followed by Mrs. Campbell, who was quite a grand lady now, in silks and satins, but with the same sweet, sad, gentle face. The lawyer and she stood aside, and made way for a big, stalwart young Highlander of about one-and-twenty or thereabouts, who carried in his arms, very gently and carefully, wrapped in a plaid, even although it was such a mild spring day, what looked like a baby, or a very young child.
"Stop a minute, Malcolm."
At the sound of that voice, which was not an infant's, though it was thin, and sharp, and unnatural rather for a boy, the big Highlander paused immediately.
"Hold me up higher; I want to look at the loch."
"Yes, my lord."
This, then—this poor little deformed figure, with every limb shrunken and useless, and every joint distorted, the head just able to sustain itself and turn feebly from one side to the other, and the thin white hands piteously twisted and helpless-looking—this, then, was the Earl of Cairnforth.
"It's a bonnie loch, Malcolm."
"It looks awful' bonnie the day, my lord."
"And," almost in a whisper, "was it just there my father was drowned?"
"Yes, my lord."
No one spoke while the large, intelligent eyes, which seemed the principal feature of the thin face, that rested against Malcolm's shoulder, looked out intently upon the loch.
Mrs. Campbell pulled her veil down and wept a little. People said Neil Campbell had not been the best of husbands to her, but he was her husband; and she had never been back in Cairnforth till now, for her son had lived, died, and been buried away in Edinburg.
At last Mr. Menteith suggested that the kirk bell was beginning to ring.
"Very well; put me into the carriage."
Malcolm placed him, helpless as an infant, in a corner of the silken-padded coach, fitted with cushions especially suited for his comfort. There he sat, in his black velvet coat and point-lace collar, with silk stockings and dainty shoes upon the poor little feet that never had walked, and never would walk, in this world. The one bit of him that could be looked at without pain was his face, inherited from his beautiful mother. It was wan, pale, and much older than his years, but it was a sweet face—a lovely face; so patient, thoughtful—nay, strange to say, content. You could not look at it without a certain sense of peace, as if God, in taking away so much had given something—which not many people have—something which was the divine answer to the minister's prayer over the two-days-old child—"Thy will be done."
"Are you comfortable, my lord?"
"Quite, thank you, Mr. Menteith. Stop—where are you going,
Malcolm?"
"Just to the kirk, and I'll be there as soon as your lordship."
"Very well," said the little earl, and watched with wistful eyes the tall Highlander striding across brushwood and heather, leaping dikes and clearing fences—the very embodiment of active vigorous youth.
Wistful I said the eyes were, and yet they were not sad. Whatever thoughts lay hidden in that boy's mind—he was only ten years old, remember—they were certainly not thoughts of melancholy or despair. "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," and "the back is fitted to the burden," are phrases so common that we almost smile to repeat them or believe in them, and yet they are true. Any one whose enjoyments have been narrowed down by long sickness may prove their truth by recollecting how at last even the desire for impossible pleasures passes away. And in this case the deprivation was not sudden; the child had been born thus crippled, and had never been accustomed to any other sort of existence than this. What thoughts, speculations, or regrets might have passed through his mind, or whether he had as yet reflected upon his own condition at all, those about him could not judge. He was always a silent child, and latterly had grown more silent than ever. It was this silence, causing a fear lest the too rapidly developing mind might affect still more injuriously the imperfect and feeble body, which induced his guardian, counseled by Dr. Hamilton, to try a total change of life by sending him home to the shores of Loch Beg.
One thing certainly Mr. Cardross need not have dreaded—the child was no idiot. An intelligence, precocious to an almost painful extent, was visible in that poor little face, which seemed thirstingly to take in every thing, and to let nothing escape its observation.
The carriage drove slowly through the woods and along the shore of the loch, Mr. Menteith and Mrs. Campbell sitting opposite to the earl, not noticing him much—even as a child he was sensitive of being watched—but making occasional comments on the scenery and other things.
"There is the kirk tower; I mind it weel," said Mrs. Campbell, who still kept some accent of the clachan, though, like many Highlanders, she had it more in tone than in pronunciation, and often spoke almost pure English, which, indeed, she had taken pains to acquire, lest she might be transferred from her charge for fear of teaching him to speak as a young nobleman ought not to speak. But at sight of her native place some touch of the old tongue returned.
"That is the kirk, nurse, where my father and mother are buried?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Will there be many people there? You know I never went to church but once before in all my life."
"Would ye like not to go now? If so, I'll turn back with ye this minute, my lamb—my lord, I mean."
"No, thank you, nurse, I like to go. You know Mr. Menteith promised me I should go about every where as soon as I came to live at Cairnforth."
"Every where you like that is not too much trouble to your lordship," said Mr. Menteith, who was always tenaciously careful about the respect, of word and act, that he paid, and insisted should be paid, to his poor young ward.
"Oh, it's no trouble to me; Malcolm takes care of that. And I like to see the world. If you and Dr. Hamilton would have let me, I think I would so have enjoyed going to school like other boys."
"Would you, my lord?" answered Mr. Menteith, compassionately; but Mrs. Campbell, who never could bear that pitying look and tone directed toward her nursling, said, a little sharply,
"It's better as it is—dinna ye ken? Far mair fitting for his lordship's rank and position that he should get his learning all by himsel' at his ain castle, and with his ain tutor, and that sic a gentleman as Mr. Cardross—"
"What is Mr. Cardross like?"
"Ye'll hear him preach the day."
"Will he teach me all by myself, as nurse says? Has he any children—any boys, like me?"
"He has boys," said Mr. Menteith, avoiding more explicit information; for with a natural, if mistaken precaution, he had always kept his own sturdy, stalwart boys quite out of the way of the poor little earl, and had especially cautioned the minister to do the same.
"I do long to play with boys. May I?"
"If you wish it, my lord."
"And may I have a boat on that beautiful loch, and be rowed about just where I please? Malcolm says it would not shake me nearly so much as the carriage. May I go to the kirk every Sunday, and see every thing and every body, and read as many books as ever I choose?
