The Marquis of Lossie Part 63

He was but a fisher poet; no courtier, no darling of society, no dealer in the fine speeches, no clerk of compliments. All the words he had were the living blossoms of thought rooted in feeling. His pure clear heart was as a crystal cup, through which shone the red wine of his love. To himself Malcolm stammered as a dumb man, the string of whose tongue has but just been loosed; to Clementina his speech was as the song of the Lady to Comus, "divine enchanting ravishment." The G.o.d of truth is surely present at every such marriage feast of two radiant spirits. Their joy was that neither had fooled the hope of the other.

And so the herring boat had indeed carried Clementina over into paradise, and this night of the world was to her a twilight of heaven. G.o.d alone can tell what delights it is possible for him to give to the pure in heart who shall one day behold him. Like two that had died and found each other, they talked until speech rose into silence, they smiled until the dews which the smiles had sublimed claimed their turn and descended in tears.

All at once they became aware that an eye was upon them. It was the sun. He was ten degrees up the slope of the sky, and they had never seen him rise.

With the sun came a troublous thought, for with the sun came "a world of men." Neither they nor the simple fisher folk, their friends, had thought of the thing, but now at length it occurred to Clementina that she would rather not walk up to the door of Lossie House with Malcolm at this hour of the morning. Yet neither could she well appear alone. Ere she had spoken Malcolm rose.

"You won't mind being left, my lady," he said, "for a quarter of an hour or so--will you? I want to bring Lizzy to walk home with you."

He went, and Clementina sat alone on the dune in a reposeful rapture, to which the sleeplessness of the night gave a certain additional intensity and richness and strangeness. She watched the great strides of her fisherman as he walked along the sands, and she seemed not to be left behind, but to go with him every step. The tide was again falling, and the sea shone and sparkled and danced with life, and the wet sand gleamed, and a soft air blew on her cheek, and the lordly sun was mounting higher and higher, and a lark over her head was sacrificing all nature in his song; and it seemed as if Malcolm were still speaking strange, half intelligible, altogether lovely things in her ears. She felt a little weary, and laid her head down upon her arm to listen more at her ease.

Now the lark had seen all and heard all, and was telling it again to the universe, only in dark sayings which none but themselves could understand; therefore it is no wonder that, as she listened, his song melted into a dream, and she slept. And the dream was lovely as dream needs be, but not lovelier than the wakeful night.

She opened her eyes, calm as any cradled child, and there stood her fisherman!

"I have been explaining to Lizzy, my lady," he said, "that your ladyship would rather have her company up to the door than mine.

Lizzy is to be trusted, my lady."

"'Deed, my leddy," said Lizzy, "Ma'colm's been ower guid to me, no to gar me du onything he wad ha'e o' me, I can haud my tongue whan I like, my leddy. An' dinna doobt my thouchts, my leddy, for I ken Ma'colm as weel's ye du yersel', my leddy."

While she was speaking, Clementina rose, and they went straight to the door in the bank. Through the tunnel and the young wood and the dew and the morning odours, along the lovely paths the three walked to the house together. And oh, how the larks of the earth and the larks of the soul sang for two of them! And how the burn rang with music, and the air throbbed with sweetest life! while the breath of G.o.d made a little sound as of a going now and then in the tops of the fir trees, and the sun shone his brightest and best, and all nature knew that the heart of G.o.d is the home of his creatures.

When they drew near the house Malcolm left them. After they had rung a good many times, the door was opened by the housekeeper, looking very proper and just a little scandalized.

"Please, Mrs Courthope," said Lady Clementina, "will you give orders that when this young woman comes to see me today she shall be shown up to my room?"

Then she turned to Lizzy and thanked her for her kindness, and they parted--Lizzy to her baby, and Clementina to yet a dream or two.

Long before her dreams were sleeping ones, however, Malcolm was out in the bay in the Psyche's dinghy, catching mackerel: some should be for his grandfather, some for Miss Horn, some for Mrs Courthope, and some for Mrs Crathie.

CHAPTER LXVIII: THE CREW OF THE BONNIE ANNIE

Having caught as many fish as he wanted, Malcolm rowed to the other side of the Scaurnose. There he landed and left the dinghy in the shelter of the rocks, the fish covered with long broad leaved tangles, climbed the steep cliff, and sought Blue Peter. The brown village was quiet as a churchyard, although the sun was now growing hot. Of the men some were not yet returned from the night's fishing, and some were asleep in their beds after it. Not a chimney smoked.

But Malcolm seemed to have in his own single being life and joy enough for a world; such an intense consciousness of bliss burned within him, that, in the sightless, motionless village, he seemed to himself to stand like an altar blazing in the midst of desert Carnac. But he was not the only one awake: on the threshold of Peter's cottage sat his little Phemy, trying to polish a bit of serpentine marble upon the doorstep, with the help of water, which stood by her side in a broken tea cup.

She lifted her sweet gray eyes, and smiled him a welcome.

"Are ye up a'ready, Phemy?" he said.

"I ha'ena been doon yet," she answered. "My mither was oot last nicht wi' the boat, an' Auntie Jinse was wi' the bairn, an' sae I cud du as I likit."

"An' what did ye like, Phemy?"

"A'body kens what I like," answered the child: "I was oot an' aboot a' nicht. An' eh, Ma'colm! I hed a veesion."

"What was that, Phemy?"

"I was upo' the tap o' the Nose, jist as the sun rase, luikin'

aboot me, an' awa' upo' the Boar's Tail I saw twa angels sayin'

their prayers. Nae doobt they war prayin' for the haill warl', i'

the quaiet o' the mornin' afore the din begud. Maybe ane them was that auld priest wi' the lang name i' the buik o' Genesis, 'at hed naither father nor mither--puir man!--him 'at gaed aboot blissin' fowk."

Malcolm thought he might take his own time to set the child right, and asked her to go and tell her father that he wanted to see him.

In a few minutes Blue Peter appeared, rubbing his eyes--one of the dead called too early from the tomb of sleep.

"Freen' Peter," said Malcolm, "I'm gaein' to speak oot the day."

Peter woke up.

"Weel," he said, "I am glaid o' that, Ma'colm,--I beg yer pardon, my lord, I sud say.--Annie!"

"Haud a quaiet sough, man. I wadna hae 't come oot at Scaurnose first. I'm come noo 'cause I want ye to stan' by me."

"I wull that, my lord."

"Weel, gang an' gether yer boat's crew, an' fess them doon to the cove, an' I'll tell them, an' maybe they'll stan' by me as weel."

"There's little fear o' that, gien I ken my men," answered Peter, and went off, rather less than half clothed, the sun burning hot upon his back, through the sleeping village, to call them, while Malcolm went and waited beside the dinghy.

At length six men in a body, and one lagging behind, appeared coming down the winding path--all but Peter no doubt wondering why they were called so soon from their beds, on such a peaceful morning, after being out the night before. Malcolm went to meet them.

"Freen's," he said, "I'm in want o' yer help."

"Onything ye like, Ma'colm, sae far 's I'm concernt, 'cep' it be to. ride yer mere. That I wull no tak in han'," said Jeames Gentle.

"It's no that," returned Malcolm. "It's naething freely sae hard's that, I'm thinkin'. The hard 'll be to believe what I'm gaein' to tell ye."

"Ye'll no be gaein' to set up for a proaphet?" said Girnel, with something approaching a sneer.

Girnel was the one who came down behind the rest.

"Na, na; naething like it," said Blue Peter.

"But first ye'll promise to haud yer tongues for half a day?" said Malcolm.

"Ay, ay; we'll no clype."--"We s' haud ower tongues," cried one and another and another, and all seemed to a.s.sent.

"Weel," said Malcolm, "My name 's no Ma'colm MacPhail, but--"

"We a' ken that," said Girnel.

"An' what mair du ye ken?" asked Blue Peter, with some anger at his interruption.

"Ow, naething."

"Weel, ye ken little," said Peter, and the rest laughed.