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

the door, an' ghaist or deevil 'at wad win by ye, grip it, an' haud on like Demon the dog."

"She will so, she will so!" muttered Duncan in a strange tone. "Ochone! that she'll not pe hafing her turk with her! Ochone! Ochone!"

Malcolm took the key of the wizard's chamber from his chest, and his candle from the table, which he set down in the passage. In a moment he had unlocked the door, put his shoulder to it, and burst it open. A light was extinguished, and a shapeless figure went gliding away through the gloom. It was no shadow, however, for, dashing itself against a door at the other side of the chamber, it staggered back with an imprecation of fury and fear, pressed two hands to its head, and, turning at bay, revealed the face of Mrs Catanach.

In the door stood the blind piper, with outstretched arms, and hands ready to clutch, the fingers curved like claws, his knees and haunches bent, leaning forward like a rampant beast prepared to spring. In his face was wrath, hatred, vengeance, disgust-an enmity of all mingled kinds.

Malcolm was busied with something in the bed, and when she turned, Mrs Catanach saw only the white face of hatred gleaming through the darkness.

"Ye auld donnert deevil!" she cried, with an addition too coarse to be set down, and threw herself upon him.

The old man said never a word, but with indrawn breath hissing through his clenched teeth, clutched her, and down they went together in the passage, the piper undermost. He had her by the throat, it is true, but she had her fingers in his eyes, and kneeling on his chest, kept him down with a vigour of hostile effort that drew the very picture of murder. It lasted but a moment, however, for the old man, spurred by torture as well as hate, gathered what survived of a most sinewy strength into one huge heave, threw her back into the room, and rose, with the blood streaming from his eyes-just as the marquis came round the near end of the passage, followed by Mrs Courthope, the butler, Stoat, and two of the footmen. Heartily enjoying a row, he stopped instantly, and signing a halt to his followers, stood listening to the mud geyser that now burst from Mrs Catanach's throat.

"Ye blin' abortion o' Sawtan's soo!" she cried, "didna I tak ye to du wi' ye as I likit. An' that deil's tripe ye ca' yer oye (grandson) -he! he!-him yer gran'son! He's naething but ane o' yer hatit Cawm'ells!"

"A teanga a' diabhuil mhoir, tha thu ag deanamh breug (O tongue of the great devil thou art making a lie)!" screamed Duncan, speaking for the first time.

"God lay me deid i' my sins gien he be onything but a bastard Cawm'ell!" she asseverated with a laugh of demoniacal scorn. "Yer dautit (petted) Ma'colm 's naething but the dyke side brat o' the late Grizel Cawm'ell, 'at the fowk tuik for a sant 'cause she grat an' said naething. I laid the Cawm'ell pup i' yer boody (scarecrow) airms wi' my ain han's, upo' the tap o' yer curst scraighin' bagpipes 'at sae aften drave the sleep frae my een. Na, ye wad nane o' me! But I ga'e ye a Cawm'ell bairn to yer hert for a' that, ye auld, hungert, weyver (spider) leggit, worm aten idiot!"

A torrent of Gaelic broke from Duncan, into the midst of which rushed another from Mrs Catanach, similar, but coarse in vowel and harsh in consonant sounds.

The marquis stepped into the room.

"What is the meaning of all this?" he said with dignity. The tumult of Celtic altercation ceased. The piper drew himself up to his full height, and stood silent. Mrs Catanach, red as fire with exertion and wrath, turned ashy pale. The marquis cast on her a searching and significant look.

"See here, my lord," said Malcolm.

Candle in hand, his lordship approached the bed. The same moment Mrs Catanach glided out with her usual downy step, gave a wink as of mutual intelligence to the group at the door, and vanished.

On Malcolm's arm lay the head of a young girl. Her thin, worn countenance was stained with tears, and livid with suffocation. She was recovering, but her eyes rolled stupid and visionless.

"It's Phemy, my lord-Blue Peter's lassie 'at was tint," said Malcolm.

"It begins to look serious," said the marquis. "Mrs Catanach!- Mrs Courthope!"

He turned towards the door. Mrs Courthope entered, and a head or two peeped in after her. Duncan stood as before, drawn up and stately, his visage working, but his body motionless as the statue of a sentinel.

"Where is the Catanach woman gone?" cried the marquis.

"Cone!" shouted the piper. "Cone! and her huspant will pe waiting to pe killing her! Och nan ochan!"

"Her husband!" echoed the marquis.

"Ach! she 'll not can pe helping it, my lort-no more till one will pe tead-and tat should pe ta woman, for she 'll pe a paad woman-ta worstest woman efer was married, my lort."

"That's saying a good deal," returned the marquis.

"Not one worrt more as enough, my lort," said Duncan "She was only pe her next wife, put, ochone! ochone! why did she'll pe marry her? You would haf stapt her long aco, my lort, if she'll was your wife, and you was knowing the tamned fox and padger she was pe. Ochone! and she tidn't pe have her turk at her hench nor her sgian in her hose."

He shook his hands like a despairing child, then stamped and wept in the agony of frustrated rage.

Mrs Courthope took Phemy in her arms, and carried her to her own room, where she opened the window, and let the snowy wind blow full upon her. As soon as she came quite to herself Malcolm set out to bear the good tidings to her father and mother.

Only a few nights before had Phemy been taken to the room where they found her. She had been carried from place to place, and had been some time, she believed, in Mrs Catanach's own house. They had always kept her in the dark, and removed her at night, blindfolded. When asked if she had never cried out before, she said she had been too frightened; and when questioned as to what had made her do so then, she knew nothing of it: she remembered only that a horrible creature appeared by the bedside, after which all was blank. On the floor they found a hideous death mask, doubtless the cause of the screams which Mrs Catanach had sought to stifle with the pillows and bedclothes.

When Malcolm returned, he went at once to the piper's cottage, where he found him in bed, utterly exhausted, and as utterly restless.

"Weel, daddy," he said, "I doobt I daurna come near ye noo."

"Come to her arms, my poor poy!" faltered Duncan. "She'll pe sorry in her sore heart for her poy! Nefer you pe minding, my son; you couldn't help ta Cam'ell mother, and you'll pe her own poy however. Ochone! it will pe a plot upon you aal your tays, my son, and she'll not can help you, and it 'll pe preaking her old heart!"

"Gien God thoucht the Cam'ells worth makin', daddy, I dinna see 'at I hae ony richt to compleen 'at I cam' o' them."

"She hopes you 'll pe forgifing ta plind old man, however. She could n't see, or she would haf known at once petter."

"I dinna ken what ye 're efter noo, daddy," said Malcolm.

"That she'll do you a creat wrong, and she'll be ferry sorry for it, my son."

"What wrang did ye ever du me, daddy?"

"That she was let you crow up a Cam'ell, my poy. If she tid put know ta paad plood was pe in you, she wouldn't pe tone you ta wrong as pring you up."

"That 's a wrang no ill to forgi'e, daddy. But it 's a pity ye didna lat me lie, for maybe syne Mistress Catanach wad hae broucht me up hersel', an' I micht hae come to something."

"Ta duvil mhor (great) would pe in your heart and prain and poosom, my son."

"Weel, ye see what ye hae saved me frae."

"Yes; put ta duvil will pe to pay, for she couldn't safe you from ta Cam'ell plood, my son! Malcolm, my poy," he added after a pause, and with the solemnity of a mighty hate, "ta efil woman herself will pe a Cam'ell-ta woman Catanach will pe a Cam'ell, and her nain sel' she'll not know it pefore she 'll be in ta ped with the worsest Cam'ell tat ever God made-and she pecks his pardon, for she'll not pelieve he wass making ta Cam'ells."

"Divna ye think God made me, daddy?" asked Malcolm.

The old man thought for a little.

"Tat will tepend on who was pe your father, my son," he replied. "If he too will be a Cam'ell-ochone! ochone! Put tere may pe some coot plood co into you, more as enough to say God will pe make you, my son. Put don't pe asking, Malcolm. Ton't you 'll pe asking."

"What am I no to ask, daddy?"

"Ton't pe asking who made you-who was ta father to you, my poy. She would rather not pe knowing, for ta man might pe a Cam'ell poth. And if she couldn't pe lofing you no more, my son, she would pe tie pefore her time, and her tays would pe long in ta land under ta crass, my son."

But the memory of the sweet face whose cold loveliness he had once kissed, was enough to outweigh with Malcolm all the prejudices of Duncan's instillation, and he was proud to take up even her shame. To pass from Mrs Stewart to her, was to escape from the clutches of a vampire demon to the arms of a sweet mother angel.

Deeply concerned for the newly discovered misfortunes of the old man to whom he was indebted for this world's life at least, he anxiously sought to soothe him; but he had far more and far worse to torment him than Malcolm even yet knew, and with burning cheeks and bloodshot eyes, he lay tossing from side to side, now uttering terrible curses in Gaelic, and now weeping bitterly. Malcolm took his loved pipes, and with the gentlest notes he could draw from them tried to charm to rest the ruffled waters of his spirit; but his efforts were all in vain, and believing at length that he would be quieter without him, he went to the House, and to his own room.

The door of the adjoining chamber stood open, and the long forbidden room lay exposed to any eye. Little did Malcolm think as he gazed around it, that it was the room in which he had first breathed the air of the world; in which his mother had wept over her own false position and his reported death; and from which he had been carried, by Duncan's wicked wife, down the ruinous stair, and away to the lip of the sea, to find a home in the arms of the man whom he had just left on his lonely couch, torn between the conflicting emotions of a gracious love for him, and the frightful hate of her.


CHAPTER LXVII: FEET OF WOOL


The next day, Miss Horn, punctual as Fate, presented herself at Lossie House, and was shown at