"Haud your tongue, ye fule!" cried Malcolm, stopping him with a fierce whisper. "Yon's my lord!"
The old shepherd started back, for at this moment a sudden blaze-up of the fire showed him, sitting in the corner, the diminutive figure, attired carefully after the then fashion of gentlemen's dress, every thing rich and complete, even to the black silk stockings and shoes on the small, useless feet, and the white ruffles half hiding the twisted wrists and deformed hands.
"Yes, I am the Earl of Cairnforth. What did you want to say to me?"
He was so bewildered, the rough shepherd, who had spent all his life on the hill-sides, and never seen or imagined so sad a sight as this, that at first he could not find a word. Then he said, hanging back and speaking confusedly and humbly, "I ask your pardon, my lord—I dina ken—I'll no trouble ye the day."
"But you do not trouble me at all. Mr. Menteith is not here yet, and I know nothing about business; still, if you wished to speak to me, do so; I am Lord Cairnforth."
"Are ye?" said the shepherd, evidently bewildered still, so that he forgot his natural awe for his feudal superior. "Are ye the countess's bairn, that's just the age o' our Dougal? Dougal's ane o' the gamekeepers, ye ken—sic a braw fellow—sax feet three. Ye'll hae seen him, Maybe?"
"No, but I should like to see him. And yourself—are you a tenant of mine, and what did you want with me?"
Encouraged by the kindly voice, and his own self-interest becoming prominent once more, old Dougal told his tale—not an uncommon one —of sheep lost on the hill-side, and one misfortune following another, until a large family, children and orphan grandchildren, were driven at last to want the "sup o' parritch" for daily food, sinking to such depths of poverty as the earl in secluded life had never even heard of. And yet the proud old fellow asked nothing except the remission of one year's rent, after having paid rent honestly for half a lifetime. That stolid, silent endurance, which makes a Scotch beggar of any sort about the last thing you ever meet with in Scotland, supported him to the very end.
The earl was deeply touched. As a matter of course, he promised all that was desired of him, and sent the old shepherd away happy; but long after Dougal's departure he sat thoughtful and grave.
"Can such things be, Helen, and I never heard of them? Are some of my people—they are my people, since the land belongs to me—as terribly poor as that man?"