Something like this Malcolm felt: whoever saw her must feel as he
had never felt before. He gazed after her long and earnestly.
"It's an awfu' thing to ha'e a wuman like that angert at ye!", he
said to himself when at length she had disappeared, "--as bonny
as she is angry! God be praised 'at he kens a'thing, an' 's no
angert wi' ye for the luik o' a thing! But the wheel may come roon'
again--wha kens? Ony gait I s' mak' the best o' Kelpie I can.--
I won'er gien she kens Leddy Florimel! She's a heap mair boontifu'
like in her beauty nor her. The man micht haud 's ain wi' an
archangel 'at had a woman like that to the wife o' 'm.--Hoots!
I'll be wussin' I had had anither upbringin', 'at I micht ha' won
a step nearer to the hem o' her garment! an' that wad be to deny
him 'at made an' ordeen't me. I wull not du that. But I maun hae a
crack wi' Maister Graham, anent things twa or three, just to haud
me straucht, for I'm jist girnin' at bein' sae regairdit by sic a
Revelation. Gien she had been an auld wife, I wad ha'e only lauchen:
what for 's that? I doobt I'm no muckle mair rizzonable nor hersel'!
The thing was this, I fancy it was sae clear she spak frae no ill
natur', only frae pure humanity. She's a gran' ane yon, only some
saft, I doobt."
For the lady, she rode away sadly strengthened in her doubts whether
there could be a God in the world--not because there were in it
such men as she took Malcolm for, but because such a lovely animal
had fallen into his hands.
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