"The deil's in't 'at I bude to anger him!" said the woman, and
walked away, with a short laugh of small satisfaction.
The style she had given the hunchback was no nickname. Stephen Stewart
was laird of the small property and ancient house of Kirkbyres, of
which his mother managed the affairs--hardly for her son, seeing
that, beyond his clothes, and five pounds a year of pocket money,
he derived no personal advantage from his possessions. He never
went near his own house, for, from some unknown reason, plentifully
aimed at in the dark by the neighbours, he had such a dislike to
his mother that he could not bear to hear the name of mother, or
even the slightest allusion to the relationship.
Some said he was a fool; others a madman; some both; none, however,
said he was a rogue; and all would have been willing to allow that
whatever it might be that caused the difference between him and
other men, throughout the disturbing element blew ever and anon
the air of a sweet humanity.
Along the shore, in the direction of the great rocky promontory
that closed in the bay on the west, with his hands still clasped
over his ears, as if the awful word were following him, he flew
rather than fled. It was nearly low water, and the wet sand afforded
an easy road to his flying feet. Betwixt sea and shore, a sail in
the offing the sole other moving thing in the solitary landscape,
like a hunted creature he sped, his footsteps melting and vanishing
behind him in the half quicksand.
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