Malcolmson

“ But Malcolmson, for once, for the only time since I have known him, was unwilling to sit down and talk. His train, supposing that he took the quickest route to Belfast, did not leave Euston till 8 or 9 o’clock at night; but he felt that he must be up and doing at once. He fussed out of the club, and for some time I saw no more of him.
I waited until the hall porter had cut up the slips of paper which fell from the clicking machine and pinned the bits to the notice boards. Then I read the news for myself. These machines are singularly unintelligent. ”

“ I said, “Conroy is financing them.”
“Conroy has some sound ideas,” said Malcolmson.
[Pg 98]
“You approve of the paper, then?” said McNeice.
“I like straight talk,” said Malcolmson.
“We aim at that,” said O’Donovan.
“I’m dead sick of politics and speech making,” said Malcolmson. “What I want is to have a slap at the damned rebels.”
“Mr. O’Donovan’s point of view,” I said, “is almost the same as yours. What he wants—”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Malcolmson, “and I need only say that when the time comes, gentlemen, and it won’t be long now if things go on as they are going—you’ll find me ready. ”

“ Malcolmson's," replied Wedgwood. "Where does he live?"
"If you'll come outside, on the road, I'll show you," answered the man. He led Wedgwood and the Superintendent to the front of the inn and pointed across the valley to a low ridge of hillside that rose beyond the works of the colliery. "Do you see a house up yonder, edge of a wood?" he asked. "That's Malcolmson's! A roughish way it 'ud be, too, that night—either going there or coming back—worse, of course, coming back, if they bided there any length of time. It started to be real bad that night between six and seven." ”

“ Malcolmson felt amazed, and seizing the poker from the hearth ran at it to kill it. Before, however, he could strike it, the rat, with a squeak that sounded like the concentration of hate, jumped upon the floor, and, running up the rope of the alarm bell, disappeared in the darkness beyond the range of the green-shaded lamp. Instantly, strange to say, the noisy scampering of the rats in the wainscot began again. ”

“ Malcolmson has a vile habit of grabbing the clothes of any one he particularly wants to speak to. If the subject is only moderately interesting he pulls a sleeve or a lappet of a coat. When he has something very important to say, he inserts two fingers between the buttons of your waistcoat and pulls. ”

“ Malcolmson, you know, and our Dean. If you’d only gone to hear the Dean preach this morning you’d know what he thinks about blood. I’ve often heard him say that the last drop of it—mind that now, Sir Samuel—the last drop ought to be shed. That’s going as far as any one very well could, isn’t it?”
“But he must,” said Clithering, “he must think bloodshed deplorable.”
“No, he doesn’t,” I said. “You mustn’t think everybody is like your Government. It’s humanitarian. We’re not. We’re business men.” ”

“ Rats and mice, and beetles; and creaky doors, and loose slates, and broken panes, and stiff drawer handles, that stay out when you pull them and then fall down in the middle of the night. Look at the wainscot of the room! It is old—hundreds of years old! Do you think there’s no rats and beetles there! And do you imagine, sir, that you won’t see none of them? Rats is bogies, I tell you, and bogies is rats; and don’t you get to think anything else!”
“Mrs. Dempster,” said Malcolmson gravely, making her a polite bow, “you know more than a Senior Wrangler! ”

“ Gie me a drap mair, gien ye please, Lady Horn.—I thoucht the grave was a better place. I hae lain safter afore I dee’d!——Phemy! Phemy! Rin, Phemy, rin! I s’ bide wi’ them this time. Ye rin, Phemy!”
As it grew dark, the air turned very chill, and snow began to fall thick and fast. Malcolm laid a few sticks on the smouldering peat-fire, but they were damp and did not catch. All at once the laird gave a shriek, and crying out, “Mither, mither!” fell into a fit so violent that the heavy bed shook with his convulsions. Malcolm held his wrists and called aloud. ”

“ As he spoke he leaped from the bed, and seized Malcolm by the back of the neck.
“It’s a mercy I wasna mair like an honest man,” said Malcolm, “or that bullet wad hae been throu’ the hams o’ me. Yer lordship’s a wheen ower rash.”
“Rash! you rascal!” cried Lord Lossie; “—when a fellow comes into my room on his hands and knees in the middle of the night! Get up, and tell me what you are after, or, by Jove! I’ll break every bone in your body.”
A kick from his bare foot in Malcolm’s ribs fitly closed the sentence.
“Ye are ower rash, my lord!” persisted Malcolm. “I canna get up. ”

“ His wrath gradually died away, until at last he begged his boy to take his pipes, that he might give him a lesson. Malcolm made the attempt, but found it impossible to fill the bag with his swollen and cut lips, and had to beg his grandfather to play to him instead. He gladly consented, and played until bed-time; when, having tucked him up, Malcolm went quietly to his own room, avoiding supper and the eyes of Mrs Courthope together. He fell asleep in a moment, and spent a night of perfect oblivion, dreamless of wizard lord or witch lady. ”

“ But as Malcolm uttered her name, his heart sank within him, for their talk the night he had sought her hospitality for the laird, came back to his memory, burning like an acrid poison.
“You can’t do better,” said Mr Graham. “The report itself may be false—or true, and the lady mistaken.”
“She’ll hae to pruv ’t weel afore I say haud,” rejoined Malcolm.
“And suppose she does?”
“In that case,” said Malcolm, with a composure almost ghastly, “a man maun tak what mither it pleases God to gie him. But faith! she winna du wi’ me as wi’ the puir laird. ”

“ What! he's but a low countrywoman's son. I will not wash his feet [fol. 244.] indeed.' However, with much intreaty Malcolm prevailed upon the maid to stoop so low as to wash poor Lewie's feet. [140] While she was washing them she happened to use him right roughly, and the Prince said to Malcolm, 'O MacLeod, if you would desire the girl not to go so far up.'
Malcolm importuned the Prince to go to bed and take some rest. The Prince then asked who would keep guard for fear of an alarm? Malcolm said he would do it himself. ”

“ Most of the men recognized the marquis; some near the entrance saw only Malcolm clearing the way: marquis or fisher, it was all the same when souls were at stake: they crowded with one consent to oppose their exit: yet another chance they must have, whether they would or not. These men were in the mood to give—not their own —but those other men’s bodies to be burnt on the poorest chance of saving their souls from the everlasting burnings.
Malcolm would have been ready enough for a fight, had he and the marquis been alone, but the presence of Lady Florimel put it out of the question. ”

“ Malcolm went from him—
like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn.
Here was trouble upon trouble! But what had befallen him compared with what had come upon the schoolmaster! A man like him to be so treated! How gladly he would work for him all the rest of his days! And how welcome his grandfather would make him to his cottage! Lord Lossie would be the last to object. But he knew it was a baseless castle while he built it, for Mr Graham would assuredly provide for himself, if it were by breaking stones on the road and saying the Lord’s Prayer. ”

“ Hiding his reluctance, he went with her and found Tom, who was Mrs Stewart’s grieve, and had been about the place all his days.
“Mr Stephen’s come hame, sir,” he said, touching his bonnet, a civility for which Malcolm was not grateful.
“It’s no possible!” returned Malcolm. “I saw him last nicht.”
“He cam aboot ten o’clock, sir, an’ hed a turn o’ the fa’in’ sickness o’ the spot. He’s verra ill the noo, an’ the mistress sent me ower to speir gien ye wad obleege her by gaein’ to see him.”
“Has he ta’en till ’s bed?” asked Malcolm. ”

“ In the enforced quiescence, and under the excitements of pain and fever, Malcolm first became aware how much the idea of Lady Florimel had at length possessed him. But even in his own thought he never once came upon the phrase, in love, as representing his condition in regard of her: he only knew that he worshipped her, and would be overjoyed to die for her. The youth had about as little vanity as could well consist with individual coherence; if he was vain at all, it was neither of his intellectual nor personal endowments, but of the few tunes he could play on his grandfather’s pipes. ”

“ He had himself of course, learned all by the ear, but could hardly have been serious in requesting Malcolm to follow him through such a succession of tortuous mazes.
“I haena a memory up to that, daddy; but I s’ get a haud o’ Mr Graham’s flute-music, and maybe that’ll help me a bit.—Wadna ye be takin’ hame Meg Partan’s blackin’ ’at ye promised her?”
“Surely, my son. She should always be keeping her promises.” ”

“ Malcolm, who had been some thirty paces behind, was with her in a moment.
“Isn’t it splendid?” she cried.
“It blaws weel—verra near as weel ’s my daddy,” said Malcolm, enjoying it quite as much as the girl.
“How dare you make game of such a grand uproar?” said Florimel with superiority.
“Mak ghem o’ a blast o’ win’ by comparin’ ’t to my gran’father!” exclaimed Malcolm. “Hoot, my leddy! it’s a coamplement to the biggest blast ’at ever blew to be compairt till an auld man like him. I’m ower used to them to min’ them muckle mysel’, ’cep’ to fecht wi’ them. ”

“ Nay, that inner dedication, for which Malcolm yearned as a sacred bond to his own will, the priest forbade. It was no moment to make such a promise in his present mood, when he did not know himself. If broken, he would only be adding sin to sin; nor was Malcolm, with all his errors fresh upon him, in any state to dedicate himself worthily. The errors—which in Ralf Percy, or in most other youths, might have seemed slight—were heavy stains on one who, like Malcolm, had erred, not thoughtlessly, but with a conscience of them all, in wilful abandonment of his higher principles. ”

“ Haven't you any other friends in London to whom she could have gone?"
"None--except an old servant of Achree who lives somewhere about the Edgeware Road," said Malcolm with a sudden flash of remembrance. "Don't wear such a worried look, old chap, and don't forget that Isla is twenty-six years of age and more capable than either of us of looking after herself."
"But, hang it all, she's a woman, Malcolm, and--and your sister ought not to be adrift like that!"
"She isn't adrift," said Malcolm cheerily. "And, anyway, what can we do? ”

“ Arrived at last, she made him sit down, and gave him a glass of home-made wine to drink, while she told him the story much as she had already told it to the marquis, adding a hope to the effect that, if ever the marquis should express a wish to pry into the secret of the chamber, Malcolm would not encourage him in a fancy, the indulgence of which was certainly useless, and might be dangerous.
“Me!” exclaimed Malcolm with surprise. “—As gien he wad heed a word I said!”
“Very little sometimes will turn a man either in one direction or the other,” said Mrs Courthope. ”

“ As he approached the rock, he heard the voices of Lord Lossie and Lady Florimel, who, although the one had not yet verified her being, the other had almost ruined his, were nevertheless enjoying the same thing, the sweetness of the night, together. Not hearing Malcolm’s approach, they went on talking, and as he was passing swiftly through the bore, he heard these words from the marquis,—
“The world’s an ill-baked cake, Flory, and all that a—woman, at least, can do, is to cut as large a piece of it as possible, for immediate use.” ”

“ The marquis, looking very pale, for he could never endure the cry of a woman even in a play, rose, and taking Florimel by the arm, turned to leave the place. Malcolm hurried to the front to make way for them. But the preacher caught sight of the movement, and, filled with a fury which seemed to him sacred, rushed to the rescue of souls.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Go not hence, I charge you. On your lives I charge you! Turn ye, turn ye: why will ye die? There is no fleeing from Satan. You must resist the devil. He that flies is lost. ”

“ I have no fancy for being made ashamed of myself. The fact is I’m not fit for such company, and I don’t believe there is any such place. But if there be, I trust in God there isn’t any other, or it will go badly with your poor master, Malcolm. It doesn’t look like true—now does it? Only such a multitude of things I thought I had done with for ever, keep coming up and grinning at me! It nearly drives me mad, Malcolm—and I would fain die like a gentleman, with a cool bow and a sharp face-about.”
“Wadna ye hae a word wi’ somebody ’at kens, my lord?” said Malcolm, scarcely able to reply. ”

“ Thereupon Malcolm began at the beginning, and told of the men he had watched, and how, in the fancy of following them, he had found himself in the garret, and what he saw and did there.
“Did you recognize either of the women?” asked Lord Lossie.
“Ane o’ them, my lord,” answered Malcolm. “It was Mistress Catanach, the howdie.”
“What sort of a woman is she?”
“Some fowk canna bide her, my lord. I ken no ill to lay till her chairge, but I winna lippen till her. My gran’father—an’ he’s blin’, ye ken—jist trimles whan she comes near him.” ”

“ The whole feeling was as if something had been finished in heaven, and the outmost ripples of the following rest had overflowed and were now pulsing faintly and dreamily across the bosom of the labouring earth, with feeblest suggestion of the mighty peace beyond. Alas, words can do so little! even such a night is infinite.
“Ay,” answered the laird; “but it maks me dowfart (melancholy) like, i’ the inside.”
“Some o’ the best things does that,” said Malcolm. “I think a kiss frae my mither wad gar me greet.” ”