“Daur ye me?” she returned, her pasty cheeks now red as fire, and her wicked eyes flashing as she shook her clenched fist at him.
“What for no?” he answered coolly, turning his head back over his shoulder, for he was already on his way to the gate.
“Ye s’ ken that, ye misbegotten funlin’!” shrieked the woman, and waddled hastily into the house.
“What ails her?” said Malcolm to himself. “She micht ha’ seen ’at I bude to gie Mrs Courthope the first offer.”
By a winding carriage-drive, through trees whose growth was stunted by the sea-winds, which had cut off their tops as with a keen razor, Malcolm made a slow descent, yet was soon shadowed by timber of a more prosperous growth, rising as from a lake of the loveliest green, spangled with starry daisies. The air was full of sweet odours uplifted with the ascending dew, and trembled with a hundred songs at once, for here was a very paradise for birds. At length he came in sight of a long low wing of the house, and went to the door that led to the kitchen. There a maid informed him that Mrs Courthope was in the hall, and he had better take his basket there, for she wanted to see him. He obeyed, and sought the main entrance.
The house was an ancient pile, mainly of two sides at right angles, but with many gables, mostly having corbel steps—a genuine old Scottish dwelling, small-windowed and gray, with steep slated roofs, and many turrets, each with a conical top. Some of these turrets rose from the ground, encasing spiral stone stairs; others were but bartizans, their interiors forming recesses in rooms. They gave the house something of the air of a French chateau, only it looked stronger and far grimmer. Carved around some of the windows, in ancient characters, were Scripture texts and antique proverbs. Two time-worn specimens of heraldic zoology, in a state of fearful and everlasting excitement, stood rampant and gaping, one on each side of the hall-door, contrasting strangely with the repose of the ancient house, which looked very like what the oldest part of it was said to have been—a monastery. It had at the same time, however, a somewhat warlike expression, wherein consisting it would have been difficult to say; nor could it ever have been capable of much defence, although its position in that regard was splendid. In front was a great gravel-space, in the centre of which lay a huge block of serpentine, from a quarry on the estate, filling the office of goal, being the pivot, as it were, around which all carriages turned.
On one side of the house was a great stone bridge, of lofty span, stretching across a little glen, in which ran a brown stream spotted with foam—the same that entered the frith beside the Seaton; not muddy, however, for though dark it was clear—its brown being a rich transparent hue, almost red, gathered from the peat-bogs of the great moorland hill behind. Only a very narrow terrace-walk, with battlemented parapet, lay between the back of the house, and a precipitous descent of a hundred feet to this rivulet. Up its banks, lovely with flowers and rich with shrubs and trees below, you might ascend until by slow gradations you left the woods and all culture behind, and found yourself, though still within the precincts of Lossie House, on the lonely side of the waste hill, a thousand feet above the sea.
The hall-door stood open, and just within hovered Mrs Courthope, dusting certain precious things not to be handled by a housemaid. This portion of the building was so narrow that the hall occupied its entire width, and on the opposite side of it another door, standing also open, gave a glimpse of the glen.
“Good morning, Malcolm,” said Mrs Courthope, when she turned and saw whose shadow fell on the marble floor. “What have you brought me?”
“A fine sawmon-troot, mem. But gien ye had hard hoo Mistress Catanach flytit (scolded) at me ’cause I wadna gie ’t to her! You wad hae thocht, mem, she was somethin’ no canny—the w’y ’at she first beggit, an’ syne fleecht (flattered), an’ syne a’ but banned an’ swore.”