Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 132.djvu/739

Rh character! You will be so amused with the remarks he will make!"

"But can you venture to let him talk to you?"

"If you ask him to read, how will you prevent him? Unfortunately, he has thoughts, and they will out."

"Is there no danger of his being rude?"

"If speaking his" mind about anything in the book be rudeness, he will most likely be rude. Any other kind of rudeness is as impossible to Malcolm as to any gentleman in the land."

"How can you be so sure of him?" said Clementina, a little anxious as to the way in which her friend regarded the young man.

"My father was — yes, I may say so — attached to him; so much so that he — I can't quite say what — but something like made him promise never to leave my service. And this I know for myself, that not once, ever since that man came to us, has he done a selfish thing or one to be ashamed of. I could give you proof after proof of his devotion."

Florimel's warmth did not reassure Clementina, and her uneasiness wrought to the prejudice of Malcolm. She was never quite so generous toward human beings as toward animals. She could not be depended on for justice except to people in trouble, and then she was very apt to be unjust to those who troubled them. "I would not have you place too much confidence in your Admirable Crichton of menials, Florimel," she said. "There is something about him I cannot get at the bottom of. Depend upon it, a man who can be cruel would betray on the least provocation."

Florimel smiled superior, as she had good reason to do, but Clementina did not understand the smile, and therefore did not like it. She feared the young fellow had already gained too much influence over his mistress. "Florimel, my love," she said, "listen to me. Your experience is not so ripe as mine. That man is not what you think him. One day or other he will, I fear, make himself worse than disagreeable. How can a cruel man be unselfish?"

"I don't think him cruel at all. But then I haven't such a soft heart for animals as you. We should think it silly in Scotland. You wouldn't teach a dog manners at the expense of a howl. You would let him be a nuisance rather than give him a cut with a whip. What a nice mother of children you will make, Clementina! That's how the children of good people are so often a disgrace to them."

"You are like all the rest of the Scotch I ever knew," said Lady Clementina: "the Scotch are always preaching. I believe it is in their blood. You are a nation of parsons. Thank goodness! my morals go no further than doing as I would be done by! I want to see creatures happy about me. For my own sake even I would never cause pang to person — it gives me such a pang myself."

"That's the way you are made, I suppose, Clementina," returned Florimel. "For me, my clay must be coarser. I don't mind a little pain myself, and I can't break my heart for it when I see it, except it be very bad — such as I should care about myself. But here comes the tyrant."

Malcolm was pulling up his mare some hundred yards off. Even now she was unwilling to stop, but it was at last only from pure original objection to whatever was wanted of her. When she did stand she stood stock-still, breathing hard. "I have actually succeeded in taking a little out of her at last, my lady," said Malcolm as he dismounted. "Have you got a bit of sugar in your pocket, my lady? She would take it quite gently now."

Florimel had none, but Clementina had, for she always carried sugar for her horse. Malcolm held the demoness very watchfully, but she took the sugar from Florimel's palm as neatly as an elephant, and let her stroke her nose over her wide red nostrils without showing the least of her usual inclination to punish a liberty with death. Then Malcolm rode her home, and she was at peace till the evening when he took her out again.

 

now followed a pleasant time. Wastbeach was the quietest of all quiet neighborhoods: it was the loveliest of spring-summer weather, and the variety of scenery on moor, in woodland and on coast within easy reach of such good horsewomen was wonderful. The first day they rested the horses that would rest, but the next they were in the saddle immediately after an early breakfast. They took the forest way. In many directions were tolerably smooth rides cut, and along them they had good gallops, to the great delight of Florimel after the restraints of Rotten Row, where riding had seemed like dancing a minuet with a waltz in her heart.