Then arose the remembrance of his arrogance and presumption in assuming on such a ground something more than guardianship – absolute tyranny over her, and with the thought pride and injury at once got the upper hand. Was she to be dictated to by a low born, low bred fellow like that – a fellow whose hands were harder than any leather, not with doing things for his amusement but actually with earning his daily bread – one that used to smell so of fish – on the ground of right too – and such a right as ought to exclude him for ever from her presence! – She turned to him again.
"How long have you known this – this – painful – indeed I must confess to finding it an awkward and embarrassing fact? I presume you do know it?" she said, coldly and searchingly.
"My father confessed it on his deathbed."
"Confessed!" echoed Florimel's pride, but she restrained her tongue.
"It explains much," she said, with a sort of judicial relief. "There has been a great change upon you since then. Mind I only say explains. It could never justify such behaviour as yours – no, not if you had been my true brother. There is some excuse, I daresay, to be made for your ignorance and inexperience. No doubt the discovery turned your head. Still I am at a loss to understand how you could imagine that sort of – of – that sort of thing gave you any right over me!"
"Love has its rights, my lady," said Malcolm.
Again her eyes flashed and her cheek flushed. "I cannot permit you to talk so to me. You must not fancy such things are looked upon in our position with the same indifference as in yours. You must not flatter yourself that you can be allowed to cherish the same feelings towards me as if – as if – you were really my brother. I am sorry for you, Malcolm, as I said already; but you have altogether missed your mark if you think that can alter facts, or shelter you from the consequences of presumption."
Again she turned away. Malcolm's heart was sore for her. How grievously she had sunk from the Lady Florimel of the old days! It was all from being so constantly with that wretched woman and her vile nephew. Had he been able to foresee such a rapid declension, he would have taken her away long ago, and let come of her feelings what might. He had been too careful over them.
"Indeed," Florimel resumed, but this time without turning towards him, "I do not see how things can possibly, after what you have told me, remain as they are. I should not feel at all comfortable in having one about me who would be constantly supposing he had rights, and reflecting on my father for fancied injustice, and whom I fear nothing could prevent from taking liberties. It is very awkward indeed, Malcolm – very awkward! But it is your own fault that you are so changed, and I must say I should not have expected it of you. I should have thought you had more good sense and regard for me. If I were to tell the world why I wanted to keep you, people would but shrug their shoulders and tell me to get rid of you; and if I said nothing, there would always be something coming up that required explanation. Besides, you would for ever be trying to convert me to one or other of your foolish notions. I hardly know what to do. I will consult – my friends on the subject. And yet I would rather they knew nothing of it, My father you see –" She paused. "If you had been my real brother it would have been different."
"I am your real brother, my lady, and I have tried to behave like one ever since I knew it."
"Yes; you have been troublesome. I have always understood that brothers were troublesome. I am told they are given to taking upon them the charge of their sisters conduct. But I would not have even you think me heartless. If you had been a real brother, of course I should have treated you differently."
"I don't doubt it, my lady, for everything would have been different then. I should have been the Marquis of Lossie, and you would have been Lady Florimel Colonsay. But it would have made little difference in one thing: I could not have loved you better than I do now – if only you would believe it, my lady!"
The emotion of Malcolm, evident in his voice as he said this, seemed to touch her a little.
"I believe it, my poor Malcolm," she returned, "quite as much as I want, or as it is pleasant to believe it. I think you would do a great deal for me, Malcolm. But then you are so rude! take things into your hands, and do things for me I don't want done! You will judge, not only for yourself, but for me! How can a man of your training and position judge for a lady of mine! Don't you see the absurdity of it? At times it has been very awkward indeed. Perhaps when I am married it might be arranged; but I don't know."
Here Malcolm ground his teeth, but was otherwise irresponsive as block of stone.
"How would a gamekeeper's place suit you? That is a half gentlemanly kind of post. I will speak to the factor, and see what can be done. – But on the whole I think, Malcolm, it will be better you should go. I am very sorry. I wish you had not told me. It is very painful to me. You should not have told me. These things are not intended to be talked of – Suppose you were to marry – say –"
She stopped abruptly, and it was well both for herself and Malcolm that she caught back the name that was on her lips.
The poor girl must not be judged as if she had been more than a girl, or other than one with every disadvantage of evil training. Had she been four or five years older, she might have been a good deal worse, and have seemed better, for she would have kept much of what she had now said to herself, and would perhaps have treated her brother more kindly while she cared even less for him.
"What will you do with Kelpie, my lady?" asked Malcolm quietly.
"There it is, you see!" she returned. "So awkward! If you had not told me, things could have gone on as before, and for your sake I could have pretended I came this voyage of my own will and pleasure. Now, I don't know what I can do – except indeed you – let me see – if you were to hold your tongue, and tell nobody what you have just told me – I don't know but you might stay till you got her so far trained that another man could manage her. I might even be able to ride her myself. – Will you promise?"
"I will promise not to let the fact come out so long as I am in your service, my lady."
"After all that has passed, I think you might promise me a little more! But I will not press it."
"May I ask what it is, my lady?"
"I am not going to press it, for I do not choose to make a favour of it. Still, I do not see that it would be such a mighty favour to ask – of one who owes respect at least to the house of Lossie. But I will not ask. I will only suggest, Malcolm, that you should leave this part of the country – say this country altogether, and go to America, or New South Wales, or the Cape of Good Hope. If you will take the hint, and promise never to speak a word of this unfortunate – yes, I must be honest, and allow there is a sort of relationship between us; but if you will keep it secret, I will take care that something is done for you – something, I mean, more than you could have any right to expect. And mind, I am not asking you to conceal anything that could reflect honour upon you or dishonour upon us."
"I cannot, my lady."
"I scarcely thought you would. Only you hold such grand ideas about self denial, that I thought it might be agreeable to you to have an opportunity of exercising the virtue at a small expense and a great advantage."
Malcolm was miserable. Who could have dreamed to find in her such a woman of the world! He must break off the hopeless interview.
"Then, my lady," he said, "I suppose I am to give my chief attention to Kelpie, and things are to be as they have been."
"For the present. And as to this last piece of presumption, I will so far forgive you as to take the proceeding on myself – mainly because it would have been my very choice had you submitted it to me. There is nothing I should have preferred to a sea voyage and returning to Lossie at this time of the year.
"But you also must be silent on your insufferable share in the business. And for the other matter, the least arrogance or assumption I shall consider to absolve me at once from all obligation towards you of any sort. Such relationships are never acknowledged."
"Thank you – sister," said Malcolm – a last forlorn experiment; and as he said the word he looked lovingly in her eyes.
She drew herself up like the princess Lucifera, "with loftie eyes, halfe loth to looke so lowe," and said, cold as ice,
"If once I hear that word on your lips again, as between you and me, Malcolm, I shall that very moment discharge you from my service, as for a misdemeanour. You have no claim upon me, and the world will not blame me."
"Certainly not, my lady. I beg your pardon. But there is one who perhaps will blame you a little."
"I know what you mean; but I don't pretend to any of your religious motives. When I do, then you may bring them to bear upon me."
"I was not so foolish as you think me, my lady. I merely imagined you might be as far on as a Chinaman," said Malcolm, with a poor attempt at a smile.
"What insolence do you intend now?"
"The Chinese, my lady, pay the highest respect to their departed parents. When I said there was one who would blame you a little, I meant your father."
He touched his cap, and withdrew.
"Send Rose to me," Florimel called after him, and presently with her went down to the cabin.
And still the Psyche soul-like flew. Her earthly birth held her to the earth, but the ocean upbore her, and the breath of God drove her on. Little thought Florimel to what she hurried her! A queen in her own self sufficiency and condescension, she could not suspect how little of real queendom, noble and self sustaining, there was in her being; for not a soul of man or woman whose every atom leans not upon its father fact in God, can sustain itself when the outer wall of things begins to tumble towards the centre, crushing it in on every side.
During the voyage no further allusion was made by either to what had passed. By the next morning Florimel had yet again recovered her temper, and, nothing fresh occurring to irritate her, kept it and was kind.
Malcolm was only too glad to accept whatever parings of heart she might offer. By the time their flight was over, Florimel almost felt as if it had indeed been undertaken at her own desire and motion, and was quite prepared to assert that such was the fact.
CHAPTER LVII: THE SHORE
It was two days after the longest day of the year, when there is no night in those regions, only a long twilight, in which many dream and do not know it. There had been a week of variable weather, with sudden changes of wind to east and north, and round again by south to west, and then there had been a calm for several days.
But now the little wind there was blew from the northeast; and the fervour of June was rendered more delicious by the films of flavouring cold that floated through the mass of heat. All Portlossie more and less, the Seaton especially, was in a state of excitement, for its little neighbour, Scaurnose, was more excited still. There the man most threatened, and with greatest injustice, was the only one calm amongst the men, and amongst the women his wife was the only one that was calmer than he. Blue Peter was resolved to abide the stroke of wrong, and not resist the powers that were, believing them in some true sense, which he found it hard to understand when he thought of the factor as the individual instance, ordained of God. He had a dim perception too that it was better that one, that one he, should suffer, than that order should be destroyed and law defied. Suffering, he might still in patience possess his soul, and all be well with him; but what would become of the country if everyone wronged were to take the law into his own hands? Thousands more would be wronged by the lawless in a week than by unjust powers in a year. But the young men were determined to pursue their plan of resistance, and those of the older and soberer who saw the uselessness of it, gave themselves little trouble to change the minds of the rest.
Peter, although he knew they were not for peace, neither inquired what their purpose might be, nor allowed any conjecture or suspicion concerning it to influence him in his preparations for departure. Not that he had found a new home. Indeed he had not heartily set about searching for one; in part because, unconsciously to himself he was buoyed up by the hope he read so clear in the face of his more trusting wife – that Malcolm would come to deliver them. His plan was to leave her and his children with certain friends at Port Gordon; he would not hear of going to the Partans to bring them into trouble. He would himself set out immediately after for the Lewis fishing.
Few had gone to the Hebrides that year from Scaurnose or Portlossie. The magnitude of the events that were about to take place, yet more the excitement and interest they occasioned, kept the most of the men at home – to content themselves with fishing the waters of the Moray Frith. And they had notable success. But what was success with such a tyrant over them as the factor, threatening to harry their nests, and turn the sea birds and their young out of their heritage of rock and sand and shingle? They could not keep house on the waves, any more than the gulls! Those who still held their religious assemblies in the cave called the Baillies' Barn, met often, read and sang the comminatory psalms more than any others, and prayed much against the wiles and force of their enemies both temporal and spiritual; while Mr Crathie went every Sunday to Church, grew redder in the nose, and hotter in the temper.
Miss Horn was growing more and more uncomfortable concerning events, and dissatisfied with Malcolm. She had not for some time heard from him, and here was his most important duty unattended to – she would not yet say neglected – the well being of his tenantry, namely, left in the hands of an unsympathetic, self important underling, who was fast losing all the good sense he had once possessed! Was the life and history of all these brave fishermen and their wives and children to be postponed to the pampered feelings of one girl, and that because she was what she had no right to be, his half sister forsooth? said Miss Horn to herself – that bosom friend to whom some people, and those not the worst, say oftener what they do not mean than what they do. She had written to him within the last month a very hot letter indeed, which had afforded no end of amusement to Mrs Catanach, as she sat in his old lodging over the curiosity shop, but, I need hardly say, had not reached Malcolm: and now there was but one night, and the best of all the fisher families would have nowhere to lie down! Miss Horn, with Joseph Mair, thought she did well to be angry with Malcolm.
The blind piper had been very restless all day. Questioned again and again by Meg Partan as to what was amiss with him, he had always returned her odd and evasive answers. Every few minutes he got up – even from cleaning her lamp – to go to the shore. He had but to cross the threshold, and take a few steps through the close, to reach the road that ran along the sea front of the village: on the one side were the cottages, scattered and huddled, on the other the shore and ocean wide outstretched. He would walk straight across this road until he felt the sand under his feet; there stand for a few moments facing the sea, and, with nostrils distended, breathing deep breaths of the air from the northeast; then turn and walk back to Meg Partan's kitchen, to resume his ministration of light. These his sallies were so frequent, and his absences so short, that a more serene temper than hers might have been fretted by them. But there was something about his look and behaviour that, while it perplexed, restrained her; and instead of breaking out upon him, she eyed him curiously.
She had found that it would not do to stare at him. The instant she began to do so, he began to fidget, and turned his back to her. It had made her lose her temper for a moment, and declare aloud as her conviction that he was after all an impostor, and saw as well as any of them.
"She has told you so, Mistress Partan, one hundred thousand times," replied Duncan with an odd smile: "and perhaps she will pe see a little petter as any of you, no matter."
Thereupon she murmured to herself "The cratur 'ill be seein' something!" and with mingled awe and curiosity sought to lay restraint upon her unwelcome observation of him.
Thus it went on the whole day, and as the evening approached, he grew still more excited. The sun went down, and the twilight began; and, as the twilight deepened, still his excitement grew.
Straightway it seemed as if the whole Seaton had come to share in it. Men and women were all out of doors; and, late as it was when the sun set, to judge by the number of red legs and feet that trotted in and out with a little shadowy flash, with a dull patter pat on earthen floor and hard road, and a scratching and hustling among the pebbles, there could not have been one older than a baby in bed; while of the babies even not a few were awake in their mothers' arms, and out with them on the sea front.
The men, with their hands in their trouser pockets, were lazily smoking pigtail, in short clay pipes with tin covers fastened to the stems by little chains, and some of the women, in short blue petticoats and worsted stockings, doing the same.
Some stood in their doors, talking with neighbours standing in their doors; but these were mostly the elder women: the younger ones – all but Lizzy Findlay – were out in the road. One man half leaned, half sat on the window sill of Duncan's former abode, and round him were two or three more, and some women, talking about Scaurnose, and the factor, and what the lads would do tomorrow; while the hush of the sea on the pebbles mingled with their talk, like an unknown tongue of the infinite – never articulating, only suggesting – uttering in song and not in speech – dealing not with thoughts, but with feelings and foretastes. No one listened: what to them was the Infinite with Scaurnose in the near distance! It was now almost as dark as it would be throughout the night if it kept as clear.
Once more there was Duncan, standing as if looking out to sea, and shading his brows with his hand as if to protect his eyes from the glare of the sun, and enable his sight!
"There's the auld piper again!" said one of the group, a young woman. "He's unco fule like to be stan'in that gait (way), makin' as gien he cudna weel see for the sun in 's e'en."
"Haud ye yer tongue, lass," rejoined an elderly woman beside her. "There's mair things nor ye ken, as the Beuk says. There's een 'at can see an' een 'at canna, an' een 'at can see twise ower, an' een 'at can see steikit what nane can see open."
"Ta poat! ta poat of my chief!" cried the seer. "She is coming like a tream of ta night, put one tat will not tepart with ta morning."
He spoke as one suppressing a wild joy.
"Wha'll that be, lucky deddy (grandfather)?" inquired, in a respectful voice, the woman who had last spoken, while those within hearing hushed each other and stood in silence. And all the time the ghost of the day was creeping round from west to east to put on its resurrection body, and rise new born. It gleamed faint like a cold ashy fire in the north.
"And who will it pe than her own son, Mistress Reekie?" answered the piper, calling her by her husband's nickname, as was usual, but, as was his sole wont, prefixing the title of respect, where custom would have employed but her Christian name.
"Who'll should it pe put her own Malcolm?" he went on. "I see his poat come round ta Tead Head. She flits over the water like a pale ghost over Morven. But it's ta young and ta strong she is pringing home to Tuncan. 0 m'anam, beannuich!"
Involuntarily all eyes turned towards the point called the Death's Head, which bounded the bay on the east.
"It's ower dark to see onything," said the man on the window sill. "There's a bit haar (fog) come up."
"Yes," said Duncan, "it'll pe too tark for you who haf cot no eyes only to speak of. Put your'll wait a few, and you'll pe seeing as well as herself. Och, her poy! her poy! 0 m'anam! Ta Lort pe praised! and she'll tie in peace, for he'll pe only ta one half of him a Cam'ell, and he'll pe safed at last, as sure as there's a heafen to co to and a hell to co from. For ta half tat's not a Cam'ell must pe ta strong half and it will trag ta other half into heafen – where it will not pe ta welcome, howefer."
As if to get rid of the unpleasant thought that his Malcolm could not enter heaven without taking half a Campbell with him, he turned from the sea and hurried into the house – but only to catch up his pipes and hasten out again, filling the bag as he went. Arrived once more on the verge of the sand, he stood again facing the northeast, and began to blow a pibroch loud and clear.
Meantime the Partan had joined the same group, and they were talking in a low tone about the piper's claim to the second sight, for, although all were more or less inclined to put faith in Duncan, there was here no such unquestioning belief in the marvel as would have been found on the west coast in every glen from the Mull of Cantyre to Loch Eribol – when suddenly Meg Partan, almost the only one hitherto remaining in the house, appeared rushing from the close.
"Hech, sirs!" she cried, addressing the Seaton in general, "gien the auld man be i' the richt,"
"She'll pe aal in ta right, Mistress Partan, and tat you'll pe seeing," said Duncan, who, hearing her first cry, had stopped his drone, and played softly, listening.
But Meg went on without heeding him any more than was implied in the repetition of her exordium.
"Gien the auld man be i' the richt, it'll be the marchioness hersel' 'at's h'ard o' the ill duin's o' her factor, an's comin' to see efter her fowk! An' it'll be Ma'colm's duin', an' that'll be seen. But the bonny laad winna ken the state o' the herbour, an' he'll be makin' for the moo' o't, an' he'll jist rin 's bonny boatie agrun' 'atween the twa piers, an' that'll no be a richt hame comin' for the leddy o' the lan', an' what's mair, Ma'colm 'ill get the wyte (blame) o' 't, an' that'll be seen. Sae ye maun some o' ye to the pier-heid, an' luik oot to gie 'im warnin'."
Her own husband was the first to start, proud of the foresight of his wife.
"Haith, Meg !" he cried, "ye're maist as guid at the lang sicht as the piper himsel'!"
Several followed him, and as they ran, Meg cried after them, giving her orders as if she had been vice admiral of the red, in a voice shrill enough to pierce the worst gale that ever blew on northern shore.
"Ye'll jist tell the bonnie laad to haud wast a bit an' rin her ashore, an' we'll a' be there an' hae her as dry's Noah's ark in a jiffie. Tell her leddyship we'll cairry the boat, an' her intil't, to the tap o' the Boar's Tail, gien she'll gie's her orders. – Winna we, laads?"
"We can but try!" said one. "– But the Fisky 'ill be waur to get a grip o' nor Nancy here," he added, turning suddenly upon the plumpest girl in the place, who stood next to him. She foiled him however of the kiss he had thought to snatch, and turned the laugh from herself upon him, so cleverly avoiding his clutch that he staggered into the road, and nearly fell upon his nose.
By the time the Partan and his companions reached the pier head, something was dawning in the vague of sea and sky that might be a sloop and standing for the harbour. Thereupon the Partan and Jamie Ladle jumped into a small boat and pulled out. Dubs, who had come from Scaurnose on the business of the conjuration, had stepped into the stern, not to steer but to show a white ensign – somebody's Sunday shirt he had gathered, as they ran, from a furze bush, where it hung to dry, between the Seaton and the harbour.
"Hoots! ye'll affront the marchioness," objected the Partan.
"Man, i' the gloamin' she'll no ken 't frae buntin'," said Dubs, and at once displayed it, holding it by the two sleeves.
The wind had now fallen to the softest breath, and the little vessel came on slowly. The men rowed hard, shouting, and waving their flag, and soon heard a hail which none of them could mistake for other than Malcolm's. In a few minutes they were on board, greeting their old friend with jubilation, but talking in a subdued tone, for they perceived by Malcolm's that the cutter bore their lady.
Briefly the Partan communicated the state of the harbour, and recommended porting his helm, and running the Fisky ashore about opposite the brass swivel.
"A' the men an' women i' the Seaton," he said, "'ill be there to haul her up."
Malcolm took the helm, gave his orders, and steered further westward. By this time the people on shore had caught sight of the cutter. They saw her come stealing out of the thin dark like a thought half thought, and go gliding along the shore like a sea ghost over the dusky water, faint, uncertain, noiseless, glimmering. It could be no other than the Fisky! Both their lady and their friend Malcolm must be on board, they were certain, for how could the one of them come without the other? and doubtless the marchioness, whom they all remembered as a good humoured handsome young lady, never shy of speaking to anybody, had come to deliver them from the hateful red nosed ogre, her factor! Out at once they all set along the shore to greet her arrival, each running regardless of the rest, so that from the Seaton to the middle of the Boar's Tail there was a long, straggling broken string of hurrying fisher folk, men and women, old and young, followed by all the current children, tapering to one or two toddlers, who felt themselves neglected and wept their way along. The piper, too asthmatic to run, but not too asthmatic to walk and play his bagpipes, delighting the heart of Malcolm, who could not mistake the style, believed he brought up the rear, but was wrong; for the very last came Mrs Findlay and Lizzy, carrying between them their little deal kitchen table, for her ladyship to step out of the boat upon, and Lizzy's child fast asleep on the top of it.
The foremost ran and ran until they saw that the Psyche had chosen her couch, and was turning her head to the shore, when they stopped and stood ready with greased planks and ropes to draw her up.
In a few moments the whole population was gathered, darkening, in the June midnight, the yellow sands between the tide and dune. The Psyche was well manned now with a crew of six. On she came under full sail till within a few yards of the beach, when, in one and the same moment, every sheet was let go, and she swept softly up like a summer wave, and lay still on the shore.
The butterfly was asleep. But ere she came to rest, the instant indeed that her canvas went fluttering away, thirty strong men had rushed into the water and laid hold of the now broken winged thing. In a few minutes she was high and dry.
Malcolm leaped on the sand just as the Partaness came bustling up with her kitchen table between her two hands like a tray. She set it down, and across it shook hands with him violently; then caught it up and deposited it firm on its four legs beneath the cutter's wais