But, I say, the word was in, and, partly no doubt from its following so close upon the dream the factor had had, was potent in its operation. He fell a-thinking, and a-thinking more honestly than he had thought for many a day. And presently it was revealed to him that, if he were in the horse market wanting to buy, and a man there who had to sell said to him—“He wadna du for you, sir; ye wad be tired o’ ’im in a week,” he would never remark, “What a fool the fellow is!” but—“Weel noo, I ca’ that neibourly!” He did not get quite so far just then as to see that every man to whom he might want to sell a horse was as much his neighbour as his own brother; nor, indeed, if he had got as far, would it have indicated much progress in honesty, seeing he would at any time, when needful and possible, have cheated that brother in the matter of a horse, as certainly as he would a Patagonian or a Chinaman. But the warped glass of a bad maxim had at least been cracked in his window.
The peacemaker sat in silence the rest of the night, but the factor’s sleep was broken, and at times he wandered. He was not so well the next day, and his wife, gathering that Lizzy had been talking, and herself feeling better, would not allow her to sit up with him any more.
Days and days passed, and still Malcolm had no word from Lenorme, and was getting hopeless in respect of that quarter of possible aid. But so long as Florimel could content herself with the quiet of Lossie House, there was time to wait, he said to himself. She was not idle, and that was promising. Every day she rode out with Stoat. Now and then she would make a call in the neighbourhood, and, apparently to trouble Malcolm, took care to let him know that on one of these occasions her call had been upon Mrs Stewart. One thing he did feel was that she made no renewal of her friendship with his grandfather: she had, alas! outgrown the girlish fancy. Poor Duncan took it much to heart. She saw more of the minister and his wife, who both flattered her, than anybody else, and was expecting the arrival of Lady Bellair and Lord Liftore with the utmost impatience. They, for their part, were making the journey by the easiest possible stages, tacking and veering, and visiting everyone of their friends that lay between London and Lossie: they thought to give Florimel the little lesson, that, though they accepted her invitation, they had plenty of friends in the world besides her ladyship, and were not dying to see her.
One evening, Malcolm, as he left the grounds of Mr Morrison, on whom he had been calling, saw a travelling carriage pass towards Portlossie; and something liker fear laid hold of his heart than he had ever felt except when Florimel and he on the night of the storm took her father for Lord Gernon the wizard. As soon as he reached certain available fields, he sent Kelpie tearing across them, dodged through a fir-wood, and came out on the road half a mile in front of the carriage: as again it passed him he saw that his fears were facts, for in it sat the bold-faced countess, and the mean-hearted lord. Something must be done at last, and until it was done good watch must be kept.
I must here note that, during this time of hoping and waiting, Malcolm had attended to another matter of importance. Over every element influencing his life, his family, his dependents, his property, he desired to possess a lawful, honest command: where he had to render account, he would be head. Therefore, through Mr Soutar’s London agent, to whom he sent up Davy, and whom he brought acquainted with Merton, and his former landlady at the curiosity shop, he had discovered a good deal about Mrs Catanach from her London associates, among them the herb-doctor, and his little boy who had watched Davy, and he had now almost completed an outline of evidence, which, grounded on that of Rose, might be used against Mrs Catanach at any moment. He had also set inquiries on foot in the track of Caley’s antecedents, and had discovered more than the acquaintance between her and Mrs Catanach. Also he had arranged that Hodges, the man who had lost his leg through his cruelty to Kelpie, should leave for Duff Harbour as soon as possible after his discharge from the hospital. He was determined to crush the evil powers which had been ravaging his little world.
CHAPTER LX.
AN OFFERING.
Clementina was always ready to accord any reasonable request Florimel could make of her; but her letter lifted such a weight from her heart and life that she would now have done whatever she desired, reasonable or unreasonable, provided only it was honest. She had no difficulty in accepting Florimel’s explanation that her sudden disappearance was but a breaking of the social gaol, the flight of the weary bird from its foreign cage back to the country of its nest; and that same morning she called upon Demon. The hound, feared and neglected, was rejoiced to see her, came when she called him, and received her caresses: there was no ground for dreading his company. It was a long journey, but if it had been across a desert instead of through her own country, the hope that lay at the end of it would have made it more than pleasant. She, as well as Lady Bellair, had friends upon the way, but no desire to lengthen the journey or shorten its tedium by visiting them.
The letter would have found her at Wastbeach instead of London, had not the society and instructions of the schoolmaster detained her a willing prisoner to its heat and glare and dust. Him only in all London must she see to bid good-bye. To Camden Town therefore she went that same evening, when his work would be over for the day. As usual now, she was shown into his room—his only one. As usual also, she found him poring over his Greek Testament. The gracious, graceful woman looked lovelily strange in that mean chamber—like an opal in a brass ring. There was no such contrast between the room and its occupant. His bodily presence was too weak to “stick fiery off” from its surroundings, and to the eye that saw through the bodily presence to the inherent grandeur, that grandeur suggested no discrepancy, being of the kind that lifts everything to its own level, casts the mantle of its own radiance around its surroundings. Still to the eye of love and reverence it was not pleasant to see him in such entourage, and now that Clementina was going to leave him, the ministering spirit that dwelt in the woman was troubled.
“Ah!” he said, and rose as she entered; “this is then the angel of my deliverance!” But with such a smile he did not look as if he had much to be delivered from. “You see,” he went on, “old man as I am, and peaceful, the summer will lay hold upon me. She stretches out a long arm into this desert of houses and stones, and sets me longing after the green fields and the living air—it seems dead here—and the face of God—as much as one may behold of the Infinite through the revealing veil of earth and sky and sea. Shall I confess my weakness, my poverty of spirit, my covetousness after the visual? I was even getting a little tired of that glorious God-and-man-lover, Saul of Tarsus—no, not of him, never of him, only of his shadow in his words. Yet perhaps—yes, I think so—it is God alone of whom a man can never get tired. Well, no matter; tired I was; when lo! here comes my pupil, with more of God in her face than all the worlds and their skies he ever made!”
“I would my heart were as full of him, too, then, sir!” answered Clementina. “But if I am anything of a comfort to you, I am more than glad,—therefore the more sorry to tell you that I am going to leave you—though for a little while only, I trust.”