Part 7 (2/2)

Wallis hesitated. But there was that about the fisher fellow was too much for him. As he spoke, Malcolm took the dish from his hands, and with it walked into the dining room.

There one reconnoitring glance was sufficient. The butler was at the sideboard opening a champagne bottle. He had cut wire and strings, and had his hand on the cork as Malcolm walked up to him. It was a critical moment, yet he stopped in the very article, and stared at the apparition.

”I'm Lady Lossie's man from Lossie House. I'll help you to wait,”

said Malcolm.

To the eyes of the butler he looked a savage. But there he was in the room with the dish in his hands, and speaking at least intelligibly; the cork of the champagne bottle was pus.h.i.+ng hard against his palm, and he had no time to question. He peeped into Malcolm's dish.

”Take it round, then,” he said. So Malcolm settled into the business of the hour.

It was some time, after he knew where she was, before he ventured to look at his sister: he would have her already familiarised with his presence before their eyes met. That crisis did not arrive during dinner.

Lord Liftore was one of the company, and so, to Malcolm's pleasure, for he felt in him an ally against the earl, was Florimel's mysterious friend.

CHAPTER XII: A NEW LIVERY

Scarcely had the ladies gone to the drawing room, when Florimel's maid, who knew Malcolm, came in quest of him. Lady Lossie desired to see him.

”What is the meaning of this, MacPhail?” she said, when he entered the room where she sat alone. ”I did not send for you. Indeed, I thought you had been dismissed with the rest of the servants.”

How differently she spoke! And she used to call him Malcolm! The girl Florimel was gone, and there sat--the marchioness, was it?

--or some phase of riper womanhood only? It mattered little to Malcolm. He was no curious student of man or woman. He loved his kind too well to study it. But one thing seemed plain: she had forgotten the half friends.h.i.+p and whole service that had had place betwixt them, and it made him feel as if the soul of man no less than his life were but as a vapour that appeareth for a little and then vanisheth away.

But Florimel had not so entirely forgotten the past as Malcolm thought--not so entirely at least but that his appearance, and certain difficulties in which she had begun to find herself, brought something of it again to her mind.

”I thought,” said Malcolm, a.s.suming his best English, ”your ladys.h.i.+p might not choose to part with an old servant at the will of a factor, and so took upon me to appeal to your ladys.h.i.+p to decide the question.”

”But how is that? Did you not return to your fis.h.i.+ng when the household was broken up?”

”No, my lady. Mr Crathie kept me to help Stoat, and do odd jobs about the place.”

”And now he wants to discharge you?”

Then Malcolm told her the whole story, in which he gave such a description of Kelpie, that her owner, as she imagined herself, expressed a strong wish to see her; for Florimel was almost pa.s.sionately fond of horses.

”You may soon do that, my lady,” said Malcolm. ”Mr Soutar, not being of the same mind as Mr Crathie, is going to send her up. It will be but the cost of the pa.s.sage from Aberdeen, and she will fetch a better price here if your ladys.h.i.+p should resolve to part with her. She won't fetch the third of her value anywhere, though, on account of her bad temper and ugly tricks.”

”But as to yourself, MacPhail--where are you going to go?” said Florimel. ”I don't like to send you away, but, if I keep you, I don't know what to do with you. No doubt you could serve in the house, but that would not be suitable at all to your education and previous life.”

”A body wad tak' you for a granny grown!” said Malcolm to himself.

But to Florimel he replied--”If your ladys.h.i.+p should wish to keep Kelpie, you will have to keep me too, for not a creature else will she let near her.”

”And pray tell me what use then can I make of such an animal,” said Florimel.

”Your ladys.h.i.+p, I should imagine, will want a groom to attend you when you are out on horseback, and the groom will want a horse-- and here am I and Kelpie!” answered Malcolm.

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