Malcom by George MacDonald (e books for reading .txt) 📖

of a low hill,-very desolate, with not a tree or house within sight for two miles. A ditch, half full of dark water, bordered each side of the road, which went straight as a rod through a black peat moss lying cheerless and dreary on all sides-hardly less so where the sun gleamed from the surface of some stagnant pool filling a hole whence peats had been dug, or where a patch of cotton grass waved white and lonely in the midst of the waste expanse. At length, when he reached the top of the ridge, he saw the house of Kirkbyres below him; and, with a small modern lodge near by, a wooden gate showed the entrance to its grounds. Between the gate and the house he passed through a young plantation of larches and other firs for a quarter of a mile, and so came to an old wall with an iron gate in the middle of it, within which the old house, a gaunt meagre building-a bare house in fact, relieved only by four small turrets or bartizans, one at each corner-lifted its grey walls, pointed gables, and steep roof high into the pale blue air. He rode round the outer wall, seeking a back entrance, and arrived at a farm yard, where a boy took his horse. Finding the kitchen door open, he entered, and having delivered his letter to a servant girl, sat down to wait the possible answer.

In a few minutes she returned and requested him to follow her. This was more than he had calculated upon, but he obeyed at once. The girl led him along a dark passage, and up a winding stone stair, much worn, to a room richly furnished, and older fashioned, he thought, than any room he had yet seen in Lossie House.

On a settee, with her back to a window, sat Mrs Stewart, a lady tall and slender, with well poised, easy carriage, and a motion that might have suggested the lithe grace of a leopard. She greeted him with a bend of the head and a smile, which, even in the twilight and her own shadow, showed a gleam of ivory, and spoke to him in a hard sweet voice, wherein an ear more experienced than Malcolm's might have detected an accustomed intent to please. Although he knew nothing of the so called world, and hence could recognize neither the Parisian air of her dress nor the indications of familiarity with fashionable life prominent enough in her bearing, he yet could not fail to be at least aware of the contrast between her appearance and her surroundings. Yet less could the far stronger contrast escape him, between the picture in his own mind of the mother of the mad laird, and the woman before him; he could not by any effort cause the two to coalesce.

"You have had a long ride, Mr MacPhail," she said; "you must be tired."

"What wad tire me, mem?" returned Malcolm. "It's a fine caller evenin', an' I hed ane o' the marquis's best mears to carry me."

"You'll take a glass of wine, anyhow," said Mrs Stewart. "Will you oblige me by ringing the bell?"

"No, I thank ye, mem. The mear wad be better o' a mou'fu' o' meal an' watter, but I want naething mysel'."

A shadow passed over the lady's face. She rose and rang the bell, then sat in silence until it was answered.

"Bring the wine and cake," she said, then turned to Malcolm. "Your master speaks very kindly of you. He seems to trust you thoroughly."

"I'm verra glaid to hear 't, mem; but he has never had muckle cause to trust or distrust me yet."

"He seems even to think that I might place equal confidence in you."

"I dinna ken. I wadna hae ye lippen to me owre muckle," said Malcolm.

"You do not mean to contradict the good character your master gives you?" said the lady, with a smile and a look right into his eyes.

"I wadna hae ye lippen till me afore ye had my word," said Malcolm.

"I may use my own judgment about that," she replied, with another winning smile. "But oblige me by taking a glass of wine."

She rose and approached the decanters.

"'Deed no, mem I'm no used till 't, an' it micht jummle my jeedgement," said Malcolm, who had placed himself on the defensive from the first, jealous of his own conduct as being the friend of the laird.

At his second refusal the cloud again crossed the lady's brow, but her smile did not vanish. Pressing her hospitality no more, she resumed her seat.

"My lord tells me," she said, folding a pair of lovely hands on her lap, "that you see my poor unhappy boy sometimes."

"No sae dooms (absolutely) unhappy, mem!" said Malcolm; but she went on without heeding the remark.

"And that you rescued him not long ago from the hands of ruffians."

Malcolm made no reply.

"Everybody knows," she continued, after a slight pause, "what an unhappy mother I am. It is many years since I lost the loveliest infant ever seen, while my poor Stephen was left to be the mockery of every urchin in the street!"

She sighed deeply, and one of the fair hands took a hand kerchief from a work table near.

"No in Portlossie, mem," said Malcolm. "There's verra feow o' them so hard hertit or so ill mainnert. They're used to seein' him at the schuil, whaur he shaws himsel' whiles; an' he 's a great favourite wi' them, for he's ane o' the best craturs livin'."

"A poor, witless, unmanageable being! He's a dreadful grief to me," said the widowed mother, with a deep sigh.

"A bairn could manage him," said Malcolm in strong contradiction.

"Oh, if I could but convince him of my love! but he won't give me a chance. He has an unaccountable dread of me, which makes him as well as me wretched. It is a delusion which no argument can overcome, and seems indeed an essential part of his sad affliction. The more care and kindness he needs, the less will he accept at my hands. I long to devote my life to him, and he will not allow me. I should be but too happy to nurse him day and night. Ah, Mr MacPhail, you little know a mother's heart! Even if my beautiful boy had not been taken from me, Stephen would still have been my idol, idiot as he is-and will be as long as he lives. And-"

"He 's nae idiot, mem," interposed Malcolm.

"And just imagine," she went on, "what a misery it must be to a widowed mother, poor companion as he would be at the best, to think of her boy roaming the country like a beggar! sleeping she doesn't know where! eating wretched food! and-"

"Guid parritch an' milk, an' brose an' butter," said Malcolm parenthetically; "-whiles herrin' an' yallow haddies."

"It's enough to break a mother's heart! If I could but persuade him to come home for a week so as to have a chance with him! But it's no use trying: ill disposed people have made mischief between us, telling wicked lies, and terrifying the poor fellow almost to death. It is quite impossible except I get some one to help me- and there are so few who have any influence with him!"

Malcolm thought she must surely have had chances enough before he ran away from her; but he could not help feeling softened towards her.

"Supposin' I was to get ye speech o' 'im, mem?" he said.

"That would not be of the slightest use. He is so prejudiced against me, he would only shriek, and go into one of those horrible fits."

"I dinna see what's to be dune than," said Malcolm.

"I must have him brought here-there is no other way."

"An' whaur wad be the guid o' that, mem? By yer ain shawin', he wad rin oot o' 's verra body to win awa' frae ye."

"I did not mean by force," returned Mrs Stewart. "Some one he has confidence in must come with him. Nothing else will give me a chance. He would trust you now; your presence would keep him from being terrified-at his own mother, alas! through you he would learn to trust me; and if a course of absolute indulgence did not bring him to live like other people-that of course is impossible -it might at least induce him to live at home, and cease to be a byword to the neighbourhood."

Her tone was so refined, and her voice so pleading; her sorrow was so gentle; and she looked, in the dimness, to Malcolm's imagination at least, so young and handsome, that the strong castle of his prejudices was swaying as if built on reeds; and had it not been that he was already the partizan of her son, and therefore in honour bound to give him the benefit of every doubt, he would certainly have been gained over to work her will. He knew absolutely nothing against her-not even that she was the person he had seen in Mrs Catanach's company in the garret of Lossie House. But he steeled himself to distrust her, and held his peace.

"It is clear," she resumed after a pause, "that the intervention of some friend of both is the only thing that can be of the smallest use. I know you are a friend of his-a true one, and I do not see why you should not be a friend of mine as well-Will you be my friend too?"

She rose as she said the words, and approaching him, bent on him out of the shadow the full strength of eyes whose light had not yet begun to pale before the dawn we call death, and held out a white hand glimmering in the dusk: she knew only too well the power of a still fine woman of any age over a youth of twenty.

Malcolm, knowing nothing about it, yet felt hers, and was on his guard. He rose also, but did not take her hand.

"I have had only too much reason," she added, "to distrust some who, unlike you, professed themselves eager to serve me; but I know neither Lord Lossie nor you will play me false."

She took his great rough hand between her two soft palms, and for one moment Malcolm was tempted-not to betray his friend, but to simulate a yielding sympathy, in order to come at the heart of her intent, and should it prove false, to foil it the more easily. But the honest nature of him shrunk from deception, even where the object of it was good: he was not at liberty to use falsehood for the discomfiture of the false even; a pretended friendship was of the vilest of despicable things, and the more holy the end, the less fit to be used for the compassing of it-least of all in the cause of a true friendship.

"I canna help ye, mem," he said; "I daurna. I hae sic a regaird for yer son 'at afore I wad du onything to hairm him, I wad hae my twa han's chappit frae the shackle bane."

"Surely, my dear Mr MacPhail," returned the lady in her most persuasive tones, and with her sweetest smile, "you cannot call it harming a poor idiot to restore him to the care of his own mother!"

"That's as it turnt oot," rejoined Malcolm. "But I'm sure o' ae thing, mem, an' that is, 'at he's