“You may soon do that, my lady,” said Malcolm. “Mr Soutar, not being of the same mind as Mr Crathie, is going to send her up. It will be but the cost of the passage from Aberdeen, and she will fetch a better price here if your ladyship should resolve to part with her. She won’t fetch the third of her value anywhere, though, on account of her bad temper and ugly tricks.”
“But as to yourself, MacPhail—where are you going to go?” said Florimel. “I don’t like to send you away, but, if I keep you, I don’t know what to do with you. No doubt you could serve in the house, but that would not be suitable at all to your education and previous life.”
“A body wad tak you for a granny grown!” said Malcolm to himself. But to Florimel he replied—“If your ladyship should wish to keep Kelpie, you will have to keep me too, for not a creature else will she let near her.”
“And pray tell me what use then can I make of such an animal,” said Florimel.
“Your ladyship, I should imagine, will want a groom to attend you when you are out on horseback, and the groom will want a horse— and here am I and Kelpie!” answered Malcolm.
Florimel laughed.
“I see,” she said. “You contrive I shall have a horse nobody can manage but yourself.”
She rather liked the idea of a groom so mounted, and had too much well-justified faith in Malcolm to anticipate dangerous results.
“My lady,” said Malcolm, appealing to her knowledge of his character to secure credit, for he was about to use his last means of persuasion, and as he spoke, in his eagerness he relapsed into his mother tongue,—“My lady, did I ever tell ye a lee?”
“Certainly not, Malcolm, so far as I know. Indeed I am sure you never did,” answered Florimel, looking up at him in a dominant yet kindly way.