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, 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.
For some days Malcolm saw nothing more of Lady Florimel;
but with his grandfather’s new dwelling to see
to, the carpenter’s shop and the blacksmith’s
forge open to him, and an eye to detect whatever wanted
setting right, the hours did not hang heavy on his
hands. At length, whether it was that she thought
she had punished him sufficiently for an offence for
which she was herself only to blame, or that she had
indeed never been offended at all and had only been
keeping up her one sided game, she began again to indulge
the interest she could not help feeling in him, an
interest heightened by the mystery which hung over
his birth, and by the fact that she knew that concerning
him of which he was himself ignorant. At the
same time, as I have already said, she had no little
need of an escape from the ennui which, now that the
novelty of a country life had worn off did more than
occasionally threaten her. She began again to
seek his company under the guise of his help, half
requesting, half commanding his services; and Malcolm
found himself admitted afresh to the heaven of her
favour. Young as he was, he read himself a lesson
suitable to the occasion.
One afternoon the marquis sent for him to the library,
but when he reached it his master was not yet there.
He took down the volume of Milton in which he had
been reading before, and was soon absorbed in it again.
“Faith! it’s a big shame,” he cried
at length almost unconsciously, and closed the book
with a slam.
“What is a big shame?” said the voice
of the marquis close behind him.
Malcolm started, and almost dropped the volume.
“I beg yer lordship’s pardon,” he
said; “I didna hear ye come in.
“What is the book you were reading?” asked
the marquis.
“I was jist readin’ a bit o’ Milton’s
Eikonoklastes,” answered Malcolm, “—a
buik I hae hard tell o’, but never saw wi’
my ain een afore.”
“And what’s your quarrel with it?”
asked his lordship.
“I canna mak oot what sud set a great man like
Milton sae sair agane a puir cratur like Cherles.”
“Read the history, and you ’ll see.”
“Ow! I ken something aboot the politics
o’ the time, an’ I ’m no sayin’
they war that wrang to tak the heid frae him, but what
for sud Milton hate the man efter the king was deid?”
