But Malcolm had gone to his own room, and hearing some one in the next, half suspected who it was, and went in. Seeing the closet-door open, he hurried to the stair, and shouted,—
“My lord! my lord! or whaever ye are! tak care hoo ye gang, or ye’ll get a terrible fa’.”
Down a single yard the stair was quite dark, and he dared not follow fast for fear of himself falling and occasioning the accident he feared. As he descended, he kept repeating his warnings, but either his master did not hear or heeded too little, for presently Malcolm heard a rush, a dull fall, and a groan. Hurrying as fast as he dared with the risk of falling upon him, he found the marquis lying amongst the stones in the ground entrance, apparently unable to move, and white with pain. Presently, however, he got up, swore a good deal, and limped swearing into the house.
The doctor, who was sent for instantly, pronounced the knee cap injured, and applied leeches. Inflammation set in, and another doctor and surgeon were sent for from Aberdeen. They came; applied poultices, and again leeches, and enjoined the strictest repose. The pain was severe; but to one of the marquis’s temperament, the enforced quiet was worse.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
HANDS OF IRON.
The marquis was loved by his domestics; and his accident, with its consequences, although none more serious were anticipated, cast a gloom over Lossie House. Far apart as was his chamber from all the centres of domestic life, the pulses of his suffering beat as it were through the house, and the servants moved with hushed voice and gentle footfall.
Outside, the course of events waited upon his recovery, for Miss Horn was too generous not to delay proceedings while her adversary was ill. Besides, what she most of all desired was the marquis’s free acknowledgment of his son; and after such a time of suffering and constrained reflection as he was now passing through, he could hardly fail, she thought, to be more inclined to what was just and fair.
Malcolm had of course hastened to the schoolmaster with the joy of his deliverance from Mrs Stewart; but Mr Graham had not acquainted him with the discovery Miss Horn had made, or her belief concerning his large interest therein, to which Malcolm’s report of the wrath-born declaration of Mrs Catanach had now supplied the only testimony wanting, for the right of disclosure was Miss Horn’s. To her he had carried Malcolm’s narrative of late events, tenfold strengthening her position; but she was anxious in her turn that the revelation concerning his birth should come to him from his father. Hence Malcolm continued in ignorance of the strange dawn that had begun to break on the darkness of his origin.
Miss Horn had told Mr Graham what the marquis had said about the tutorship; but the schoolmaster only shook his head with a smile, and went on with his preparations for departure.
The hours went by; the days lengthened into weeks, and the marquis’s condition did not improve. He had never known sickness and pain before, and like most of the children of this world, counted them the greatest of evils; nor was there any sign of their having as yet begun to open his eyes to what those who have seen them call truths, those who have never even boded their presence count absurdities.