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Updated: June 13, 2025
Courthope arose; the garments which he had donned in the night with frantic speed clothed but did not adorn him; he knew that he must present a wild appearance, and the domestic clothes-line, bound round and round his arms, prevented him from so much as pushing back the locks of hair which straggled upon his brow.
As to owing anything in return, the idea had indeed been presented to her when with Clementina and Malcolm she talked over "St Ronan's Well," but it had never entered her mind. The drawing room and the hall were lighted. Mrs Courthope was at the door as if she expected her, and Florimel was careful to take everything as a matter of course.
"But the bed will want airing," objected the housekeeper. "By a' accoonts, that's the last thing it's likly to want lyin' neist door to yon chaumer. Mrs Courthope yielded and gave him all that was needful, and before night Malcolm had made his new quarters quite comfortable. He did not retire to them, however, until he had seen his grandfather laid down to sleep in his lonely cottage.
It was a little speech, conned beforehand, which she spoke a quaint mixture of her own girlish wording and the formal phrases which she felt the occasion demanded. Courthope never knew precisely what she said. His feelings were up and in tumult, like the winds on a gusty day, and he was embarrassed for her embarrassment, while he smiled for the very joy of it all.
It seemed that the Frenchman's desire was to put him out again and lock up the house, leaving the two accomplices to shift for themselves as best they might. Courthope urged motives of humanity. He described the man and his condition. At length he prevailed. Madge insisted that if Morin did not go she would. In a few moments both she and Morin were preparing to set out.
He would not have an English servant there except Mrs Courthope: he would not have the natural country speech corrupted with cockneyisms, and his people taught to speak like Wallis!
When Madge swept across the drawing-room, with her amber skirts trailing, and Eliz had been wheeled in, they received the after-dinner visitors. Courthope could almost see the room filled with the quaint creations to whom they were both bowing and talking incessantly. 'Mr.
Courthope was scandalized at the idea of taking an earl's daughter to sleep in the garret, not to mention that the room had for centuries had an ill name; but she had no choice, and therefore contented herself with doing all that lay in the power of woman, under such severe restrictions, to make the dingy old room cheerful.
"Weel, mem, I maun hae the room neist the auld warlock's, ony gait, for in that I'm gauin' to sleep, an' in nae ither in a' this muckle hoose." Mrs Courthope rose, full of uneasiness, and walked up and down the room. "I'm takin' upo' me naething ayont his lordship's ain word," urged Malcolm.
Courthope, who in a visit to the stables had discovered that this Frenchwoman with her husband and one young daughter were at present the whole retinue of servants, wondered the more that such precious articles as the young girls and the plate should be safe in so lonely a place.
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