is doubts whether he may not
have been a little hard: he is prepared to reconsider some of your
cases. Do not imagine that I am going to be a careless man of business.
I want money, for I have enough to do with it, if only to set right
much that is wrong. But let God judge between you and me.

"My fishermen, every honest man of you is my friend, and you shall know
it. Between you and me that is enough. But for the sake of harmony and
right and order, and that I may keep near you, I shall appoint three men
of yourselves in each village to whom any man or woman may go with
request or complaint. If two of those three men judge the matter fit to
refer to me, the probability is that I shall see it as they do. If any
man think them scant of justice toward him, let him come to me. Should I
find myself in doubt, I have here at my side my loved and honored master
to whom to apply for counsel, knowing that what oracle he may utter I
shall receive straight from the innermost parts of a temple of the Holy
Ghost. Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with
each other.

"And, in conclusion, why should you hear from any lips but my own that
this lady beside me, the daughter of an English earl of ancient house,
has honored the house of Lossie by consenting to become its marchioness?
Lady Clementina Thornicroft possesses large estates in the south of
England, but not for them did I seek her favor, as you will be convinced
when you reflect what the fact involves which she has herself desired me
to make known to you--namely, that it was while yet she was unacquainted
with my birth and position, and had never dreamed that I was other than
only a fisherman and a groom, that she accepted me for her husband. I
thank my God!"

With that he took his seat, and after hearty cheering, a glass or two of
wine and several speeches, all rose and went to look at the portrait of
the late marquis.

CHAPTER LXXII.

KNOTTED STRANDS.

Lady Clementina had to return to England to see her lawyers and arrange
her affairs. Before she went she would gladly have gone with Malcolm
over every spot where had passed any portion of his history, and at each
heard its own chapter or paragraph; but Malcolm obstinately refused to
begin such a narration before Clementina was mistress of the region to
which it mainly belonged. After that, he said, he would, even more
gladly, he believed, than she, occupy all the time that could be spared
from