Malcolm

CHAPTER XVI: THE STORM

There came a blinding flash, and a roar through the leaden air, followed by heavy drops mixed with huge hailstones. At the flash, Florimel gave a cry and half rose to her feet, but at the thunder, fell as if stunned by the noise, on the sand. As if with a bound, Malcolm was by her side, but when she perceived his terror, she smiled, and laying hold of his hand, sprung to her feet.

"Come, come," she cried; and still holding his hand, hurried up the dune, and down the other side of it. Malcolm accompanied her step for step, strongly tempted, however, to snatch her up, and run for the bored craig: he could not think why she made for the road—high on an unscalable embankment, with the park wall on the other side. But she ran straight for a door in the embankment itself, dark between two buttresses, which, never having seen it open, he had not thought of. For a moment she stood panting before it, while with trembling hand she put a key in the lock; the next she pushed open the creaking door and entered. As she turned to take out the key, she saw Malcolm yards away in the middle of the road and in a cataract of rain, which seemed to have with difficulty suspended itself only until the lady should be under cover. He stood with his bonnet in his hand, watching for a farewell glance.

"Why don't you come in?" she said impatiently.

He was beside her in a moment.

"I didna ken ye wad lat me in," he said.

"I wouldn't have you drowned," she returned, shutting the door.

"Droont!" he repeated, "It wad tak a hantle (great deal) to droon me. I stack to the boddom o' a whumled boat a haill nicht whan I was but fifeteen."

They stood in a tunnel which passed under the road, affording immediate communication between the park and the shore. The further end of it was dark with trees. The upper half of the door by which they had entered was a wooden grating, for the admission of light, and through it they were now gazing, though they could see little but the straight lines of almost perpendicular rain that scratched out the colours of the landscape. The sea was troubled, although no wind blew; it heaved as with an inward unrest. But suddenly there was a great broken sound somewhere in the air; and the next moment a storm came tearing over the face of the sea, covering it with blackness innumerably rent into spots of white. Presently it struck the shore, and a great rude blast came roaring through the grating, carrying with it a sheet of rain, and, catching Florimel's hair, sent it streaming wildly out behind her.

"Dinna ye think, my leddy," said Malcolm, "ye had better mak for the hoose? What wi' the win' an' the weet thegither, ye'll be gettin' yer deith o' cauld. I s' gang wi' ye sae far, gien ye'll alloo me, jist to baud it ohn blawn ye awa'."

The wind suddenly fell, and his last words echoed loud in the vaulted sky. For a moment it grew darker in the silence, and then a great flash carried the world away with it, and left nothing but blackness behind. A roar of thunder followed, and even while it yet bellowed, a white face flitted athwart the grating, and a voice of agony shrieked aloud:

"I dinna ken whaur it comes frae!"

Florimel grasped Malcolm's arm: the face had passed close to hers—only the grating between, and the cry cut through the thunder like a knife.

Instinctively, almost unconsciously, he threw his arm around her, to shield her from her own terror.

"Dinna be fleyt, my leddy," he said. "It's naething but the mad laird. He's a quaiet cratur eneuch, only he disna ken whaur he comes frae—he disna ken whaur onything comes frae—an' he canna bide it. But he wadna hurt leevin' cratur, the laird."

"What a dreadful face!" said the girl, shuddering.

"It's no an ill faured face," said Malcolm, "only the storm's frichtit him by ord'nar, an' it 's unco ghaistly the noo."

"Is there nothing to be done for him?" she said compassionately.

"No upo' this side the grave, I doobt, my leddy," answered Malcolm.

Here coming to herself the girl became aware of her support, and laid her hand on Malcolm's to remove his arm. He obeyed instantly, and she said nothing.

"There was some speech," he went on hurriedly, with a quaver in his voice, "o' pittin' him intill the asylum at Aberdeen, an' no lattin' him scoor the queentry this gait, they said; but it wad hae been sheer cruelty, for the cratur likes naething sac weel as rinnin' aboot, an' does no' mainner o' hurt. A verra bairn can guide him. An' he has jist as guid a richt to the leeberty God gies him as ony man alive, an' mair nor a hantle (more than many)."

"Is nothing known about him?"

"A' thing's known aboot him, my leddy, 'at 's known aboot the lave (rest) o' 's. His father was the laird o' Gersefell—an' for that maitter he's laird himsel' noo. But they say he's taen sic a scunner (disgust) at his mither, that he canna bide the verra word o' mither; he jist cries oot whan he hears 't."

"It seems clearing," said Florimel.

"I doobt it 's only haudin' up for a wee," returned Malcolm, after surveying as much of the sky as was visible through the bars; "but I do think ye had better run for the hoose, my leddy. I s' jist follow ye, a feow yairds ahin', till I see ye safe. Dinna ye be feared—I s' tak guid care: I wadna hae ye seen i' the company o' a fisher lad like me."

There was no doubting the perfect simplicity with which this was said, and the girl took no exception. They left the tunnel, and skirting the bottom of the little hill on which stood the temple of the winds, were presently in the midst of a young wood, through which a gravelled path led towards the House. But they had not gone far ere a blast of wind, more violent than any that had preceded it, smote the wood, and the trees, young larches and birches and sycamores, bent streaming before it. Lady Florimel turned to see where Malcolm was, and her hair went from her like a Maenad's, while her garments flew fluttering and straining, as if struggling to carry her off. She had never in her life before been out in a storm, and she found the battle joyously exciting. The roaring of the wind in the trees was grand; and what seemed their terrified struggles while they bowed and writhed and rose but to bow again, as in mad effort to unfix their earthbound roots and escape, took such sympathetic hold of her imagination, that she flung out her arms, and began to dance and whirl as if herself the genius of the storm. Malcolm, who had been some thirty paces behind, was with her in a moment.

"Isn't it splendid?" she cried.

"It blaws weel—verra near as weel 's my daddy," said Malcolm, enjoying it quite as much as the girl.

"How dare you make game of such a grand uproar?" said Florimel with superiority.

"Mak ghem o' a blast o' win' by comparin' 't to my gran'father!" exclaimed Malcolm. "Hoot, my leddy! its a coamplement to the biggest blast 'at ever blew to be compairt till an auld man like him. ower used to them to min' them muckle mysel', 'cep' to fecht wi' them. But whan I watch the seagoos dartin' like arrowheids throu' the win', I sometimes think it maun be gran' for the angels to caw aboot great flags o' wings in a mortal warstle wi' sic a hurricane as this."

"I don't understand you one bit," said Lady Florimel petulantly.

As she spoke, she went on, but, the blast having abated, Malcolm lingered, to place a proper distance between them.

"You needn't keep so far behind," said Florimel, looking back.

"As yer leddyship pleases," answered Malcolm, and was at once by her side. "I'll gang till ye tell me to stan'.—Eh, sae different 's ye look frae the ither mornin'!"

"What morning?"

"Whan ye was sittin' at the fut o' the bored craig."

"Bored craig? What's that?"

"The rock wi' a hole throu' 'it. Ye ken the rock weel eneuch, my leddy. Ye was sittin' at the fut o' 't, readin' yer buik, as white 's gien ye had been made o' snaw. It cam to me that the rock was the sepulchre, the hole the open door o' 't, an' yersel' ane o' the angels that had faulded his wings an' was waitin' for somebody to tell the guid news till, that he was up an awa'."

"And what do I look like today?" she asked.

"Ow! the day, ye luik like some cratur o' the storm; or the storm itsel' takin' a leevin' shape, an' the bonniest it could; or maybe, like Ahriel, gaein' afore the win', wi' the blast in 's feathers, rufflin' them 'a gaits at ance."

"Who's Ahriel?"

"Ow, the fleein' cratur i' the Tempest! But in your bonny southern speech, I daursay ye wad ca' him—or her, I dinna ken whilk the cratur was—ye wad ca' 't Ayriel?"

"I don't know anything about him or her or it," said Lady Florimel.

"Ye'll hae a' aboot him up i' the libbrary there though," said Malcolm. "The Tempest's the only ane o' Shakspere's plays 'at I hae read, but it 's a gran' ane, as Maister Graham has empooered me to see."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Florimel, "I've lost my book!"

"I'll gang back an' luik for 't this meenute, my leddy," said Malcolm. "I ken ilka fit o' the road we've come, an' it 's no possible but I fa' in wi' 't.—Ye'll sune be hame noo, an' it'll hardly be on again afore ye win in," he added, looking up at the clouds.

"But how am I to get it? I want it very much."

"I'll jest fess 't up to the Hoose, an' say 'at I fan' 't whaur I will fin' 't. But I wiss ye wad len' me yer pocket nepkin to row 't in, for feared for blaudin' 't afore I get it back to ye."

Florimel gave him her handkerchief, and Malcolm took his leave, saying.—"I'll be up i' the coorse o' a half hoor at farthest."

The humble devotion and absolute service of the youth, resembling that of a noble dog, however unlikely to move admiration in Lady Florimel's heart, could not fail to give her a quiet and welcome pleasure. He was an inferior who could be depended upon, and his worship was acceptable. Not a fear of his attentions becoming troublesome ever crossed her mind. The wider and more impassable the distinctions of rank, the more possible they make it for artificial minds to enter into simply human relations; the easier for the oneness of the race to assert itself, in the offering and acceptance of a devoted service. There is more of the genuine human in the relationship between some men and their servants, than between those men and their own sons.

With eyes intent, and keen as those of a gazehound, Malcolm retraced every step, up to the grated door. But no volume was to be seen. Turning from the door of the tunnel, for which he had no Sesame, he climbed to the foot of the wall that crossed it above, and with a bound, a clutch at the top, a pull and a scramble, was in the high road in a moment. From the road to the links was an easy drop, where, starting from the grated door, he retraced their path from the dune. Lady Florimel had dropped the book when she rose, and Malcolm found it lying on the sand, little the worse. He wrapped it in its owner's handkerchief, and set out for the gate at the mouth of the river.

As he came up to it, the keeper, an ill conditioned snarling fellow, who, in the phrase of the Seaton folk, "rade on the riggin (ridge) o' 's authority," rushed out of the lodge, and just as Malcolm was entering, shoved the gate in his face.

"Ye comena in wi'oot the leave o' me," he cried, with a vengeful expression.

"What's that for?" said Malcolm, who had already interposed his great boot, so that the spring bolt could not reach its catch.

"There s' nae lan' loupin' rascals come in here," said Bykes, setting his shoulder to the gate.

That instant he went staggering back to the wall of the lodge, with the gate after him.

"Stick to the wa' there," said Malcolm, as he strode in.

The keeper pursued him with frantic abuse, but he never turned his head. Arrived at the House, he committed the volume to the cook, with a brief account of where he had picked it up, begging her to inquire whether it belonged to the House. The cook sent a maid with it to Lady Florimel, and Malcolm waited until she returned—with thanks and a half crown. He took the money, and returned by the upper gate through the town.