“MacPhail, are you a man?” cried Clementina, startling him so that in another instant the floundering mare would have been on her feet. With a right noble anger in her face, and her hair flying like a wind-torn cloud, she rushed out of the wood upon him, where he sat quietly tracing a proposition of Euclid on the sand with his whip. “Ay, and a bold one,” was on Malcolm’s lips for reply, but he bethought himself in time. “I am sorry what I am compelled to do should annoy your ladyship,” he said. What with indignation and breathlessness--she had run so fast-- Clementina had exhausted herself in that one exclamation, and stood panting and staring. The black bulk of Kelpie lay outstretched on the yellow sand, giving now and then a sprawling kick or a wamble like a lumpy snake, and her soul commiserated each movement as if it had been the last throe of dissolution, while the grey fire of the mare’s one-visible fierce eye, turned up from the shadow of Malcolm’s superimposed bulk, seemed to her tender heart a mute appeal for woman’s help. As Malcolm spoke, he cautiously shifted his position, and, half-rising, knelt with one knee where he had sat before, looking observant at Lady Clementina. The champion of oppressed animality soon recovered speech. “Get off the poor creature’s head instantly,” she said, with dignified command. “I will permit no such usage of living thing on my ground.” “I am very sorry to seem rude, my lady,” answered Malcolm, “but to obey you would perhaps be to ruin my mistress’s property. If the mare were to break away, she would dash herself to pieces in the wood.” “You have goaded her to madness.” “I’m the more bound to take care of her then,” said Malcolm. “But indeed it is only temper--such temper, however, that I almost believe she is at times possessed of a demon.” “The demon is in yourself. There is nothing in her but what your cruelty has put there. Let her up, I command you.” “I dare not, my lady. If she were to get loose she would tear your ladyship to pieces.” “I will take my chance.” “But I will not my lady. I know the danger, and have to take care of you who do not. There is no occasion to be uneasy about the mare. She is tolerably comfortable. I am not hurting her--not much. Your ladyship does not reflect how strong a horse’s skull is. And you see what great powerful breaths she draws!” “She is in agony,” cried Clementina. “Not in the least, my lady. She is only balked of her own way, and does not like it.” “And what right have you to balk her of her own way? Has she no right to a mind of her own?” “She may of course have her mind, but she can’t have her way. She has got a master.” “And what right have you to be her master?” “That my master, my Lord Lossie, gave me the charge of her.” “I don’t mean that sort of right; that goes for nothing. What right in the nature of things can you have to tyrannize over any creature?”