MARQUISE OF LOSSIE'S ADVENTURES: Malcolm & The Marquis's Secret. George MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ and had indeed, on this very occasion, intended to lead up to a certain disclosure; but just at the last he clung to his secret, and could not let it go.

      Compelled thereto against the natural impulse of the Celtic nature, which is open and confiding, therefore in the reaction cunning and suspicious, he had practised reticence so long, that he now recoiled from a breach of the habit which had become a second, false nature. He felt like one who, having caught a bird, holds it in his hand with the full intention of letting it go, but cannot make up his mind to do it just yet, knowing that, the moment he opens his hand, nothing can make that bird his again.

      A whole week passed, during which Lady Florimel did not come near him, and the old man was miserable. At length one evening, for she chose her time when Malcolm must be in some vague spot between the shore and the horizon, she once more entered the piper's cottage. He knew her step the moment she turned the corner from the shore, and she had scarcely set her foot across the threshold before he broke out:

      "Ach, my tear laty! and tid you'll think old Tuncan such a stoopit old man as not to 'll pe trusting ta light of her plind eyes? Put her laty must forgif her, for it is a long tale, not like anything you 'll pe in ta way of peliefing; and aalso, it'll pe put ta tassel to another long tale which tears ta pag of her heart, and makes her feel a purning tevil in ta pocket of her posom. Put she'll tell you ta won half of it that pelongs to her poy Malcolm. He 's a pig poy now, put he wasn't aalways. No. He was once a fery little smaal chylt, in her old plind aarms. Put tey wasn't old ten. Why must young peoples crow old, my laty? Put she'll pe clad of it herself; for she'll can hate ta petter."

      Lady Florimel, incapable either of setting forth the advantages of growing old, or of enforcing the duty, which is the necessity, of forgiveness, answered with some commonplace; and as, to fortify his powers of narration, a sailor would cut himself a quid, and a gentleman fill his glass, or light a fresh cigar, Duncan slowly filled his bag. After a few strange notes as of a spirit wandering in pain, he began his story. But I will tell the tale for him, lest the printed oddities of his pronunciation should prove wearisome. I must mention first, however, that he did not commence until he had secured a promise from Lady Florimel that she would not communicate his revelations to Malcolm, having, he said, very good reasons for desiring to make them himself so soon as a fitting time should have arrived.

      Avoiding all mention of his reasons either for assuming another name or for leaving his native glen, he told how, having wandered forth with no companion but his bagpipes, and nothing he could call his own beyond the garments and weapons which he wore, he traversed the shires of Inverness and Nairn and Moray, offering at every house on his road, to play the pipes, or clean the lamps and candlesticks, and receiving sufficient return, mostly in the shape of food and shelter, but partly in money, to bring him all the way from Glenco to Portlossie: somewhere near the latter was a cave in which his father, after his flight from Culloden, had lain in hiding for six months, in hunger and cold, and in constant peril of discovery and death, all in that region being rebels—for as such Duncan of course regarded the adherents of the houses of Orange and Hanover; and having occasion, for reasons, as I have said, unexplained, in his turn to seek, like a hunted stag, a place far from his beloved glen, wherein to hide his head, he had set out to find the cave, which the memory of his father would render far more of a home to him now than any other place left him on earth.

      On his arrival at Portlossie, he put up at a small public house in the Seaton, from which he started the next morning to find the cave—a somewhat hopeless as well as perilous proceeding; but his father's description of its situation and character had generated such a vivid imagination of it in the mind of the old man, that he believed himself able to walk straight into the mouth of it; nor was the peril so great as must at first appear, to one who had been blind all his life. But he searched the whole of the east side of the promontory of Scaurnose, where it must lie, without finding such a cave as his father had depicted. Again and again he fancied he had come upon it, but was speedily convinced of his mistake. Even in one who had his eyesight, however, such a failure would not surprise those who understand how rapidly as well as constantly the whole faces of some cliffs are changing by the fall of portions —destroying the very existence of some caves, and utterly changing the mouths of others.

      From a desire of secrecy, occasioned by the haunting dread of its approaching necessity, day and night being otherwise much alike to him, Duncan generally chose the night for his wanderings amongst the rocks, and probings of their hollows. One night, or rather morning, for he believed it was considerably past twelve o'clock, he sat weary in a large open cave, listening to the sound of the rising tide, and fell fast asleep, his bagpipes, without which he never went abroad, across his knees. He came to himself with a violent start, for the bag seemed to be moving, and its last faint sound of wail was issuing. Heavens! there was a baby lying upon it.—For a time he sat perfectly bewildered, but at length concluded that some wandering gipsy had made him a too ready gift of the child she did not prize. Some one must be near. He called aloud, but there was no answer. The child began to cry. He sought to soothe it, and its lamentation ceased. The moment that its welcome silence responded to his blandishments, the still small "Here I am" of the Eternal Love whispered its presence in the heart of the lonely man: something lay in his arms so helpless that to it, poor and blind and forsaken of man and woman as he was, he was yet a tower of strength. He clasped the child to his bosom, and rising forthwith set out, but with warier steps than heretofore, over the rocks for the Seaton.

      Already he would have much preferred concealing him lest he should be claimed—a thing, in view of all the circumstances, not very likely—but for the child's sake, he must carry him to The Salmon, where he had free entrance at any hour—not even the public house locking its doors at night.

      Thither then he bore his prize, shielding him from the night air as well as he could, with the bag of his pipes. But he waked none of the inmates; lately fed, the infant slept for several hours, and then did his best both to rouse and astonish the neighbourhood.

      Closely questioned, Duncan told the truth, but cunningly, in such manner that some disbelieved him altogether, while others, who had remarked his haunting of the rocks ever since his arrival, concluded that he had brought the child with him and had kept him hidden until now. The popular conviction at length settled to this, that the child was the piper's grandson—but base born, whom therefore he was ashamed to acknowledge, although heartily willing to minister to and bring up as a foundling. The latter part of this conclusion, however, was not alluded to by Duncan in his narrative: it was enough to add that he took care to leave the former part of it undisturbed.

      The very next day, he found himself attacked by a low fever; but as he had hitherto paid for everything he had at the inn, they never thought of turning him out when his money was exhausted; and as he had already by his discreet behaviour, and the pleasure his bagpipes afforded, made himself not a few friends amongst the simple hearted people of the Seaton, some of the benevolent inhabitants of the upper town, Miss Horn in particular, were soon interested in his favour, who supplied him with everything he required until his recovery. As to the baby, he was gloriously provided for; he had at least a dozen foster mothers at once—no woman in the Seaton who could enter a claim founded on the possession of the special faculty required, failing to enter that claim—with the result of an amount of jealousy almost incredible.

      Meantime the town drummer fell sick and died, and Miss Horn made a party in favour of Duncan. But for the baby, I doubt if he would have had a chance, for he was a stranger and interloper; the women, however, with the baby in their forefront, carried the day. Then his opponents retreated behind the instrument, and strove hard to get the drum recognised as an essential of the office. When Duncan recoiled from the drum with indignation, but without losing the support of his party, the opposition had the effrontery to propose a bell: that he rejected with a vehemence of scorn that had nearly ruined his cause; and, assuming straightway the position of chief party in the proposed contract, declared that no noise of his making should be other than the noise of bagpipes; that he would rather starve than beat drum or ring bell; if he served in the case, it must be after his own fashion—and СКАЧАТЬ