Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/212

206 through the policy hard both by nature and by frost, so that he could not let her go, and had enough to do with her. He turned, therefore, toward the sea-gate, and soon reached the shore. There, westward of the Seaton where the fisher-folk lived, the sand lay smooth, flat and wet along the edge of the receding tide. He gave Kelpie the rein, and she sprang into a wild gallop, every now and then flinging her heels as high as her rider's head. But finding, as they approached the stony level from which rose the great rock called the Bored Craig, that he could not pull her up in time, he turned her head toward the long dune of sand which, a little beyond the tide, ran parallel with the shore. It was dry and loose, and the ascent steep. Kelpie's hoofs sank at every step, and when she reached the top, with widespread struggling haunches and "nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim," he had her in hand. She stood panting, yet pawing and dancing, and making the sand fly in all directions.

Suddenly a woman with a child in her arms rose, as it seemed to Malcolm, under Kelpie's very head. She wheeled and reared, and in wrath or in terror strained every nerve to unseat her rider, while, whether from faith or despair, the woman stood still as a statue, staring at the struggle.

"Haud awa' a bit, Lizzy!" cried Malcolm. "She's a mad brute, an' I mayna be able to haud her. Ye hae the bairnie, ye see."

She was a young woman, with a sad white face. To what Malcolm said she paid no heed, but stood with her child in her arms and gazed at Kelpie as she went on plunging and kicking about on the top of the dune.

"I reckon ye wadna care though the she-devil knockit oot yer brains; but ye hae the bairn, woman; hae mercy on the bairn an' rin to the boddom."

"I want to speyk to ye, Ma'colm MacPhail," she said in a tone whose very stillness revealed a depth of trouble.

"I doobt I canna hearken to ye richt the noo?" said Malcolm. "But bide a wee." He swung himself from Kelpie's back, and, hanging hard on the bit with one hand, searched with the other in the pocket of his coat, saying as he did so, "Sugar, Kelpie! sugar!"

The animal gave an eager snort, settled on her feet, and began snuffing about him. He made haste, for if her eagerness should turn to impatience, she would do her endeavor to bite him. After crunching three or four lumps she stood pretty quiet, and Malcolm must make the best of it.

"Noo, Lizzy," he said hurriedly, "speak while ye can."

"Ma'colm," said the girl — and looked him full in the face for a moment, for agony had overcome shame: then her gaze sought the far horizon, which to seafaring people is as the hills whence cometh their aid to the people who dwell among mountains — "Ma'colm, he's gaein' to merry Leddy Florimel."

Malcolm started. Could the girl have learned more concerning his sister than had yet reached himself? A fine watching over her was his, truly! But who was this he?

Lizzy had never uttered the name of the father of her child, and all her people knew was that he could not be a fisherman, for then he would have married her before the child was born. But Malcolm had had a suspicion from the first, and now her words all but confirmed it. And was that fellow going to marry his sister? He turned white with dismay, then red with anger, and stood speechless.

But he was quickly brought to himself by a sharp pinch under the shoulderblade from Kelpie's long teeth: he had forgotten her, and she had taken the advantage.

"Wha tellt ye that, Lizzy?" he said.

"I'm no at leeberty to say, Ma'colm, but I'm sure it's true, an' my hert's like to brak."

"Puir lassie!" said Malcolm, whose own trouble had never at any time rendered him insensible to that of others.

"But is't onybody 'at kens what he says?" he pursued.

"Weel, I dinna jist richtly ken gien she kens, but I think she maun hae gude rizzon, or she wadna say as she says. Oh me! me! my bairnie 'll be scornin' me sair whan he comes to ken. Ma'colm, ye're the only ane 'at disna luik doon upo' me, an' whan ye cam ower the tap o' the Boar's tail it was like an angel in a fire-flaucht, an' something inside me said, Tell 'im, tell 'im; an' sae I bude to tell ye."

Malcolm was even too simple to feel flattered by the girl's confidence, though to be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.

"Hearken, Lizzy!" he said. "I canna e'en think wi' this brute ready ilka meenute to ate me up: I maun tak her hame. Efter that, gien ye wad like to tell me onything, I s' be at yer service. Bide aboot here, or — luik ye, here's the key o' yon door — come throu' that intill the park — throu'