“Be ye angry and sin not,” had always
been a puzzle to Malcolm, who had, as I have said,
inherited a certain Celtic fierceness; but now, even
while he knew himself the object of the anger, he
understood the word. It tried him sorely, however,
that such gentleness and beauty should be unreasonable.
Could it be that he should never have a chance of
convincing her how mistaken she was concerning his
treatment of Kelpie! What a celestial rosy red
her face had glowed! and what summer lightnings had
flashed up in her eyes, as if they had been the horizons
of heavenly worlds up which flew the dreams that broke
from the brain of a young sleeping goddess, to make
the worlds glad also in the night of their slumber.
Something like this Malcolm felt: whoever saw
her must feel as he had never felt before. He
gazed after her long and earnestly.
“It’s an awfu’ thing to ha’e
a wuman like that angert at ye!”, he said to
himself when at length she had disappeared, “—as
bonny as she is angry! God be praised ‘at
he kens a’thing, an’ ’s no angert
wi’ ye for the luik o’ a thing! But
the wheel may come roon’ again—wha
kens? Ony gait I s’ mak’ the best
o’ Kelpie I can.— I won’er
gien she kens Leddy Florimel! She’s a heap
mair boontifu’ like in her beauty nor her.
The man micht haud ‘s ain wi’ an archangel
‘at had a woman like that to the wife o’
’m.—Hoots! I’ll be wussin’
I had had anither upbringin’, ‘at I micht
ha’ won a step nearer to the hem o’ her
garment! an’ that wad be to deny him ‘at
made an’ ordeen’t me. I wull not du
that. But I maun hae a crack wi’ Maister
Graham, anent things twa or three, just to haud me
straucht, for I’m jist girnin’ at bein’
sae regairdit by sic a Revelation. Gien she had
been an auld wife, I wad ha’e only lauchen:
what for ‘s that? I doobt I’m no muckle
mair rizzonable nor hersel’! The thing
was this, I fancy it was sae clear she spak frae no
ill natur’, only frae pure humanity. She’s
a gran’ ane yon, only some saft, I doobt.”
For the lady, she rode away sadly strengthened in
her doubts whether there could be a God in the world—not
because there were in it such men as she took Malcolm
for, but because such a lovely animal had fallen into
his hands.
“It’s a sair thing to be misjeedged,”
said Malcolm to himself as he put the demoness in
her stall; “but it’s no more than the Macker
o’ ‘s pits up wi’ ilka hoor o’
the day, an’ says na a word. Eh, but God’s
unco quaiet! Sae lang as he kens till himsel’
’at he’s a’ richt, he lats fowk
think ’at they like—till he has time
to lat them ken better. Lord, mak’ clean
my hert within me, an’ syne I’ll care
little for ony jeedgement but thine.”
It was a lovely day, but Florimel would not ride:
Malcolm must go at once to Mr Lenorme; she would not
go out again until she could have a choice of horses
to follow her.
“Your Kelpie is all very well in Richmond Park,
and I wish I were able to ride her myself, Malcolm,
but she will never do in London.”
