Malcolm | Page 5

a pale blue, mingled with a certain mottled milky gleam, had a
pathetic, dog-like expression. Decently dressed in black, he stood with
his hands in the pockets of his trowsers, gazing immovably in Mrs
Catanach's face.
Becoming suddenly aware of his presence, she glanced downward,
gave a great start and a half scream, and exclaimed in no gentle tones:
"Preserve 's! Whaur come ye frae?"
It was neither that she did not know the man, nor that she meant any
offence: her words were the mere embodiment of the annoyance of
startled surprise; but their effect was peculiar.
Without a single other motion he turned abruptly on one heel, gazed
seaward with quick flushed cheeks and glowing eyes, but, apparently
too polite to refuse an answer to the evidently unpleasant question,
replied in low, almost sullen tones:
"I dinna ken whaur I come frae. Ye ken 'at I dinna ken whaur I come
frae. I dinna ken whaur ye come frae. I dinna ken whaur onybody
comes frae."
"Hoot, laird! nae offence!" returned Mrs Catanach. "It was yer ain wyte
(blame). What gart ye stan' glowerin' at a body that gait, ohn telled
(without telling) them 'at ye was there?"
"I thocht ye was luikin' whaur ye cam frae," returned the man in tones
apologetic and hesitating.
"'Deed I fash wi' nae sic freits," said Mrs Catanach.
"Sae lang's ye ken whaur ye're gaein' till," suggested the man
"Toots! I fash as little wi' that either, and ken jist as muckle about the

tane as the tither," she answered with a low oily guttural laugh of
contemptuous pity.
"I ken mair nor that mysel', but no muckle," said the man. "I dinna ken
whaur I cam frae, and I dinna ken whaur I'm gaun till; but I ken 'at I'm
gaun whaur I cam frae. That stan's to rizzon, ye see; but they telled me
'at ye kenned a' about whaur we a' cam frae."
"Deil a bit o' 't!" persisted Mrs Catanach, in tones of repudiation. "What
care I whaur I cam frae, sae lang's--"
"Sae lang's what, gien ye please?" pleaded the man, with a childlike
entreaty in his voice.
"Weel--gien ye wull hae't--sae lang's I cam frae my mither," said the
woman, looking down on the inquirer with a vulgar laugh.
The hunchback uttered a shriek of dismay, and turned and fled; and as
he turned, long, thin, white hands flashed out of his pockets, pressed
against his ears, and intertwined their fingers at the back of his neck.
With a marvellous swiftness he shot down the steep descent towards
the shore.
"The deil's in't 'at I bude to anger him!" said the woman, and walked
away, with a short laugh of small satisfaction.
The style she had given the hunchback was no nickname. Stephen
Stewart was laird of the small property and ancient house of Kirkbyres,
of which his mother managed the affairs--hardly for her son, seeing that,
beyond his clothes, and five pounds a year of pocket money, he derived
no personal advantage from his possessions. He never went near his
own house, for, from some unknown reason, plentifully aimed at in the
dark by the neighbours, he had such a dislike to his mother that he
could not bear to hear the name of mother, or even the slightest allusion
to the relationship.
Some said he was a fool; others a madman; some both; none, however,
said he was a rogue; and all would have been willing to allow that
whatever it might be that caused the difference between him and other
men, throughout the disturbing element blew ever and anon the air of a
sweet humanity.
Along the shore, in the direction of the great rocky promontory that
closed in the bay on the west, with his hands still clasped over his ears,
as if the awful word were following him, he flew rather than fled. It
was nearly low water, and the wet sand afforded an easy road to his

flying feet. Betwixt sea and shore, a sail in the offing the sole other
moving thing in the solitary landscape, like a hunted creature he sped,
his footsteps melting and vanishing behind him in the half quicksand.
Where the curve of the water line turned northward at the root of the
promontory, six or eight fishing boats were drawn up on the beach in
various stages of existence. One was little more than half built, the
fresh wood shining against the background of dark rock. Another was
newly tarred; its sides glistened with the rich shadowy brown, and
filled the air with a comfortable odour. Another wore age long neglect
on every plank and seam; half its props had sunk or decayed, and the
huge hollow leaned low on one side, disclosing the squalid