To no small proportion of his hearers some of such
outbursts were altogether unintelligible—a
matter of no moment; but there were of them who understood
enough to misunderstand utterly: interpreting
his riches by their poverty, they misinterpreted them
pitifully, and misrepresented them worse. And,
alas! in the little company there were three or four
men who, for all their upward impulses, yet remained
capable of treachery, because incapable of recognizing
the temptation to it for what it was. These by
and by began to confer together and form an opposition—in
this at least ungenerous, that they continued to assemble
at his house, and show little sign of dissension.
When, however, they began at length to discover that
the master did not teach that interpretation of atonement
which they had derived—they little knew
whence, but delivered another as the doctrine of St.
Paul, St. Peter, and St. John, they judged themselves
bound to take measures towards the quenching of a dangerous
heresy. For the more ignorant a man is, the more
capable is he of being absolutely certain of many
things—with such certainty, that is, as
consists in the absence of doubt. Mr Graham, in
the meantime, full of love, and quiet solemn fervour,
placed completest confidence in their honesty, and
spoke his mind freely and faithfully.
CHAPTER LIV: ONE DAY
The winter was close at hand—indeed, in
that northern region, might already have claimed entire
possession; but the trailing golden fringe of the
skirts of autumn was yet visible behind him, as he
wandered away down the slope of the world. In
the gentle sadness of the season, Malcolm could not
help looking back with envy to the time when labour,
adventure, and danger, stormy winds and troubled waters,
would have helped him to bear the weight of the moral
atmosphere which now from morning to night oppressed
him. Since their last conversation, Lady Florimel’s
behaviour to him was altered. She hardly ever
sent for him now, and when she did, gave her orders
so distantly that at length, but for his grandfather’s
sake, he could hardly have brought himself to remain
in the house even until the return of his master who
was from home, and contemplated proposing to him as
soon as he came back, that he should leave his service
and resume his former occupation, at least until the
return of summer should render it fit to launch the
cutter again.
One day, a little after noon, Malcolm stepped from
the house. The morning had broken gray and squally,
with frequent sharp showers, and had grown into a
gurly gusty day. Now and then the sun sent a
dim yellow glint through the troubled atmosphere, but
it was straightway swallowed up in the volumes of
vapour seething and tumbling in the upper regions.
As he crossed the threshold, there came a moaning
wind from the west, and the water laden branches of
the trees all went bending before it, shaking their
