“An’ tell him gien onything befa’ him, to sen’ to Miss Horn, for Ma’colm MacPhail may be oot wi’ the boats.--Ye winna forget that?” “I’m no lickly to forget it,” answered Phemy, apparently absorbed in boring a hole in a haddock’s eye with a pin so bent as to act like a brace and bit. “Ye’ll no get yer string o’ beads in time for the weddin’, Phemy,” remarked Malcolm, going on to talk from a desire to give the child a feeling of his friendliness. “Ay will I--fine that,” she rejoined. “Whan is ’t to be?” “Ow, neist Setterday. Ye’ll be comin’ ower?” “I haena gotten a call.” “Ye’ll be gettin’ ane.” “Div ye think they’ll gie me ane?” “As sune ’s onybody.--Maybe by that time I’ll be able to gie ye some news o’ the laird.” “There’s a guid lassie!” “Na, na; I’m makin’ nae promises,” said Phemy. Malcolm left her and went to find her father, who, although it was Sunday, was already “oot aboot,” as she had said. He found him strolling in meditation along the cliffs. They had a little talk together, but Joseph knew nothing of the laird. Malcolm took Lossie House on his way back, for he had not yet seen the marquis, to whom he must report his adventures of the night before. The signs of past revelling were plentifully visible as he approached the house. The marquis was not yet up, but Mrs Courthope undertaking to send him word as soon as his lordship was to be seen, he threw himself on the grass and waited--his mind occupied with strange questions, started by the Sunday coming after such a Saturday--among the rest, how God could permit a creature to be born so distorted and helpless as the laird, and then permit him to be so abused in consequence of his helplessness. The problems of life were beginning to _bite_. Everywhere things appeared uneven. He was not one to complain of mere external inequalities: if he _was_ inclined to envy Lord Meikleham, it was not because of his social position: he was even now philosopher enough to know that the life of a fisherman was preferable to that of such a marquis as Lord Lossie--that the desirableness of a life is to be measured by the amount of interest and not by the amount of ease in it, for the more ease the more unrest; neither was he inclined to complain of the gulf that yawned so wide between him and Lady Florimel; the difficulty lay deeper: such a gulf existing, by a social law only less inexorable than a natural one, why should he feel the rent invading his individual being? in a word, though Malcolm put it in no such definite shape: Why should a fisher-lad find himself in danger of falling in love with the daughter of a marquis? Why should such a thing, seeing the very constitution of things rendered it an absurdity, be yet a possibility?