CHAPTER LVII.
THE LAIRD’S QUEST.
Things were going pretty well with the laird: Phemy and he drew yet closer to each other, and as he became yet more peaceful in her company, his thoughts flowed more freely, and his utterance grew less embarrassed; until at length, in talking with her, his speech was rarely broken with even a slight impediment, and a stranger might have overheard a long conversation between them without coming to any more disparaging conclusion in regard to him than that the hunchback was peculiar in mind as well as in body. But his nocturnal excursions continuing to cause her apprehension, and his representations of the delights to be gathered from Nature while she slept, at the same time alluring her greatly, Phemy had become, both for her own pleasure and his protection, anxious in these also to be his companion.
With a vital recognition of law, and great loyalty to any utterance of either parent, she had yet been brought up in an atmosphere of such liberty, that except a thing were expressly so conditioned, or in itself appeared questionable, she never dreamed of asking permission to do it; and, accustomed as she had been to go with the laird everywhere, and to be out with him early and late, her conscience never suggested the possibility of any objection to her getting up at twelve, instead of four or five, to accompany him. It was some time, however, before the laird himself would consent; and then he would not unfrequently interpose with limitations, especially, if the night were not mild and dry, sending her always home again to bed. The mutual rule and obedience between them was something at once strange and lovely.
At midnight Phemy would enter the shop, and grope her way until she stood under the trap-door. This was the nearest she could come to the laird’s chamber, for he had not only declined having the ladder stand there for his use, but had drawn a solemn promise from the carpenter that at night it should always be left slung up to the joists. For himself he had made a rope-ladder, which he could lower from beneath when he required it, invariably drew up after him, and never used for coming down.
One night Phemy made her customary signal by knocking against the trap-door with a long slip of wood: it opened, and, as usual, the body of the laird appeared, hung for a moment in the square gap, like a huge spider, by its two hands, one on each side, then dropped straight to the floor, when, without a word, he hastened forth, and Phemy followed.
The night was very still—and rather dark, for it was cloudy about the horizon, and there was no moon. Hand-in-hand the two made for the shore—here very rocky—a succession of promontories with little coves between. Down into one of these they went by a winding path, and stood at the lip of the sea. A violet dimness, or, rather, a semi-transparent darkness, hung over it, through which came now and then a gleam, where the slow heave of some Triton shoulder caught a shine of the sky; a hush also, as of sleep, hung over it, which not to break, the wavelets of the rising tide carefully stilled their noises; and the dimness and the hush seemed one. They sat down on a rock that rose but a foot or two from the sand and for some moments listened in silence to the inarticulate story of the night. At length the laird turned to Phemy, and taking one of her hands in both of his, very solemnly said, as if breaking to her his life’s trouble,—
“Phemy, I dinna ken whaur I cam frae.”
“Hoot, laird! ye ken weel eneuch ye cam frae Go-od,” answered Phemy, lengthening out the word with solemn utterance.
The laird did not reply, and again the night closed around them, and the sea hushed at their hearts. But a soft light air began to breathe from the south, and it waked the laird to more active thought.
“Gien he wad but come oot an’ shaw himsel’!” he said. “What for disna he come oot?”