LIZZY FINDLAY.
From the sands she saw him gain the turnpike road with a bound and a
scramble. Crossing it he entered the park by the sea-gate; she had to
enter it by the tunnel that passed under the same road. She approached
the grated door, unlocked it, and looked in with a shudder. It was
dark, the other end of it being obscured by trees, and the roots of the
hill on whose top stood the temple of the winds. Through the tunnel
blew what seemed quite another wind --one of death, from regions
beneath. She drew her shawl, one end of which was rolled about her
baby, closer around them both ere she entered. Never before had she
set foot within the place, and a strange horror of it filled her: she
did not know that by that passage, on a certain lovely summer night,
Lord Meikleham had issued to meet her on the sands under the moon. The
sea was not terrible to her; she knew all its ways nearly as well as
Malcolm knew the moods of Kelpie; but the earth and its ways were less
known to her, and to turn her face towards it and enter by a little
door into its bosom was like a visit to her grave. But she gathered
her strength, entered with a shudder, passed in growing hope and
final safety through it, and at the other end came out again into the
light, only the cold of its death seemed to cling to her still. But
the day had grown colder; the clouds that, seen or unseen, ever haunt
the winter sun, had at length caught and shrouded him, and through
the gathering vapours he looked ghastly. The wind blew from the sea.
The tide was going down. There was snow in the air. The thin leafless
trees were all bending away from the shore, and the wind went sighing,
hissing, and almost wailing through their bare boughs and budless
twigs. There would be a storm, she thought, ere the morning, but none
of their people were out.
Had there been--well, she had almost ceased to care about anything, and
her own life was so little to her now, that she had become less able to
value that of other people. To this had the _ignis fatuus_ of a false
love brought her! She had dreamed heedlessly, to awake sorrowfully.
But not until she heard he was going to be married, had she come right
awake, and now she could dream no more. Alas! alas! what claim had she
upon him? How could she tell, since such he was, what poor girl like
herself she might not have robbed of her part in him?
Yet even in the midst of her misery and despair, it was some
consolation to think that Malcolm was her friend.
Not knowing that he had already suffered from the blame of her fault,
or the risk at which he met her, she would have gone towards the house
to meet him the sooner, had not this been a part of the grounds where
she knew Mr Crathie tolerated no one without express leave given. The
fisher-folk in particular must keep to the road by the other side of
the burn, to which the sea-gate admitted them. Lizzy therefore lingered
near the tunnel, afraid of being seen.
Mr Crathie was a man who did well under authority, but upon the top
of it was consequential, overbearing, and far more exacting than the
marquis. Full of his employer’s importance when he was present, and
of his own when he was absent, he was yet in the latter circumstances
so doubtful of its adequate recognition by those under him, that he
had grown very imperious, and resented with indignation the slightest
breach of his orders. Hence he was in no great favour with the fishers.
Now all the day he had been fuming over Malcolm’s behaviour to him in
the morning, and when he went home and learned that his wife had seen
him upon Kelpie, as if nothing had happened, he became furious, and, in
this possession of the devil, was at the present moment wandering about
the grounds, brooding on the words Malcolm had spoken. He could not get
rid of them. They caused an acrid burning in his bosom, for they had in
them truth, like which no poison stings.
Malcolm, having crossed by the great bridge at the house, hurried down
the western side of the burn to find Lizzy, and soon came upon her,
walking up and down.
“Eh, lassie, ye maun be cauld!” he said.
“No that cauld,” she answered, and with the words burst into tears:
“But naebody says a kin’ word to me noo,” she said in excuse, “an’ I
canna weel bide the soun’ o’ ane when it comes; I’m no used till ’t.”
“Naebody?” exclaimed Malcolm.
“Na, naebody,” she answered. “My mither winna, my father daurna, an’
the bairnie canna, an I gang near naebody forbye.”
“Weel, we maunna stan’ oot here i’ the cauld: come this gait,” said
Malcolm. “The bairnie’ll get its deid.”
“There wadna be mony to greit at that,” returned Lizzy, and pressed the
child closer to her bosom.
Malcolm led the way to the little chamber contrived under the temple
in the heart of the hill, and unlocking the door made her enter. There
he seated her in a comfortable chair, and wrapped her in the plaid he
had brought for the purpose. It was all he could do to keep from taking
her in his arms for very pity, for, both body and soul, she seemed too
frozen to shiver. He shut the door, sat down on the table near her, and
said:
“There’s naebody to disturb ’s here, Lizzy: what wad ye say to me noo?”
The sun was nearly down, and its light already almost smothered in
clouds, so that the little chamber, whose door and window were in the
deep shadow of the hill, was nearly dark.
“I wadna hae ye tell me onything ye promised no to tell,” resumed
Malcolm, finding she did not reply, “but I wad like to hear as muckle
as ye can say.”
“I hae naething to tell ye, Ma’colm, but jist ’at my leddy Florimel’s
gauin’ to be merried upo’ Lord Meikleham--Lord Liftore, they ca’ him
noo. Hech me!”
“God forbid she sud be merried upon ony sic a bla’guard!” cried Malcolm.
“Dinna ca’ ’im ill names, Ma’colm. I canna bide it, though I hae no
richt to tak up the stick for him.”
“I wadna say a word ’at micht fa’ sair on a sair hert,” he returned;
“but gien ye kent a’, ye wad ken I hed a gey-sized craw to pluck wi’ ’s
lordship mysel’.”
The girl gave a low cry.
“Ye wadna hurt ’im, Ma’colm?” she said, in terror at the thought of the
elegant youth in the clutches of an angry fisherman, even if he were
the generous Malcolm MacPhail himself.
“I wad raither not,” he replied, “but we maun see hoo he cairries
himsel’.”
“Du naething till ’im for my sake, Ma’colm. Ye can hae naething again’
him yersel’.”
It was too dark for Malcolm to see the keen look of wistful regret with
which Lizzy tried to pierce the gloom and read his face: for a moment
the poor girl thought he meant he had loved her himself. But far other
thoughts were in Malcolm’s mind: one was, that her whom, as a scarce
approachable goddess, he had loved before he knew her of his own blood,
he would rather see married to an honest fisherman in the Seaton of
Portlossie, than to such a lord as Meikleham. He had seen enough of
him at Lossie House to know what he was, and puritanical fish-catching
Malcolm had ideas above those of most marquises of his day: the thought
of the alliance was horrible to him. It was possibly not inevitable,
however; only what could he do, and at the same time avoid grievous
hurt?
“I dinna think he’ll ever merry my leddy,” he said.
“What gars ye say that, Ma’colm?” returned Lizzy, with eagerness.
“I canna tell ye jist i’ the noo; but ye ken a body canna weel be
aye aboot a place ohn seein’ things. I’ll tell ye something o’ mair
consequence hooever,” he continued. “Some fowk say there’s a God, an’
some say there’s nane, an’ I ha’e no richt to preach to ye, Lizzy; but
I maun jist tell ye this--’at gien God dinna help them ’at cry till ’im
i’ the warst o’ tribles, they micht jist as weel ha’e nae God at a’.
For my ain pairt I ha’e been helpit, an’ I think it was him intill ’t.
Wi’ his help, a man may warstle throu’ onything. I say I think it was
himsel’ tuik me throu’ ’t, an’ here I stan’ afore ye, ready for the
neist trible, an’ the help ’at ’ll come wi’ ’t. What it may be, God
only kens!”