Now the lark had seen all and heard all, and was telling
it again to the universe, only in dark sayings which
none but themselves could understand; therefore it
is no wonder that, as she listened, his song melted
into a dream, and she slept. And the dream was
lovely as dream needs be, but not lovelier than the
wakeful night. She opened her eyes, calm as any
cradled child, and there stood her fisherman!
“I have been explaining to Lizzy, my lady,”
he said, “that your ladyship would rather have
her company up to the door than mine. Lizzy is
to be trusted, my lady.”
“’Deed, my leddy,” said Lizzy, “Ma’colm’s
been ower guid to me, no to gar me du onything he
wad ha’e o’ me, I can haud my tongue whan
I like, my leddy. An’ dinna doobt my thouchts,
my leddy, for I ken Ma’colm as weel’s
ye du yersel’, my leddy.”
While she was speaking, Clementina rose, and they
went straight to the door in the bank. Through
the tunnel and the young wood and the dew and the
morning odours, along the lovely paths the three walked
to the house together. And oh, how the larks of
the earth and the larks of the soul sang for two of
them! And how the burn rang with music, and the
air throbbed with sweetest life! while the breath
of God made a little sound as of a going now and then
in the tops of the fir trees, and the sun shone his
brightest and best, and all nature knew that the heart
of God is the home of his creatures.
When they drew near the house Malcolm left them.
After they had rung a good many times, the door was
opened by the housekeeper, looking very proper and
just a little scandalized.
“Please, Mrs Courthope,” said Lady Clementina,
“will you give orders that when this young woman
comes to see me today she shall be shown up to my
room?”
Then she turned to Lizzy and thanked her for her kindness,
and they parted—Lizzy to her baby, and
Clementina to yet a dream or two. Long before
her dreams were sleeping ones, however, Malcolm was
out in the bay in the Psyche’s dinghy, catching
mackerel: some should be for his grandfather,
some for Miss Horn, some for Mrs Courthope, and some
for Mrs Crathie.
Having caught as many fish as he wanted, Malcolm rowed
to the other side of the Scaurnose. There he
landed and left the dinghy in the shelter of the rocks,
the fish covered with long broad leaved tangles, climbed
the steep cliff, and sought Blue Peter. The brown
village was quiet as a churchyard, although the sun
was now growing hot. Of the men some were not
yet returned from the night’s fishing, and some
were asleep in their beds after it. Not a chimney
smoked. But Malcolm seemed to have in his own
single being life and joy enough for a world; such
an intense consciousness of bliss burned within him,
that, in the sightless, motionless village, he seemed
to himself to stand like an altar blazing in the midst
of desert Carnac. But he was not the only one
awake: on the threshold of Peter’s cottage
sat his little Phemy, trying to polish a bit of serpentine
marble upon the doorstep, with the help of water, which
stood by her side in a broken tea cup.
