Up rose the horror
again, jerked itself towards him with a clank, and held out its
hand. Malcolm seized it with such a gripe that its fingers came
off in his grasp.
"Will that du, my lord?" he said calmly, turning a face rigid with
hidden conflict, and gleaming white, from the framework of the
arch, upon his master, whose eyes seemed to devour him.
"Come out," said the marquis, in a voice that seemed to belong to
some one else.
"I hae blaudit yer playock, my lord," said Malcolm ruefully, as he
stepped from the cave and held out the fingers.
Lord Lossie turned and left the arbour.
Had Malcolm followed his inclination, he would have fled from it,
but he mastered himself still, and walked quietly out. The marquis
was pacing, with downbent head and hasty strides, up the garden:
Malcolm turned the other way.
The shower was over, and the sun was drawing out millions of mimic
suns from the drops that hung, for a moment ere they fell, from
flower and bush and great tree. But Malcolm saw nothing. Perplexed
with himself and more perplexed yet with the behaviour of his
master, he went back to his grandfather's cottage, and, as soon as
he came in, recounted to him the whole occurrence.
"He had a feeshon," said the bard, with wide eyes. "He comes of a
race that sees."
"What cud the veesion hae been, daddy?"
"Tat she knows not, for ta feeshon tid not come to her," said the
piper solemnly.
Had the marquis had his vision in London, he would have gone straight
to his study, as he called it, not without a sense of the absurdity
involved, opened a certain cabinet, and drawn out a certain hidden
drawer; being at Lossie, he walked up the glen of the burn to the
bare hill, overlooking the House, the royal burgh, the great sea,
and his own lands lying far and wide around him.
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