Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/483

Rh intent on the words of his brother fisher of the old time, had half-consciously put off looking up to see who was behind him. When now he did so, and saw Malcolm, he rose and touched his bonnet. "It was jist i' my heid, my lord," he said without any preamble, "sic a kin' o' a h'avenly Jacobin as this same Jacobus was! He's sic a leveler as was feow afore 'm, I doobt, wi' his gowdringt man an' his cloot-cled brither! He pat me in twa min's, my lord, whan I got up, whether I wad touch my bonnet to yer lordship or no."

Malcolm laughed with hearty appreciation. "When I am king of Lossie," he said, "be it known to all whom it may concern that it is and shall be the right of Blue Peter, and all his descendants to the end of time, to stand with bonneted heads in the presence of the lord or — no, not lady, Peter — of the house of Lossie."

"Ay, but ye see, Ma'colm," said Peter, forgetting his address, and his eye twinkling in the humor of the moment, "it's no by your leave, or ony man's leave: it's the richt o' the thing; an' that I maun think aboot, an' see whether I be at liberty to ca' ye my lord or no."

"Meantime, don't do it," said Malcolm, "lest you should have to change afterward. You might find it difficult."

"Ye're cheengt a'ready," said Blue Peter, looking up at him sharply. "I ne'er h'ard ye speyk like that afore."

"Make nothing of it," returned Malcolm. "I am only airing my English on you. I have made up my mind to learn to speak in London as London people do, and so, even to you — in the mean time only — I am going to speak as good English as I can. It's nothing between you and me, Peter, and you must not mind it," he added, seeing a slight cloud come over the fisherman's face.

Blue Peter turned away with a sigh. The sounds of English speech from the lips of Malcolm, addressed to himself, seemed vaguely to indicate the opening of a gulf between them, destined ere long to widen to the whole social width between a fisherman and a marquis, and swallow up in it not only old memories, but later friendship and confidence. A shadow of bitterness crossed the poor fellow's mind, and in it the seed of distrust began to strike root, for nothing but that a newer had been substituted for an older form of the same speech and language. Truly man's heart is a delicate piece of work, and takes gentle handling or hurt. But that the pain was not all of innocence is revealed in the strange fact afterward disclosed by the repentant Peter himself, that in the same moment what had just passed his mouth as a joke put on an important, serious look, and appeared to involve a matter of doubtful duty: was it really right of one man to say my lord to another? Thus the fisherman, and not the marquis, was the first to sin against the other because of altered fortune. Distrust awoke pride in the heart of Blue Peter, and although in action the man could never have been unfaithful, he yet erred in the lack of the charity that thinketh no evil.

But the lack and the doubt made little show as yet. The two men rowed together in their dingy down the river to the Aberdeen wharf, to make arrangements about Kelpie, whose arrival Malcolm expected the following Monday, then dined together, and after that had a long row up the river.

 

 From The Quarterly Review.

of the historic houses, Holland House and Hatfield, which have been recently commemorated in our pages, were great and noble from the foundation, and can boast a far-ascending and richly associated past. Holland House recalls a succession of statesmen and orators, interspersed and relieved by poets, historians and essayists, prominent among whom rises the honored shade of Addison pacing up and down the library, in the act of composition, with a bottle of port at each end. Hatfield is redolent of royal reminiscences, and we can fancy the Virgin Queen seated under the traditional oak, with the grave Cecil in respectful attendance by her side. Strawberry Hill cannot bear a momentary comparison with either in antiquity, original splendor, or illustration. Its historic, artistic, and literary interest is the creation of one man. It stole obscurely into existence as a cottage under the name of "Chopped Straw Hall," having been built by a retired coachman (Lord Bradford's), who was supposed to have acquired the necessary funds by feeding 