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Slowly the Kelpie floated along the shadowy way, and as the shores grew dim, the river dark with leaning hemlocks or an overhanging cliff, Sylvia felt as if she were making the last voyage across that fathomless stream where a pale boatman plies and many go lamenting. The long silence was broken first by Moor's voice, saying "Adam, sing."
With all his faults he had some chivalry, and he showed it to the fisher girl. Nor did he alter his manner to her because of the rudeness with which her mother had taken Malcolm's part. It was a sore proof to Mr Crathie that his discharged servant was in favour with the marchioness when the order came from Mr Soutar to send up Kelpie.
Returning to the House, he put up Kelpie, rubbed her down and fed her; then, as there was yet some time to spare, paid a visit to the factor. He found his lady, for all his present of fish in the earlier morning, anything but friendly.
The voice that came was little more than a sob-scattered whisper, but to her it seemed as if all the world must hear. "Oh, Malcolm," she panted, "I will try to be good and wise. Don't marry anybody else anybody, I mean; but come with Kelpie and be my groom, and wait and see if I don't grow better." Malcolm leaped to his feet and threw himself at hers.
He had often ridden Kelpie into the sea at Portlossie, even in the cold autumn weather when first she came into his charge, and nothing pleased her better or quieted her more. He was a heavy weight to swim with, but she displaced much water. She carried her head bravely, he balanced sideways, and they swam splendidly. To the eyes of Clementina the mare seemed to be labouring for her life.
The two men rowed in the dinghy down the river to the Aberdeen wharf to make arrangements about Kelpie, whose arrival Malcolm expected the following Monday, then dined together, and after that had a long row up the river.
I skirted them as far off as I could, as though they were the lochans of a nightmare that drag the traveller to their kelpie tenants' arms. There were no birds among those rushes; I think the very deer that roamed in the streets of Inneraora in the Novembers blast would have run far clear of so stricken a territory.
While he spoke, his mare was ramping and kicking, making a clean sweep all about her. Mr Crathie's horse turned restive from sympathy, and it was all his rider could do to keep his seat. As soon as he got Kelpie a little quieter, Malcolm drew near and returned him his whip.
He had heard, but in part, and he must know all. "My lady," he said with intense quiet, "Kelpie and I will be your slaves. Take me for fisherman, groom, what you will. I offer the whole sum of service that is in me." He kissed her feet. "My lady, I would put your feet on my head," he went on, "only then what should I do when I see my Lord and cast myself before Him?"
When I desired any detail of savage custom, or of superstitious belief, I cast back in the story of my fathers, and fished for what I wanted with some trait of equal barbarism: Michael Scott, Lord Derwentwater's head, the second-sight, the Water Kelpie, each of these I have found to be a killing bait; the black bull's head of Stirling procured me the legend of Rahero; and what I knew of the Cluny Macphersons, or the Appin Stewarts, enabled me to learn, and helped me to understand, about the Tevas of Tahiti.
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