Warlock o' Glenwarlock, George MacDonald [ebook reader browser txt] 📗

an hour longer in this hole of a place, though it be daylight!"

"Papa!" cried Lady Joan.

His lordship understood, looked a little confused, and with much readiness sought to put the best face on his blunder.

"Pardon me, Mr. Warlock," he said; "I have always had a bad habit of speech, and now that I am an old man, I don't improve on it."

"Don't mention it, my lord," returned the laird. "I will go and see about the carriage; but I am more than doubtful."

He left the kitchen, and Cosmo followed him. Lord Mergwain turned to his daughter and said,

"What does the man mean? I tell you, Joan, I am going at once. So don't you side with him if he wants us to stop. He may have his reasons. I knew this confounded place before you were born, and I hate it."

"Very good, papa!" replied Lady Joan, with a slight curl of her lip. "I don't see why you should fancy I should like to stop."

They had spoken aloud, regardless of the presence of Grizzie.

"May it be lang afore ye're in a waun an' a warmer place, my lord an' my lady," said the old woman, with the greatest politeness of manner she knew how to assume. When people were rude, she thought she had a right to be rude in return. But they took no more notice than if they had not heard.


CHAPTER XVI.

THROUGH THE DAY.


It was a glorious morning. The wind had fallen quite, and the sun was shining as if he would say, "Keep up your hearts; I am up here still. I have not forgotten you. By and by you shall see more of me." But Nature lay dead, with a great white sheet cast over face and form. Not dead?Just as much dead as ever was man, save for the inner death with which he kills himself, and which she cannot die. It is only to the eyes of his neighbours that the just man dies: to himself, and to those on the other side, he does not die, but is born instead: "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." But the poor old lord felt the approaching dank and cold of the sepulchre as the end of all things to himif indeed he would be permitted to lie there, and not have to get up and go to worse quarters still.

"I am sorry to have to tell you, my lord," said the laird, re-entering, "that both our roads and your horses are in such a state that it is impossible you should proceed today."

His guest turned white through all the discoloration of his countenance. His very soul grew too white to swear. He stood silent, his pendulous under lip trembling.

"Though the wind fell last night," resumed the laird, "the snow came on again before the morning, and it seems impossible you should get through. To attempt it would be to run no small risk of your lives."

"Joan," said Lord Mergwain, "go and tell the rascal to put the horses to."

Lady Joan rose at once, took her shawl, put it over her head, and went. Cosmo ran to open the door for her. The laird looked on, and said not a word: the headstrong old man would find the thing could not be done!

"Will you come and find the coachman for me, Cosmo?" said Lady Joan when they reached the doorwith a flash of her white teeth and her dark eyes that bewitched the boy. Then first, in the morning light, and the brilliance of the snow-glare, he saw that she was beautiful. When the shadows were dark about her, the darkness of her complexion obscured itself; against the white sheen she stood out darkly radiant. Specially he noted the long eyelashes that made a softening twilight round the low horizon-like luminousness of her eyes.

Through the deep snow between the kitchen and the stable, were none but his father's footsteps. He cast a glance at her small feet, daintily shod in little more than sandals: she could not put down one of them anywhere without sinking beyond her ankle!

"My lady," he said, "you'll get your feet soaking wet! They're so small, they'll just dibble the snow! Please ask your papa if I mayn't go and give his message. It will do just as well."

"I must go myself," she answered. "Sometimes he will trust nobody but me."

"Stop then a moment," said Cosmo. "Just come to the drawing-room. I won't keep you more than two minutes. The path there, you see, is pretty well trodden."

He led the way, and she followed.

The fire was alight, and burning well; for Grizzie, foreseeing how it must be, and determined she would not have strangers in the kitchen all day, had lighted it early. Lady Joan walked straight to it, and dropped, with a little shiver, into a chair beside it. To Cosmo the sight of the blaze brought a strange delight, like the discover of a new loveliness in an old friend. To Lady Joan the room looked oldfashioned dreariness itself, to Cosmo an ancient marvel, ever fresh.

He left her, and ran to his own room, whence presently he returned with a pair of thick woollen stockings, knitted in green and red by the hands of his grandmother. These he carried to Lady Joan, where she sat on the low chair, and kneeling before her, began, without apology or explanation, to draw one of them over the dainty foot placed on the top of the other in front of the fire. She gave a little start, and half withdrew her foot; then looking down at the kneeling figure of service before her, recognized at once the utterly honest and self-forgetful earnestness of the boy, and submitted. Carefully he drew the stockings on, and she neither opposed nor assisted him. When he had done, he looked up in her face with an expression that seemed to say"There now! can't I do it properly?" but did not speak. She thanked him, rose, and went out, and Cosmo conducted her to the stable, where he heard the coachman, as she called him, not much better than a stable-boy, whistling. She gave him her father's order. . .

[Illustration: "COSMO CONDUCTED HER TO THE STABLE."]

The lad stared with open mouth, and pointed toone of the stalls. There stood an utterly wretched horse, swathed in a cloth, with his head hanging down, heedless of the food before him. It was clear no hope lay there. She turned and looked at Cosmo.

"The better for us, my lady!" replied Cosmo to her look; "we shall have your beautiful eyes the longer! They were lost in the dark last night, because they are made out of it, but now we see them, we don't want to part with them."

She looked at him and smiled, saying to herself the boy would be dangerous by and by, and together they went back to the kitchen, where since they left not a word had been spoken. Grizzle was removing the breakfast things; Lord Mergwain was seated by the fire, staring into it; and the laird had got his Journal of George Fox, and was reading diligently: when nothing was to be done, the deeper mind of the laird grew immediately active.

When Lady Joan entered, her father sat up straight in his chair: he expected opposition!

"One of the horses, my lord, is quite unfit," she said.

"Then, by my soul! we'll start with the other," he replied, in a tone that sounded defiance to heaven or earth or whatever said him nay.

"As your lordship pleases," returned Joan.

"My lord," said the laird, lowering his book to his knee, "if I thought four cart-horses would pull you through to Howglen to-night, you should have them; but you would simply stick fast, horses and all, in the snow-wreaths."

The old man uttered an exclamation with an awful solemnity, and said no more, but collapsed, and sat huddled up, staring into the fire.

"You must just make the best of your quarters here; they are entirely at your service, my lord," said the laird. "We shall not starve. There are sheep on the place, pigs and poultry, and plenty of oatmeal, though very little flour. There is milk tooand a little wine, and I think we shall do well enough."

Lord Mergwain made no answer, but in his silence seemed to be making up his mind to the ineludible.

"Have you any more of that claret?" he asked.

"Not much, I am sorry to say," answered the laird, "but it is your lordship's while it lasts."

"If this lasts, I shall drink your cellar dry," rejoined his lordship with a feeble grin. "I may as well make a clean breast of it. From my childhood I have never known what it was not to be thirsty. I believe thirst to be the one unfailing birth-mark of the family. I was what the methodists call a drunkard before I was born. My father died of drink. So did my grandfather. You must have some pity on me, if I should want more than seems reasonable. The only faculty ever cultivated in our strain was drinking, and I am sorry to say it has not been brought to perfection yet. Perfection is to get drunk and never know it; but I have bad dreams, sir! I have bad dreams! And the worst of it is, if once I have a bad dream, I am sure to have it again; and if it come first in a strange place, it will come every night until I leave that place. I had a very bad one last night, as you know. I grant it came because I drank too much yesterday, but that won't keep it from coming again to-night."

He started to his feet, the muscles of his face working frightfully.

"Send for your horses, Mr. Warlock," he cried. "Have them put to at once. Four of them, you said. At onceat once! Out of this I must go. If it be toitself, go I must and will."

"My lord," said the laird, "I cannot send you from my house in this weather. As my guest, I am bound to do my best for you; especially as I understand the country, and you do not. I said you should have my horses if I thought they could take you through, but I do not think it. Besides, the change, in my judgment, is a deceitful one, and this night may be worse than the last. Poor as your accommodation is, it is better than the open road between this and Howglen; though, doubtless, before to-morrow morning you would be snug in the heart of a snowwreath."

"Look here, sir," said Lord Mergwain, and rising, he went up to the laird, and laid his hand on his shoulder; "if I stop, will you give me another room, and promise to share it with me to-night? I am aware it is an odd request to make, but, as I tell you, we have been drinking for generations, and my nerves are the worse for it. It's rather hard that the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children! Before God, I have enough to do with my own, let alone my fathers'! Every one should bear his own burden. I can't bear mine. If I could, it's not much my fathers' would trouble me!"

"My lord, I will do anything I can for youanything but consent to your