THE QUARREL.
For a few days the weather was dull and unsettled, with cold flaws,
and an occasional sprinkle of rain. But after came a still gray
morning, warm and hopeful, and ere noon the sun broke out, the
mists vanished, and the day was glorious in blue and gold. Malcolm
had been to Scaurnose, to see his friend Joseph Mair, and was
descending the steep path down the side of the promontory, on his
way home, when his keen eye caught sight of a form on the slope of
the dune which could hardly be other than that of Lady Florimel.
She did not lift her eyes until he came quite near, and then only
to drop them again with no more recognition than if he had been
any other of the fishermen. Already more than half-inclined to pick
a quarrel with him, she fancied that, presuming upon their very
common-place adventure and its resulting secret, he approached her
with an assurance he had never manifested before, and her head was
bent motionless over her book when he stood and addressed her.
“My leddy,” he began, with his bonnet by his knee.
“Well?” she returned, without even lifting her eyes, for, with
the inherited privilege of her rank, she could be insolent with
coolness, and call it to mind without remorse.
“I houp the bit buikie wasna muckle the waur, my leddy,” he said.
“’Tis of no consequence,” she replied.
“Gien it war mine, I wadna think sae,” he returned, eyeing her
anxiously. “--Here’s yer leddy-ship’s pocket-nepkin,” he went on.
“I hae keepit it ready rowed up, ever sin’ my daddy washed it oot.
It’s no ill dune for a blin’ man, as ye’ll see, an’ I ironed it
mysel’ as weel ’s I cud.”
As he spoke he unfolded a piece of brown paper, disclosing a little
parcel in a cover of immaculate post, which he humbly offered her.
Taking it slowly from his hand, she laid it on the ground beside
her with a stiff “_Thank you_,” and a second dropping of her eyes
that seemed meant to close the interview.
“I doobt my company’s no welcome the day, my leddy,” said Malcolm
with trembling voice; “but there’s ae thing I maun refar till. Whan
I took hame yer leddyship’s buik the ither day, ye sent me half a
croon by the han’ o’ yer servan’ lass. Afore her I wasna gaein’ to
disalloo onything ye pleased wi’ regaird to me; an’ I thocht wi’
mysel’ it was maybe necessar’ for yer leddyship’s dignity an’ the
luik o’ things----”
“How dare you hint at any understanding between you and me?”
exclaimed the girl in cold anger.
“Lord, mem! what hey I said to fess sic a fire-flaucht oot o’ yer
bonny een? I thocht ye only did it ’cause ye wad’ na like to luik
shabby afore the lass--no giein’ onything to the lad ’at brocht
ye yer ain--an’ lippened to me to unnerstan’ ’at ye did it but
for the luik o’ the thing, as I say.”
He had taken the coin from his pocket, and had been busy while he
spoke rubbing it in a handful of sand, so that it was bright as
new when he now offered it.
“You are quite mistaken,” she rejoined, ungraciously. “You insult
me by supposing I meant you to return it.”
“Div ye think I cud bide to be paid for a turn till a neebor, lat
alane the liftin’ o’ a buik till a leddy?” said Malcolm with keen
mortification. “That wad be to despise mysel’ frae keel to truck.
I like to be paid for my wark, an’ I like to be paid weel: but no
a plack by sic-like (_beyond such_) sall stick to my loof (_palm_). It
_can_ be no offence to gie ye back yer half-croon, my leddy.”
And again he offered the coin.
“I don’t in the least see why, on your own principles, you shouldn’t
take the money,” said the girl, with more than the coldness of an
uninterested umpire. “You worked for it, I’m sure--first accompanying
me home in such a storm, and then finding the book and bringing it
back all the way to the house!”
“’Deed, my leddy, sic a doctrine wad tak a’ grace oot o’ the earth!
What wad this life be worth gien a’ was to be peyed for? I wad cut
my throat afore I wad bide in sic a warl’.--Tak yer half-croon,
my leddy,” he concluded, in a tone of entreaty.
But the energetic outburst was sufficing, in such her mood, only
to the disgust of Lady Florimel.
“Do anything with the money you please; only go away, and don’t
plague me about it,” she said freezingly.
“What can I du wi’ what I wadna pass throu’ my fingers?” said
Malcolm with the patience of deep disappointment.
“Give it to some poor creature: you know some one who would be glad
of it, I daresay.”
“I ken mony ane, my leddy, wham it wad weel become yer ain bonny han’
to gie ’t till; but I’m no gaein’ to tak’ credit fer a leeberality
that wad ill become me.”
“You can tell how you earned it.”
“And profess mysel’ disgraced by takin’ a reward frae a born leddy
for what I wad hae dune for ony beggar wife i’ the lan’. Na, na,
my leddy.”
“Your services are certainly flattering, when you put me on a level
with any beggar in the country!”
“In regaird o’ sic service, my leddy: ye ken weel eneuch what I
mean. Obleege me by takin’ back yer siller.”
“How dare you ask me to take back what I once gave?”
“Ye cudna hae kent what ye was doin’ whan ye gae ’t, my leddy. Tak
it back, an tak a hunnerweicht aff o’ my hert.”
He actually mentioned his heart!--was it to be borne by a girl
in Lady Florimel’s mood?
“I beg you will not annoy me,” she said, muffling her anger in
folds of distance, and again sought her book.
Malcolm looked at her for a moment, then turned his face towards
the sea, and for another moment stood silent. Lady Florimel glanced
up, but Malcolm was unaware of her movement. He lifted his hand,
and looked at the half-crown gleaming on his palm; then, with a
sudden poise of his body, and a sudden fierce action of his arm,
he sent the coin, swift with his heart’s repudiation, across the
sands into the tide. Ere it struck the water he had turned, and,
with long stride but low-bent head, walked away. A pang shot to
Lady Florimel’s heart.
“Malcolm!” she cried.
He turned instantly, came slowly back, and stood erect and silent
before her.
She must say something. Her eye fell on the little parcel beside
her, and she spoke the first thought that came.
“Will you take this?” she said, and offered him the handkerchief.
In a dazed way he put out his hand and took it, staring at it as
if he did not know what it was.
“It’s some sair!” he said at length, with a motion of his hands as
if to grasp his head between them. “Ye winna tak even the washin’
o’ a pocket-nepkin frae me, an’ ye wad gar me tak a haill half-croon
frae yersel’! Mem, ye’re a gran’ leddy an’ a bonny; an ye
hae turns aboot ye, gien ’twar but the set o’ yer heid, ’at micht
gar an angel lat fa’ what he was carryin’, but afore I wad affront
ane that wantit naething o’ me but gude will, I wad--I wad--
raither be the fisher-lad that I am.”
A weak-kneed peroration, truly; but Malcolm was over-burdened at
last. He laid the little parcel on the sand at her feet, almost
reverentially, and again turned. But Lady Florimel spoke again.
“It is you who are affronting me now,” she said gently. “When a lady
gives her handkerchief to a gentleman, it is commonly received as
a very great favour indeed.”
“Gien I hae made a mistak, my leddy, I micht weel mak it, no bein’ a
gentleman, and no bein’ used to the traitment o’ ane. But I doobt
gien a gentleman wad ha’ surmised what ye was efter wi’ yer nepkin’,
gien ye had offert him half a croon first.”
“Oh, yes, he would--perfectly!” said Florimel with an air of
offence.
“Then, my leddy, for the first time i’ my life, I wish I had been
born a gentleman.”
“Then I certainly wouldn’t have given it you,” said Florimel with
perversity.
“What for no, my leddy? I dinna unnerstan’ ye again. There maun be
an unco differ atween ’s!”
“Because a gentleman would have presumed on such a favour.”
“I’m glaidder nor ever ’at I wasna born ane,” said Malcolm, and,
slowly stooping, he lifted the handkerchief; “an’ I was aye glaid
o’ that, my leddy, ’cause gien I had been, I wad hae been luikin’
doon upo’ workin’ men like mysel’ as gien they warna freely o’ the
same flesh an’ blude. But I beg yer leddyship’s pardon for takin’
ye up amiss. An’ sae lang ’s I live, I’ll regaird this as ane o’
her fedders ’at the angel moutit as she sat by the bored craig.
An’ whan I’m deid, I’ll hae ’t laid upo’ my face, an’ syne, maybe,
I may get a sicht o’ ye as I pass. Guid-day my leddy.”
“Good-day,” she returned kindly. “I wish my father would let me
have a row in your boat.”
“It’s at yer service whan ye please, my leddy,” said Malcolm.
One who had caught a glimpse of the shining yet solemn eyes of the
youth, as he walked home, would wonder no longer that he should talk
as he did--so sedately, yet so poetically--so long-windedly,
if you like, yet so sensibly--even wisely.
Lady Florimel lay on the sand, and sought again to read the “Faerie
Queene.” But for the last day or two she had been getting tired of
it, and now the forms that entered by her eyes dropped half their
substance and all their sense in the porch, and thronged her brain
with the mere phantoms of things, with words that came and went
and were nothing. Abandoning the harvest of chaff, her eyes rose
and looked out upon the sea. Never, even from tropical shore, was
richer-hued ocean beheld. Gorgeous in purple and green, in shadowy
blue and flashing gold, it seemed to Malcolm, as if at any moment
the ever new-born Anadyomene might lift her shining head from the
wandering floor, and float away in her pearly lustre to gladden the
regions where the glaciers glide seawards in irresistible silence,
there to give birth to the icebergs in tumult and thunderous uproar.
But Lady Florimel felt merely the loneliness. One deserted boat
lay on the long sand, like the bereft and useless half of a double
shell. Without show of life the moveless cliffs lengthened far
into a sea where neither white sail deepened the purple and gold,
nor red one enriched it with a colour it could not itself produce.
Neither hope nor aspiration awoke in her heart at the sight. Was
she beginning to be tired of her companionless liberty? Had the
long stanzas, bound by so many interwoven links of rhyme, ending in
long Alexandrines, the long cantos, the lingering sweetness long
drawn out through so many unended books, begun to weary her at
last? Had even a quarrel with a fisher-lad been a little pastime
to her? and did she now wish she had detained him a little longer?
Could she take any interest in him beyond such as she took in Demon,
her father’s dog, or Brazenose, his favourite horse?
Whatever might be her thoughts or feelings at this moment, it
remained a fact, that Florimel Colonsay, the daughter of a marquis,
and Malcolm, the grandson of a blind piper, were woman and man--
and the man the finer of the two this time.
As Malcolm passed on his way one of the three or four solitary rocks
which rose from the sand, the skeleton remnants of larger masses
worn down by wind, wave, and weather, he heard his own name uttered
by an unpleasant voice, and followed by a more unpleasant laugh.
He knew both the voice and the laugh, and, turning, saw Mrs
Catanach, seated, apparently busy with her knitting, in the shade
of the rock.
“Weel?” he said curtly.
“_Weel!_--Set ye up!--Wha’s yon ye was play actin’ wi’ oot yonner?”
“Wha telled ye to speir, Mistress Catanach?”
“Ay, ay, laad! Ye’ll be abune speykin’ till an auld wife efter
colloguin’ wi’ a yoong ane, an’ sic a ane! Isna she bonny, Malkie?
Isna hers a winsome shape an’ a lauchin’ ee? Didna she draw ye on,
an’ luik i’ the hawk’s een o’ ye, an’ lay herself oot afore ye,
an’----?”
“She did naething o’ the sort, ye ill-tongued wuman!” said Malcolm
in anger.
“Ho! ho!” trumpeted Mrs Catanach. “Ill-tongued, am I? An’ what
neist?”
“Ill-deedit,” returned Malcolm, “--whan ye flang my bonny
sawmon-troot till yer oogly deevil o’ a dog.”
“Ho! ho! ho! Ill-deedit, am I? I s’ no forget thae bonny names!
Maybe yer lordship wad alloo me the leeberty o’ speirin’ anither
queston at ye, Ma’colm MacPhail.”
“Ye may speir ’at ye like, sae lang ’s ye canna gar me stan’ to
hearken. Guid-day to ye, Mistress Catanach. Yer company was nane
o’ my seekin’: I may lea’ ’t whan I like.”
“Dinna ye be ower sure o’ that,” she called after him venomously.
But Malcolm turned his head no more.
As soon as he was out of sight, Mrs Catanach rose, ascended the
dune, and propelled her rotundity along the yielding top of it.
When she arrived within speaking distance of Lady Florimel, who
lay lost in her dreary regard of sand and sea, she paused for a
moment, as if contemplating her.
Suddenly, almost by Lady Florimel’s side, as if he had risen from
the sand, stood the form of the mad laird.
“I dinna ken whaur I come frae,” he said.
Lady Florimel started, half rose, and seeing the dwarf so near,
and on the other side of her a repulsive-looking woman staring at
her, sprung to her feet and fled. The same instant the mad laird,
catching sight of Mrs Catanach, gave a cry of misery, thrust his
fingers in his ears, darted down the other side of the dune and
sped along the shore. Mrs Catanach shook with laughter. “I hae
skailled (_dispersed_) the bonny doos!” she said. Then she
called aloud after the flying girl,--
“My leddy! My bonny leddy!”
Florimel paid no heed, but ran straight for the door of the
tunnel, and vanished. Thence leisurely climbing to the temple of
the winds, she looked down from a height of safety upon the shore
and the retreating figure of Mrs Catanach. Seating herself by
the pedestal of the trumpet-blowing Wind, she assayed her reading
again, but was again startled--this time by a rough salute
from Demon. Presently her father appeared, and Lady Florimel felt
something like a pang of relief at being found there, and not on
the farther side of the dune making it up with Malcolm.