All was ready to receive her, but in the present bad state of the harbor, and the tide having now ebbed a little way, the boat could not get close either to quay or shore. Six of the crew were on board, seated on the thwarts with their oars shipped, for Peter had insisted on a certain approximation to man-of-war manners and discipline for the evening, or at least until they got to the fishing-ground. The shore itself formed one side of the harbor, and sloped down into it, and on the sand stood Malcolm with a young woman, whom Clementina recognized at once as the girl she had seen at the Findlays'.
"My lady," he said, approaching, "would you do me the favor to let Lizzy go with you? She would like to attend your ladyship, because, being a fisherman's daughter, she is used to the sea, and Mrs. Mair is not so much at home upon it, being a farmer's daughter from inland."
Receiving Clementina's thankful assent, he turned to Lizzy and said, "Min' ye tell my lady what rizzon ye ken whaurfor my mistress at the Hoose sudna be merried upo' Lord Liftore—him 'at was Lord Meikleham. Ye may speyk to my lady there as ye wad to mysel; an' better, haein' the hert o' a wuman."
Lizzy blushed a deep red, and dared but the glimmer of a glance at Clementina, but there was only shame, no annoyance, in her face.
"Ye winna repent it, Lizzy," concluded Malcolm, and turned away.
He cherished a faint hope that if she heard or guessed Lizzy's story, Clementina might yet find some way of bringing her influence to bear on his sister even at the last hour of her chance; from which, for her sake, he shrunk the more the nearer it drew. Clementina held out her hand to Lizzy, and again accepted her offered service with kindly thanks.
Now, Blue Peter, having been ship's carpenter in his day, had constructed a little poop in the stern of his craft: thereon Malcolm had laid cushions and pillows and furs and blankets from the Psyche—a grafting of Cleopatra's galley upon the rude fishing-boat—and there Clementina was to repose in state. Malcolm gave a sign: Peter took his wife in his arms, and, walking through the few yards of water between, lifted her into the boat, which lay with its stern to the shore. Malcolm and Clementina turned to each other: he was about to ask leave to do her the same service, but she spoke before him. "Put Lizzy on board first," she said.
He obeyed, and when, returning, he again approached her, "Are you able, Malcolm?" she asked. "I am very heavy."
He smiled for all reply, took her in his arms like a child, and had placed her on the cushions before she had time to realize the mode of her transference. Then taking a stride deeper into the water, he scrambled on board. The same instant the men gave way. They pulled carefully through the narrow jaws of the little harbor, and away, with quivering oar and falling tide, went the boat, gliding out into the measureless North, where the horizon was now dotted with the sails that had preceded it.
No sooner were they afloat than a kind of enchantment enwrapped and possessed the soul of Clementina. Everything seemed all at once changed utterly. The very ends of the harbor-piers might have stood in the Divina Commedia instead of the Moray Frith. Oh that wonderful look everything wears when beheld from the other side! Wonderful surely will this world appear—strangely more—when, become children again by being gathered to our fathers, joyous day! we turn and gaze back upon it from the other side! I imagine that to him who has overcome it the world, in very virtue of his victory, will show itself the lovely and pure thing it was created, for he will see through the cloudy envelope of his battle to the living kernel below. The cliffs, the rocks, the sands, the dune, the town, the very clouds that hung over the hill above Lossie House, were in strange fashion transfigured. To think of people sitting behind those windows while the splendor and freedom of space with all its divine shows invited them, lay bare and empty to them! Out and still out they rowed and drifted till the coast began to open up beyond the headlands on either side. There a light breeze was waiting them. Up then went three short masts, and three dark-brown sails shone red in the sun, and Malcolm came aft, over the great heap of brown nets, crept with apology across the poop, and got down into a little well behind, there to sit and steer the boat; for now, obedient to the wind in its sails, it went frolicking over the sea.