Malcolm

"An' syne for Lizzy!—" began Mrs Catanach, prefacing fresh remark.

But at her name the mother flew into such a rage that, fearful of scandal, seeing it was the Sabbath and they were on their way to public worship, her companion would have exerted all her powers of oiliest persuasion to appease her. But if there was one thing Mrs Catanach did not understand it was the heart of a mother.

"Hoots, Mistress Findlay! Fowk 'll hear ye. Haud yer tongue, I beg. She may dee i' the strae for me. I s' never put han' to the savin' o' her, or her bairn aither," said the midwife, thinking thus to pacify her.

Then, like the eruption following mere volcanic unrest, out brake the sore hearted woman's wrath. And now at length the crustacean was too much for the mollusk. She raved and scolded and abused Mrs Catanach, till at last she was driven to that final resource—the airs of an injured woman. She turned and walked back to the upper town, while Mrs Findlay went on to take what share she might in the worship of the congregation.

Mrs Mair had that evening gone once more to the Baillies' Barn in her husband's absence; for the words of unbelief he had uttered in the Job-like agony of his soul, had haunted the heart of his spouse, until she too felt as if she could hardly believe in a God. Few know what a poor thing their faith is till the trial comes. And in the weakness consequent on protracted suffering, she had begun to fancy that the loss of Phemy was a punishment upon them for deserting the conventicle. Also the schoolmaster was under an interdict, and that looked like a judgment too! She must find some prop for the faith that was now shaking like a reed in the wind. So to the Baillies' Barn she had gone.

The tempest which had convulsed Mrs Findlay's atmosphere, had swept its vapours with it as it passed away; and when she entered the cavern, it was with an unwonted inclination to be friendly all round. As fate would have it, she unwittingly took her place by Mrs Mair, whom she had not seen since she gave Lizzy shelter. When she discovered who her neighbour was, she started away, and stared; but she had had enough of quarrelling for the evening, and besides had not had time to bar her door against the angel Pity, who suddenly stepped across the threshhold of her heart with the sight of Mrs Mair's pale thin cheeks and tear reddened eyes. As suddenly, however, an indwelling demon of her own house, whose name was Envy, arose from the ashes of her hearth to meet the white robed visitant: Phemy, poor little harmless thing, was safe enough! who would harm a hair of her? but Lizzy! And this woman had taken in the fugitive from honest chastisement! She would yet have sought another seat but the congregation rose to sing; and her neighbour's offer of the use in common of her psalm book, was enough to quiet for the moment the gaseous brain of the turbulent woman. She accepted the kindness, and, the singing over, did not refuse to look on the same holy page with her daughter's friend, while the ploughman read, with fitting simplicity, the parable of the Prodigal Son. It touched something in both, but a different something in each. Strange to say, neither applied it to her own case, but each to her neighbour's. As the reader uttered the words "was lost and is found" and ceased, each turned to the other with a whisper. Mrs Mair persisted in hers; and the other, which was odd enough, yielded and listened.

"Wad the tale haud wi' lassies as weel 's laddies, Mistress Findlay, div ye think?" said Mrs Mair.

"Ow, surely!" was the response; "it maun du that. There no respec' o' persons wi' him. there's no a doobt but yer Phemy 'ill come hame to ye safe an' soon'."

"I was thinkin' aboot Lizzy," said the other, a little astonished; and then the prayer began, and they had to be silent.

The sermon of the ploughman was both dull and sensible,—an excellent variety where few of the sermons were either; but it made little impression on Mrs Findlay or Mrs Mair.

As they left the cave together in the crowd of issuing worshippers, Mrs Mair whispered again:

"I wad invete ye ower, but ye wad be wantin' Lizzy hame, an' I can ill spare the comfort o' her the noo," she said, with the cunning of a dove.

"An' what comes o' me?" rejoined Mrs Findlay, her claws out in a moment where her personal consequence was touched. "Ye wadna surely tak her frae me a' at ance!" pleaded Mrs Mair. "Ye micht lat her bide—jist till Phemy comes hame; an' syne—" But there she broke down; and the tempest of sobs that followed quite overcame the heart of Mrs Findlay. She was, in truth, a woman like another; only being of the crustacean order, she had not yet swallowed her skeleton, as all of us have to do more or less, sooner or later, the idea of that scaffolding being that it should be out of sight. With the best commonplaces at her command she sought to comfort her companion; walked with her to the foot of the red path; found her much more to her mind than Mrs Catanach: seemed inclined to go with her all the way, but suddenly stopped, bade her goodnight, and left her.

CHAPTER LXIII: MISS HORN AND LORD LOSSIE

Notwithstanding the quarrel, Mrs Catanach did not return without having gained something; she had learned that Miss Horn had been foiled in what she had no doubt was an attempt to obtain proof that Malcolm was not the son of Mrs Stewart. The discovery was a grateful one; for who could have told but there might be something in existence to connect him with another origin than she and Mrs Stewart would assign him?

The next day the marquis returned. Almost his first word was the desire that Malcolm should be sent to him. But nobody knew more than that he was missing; whereupon he sent for Duncan. The old man explained his boy's absence, and as soon as he was dismissed, took his way to the town, and called upon Miss Horn. In half an hour, the good lady started on foot for Duff Harbour. It was already growing dark; but there was one feeling Miss Horn had certainly been created without, and that was fear.

As she approached her destination, tramping eagerly along, in a half cloudy, half starlit night, with a damp east wind blowing cold from the German Ocean, she was startled by the swift rush of something dark across the road before her. It came out of a small wood on the left towards the sea, and bolted through a hedge on the right.

"Is that you, laird?" she cried; but there came no answer.

She walked straight to the house of her lawyer friend, and, after an hour's rest, the same night set out again for Portlossie, which she reached in safety by her bedtime.

Lord Lossie was very accessible. Like Shakspere's Prince Hal, he was so much interested in the varieties of the outcome of human character, that he would not willingly lose a chance of seeing "more man." If the individual proved a bore, he would get rid of him without remorse; if amusing, he would contrive to prolong the interview. There was a great deal of undeveloped humanity somewhere in his lordship, one of whose indications was this spectacular interest in his kind. As to their bygone history, how they fared out of his sight, or what might become of them, he never gave a thought to anything of the kind—never felt the pull of one of the bonds of brotherhood, laughed at them the moment they were gone, or, if a woman's story had touched him, wiped his eyes with an oath, and thought himself too good a fellow for this world.

Since his retirement from the more indolent life of the metropolis to the quieter and more active pursuits of the country, his character had bettered a little—inasmuch as it was a shade more accessible to spiritual influences; the hard soil had in a few places cracked a hair's breadth, and lay thus far open to the search of those sun rays which, when they find the human germ, that is, the conscience, straightway begin to sting it into life. To this betterment the company of his daughter had chiefly contributed; for if she was little more developed in the right direction than himself she was far less developed in the wrong, and the play of affection between them was the divinest influence that could as yet be brought to bear upon either; but certain circumstances of late occurrence had had a share in it, occasioning a revival of old memories which had a considerably sobering effect upon him.

As he sat at breakfast, about eleven o'clock on the morning after his return, one of his English servants entered with the message that a person, calling herself Miss Horn, and refusing to explain her business desired to see his lordship for a few minutes "Who is she?" asked the marquis. The man did not know.

"What is she like?"

"An odd looking old lady, my lord, and very oddly dressed."

"Show her into the next room. I shall be with her directly."

Finishing his cup of coffee and peafowl's egg with deliberation, while he tried his best to recall in what connection he could have heard the name before, the marquis at length sauntered into the morning room in his dressing gown, with the Times of the day before yesterday, just arrived, in his hand. There stood his visitor waiting for him, such as my reader knows her, black and gaunt and grim, in a bay window, whose light almost surrounded her, so that there was scarcely a shadow about her, and yet to the eyes of the marquis she seemed wrapped in shadows. Mysterious as some sybil, whose being held secrets the first whisper of which had turned her old, but made her immortal, she towered before him, with her eyes fixed upon him, and neither spoke nor moved.

"To what am I indebted—?" began his lordship; but Miss Horn speedily interrupted his courtesy.

"Own to nae debt, my lord, till ye ken what it 's for," she said, without a tone or inflection to indicate a pleasantry.

"Good!" returned his lordship, and waited with a smile. She promised amusement, and he was ready for it—but it hardly came.

"Ken ye that han' o' wreet, my lord?" she inquired, sternly advancing a step, and holding out a scrap of paper at arm's length, as if presenting a pistol.

The marquis took it. In his countenance curiosity had mingled with the expectation. He glanced at it. A shadow swept over his face but vanished instantly: the mask of impervious non expression which a man of his breeding always knows how to assume, was already on his visage.

"Where did you get this?" he said quietly, with just the slightest catch in his voice.

"I got it, my lord, whaur there's mair like it."

"Show me them."

"I hae shawn ye plenty for a swatch (pattern), my lord."

"You refuse?" said the marquis; and the tone of the question was like the first cold puff that indicates a change of weather.

"I div, my lord," she answered imperturbably.

"If they are not my property, why do you bring me this?"

"Are they your property, my lord?"

"This is my handwriting."

"Ye alloo that?"

"Certainly, my good woman. You did not expect me to deny it?"

"God forbid, my lord! But will ye uphaud yersel' the lawfu' heir to the deceased? It lies 'atween yer lordship an' mysel'—i' the meantime."

He sat down, holding the scrap of paper between his finger and thumb.

"I will buy them of you," he said coolly, after a moment's thought, and as he spoke he looked keenly at her.

The form of reply which first arose in Miss Horn's indignant soul never reached her lips.

"It's no my trade," she answered, with the coldness of suppressed wrath. "I dinna deal in sic waurs."

"What do you deal in then?" asked the marquis.

"In trouth an' fair play, my lord," she answered, and was again silent.

So was the marquis for some moments, but was the first to resume.

"If you think the papers to which you refer of the least value, allow me to tell you it is an entire mistake."

"There was ane thoucht them o' vailue," replied Miss Horn—and her voice trembled a little, but she hemmed away her emotion— "for a time at least, my lord; an' for her sake they're o' vailue to me, be they what they may to yer lordship. But wha can tell? Scots law may put life intill them yet, an' gie them a vailue to somebody forbye me."

"What I mean, my good woman, is, that if you think the possession of those papers gives you any hold over me which you can turn to your advantage, you are mistaken."

"Guid forgie ye, my lord! My advantage! I thoucht yer lordship had been mair o' a gentleman by this time, or I wad hae sent a lawyer till ye, in place o' comin' mysel'."

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's plain ye cudna hae been muckle o' a gentleman ance, my lord; an' it seems ye're no muckle mair o' ane yet, for a' ye maun hae come throu' i' the meantime."

"I trust you have discovered nothing in those letters to afford ground for such a harsh judgment," said the marquis seriously.

"Na, no a word i' them, but the mair oot o' them. Ye winna threep upo' me 'at a man wha lea's a wuman, lat alane his wife—or ane 'at he ca's his wife—to a' the pains o' a mither, an' a' the penalties o' an oonmerried ane, ohn ever speirt hoo she wan throu' them, preserves the richt he was born till o' bein' coontit a gentleman? Ony gait, a maiden, wuman like mysel' wha has nae feelin's will not alloo him the teetle—Guid forbid it!"

"You are plain spoken."

" plain made, my lord. I ken guid frae ill, an' little forbye, but aye fand that eneuch to sare my turn. Aither thae letters o' yer lordship's are ilk ane o' them a lee, or ye desertit yer wife an' bairn."

"Alas!" interrupted the marquis with some emotion—"she deserted me—and took the child with her!"

"Wha ever daurt sic a lee upo' my Grizel?" shouted Miss Horn, clenching and shaking her bony fist at the world in general. "It was but a fortnicht or three weeks, as near as I can judge, efter the birth o' your bairn, that Grizel Cam'ell—"

"Were you with her then?" again interrupted the marquis, in a tone of sorrowful interest.

"No, my lord, I was not. Gien I had been, I wadna be upo' sic an eeran' this day. For nigh twenty lang years 'at her 'an me keepit hoose thegither, till she dee'd i' my airms, never a day was she oot o' my sicht, or ance—"

The marquis leaped rather than started to his feet, exclaiming, "What in the name of God do you mean, woman?"

"I kenna what ye mean, my lord. I ken 'at but tellin' ye the trouth whan I tell ye 'at Grizel Cam'ell, up to that day, an' that's little ower sax month sin' syne."

"Good God!" cried the marquis; "and here have I—Woman! are you speaking the truth? If—," he added threateningly, and paused.

"Leein' 's what I never cud bide, my lord, an' no likly to tak till 't at my age, wi' the lang to come afore me."

The marquis strode several times up and down the floor. "I 'll give you a thousand pounds for those letters," he said, suddenly stopping in front of Miss Horn.

"they're o' nae sic worth, my lord—I hae yer ain word for 't. But I carena the leg o' a spin maggie (daddy longlegs)! Pairt wi' them I will not, 'cep' to him 'at pruves himsel' the richtfu' heir to them."

"A husband inherits from his wife."

"Or maybe her son micht claim first—I dinna ken. But there's lawyers, my lord, to redd the doot."

"Her son! You don't mean—"

"I div mean Ma'colm MacPhail, my lord."

"God in heaven!"

"His name 's mair i' yer mou' nor i' yer hert, doobtin', my lord! Ye a' cry oot upo' him—the men o' ye—whan ye' 're in ony tribble, or want to gar women believe ye! But thinkin' he peys but little heed to sic prayers."

Thus Miss Horn; but Lord Lossie was striding up and down the room, heedless of her remarks, his eyes on the ground, his arms straight by his sides, and his hands clenched.

"Can you prove what you say?" he asked at length, half stopping, and casting an almost wild look at Miss Horn, then resuming his hurried walk. His voice sounded hollow, as if sent from the heart of a gulf of pain.

"No, my lord," answered Miss Horn.

"Then what the devil," roared the marquis, "do you mean by coming to me with such a cock and bull story."

"there's naither cock craw nor bill rair intill 't my lord. I cum to you wi' 't i' the houp ye 'll help to redd (clear) it up, for I dinna weel ken what we can du wantin' ye. there's but ane kens a' the truth o' 't, an' she's the awfu'es leear oot o' purgatory—no 'at I believe in purgatory, but it 's the langer an' lichter word to mak' use o'."

"Who is she?"

"By name she's Bauby Cat'nach, an' by natur' she's what I tell ye—an' gien I had her 'atween my twa een, it 's what I wad say to the face o' her."

"It can't be MacPhail! Mrs Stewart says he is her son, and the woman Catanach is her chief witness in support of the claim."

"The deevil has a better to the twa o' them, my lord, as they 'll ken some day. His claim 'll want nae supportin'. Dinna ye believe a word Mistress Stewart or Bauby Catanach aither wad say to ye.—Gien he be Mistress Stewart's, wha was his father?"

"You think he resembles my late brother: he has a look of him, I confess."

"He has, my lord. But onybody 'at kent the mither o' 'im, as you an' me did, my lord, wad see anither lik'ness as weel."

"I grant nothing."

"Ye grant Grizel Cam'ell yer wife, my lord, whan ye own to that wreet. Gien 't war naething but a written promise an' a bairn to follow, it wad be merriage eneuch i' this cuintry, though it mayna be in cuintries no sae ceevileest."

"But all that is nothing as to the child. Why do you fix on this young fellow? You say you can't prove it."

"But ye cud, my lord, gien ye war as set upo' justice as I am. Gien ye winna muv i' the maitter, we s' manage to hirple (go halting) throu' wantin ye, though, wi' the Lord's help."

The marquis, who had all this time continued his walk up and down the floor, stood still, raised his head as if about to speak, dropped it again on his chest, strode to the other window, turned, strode back, and said,

"This is a very serious matter."

"It's a' that, my lord," replied Miss Horn.

"You must give me a little time to turn it over," said the marquis.

"Isna twenty year time eneuch, my lord?" rejoined Miss Horn.

"I swear to you that till this moment I believed her twenty years in her grave. My brother sent me word that she died in childbed, and the child with her. I was then in Brussels with the Duke."

Miss Horn made three great strides, caught the marquis's hand in both hers, and said, "I praise God ye're an honest man, my lord."

"I hope so," said the marquis, and seized the advantage "You'll hold your tongue about this ?" he added, half inquiring, half requesting.

"As lang as I see rizzon, my lord, nae langer," answered Miss Horn, dropping his hand. "Richt maun be dune."

"Yes—if you can tell what right is, and avoid wrong to others."

"Richt 's richt, my lord," persisted Miss Horn. "I 'll hae nae modifi-qualifications!"

His lordship once more began to walk up and down the room every now and then taking a stolen glance at Miss Horn, a glance of uneasy anxious questioning. She stood rigid—a very Lot's wife of immobility, her eyes on the ground, waiting what he would say next.

"I wish I knew whether I could trust her," he said at length, as if talking aloud to himself.

Miss Horn took no notice.

"Why don't you speak, woman?" cried the marquis with irritation. How he hated perplexity!

"Ye speired nae queston, my lord; an' gien ye had, my word has ower little weicht to answer wi'."

"Can I trust you, woman—I want to know," said his lordship angrily.

"No far'er, my lord, nor to du what I think 's richt."

"I want to be certain that you will do nothing with those letters until you hear from me?" said the marquis, heedless of her reply.

"I 'll du naething afore the morn. Far'er nor that I winna pledge mysel'," answered Miss Horn, and with the words moved towards the door.

"Hadn't you better take this with you?" said the marquis, offering the little note, which he had carried all the time between his finger and thumb.

"there's nae occasion. I hae plenty wantin' that. Only dinna lea' 't lyin' aboot."

"there's small danger of that," said the marquis, and rang the bell.

The moment she was out of the way, he went up to his own room, and, flinging the door to, sat down at the table, and laid his arms and head upon it. The acrid vapour of tears that should have been wept long since, rose to his eyes: he dashed his hand across them, as if ashamed that he was not even yet out of sight of the kingdom of heaven. His own handwriting, of a period when all former sins and defilements seemed about to be burned clean from his soul by the fire of an honest and virtuous love, had moved him; for genuine had been his affection for the girl who had risked and lost so much for him. It was with no evil intent, for her influence had rendered him for the time incapable of playing her false, but in part from reasons of prudence, as he persuaded himself, for both their sakes, and in part led astray by the zest which minds of a certain cast derive from the secrecy of pleasure, that he had persuaded her to the unequal yoking of honesty and secrecy. But, suddenly called away and sent by the Prince on a private mission, soon after their marriage, and before there was any special reason to apprehend consequences that must lead to discovery, he had, in the difficulties of the case and the hope of a speedy return, left her without any arrangement for correspondence and all he had ever heard of her more was from his brother, then the marquis—a cynical account of the discovery of her condition, followed almost immediately by a circumstantial one of her death and that of her infant. He was deeply stung and the thought of her sufferings in the false position where his selfishness had placed her, haunted him for a time beyond his endurance—for of all things he hated suffering, and of all sufferings remorse is the worst. Hence, where a wiser man might have repented, he rushed into dissipation, whose scorching wind swept away not only the healing dews of his sorrow, but the tender buds of new life that had begun to mottle the withering tree of his nature. The desire after better things which had, under his wife's genial influence, begun to pass into effort, not only vanished utterly in the shameless round of evil distraction, but its memory became a mockery to the cynical spirit that arose behind the vanishing angel of repentance; and he was soon in the condition of the man from whom the exorcised demon had gone but to find his seven worse companions.

Reduced at length to straits—almost to want, he had married the mother of Florimel, to whom for a time he endeavoured to conduct himself in some measure like a gentleman. For this he had been rewarded by a decrease in the rate of his spiritual submergence, but his bedraggled nature could no longer walk without treading on its own plumes; and the poor lady who had bartered herself for a lofty alliance, speedily found her mistake a sad one and her life uninteresting, took to repining and tears, alienated her husband utterly, and died of a sorrow almost too selfish to afford even a suggestion of purifying efficacy. But Florimel had not inherited immediately from her mother, so far as disposition was concerned; in these latter days she had grown very dear to him, and his love had once more turned his face a little towards the path of righteousness. Ah! when would he move one step to set his feet in it?

And now, after his whirlwind harvest of evil knowledge, bitter disappointment, and fading passion, in the gathering mists of gray hopelessness, and the far worse mephitic air of indifference, he had come all of a sudden upon the ghastly discovery that, while overwhelmed with remorse for the vanished past, the present and the future had been calling him, but had now also—that present and that future—glided from him, and folded their wings of gloom in the land of shadows. All the fierce time he might have been blessedly growing better, instead of heaping sin upon sin until the weight was too heavy for repentance; for, while he had been bemoaning a dead wife, that wife had been loving a renegade husband! And the blame of it all he did not fail to cast upon that Providence in which until now he had professed not to believe: such faith as he was yet capable of, awoke in the form of resentment! He judged himself hardly done by; and the few admonitory sermons he had happened to hear, especially that in the cave about the dogs going round the walls of the New Jerusalem, returned upon him, not as warnings, but as old threats now rapidly approaching fulfilment.