Malcolm held his peace.
“Ay, I’m thinkin’ I maun gang,”
he said at length.
“Whaur till, than?” asked Miss Horn.
“Ow! to Lon’on—whaur ither?”
“And what’ll yer lordship du there?”
“Dinna say lordship to me, mem, or I’ll
think ye’re jeerin’ at me. What wad
the caterpillar say,” he added, with a laugh,
“gien ye ca’d her my leddie Psyche?”
Malcolm of course pronounced the Greek word in Scotch
fashion.
“I ken naething aboot yer Seechies or yer Sukies,”
rejoined Miss
Horn. “I ken ‘at ye’re bun’
to be a lord and no a stableman, an’
I s’ no lat ye rist till ye up an’ say
what neist?”
“It’s what I ha’e been sayin’
for the last three month,” said Malcolm.
“Ay, I daursay; but ye ha’e been sayin’
‘t upo’ the braid o’ yer back, and
I wad ha’e ye up an’ sayin’ ’t.”
“Gien I but kent what to du!” said Malcolm,
for the thousandth time.
“Ye can at least gang whaur ye ha’e a
chance o’ learnin’,” returned his
friend.—“Come an’ tak yer supper
wi’ me the nicht—a rizzart haddie
an’ an egg, an’ I’ll tell ye mair
aboot yer mither.”
But Malcolm avoided a promise, lest it should interfere
with what he might find best to do.
When Miss Horn left him—with a farewell
kindlier than her greeting—rendered yet
more restless by her talk, he went back to the stable,
saddled Kelpie, and took her out for an airing.
As he passed the factor’s house, Mrs Crathie
saw him from the window. Her colour rose.
She arose herself also, and looked after him from
the door—a proud and peevish woman, jealous
of her husband’s dignity, still more jealous
of her own.
“The verra image o’ the auld markis!”
she said to herself; for in the recesses of her bosom
she spoke the Scotch she scorned to utter aloud; “and
sits jist like himsel’, wi’ a wee stoop
i’ the saiddle, and ilka noo an’ than
a swing o’ his haill boady back, as gien some
thoucht had set him straught.—Gien the fractious
brute wad but brak a bane or twa o’ him!”
she went on in growing anger. “The impidence
o’ the fallow! He has his leave: what
for disna he tak’ it an’ gang? But
oot o’ this gang he sail. To ca’ a
man like mine a heepocreet ’cause he wadna procleem
till a haul market ilka secret fau’t o’
the horse he had to sell! Haith, he cam’
upo’ the wrang side o’ the sheet to play
the lord and maister here! and that I can tell him!”
The mare was fresh, and the roads through the policy
hard both by nature and by frost, so that he could
not let her go, and had enough to do with her.
He turned, therefore, towards the sea gate, and soon
reached the shore. There, westward of the Seaton,
where the fisher folk lived, the sand lay smooth,
flat, and wet along the edge of the receding tide:
he gave Kelpie the rein, and she sprang into a wild
gallop, every now and then flinging her heels as high
