“What do ye want wi’ me?”
“Naething, sir; I only cam to see hoo ye was gettin’ on. I wadna hae disturbit ye, sir, but I saw the twa een o’ a wullcat, or sic like, glowerin’ awa yonner i’ the mirk, an’ they fleyt me ’at I grippit ye.”
“Weel, weel; sit ye doon, bairnie,” said the mad laird in a soothing voice; “the wullcat sanna touch ye. Ye’re no fleyt at me, are ye?”
“Na!” answered the child. “What for sud I be fleyt at you, sir? I’m Phemy Mair.”
“Eh, bairnie! it’s you, is ’t?” he returned in tones of satisfaction, for he had not hitherto recognised her. “Sit ye doon, sit ye doon, an’ we’ll see aboot it a’.”
Phemy obeyed, and seated herself on the nearest projection.
The laird placed himself beside her, and once more buried his face, but not his ears, in his hands. Nothing entered them, however, but the sound of the rising tide, for Phemy sat by him in the faintly glimmering dusk, as without fear felt, so without word spoken.
The evening crept on, and the night came down, but all the effect of the growing darkness was that the child drew gradually nearer to her uncouth companion, until at length her hand stole into his, her head sank upon his shoulder, his arm went round her to hold her safe, and thus she fell fast asleep. After a while, the laird gently roused her and took her home, on their way warning her, in strange yet to her comprehensible utterance, to say nothing of where she had found him, for if she exposed his place of refuge, wicked people would take him, and he should never see her again.
CHAPTER V.
LADY FLORIMEL.
All the coast to the east of the little harbour was rock, bold and high, of a grey and brown hard stone, which after a mighty sweep, shot out northward, and closed in the bay on that side with a second great promontory. The long curved strip of sand on the west, reaching to the promontory of Scaurnose, was the only open portion of the coast for miles. Here the coasting vessel gliding past gained a pleasant peep of open fields, belts of wood and farm-houses, with now and then a glimpse of a great house amidst its trees. In the distance one or two bare solitary hills, imposing in aspect only from their desolation, for their form gave no effect to their altitude, rose to the height of over a thousand feet.