inches, removed the best of it and carried it home,
to be fitted on the heap, and with every ministration
and blandishment enticed to flourish. He pressed
it down with soft firm hands, and beshowered it with
water first warmed a little in his mouth; when the
air was soft, he guided the wind to blow upon it;
and as the sun could not reach it where it lay, he
gathered a marvellous heap of all the bright sherds
he could find—of crockery and glass and
mirror, so arranging them in the window, that each
threw its tiny reflex upon the turf. With this
last contrivance, Phemy was specially delighted; and
the laird, happy as a child in beholding her delight,
threw himself in an ecstasy on the mound and clasped
it in his arms. I can hardly doubt that he regarded
it as representing his own grave, to which in his
happier moods he certainly looked forward as a place
of final and impregnable refuge.
As he lay thus, foreshadowing his burial, or rather
his resurrection, a young canary which had flown from
one of the cottages, flitted in with a golden shiver
and flash, and alighted on his head. He took
it gently in his hand and committed it to Phemy to
carry home, with many injunctions against disclosing
how it had been captured.
His lonely days were spent in sleep, in tending his
plants, or in contriving defences; but in all weathers
he wandered out at midnight, and roamed or rested
among fields or rocks till the first signs of the
breaking day, when he hurried like a wild creature
to his den.
Before long he had contrived an ingenious trap, or
man spider web, for the catching of any human insect
that might seek entrance at his window: the moment
the invading body should reach a certain point, a
number of lines would drop about him, in making his
way through which he would straightway be caught by
the barbs of countless fishhooks—the whole
strong enough at least to detain him until its inventor
should have opened the trapdoor and fled.
Of the new evil report abroad concerning him, nothing
had as yet reached Malcolm. He read, and pondered,
and wrestled with difficulties of every kind; saw
only a little of Lady Florimel, who, he thought, avoided
him; saw less of the marquis; and, as the evenings
grew longer, spent still larger portions of them with
Duncan—now and then reading to him, but
oftener listening to his music or taking a lesson
in the piper’s art. He went seldom into
the Seaton, for the faces there were changed towards
him. Attributing this to the reports concerning
his parentage, and not seeing why he should receive
such treatment because of them, hateful though they
might well be to himself, he began to feel some bitterness
towards his early world, and would now and then repeat
to himself a misanthropical thing he had read, fancying
he too had come to that conclusion. But there
was not much danger of such a mood growing habitual
with one who knew Duncan MacPhail, Blue Peter, and
the schoolmaster— not to mention Miss Horn.
To know one person who is positively to be trusted,
will do more for a man’s moral nature—yes,
for his spiritual nature—than all the sermons
he has ever heard or ever can hear.
