THE PHILTRE.
Before he again came to himself, Malcolm had a dream, which, although
very confused, was in parts more vivid than any he had ever had. His
surroundings in it were those in which he actually lay, and he was ill,
but he thought it the one illness he had before. His head ached, and he
could rest in no position he tried. Suddenly he heard a step he knew
better than any other approaching the door of his chamber: it opened,
and his grandfather in great agitation entered, not following his
hands, however, in the fashion usual to blindness, but carrying himself
like any sight-gifted man. He went straight to the wash-stand, took up
the water-bottle, and with a look of mingled wrath and horror dashed it
on the floor. The same instant a cold shiver ran through the dreamer,
and his dream vanished. But instead of waking in his bed, he found
himself standing in the middle of the floor, his feet wet, the bottle
in shivers about them, and, strangest of all, the neck of the bottle in
his hand. He lay down again, grew delirious, and tossed about in the
remorseless persecution of centuries. But at length his tormentors left
him, and when he came to himself, he knew he was in his right mind.
It was evening, and some one was sitting near his bed. By the light of
the long-snuffed tallow candle, he saw the glitter of two great black
eyes watching him, and recognised the young woman who had admitted him
to the house the night of his return, and whom he had since met once or
twice as he came and went. The moment she perceived that he was aware
of her presence, she threw herself on her knees at his bedside, hid her
face, and began to weep. The sympathy of his nature rendered yet more
sensitive by weakness and suffering, Malcolm laid his hand on her head,
and sought to comfort her.
“Don’t be alarmed about me,” he said, “I shall soon be all right again.”
“I can’t bear it,” she sobbed. “I can’t bear to see you like that, and
all my fault.”
“_Your_ fault! What _can_ you mean?” said Malcolm.
“But I did go for the doctor, for all it may be the hanging of me,” she
sobbed. “Miss Caley said I wasn’t to, but I would and I did. They can’t
say I meant it--can they?”
“I don’t understand,” said Malcolm, feebly.
“The doctor says somebody’s been an’ p’isoned you,” said the girl, with
a cry that sounded like a mingled sob and howl; “an’ he’s been a-pokin’
of all sorts of things down your poor throat.”
And again she cried aloud in her agony.
“Well, never mind; I’m not dead you see; and I’ll take better care of
myself after this. Thank you for being so good to me; you’ve saved my
life.”
“Ah! you won’t be so kind to me when you know all, Mr MacPhail,” sobbed
the girl. “It was myself gave you the horrid stuff, but God knows I
didn’t mean to do you no harm no more than your own mother.”
“What made you do it then?” asked Malcolm:
“The witch-woman told me to. She said that--that--if I gave it you--you
would--you would----”
She buried her face in the bed, and so stifled a fresh howl of pain and
shame.
“And it was all lies--lies!” she resumed, lifting her face again, which
now flashed with rage, “for I know you’ll hate me worse than ever now.”
“My poor girl, I never hated you,” said Malcolm.
“No, but you did as bad: you never looked at me. And now you’ll hate me
out and out. And the doctor says if you die, he’ll have it all searched
into, and Miss Caley she look at me as if she suspect me of a hand in
it; and they won’t let alone till they’ve got me hanged for it; and
it’s all along of love of you; and I tell you the truth, Mr MacPhail,
and you can do anything with me you like --I don’t care--only you won’t
let them hang me--will you?--Oh, please don’t.”
She said all this with clasped hands, and the tears streaming down her
face.
Malcolm’s impulse was of course to draw her to him and comfort her, but
something warned him.
“Well, you see I’m not going to die just yet,” he said as merrily as he
could; “and if I find myself going, I shall take care the blame falls
on the right person. What was the witch-woman like? Sit down on the
chair there, and tell me all about her.”
She obeyed with a sigh, and gave him such a description as he could
not mistake. He asked where she lived, but the girl had never met her
anywhere but in the street, she said.
Questioning her very carefully as to Caley’s behaviour to her, Malcolm
was convinced that she had a hand in the affair. Indeed, she had
happily more to do with it than even Mrs Catanach knew, for she had
traversed her treatment to the advantage of Malcolm. The mid-wife had
meant the potion to work slowly, but the lady’s-maid had added to the
pretended philtre a certain ingredient in whose efficacy she had reason
to trust; and the combination, while it wrought more rapidly, had yet
apparently set up a counteraction favourable to the efforts of the
struggling vitality which it stung to an agonised resistance.
But Malcolm’s strength was now exhausted. He turned faint, and the
girl had the sense to run to the kitchen and get him some soup. As he
took it, her demeanour and regards made him anxious, uncomfortable,
embarrassed. It is to any true man a hateful thing to repel a woman
--it is such a reflection upon her.
“I’ve told you everything, Mr MacPhail, and it’s gospel truth I’ve told
you,” said the girl, after a long pause.--It was a relief when first
she spoke, but the comfort vanished as she went on, and with slow,
perhaps unconscious movements approached him.--“I would have died for
you, and here that devil of a woman has been making me kill you! Oh,
how I hate her! Now you will never love me a bit---not one tiny little
bit for ever and ever!”
There was a tone of despairful entreaty in her words that touched
Malcolm deeply.
“I am more indebted to you than I can speak or you imagine,” he said.
“You have saved me from my worst enemy. Do not tell any other what you
have told me, or let anyone know that we have talked together. The day
will come when I shall be able to show you my gratitude.”
Something in his tone struck her, even through the folds of her
passion. She looked at him a little amazed, and for a moment the tide
ebbed. Then came a rush that overmastered her. She flung her hands
above her head, and cried,
“That means you will do anything but love me!”
“I cannot love you as you mean,” said Malcolm. “I promise to be your
friend, but more is out of my power.”
A fierce light came into the girl’s eyes. But that instant a terrible
cry, such as Malcolm had never heard, but which he knew must be
Kelpie’s, rang through the air, followed by the shouts of men, the
tones of fierce execration, and the clash and clang of hoofs.
“Good God!” he exclaimed, and forgetting everything else, sprang from
the bed, and ran to the window outside his door.
The light of their lanterns dimly showed a confused crowd in the yard
of the mews, and amidst the hellish uproar of their coarse voices he
could hear Kelpie plunging and kicking. Again she uttered the same
ringing scream. He threw the window open and cried to her that he
was coming, but the noise was far too great for his enfeebled voice.
Hurriedly he added a garment or two to his half-dress, rushed to the
stair, passing his new friend, who watched anxiously at the head of it,
without seeing her, and shot from the house.