"No buts, but an answer!"

"Weel--it's yer am wyte, my leddy!--I wad jist gang doon upo'

my k-nees, whaur I stude afore ye, and tell ye a heap o' things 'at maybe by that time ye wad ken weel eneuch a'ready ."

"What would you tell me?"

"I wad tell ye 'at yer een war like the verra leme o' the levin (brightness of the lightning) itsel'; yer cheek like a white rose the licht frae a reid ane; yer hair jist the saft lattin' gang o'

his han's whan the Maker cud du nae mair; yer mou' jist fashioned to drive fowk daft 'at daurna come nearer nor luik at it; an' for yer shape, it was like naething in natur' but itsel'.--Ye wad hae't my leddy!" he added apologetically--and well he might, for Lady Florimel's cheek had flushed, and her eye had been darting fire long before he got to the end of his Celtic outpouring. Whether she was really angry or not, she had no difficulty in making Malcolm believe she was. She rose from her chair--though not until he had ended--swept halfway to the door, then turned upon him with a flash.

"How dare you?" she said, her breed well obeying the call of the game.

"I'm verra sorry, my leddy," faltered Malcolm, trying to steady himself against a strange trembling that had laid hold upon him, "--but ye maun alloo it was a' yer ain wyte."

"Do you dare to say 1 encouraged you to talk such stuff to me?"

"Ye did gar me, my leddy."

Florimel turned and undulated from the room, leaving the poor fellow like a statue in the middle of it, with the books all turning their backs upon him.

"Noo," he said to himself, "she's aff to tell her father, and there'll be a bonny bane to pyke atween him an' me! But haith! I'll jist tell him the trowth o' 't, an' syne he can mak a kirk an' a mill o' 't, gien he likes."

With this resolution he stood his ground, every moment expecting the wrathful father to make his appearance and at the least order him out of the house. But minute pa.s.sed after minute, and no wrathful father came. He grew calmer by degrees, and at length began to peep at the t.i.tles of the books.

When the great bell rang for lunch, he was embalmed rather than buried in one of Milton's prose volumes--standing before the shelf on which he had found it--the very incarnation of study.

My reader may well judge that Malcolm could not have been very far gone in love, seeing he was thus able to read, remark in return that it was not merely the distance between him and Lady Florimel that had hitherto preserved his being from absorption and his will from annihilation, but also the strength of his common sense, and the force of his individuality.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV: MILTON, AND THE BAY MARE

For some days Malcolm saw nothing more of Lady Florimel; but with his grandfather's new dwelling to see to, the carpenter's shop and the blacksmith's forge open to him, and an eye to detect whatever wanted setting right, the hours did not hang heavy on his hands.

At length, whether it was that she thought she had punished him sufficiently for an offence for which she was herself only to blame, or that she had indeed never been offended at all and had only been keeping up her one sided game, she began again to indulge the interest she could not help feeling in him, an interest heightened by the mystery which hung over his birth, and by the fact that she knew that concerning him of which he was himself ignorant. At the same time, as I have already said, she had no little need of an escape from the ennui which, now that the novelty of a country life had worn off did more than occasionally threaten her. She began again to seek his company under the guise of his help, half requesting, half commanding his services; and Malcolm found himself admitted afresh to the heaven of her favour. Young as he was, he read himself a lesson suitable to the occasion.

One afternoon the marquis sent for him to the library, but when he reached it his master was not yet there. He took down the volume of Milton in which he had been reading before, and was soon absorbed in it again.

"Faith! it's a big shame," he cried at length almost unconsciously, and closed the book with a slam.

"What is a big shame?" said the voice of the marquis close behind him.

Malcolm started, and almost dropped the volume.

"I beg yer lordship's pardon," he said; "I didna hear ye come in.

"What is the book you were reading?" asked the marquis.

"I was jist readin' a bit o' Milton's Eikonoklastes," answered Malcolm, "--a buik I hae hard tell o', but never saw wi' my ain een afore."

"And what's your quarrel with it?" asked his lordship.

"I canna mak oot what sud set a great man like Milton sae sair agane a puir cratur like Cherles."

"Read the history, and you 'll see."

"Ow! I ken something aboot the politics o' the time, an' I 'm no sayin' they war that wrang to tak the heid frae him, but what for sud Milton hate the man efter the king was deid?"

"Because he didn't think the king dead enough, I suppose."

"I see!--an' they war settin' him up for a saint. Still he had a richt to fair play.--Jist hearken, my lord."

So saying, Malcolm reopened the volume, and read the well known pa.s.sage, in the first chapter, in which Milton censures the king as guilty of utter irreverence, because of his adoption of the prayer of Pamela in the Arcadia.

"Noo, my lord," he said, half closing the book, "what wad ye expec'

to come upo', efter sic a denunciation as that, but some awfu'

haithenish thing? Weel, jist hearken again, for here's the verra prayer itsel' in a futnote."

His lordship had thrown himself into a chair, had crossed one leg over the other, and was now stroking its knee.

"Noo, my lord," said Malcolm again, as he concluded, "what think ye o' the jeedgment pa.s.sed?"

"Really I have no opinion to give about it," answered the marquis.

"I 'm no theologian. I see no harm in the prayer."

"Hairm in 't, my lord! It's perfetly gran'! It 's sic a prayer as cudna weel be aiqualt. It vexes me to the verra hert o' my sowl that a michty man like Milton--ane whase bein' was a crood o' hermonies --sud ca' that the prayer o' a haithen wuman till a haithen G.o.d.

'O all seein' Licht, an' eternal Life o' a' things!'--Ca's he that a haithen G.o.d?--or her 'at prayed sic a prayer a haithen wuman?"

"Well, well," said the marquis, "I do n't want it all over again.

I see nothing to find fault with, myself, but I do n't take much interest in that sort of thing."

"There's a wee bitty o' Laitin, here i' the note, 'at I canna freely mak oot," said Malcolm, approaching Lord Lossie with his finger on the pa.s.sage, never doubting that the owner of such a library must be able to read Latin perfectly: Mr Graham would have put him right at once, and his books would have been lost in one of the window corners of this huge place. But his lordship waved him back.

"I can't be your tutor," he said, not unkindly. "My Latin is far too rusty for use."

The fact was that his lordship had never got beyond Maturin Cordier's Colloquies.

"Besides," he went on, "I want you to do something for me."

Malcolm instantly replaced the book on its shelf, and approached his master, saying--

"Wull yer lordship lat me read whiles, i' this gran' place? I mean whan I'm no want.i.t ither gaits, an' there 's naebody here."

"To be sure," answered the marquis; "--only the scholar must n't come with the skipper's hands."

"I s' tak guid care o' that, my lord. I wad as sune think o' han'lin'

a book wi' wark-like han's as I wad o' branderin' a mackeral ohn cleaned it oot."

"And when we have visitors, you 'll be careful not to get in their way."