's monotony was broken only by a call from Demon. Malcolm looked landwards, and spied his mistress below amongst the trees, but she never looked in his direction.

He had just become aware of the first dusky breath of the twilight, when a tiny sloop appeared, rounding the Deid Heid, as they called the promontory which closed in the bay on the east. The sun was setting, red and large, on the other side of the Scaurnose, and filled her white sails with a rosy dye, as she came stealing round in a fair soft wind. The moon hung over her, thin, and pale, and ghostly, with hardly shine enough to show that it was indeed she, and not the forgotten scrap of a torn up cloud. As she passed the point and turned towards the harbour, the warm amethystine hue suddenly vanished from her sails, and she looked white and cold, as if the sight of the Death's Head had scared the blood out of her. "It's hersel'!" cried Malcolm in delight. "Aboot the size a muckle herrin' boat, but nae mair like ane than Lady Florimel 's like Meg Partan! It 'll be jist gran' to hae a cratur sae near leevin' to guide an' tak yer wull o'! I had nae idea she was gaein' to be onything like sae bonny. I'll no be fit to manage her in a squall though. I maun hae anither han'. An' I winna hae a laddie aither. It maun be a grown man, or I winna tak in han' to baud her abune the watter. I wull no. I s' hae Blue Peter himsel' gien I can get him. Eh! jist luik at her—wi' her bit gaff tappie set, and her jib an a', booin' an' booin', an' comin' on ye as gran' 's ony born leddy!"

He shut up his telescope, ran down the hill, unlocked the private door at its foot, and in three or four minutes was waiting her on the harbour wall.

She was a little cutter—and a lovely show to eyes capable of the harmonies of shape and motion. She came walking in, as the Partan, whom Malcolm found on the pierhead, remarked, "like a leddy closin' her parasol as she cam." Malcolm jumped on board, and the two men who had brought her round, gave up their charge.

She was full decked, with a dainty little cabin. Her planks were almost white—there was not a board in her off which one might not, as the Partan expanded the common phrase, "ait his parritch, an' never fin' a mote in 's mou'." Her cordage was all so clean, her standing rigging so taut, everything so shipshape, that Malcolm was in raptures. If the burn had only been navigable so that he might have towed the graceful creature home and laid her up under the very walls of the House! It would have perfected the place in his eyes. He made her snug for the night, and went to report her arrival.

Great was Lady Florimel's jubilation. She would have set out on a "coasting voyage," as she called it, the very next day, but her father listened to Malcolm.

"Ye see, my lord," said Malcolm, "I maun ken a' aboot her afore I daur tak ye oot in her. An' I canna unnertak' to manage her my lane. Ye maun jist gie me anither man wi' me."

"Get one," said the marquis.

Early in the morning, therefore, Malcolm went to Scaurnose, and found Blue Peter amongst his nets. He could spare a day or two, and would join him. They returned together, got the cutter into the offing, and, with a westerly breeze, tried her every way. She answered her helm with readiness, rose as light as a bird, made a good board, and seemed every way a safe boat.

"She's the bonniest craft ever lainched!" said Malcolm, ending a description of her behaviour and qualities rather too circumstantial for his master to follow.

They were to make their first trip the next morning—eastward, if the wind should hold, landing at a certain ancient ruin on the coast, two or three miles from Portlossie.

CHAPTER XXXVIII: THE TWO DOGS

Lady Florimel's fancy was so full of the expected pleasure, that she woke soon after dawn. She rose and anxiously drew aside a curtain of her window. The day was one of God's odes written for men. Would that the days of our human autumn were as calmly grand, as gorgeously hopeful as the days that lead the aging year down to the grave of winter! If our white hairs were sunlit from behind like those radiance bordered clouds; if our air were as pure as this when it must be as cold; if the falling at last of longest cherished hopes did but, like that of the forest leaves, let in more of the sky, more of the infinite possibilities of the region of truth which is the matrix of fact; we should go marching down the hill of life like a battered but still bannered army on its way home. But alas! how often we rot, instead of march, towards the grave! "If he be not rotten before he die," said Hamlet's absolute grave digger.—If the year was dying around Lady Florimel, as she looked, like a deathless sun from a window of the skies, it was dying at least with dignity.

The sun was still revelling in the gift of himself. A thin blue mist went up to greet him, like the first of the smoke from the altars of the morning. The fields lay yellow below; the rich colours of decay hung heavy on the woods, and seemed to clothe them as with the trappings of a majestic sorrow; but the spider webs sparkled with dew, and the gossamer films floated thick in the level sunbeams. It was a great time for the spiders, those visible Deaths of the insect race.

The sun, like a householder leaving his house for a time, was burning up a thousand outworn things before he went; hence the smoke of the dying hearth of summer was going up to the heavens; but there was a heart of hope left, for, when farthest away, the sun is never gone, and the snow is the earth's blanket against the frost. But, alas, it was not Lady Florimel who thought these things! Looking over her shoulder, and seeing both what she can and what she cannot see, I am having a think to myself.

"Which it is an offence to utter in the temple of Art!" cry the critics.

Not against Art, I think: but if it be an offence to the worshipper of Art, let him keep silence before his goddess; for me, I am a sweeper of the floors in the temple of Life, and his goddess is my mare, and shall go in the dust cart; if I find a jewel as I sweep, I will fasten it on the curtains of the doors, nor heed if it should break the fall of a fold of the drapery.

Below Lady Florimel's oriel window, under the tall bridge, the burn lay dark in a deep pool, with a slow revolving eddy, in which one leaf, attended by a streak of white froth, was performing solemn gyrations; away to the north the great sea was merry with waves and spotted with their broken crests; heaped against the horizon, it looked like a blue hill dotted all over with feeding sheep; but, today, she never thought why the waters were so busy—to what end they foamed and ran, flashing their laughter in the face of the sun: the mood of nature was in harmony with her own, and she felt no need to discover any higher import in its merriment. How could she, when she sought no higher import in her own—had not as yet once suspected that every human gladness—even to the most transient flicker of delight—is the reflex—from a potsherd it may be—but of an eternal sun of joy?—Stay, let me pick up the gem: every faintest glimmer, all that is not utter darkness, is from the shining face of the Father of Lights.—Not a breath stirred the ivy leaves about her window; but out there, on the wide blue, the breezes were frolicking; and in the harbour the new boat must be tugging to get free! She dressed in haste, called her staghound, and set out the nearest way, that is by the town gate, for the harbour. She must make acquaintance with her new plaything.

Mrs Catanach in her nightcap looked from her upper window as she passed, like a great spider from the heart of its web, and nodded significantly after her, with a look and a smile such as might mean, that for all her good looks she might have the heartache some day. But she was to have the first herself, for that moment her ugly dog, now and always with the look of being fresh from an ash pit, rushed from somewhere, and laid hold of Lady Florimel's dress, frightening her so, that she gave a cry. Instantly her own dog, which had been loitering behind, came tearing up, five lengths at a bound, and descended like an angel of vengeance upon the offensive animal, which would have fled, but found it too late. Opening his huge jaws, Demon took him across the flanks, much larger than his own, as if he had been a rabbit. His howls of agony brought Mrs Catanach out in her petticoats. She flew at the hound, which Lady Florimel was in vain attempting to drag from the cur, and seized him by the throat.

"Take care; he is dangerous!" cried the girl.

Finding she had no power upon him, Mrs Catanach forsook him, and, in despairing fury, rushed at his mistress. Demon saw it with one flaming eye, left the cur—which, howling hideously, dragged his hind quarters after him into the house—and sprang at the woman. Then indeed was Lady Florimel terrified, for she knew the savage nature of the animal when roused. Truly, with his eyes on fire as now, his long fangs bared, the bristles on his back erect, and his moustache sticking straight out, he might well be believed, much as civilization might have done for him, a wolf after all! His mistress threw herself between them, and flung her arms tight round his neck.

"Run, woman! Run for your life!" she shrieked. "I can't hold him long."

Mrs Catanach fled, cowed by terror. Her huge legs bore her huge body, a tragicomic spectacle, across the street to her open door. She had hardly vanished, flinging it to behind her, when Demon broke from his mistress, and going at the door as if launched from a catapult, burst it open and disappeared also.

Lady Florimel gave a shriek of horror, and darted after him.

The same moment the sound of Duncan's pipes as he issued from the town gate, at which he always commenced instead of ending his reveille now, reached her, and bethinking herself of her inability to control the hound, she darted again from the cottage, and flew to meet him, crying aloud,—"Mr MacPhail! Duncan! Duncan! stop your pipes and come here directly."

"And who may pe calling me?" asked Duncan, who had not thoroughly distinguished the voice through the near clamour of his instrument.

She laid her hand trembling with apprehension on his arm, and began pulling him along.

"It's me,—Lady Florimel," she said. "Come here directly. Demon has got into a house and is worrying a woman."

"Cod haf mercy!" cried Duncan. "Take her pipes, my laty, for fear anything paad should happen to tem."

She led him hurriedly to the door. But ere he had quite crossed the threshold he shivered and drew back.

"Tis is an efil house," he said. "she'll not can co in." A great floundering racket was going on above, mingled with growls and shrieks, but there was no howling.

"Call the dog then. He will mind you, perhaps," she cried—knowing what a slow business an argument with Duncan was—and flew to the stair.

"Temon! Temon!" cried Duncan, with agitated voice. Whether the dog thought his friend was in trouble next, I cannot tell, but down he came that instant, with a single bound from the top of the stair, right over his mistress's head as she was running up, and leaping out to Duncan, laid a paw upon each of his shoulders, panting with out lolled tongue. But the piper staggered back, pushing the dog from him. "It is plood!" he cried; "ta efil woman's plood!"

"Keep him out, Duncan dear," said Lady Florimel. "I will go and see. There! he'll be up again if you don't mind!"

Very reluctant, yet obedient, the bard laid hold of the growling animal by the collar; and Lady Florimel was just turning to finish her ascent of the stair and see what dread thing had come to pass, when, to her great joy, she heard Malcolm's voice, calling from the farther end of the street—"Hey, daddy! What's happened 'at I dinna hear the pipes?"

She rushed out, the pipes dangling from her hand, so that the drone trailed on the ground behind her.

"Malcolm! Malcolm!" she cried; and he was by her side in scarcely more time than Demon would have taken.

Hurriedly and rather incoherently, she told him what had taken place. He sprang up the stair, and she followed.

In the front garret—with a dormer window looking down into the street—stood Mrs Catanach facing the door, with such a malignant rage in her countenance that it looked demoniacal. Her dog lay at her feet with his throat torn out.

As soon as she saw Malcolm, she broke into a fury of vulgar imprecation—most of it quite outside the pale of artistic record.

"Hoots! for shame, Mistress Catanach!" he cried, "Here's my leddy ahin' me, hearin' ilka word!"

"Deil stap her lugs wi' brunstane! What but a curse wad she hae frae me? I sweir by God i s' gar her pey for this, or my name's no—" She stopped suddenly.

"I thocht as muckle," said Malcolm with a keen look.

"Ye'll think twise, ye deil's buckie, or ye think richt! Wha are ye to think? What sud my name be but Bawby Catanach? Ye're unco upsettin' sin' ye turned my leddy's flunky! Sorrow taik ye baith! My dawtit Beauty!—worriet by that hell tyke o' hers!"

"Gien ye gang on like that, the markis 'll hae ye drummed oot o' the toon or twa days be ower," said Malcolm.

"Wull he than?" she returned with a confident sneer, showing all the teeth she had left. "Ye'll be far hen wi' the markis, nae doobt! An' yon donnert auld deevil ye ca' yer gran'father 'ill be fain eneuch to be drummer, I'll sweir. Care 's my case!"

"My leddy, she's ower ill tongued for you to hearken till," said Malcolm, turning to Florimel who stood in the door white and trembling. "Jist gang doon, an' tell my gran'father to sen' the dog up. There's surely some gait o' garrin' her haud her tongue!"

Mrs Catanach threw a terrified glance towards Lady Florimel.

"Indeed I shall do nothing of the kind!" replied Florimel. "For shame!"

"Hoots, my leddy!" returned Malcolm; "I only said it to try the effec' o' 't. It seems no that ill."

"Ye son o' a deevil's soo!" cried the woman; "I s' hae amen's o' ye for this, gien I sud ro'st my ain hert to get it."

"'Deed, but ye're duin that fine a'ready! That foul brute o' yours has gotten his arles (earnest) tu. I wonner what he thinks o sawmon troot noo!—Eh, mem?"

"Have done, Malcolm," said Florimel. "I am ashamed of you. If the woman is not hurt, we have no business in her house."

"Hear till her!" cried Mrs Catanach contemptuously. "The woman!"

But Lady Florimel took no heed. She had already turned and was going down the stair. Malcolm followed in silence; nor did another word from Mrs Catanach overtake them.

Arrived in the street, Florimel restored his pipes to Duncan —who, letting the dog go, at once proceeded to fill the bag— and, instead of continuing her way to the harbour, turned back, accompanied by Malcolm, Demon, and Lady Stronach's Strathspey.

"What a horrible woman that is!" she said with a shudder.

"Ay is she; but I doobt she wad be waur gien she didna brak oot that gait whiles," rejoined Malcolm.

"How do you mean?"

"It frichts fowk at her, an' maybe sometimes pits 't oot o' her pooer to du waur. Gien ever she seek to mak it up wi' ye, my leddy, I wad hae little to say till her, gien I was you."

"What could I have to say to a low creature like that?"

"Ye wadna ken what she micht be up till, or hoo she micht set aboot it, my leddy. I wad hae ye mistrust her a'thegither. My daddy has a fine moral nose for vermin, an' he canna bide her, though he never had a glimp o' the fause face o' her, an' in trowth never spak till her."

"I will tell my father of her. A woman like that is not fit to live amongst civilized people."

"Ye're richt there, my leddy; but she wad only gang some ither gait amo' the same. Of coorse ye maun tell yer father, but she's no fit for him to tak ony notice o'."

As they sat at breakfast, Florimel did tell her father. His first emotion, however—at least the first he showed—was vexation with herself.

"You must not be going out alone—and at such ridiculous hours," he said. "I shall be compelled to get you a governess."

"Really, papa," she returned, "I don't see the good of having a marquis for a father, if I can't go about as safe as one of the fisher children. And I might just as well be at school, if not to do as I like."

"What if the dog had turned on you!" he said.

"If he dared!" exclaimed the girl, and her eyes flashed.

Her father looked at her for a moment, said to himself—"There spoke a Colonsay!" and pursued the subject no further.

When they passed Mrs Catanach's cottage an hour after, on their way to the harbour, they saw the blinds drawn down, as if a dead man lay within: according to after report, she had the brute already laid out like a human being, and sat by the bedside awaiting a coffin which she had ordered of Watty Witherspail.

CHAPTER XXXIX: COLONSAY CASTLE

The day continued lovely, with a fine breeze. The whole sky and air and sea were alive—with moving clouds, with wind, with waves flashing in the sun. As they stepped on board amidst the little crowd gathered to see, Lady Florimel could hardly keep her delight within the bounds of so called propriety. It was all she could do to restrain herself from dancing on the little deck half swept by the tiller. The boat of a schooner which lay at the quay towed them out of the harbour. Then the creature spread her wings like a bird—mainsail and gaff topsail, staysail and jib—leaped away to leeward, and seemed actually to bound over the waves. Malcolm sat at the tiller, and Blue Peter watched the canvas.

Lady Florimel turned out to be a good sailor, and her enjoyment was so contagious as even to tighten certain strings about her father's heart which had long been too slack to vibrate with any simple gladness. Her questions were incessant—first about the sails and rigging, then about the steering; but when Malcolm proceeded to explain how the water reacted on the rudder, she declined to trouble herself with that.

"Let me steer first," she said, "and then tell me how things work."

"That is whiles the best plan," said Malcolm. "Jist lay yer han' upo' the tiller, my leddy, an' luik oot at yon pint they ca' the Deid Heid yonner. Ye see, whan I turn the tiller this gait, her heid fa's aff frae the pint; an' whan I turn't this ither gait, her heid turns till 't again: haud her heid jist aboot a twa yairds like aff o' 't."

Florimel was more delighted than ever when she felt her own hand ruling the cutter—so overjoyed indeed, that, instead of steering straight, she would keep playing tricks with the rudder—fretting the mouth of the sea palfrey, as it were. Every now and then Malcolm had to expostulate.

"Noo, my leddy, caw canny. Dinna steer sae wull. Haud her steddy.—My lord, wad ye jist say a word to my leddy, or I'll be forced to tak the tiller frae her."

But by and by she grew weary of the attention required, and, giving up the helm, began to seek the explanation of its influence, in a way that delighted Malcolm.

"Ye'll mak a guid skipper some day," he said: "ye spier the richt questions, an' that's 'maist as guid 's kennin' the richt answers."

At length she threw herself on the cushions Malcolm had brought for her, and, while her father smoked his cigar, gazed in silence at the shore. Here, instead of sands, low rocks, infinitively broken and jagged, filled all the tidal space—a region of ceaseless rush and shattered waters. High cliffs of gray and brown rock, orange and green with lichens here and there, and in summer crowned with golden furze, rose behind—untouched by the ordinary tide, but at high water lashed by the waves of a storm.

Beyond the headland which they were fast nearing, the cliffs and the sea met at half tide.

The moment they rounded it—

"Luik there, my lord," cried Malcolm, "—there's Colonsay Castel, 'at yer lordship gets yer name, thinkin', an', ony gait, ane o' yer teetles frae. It maun be mony a hunner year sin' ever Colonsay baid intill 't!"

Well might he say so! for they looked but saw nothing—only cliff beyond cliff rising from a white fringed shore. Not a broken tower, not a ragged battlement invaded the horizon!

"There's nothing of the sort there!" said Lady Florimel.

"Ye maunna luik for tooer or pinnacle, my leddy, for nane will ye see: their time's lang ower. But jist taik the sea face o' the scaur (cliff) i' yer ee, an' traivel alang 't oontil ye come till a bit 'at luiks like mason wark. It scarce rises abune the scaur in ony but ae pairt, an' there it 's but a feow feet o' a wa'."

Following his direction, Lady Florimel soon found the ruin. The front of a projecting portion of the cliff was faced, from the very water's edge as it seemed, with mason work; while on its side, the masonry rested here and there upon jutting masses of the rock, serving as corbels or brackets, the surface of the rock itself completing the wall front. Above, grass grown heaps and mounds, and one isolated bit of wall pierced with a little window, like an empty eyesocket with no skull behind it, was all that was visible from the sea of the structure which had once risen lordly on the crest of the cliff.

"It is poor for a ruin even!" said Lord Lossie.

"But jist consider hoo auld the place is, my lord!—as auld as the time o' the sea rovin' Danes, they say. Maybe it 's aulder nor King Alfred! Ye maun regaird it only as a foondation; there's stanes eneuch lyin' aboot to shaw 'at there maun hae been a gran' supperstructur on 't ance. I some think it has been ance disconneckit frae the lan', an' jined on by a drawbrig. Mony a lump o' rock an' castel thegither has rowed doon the brae upon a' sides, an' the ruins may weel hae filled up the gully at last. It's a wonnerfu' auld place, my lord."

"What would you do with it if it were yours, Malcolm?" asked Lady Florimel.

"I wad spen' a my spare time patchin' 't up to gar 't stan' oot agane the wither. It's crum'let awa' a heap sin' I min'."

"What would be the good of that? A rickle of old stones!" said the marquis.

"It's a growth 'at there winna be mony mair like," returned Malcolm. "I wonner 'at yer lordship!"

He was now steering for the foot of the cliff. As they approached, the ruin expanded and separated, grew more massy, and yet more detailed. Still it was a mere root clinging to the soil.

"Suppose you were Lord Lossie, Malcolm, what would you do with it?" asked Florimel, seriously, but with fun in her eyes.

"I wad win at the boddom o' 't first."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Ye'll see whan ye win in till 't. there's a heap o' voutit places inside yon blin' face. Du ye see yon wee bit squaur winnock? That lats the licht in till ane o' them. There maybe vouts aneath vouts, for them 'at ye can win intill 's half fu' o' yird an' stanes. I wad hae a' that cleart oot, an syne begin frae the verra foondation, diggin', an' patchin', an' buttressin', till I got it a' as soun' as a whunstane; an' whan I cam to the tap o' the rock, there the castel sud tak to growin' again; an' grow it sud, till there it stude, as near what it was as the wit an' the han' o' man cud set it."

"That would ruin a tolerably rich man," said the marquis..

"Ony gait it 's no the w'y fowk ruins themsel's nooadays, my lord. They'll pu' doon an auld hoose ony day to save themsel's blastin' poother. There's that gran' place they ca' Huntly Castel!—a suckin' bairn to this for age, but wi' wa's, they tell me, wad stan' for thoosan's o' years: wad ye believe 't? there's a sowlless chiel' o' a factor there diggin' park wa's an' a grainery oot o' 't, as gien 'twar a quarry o' blue stane! An' what 's ten times mair exterord'nar, there's the Duke o' Gordon jist lattin' the gype tak 's wull o' the hoose a' his grace's ain forbears! I wad maist as sune lat a man speyk ill o' my daddy!"

"But this is past all rebuilding," said his lordship. "It would be barely possible to preserve the remains as they are."

"It wad be ill to du, my lord, ohn set it up again. But jist think what a gran' place it wad be to bide in!"

The marquis burst out laughing.

"A grand place for gulls and kittiwakes and sea crows!" he said. "But where is it, pray, that a fisherman like you gets such extravagant notions?—How do you come to think of such things?"

"Thoucht's free, my lord. Gien a thing be guid to think, what for sudna a fisher lad think it? I hae read a heap aboot auld castles an' sic like i' the history o' Scotlan', an' there's mony an auld tale an' ballant aboot them.—Jist luik there, my leddy: ye see yon awfu' hole i' the wa,' wi' the verra inside o' the hill, like, rushin' oot at it?—I cud tell ye a fearfu' tale aboot that same."

"Do let us have it," said Florimel eagerly, setting herself to listen.

"Better wait till we land," said the marquis lazily.

"Ay, my lord; we're ower near the shore to begin a story.—Slack the mainsheet, Peter, an' stan' by the jib—doonhaul—Dinna rise, my leddy; she'll be o' the grun' in anither meenute."

Almost immediately followed a slight grating noise, which grew loud, and before one could say her speed had slackened, the cutter rested on the pebbles, with the small waves of the just turned tide flowing against her quarter. Malcolm was overboard in a moment.

"How the deuce are we to land here?" said the marquis.

"Yes!" followed Florimel, half risen on her elbow, "how the deuce are we to land here?"

"Hoot, my leddy!" said Malcolm, "sic words ill become yer bonny mou'."

The marquis laughed.

"I ask you how we are to get ashore?" said Florimel with grave dignity, though an imp was laughing in the shadows of her eyes.

"I'll sune lat ye see that, my leddy," answered Malcolm; and leaning over the low bulwark he had her in his arms almost before she could utter an objection. Carrying her ashore like a child— indeed, to steady herself, she had put an arm round his shoulders —he set her down on the shingle, and turning in the act, left her as if she had been a burden of nets, and waded back to the boat.

"And how, pray, am I to go?" asked the marquis. "Do you fancy you can carry me in that style?"

"Ow na, my lord! that wadna be dignifeed for a man. Jist loup upo' my back."

As he spoke he turned his broad shoulders, stooping.

The marquis accepted the invitation, and rode ashore like a schoolboy, laughing merrily.

They were in a little valley, open only to the sea, one boundary of which was the small promontory whereon the castle stood. The side of it next them, of stone and live rock combined, rose perpendicular from the beach to a great height; whence, to gain the summit, they had to go a little way back, and ascend by a winding path till they reached the approach to the castle from the landward side.

"Noo, wad na this be a gran' place to bide at, my lord?" said Malcolm, as they reached the summit—the marquis breathless, Florimel fresh as a lark. "Jist see sic an outluik! The verra place for pirates like the auld Danes! Naething cud escape the sicht o' them here. Yon's the hills o' Sutherlan'. Ye see yon ane like a cairn? that's a great freen' to the fisher fowk to tell them whaur they are. Yon's the laich co'st o' Caithness. An' yonner's the north pole, only ye canna see sae far. Jist think, my lord, hoo gran' wad be the blusterin' blap o' the win' aboot the turrets, as ye stude at yer window on a winter's day, luikin oot ower the gurly twist o' the watters, the air fu' o' flichterin snaw, the cloods a mile thick abune yer heid, an' no a leevin cratur but yer ain fowk nearer nor the fairm toon ower the broo yonner!"

"I don't see anything very attractive in your description," said his lordship. "And where," he added, looking around him, "would be the garden?"

"What cud ye want wi' a gairden, an' the sea oot afore ye there? The sea's bonnier than ony gairden. A gairden's maist aye the same, or it changes sae slow, wi' the ae flooer gaein' in, an' the ither flooer comin' oot, 'at ye maist dinna nottice the odds. But the sea's never twa days the same. Even lauchin' she never lauchs twise wi' the same face, an' whan she sulks, she has a hunner w'ys o' sulkin'."