MARQUISE OF LOSSIE'S ADVENTURES: Malcolm & The Marquis's Secret. George MacDonald

those who understand how rapidly as well as constantly the whole faces of some cliffs are changing by the fall of portions —destroying the very existence of some caves, and utterly changing the mouths of others.

      From a desire of secrecy, occasioned by the haunting dread of its approaching necessity, day and night being otherwise much alike to him, Duncan generally chose the night for his wanderings amongst the rocks, and probings of their hollows. One night, or rather morning, for he believed it was considerably past twelve o'clock, he sat weary in a large open cave, listening to the sound of the rising tide, and fell fast asleep, his bagpipes, without which he never went abroad, across his knees. He came to himself with a violent start, for the bag seemed to be moving, and its last faint sound of wail was issuing. Heavens! there was a baby lying upon it.—For a time he sat perfectly bewildered, but at length concluded that some wandering gipsy had made him a too ready gift of the child she did not prize. Some one must be near. He called aloud, but there was no answer. The child began to cry. He sought to soothe it, and its lamentation ceased. The moment that its welcome silence responded to his blandishments, the still small "Here I am" of the Eternal Love whispered its presence in the heart of the lonely man: something lay in his arms so helpless that to it, poor and blind and forsaken of man and woman as he was, he was yet a tower of strength. He clasped the child to his bosom, and rising forthwith set out, but with warier steps than heretofore, over the rocks for the Seaton.

      Already he would have much preferred concealing him lest he should be claimed—a thing, in view of all the circumstances, not very likely—but for the child's sake, he must carry him to The Salmon, where he had free entrance at any hour—not even the public house locking its doors at night.

      Thither then he bore his prize, shielding him from the night air as well as he could, with the bag of his pipes. But he waked none of the inmates; lately fed, the infant slept for several hours, and then did his best both to rouse and astonish the neighbourhood.

      Closely questioned, Duncan told the truth, but cunningly, in such manner that some disbelieved him altogether, while others, who had remarked his haunting of the rocks ever since his arrival, concluded that he had brought the child with him and had kept him hidden until now. The popular conviction at length settled to this, that the child was the piper's grandson—but base born, whom therefore he was ashamed to acknowledge, although heartily willing to minister to and bring up as a foundling. The latter part of this conclusion, however, was not alluded to by Duncan in his narrative: it was enough to add that he took care to leave the former part of it undisturbed.

      The very next day, he found himself attacked by a low fever; but as he had hitherto paid for everything he had at the inn, they never thought of turning him out when his money was exhausted; and as he had already by his discreet behaviour, and the pleasure his bagpipes afforded, made himself not a few friends amongst the simple hearted people of the Seaton, some of the benevolent inhabitants of the upper town, Miss Horn in particular, were soon interested in his favour, who supplied him with everything he required until his recovery. As to the baby, he was gloriously provided for; he had at least a dozen foster mothers at once—no woman in the Seaton who could enter a claim founded on the possession of the special faculty required, failing to enter that claim—with the result of an amount of jealousy almost incredible.

      Meantime the town drummer fell sick and died, and Miss Horn made a party in favour of Duncan. But for the baby, I doubt if he would have had a chance, for he was a stranger and interloper; the women, however, with the baby in their forefront, carried the day. Then his opponents retreated behind the instrument, and strove hard to get the drum recognised as an essential of the office. When Duncan recoiled from the drum with indignation, but without losing the support of his party, the opposition had the effrontery to propose a bell: that he rejected with a vehemence of scorn that had nearly ruined his cause; and, assuming straightway the position of chief party in the proposed contract, declared that no noise of his making should be other than the noise of bagpipes; that he would rather starve than beat drum or ring bell; if he served in the case, it must be after his own fashion—and so on. Hence it was no wonder, some of the bailies being not only small men and therefore conceited, but powerful whigs, who despised everything highland, and the bagpipes especially, if the affair did for awhile seem hopeless. But the more noble minded of the authorities approved of the piper none the less for his independence, a generosity partly rooted, it must be confessed, in the amusement which the annoyance of their weaker brethren afforded them—whom at last they were happily successful in outvoting, so that the bagpipes superseded the drum for a season.

      It may be asked whence it arose that Duncan should now be willing to quit his claim to any paternal property in Malcolm, confessing that he was none of his blood.

      One source of the change was doubtless the desire of confidences between himself and Lady Florimel, another, the growing conviction, generated it may be by the admiration which is born of love, that the youth had gentle blood in his veins; and a third, that Duncan had now so thoroughly proved the heart of Malcolm as to have no fear of any change of fortune ever alienating his affections, or causing him to behave otherwise than as his dutiful grandson.

      It is not surprising that such a tale should have a considerable influence on Lady Florimel's imagination: out of the scanty facts which formed but a second volume, she began at once to construct both a first and a third. She dreamed of the young fisherman that night, and reflecting in the morning on her intercourse with him, recalled sufficient indications in him of superiority to his circumstances, noted by her now, however, for the first time, to justify her dream: he might indeed well be the last scion of a noble family.

      I do not intend the least hint that she began to fall in love with him. To balance his good looks, and the nobility, to keener eyes yet more evident than to hers, in both his moral and physical carriage, the equally undeniable clownishness of his dialect and tone had huge weight, while the peculiar straightforwardness of his behaviour and address not unfrequently savoured in her eyes of rudeness; besides which objectionable things, there was the persistent odour of fish about his garments—in itself sufficient to prevent such a catastrophe. The sole result of her meditations was the resolve to get some amusement out of him by means of a knowledge of his history superior to his own.