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Updated: September 28, 2025
On such occasions he slept in a garret accessible by a ladder from the ground floor, which consisted only of a kitchen and a closet. Little Phemy Mair was therefore familiar with his appearance, his ways, and his speech; and she was a favourite with him, although hitherto his shyness had been sufficient to prevent any approach to intimacy with even a child of ten.
Steenie never went to the town of his own accord, and Kirsty never liked him to go, for the boys were rude, but to-night it would be dark before he reached it. 'Ye're no surely gaun to gar me bide a' nicht! said Phemy, beginning again to cry. 'I am that the nicht, and maybe the morn's nicht, and ony nummer o' nichts till we're sure he's awa! answered Kirsty, resuming her walk.
Tell me whaur he is, like a guid lassie, Phemy." "I'm no sure. I may say I dinna ken." "Ye say ye ken whan ither fowk disna: noo naebody kens." "Hoo ken ye that?" "'Cause he's run awa." "Wha frae? His mither?" "Na, na; frae Miss Horn." "I ken naething aboot her; but gien naebody kens, I ken whaur he is weel eneuch." "Whaur than? Ye'll be duin' him a guid turn to tell me."
It was all her sister's fault, she said, for having married such a book-idiot! She felt indeed very uncomfortable, and did her best in the way of warning; but Phemy seemed so incapable of understanding what ill could come of letting the young laird talk to her, that she despaired of rousing in her any sense of danger, and having no authority over her was driven to silence for the present.
As he lay thus, foreshadowing his burial, or rather his resurrection, a young canary which had flown from one of the cottages, flitted in with a golden shiver and flash, and alighted on his head. He took it gently in his hand and committed it to Phemy to carry home, with many injunctions against disclosing how it had been captured.
Not much at home in the summer, when she carried fish to the country, she was very little absent in the winter, and as there was but one room for all uses, except the closet bedroom and the garret at the top of the ladder, Malcolm, instead of going in, called to his friend, whom he saw by the fire with his little Phemy upon his knee, to come out and speak to him.
"I saw a face," she said, "a white face!" "Whaur?" "Beyond you a little way near the ground," she answered, in a tremulous whisper. "It's as dark's pick!" said Malcolm, as if thinking it to himself. He knew well enough that it must be the laird or Phemy, but he was anxious the marquis should not learn the secret of the laird's refuge. "I saw a face anyhow," said Florimel.
When David reached the Hillfauld, the name he always gave Steenie's house, he found the door open, and walked in. His wife did not hear him, for his iron-shod shoes were balled with snow. She was standing over the body of Phemy, looking down on the white sleep with a solemn, motherly, tearless face. She turned as he drew near, and the pair, like the lovers they were, fell each in the other's arms.
Phemy went seldom to the castle, but the young laird and she met pretty often: there was solitude enough in that country for an army of lovers.
One evening, Malcolm thought he would pay Joseph a visit, but when he reached Scaurnose, he found it nearly deserted: he had forgotten that this was one of the nights of meeting in the Baillies' Barn. Phemy indeed had not gone with her father and mother, but she was spending the evening with the laird.
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