George MacDonald - The Marquis of Lossie

"I'm sorry I cannot give you cakes or fresh butter, my lord," he said with a smile, and they were the first words spoken. "The former is not to be had, and the latter is beyond my means. But what I have will content one who is able to count that abundance which many would count privation."

He spoke in the choice word, measured phrase, and stately speech which Wordsworth says "grave livers do in Scotland use," but under it all rang a tone of humour, as if he knew the form of his utterance too important for the subject matter of it, and would gently amuse with it both his visitor and himself.

He was a man of middle height, but so thin that notwithstanding a slight stoop in the shoulders, he looked rather tall; much on the young side of fifty, but apparently a good way on the other, partly from the little hair he had being grey. He had sandy coloured whiskers, and a shaven chin. Except his large sweetly closed mouth, and rather long upper lip, there was nothing very notable in his features. At ordinary moments, indeed, there was nothing in his appearance other than insignificant to the ordinary observer. His eyes were of a pale quiet blue, but when he smiled they sparkled and throbbed with light. He wore the same old black tailcoat he had worn last in his school at Portlossie, but the white neckcloth he had always been seen in there had given place to a black one: that was the sole change in the aspect of the man.

About Portlossie he had been greatly respected, notwithstanding the rumour that he was a "stickit minister," that is, one who had failed in the attempt to preach; and when the presbytery dismissed him on the charge of heresy, there had been many tears on the part of his pupils, and much childish defiance of his unenviable successor.

Few words passed between the two men until they had had their tea, and then followed a long talk, Malcolm first explaining his present position, and then answering many questions of the master as to how things had gone since he left. Next followed anxious questions on Malcolm's side as to how his friend found himself in the prison of London.

"I do miss the air, and the laverocks (skylarks), and the gowans," he confessed; "but I have them all in my mind, and at my age a man ought to be able to satisfy himself with the idea of a thing in his soul. Of outer things that have contributed to his inward growth, the memory alone may then well be enough. The sights which, when I lie down to sleep, rise before that inward eye Wordsworth calls the bliss of solitude, have upon me power almost of a spiritual vision, so purely radiant are they of that which dwells in them, the divine thought which is their substance, their hypostasis. My boy! I doubt if you can tell what it is to know the presence of the living God in and about you."

"I houp I hae a bit notion o' 't, sir," said Malcolm.

"But believe me that in any case, however much a man may have of it, he may have it endlessly more. 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. And more still: I am now far better able to understand how it must have been with our Lord when he was trying to teach the men and women of Palestine to have faith in God. Depend upon it, we get our best use of life in learning by the facts of its ebb and flow to understand the Son of Man. And again, when we understand Him, then only do we understand our life and ourselves. Never can we know the majesty of the will of God concerning us except by understanding Jesus and the work the Father gave Him to do. Now, nothing is of a more heavenly delight than to enter into a dusky room in the house of your friend, and there, with a blow of the heavenly rod, draw light from the dark wall – open a window, a fountain of the eternal light, and let in the truth which is the life of the world. Joyously would a man spend his life, right joyously even if the road led to the gallows, in showing the grandest he sees – the splendid purities of the divine religion – the mountain top up to which the voice of God is ever calling his children. Yes, I can understand even how a man might live, like the good hermits of old, in triumphant meditation upon such all satisfying truths, and let the waves of the world's time wash by him in unheeded flow until his cell changed to his tomb, and his spirit soared free. But to spend your time in giving little lessons when you have great ones to give; in teaching the multiplication table the morning after you made at midnight a grand discovery upon the very summits of the moonlit mountain range of the mathematics; in enforcing the old law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself when you know in your own heart that not a soul can ever learn to keep it without first learning to fulfil an infinitely greater one – to love his neighbour even as Christ hath loved him – then indeed one may well grow disheartened, and feel as if he were not in the place prepared for, and at the work required of him. But it is just then that he must go back to school himself and learn not only the patience of God who keeps the whole dull obstinate world alive, while generation after generation is born and vanishes, and of the mighty multitude only one here and there rises up from the fetters of humanity into the freedom of the sons of God – and yet goes on teaching the whole, and bringing every man who will but turn his ear a little towards the voice that calls him, nearer and nearer to the second birth – of sonship and liberty – not only this divine patience must he learn, but the divine insight as well, which in every form spies the reflex of the truth it cannot contain, and in every lowliest lesson sees the highest drawn nearer, and the soul growing alive unto God."

The next day at noon, mounted on Kelpie, Malcolm was in attendance upon his mistress, who was eager after a gallop in Richmond Park. Lord Liftore, who had intended to accompany her, had not made his appearance yet, but Florimel did not seem the less desirous of setting out at the time she had appointed Malcolm. The fact was she had said one o'clock to Liftore, intending twelve, that she might get away without him. Kelpie seemed on her good behaviour, and they started quietly enough. By the time they had got out of the park upon the Kensington Road, however, the evil spirit had begun to wake in her. But even when she was quietest, she was nothing to be trusted, and about London Malcolm found he dared never let his thoughts go, or take his attention quite off her ears. They got to Kew Bridge in safety nevertheless, though whether they were to get safely across was doubtful all the time they were upon it, for again and again she seemed on the very point of clearing the stone balustrade, but for the terrible bit and chain without which Malcolm never dared ride her. Still, whatever her caracoles or escapades, they caused Florimel nothing but amusement, for her confidence in Malcolm – that he could do whatever he believed he could – was unbounded. They got through Richmond – with some trouble, but hardly were they well into the park, when Lord Liftore, followed by his groom, came suddenly up behind them at such a rate as quite destroyed the small stock of equanimity Kelpie had to go upon. She bolted.

Florimel was a good rider, and knew herself quite mistress of her horse, and if she now followed, it was at her own will, and with a design; she wanted to make the horses behind her bolt also if she could. His lordship came flying after her, and his groom after him, but she kept increasing her pace until they were all at full stretch, thundering over the grass – upon which Malcolm had at once turned Kelpie, giving her little rein and plenty of spur. Gradually Florimel slackened speed, and at last pulled up suddenly. Liftore and his groom went past her like the wind. She turned at right angles and galloped back to the road. There, on a gaunt thoroughbred, with a furnace of old life in him yet, sat Lenorme, whom she had already passed and signalled to remain thereabout. They drew alongside of each other, but they did not shake hands; they only looked each in the other's eyes, and for a few moments neither spoke. The three riders were now far away over the park, and still Kelpie held on and the other horses after her. "I little expected such a pleasure," said Lenorme.