The morning, as it drew slowly on, was a strange contrast,
in its gray and saffron, to the gorgeous sunset of
the night before.
The sea crept up on the land as if it were weary,
and did not care much to flow any more. Not a
breath of wind was in motion, and yet the air even
on the shore seemed full of the presence of decaying
leaves and damp earth. He sat down in the mouth
of the cave, and looked out on the still, half waking
world of ocean and sky before him—a leaden
ocean, and a dull misty sky; and as he gazed, a sadness
came stealing over him, and a sense of the endlessness
of labour—labour ever returning on itself
and making no progress. The mad laird was always
lamenting his ignorance of his origin: Malcolm
thought he knew whence he came—and yet what
was the much good of life? Where was the end
to it all? People so seldom got what they desired!
To be sure his life was a happy one, or had been—but
there was the poor laird! Why should he be happier
than the laird? Why should the laird have a hump
and he have none? If all the world were happy
but one man, that one’s misery would be as a
cairn on which the countless multitudes of the blessed
must heap the stones of endless questions and enduring
perplexities.
It is one thing to know from whom we come, and another
to know from Whom we come.
Then his thoughts turned to Lady Florimel. All
the splendours of existence radiated from her, but
to the glory he could never draw nearer; the celestial
fires of the rainbow fountain of her life could never
warm him; she cared about nothing he cared about; if
they had a common humanity they could not share it;
to her he was hardly human. If he were to unfold
before her the deepest layers of his thought, she
would look at them curiously, as she might watch the
doings of an ant or a spider. Had he no right
to look for more? He did not know, and sat brooding
with bowed head.
Unseen from where he sat, the sun drew nearer the
horizon, the light grew; the tide began to ripple
up more diligently; a glimmer of dawn touched even
the brown rock in the farthest end of the cave.
Where there was light there was work, and where there
was work for any one, there was at least justification
of his existence. That work must be done, if
it should return and return in a never broken circle.
Its theory could wait. For indeed the only hope
of finding the theory of all theories, the divine
idea, lay in the going on of things.
In the meantime, while God took care of the sparrows
by himself, he allowed Malcolm a share in the protection
of a human heart capable of the keenest suffering—that
of the mad laird.
CHAPTER XXXII: THE SKIPPER’S CHAMBER
One day towards the close of the fishing season, the
marquis called upon Duncan; and was received with
a cordial unembarrassed welcome.
“I want you, Mr MacPhail,” said his lordship,
“to come and live in that little cottage, on
the banks of the burn, which one of the under gamekeepers,
they tell me, used to occupy.. I ’ll have
it put in order for you, and you shall live rent free
as my piper.”
