Thy soul,
however it became known to itself is from the pure heart of God,
whose thought of thee is older than thy being--is its first
and eldest cause. Thy essence cannot be defiled, for in him it is
eternal."
Even with the thought, the horizon of his life began to clear; a
light came out on the far edge of its ocean--a dull and sombre
yellow, it is true, and the clouds hung yet heavy over sea and
land, while miles of vapour hid the sky; but he could now believe
there might be a blue beyond, in which the sun lorded it with
majesty.
He had been rambling on the waste hill in which the grounds of
Lossie House, as it were, dissipated. It had a far outlook, but
he had beheld neither sky or ocean. The Soutars of Cromarty had
all the time sat on their stools large in his view; the hills of
Sutherland had invited his gaze, rising faint and clear over the
darkened water at their base, less solid than the sky in which
they were set, and less a fact than the clouds that crossed their
breasts; the land of Caithness had lain lowly and afar, as if,
weary of great things, it had crept away in tired humility to the
rigours of the north; and east and west his own rugged shore had
gone lengthening out, fringed with the white burst of the dark sea;
but none of all these things had he noted.
Lady Florimel suddenly encountered him on his way home, and was
startled by his look.
"Where have you been, Malcolm?" she exclaimed.
"I hardly ken, my leddy: somewhaur aboot the feet o' Mount Pisgah,
I 'm thinkin', if no freely upo' the heid o' 't.
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