Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/416

410 with a dish in his hands, on his way to the dining-room, from which came the confused noises of the feast

"You'll be come up to wait on Lady Lossie?" he said. "I haven't a moment to speak to you now, for we're at dinner and there's a party."

"Never mind me. Give me that dish. I'll take it in; you can go for another," said Malcolm, laying his pipes in a safe spot.

"You can't go into the dining-room that figure," said Wallis, who was in the Bellair livery.

"This is how I waited on my lord," returned Malcolm, "and this is how I'll wait on my lady."

Wallis hesitated. But there was that about the fisher-fellow was too much for him. As he spoke Malcolm took the dish from his hands, and with it walked into the dining-room. There one reconnoitring glance was sufficient The butler was at the sideboard opening a champagne bottle. He had cut wire and strings, and had his hand on the cork as Malcolm walked up to him, It was a critical moment, yet he stopped in the very article, and stared at the apparition.

"I'm Lady Lossie's man, from Lossie House. I'll help you to wait," said Malcolm.

To the eyes of the butler he looked a savage. But there he was in the room, with a dish in his hands, and speaking at least intelligibly. The cork of the champagne bottle was pushing hard against his palm, and he had no time to question. He peeped into Malcolm's dish. "Take it round, then," he said.

So Malcolm settled into the business of the hour.

It was some time after he knew where she was before he ventured to look at his sister: he would have her already familiarized with his presence before their eyes met. That crisis did not arrive during dinner.

Lord Liftore was one of the company, and so — to Malcolm's pleasure, for he felt in him an ally against the earl — was Florimel's mysterious friend.

 

had the ladies gone to the drawing-room when Florimel's maid, who knew Malcolm, came in quest of him. Lady Lossie desired to see him.

"What is the meaning of this, MacPhail?" she said, when he entered the room where she sat alone. "I did not send for you. Indeed, I thought you had been dismissed with the rest of the servants."

How differently she spoke! And she used to call him Malcolm! The girl Florimel was gone, and there sat — the marchioness was it, or some phase of riper womanhood only? It mattered little to Malcolm. He was no curious student of man or woman. He loved his kind too well to study it. But one thing seemed plain: she had forgotten the half friend-ship and whole service that had had place betwixt them, and it made him feel as if the soul of man no less than his life was but as a vapor that appeareth for a little and then vanisheth away.

But Florimel had not so entirely forgotten the past as Malcolm thought — not so entirely, at least, but that his appearance, and certain difficulties in which she had begun to find herself, brought something of it again to her mind.

"I thought," said Malcolm, assuming his best English, "your ladyship might not choose to part with an old servant at the will of a factor, and so took upon me to appeal to your ladyship to decide the question."

"But how is that? Did you not return to your fishing when the household was broken up?" "No, my lady. Mr. Crathie kept me to help Stoat and do odd jobs about the place."

"And now he wants to discharge you?"

Then Malcolm told her the whole story, in which he gave such a description of Kelpie that her owner, as she imagined herself, expressed a strong wish to see her, for Florimel was almost passionately fond of horses.

"You may soon do that, my lady," said Malcolm. "Mr. Soutar, not being of the same mind as Mr. Crathie, is going to send her up. It will be but the cost of the passage from Aberdeen, and she will fetch a better price here if your ladyship should resolve to part with her. She won't fetch the third of her value anywhere, though, on account of her bad temper and ugly tricks."

"But as to yourself, MacPhail — what are you going to do?" said Florimel. "I don't like to part with you, but if I keep you I don't know what to do with you. No doubt you could serve in the house, but that is not at all suitable to your education and previous life."

"A body wad tak' ye for a granny grown,"