“I dinna ken, my lord,” said Malcolm doubtfully.
After a few minutes’ silence, during which Malcolm thought he had fallen asleep, the marquis resumed abruptly.
“What do you mean by giving you a legal right?” he said.
“There’s some w’y o’ makin’ ae body guairdian till anither, sae ’at the law ’ill uphaud him—isna there, my lord?”
“Yes, surely.——Well!—Rather odd—wouldn’t it be?—A young fisher-lad guardian to a marchioness!—Eh? They say there’s nothing new under the sun; but that sounds rather like it, I think.”
Malcolm was overjoyed to hear him speak with something like his old manner. He felt he could stand any amount of chaff from him now, and so the proposition he had made in seriousness, he went on to defend in the hope of giving amusement, yet with a secret wild delight in the dream of such full devotion to the service of Lady Florimel.
“It wad soon’ queer eneuch, my lord, nae doobt; but fowk maunna min’ the soon’ o’ a thing gien ’t be a’ straucht an’ fair, an’ strong eneuch to stan’. They cudna lauch me oot o’ my richts, be they ’at they likit—Lady Bellair, or ony o’ them—na, nor jaw me oot o’ them aither!”
“They might do a good deal to render those rights of little use,” said the marquis.
“That wad come till a trial o’ brains, my lord,” returned Malcolm; “an’ ye dinna think I wadna hae the wit to speir advice—an’ what’s mair, to ken whan it was guid, an’ tak it! There’s lawyers, my lord.”
“And their expenses?”