“Sic a sicht o’ fowk!” said Blue Peter.
“It’s hard to think,” rejoined Malcolm, “what w’y the God ’at made them can luik efter them a’ in sic a tumult. But they say even the sheep-dog kens ilk sheep i’ the flock ’at’s gien him in chairge.”
“Ay, but ye see,” said Blue Peter, “they’re mair like a shoal o’ herrin’ nor a flock o’ sheep.”
“It’s no the num’er o’ them ’at plagues me,” said Malcolm. “The gran’ diffeeculty is hoo He can lat ilk ane tak his ain gait an’ yet luik efter them a’. But gien He does ’t, it stan’s to rizzon it maun be in some w’y ’at them ’at’s sae luikit efter canna by ony possibeelity un’erstan’.”
“That’s trowth, I’m thinkin’. We maun jist gi’e up an’ confess there’s things abune a’ human comprehension.”
“Wha kens but that may be ’cause i’ their verra natur’ they’re ower semple for craturs like hiz ’at’s made sae mixed-like, an’ see sae little intill the hert o’ things?”
“Ye’re ayont me there,” said Blue Peter, and a silence followed.
It was a conversation very unsuitable to London Streets—but then these were raw Scotch fisherman, who had not yet learned how absurd it is to suppose ourselves come from anything greater than ourselves, and had no conception of the liberty it confers on a man to know that he is the child of a protoplasm, or something still more beautifully small.
At length a policeman directed them to a Scotch eating-house, where they fared after their country’s fashions, and from the landlady gathered directions by which to guide themselves towards Curzon Street, a certain number in which Mr Soutar had given Malcolm as Lady Bellair’s address.
The door was opened to Malcolm’s knock by a slatternly charwoman, who, unable to understand a word he said, would, but for its fine frank expression, have shut the door in his face. From the expression of hers, however, Malcolm suddenly remembered that he must speak English, and having a plentiful store of the book sort, he at once made himself intelligible in spite of tone and accent. It was, however, only a shifting of the difficulty, for he now found it nearly impossible to understand her. But by repeated questioning and hard listening he learnt at last that Lady Bellair had removed her establishment to Lady Lossie’s house in Portland Place.