Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 132.djvu/701

Rh  to himself; and now that the painter was gone, she was clear of all temptation to the sort of thing that had caused it, and never, never more would she permit herself to be drawn into circumstances the least equivocal. If only Lenorme would come back and allow her to be his friend, his best friend, his only young lady friend, leaving her at perfect liberty to do just as she liked, then all would be well, absolutely comfortable! In the mean time, life was endurable without him, and would be, provided Liftore did not make himself disagreeable. If he did, there were other gentlemen who might be induced to keep him in check: she would punish him: she knew how. She liked him better, however, than any of those.

It was out of pure kindness to Malcolm, upon Liftore's representation of how he had punished him, that for the rest of the week she dispensed with his attendance upon herself. But he, unaware of the lies Liftore had told her, and knowing nothing, therefore, of her reason for doing so, supposed she resented the liberty he had taken in warning her against Caley, feared the breach would go on widening, and went about, if not quite downcast, yet less hopeful still. Everything seemed going counter to his desires. A whole world of work lay before him — a harbor to build; a numerous fisher-clan to house as they ought to be housed; justice to do on all sides; righteous servants to appoint in place of oppressors; and, all over, the heavens to show more just than his family had in the past allowed them to appear; he had mortgages and other debts to pay off, clearing his feet from fetters and his hands from manacles, that he might be the true lord of his people; he had Miss Horn to thank, and the schoolmaster to restore to the souls and hearts of Portlossie; and, next of all to his sister, he had old Duncan, his first friend and father, to find and minister to. Not a day passed, not a night did he lay down his head, without thinking of him. But the old man, whatever his hardships, and even the fishermen, with no harbor to run home to from the wild elements, were in no dangers to compare with such as threatened his sister. To set her free was his first business, and that business as yet refused to be done. Hence he was hemmed in, shut up, incarcerated in stubborn circumstance, from a long-reaching range of duties calling aloud upon his conscience and heart to hasten with the first that he might reach the second. What rendered it the more disheartening was, that, having discovered, as he hoped, how to compass his first end, the whole possibility had by his sister's behavior, and the consequent disappearance of Lenorme, been swept from him, leaving him more resourceless than ever.

When Sunday evening came he found his way to Hope Chapel, and, walking in, was shown to a seat by the grimy-faced pew-opener. It was with strange feelings he sat there, thinking of the past and looking for the appearance of his friend on the pulpit stair. But his feelings would have been stranger still had he seen who sat in the pew immediately behind him, watching him like a cat watching a mouse, or rather like a half-grown kitten watching a rat, for she was a little frightened at him, even while resolved to have him. But how could she doubt her final success when her plans were already affording her so much more than she had expected? Who would have looked for the great red stag himself to come browsing so soon about the scarecrow? He was too large game, however, to be stalked without due foresight.

When the congregation was dismissed, after a sermon the power of whose utterance astonished Malcolm, accustomed as he was to the schoolmaster's best moods, he waited until the preacher was at liberty from the unwelcome attentions and vulgar congratulations of the richer and more forward of his hearers, and then joined him to walk home with him. He was followed to the schoolmaster's lodging, and thence, an hour after, to his own, by a little boy — far too little to excite suspicion — the grandson of Mrs. Catanach's friend, the herb-doctor.

Until now the woman had not known that Malcolm was in London. When she learned that he was lodged so near Portland Place, she concluded that he was watching his sister, and chuckled over the idea of his being watched in turn by herself.

Every day for weeks after her declaration concerning the birth of Malcolm had the mind of Mrs. Catanach been exercised to the utmost to invent some mode of undoing her own testimony. She would have had no scruples, no sense of moral disgust, in eating every one of her words; but a magistrate and a lawyer had both been present at the uttering of them, and she feared the risk. Malcolm's behavior to her after his father's death had embittered the unfriendly feelings she had cherished toward him for many years. While 