So he remained where he was, and the general heart of the Seaton was not a little revived by the return of one whose presence reminded them of a better time, when no such cloud as now threatened them heaved its ragged sides above their horizon.
The factor was foolish enough to attempt inducing Meg to send her guest away.
“We want no landloupin’ knaves, old or young, about Lossie,” he said. “If the place is no keepit dacent, we’ll never get the young marchioness to come near ’s again.”
“’Deed, factor,” returned Meg, enhancing the force of her utterance by a composure marvellous from it’s rarity, “the first thing to mak the place—I’ll no say dacent, sae lang ’s there’s sae mony claverin’ wives in ’t, but mair dacent nor it has been for the last ten year, wad be to sen’ factors back whaur they cam frae.”
“And whaur may that be?” asked Mr Crathie.
“That’s mair nor I richtly can say,” answered Meg Partan, “but auld-farand fouk threepit it was somewhaur ’ithin the swing o’ Sawtan’s tail.”
The reply on the factor’s lips as he left the house, tended to justify the rude sarcasm.
CHAPTER LVI.
MID-OCEAN.
There came a breath of something in the east. It was neither wind nor warmth. It was light before it is light to the eyes of men. Slowly and slowly it grew, until, like the dawning soul in the face of one who lies in a faint, the life of light came back to the world, and at last the whole huge hollow hemisphere of rushing sea and cloud-flecked sky lay like a great empty heart, waiting, in conscious glory of the light, for the central glory, the coming lord of day. And in the whole crystalline hollow, gleaming and flowing with delight, yet waiting for more, the Psyche was the only lonely life-bearing thing—the one cloudy germ-spot afloat in the bosom of the great roc-egg of sea and sky, whose sheltering nest was the universe with its walls of flame.
Florimel woke, rose, went on deck, and for a moment was fresh born. It was a fore-scent—even this could not be called a foretaste, of the kingdom of heaven; but Florimel never thought of the kingdom of heaven, the ideal of her own existence. She could however half appreciate this earthly outbreak of its glory, this incarnation of truth invisible. Round her, like a thousand doves, clamoured with greeting wings the joyous sea-wind. Up came a thousand dancing billows, to shout their good morning. Like a petted animal, importunate for play, the breeze tossed her hair and dragged at her fluttering garments, then rushed in the Psyche’s sails, swelled them yet deeper, and sent her dancing over the dancers. The sun peered up like a mother waking and looking out on her frolicking children. Black shadows fell from sail to sail, slipping and shifting, and one long shadow of the Psyche herself shot over the world to the very gates of the west, but held her not, for she danced and leaned and flew as if she had but just begun her corantolavolta fresh with the morning, and had not been dancing all the livelong night over the same floor. Lively as any new-born butterfly, not like a butterfly’s, flitting and hovering, was her flight, for still, like one that longed, she sped and strained and flew. The joy of bare life swelled in Florimel’s bosom. She looked up, she looked around, she breathed deep. The cloudy anger that had rushed upon her like a watching tiger the moment she waked, fell back, and left her soul a clear mirror to reflect God’s dream of a world. She turned, and saw Malcolm at the tiller, and the cloudy wrath sprang upon her. He stood composed and clear and cool as the morning, without sign of doubt or conscience of wrong, now peeping into the binnacle, now glancing at the sunny sails, where swayed across and back the dark shadows of the rigging, as the cutter leaned and rose, like a child running and staggering over the multitudinous and unstable hillocks. She turned from him.