"
"That's not the name of the hill up there!"
"Ow na; yon's the Binn."
"What have you been about? Looking at things in general, I suppose."
"Na; they've been luikin' at me, I daursay; but I didna heed them,
an' they didna fash me."
"You look so strangely bright!" she said, "as if you had seen
something both marvellous and beautiful!"
The words revealed a quality of insight not hitherto manifested by
Florimel. In truth, Malcolm's whole being was irradiated by the flash
of inward peace that had visited him--a statement intelligible and
therefore credible enough to the mind accustomed to look over the
battlements of the walls that clasp the fair windows of the senses.
But Florimel's insight had reached its limit, and her judgment,
vainly endeavouring to penetrate farther, fell floundering in the
mud.
"I know!" she went on: "You've been to see your lady mother!"
Malcolm's face turned white as if blasted with leprosy. The same
scourge that had maddened the poor laird fell hissing on his soul,
and its knotted sting was the same word mother. He turned and walked
slowly away, fighting a tyrannous impulse to thrust his fingers in
his ears and run and shriek.
"Where are your manners?" cried the girl after him, but he never
stayed his slow foot or turned his bowed head, and Florimel wondered.
For the moment, his new found peace had vanished. Even if the old
nobility of heaven might regard him without a shadow of condescension
--that self righteous form of contempt--what could he do with
a mother whom he could neither honour or love? Love! If he could
but cease to hate her! There was no question yet of loving.
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