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Had the marquis had his vision in London, he would have gone straight to his study, as he called it, not without a sense of the absurdity involved, opened a certain cabinet, and drawn out a certain hidden drawer; being at Lossie, he walked up the glen of the burn to the bare hill, overlooking the House, the royal burgh, the great sea, and his own lands lying far and wide around him.
The Marquis of Lossie bore a name that might pair itself with any in the land; but Malcolm did not yet feel that the title made much difference to the fisherman. He was what he was, and that was something very lowly indeed.
Mysteriously committed to the care of a poor blind Highland piper, a stranger from inland regions, settled amongst a fishing people, he had, as he grew up, naturally fallen into their ways of life and labour, and but lately abandoned the calling of a fisherman to take charge of the marquis's yacht, whence, by degrees, he had, in his helpfulness, grown indispensable to him and his daughter, and had come to live in the house of Lossie as a privileged servant.
Her soul assured her of it. "To my sister," answered Malcolm, "I will give all the proof she may please to require; to Lord Liftore I will not even repeat my assertion. To him I will give no shadow of proof. I will but cast him out of my house. Stoat, order horses for Lady Bellair." "Gien ye please, sir, my Lord," replied Stoat, "the Lossie Airms horses is ordered a'ready for Lady Clementina."
"I tell you for the last time, my lady," said Malcolm, "if you marry that man, you will marry a liar and a scoundrel." Liftore laughed, and his imitation of scorn was wonderfully successful, for he felt sure of Florimel, now that she had thus taken his part. "Shall I ring for the servants, Lady Lossie, to put the fellow out?" he said. "The man is as mad as a March hare."
Grandmother's house on Loch Lossie was a fine stone-built residence, facing the lake on the south. It was backed up by the stern heather-clad hills, which sheltered it from rude north winds. A carriage drive wound along the side of the lake for nearly a mile, and Jeff was amazed at the orderly aspect of the shrubberies adjoining it. Everything was clipped and pruned.
"Weel, I ha'e come to the knowledge 'at my name's no MacPhail: it's Colonsay. Man, I'm the Markis o' Lossie." Without a moment's hesitation, without a single stare of unbelief or even astonishment, Blue Peter pulled off his bonnet, and stood bareheaded before the companion of his toils. "Peter!" cried Malcolm, "dinna brak my hert: put on yer bonnet."
But mingled with this longing to see him once with his child in his arms, a certain loyalty to the house of Lossie also influenced her to listen to the solicitation of Lady Clementina and tell the marchioness the truth.
For to appear as Marquis of Lossie was not merely to take from his sister the title she supposed her own, but to declare her illegitimate, seeing that, unknown to the marquis, the youth's mother, his first wife, was still alive when Florimel was born.
"Lady Lossie, I am ashamed of you!" she said, with severest reproof; and turning from her, she ran down the stair. Florimel turned again towards the sea.
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