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Updated: June 18, 2025
"I hae gotten a sma' mishanter, Miss Horn," he said, as he entered: "an I thocht I cudna du better than come to you, 'cause ye can haud yer tongue, an' that's mair nor mony ane the port o' Portlossie can, mem." The compliment, correct in fact as well as honest in intent, was not thrown away on Miss Horn, to whom it was the more pleasing that she could regard it as a just tribute.
"I daur say no," said Malcolm quietly, and again addressed himself to go. "Do you like novels?" asked the girl. "I never saw a novelle. There's no ane amo' a' Mr Graham's buiks, an' I s' warran' there's full twa hunner o' them. I dinna believe there's a single novelle in a' Portlossie." "Don't be too sure: there are a good many in our library."
Since I left the cottage where I hoped to end my days under the shadow of the house of your ancestors, since I came into this region of bricks and smoke, and the crowded tokens too plain of want and care, I have found a reality in the things I had been trying to teach you at Portlossie, such as I had before imagined only in my best moments.
Hence it came that the neighbourhood of Portlossie was the one spot in the county where a person of weak intellect or peculiar appearance might go about free of insult. The peculiar sentence the laird so often uttered was the only one he invariably spoke with definite clearness.
"'Cause it's no fair to set doon a' thing for wrang 'at ye ha'e been i' the w'y o' hearing aboot by them 'at kens as little aboot them as yersel'. I cam here mysel', ohn kent whaur I was gaein', the ither nicht, for the first time i' my life; but I wasna fleyt like you, 'cause I kent frae the buik a' 'at was comin'. I hae h'ard in a kirk in ae ten meenutes jist a sicht o' what maun ha'e been sair displeasin' to the hert a' the maister a' 's a'; but that nicht I saw nae ill an' h'ard nae ill, but was weel peyed back upo' them 'at did it an' said it afore the business was ower, an' that's mair nor ye'll see i' the streets o' Portlossie ilka day.
For to him, as it had been to Malcolm, it was the shore at Portlossie, while the cave that opened behind was the Bailie's Barn, where his friends the fishers might at that moment, if it were a fine night, be holding one of their prayer meetings. The mood lasted all through the talk of Prospero and Miranda; but when Ariel entered there came a snap, and the spell was broken.
He sold his fish in the town and immediate neighbourhood, where a good many housekeepers favoured the handsome and cheery young fisherman. He would now be often out in the bay long before it was time to call his grandfather, in his turn to rouse the sleepers of Portlossie.
The sea town of Portlossie was as irregular a gathering of small cottages as could be found on the surface of the globe. They faced every way, turned their backs and gables every way only of the roofs could you predict the position; were divided from each other by every sort of small, irregular space and passage, and looked like a national assembly debating a constitution.
Nevermore could he look one of his old companions in the face! They were all honourable men; he a base born foundling! He would tell Mr Graham of course; but what could Mr Graham say to it? The fact remained. He must leave Portlossie. His mind went on brooding, speculating, devising. The evening sunk into the night, but he never knew he was in the dark until the housekeeper brought him a light.
One long moment its effect upon him was as real as if he had been actually deceived as to its nature: was it not the shore between Scaurnose and Portlossie, betwixt the Boar's Tail and the sea? and was not that the marquis, his father, in his dressing gown, pacing to and fro upon the sands?
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