“It stan’s to rizzon, my lord,”
answered Malcolm, “that what’s ill made
maun be made ower again. There’s a day comin’
whan a’ ’at’s wrang ’ll be
set richt, ye ken.”
“And the crooked made straight,” suggested
the marquis laughing.
“Doobtless, my lord. He’ll be strauchtit
oot bonny that day,” said Malcolm with absolute
seriousness.
“Bah! You don’t think God cares about
a misshapen lump of flesh like that!” exclaimed
his lordship with contempt.
“As muckle’s aboot yersel’, or my
leddy,” said Malcolm. “Gien he didna,
he wadna be nae God ava’ (at all).”
The marquis laughed again: he heard the words
with his ears, but his heart was deaf to the thought
they clothed; hence he took Malcolm’s earnestness
for irreverence, and it amused him.
“You’ve not got to set things right, anyhow,”
he said. “You mind your own business.”
“I’ll try, my lord: it’s the
business o’ ilka man, whaur he can, to lowse
the weichty birns, an’ lat the forfouchten gang
free. Guid day to ye, my lord.”
So saying the young fisherman turned, and left the
marquis laughing in the hall.
When his housekeeper returned from church, Lord Lossie
sent for her.
“Sit down, Mrs Courthope,” he said; “I
want to ask you about a story I have a vague recollection
of hearing when I spent a summer at this house some
twenty years ago. It had to do with a room in
the house that was never opened.”
“There is such a story, my lord,” answered
the housekeeper. “The late marquis, I remember
well, used to laugh at it, and threaten now and then
to dare the prophecy; but old Eppie persuaded him not
—or at least fancied she did.”
“Who is old Eppie?”
“She’s gone now, my lord. She was
over a hundred then. She was born and brought
up in the house, lived all her days in it, and died
in it; so she knew more about the place than any one
else.”
“Is ever likely to know,” said the marquis,
superadding a close to her sentence. “And
why wouldn’t she have the room opened?”
he asked.
“Because of the ancient prophecy, my lord.”
“I can’t recall a single point of the
story.”
“I wish old Eppie were alive to tell it,”
said Mrs Courthope.
“Don’t you know it then?”
“Yes, pretty well; but my English tongue can’t
tell it properly. It doesn’t sound right
out of my mouth. I’ve heard it a good many
times too, for I had often to take a visitor to her
room to hear it, and the old woman liked nothing better
than telling it. But I couldn’t help remarking
that it had grown a good bit even in my time.
The story was like a tree: it got bigger every
year.”
“That’s the way with a good many stories,”
said the marquis. “But tell me the prophecy
at least.”
“That is the only part I can give just as she
gave it. It’s in rhyme. I hardly understand
it, but I’m sure of the words.”
