Tredger — that's our lady's-maid; only this is a secret — says it's all settled: she knows it for certain fact; only there's nothing to be said about it yet: she's so young, you know."
"Who was the man that sat nearly opposite my lady, on the other side of the table?" asked Malcolm.
"I know who you mean. Didn't look as if he'd got any business there — not like the rest of them — did he? No, they never do. Odd-and-end sort of people, like he is, never do look the right thing, let them try ever so. How can they when they ain't it? That's a fellow that's painting Lady Lossie's portrait. Why he should be asked to dinner for that, I'm sure I can't tell. He ain't paid for it in victuals, is he? I never saw such land-leapers let into Lossie House, I know. But London's an awful place. There's no such a thing as respect of persons here. Here you meet the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker any night in my lady's drawing-room. I declare to you, Ma'colm MacPhail, it makes me quite uncomfortable at times to think who I may have been waiting upon without knowing it. For that painter-fellow — Lenorme they call him — I could knock him on the teeth with the dish every time I hold it to him. And to see him stare at Lady Lossie as he does!"
"A painter must want to get a right good hold of the face he's got to paint," said Malcolm. "Is he here often?"
"He's been here five or six times already," answered Wallis, "and how many more times I may have to fill his glass I don't know. I always give him second-best sherry, I know. I'm sure the time that pictur' 's been on hand! He ought to be ashamed of himself. If she's been once to his studio, she's been twenty times — to give him sittings, as they call it. He's making a pretty penny of it, I'll be bound. I wonder he has the cheek to show himself when my lady treats him so haughtily. But those sort of people have no proper feelin's, you see: it's not to be expected of such."
Wallis liked the sound of his own sentences, and a great deal more talk of similar character followed before they got back from the tailor's. Malcolm was tired enough of him, and never felt the difference between man and man more strongly than when, after leaving him, he set out for a walk with Blue Peter, whom he found waiting him at his lodging. On this same Blue Peter, however, Wallis would have looked down from the height of his share of the marquisate as on one of the lower orders — ignorant, vulgar, even dirty.
They had already gazed together upon not a few of the marvels of London, but nothing had hitherto moved or drawn them so much as the ordinary flow of the currents of life through the veins of the huge city. Upon Malcolm, however, this had now begun to pall, while Peter already found it worse than irksome, and longed for Scaurnose. At the same time loyalty to Malcolm kept him from uttering a whisper of his homesickness. It was yet but the fourth day they had been in London.
"Eh, my lord," said Blue Peter, when by chance they found themselves in the lull of a little quiet court somewhere about Gray's Inn, with the roar of Holborn in their ears, "it's like a month, sin' I was at the kirk. I'm feart the din's gotten into my heid, an' I'll never get it oot again. I cud maist wuss I was a mackerel, for they tell me the fish hears naething. I ken weel noo what ye meant, my lord, whan ye said ye dreidit the din micht gar ye forget yer Macker."
"I hae been wussin' sair mysel, this last twa days," responded Malcolm, "'at I cud get ae sicht o' the jaws clashin' upo' the Scaurnose or rowin' up upo' the edge o' the links. The din o' natur' never troubles the guid thouchts in ye. I reckon it's 'cause it's a kin' o' a harmony in 'tsel', an' a' harmony's jist, as the maister used to say, a higher kin' o' a peace. Yon organ 'at we hearkent till ae day ootside the kirk — ye min', man — it was a quaietness in 'tsel', an' cam' throu' the din like a bonny silence — like a lull i' the win' o' this warl'. It wasna a din at a', but a gran' repose, like. But this noise tumultuous o' human strife, this din o' iron shune an' iron wheels, this whurr an' whuzz o' buyin' an' sellin' an' gettin' gain — it disna help a body to their prayers."
"Eh, na, my lord. Jist think o' the preevilege — I never saw nor thoucht o' 't afore — o' haein' 'ti' yer pooer, ony nicht 'at ye're no efter the fish, to stap oot at yer ain door an' be i' the mids o' the temple. Be 't licht or dark, be 't foul or fair, the sea sleepin' or ragin', ye hae aye room, an' naething atween ye an' the throne o' the Almichty, to the whilk yer prayers ken the gait as weel's the herrin' to the shores o' Scotlan': ye hae but to lat them flee, an' they gang straucht there. But here ye hae to luik sae gleg efter yer boady, 'at, as ye say, my lord, yer sowl's like to come aff the waur, gien it binna clean forgotten."
"I doobt there's something no richt aboot it, Peter," returned Malcolm.
