It was a sultry afternoon, and Florimel lay on the seaward side of the dune, buried in her book. The sky was foggy with heat, and the sea lay dull, as if oppressed by the superincumbent air, and leaden in hue, as if its colour had been destroyed by the sun. The tide was rising slowly, with a muffled and sleepy murmur on the sand; for here were no pebbles to impart a hiss to the wave as it rushed up the bank, or to go softly hurtling down the slope with it as it sank. As she read, Malcolm was walking towards her along the top of the dune, but not until he came almost above where she lay, did she hear his step in the soft quenching sand. She nodded kindly, and he descended approaching her. “Did ye want me, my leddy?” he asked. “No,” she answered. “I wasna sure whether ye noddit ’cause ye wantit me or no,” said Malcolm, and turned to reascend the dune. “Where are you going now?” she asked. “Ow! nae gait in particlar. I jist cam oot to see hoo things war luikin.” “What things?” “Ow! jist the lift (_sky_), an’ the sea, an’ sic generals.” That Malcolm’s delight in the presences of Nature--I say _presences_, as distinguished from forms and colours and all analyzed sources of her influences--should have already become a conscious thing to himself requires to account for it the fact that his master, Graham, was already under the influences of Wordsworth, whom he had hailed as a Crabbe that had burst his shell and spread the wings of an eagle: the virtue passed from him to his pupil. “I won’t detain you from such important business,” said Lady Florimel, and dropped her eyes on her book. “Gien ye want my company, my leddy, I can luik aboot me jist as weel here as ony ither gait,” said Malcolm. And as he spoke, he gently stretched himself on the dune, about three yards aside and lower down. Florimel looked half amused and half annoyed, but she had brought it on herself, and would punish him only by dropping her eyes again on her book, and keeping silent. She had come to the Florimel of snow. Malcolm lay and looked at her for a few moments pondering; then fancying he had found the cause of her offence, rose, and, passing to the other side of her, again lay down, but at a still more respectful distance. “Why do you move?” she asked, without looking up. “’Cause there’s jist a possible air o’ win’ frae the nor’-east.” “And you want me to shelter you from it?” said Lady Florimel. “Na, na, my leddy,” returned Malcolm, laughing; “for as bonny ’s ye are, ye wad be but sma’ scoug (_shelter_).” “Why did you move, then?” persisted the girl, who understood what he said just about half.