As he came in front of them, Malcolm suddenly wheeled Kelpie, so suddenly and in so sharp a curve that he made her “turne close to the ground, like a cat, when scratchingly she wheeles about after a mouse,” as Sir Philip Sidney says, and dashed her straight into the sea. The two ladies gave a cry, Florimel of delight, Clementina of dismay, for she knew the coast, and that there it shelved suddenly into deep water. But that was only the better to Malcolm: it was the deep water he sought, though he got it with a little pitch sooner than he expected. He had often ridden Kelpie into the sea at Portlossie, even in the cold autumn weather when first she came into his charge, and nothing pleased her better or quieted her more. He was a heavy weight to swim with, but she displaced much water. She carried her head bravely, he balanced sideways, and they swam splendidly. To the eyes of Clementina the mare seemed to be labouring for her life. When Malcolm thought she had had enough of it, he turned her head to the shore. But then came the difficulty. So steeply did the shore shelve that Kelpie could not get a hold with her hind hoofs to scramble up into the shallow water. The ladies saw the struggle, and Clementina, understanding it, was running in an agony right into the water, with the vain idea of helping them, when Malcolm threw himself off, drawing the reins over Kelpie’s head as he fell, and swimming but the length of them shorewards, felt the ground with his feet, and stood, Kelpie, relieved of his weight, floated a little farther on to the shelf, got a better hold with her fore feet, some hold with her hind ones, and was beside him in a moment. The same moment Malcolm was on her back again, and they were tearing off eastward at full stretch. So far did the lessening point recede in the narrowing distance, that the two ladies sat down on the sand, and fell a-talking about Florimel’s most uncategorical groom, as Clementina, herself the most uncategorical of women, to use her own scarcely justifiable epithet, called him. She asked if such persons abounded in Scotland. Florimel could but answer that this was the only one she had met with. Then she told her about Richmond Park and Lord Liftore and Epictetus. “Ah, that accounts for him!” said Clementina. “Epictetus was a Cynic, a very cruel man: he broke his slave’s leg once, I remember.” “Mr Lenorme told me that _he_ was the slave, and that his master broke _his_ leg,” said Florimel. “Ah, yes! I daresay.--That _was_ it. But it is of little consequence: his principles were severe, and your groom has been his too ready pupil. It is a pity he is such a savage: he might be quite an interesting character.--Can he read?” “I have just told you of his reading Greek over Kelpie’s head,” said Florimel, laughing.