Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 85, January, 1875

"Gie me a richt, my lord, an' I'll du my best," said Malcolm, at length breaking the silence.

"What do you mean?" growled the marquis, whose mood had altered.

"Gie me a legal richt, my lord, an' see gien I dinna."

"See what?"

"See gien I dinna luik weel efter my leddy."

"How am I to see? I shall be dead and damned."

"Please God, my lord, ye'll be alive an' weel—in a better place, if no here to luik efter my leddy yersel'."

"Oh, I dare say," muttered the marquis.

"But ye'll hearken to the doctors, my lord," Malcolm went on, "an' no dee wantin' time to consider o' 't."

"Yes, yes: to-morrow I'll have another talk with them. We'll see about it. There's time enough yet. They're all coxcombs, every one of them. They never give a patient the least credit for common sense."

"I dinna ken, my lord," said Malcolm doubtfully.

After a few minutes' silence, during which Malcolm thought he had fallen asleep, the marquis resumed abruptly. "What do you mean by giving you a legal right?" he said.

"There's some w'y o' makin' ae body guairdian till anither, sae 'at the law 'll uphaud him—isna there, my lord?"

"Yes, surely. Well! Rather odd—wouldn't it be?—a young fisher-lad guardian to a marchioness! Eh? They say there's nothing new under the sun, but that sounds rather like it, I think."

Malcolm was overjoyed to hear him speak with something like his old manner. He felt he could stand any amount of chaff from him now, and so the proposition he had made in seriousness he went on to defend in the hope of giving amusement, yet with a secret wild delight in the dream of such full devotion to the service of Lady Florimel.

"It wad soon' queer eneuch, my lord, nae doobt, but fowk maunna min' the soon' o' a thing gien 't be a' straucht an' fair, an' strong eneuch to stan'. They cudna lauch me oot o' my richts, be they 'at they likit—Lady Bellair or ony o' them—na, nor jaw me oot o' them aither."

"They might do a good deal to render those rights of little use," said the marquis.

"That wad come till a trial o' brains, my lord," returned Malcolm: "an' ye dinna think I wadna hae the wit to speir advice; an', what's mair, to ken whan it was guid, an' tak it. There's lawyers, my lord."

"And their expenses?"

"Ye cud lea' sae muckle to be waured (spent) upo' the cairryin' oot o' yer lordship's wull."

"Who would see that you applied it properly?"

"My ain conscience, my lord, or Mr. Graham gien ye likit."

"And how would you live yourself?"

"Ow! lea' ye that to me, my lord. Only dinna imagine I wad be behauden to yer lordship. I houp I hae mair pride nor that. Ilka poun'-not', shillin' an' bawbee sud be laid oot for her, an' what was left hainet (saved) for her."

"By Jove! it's a daring proposal!" said the marquis; and, which seemed strange to Malcolm, not a single thread of ridicule ran through the tone in which he made the remark.

The next day came, but brought neither strength of body nor of mind with it. Again his professional attendants besought him, and he heard them more quietly, but rejected their proposition as positively as before. In a day or two he ceased to oppose it, but would not hear of preparation. Hour glided into hour, and days had gathered to a week, when they assailed him with a solemn and last appeal.

"Nonsense!" answered the marquis. "My leg is getting better. I feel no pain—in fact, nothing but a little faintness. Your damned medicines, I haven't a doubt."

"You are in the greatest danger, my lord. It is all but too late even now."

"To-morrow, then, if it must be. To-day I could not endure to have my hair cut, positively; and as to having my leg off—pooh! the thing's preposterous."

He turned white and shuddered, for all the nonchalance of his speech.

When to-morrow came there was not a surgeon in the land who would have taken his leg off. He looked in their faces, and seemed for the first time convinced of the necessity of the measure.

"You may do as you please," he said: "I am ready."

"Not to-day, my lord," replied the doctor—"your lordship is not equal to it to-day."

"I understand," said the marquis, and paled frightfully and turned his head aside.

When Mrs. Courthope suggested that Lady Florimel should be sent for, he flew into a frightful rage, and spoke as it is to be hoped he had never spoken to a woman before. She took it with perfect gentleness, but could not repress a tear. The marquis saw it, and his heart was touched. "You mustn't mind a dying man's temper," he said.

"It's not for myself, my lord," she answered.

"I know: you think I'm not fit to die; and, damn it! you are right. Never one was less fit for heaven or less willing to go to hell."

"Wouldn't you like to see a clergyman, my lord?" she suggested, sobbing.

He was on the point of breaking out into a still worse passion, but controlled himself. "A clergyman!" he cried: "I would as soon see the undertaker. What could he do but tell me I was going to be damned—a fact I know better than he can? That is, if it's not all an invention of the cloth, as, in my soul, I believe it is. I've said so any time these forty years."

"Oh, my lord! my lord! do not fling away your last hope."

"You imagine me to have a chance, then? Good soul! you don't know any better."

"The Lord is merciful."

The marquis laughed—that is, he tried, failed, and grinned.

"Mr. Cairns is in the dining-room, my lord."

"Bah! A low pettifogger, with the soul of a bullock. Don't let me hear the fellow's name. I've been bad enough, God knows, but I haven't sunk to the level of his help yet. If he's God Almighty's factor, and the saw holds, 'Like master, like man,' well, I would rather have nothing to do with either."

"That is, if you had the choice, my lord," said Mrs. Courthope, her temper yielding somewhat, though in truth his speech was not half so irreverent as it seemed to her.

"Tell him to go to hell. No, don't: set him down to a bottle of port and a great sponge-cake, and you needn't tell him to go to heaven, for he'll be there already. Why, Mrs. Courthope, the fellow isn't a gentleman. And yet all he cares for the cloth is that he thinks it makes a gentleman of him—as if anything in heaven, earth or hell could work that miracle!"

In the middle of the night, as Malcolm sat by his bed, thinking him asleep, the marquis spoke suddenly. "You must go to Aberdeen to-morrow, Malcolm," he said.

"Verra weel, my lord."

"And bring Mr. Glennie, the lawyer, back with you."