THE LIBRARY.
Malcolm’s first night was rather troubled,--not primarily from
the fact that but a thin partition separated him from the wizard’s
chamber, but from the deadness of the silence around him; for
he had been all his life accustomed to the near noise of the sea,
and its absence had upon him the rousing effect of an unaccustomed
sound. He kept hearing the dead silence--was constantly dropping,
as it were into its gulf; and it was no wonder that a succession
of sleepless fits, strung together rather than divided by as many
dozes little better than startled rousings, should at length have
so shaken his mental frame as to lay it open to the assaults of
nightly terrors, the position itself being sufficient to seduce
his imagination, and carry it over to the interests of the enemy.
But Malcolm had early learned that a man’s will must, like a true
monarch, rule down every rebellious movement of its subjects, and
he was far from yielding to such inroads as now assailed him: still
it was long before he fell asleep, and then only to dream without
quite losing consciousness of his peculiar surroundings. He seemed
to know that he lay in his own bed, and yet to be somehow aware
of the presence of a pale woman in a white garment, who sat on the
side of the bed in the next room, still and silent, with her hands
in her lap, and her eyes on the ground. He thought he had seen
her before, and knew, notwithstanding her silence, that she was
lamenting over a child she had lost. He knew also where her child
was,--that it lay crying in a cave down by the seashore; but he
could neither rise to go to her, nor open his mouth to call. The
vision kept coming and coming, like the same tune played over and
over on a barrel organ, and when he woke seemed to fill all the
time he had slept.
About ten o’clock he was summoned to the marquis’s presence, and
found him at breakfast with Lady Florimel.
“Where did you sleep last night?” asked the marquis.
“Neist door to the auld warlock,” answered Malcolm.
Lady Florimel looked up with a glance of bright interest: her father
had just been telling her the story.
“You did!” said the marquis. “Then Mrs Courthope--did she tell
you the legend about him?”
“Ay did she, my lord.”
“Well, how did you sleep?”
“Middlin’ only.”
“How was that?”
“I dinna ken, ’cep it was ’at I was fule eneuch to fin’ the place
gey eerie like.”
“Aha!” said the marquis. “You’ve had enough of it! You won’t try
it again!”
“What’s that ye say, my lord?” rejoined Malcolm. “Wad ye hae a
man turn ’s back at the first fleg? Na, na, my lord; that wad never
du!”
“Oh! then, you did have a fright?”
“Na, I canna say that aither. Naething waur cam near me nor a dream
’at plaguit me--an’ it wasna sic an ill ane efter a’.”
“What was it?”
“I thocht there was a bonny leddy sittin’ o’ the bed i’ the neist
room, in her nichtgoon like, an’ she was greitin’ sair in her
hert, though she never loot a tear fa’ doon. She was greitin’ aboot
a bairnie she had lost, an’ I kent weel whaur the bairnie was--
doon in a cave upo’ the shore, I thoucht--an’ was jist yirnin’
to gang till her an’ tell her, an’ stop the greitin’ o’ her hert,
but I cudna muv han’ nor fit, naither cud I open my mou’ to cry
till her. An’ I gaed dreamin’ on at the same thing ower an’ ower,
a’ the time I was asleep. But there was naething sae frichtsome
aboot that, my lord.”
“No, indeed,” said his lordship.
“Only it garred me greit tu, my lord, ’cause I cudna win at her to
help her.”
His lordship laughed, but oddly, and changed the subject.
“There’s no word of that boat yet,” he said. “I must write again.”
“May I show Malcolm the library, papa?” asked Lady Florimel.
“I _wad_ fain see the buiks,” adjected Malcolm.
“You don’t know what a scholar he is, papa!”
“Little eneuch o’ that!” said Malcolm.
“Oh yes! I do,” said the marquis, answering his daughter. “But he
must keep the skipper from my books and the scholar from my boat.”
“Ye mean a scholar wha wad skip yer buiks, my lord! Haith! sic
wad be a skipper wha wad ill scull yer boat!” said Malcolm, with
a laugh at the poor attempt.
“Bravo!” said the marquis, who certainly was not over critical.
“Can you write a good hand?”
“No ill, my lord.”
“So much the better! I see you’ll be worth your wages.”
“That depen’s on the wages,” returned Malcolm.
“And that reminds me you’ve said nothing about them yet.”
“Naither has yer lordship.”
“Well, what are they to be?”
“Whatever ye think proper, my lord. Only dinna gar me gang to
Maister Crathie for them.”
The marquis had sent away the man who was waiting when Malcolm
entered, and during this conversation Malcolm had of his own accord
been doing his best to supply his place. The meal ended, Lady
Florimel desired him to wait a moment in the hall.
“He’s so amusing, papa!” she said. “I want to see him stare at
the books. He thinks the schoolmaster’s hundred volumes a grand
library! He’s such a goose! It’s the greatest fun in the world
watching him.”
“No such goose!” said the marquis; but he recognized himself in
his child, and laughed.
Florimel ran off merrily, as bent on a joke, and joined Malcolm.
“Now, I’m going to show you the library,” she said.
“Thank ye, my leddy; that _will_ be gran’!” replied Malcolm.
He followed her up two staircases, and through more than one long
narrow passage: all the ducts of the house were long and narrow,
causing him a sense of imprisonment--vanishing ever into freedom
at the opening of some door into a great room. But never had be had
a dream of such a room as that at which they now arrived. He started
with a sort of marvelling dismay when she threw open the door of
the library, and he beheld ten thousand volumes at a glance, all
in solemn stillness. It was like a sepulchre of kings. But his
astonishment took a strange form of expression, the thought in
which was beyond the reach of his mistress.
“Eh, my leddy!” he cried, after staring for a while in breathless
bewilderment, “it’s jist like a byke o’ frozen bees! Eh! gien they
wad a’ to come to life an’ stick their stangs o’ trowth intill
a body, the waukin’ up wad be awfu’!--It jist gars my heid gang
roon’!” he added, after a pause.
“It is a fine thing,” said the girl, “to have such a library.”
“’Deed is ’t, my leddy! It’s ane o’ the preevileeges o’ rank,”
said Malcolm. “It taks a faimily that hauds on throu’ centeries in
a hoose whaur things gether, to mak sic an unaccoontable getherin’
o’ buiks as that. It’s a gran’ sicht--worth livin’ to see.”
“Suppose you were to be a rich man some day,” said Florimel, in
the condescending tone she generally adopted when addressing him,
“it would be one of the first things you would set about--wouldn’t
it--to get such a library together?”
“Na, my leddy; I wad hae mair wut. A leebrary canna be made a’ at
ance, ony mair nor a hoose, or a nation, or a muckle tree: _they_
maun a’ tak time to grow, an’ sae maun a leebrary. I wadna even ken
what buiks to gang an’ speir for. I daursay, gien I war to try,
I cudna at a moment’s notice tell ye the names o’ mair nor a twa
score o’ buiks at the ootside. Fowk maun mak acquantance amo’ buiks
as they wad amo’ leevin’ fowk.”
“But you could get somebody who knew more about them than yourself
to buy for you.”
“I wad as sune think o’ gettin’ somebody to ate my denner for me.”
“No, that’s not fair,” said Florimel. “It would only be like
getting somebody who knew more of cookery than yourself, to order
your dinner for you.”
“Ye’re richt, my leddy; but still I wad as sune think o’ the
tane ’s the tither. What wad come o’ the like o’ me, div ye think,
broucht up upo’ meal-brose, an’ herrin’, gien ye was to set me
doon to sic a denner as my lord, yer father, wad ait ilka day, an’
think naething o’? But gien some fowk hed the buyin’ o’ my buiks,
I’m thinkin’ the first thing I wad hae to du, wad be to fling the
half o’ them into the burn.”
“What good would that do?”
“Clear awa’ the rubbitch. Ye see, my leddy, it’s no buiks, but _what_
buiks. Eh! there maun be mony ane o’ the richt sort here, though.
I wonner gien Mr Graham ever saw them. He wad surely hae made
mention o them i’ my hearin’!”
“What would be the first thing you would do, then, Malcolm, if you
happened to turn out a great man after all?” said Florimel, seating
herself in a huge library chair, whence, having arranged her skirt,
she looked up in the young fisherman’s face.
“I doobt I wad hae to sit doon, an’ turn ower the change a feow
times afore I kent aither mysel’ or what wad become me,” he said.
“That’s not answering my question,” retorted Florimel.
“Weel, the second thing I wad du,” said Malcolm, thoughtfully,
and pausing a moment, “wad be to get Mr Graham to gang wi’ me to
Ebberdeen, an’ cairry me throu’ the classes there. Of coorse, I
wadna try for prizes; that wadna be fair to them ’at cudna affoord
a tutor at their lodgin’s.”
“But it’s the _first_ thing you would do that I want to know,”
persisted the girl.
“I tell’t ye I wad sit doon an’ think aboot it.”
“I don’t count that _doing_ anything.”
“’Deed, my leddy! thinkin ’s the hardest wark I ken.”
“Well, what is it you would think about first?” said Florimel--
not to be diverted from her course.
“Ow, the third thing I wad du--”
“I want to know the first thing you would think about.”
“I canna say yet what the third thing wad be. Fower year at the
college wad gie me time to reflec upon a hantle o’ things.”
“I insist on knowing the first thing you would think about doing,”
cried Florimel, with mock imperiousness, but real tyranny.
“Weel, my leddy, gien ye wull hae ’t--but hoo great a man wad ye
be makin’ o’ me?”
“Oh!--let me see;--yes--yes--the heir to an earldom.-- That’s liberal
enough--is it not?”
“That’s as muckle as say I wad come to be a yerl some day, sae be I
didna dee upo’ the ro’d?”
“Yes--that’s what it means.”
“An’ a yerl’s neist door till a markis--isna he?”
“Yes--he’s in the next lower rank.”
“Lower?--Ay!--No that muckle, maybe?”
“No,” said Lady Florimel consequentially; “the difference is not
so great as to prevent their meeting on a level of courtesy.”
“I dinna freely ken what that means; but gien ’t be yer leddyship’s
wull to mak a yerl o’ me, I’m no to raise ony objections.”
He uttered it definitively, and stood silent.
“Well?” said the girl.
“What’s yer wull, my leddy?” returned Malcolm, as if roused from
a reverie.
“Where’s your answer?”
“I said I wad be a yerl to please yer leddyship.--I wad be a
flunky for the same rizzon, gien ’t was to wait upo’ yersel’ an’
nae ither.”
“I ask you,” said Florimel, more imperiously than ever, “what is
the first thing you would do, if you found yourself no longer a
fisherman, but the son of an earl?”
“But it maun be that I _was_ a fisherman--to the en’ o’ a’ creation,
my leddy.”
“You refuse to answer my question?”
“By no means, my leddy, gien ye wull hae an answer.”
“I _will_ have an answer.”
“Gien ye wull hae ’t than---- But--”
“No _buts_, but an answer!”
“Weel--it’s yer ain wyte, my leddy!--I wad jist gang doon upo’
my k-nees, whaur I stude afore ye, and tell ye a heap o’ things
’at maybe by that time ye wad ken weel eneuch a’ready.”
“What would you tell me?”
“I wad tell ye ’at yer een war like the verra leme o’ the levin
(_brightness of the lightning_) itsel’; yer cheek like a white rose i’
the licht frae a reid ane; yer hair jist the saft lattin’ gang o’
his han’s whan the Maker cud du nae mair; yer mou’ jist fashioned
to drive fowk daft ’at daurna come nearer nor luik at it; an’ for
yer shape, it was like naething in natur’ but itsel’.--Ye _wad_ hae ’t
my leddy!” he added apologetically--and well he might, for Lady
Florimel’s cheek had flushed, and her eye had been darting fire
long before he got to the end of his Celtic outpouring. Whether she
was really angry or not, she had no difficulty in making Malcolm
believe she was. She rose from her chair--though not until he
had ended--swept half-way to the door, then turned upon him with
a flash.
“How _dare_ you?” she said, her breed well obeying the call of the
game.
“I’m verra sorry, my leddy,” faltered Malcolm, trying to steady
himself against a strange trembling that had laid hold upon him,
“--but ye maun alloo it was a’ yer ain wyte.”
“Do you dare to say _I_ encouraged you to talk such stuff to me?”
“Ye did gar me, my leddy.”
Florimel turned and undulated from the room, leaving the poor fellow
like a statue in the middle of it, with the books all turning their
backs upon him.
“Noo,” he said to himself, “she’s aff to tell her father, and
there’ll be a bonny bane to pyke atween him an’ me! But haith! I’ll
jist tell him the trowth o’ ’t, an’ syne he can mak a kirk an’ a
mill o’ ’t, gien he likes.”
With this resolution he stood his ground, every moment expecting
the wrathful father to make his appearance and at the least order
him out of the house. But minute passed after minute, and no wrathful
father came. He grew calmer by degrees, and at length began to peep
at the titles of the books.
When the great bell rang for lunch, he was embalmed rather than
buried in one of Milton’s prose volumes--standing before the
shelf on which he had found it--the very incarnation of study.
My reader may well judge that Malcolm could not have been very far
gone in love, seeing he was thus able to read. I remark in return
that it was not merely the distance between him and Lady Florimel
that had hitherto preserved his being from absorption and his will
from annihilation, but also the strength of his common sense, and
the force of his individuality.