The Marquis of Lossie Part 16

Florimel returned to the gentlemen, and they rode homewards. On the way she said suddenly to the earl,

"Can you tell me, Liftore, who Epictetus was?"

"I'm sure I don't know," answered his lords.h.i.+p. "One of the old fellows."

She turned to Lenorme. Happily the Christian heathen was not altogether unknown to the painter.

"May I inquire why your ladys.h.i.+p asks?" he said, when he had told all he could at the moment recollect.

"Because," she answered, "I left my groom sitting on his horse's head reading Epictetus."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Liftore. "Ha! ha! ha! In the original, I suppose!"

"I don't doubt it," said Florimel.

In about two hours Malcolm reported himself. Lord Liftore had gone home, they told him. The painter fellow, as Wallis called him, had stayed to lunch, but was now gone also, and Lady Lossie was alone in the drawing room.

She sent for him.

"I am glad to see you safe, MacPhail," she said. "It is clear your Kelpie--don't be alarmed; I am not going to make you part with her--but it is clear she won't always do for you to attend me upon. Suppose now I wanted to dismount and make a call, or go into a shop?"

"There's a sort of a friends.h.i.+p between your Abbot and her, my lady; she would stand all the better if I had him to hold."

"Well, but how would you put me up again?"

"I never thought of that, my lady. Of course I daren't let you come near Kelpie."

"Could you trust yourself to buy another horse to ride after me about town?"

"No, my lady, not without a ten days' trial. If lies stuck like London mud, there's many a horse would never be seen again. But there's Mr Lenorme! If he would go with me, I fancy between us we could do pretty well."

"Ah! a good idea," returned his mistress. "But what makes you think of him?" she added, willing enough to talk about him.

"The look of the gentleman and his horse together, and what I heard him say," answered Malcolm.

"What did you hear him say?"

"That he knew he had to treat horses something like human beings.

I've often fancied, within the last few months, that G.o.d does with some people something like as I do with Kelpie."

"I know nothing about theology."

"I don't fancy you do, my lady; but this concerns biography rather than theology. No one could tell what I meant except he had watched his own history, and that of people he knew."

"And horses too?"

"It's hard to get at their insides, my lady, but I suspect it must be so. I'll ask Mr Graham."

"What Mr Graham?"

"The schoolmaster of Portlossie."

"Is he in London, then?"

"Yes, my lady. He believed too much to please the presbytery, and they turned him out."

"I should like to see him. He was very attentive to my father on his death bed."

"Your ladys.h.i.+p will never know till you are dead yourself what Mr Graham did for my lord."

"What do you mean? What could he do for him?"

"He helped him through sore trouble of mind, my lady."

Florimel was silent for a little, then repeated, "I should like to see him. I ought to pay him some attention. Couldn't I make them give him his school again?"

"I don't know about that, my lady; but I am sure he would not take it against the will of the presbytery."

"I should like to do something for him. Ask him to call."

"If your ladys.h.i.+p lays your commands upon me," answered Malcolm; "otherwise I would rather not."

"Why so, pray?"

"Because, except he can be of any use to you, he will not come."

"But I want to be of use to him."

"How, if I may ask, my lady?"

"That I can't exactly say on the spur of the moment. I must know the man first--especially if you are right in supposing he would not enjoy a victory over the presbytery. I should. He wouldn't take money, I fear."

"Except it came of love or work, he would put it from him as he would brush the dust from his coat."

"I could introduce him to good society. That is no small privilege to one of his station."

"He has more of that and better than your ladys.h.i.+p could give him.

He holds company with Socrates and St. Paul, and greater still."

"But they're not like living people."

"Very like them, my lady--only far better company in general.

But Mr Graham would leave Plato himself--yes, or St. Paul either, though he were sitting beside him in the flesh, to go and help any old washerwoman that wanted him."

"Then I want him."

"No, my lady, you don't want him."

"How dare you say so?"