With this resolution he stood his ground, every moment expecting the wrathful father to make his appearance and at the least order him out of the house. But minute passed after minute, and no wrathful father came. He grew calmer by degrees, and at length began to peep at the titles of the books. When the great bell rang for lunch, he was embalmed rather than buried in one of Milton’s prose volumes--standing before the shelf on which he had found it--the very incarnation of study. My reader may well judge that Malcolm could not have been very far gone in love, seeing he was thus able to read. I remark in return that it was not merely the distance between him and Lady Florimel that had hitherto preserved his being from absorption and his will from annihilation, but also the strength of his common sense, and the force of his individuality. CHAPTER XXXIV. MILTON, AND THE BAY MARE. For some days Malcolm saw nothing more of Lady Florimel; but with his grandfather’s new dwelling to see to, the carpenter’s shop and the blacksmith’s forge open to him, and an eye to detect whatever wanted setting right, the hours did not hang heavy on his hands. At length, whether it was that she thought she had punished him sufficiently for an offence for which she was herself only to blame, or that she had indeed never been offended at all and had only been keeping up her one-sided game, she began again to indulge the interest she could not help feeling in him, an interest heightened by the mystery which hung over his birth, and by the fact that she knew that concerning him of which he was himself ignorant. At the same time, as I have already said, she had no little need of an escape from the _ennui_ which, now that the novelty of a country life had worn off, did more than occasionally threaten her. She began again to seek his company under the guise of his help, half requesting, half commanding his services; and Malcolm found himself admitted afresh to the heaven of her favour. Young as he was, he read himself a lesson suitable to the occasion. One afternoon the marquis sent for him to the library, but when he reached it his master was not yet there. He took down the volume of Milton in which he had been reading before, and was soon absorbed in it again. “Faith! it’s a big shame,” he cried at length almost unconsciously, and closed the book with a slam. “What is a big shame?” said the voice of the marquis close behind him. Malcolm started, and almost dropped the volume. “I beg yer lordship’s pardon,” he said; “I didna hear ye come in.” “What is the book you were reading?” asked the marquis. “I was jist readin’ a bit o’ Milton’s Eikonoklastes,” answered Malcolm, “--a buik I hae hard tell o’, but never saw wi’ my ain een afore.” “And what’s your quarrel with it?” asked his lordship. “I canna mak oot what sud set a great man like Milton sae sair agane a puir cratur like Cherles.”