In
this he had very partially succeeded; but if only for the sake of
him whom he now knew for his father, nothing would have made him
part with the animal. Besides, he had been compelled to use her with
so much severity at times that he had grown attached to her from
the reaction of pity as well as from admiration of her physical
qualities, and the habitude of ministering to her wants and comforts.
The factor, who knew Malcolm only as a servant, had afterwards
allowed her to remain in his charge, merely in the hope, through
his treatment, of by and by selling her, as she had been bought,
for a faultless animal, but at a far better price.
CHAPTER II: THE LIBRARY
When she had finished her oats, Malcolm left her busy with her hay,
for she was a huge eater, and went into the house, passing through
the kitchen and ascending a spiral stone stair to the library--the
only room not now dismantled. As he went along the narrow passage
on the second floor leading to it from the head of the stair, the
housekeeper, Mrs Courthope, peeped after him from one of the many
bedrooms opening upon it, and watched him as he went, nodding her
head two or three times with decision: he reminded her so strongly
--not of his father, the last marquis, but the brother who had
preceded him, that she felt all but certain, whoever might be his
mother, he had as much of the Colonsay blood in his veins as any
marquis of them all.
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