Lenorme had already begun the portrait, had indeed been
working at it very busily, and was now quite ready for him to sit.
The early morning being the only time a groom could contrive to
spare--and that involved yet earlier attention to his horses,
they arranged that Malcolm should be at the study every day by
seven o'clock, until the painter's object was gained. So he mounted
Kelpie at half past six of a fine breezy spring morning, rode across
Hyde Park and down Grosvenor Place, and so reached Chelsea, where
he put up his mare in Lenorme's stable--fortunately large enough
to admit of an empty stall between her and the painter's grand
screw, else a battle frightful to relate might have fallen to my
lot.
Nothing could have been more to Malcolm's mind than such a surpassing
opportunity of learning with assurance what sort of man Lenorme
was; and the relation that arose between them extended the sittings
far beyond the number necessary for the object proposed. How the
first of them passed I must recount with some detail.
As soon as he arrived, he was shown into the painter's bedroom,
where lay the portmanteau he had carried thither himself the night
before: out of it, with a strange mingling of pleasure and sadness,
he now took the garments of his father's vanished state--the
filibeg of the dark tartan of his clan, in which green predominated;
the French coat of black velvet of Genoa, with silver buttons; the
bonnet, which ought to have had an eagle's feather, but had only an
aigrette of diamonds; the black sporran of long goat's hair, with
the silver clasp; the silver mounted dirk, with its appendages,
set all with pale cairngorms nearly as good as oriental topazes;
and the claymore of the renowned Andrew's forging, with its basket
hilt of silver, and its black, silver mounted sheath.
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