Part 53 (1/2)

And oh, that nest of wild bees with its combs of honey unspeakable!

He used to laugh and sing then: he laughed still sometimes--he could hear how he laughed, and it sounded frightful--but he never sang! Were the tears that honoured such childish memories all of weakness? Was it cause of regret that he had not been wicked enough to have become impregnable to such foolish trifles? Unable to mount a horse, unable to give an order, not caring even for his toddy, he was left at the mercy of his fundamentals; his childhood came up and claimed him, and he found the childish things he had put away better than the manly things he had adopted. It is one thing for St Paul and another for Mr Worldly Wiseman to put away childish things. The ways they do it, and the things they subst.i.tute, are both so different? And now first to me, whose weakness it is to love life more than manners, and men more than their portraits, the man begins to grow interesting. Picture the dawn of innocence on a dull, whisky drinking, commonplace soul, stained by self indulgence, and distorted by injustice! Unspeakably more interesting and lovely is to me such a dawn than the honeymoon of the most pa.s.sionate of lovers, except indeed I know them such lovers that their love will outlast all the moons.

”I'm a poor creature, Lizzy,” he said, turning his heavy face one midnight towards the girl, as she sat half dozing, ready to start awake.

”G.o.d comfort ye, sir!” said the girl.

”He'll take good care of that!” returned the factor. ”What did I ever do to deserve it?--There's that MacPhail, now--to think of him! Didn't I do what man could for him? Didn't I keep him about the place when all the rest were dismissed? Didn't I give him the key of the library, that he might read and improve his mind? And look what comes of it!”

”Ye mean, sir,” said. Lizzy, quite innocently, ”'at that 's the w'y ye ha'e dune wi' G.o.d, an' sae he winna heed ye?”

The factor had meant nothing in the least like it. He had merely been talking as the imps of suggestion tossed up. His logic was as sick and helpless as himself. So at that he held his peace-- stung in his pride at least--perhaps in his conscience too, only he was not prepared to be rebuked by a girl like her, who had-- Well, he must let it pa.s.s: how much better was he himself?

But Lizzy was loyal: she could not hear him speak so of Malcolm and hold her peace as if she agreed in his condemnation.

”Ye'll ken Ma'colm better some day, sir,” she said.

”Well, Lizzy,” returned the sick man, in a tone that but for feebleness would have been indignant, ”I have heard a good deal of the way women will stand up for men that have treated them cruelly, but you to stand up for him pa.s.ses!”

”He's been the best friend I ever had,” said Lizzy.

”Girl! how can you sit there, and tell me so to my face?”

cried the factor, his voice strengthened by the righteousness of the reproof it bore. ”If it were not the dead of the night--”

”I tell ye naething but the trowth, sir,” said Lizzy, as the contingent threat died away. ”But ye maun lie still or I maun gang for the mistress. Gien ye be the waur the morn, it'll be a' my wyte, 'cause I cudna bide to hear sic things said o' Ma'colm.”

”Do you mean to tell me,” persisted her charge, heedless of her expostulation, ”that the fellow who brought you to disgrace, and left you with a child you could ill provide for--and I well know never sent you a penny all the time he was away, whatever he may have done now, is the best friend you ever had?”

”Noo G.o.d forgi'e ye, Maister Crathie, for threipin' sic a thing!”

cried Lizzy, rising as if she would leave him; ”Ma'colm MacPhail 's as clear o' ony sin like mine as my wee bairnie itsel'.”

”Do ye daur tell me he's no the father o' that same, la.s.s?”

”No, nor never will be the father a' ony bairn whase mither 's no his wife!” said. Lizzy, with burning cheeks and resolute voice.

The factor, who had risen on his elbow to look her in the face, fell back in silence; and neither of them spoke for what seemed to the watcher a long time; When she ventured to look at him, he was asleep.

He lay in one of those troubled slumbers into which weakness and exhaustion will sometimes pa.s.s very suddenly; and in that slumber he had a dream which he never forgot. He thought he had risen from his grave with an awful sound in his ears, and knew he was wanted at the judgment seat. But he did not want to go, therefore crept into the porch of the church, and hoped to be forgotten. But suddenly an angel appeared with a flaming sword and drove him out of the churchyard away to Scaurnose where the judge was sitting. And as he fled in terror before the angel, he fell, and the angel came and stood over him, and his sword flashed torture into his bones, but he could not and dared not rise. At last, summoning all his strength, he looked up at him, and cried out, ”Sir, ha'e mercy, for G.o.d's sake.” Instantly all the flames drew back into the sword, and the blade dropped, burning like a brand, from the hilt, which the angel threw away.--And lo! it was Malcolm MacPhail, and he was stooping to raise him. With that he awoke, and there was Lizzy looking down on him anxiously.

”What are you looking like that for?” he asked crossly.

She did not like to tell him that she had been alarmed by his dropping asleep: and in her confusion she fell back on the last subject.

”There maun be some mistak, Mr Crathie,” she said. ”I wuss ye wad tell me what gars ye hate Ma'colm MacPhail as ye du.”

The factor, although he seemed to himself to know well enough, was yet a little puzzled how to commence his reply; and therewith a process began that presently turned into something with which never in his life before had his inward parts been acquainted--a sort of self examination to wit. He said to himself, partly in the desire to justify his present dislike--he would not call it hate, as Lizzy did--that he used to get on with the lad well enough, and had never taken offence at his freedoms, making no doubt his manner came of his blood, and he could not help it, being a chip of the old block; but when he ran away with the marquis's boat, and went to the marchioness and told her lies against him--then what could he do but dislike him?

Arrived at this point, he opened his mouth and gave the substance of what preceded it for answer to Lizzy's question. But she replied at once.

”n.o.body 'ill gar me believe, sir, 'at Ma'colm MacPhail ever tellt a lee again' you or onybody. I dinna believe he ever tellt a lee in 's life. Jist ye exem' him weel anent it, sir. An' for the boat, nae doobt it was makin' free to tak it; but ye ken, sir, 'at hoo he was maister o' the same. It was in his chairge, an' ye ken little aboot boats yersel,' or the sailin' o' them, sir.”

”But it was me that engaged him again, after all the servants at the House had been dismissed: he was my servant.”