Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/217

Rh Gien ye forsak' them noo, ye'll be forgettin' him 'at made them an' you, an' the sea, an' the herrin' to be taen intill 't. Gien ye forget them there's nae houp for them, but the same deith 'ill keep on swallowin' at them upo' sea an' shore."

"Ye speyk the trouth, as I hae spoken 't till mysel', Peter. Noo hearken: will ye sail wi' me the nicht for Lon'on toon?"

The fisherman was silent a moment — then answered, "I wull, my lord, but I maun tell my wife."

"Rin, an' fess her here, man, for I'm fleyed at yer sister, honest wuman, an' little Phemy. It wad blaud a' thing gien I was hurried to du something afore I kenned what."

"I s' hae her oot in a meenute," said Joseph, and scrambled up the cliff.

 

a few minutes Malcolm stood alone in the dim starlight of winter, looking out on the dusky sea, dark as his own future, into which the wind now blowing behind him would soon begin to carry him. He anticipated its difficulties, but never thought of perils: it was seldom anything oppressed him but the doubt of what he ought to do. This was ever the cold mist that swallowed the airy castles he built, peopled with all the friends and acquaintances of his youth. But the very first step toward action is the death-warrant of doubt, and the tide of Malcolm's being ran higher that night, as he stood thus alone under the stars, than he had ever yet known it run. With all his common sense and the abundance of his philosophy, which the much leisure belonging to certain phases of his life had combined with the slow strength of his intellect to render somewhat long-winded in utterance, there was yet room in Malcolm's bonnet for a bee above the ordinary size, and if it buzzed a little too romantically for the taste of the nineteenth century about disguises, and surprises, and bounty, and plots, and rescues, and such like, something must be pardoned to one whose experience had already been so greatly out of the common, and whose nature was far too childlike and poetic, and developed in far too simple a surrounding of labor and success, difficulty and conquest, danger and deliverance, not to have more than the usual amount of what is called the romantic in its composition.

The buzzing of his bee was for the present interrupted by the return of Blue Peter with his wife. She threw her arms round Malcolm's neck and burst into tears.

"Hoots, my woman!" said her husband, "what are ye greitin' at?"

"Eh, Peter!" she answered, "I canna help it. It's jist like a deith. He's gauin' to lea' us a', an' gang hame till 's ain, an' I canna bide 'at he sud grow strange-like to hiz 'at hae kenned him sae lang."

"It 'll be an ill day," returned Malcolm, "whan I grow strange to ony freen'. I'll hae to gang far doon the laick (low) ro'd afore that be poassible. I mayna aye be able to du jist what ye wad like; but lippen ye to me: I s' be fair to ye. An' noo I want Blue Peter to gang wi' me, an' help me to what I hae to du, gien ye hae nae objection to lat him."

"Na, nane hae I. I wad gang mysel' gien I cud be o' ony use," answered Mrs. Mair; "but women are i' the gait whiles."

"Weel, I'll no even say thank ye: I'll be awin' ye that as weel 's the lave. But gien I dinna du weel, it winna be the fau't o' ane or the ither o' you twa freen's. — Noo, Peter, we maun be off."

"No the nicht, surely?" said Mrs. Mair, a little taken by surprise.

"The suner the better, lass," replied her husband. "An' we cudna hae a better win'. Jist rin ye hame an' get some vicktooals thegither, an' come efter hiz to Portlossie."

"But hoo 'll ye get the boat to the waiter ohn mair han's? I'll need to come mysel', an' fess Jean."

"Na, na: lat Jean sit. There's plenty i' the Seaton to help. We're gauin' to tak' the markis's cutter. She's a heap easier to lainch, an' she 'll sail a heap fester."

"But what'll Maister Crathie say?"

"We maun tak oor chance o' that," answered her husband with a smile of confidence; and he and Malcolm set out for the Seaton, while Mrs. Mair went home to get ready some provisions for the voyage, consisting chiefly of oat-cakes.

The prejudice against Malcolm from his imagined behavior to Lizzy Findlay had by this time, partly through the assurances of Peter, partly through the power of the youth's innocent presence, almost died out, and when the two men reached the Seaton they found plenty of hands ready to help them to launch the little sloop. Malcolm said he was going to take her to Peterhead, and they asked no questions but such as he contrived to answer with truth or to leave unanswered. Once afloat, there was very little to' be done, for 