The Marquis of Lossie Part 53

And oh, that nest of wild bees with its combs of honey unspeakable!

He used to laugh and sing then: he laughed still sometimes--he could hear how he laughed, and it sounded frightful--but he never sang! Were the tears that honoured such childish memories all of weakness? Was it cause of regret that he had not been wicked enough to have become impregnable to such foolish trifles? Unable to mount a horse, unable to give an order, not caring even for his toddy, he was left at the mercy of his fundamentals; his childhood came up and claimed him, and he found the childish things he had put away better than the manly things he had adopted. It is one thing for St Paul and another for Mr Worldly Wiseman to put away childish things. The ways they do it, and the things they subst.i.tute, are both so different? And now first to me, whose weakness it is to love life more than manners, and men more than their portraits, the man begins to grow interesting. Picture the dawn of innocence on a dull, whisky drinking, commonplace soul, stained by self indulgence, and distorted by injustice! Unspeakably more interesting and lovely is to me such a dawn than the honeymoon of the most pa.s.sionate of lovers, except indeed I know them such lovers that their love will outlast all the moons.

"I'm a poor creature, Lizzy," he said, turning his heavy face one midnight towards the girl, as she sat half dozing, ready to start awake.

"G.o.d comfort ye, sir!" said the girl.

"He'll take good care of that!" returned the factor. "What did I ever do to deserve it?--There's that MacPhail, now--to think of him! Didn't I do what man could for him? Didn't I keep him about the place when all the rest were dismissed? Didn't I give him the key of the library, that he might read and improve his mind? And look what comes of it!"

"Ye mean, sir," said. Lizzy, quite innocently, "'at that 's the w'y ye ha'e dune wi' G.o.d, an' sae he winna heed ye?"

The factor had meant nothing in the least like it. He had merely been talking as the imps of suggestion tossed up. His logic was as sick and helpless as himself. So at that he held his peace-- stung in his pride at least--perhaps in his conscience too, only he was not prepared to be rebuked by a girl like her, who had-- Well, he must let it pa.s.s: how much better was he himself?

But Lizzy was loyal: she could not hear him speak so of Malcolm and hold her peace as if she agreed in his condemnation.

"Ye'll ken Ma'colm better some day, sir," she said.

"Well, Lizzy," returned the sick man, in a tone that but for feebleness would have been indignant, "I have heard a good deal of the way women will stand up for men that have treated them cruelly, but you to stand up for him pa.s.ses!"

"He's been the best friend I ever had," said Lizzy.

"Girl! how can you sit there, and tell me so to my face?"

cried the factor, his voice strengthened by the righteousness of the reproof it bore. "If it were not the dead of the night--"

"I tell ye naething but the trowth, sir," said Lizzy, as the contingent threat died away. "But ye maun lie still or I maun gang for the mistress. Gien ye be the waur the morn, it'll be a' my wyte, 'cause I cudna bide to hear sic things said o' Ma'colm."

"Do you mean to tell me," persisted her charge, heedless of her expostulation, "that the fellow who brought you to disgrace, and left you with a child you could ill provide for--and I well know never sent you a penny all the time he was away, whatever he may have done now, is the best friend you ever had?"

"Noo G.o.d forgi'e ye, Maister Crathie, for threipin' sic a thing!"

cried Lizzy, rising as if she would leave him; "Ma'colm MacPhail 's as clear o' ony sin like mine as my wee bairnie itsel'."

"Do ye daur tell me he's no the father o' that same, la.s.s?"

"No, nor never will be the father a' ony bairn whase mither 's no his wife!" said. Lizzy, with burning cheeks and resolute voice.

The factor, who had risen on his elbow to look her in the face, fell back in silence; and neither of them spoke for what seemed to the watcher a long time; When she ventured to look at him, he was asleep.

He lay in one of those troubled slumbers into which weakness and exhaustion will sometimes pa.s.s very suddenly; and in that slumber he had a dream which he never forgot. He thought he had risen from his grave with an awful sound in his ears, and knew he was wanted at the judgment seat. But he did not want to go, therefore crept into the porch of the church, and hoped to be forgotten. But suddenly an angel appeared with a flaming sword and drove him out of the churchyard away to Scaurnose where the judge was sitting. And as he fled in terror before the angel, he fell, and the angel came and stood over him, and his sword flashed torture into his bones, but he could not and dared not rise. At last, summoning all his strength, he looked up at him, and cried out, "Sir, ha'e mercy, for G.o.d's sake." Instantly all the flames drew back into the sword, and the blade dropped, burning like a brand, from the hilt, which the angel threw away.--And lo! it was Malcolm MacPhail, and he was stooping to raise him. With that he awoke, and there was Lizzy looking down on him anxiously.

"What are you looking like that for?" he asked crossly.

She did not like to tell him that she had been alarmed by his dropping asleep: and in her confusion she fell back on the last subject.

"There maun be some mistak, Mr Crathie," she said. "I wuss ye wad tell me what gars ye hate Ma'colm MacPhail as ye du."

The factor, although he seemed to himself to know well enough, was yet a little puzzled how to commence his reply; and therewith a process began that presently turned into something with which never in his life before had his inward parts been acquainted--a sort of self examination to wit. He said to himself, partly in the desire to justify his present dislike--he would not call it hate, as Lizzy did--that he used to get on with the lad well enough, and had never taken offence at his freedoms, making no doubt his manner came of his blood, and he could not help it, being a chip of the old block; but when he ran away with the marquis's boat, and went to the marchioness and told her lies against him--then what could he do but dislike him?

Arrived at this point, he opened his mouth and gave the substance of what preceded it for answer to Lizzy's question. But she replied at once.

"n.o.body 'ill gar me believe, sir, 'at Ma'colm MacPhail ever tellt a lee again' you or onybody. I dinna believe he ever tellt a lee in 's life. Jist ye exem' him weel anent it, sir. An' for the boat, nae doobt it was makin' free to tak it; but ye ken, sir, 'at hoo he was maister o' the same. It was in his chairge, an' ye ken little aboot boats yersel,' or the sailin' o' them, sir."

"But it was me that engaged him again, after all the servants at the House had been dismissed: he was my servant."

"That maks the thing luik waur, nae doobt," allowed Lizzy,--with something of cunning. "Hoo was't 'at he cam to du 't ava' (of all; at all), sir? Can ye min'?" she pursued.

"I discharged him."

"An' what for, gien I may mak' hold to speir, sir?" she went on.

"For insolence."

"Wad ye tell me hoo he answert ye? Dinna think me meddlin', sir.

I'm clear certain there's been some mistak. Ye cudna be sae guid to me, an' be ill to him, ohn some mistak."

It was consoling to the conscience of the factor, in regard of his behaviour to the two women, to hear his own praise for kindness from woman's lips. He took no offence therefore at her persistent questioning, but told her as well and as truly as he could remember, with no more than the all but unavoidable exaggeration with which feeling will colour fact, the whole pa.s.sage between Malcolm and himself concerning the sale of Kelpie, and closed with an appeal to the judgment of his listener, in which he confidently antic.i.p.ated her verdict.

"A most ridic'lous thing! ye can see yersel' as weel 's onybody, Lizzy! An' sic a thing to ca' an honest man like mysel' a hypocrete for! ha! ha! ha! There's no a bairn 'atween John o' Groat's an'

the Lan's En' disna ken 'at the seller a horse is b'un' to reese (extol) him, an' the buyer to tak care o' himsel'. I'll no say it's jist allooable to tell a doonricht lee, but ye may come full nearer till't in horse dealin', ohn sinned, nor in ony ither kin'

o' merchandeze. It's like luve an' war, in baith which, it's weel keened, a' thing's fair. The saw sud rin--Luve an' war an' horse dealin'.--Divna ye see, Lizzy?"

But Lizzy did not answer, and the factor, hearing a stifled sob, started to his elbow.

"Lie still, sir," said Lizzy. "It's naething. I was only jist thinkin' 'at that wad be the w'y 'at the father o' my bairn rizoned wi' himsel' whan he lee'd to me."

"Hey!" said the astonished factor, and in his turn held his peace, trying to think.

Now Lizzy, for the last few months, had been going to school, the same school with Malcolm, open to all comers, the only school where one is sure to be led in the direction of wisdom, and there she had been learning to some purpose--as plainly appeared before she had done with the factor.

"Whase kirk are ye elder o', Maister Crathie?" she asked presently.

"Ow, the kirk o' Scotlan', of coorse!" answered the patient, in some surprise at her ignorance.

"Ay, ay," returned Lizzy; "but whase aucht (owning, property) is 't?"

"Ow, whase but the Redeemer's!"

"An' div ye think, Mr Craithie, 'at gien Jesus Christ had had a horse to sell, he wad ha'e hidden frae him 'at wad buy, ae hair a fau't 'at the beast hed? Wad he no ha'e dune till's neiper as he wad ha'e his neiper du to him?"

"La.s.sie! la.s.sie! tak care hoo ye even him to sic like as hiz (us).

What wad he hae to du wi' horse flesh?"

Lizzy held her peace. Here was no room for argument. He had flung the door of his conscience in the face of her who woke it. But it was too late, for the word was in already. Oh! that false reverence which men subst.i.tute for adoring obedience, and wherewith they reprove the childlike spirit that does not know another kingdom than that of G.o.d and that of Mammon! G.o.d never gave man thing to do concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the son of G.o.d would have done it.

But, I say, the word was in, and, partly no doubt from its following so close upon the dream the factor had had, was potent in its operation. He fell a thinking, and a thinking more honestly than he had thought for many a day. And presently it was revealed to him that, if he were in the horse market wanting to buy, and a man there who had to sell said to him--"He wadna du for you, sir; ye wad be tired o' 'im in a week," he would never remark, "What a fool the fellow is!" but--"Weel noo, I ca' that neibourly!" He did not get quite so far just then as to see that every man to whom he might want to sell a horse was as much his neighbour as his own brother; nor, indeed, if he had got as far, would it have indicated much progress in honesty, seeing he would at any time, when needful and possible, have cheated that brother in the matter of a horse, as certainly as he would a Patagonian or a Chinaman. But the warped gla.s.s of a bad maxim had at least been cracked in his window.

The peacemaker sat in silence the rest of the night, but the factor's sleep was broken, and at times he wandered. He was not so well the next day, and his wife, gathering that Lizzy had been talking, and herself feeling better, would not allow her to sit up with him any more.

Days and days pa.s.sed, and still Malcolm had no word from Lenorme, and was getting hopeless in respect of that quarter of possible aid. But so long as Florimel could content herself with the quiet of Lossie House, there was time to wait, he said to himself. She was not idle, and that was promising. Every day she rode out with Stoat. Now and then she would make a call in the neighbourhood, and, apparently to trouble Malcolm, took care to let him know that on one of these occasions her call had been upon Mrs Stewart.

One thing he did feel was that she made no renewal of her friendship with his grandfather: she had, alas! outgrown the girlish fancy.