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CHAPTER LXV: THE EVE OF THE CRISIS
It was late in the sweetest of summer mornings when the Partan's boat
slipped slowly back with a light wind to the harbour of Portlossie.
Malcolm did not wait to land the fish, but having changed his
clothes and taken breakfast with Duncan, who was always up early,
went to look after Kelpie. When he had done with her, finding some
of the household already in motion, he went through the kitchen,
and up the old corkscrew stone stair to his room to have the sleep
he generally had before his breakfast. Presently came a knock at
his door, and there was Rose.
The girl's behaviour to Malcolm was much changed. The conviction
had been strengthened in her that he was not what he seemed, and
she regarded him now with a vague awe. She looked this way and
that along the passage, with fear in her eyes, then stepped timidly
inside the room to tell him, in a hurried whisper, that she had
seen the woman who gave her the poisonous philtre, talking to Caley
the night before, at the foot of the bridge, after everybody else
was in bed. She had been miserable till she could warn him. He
thanked her heartily, and said he would be on his guard; he would
neither eat nor drink in the house. She crept softly away. He
secured the door, lay down, and trying to think fell asleep.
When he woke his brain was clear. The very next day, whether
Lenorme came or not, he would declare himself. That night he would
go fishing with Lady Clementina, but not one day longer would
he allow those people to be about his sister. Who could tell what
might not be brewing, or into what abyss, with the help of her
friends, the woman Catanach might not plunge Florimel?
He rose, took Kelpie out, and had a good gallop. On his way back
he saw in the distance Florimel riding with Liftore. The earl was
on his father's bay mare. He could not endure the sight, and dashed
home at full speed.
Learning from Rose that Lady Clementina was in the flower garden,
he found her at the swan basin, feeding the gold and silver fishes.
An under gardener who had been about the place for thirty years,
was at work not far off. The light splash of the falling column
which the marble swan spouted from its upturned beak, prevented
her from hearing his approach until he was close behind her. She
turned, and her fair face took the flush of a white rose.
"My lady," he said, "I have got everything arranged for tonight."
"And when shall we go?" she asked eagerly.
"At the turn of the tide, about half past seven. But seven is your
dinner hour."
"It is of no consequence.--But could you not make it half an hour
later, and then I should not seem rude?"
"Make it any hour you please, my lady, so long as the tide is
falling."
"Let it be eight then, and dinner will be almost over. They will
not miss me after that. Mr Cairns is going to dine with them. I
think, except Liftore, I never disliked a man so much. Shall I tell
them where I am going?"
"Yes, my lady. It will be better.--They will look amazed--for
all their breeding!"
"Whose boat is it, that I may be able to tell them if they should
ask me?"
"Joseph Mair's. He and his wife will come and fetch you. Annie
Mair will go with us--if I may say us: will you allow me to go
in your boat, my lady?"
"I couldn't go without you, Malcolm."
"Thank you, my lady. Indeed I don't know how I could let you go
without me! Not that there is anything to fear, or that I could
make it the least safer; but somehow it seems my business to take
care of you."
"Like Kelpie?" said Clementina, with a merrier smile than he had
ever seen on her face before.
"Yes, my lady," answered Malcolm; "--if to do for you all and the
best you will permit me to do, be to take care of you like Kelpie,
then so it is."
Clementina gave a little sigh.
"Mind you don't scruple, my lady, to give what orders you please.
It will be your fishing boat for tonight."
Clementina bowed her head in acknowledgment.
"And now, my lady," Malcolm went on, "just look about you for a
moment. See this great vault of heaven, full of golden light raining
on trees and flowers--every atom of air shining. Take the whole
into your heart, that you may feel the difference at night, my lady
--when the stars, and neither sun nor moon, will be in the sky,
and all the flowers they shine on will be their own flitting,
blinking, swinging, shutting and opening reflections in the swaying
floor of the ocean,--when the heat will be gone, and the air
clean and clear as the thoughts of a saint."
Clementina did as he said, and gazed above and around her on the
glory of the summer day overhanging the sweet garden, and on the
flowers that had just before been making her heart ache with their
unattainable secret. But she thought with herself that if Malcolm
and she but shared it with a common heart as well as neighboured
eyes, gorgeous day and ethereal night, or snow clad wild and sky
of stormy blackness, were alike welcome to her spirit.
As they talked they wandered up the garden, and had drawn near the
spot where, in the side of the glen, was hollowed the cave of the
hermit. They now turned towards the pretty arbour of moss that
covered its entrance, each thinking the other led, but Malcolm not
without reluctance. For how horribly and unaccountably had he not
been shaken, the only time he ever entered it, at the sight of the
hermit! The thing was a foolish wooden figure, no doubt, but the
thought that it still sat over its book in the darkest corner of the
cave, ready to rise and advance with outstretched hand to welcome
its visitor, had, ever since then, sufficed to make him shudder. He
was on the point of warning Clementina lest she too should be worse
than startled, when he was arrested by the voice of John Jack, the
old gardener, who came stooping after them, looking a sexton of
flowers.
"Ma'colm, Ma'colm!" he cried, and crept up wheezing. "--I beg
yer leddyship's pardon, my leddy, but I wadna ha'e Ma'colm lat ye
gang in there ohn tellt ye what there is inside."
"Thank you, John. I was just going to tell my lady," said Malcolm.
"Because, ye see," pursued John, "I was ae day here i' the gairden
--an' I was jist graftin' a bonny wull rose buss wi' a Hector o'
France--an' it grew to be the bonniest rose buss in a' the haul
gairden--whan the markis, no the auld markis, but my leddy's
father, cam' up the walk there, an' a bonny young leddy wi' his
lordship, as it micht be yersel's twa--an' I beg yer pardon,
my leddy, but I'm an auld man noo, an' whiles forgets the differs
'atween fowk--an' this yoong leddy 'at they ca'd Miss Cam'ell--
ye kenned her yersel' efterhin', I daursay, Ma'colm--he was unco
ta'en with her, the markis, as ilka body cud see ohn luikit that
near, sae 'at some saich 'at hoo he hed no richt to gang on wi'
her that gait, garrin' her believe, gien he wasna gaein' to merry
her. That's naither here nor there, hooever, seein' it a' cam' to
jist naething ava'. Sae up they gaed to the cave yon'er, as I was
tellin' ye; an' hoo it was, was a won'er, for I 's warran' she had
been aboot the place near a towmon (twelvemonth), but never had
she been intil that cave, and kenned no more nor the bairn unborn
what there was in 't. An' sae whan the airemite, as the auld minister
ca'd him, though what for he ca'd a muckle block like yon an airy
mite, I'm sure I never cud fathom--whan he gat up, as I was sayin',
an' cam' foret wi' his han' oot, she gae a scraich 'at jist garred
my lugs dirl, an' doon she drappit, an' there, whan I ran up, was
she lyin' i' the markis his airms, as white 's a cauk eemege, an'
it was lang or he brought her till hersel', for he wadna lat me
rin for the hoosekeeper, but sent me fleein' to the f'untain for
watter, an' gied me a gowd guinea to haud my tongue aboot it a'.
Sae noo, my leddy, ye're forewarnt, an' no ill can come to ye, for
there's naething to be fleyt at whan ye ken what's gauin' to meet
ye."
Malcolm had turned his head aside, and now moved on without remark.
Struck by his silence, Clementina looked up, and saw his face very
pale, and the tears standing in his eyes.
"You must tell me the sad story, Malcolm," she murmured. "I could
scarcely understand a word the old man said."
He continued silent, and seemed struggling with some emotion. But
when they were within a few paces of the arbour, he stopped short,
and said--"I would rather not go in there today. You would oblige
me, my lady, if you would not go."
She looked up at him again, with wonder but more concern in her
lovely face, put her hand on his arm, gently turned him away, and
walked back with him to the fountain. Not a word more did she say
about the matter.
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