Malcolm Part 22

"Ho! ho! ho! Ill deedit, am I? I s' no forget thae bonny names!

Maybe yer lordship wad alloo me the leeberty o' speirin' anither question at ye, Ma'colm MacPhail."

"Ye may speir 'at ye like, sae lang 's ye canna gar me stan' to hearken. Guid day to ye, Mistress Catanach. Yer company was nane o' my seekin': I may lea' 't whan I like."

"Dinna ye be ower sure o' that," she called after him venomously.

But Malcolm turned his head no more.

As soon as he was out of sight, Mrs Catanach rose, ascended the dune, and propelled her rotundity along the yielding top of it.

When she arrived within speaking distance of Lady Florimel, who lay lost in her dreary regard of sand and sea, she paused for a moment, as if contemplating her.

Suddenly, almost by Lady Florimel's side, as if he had risen from the sand, stood the form of the mad laird.

"I dinna ken whaur I come frae," he said.

Lady Florimel started, half rose, and seeing the dwarf so near, and on the other side of her a repulsive looking woman staring at her, sprung to her feet and fled. The same instant the mad laird, catching sight of Mrs Catanach, gave a cry of misery, thrust his fingers in his ears, darted down the other side of the dune and sped along the sh.o.r.e. Mrs. Catanach shook with laughter.

"I hae skailled (dispersed) the bonny doos!" she said. Then she called aloud after the flying girl,--"My leddy! My bonny leddy!"

Florimel paid no heed, but ran straight for the door of the tunnel, and vanished. Thence leisurely climbing to the temple of the winds, she looked down from a height of safety upon the sh.o.r.e and the retreating figure of Mrs. Catanach. Seating herself by the pedestal of the trumpet blowing Wind, she a.s.sayed her reading again, but was again startled--this time by a rough salute from Demon. Presently her father appeared, and Lady Florimel felt something like a pang of relief at being found there, and not on the farther side of the dune making it up with Malcolm.

CHAPTER XIX: DUNCAN'S PIPES

A few days after the events last narrated, a footman in the marquis's livery entered the Seaton, snuffing with emphasized discomposure the air of the village, all ignorant of the risk he ran in thus openly manifesting his feelings; for the women at least were good enough citizens to resent any indignity offered their town. As vengeance would have it, Meg Partan was the first of whom, with supercilious airs and "clippit" tongue, he requested to know where a certain blind man, who played on an instrument called the bagpipes, lived.

"Spit i' yer loof an' caw (search) for him," she answered--a reply of which he understood the tone and one disagreeable word.

With reddening cheek he informed her that he came on his lord's business.

"I dinna doobt it," she retorted; "ye luik siclike as rins ither fowk's eeran's."

"I should be obliged if you would inform me where the man lives,"

returned the lackey--with polite words in supercilious tones.

"What d' ye want wi' him, honest man?" grimly questioned the Partaness, the epithet referring to Duncan, and not the questioner.

"That 1 shall have the honour of informing himself," he replied.

"Weel, ye can hae the honour o' informin' yersel' whaur he bides,"

she rejoined, and turned away from her open door.

All were not so rude as she, however, for he found at length a little girl willing to show him the way.

The style in which his message was delivered was probably modified by the fact that he found Malcolm seated with his grandfather at their evening meal of water brose and b.u.t.ter; for he had been present when Malcolm was brought before the marquis by Bykes, and had in some measure comprehended the nature of the youth: it was in politest phrase, and therefore entirely to Duncan's satisfaction in regard of the manner as well as matter of the message, that he requested Mr Duncan MacPhail's attendance on the marquis the following evening at six o'clock, to give his lordship and some distinguished visitors the pleasure of hearing him play on the bagpipes during dessert. To this summons the old man returned stately and courteous reply, couched in the best English he could command; which, although considerably distorted by Gaelic p.r.o.nunciation and idioms, was yet sufficiently intelligible to the messenger, who carried home the substance for the satisfaction of his master, and what he could of the form for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his fellow servants.

Duncan, although he received it with perfect calmness, was yet overjoyed at the invitation. He had performed once or twice before the late marquis, and having ever since a.s.sumed the style of Piper to the Marquis of Lossie, now regarded the summons as confirmation in the office. The moment the sound of the messenger's departing footsteps died away, he caught up his pipes from the corner, where, like a pet cat, they lay on a bit of carpet, the only piece in the cottage, spread for them between his chair and the wall, and, though cautiously mindful of its age and proved infirmity, filled the bag full, and burst into such a triumphant onset of battle, that all the children of the Seaton were in a few minutes crowded about the door. He had not played above five minutes, however, when the love of finery natural to the Gael, the Gaul, the Galatian, triumphed over his love of music, and he stopped with an abrupt groan of the instrument to request Malcolm to get him new streamers.

Whatever his notions of its nature might be, he could not come of the Celtic race without having in him somewhere a strong faculty for colour, and no doubt his fancy regarding it was of something as glorious as his knowledge of it must have been vague. At all events he not only knew the names of the colours in ordinary use, but could describe many of the clan tartans with perfect accuracy; and he now gave Malcolm complete instructions as to the hues of the ribbons he was to purchase. As soon as he had started on the important mission, the old man laid aside his instrument, and taking his broadsword from the wall, proceeded with the aid of brick dust and lamp oil, to furbish hilt and blade with the utmost care, searching out spot after spot of rust, to the smallest, with the delicate points of his great bony fingers. Satisfied at length of its brightness, he requested Malcolm, who had returned long before the operation was over, to bring him the sheath, which, for fear of its coming to pieces, so old and crumbling was the leather, he kept laid up in the drawer with his sporran and his Sunday coat.

His next business, for he would not commit it to Malcolm, was to adorn the pipes with the new streamers. Asking the colour of each, and going by some principle of arrangement known only to himself he affixed them, one after the other, as he judged right, shaking and drawing out each to its full length with as much pride as if it had been a tone instead of a ribbon. This done, he resumed his playing, and continued it, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his grandson, until bedtime.

That night he slept but little, and as the day went on grew more and more excited. Scarcely had he swallowed his twelve o'clock dinner of sowens and oatcake, when he wanted to go and dress himself for his approaching visit. Malcolm persuaded him however to lie down a while and hear him play, and succeeded, strange as it may seem with such an instrument, in lulling him to sleep. But he had not slept more than five minutes when he sprung from the bed, wide awake, crying--"My poy, Malcolm! my son! you haf let her sleep in; and ta creat peoples will be impatient for her music, and cursing her in teir hearts!"

Nothing would quiet him but the immediate commencement of the process of dressing, the result of which was, as I have said, even pathetic, from its intermixture of shabbiness and finery. The dangling bra.s.s capped tails of his sporran in front, the silver mounted dirk on one side, with its hilt of black oak carved into an eagle's head, and the steel basket of his broadsword gleaming at the other; his great shoulder brooch of rudely chased bra.s.s; the pipes with their withered bag and gaudy streamers; the faded kilt, oiled and soiled; the stockings darned in twenty places by the hands of the termagant Meg Partan; the brogues patched and patched until it would have been hard to tell a spot of the original leather; the round blue bonnet grown gray with wind and weather: the belts that looked like old harness ready to yield at a pull; his skene dhu sticking out grim and black beside a knee like a lean knuckle:--all combined to form a picture ludicrous to a vulgar nature, but gently pitiful to the lover of his kind, he looked like a half mouldered warrior, waked from beneath an ancient cairn, to walk about in a world other than he took it to be. Malcolm, in his commonplace Sunday suit, served as a foil to his picturesque grandfather; to whose oft reiterated desire that he would wear the highland dress, he had hitherto returned no other answer than a humorous representation of the different remarks with which the neighbours would encounter such a solecism.

The whole Seaton turned out to see them start. Men, women, and children lined the fronts and gables of the houses they must pa.s.s on their way; for everybody knew where they were going, and wished them good luck. As if he had been a great bard with a henchman of his own, Duncan strode along in front, and Malcolm followed, carrying the pipes, and regarding his grandfather with a mingled pride and compa.s.sion lovely to see. But as soon as they were beyond the village the old man took the young one's arm, not to guide him, for that was needless, but to stay his steps a little, for when dressed he would, as I have said, carry no staff; and thus they entered the nearest gate of the grounds. Bykes saw them and scoffed, but with discretion, and kept out of their way.

When they reached the house, they were taken to the servants' hall, where refreshments were offered them. The old man ate sparingly, saying he wanted all the room for his breath, but swallowed a gla.s.s of whisky with readiness; for, although he never spent a farthing on it, he had yet a highlander's respect for whisky, and seldom refused a gla.s.s when offered him. On this occasion, besides, anxious to do himself credit as a piper, he was well pleased to add a little fuel to the failing fires of old age; and the summons to the dining room being in his view long delayed, he had, before he left the hail, taken a second gla.s.s.

They were led along endless pa.s.sages, up a winding stone stair, across a lobby, and through room after room.

"It will pe some glamour, sure, Malcolm!" said Duncan in a whisper as they went.

Requested at length to seat themselves in an anteroom, the air of which was filled with the sounds and odours of the neighbouring feast, they waited again through what seemed to the impatient Duncan an hour of slow vacuity; but at last they were conducted into the dining room. Following their guide, Malcolm led the old man to the place prepared for him at the upper part of the room, where the floor was raised a step or two.

Duncan would, I fancy, even unprotected by his blindness, have strode unabashed into the very halls of heaven. As he entered there was a hush, for his poverty stricken age and dignity told for one brief moment: then the buzz and laughter recommenced, an occasional oath emphasizing itself in the confused noise of the talk, the gurgle of wine, the ring of gla.s.s, and the c.h.i.n.k of china.

In Malcolm's vision, dazzled and bewildered at first, things soon began to arrange themselves. The walls of the room receded to their proper distance, and he saw that they were covered with pictures of ladies and gentlemen, gorgeously attired; the ceiling rose and settled into the dim show of a sky, amongst the clouds of which the shapes of very solid women and children disported themselves; while about the glittering table, lighted by silver candelabra with many branches, he distinguished the gaily dressed company, round which, like huge ill painted b.u.t.terflies, the liveried footmen hovered. His eyes soon found the lovely face of Lady Florimel, but after the first glance he dared hardly look again. Whether its radiance had any smallest source in the pleasure of appearing like a G.o.ddess in the eyes of her humble servant, I dare not say, but more lucent she could hardly have appeared had she been the princess in a fairy tale, about to marry her much thwarted prince. She wore far too many jewels for one so young, for her father had given her all that belonged to her mother, as well as some family diamonds, and her inexperience knew no reason why she should not wear them.

The diamonds flashed and sparkled and glowed on a white rather than fair neck, which, being very much uncollared dazzled Malcolm far more than the jewels. Such a form of enhanced loveliness, reflected for the first time in the pure mirror of a high toned manhood, may well be to such a youth as that of an angel with whom he has henceforth to wrestle in deadly agony until the final dawn; for lofty condition and gorgeous circ.u.mstance, while combining to raise a woman to an ideal height, ill suffice to lift her beyond love, or shield the lowliest man from the arrows of her radiation; they leave her human still. She was talking and laughing with a young man of weak military aspect, whose eyes gazed unshrinking on her beauty.

The guests were not numerous: a certain bold faced countess, the fire in whose eyes had begun to tarnish, and the natural lines of whose figure were vanishing in expansion; the soldier, her nephew, a waisted elegance; a long, lean man, who dawdled with what he ate, and drank as if his bones thirsted; an elderly, broad; red faced, bull necked baron of the Hanoverian type; and two neighbouring lairds and their wives, ordinary, and well pleased to be at the marquis's table.

Although the waiting were as many as the waited upon, Malcolm, who was keen eyed, and had a pa.s.sion for service--a thing unintelligible to the common mind,--soon spied an opportunity of making himself useful. Seeing one of the men, suddenly called away, set down a dish of fruit just as the countess was expecting it, he jumped up, almost involuntarily, and handed it to her. Once in the current of things, Malcolm would not readily make for the sh.o.r.e of inactivity: he finished the round of the table with the dish, while the men looked indignant, and the marquis eyed him queerly.

While he was thus engaged, however, Duncan, either that his poor stock of patience was now utterly exhausted, or that he fancied a signal given, compressed of a sudden his full blown waiting bag, and blasted forth such a wild howl of the pibroch, that more than one of the ladies gave a cry and half started from their chairs. The marquis burst out laughing, but gave orders to stop him--a thing not to be effected in a moment, for Duncan was in full tornado, with the avenues of hearing, both corporeal and mental, blocked by his own darling utterance. Understanding at length, he ceased with the air and almost the carriage of a suddenly checked horse, looking half startled, half angry, his cheeks puffed, his nostrils expanded, his head thrown back, the port vent still in his mouth, the blown bag under his arm, and his fingers on the chanter, on the fret to dash forward again with redoubled energy. But slowly the strained muscles relaxed, he let the tube fall from his lips, and the bag descended to his lap.

"A man forbid," he heard the ladies rise and leave the room, and not until the gentlemen sat down again to their wine, was there any demand for the exercise of his art.

Now whether what followed had been prearranged, and old Duncan invited for the express purpose of carrying it out, or whether it was conceived and executed on the spur of the moment, which seems less likely, I cannot tell, but the turn things now took would be hard to believe, were they dated in the present generation. Some of my elder readers, however, will, from their own knowledge of similar actions, grant likelihood enough to my record.

While the old man was piping, as bravely as his lingering mortification would permit, the marquis interrupted his music to make him drink a large gla.s.s of sherry; after which he requested him to play his loudest, that the gentlemen might hear what his pipes could do. At the same time he sent Malcolm with a message to the butler about some particular wine he wanted. Malcolm went more than willingly, but lost a good deal of time from not knowing his way through the house. When he returned he found things frightfully changed.

As soon as he was out of the room, and while the poor old man was blowing his hardest, in the fancy of rejoicing his hearers with the glorious music of the highland hills, one of the company--it was never known which, for each merrily accused the other--took a penknife, and going softly behind him, ran the sharp blade into the bag, and made a great slit, so that the wind at once rushed out, and the tune ceased without sob or wail. Not a laugh betrayed the cause of the catastrophe: in silent enjoyment the conspirators sat watching his movements. For one moment Duncan was so astounded that he could not think; the next he laid the instrument across his knees, and began feeling for the cause of the sudden collapse.

Tears had gathered in the eyes that were of no use but to weep withal, and were slowly dropping.

"She wa.s.s afrait, my lort and chentlemans," he said, with a quavering voice, "tat her pag will pe near her latter end; put she pelieved she would pe living peyond her nainsel, my chentlemans."

He ceased abruptly, for his fingers had found the wound, and were prosecuting an inquiry: they ran along the smooth edges of the cut, and detected treachery. He gave a cry like that of a wounded animal, flung his pipes from him, and sprang to his feet, but forgetting a step below him, staggered forward a few paces and fell heavily. That instant Malcolm entered the room. He hurried in consternation to his a.s.sistance. When he had helped him up and seated him again on the steps, the old man laid his head on his boy's bosom, threw his arms around his neck, and wept aloud.

"Malcolm, my son," he sobbed, "Tuncan is wronged in ta halls of ta strancher; tey 'll haf stapped his pest friend to ta heart, and och hone! och hone! she'll pe aall too plint to take fencheance.

Malcolm, son of heroes, traw ta claymore of ta pard, and fall upon ta traitors. She'll pe singing you ta onset, for ta pibroch is no more."

His quavering voice rose that instant in a fierce though feeble chant, and his hand flew to the hilt of his weapon.

Malcolm, perceiving from the looks of the men that things were as his grandfather had divined, spoke indignantly:

"Ye oucht to tak shame to ca' yersel's gentlefowk, an' play a puir blin' man, wha was doin' his best to please ye, sic an ill faured trick."