“I wad hae likit hay better,” he said, pointing to this lair rather than couch, “but it’s some ill to get, an’ the spales they’re at han’, an’ they smell unco clean.”
At the opposite side of the room lay a corresponding heap, differing not a little, however, in appearance and suggestion. As far as visible form and material could make it one, it was a grave —rather a short one, but abundantly long for the laird. It was in reality a heap of mould, about a foot and a half high, covered with the most delicate grass, and bespangled with daisies.
“Laird!” said Phemy, half reproachfully, as she stood gazing at the marvel, “ye hae been oot at nicht!”
“Aye—a’ nicht whiles, whan naebody was aboot ’cep’ the win’” —he pronounced the word with a long-drawn imitative sough—“an’ the cloods an’ the splash o’ the watter.”
Pining under the closer imprisonment in his garret, which the discovery of his subterranean refuge had brought upon him, the laird would often have made his escape at night but for the fear of disturbing the Mairs; and now that there was no one to disturb, the temptation to spend his nights in the open air was the more irresistible that he had conceived the notion of enticing nature herself into his very chamber. Abroad then he had gone, as soon as the first midnight closed around his new dwelling, and in the fields had with careful discrimination begun to collect the mould for his mound, a handful here and a handful there. This took him several nights, and when it was finished, he was yet more choice in his selection of turf, taking it from the natural grass growing along the roads and on the earthen dykes, or walls, the outer sides of which feed the portionless cows of that country. Searching for miles in the moonlight, he had, with eye and hand, chosen out patches of this grass, the shortest and thickest he could find, and with a pocket knife, often in pieces of only a few inches, removed the best of it and carried it home, to be fitted on the heap, and with every ministration and blandishment enticed to flourish. He pressed it down with soft firm hands, and beshowered it with water first warmed a little in his mouth; when the air was soft, he guided the wind to blow upon it; and as the sun could not reach it where it lay, he gathered a marvellous heap of all the bright sherds he could find—of crockery and glass and mirror, so arranging them in the window, that each threw its tiny reflex upon the turf. With this last contrivance, Phemy was specially delighted; and the laird, happy as a child in beholding her delight, threw himself in an ecstasy on the mound and clasped it in his arms. I can hardly doubt that he regarded it as representing his own grave, to which in his happier moods he certainly looked forward as a place of final and impregnable refuge.
As he lay thus, foreshadowing his burial, or rather his resurrection, a young canary which had flown from one of the cottages, flitted in with a golden shiver and flash, and alighted on his head. He took it gently in his hand and committed it to Phemy to carry home, with many injunctions against disclosing how it had been captured.
His lonely days were spent in sleep, in tending his plants, or in contriving defences; but in all weathers he wandered out at midnight, and roamed or rested among fields or rocks till the first signs of the breaking day, when he hurried like a wild creature to his den.
Before long he had contrived an ingenious trap, or man-spider-web, for the catching of any human insect that might seek entrance at his window: the moment the invading body should reach a certain point, a number of lines would drop about him, in making his way through which he would straightway be caught by the barbs of countless fish-hooks—the whole strong enough at least to detain him until its inventor should have opened the trap-door and fled.
CHAPTER LII.
CREAM OR SCUM?
Of the new evil report abroad concerning him, nothing had as yet reached Malcolm. He read, and pondered, and wrestled with difficulties of every kind; saw only a little of Lady Florimel, who, he thought, avoided him; saw less of the marquis; and, as the evenings grew longer, spent still larger portions of them with Duncan—now and then reading to him, but oftener listening to his music or taking a lesson in the piper’s art. He went seldom into the Seaton, for the faces there were changed towards him. Attributing this to the reports concerning his parentage, and not seeing why he should receive such treatment because of them, hateful though they might well be to himself, he began to feel some bitterness towards his early world, and would now and then repeat to himself a misanthropical thing he had read, fancying he too had come to that conclusion. But there was not much danger of such a mood growing habitual with one who knew Duncan MacPhail, Blue Peter, and the schoolmaster— not to mention Miss Horn. To know one person who is positively to be trusted, will do more for a man’s moral nature—yes, for his spiritual nature—than all the sermons he has ever heard or ever can hear.