At length he was sufficiently recovered to walk to his grandfather’s cottage; but only now for the first time had he a notion of how far bodily condition can reach in the oppression and overclouding of the spiritual atmosphere.—“Gien I be like this,” he said to himself, “what maun the weather be like aneth yon hump o’ the laird’s!” Now also for the first time he understood what Mr Graham had meant when he told him that he only was a strong man who was strong in weakness; he only a brave man who, inhabiting trembling, yet faced his foe; he only a true man who, tempted by good, yet abstained.
Duncan received him with delight, made him sit in his own old chair, got him a cup of tea, and waited upon him with the tenderness of a woman. While he drank his tea, Malcolm recounted his last adventure in connection with the wizard’s chamber.
“Tat will be ta ped she’ll saw in her feeshon,” said Duncan, whose very eyes seemed to listen to the tale.
When Malcolm came to Mrs Catanach’s assertion that she knew more of him than he did himself—
“Then she peliefs ta voman does, my poy. We are aall poth of us in ta efil voman’s power,” said Duncan sadly.
“Never a hair, daddy!” cried Malcolm. “A’ pooer ’s i’ the han’s o’ ane that’s no her maister. Ken she what she likes, she canna pairt you an’ me, daddy.”
“God forpid!” responded Duncan. “But we must pe on our kard.”
Close by the cottage stood an ivy-grown bridge, of old leading the king’s highway across the burn to the Auld Toon, but now leading only to the flower-garden. Eager for the open air of which he had been so long deprived, and hoping he might meet the marquis or Lady Florimel, Malcolm would have had his grandfather to accompany him thither; but Duncan declined, for he had not yet attended to the lamps; and Malcolm therefore went alone.
He was slowly wandering, where never wind blew, betwixt rows of stately hollyhocks, on which his eyes fed, while his ears were filled with the sweet noises of a little fountain, issuing from the upturned beak of a marble swan, which a marble urchin sought in vain to check by squeezing the long throat of the bird, when the sounds of its many-toned fall in the granite basin seemed suddenly centupled on every side, and Malcolm found himself caught in a tremendous shower. Prudent enough to avoid getting wet in the present state of his health, he made for an arbour he saw near by, on the steep side of the valley—one he had never before happened to notice.
Now it chanced that Lord Lossie himself was in the garden, and, caught also by the rain while feeding some pet goldfishes in a pond, betook himself to the same summer-house, following Malcolm.