Thus chatting, they went to the stable, and from the stable to the house, where they met no one, and went straight up to Malcolm's room, the old man making as little of the long ascent as Malcolm himself.
CHAPTER LXVI.
THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER.
Brooding—if a man of his temperament may ever be said to brood—over the sad history of his young wife and the prospects of his daughter, the marquis rode over fields and through gates—he never had been one to jump a fence in cold blood—till the darkness began to fall; and the bearings of his perplexed position came plainly before him.
First of all, Malcolm acknowledged and the date of his mother's death known, what would Florimel be in the eyes of the world? Supposing the world deceived by the statement that his mother died when he was born, where yet was the future he had marked out for her? He had no money to leave her, and she must be helplessly dependent on her brother.
Malcolm, on the other hand, might make a good match, or, with the advantages he could secure him in the army, still better in the navy, well enough push his way in the world.
Miss Horn could produce no testimony, and Mrs. Catanach had asserted him to be the son of Mrs. Stewart. He had seen enough, however, to make him dread certain possible results if Malcolm were acknowledged as the laird of Kirkbyres. No: there was but one hopeful measure, one which he had even already approached in a tentative way—an appeal, namely, to Malcolm himself, in which, while acknowledging his probable rights, but representing in the strongest manner the difficulty of proving them, he would set forth in their full dismay the consequences to Florimel of their public recognition, and offer, upon the pledge of his word to a certain line of conduct, to start him in any path he chose to follow.
Having thought the thing out pretty thoroughly, as he fancied, and resolved at the same time to feel his way toward negotiations with Mistress Catanach, he turned and rode home.
After a tolerable dinner he was sitting over a bottle of the port which he prized beyond anything else his succession had brought him, when the door of the dining-room opened suddenly and the butler appeared, pale with terror. "My lord! my lord!" he stammered as he closed the door behind him.
"Well? What the devil's the matter now? Whose cow's dead?"