Gv7) 4^L\ ^^^^,^^^>^^^^^^v^v>y^^^■y.^s^v;v^^j^ »s>>«>j~<>y<>?>'>vv;>fv\-K\»s:v^ Prom the "Books of CDary J. £. CDcDonald BookselLr &^ Si at 107 Montgomerj PWm:'W- W Front. P. 122. DONAL GRANT BY GEORGE MACDONALD Author of " Warlt^ck o' Glenwarlock," " Weighed and Want- ing," " Seaboard Parish," " Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood," etc. L O N D O N (;k()R(;e rout ledge and sons BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL \KW YORK : 9 I.AFAYK'riK F'LACK « • • • • • • • * • Copyright, 1883, BY D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY. /N MEMOR/AM 1 1^, KH^G"? HAtN CONTENTS. 1. Foot Faring , , 7 2. In Lod^ngs .39 3. The Sabbath 68 4. New Acquaintances .95 5. In the New Home •••••... 125 6. No Coward ••.••••. 140 7. Becoming Acquainted 155 8. What it Involved . , 164 9. Biased by Opinion ••••••.. 172 10. More Knowledge •••••••• 192 11. An Altercation • • • • • • • •• 215 12. The True Path 264 13. In Council 279 14. Teacher Turned Pupil , . . . , , .284 15. A Thing to be Ashamed Of 298 16. Further Interference •••••••• 328 17. Keeping Aloof 349 18. In the Scales • • • • • • • . 357 19. Strange Sights .••••••• .371 20. A Visitor , 383 21. Meeting of the Three 414 22. Advice Rejected 426 23. Differences 432 24. Into the old Grooves] 473 25. Further Search 480 26. The Dream 492 27. Finding the Place 499 CONTENTS. 28. A Confidential Talk 510 29. Another Suggestion ........ 515 30. An unsought^for Interview 567 31. LordMorven . , . 583 32. A Strange Burial 583 33. After Church 595 34. The Paper in the Bureau 604 35. Alarming the Earl 612 36. Explaining the lost|Eoom 630 37. Lord Forgue again 647 38. False Play 686 39. The Plot 698 40. Waking to the Fact 702 41. Deliverance . . •••!••. 707 42. Odd Changes 719 43. A Confession ......... 752 44. The Marriage 760 45. The Will 768 DONAL GRANT. CHAPTER i. FOOT FARING. I T was a lovely morning in the first of summer. _ Ye-^, we English, whatever we may end with, al- ways begin with the weather, and not without reason. We have more moods, though less subject to them, I hope, than the Italians. Therefore we are put in the middle of .weather. They have no weather ; where there is so little change, there is at least' little to call weather. Weather is the moods of the world, and we need weather good and bad — at one time healing sympathizer with mood, at another fit expression for, at vet another fit corrective to, mood. God only knows in how many ways he causes weather to serve us. It was a lovely morning in the first of summer. Donal Grant was on a hillside, descending a path to the valley below — a sheep-track of which he knew every winding as well as any boy his half-mile to and from' school." But he had never before gone down the hill with the feeling that he was not about to go up it again. He was on his way to pastures very new, and in the distance only negatively inviting. But his 7 DONAL GRANT. heart was too full to be troubled, though his was not a heart to harbor a care — the next liiini; to an evil spirit, though not quite so bad ; for one care drives out another, while one devil is pretty sure to bring in another. A great billowy waste of mountains lay beyond him, amongst whirb played the shadows at their games of hide and seek — graciously merry in the eyes of the li/ip]:.}- UKU', but sadly solemn in the eyes of him in whose heart the dreary thoughts of the past are at a like game. Behind Donal lay a world of dreams into which he dared not consciously turn and look, yet from which he had no sooner turned his eyes than they returned of themselves to gaze. He was near- ins: the foot of the hill when he stumbled and nearly fell, but recovered himself with the agility of a moun- taineer, and the unpleasant knowledge that the sole of one of his shoes was all but off. Never had he left home for college that his father had not made personal inspection of his shies to see that he was fittingly shod for the journey ; but on this occasion thev had been forirotten. He sat down and took off the failing equipment. It was too far gone for him to do anything temporary with it ; and of discomforts a loose sole to one's shoe in walking is of the worst. The only thing was to take off the other shoe and both stockings and walk barefoot. The shoes and stockings he tied together with a piece of string, and made them fast to his deer-skin knapsack. The mis- fortune did not trouble him much. To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is power. To have shoes is a good thing ; to be able to walk without them is a better. But it was long since FOOT FARING. Donal had walked barefoot, and he found liis feet like his shoe, weaker in the sole than was pleasant. " It was time," he said to himself, when he found himself stepping gingerly, '' that I gae my feet a turn at the auld accomplishment. It's a pity to grow less fit for onything sooner than ye need. I wad like to lie doon at last wi' hard soles ! " In every stream he came to he bathed his feet, and often on the way rested them, when able enough otherwise to go on. He had no certain goal, though he knew whither first he was bending his steps, and in no haste. He had confidence in God, and in his own powers as the gift of God, and knew that wher- ever he went he needed not be hungry long, even should all the little money in his pocket be spent. It is better to trust in work than in money ; God never buys anything, and is forever at work ; but if anv one does trust in w^ork, he has yet to learn that he must trust in nothing but strength — the self-existent, origi- nal strength only ; and Donal Grant had long begun to learn that. And the man has begun to be strong who has begun to know that, separated from life es- sential, that is God, he is weakness itself, but of strength inexhaustible if he be one with his origin. Donal was now descending the heights of youth to walk along the king's highroad of manhood , happy he who, as his sun is going down behind the western, is himself ascending the eastern hill, returning througli old age to the second and better childhood which shall not be taken from him. For he who turns his back on the setting sun goes to meet the rising sun ; and he who loses his life shall find it. Donal seemed to have lost his past — but he had not lost it so as to be lO DONAL GRANT. ashamed. There are many ways of losing ! it had hut crept back, like the dead, to God who gave it ; in better shape it would be his by and by ! Already he iiad begun to foreshadow this truth. Consenting God would keep it for him. He had started before the sun was up, for he would not be met by friends or acquaintances. Avoiding the well-known villages at the foot of the hill, he fol- lowed the path up the river, and about noon came to a small village where no one knew him ; it was just a cluster of straw-roofed cottages low and white, with two little windows each. He w^alked straight through iL not meaning to stop. But spying in front of the last one a rough stone seat under a low but wide- spreading elder-tree, he sat down to rest a little. For the dav was now hot, and the shadow of the tree in- viting. He had but seated himself when a woman came to the door of the cottage. She looked at him for a moment, then, probably thinking him, from his bare feet, poorer than he was, said — "Wad ye like a drink.? " " Ay, wad I," answered Donal — "a drink 'o wat- ter, gien ye please." " What for no milk ? " asked the woman. "'Cause I'm able to pey for't," answered Donal. " But I want nae peyment," she rejoined, perceiv- ing his drift as little as my reader probably. "An' I want nae milk," returned Donal. " Weel, ye may pey for't gein ye like," she said. " But I dinna like," rej)lied Donal. "Weel, ye're a some queer customer!" she re- marked. FOOT FARING. II " I thank ye, but I'm nae customer, 'cep' for a drink 'o watter," he persisted, looking in her face with a smile, " an' watter has ay been gratis sin' the days 'o Adam, 'cep' niaybe i' toons 'i the het countries." The woman turned into the cottage, and came out again presently with a delft basin, holding about a pint, full of milk, yellow and rich. "There," she said, "drink an' be thankfu'." *' I'll be thankfu' ohn drunken," said Donal. " I thank ye wi' a' my hert. But I canna bide to be shabby nor greedy. I canna bide to tak for naething what I can pey for, an' I dinna like to lay oot my siler upon a luxury I can weel eneuch du wantin', for I haena muckle." " Druik for the luve 'o God," said the woman. Donal took the bowl from her hand, and drank till all was gone. "Wull ye hae a drap mair .? " she asked. " Na, no a drap," answered Donal. " I'll gan 'i the stren'th 'o the milk ye hae gi'en me — maybe no jist forty days, gudewife, but mair nor forty minutes, an' that's a gude pairt 'o a day. I thank ye hertily. Yon was the milk 'o human kin'ness, gien ever was ony." As he spoke he rose, and stood up refreshed to renew his journey. " I hae a sodger laddie awa' 'i the het country ye spak o'," said the woman. "Gien ye hadna ta'en the milk, ye wad hae gi'en me a sair hert." " Eh, gudewife, it wad hae gi'en me ane to think I had ! " replied Donal. " The Lord gie ye back yer laddie safe an' soon ! Maybe I'll hae to gang efter 'im, an' be a sodger mysel'." 12 DONAL GRANT. •• Na, na, that wadna do. YeVe a scholar — that's easy to see, for a' ye're sae plain spoken. It dis a body's hert ji^uid to hear a man 'at un'crstan's things say them plain oot in the tongue his mither taucht him. Sic a ane 'ill gang straiight till's makker, an' fin' a'thing there hame-like. Lord, I wuss ministers wad speyk 14ke ilher fovvk ! " '* Ye wad sair please my mither speykin' like that," said Donal. '' Ye maun be jist sic anither as her ! " " Weel, come in, an' sit ye doon oot 'o the sun, an' hae something to ait." " Na, I'll tak nae mair frae ye the day ; an' I thank ye," replied Donal ; "I canna weel bide." "What for no?" " It's no sae muckle 'at I'm in a hurry as 'at I maun be doin'.'' " Whar are ye b'un' for, gien a body may spier ? " " I'm gaein to seek — no my fortin, but my daily breid. Gein I spak as a richt man sud be able to do, I wad say I was gaein' to' luik for the wark set me. I'm feart to say that straucht oot; I doobt I haena won sae far as that yet. I winna du naething though "at he wadna hae me du. I daur to say that, sae be I un'erstan'. My mither says the day 'ill come whan I'll care for naething but his wull." "Yer mither 'ill be Janet Grant, I'm thinkin' ; for I dinna believe there can be twa sic in ae country- side." " Ye're 'i the richt," answered Donal. " Ken ve my mither ? " " I hae seen her ; an' to see her's to ken her." " Aye, gien wha sees her be sic like's hersel'." " I canna preten to that ; but she's weel kent for FOOT FARING. 1 3 a God-fearin' woman. An' whaur "11 ye be gaein' i' the noo ? " "I'm jist upo' the tramp, luikin' for wark." " An' what may ye be pleast to ca' wark .-* " " Ow, jist the communication 'o what I hae the un'erstan'in' o'." " Aweel, gien ye'll condescen' to tak advice frae an auld wife, ye'll tak heed o' ae thing — an' that's this : no to tak ilka lass ye see for a born angel. Misdoobt her a wee to begin wi'. Jist hing up yer jeedgment for a wee, as ye wad yer Sunday hat. Luik to the moo' an' the e'en o' her." " I thank ye," said Donal, with a feeble attempt at a smile, " but I'm no like to need the advice." The woman looked at him pitifully for a moment and paused. "Gien ye come this gait again," she said, "ye'll no gang by my door ? " " I wuU no," replied Donal. He wished her good-by with a grateful heart, and betook himself again to his journey. He had not gone far when he found himself on a wide moor. A little way on he saw a big stone. He went to it, and sitting down began to turn things over in his mind. And this is something how his thoughts went : " I can never be the man I was ! the thoucht o' my heart's ta'en frae me. I canna think aboot things the same w'y I used. There's naething sae bonny as afore. Whan the life slips frae him, hoo can a man gang on livm' ! An' yet I'm no deid — that's what maks the diffeeclety o' the situation ! Gien I war deid — weel, I kenna what than; I doobt there 14 DONAL GRANT. wad he trible still, though sonic things niicht be lichier. But that's neither here nor there ; 1 niauji live; I hae nae ch'ice ; I'm no gaein' to take the thing *uil my ain han's — I think mair o' mysel' nor daur that ! I didna mak mysel' and I'm no gaein' to meddle \vi' mysel' I "But there's jist ae question I maun sattle afore I gang farther, an' that's this : whether I'm gaein' to be less or mair nor I was afore. It's agreed I canna be the same. If I canna be the same, I maun aither be less or greater than I was afore ; whilk of them is't to be ! I winna hae that question to speir mair nor ance ! Gien it be possible I'll be mair nor I was. To sink to less wad be to lowse grip o' a' my past as weel's a' my futur ? Hoo wad I ever luik her i' the face gien I grew less because o' her ! What would it be for a stoot chiel' like me to lat the bonny lassie think hersel' to blame for what I was grown til ! An' there's a greater nor the lass to be consider't 'Cause he disna see fit to gie me the ane I wad hae am I to say he's no to hae his wuU o' me? Na, na ! — it's a gran' thing to hae kent a lassie like yon, an a gran'er thing yet to hae been allooed to lo'e her ; an' to sit doon an'greit 'cause I canna merry her, wad jist be to be an oongratefu' fule. What for sud I threip 'at I oucht to hae her ? What for sudna I be disapp'intit as weel as anither ? I hae as guid richt as anither to ony guid 'at's to come o' that, I fancy. Gien it to be the pairt o' man to cairry a sair hert, it's no his pairt to sit doon wi't upo' the ro'dside, an' lay't upo' his lap an greit ower't ; he maun haud on his ro'd. Wha am I 'at I sud fare different frae the, lave o' my fowk ? I's be like the lave, an' gien FOOT FARING. 1 5 I greit I winna girn. The Lord himsel' had to croont wi' pain. Eh, my bonny doo ! but ye lo'e a better man, an' that's a sair comfort ! Gien it had been itlierwise, I div not think I could hae borne the pain i' my hert. But as it's guid an' no ill 'at's come to ye, I haena you an' mysel' tu greit for, an' that's a sair comfort ! Lord, I'll dim' to thee, and gaither o' the healin' 'at grows for the nations upo' the tree o' life. " I see the thing as plain's a thing can be ; the cure o' a' ill's naither mair nor less nor mair life. That's it ! Life abune an' avont the life 'at took the stroke ! An' gien throw this hert-brak I get mair life, it'll be jist ane o' the throes o' my h'avenly birth — i' the whilk. the bairn has as mony o' the pains as the mither — that's maybe a differ a'tween the twa ! " Sae noo I hae to begin fresh, an' lat the thing 'at's past an' gane slip efter ither dreams. Eh, but it's a bonny dream yet ! It lies close 'ahin' me, no to be forgotten, no to be luikit at — like ane o' thae dreams o' watter an' munelicht 'at has ower little wark in them. A body wadna lie a' nicht an' a' day tu in a dream o' the sowl's gloamin. Na, Lord, mak o' me a strong man, an' syne gie me as muckle o' the bonny as may please thee. Wha am I to lippen til, gien no to thee, my ain father an' mither an' gran'father an' a'body in ane for thoo ga'est me them a' ! " Noo, as I say, I'm to begin again — a fresh life frae this verra minute. I'm to set oot frae this verra p'int like ane o' the youngest sons i' the fairy tales to seek my portion, an' see what's gaein' to come to meet me as I gang to meet hit. The warl' afore me's my story-buik. I canna see ower the leaf till I come l6 DONAL GRANT. to the en' o' 't. I never wad, when I was a bairn, jist able by sore endeevour to win at the hert o' print, — I never wad luik on afore — that is, efter ance 'at 1 did it, for thoucht T li.id dune a sliamefu' thing, like liiikin' in at a keyhole — as I did jist ance tu an' I thank God my mither gae me sic a blessed lickin' for duin o' 't 'at I kent it maun be something dreidfu'. Sae here's for what's comin' ! I ken whaur it maun come frae, an' I's make it welcome. My mither says the main mscheef i' the warl' is, 'at fowk winna lat the Lord hae his ain w'y an' sae he has jist to tak it, whilk maks it a sair thing for them." So saying, he rose, and set out again on his bare feet to encounter that which was on its way to meet him. He is a fool who stands and lets life flow past him like a panorama. He also is a fool who thinks to lay hold of its machiner}^ and change its pictures for better ones. He may, he must, he can only dis- tort and injure — even ruin them. When he destroys them he comes upon awful shadows behind them. And lo ! as he glanced around him, already some- thing of the old look of mysterious loveliness, now for so many weeks gone from the face of the visible world, had returned to it — not yet as it was before, but with dawning promise of a new creation, which, without destroving: the old, was about to brin^ in a fresh beauty, in which he was to live without any self-reproach of change and forgetting ; he was not turning from the old, but accepting the new that God gave him. He might yet be often and for many a day sad, but to lament and mourn would be to act as if he thought himself wronged — would be to be poor and weak and foolish. He would look the new FOOT FARING. I 7 life in the face, and be what it pleased God to make him. The scents the wind brought with it on its way over field and garden and moor, came to him sweeter than ever they had seemed in his life before ; they seemed seeking to comfort him. And if he turiied from the thought thai followed with a sigh, it was only to turn to God instead, and then came fresh gladness and no rebuff. The wind hovered about him in a friendly way, as if it would fain have some- thing to do in the matter ; the river rippled and shone, as if it knew something worth knovv'ing which had yet to be revealed. For the delight of creation is verily in secrets, but in secrets only as revelations upon the way ; the Lord has taught us that in heaven itself there is no delight in secrets as secrets, but as embryo revelations. On the far horizon heaven and earth seemed to meet as old friends, who, though never parted, were yet in the continual act of renew- ing their friendship. The earth, like the angels, v,-as rejoicing — if not over a sinner that had repented, yet over a man that had passed from a lower into a higher condition of life — out of its earth into its air. He was going to live above, and look down on the lower world. And ere the shades of evening began that day to fall around Donal Grant, he was already in the new childhood of a new world. I do not mean such thoughts had never been pres- ent to him before ; but to think a thing is only to look at it in a glass — to know it as God would have us know it, and as we must know it to live, is to see it as we see love in a friend's eyes — to have it as the love the friend sees in ours. To make thmgs real to us, is the end and the battle-cause of life. l8 DONAL GRANT. We often tliink we believe what we are only present- ing to our imaginations. The least thing can over- throw that kind of faith. The imagination is an endless help towards faith, but it is no more faith than a dream of food will make us strong for the next day's work. To know God as the beginning and end, the root and cause, the giver, the en- abler, the love and joy and perfect good, the pres- ent one existence in all things and degrees and con- ditions, is life. And faith, in its simplest, truest, mightiest form, is — to do his will in the one thing revealing itself at the moment as duty. The faith that works miracles is an inferior faith to this — and not what the old theologians call a saving faith. Donal was making his way towards the eastern coast, in the certain hope of finding work of one kind or another. He could have been well content to pass his life as a shepherd like his father, but for two things mainly; first, that he felt he knew things which it might be useful for others to know as well, and he could, therefore, do more by being something else than a shepherd ; and, second, he had a hunger after the company of books, which company was not to be had in the position of a shepherd, either by way of borrowing v«here no library was near, or by way of purchase where money was so scarce. A man must, of course, be able to do without whatever is denied him ; but when the heart is hungry for any honest thing, a man may use his honest endeavor to obtain that thing. So Donal desired to make his gifts useful to others, and so live for his generation, and to be able to buy books — except, indeed, he were sent to a place with a good library, where he FOOT FARING. could have all the use of books without buying ; that would suit him better yet — for without a place in which to keep them, books are among tiie impedi- mejiia of life. But if Donal was in any danger of loving the things of this world, it was in the shape of books — books he had a strong inclination to accum- ulate and hoard. Books themselves, however, e\en are, considered as possessions, only of the things that pass and perish ; and he who loves them so must see them vanish from him as certainly as any other form of earthly having. Love alone lives, and causes all other truth to take shape, conscious or unconscious. But God lets men have their playthings, like the children they are, that they may learn to distinguish them from true possessions. If they are not learning that, he takes them from them, and tries the other way: for lack of them and its misery, they will per- haps seek the true ! Who would have thought, meeting the youth as he walked along the road on shoeless feet, that he sought the goal of a great library in some old house, where day after day he might feast on the thoughts of men who had gone before him. His was no anti- quarian so^l, but one hungry after all attainable forms of life, and that because of the life that was in them, not because of the mummy cloths in which that life was wrapt. He loved the beauty for the truth, the stvle for the thou":ht. He was now walking southwards, but would soon, when he had left the mountains well behind him, turn towards the east. He carried a small wallet, filled chiefly with oatcake and hard skim-milk cheese ; and about two o'clock he sat down on a stone, and, taking 2 DONAL GRANT. it from his back, proceeded to make a meal. A little stream from the hills ran near. Me had chosen his place where was something at hand to counteract the dryness of his fare. He never took any other drink than water. Before he went to college his mother had begged him, and he had promised, never to take strong drink. She did not use the figure, but what she said amounted to this — that at best it but dis- counted to him his own at a high rate. He drew from his pocket a small thick volume which he had brought as the companion of his journey, and began to read. His seat was on the last slope of a grassy hill, many huge stones rising out of the grass. A few yards below was a country road, and on the other side of the road a small stream into which the brook that ran swiftly past the stone on which he sat eagerly fell and lost itself. On the farther bank of the stream grew many bushes of meadow-sweet, or queeti-of-the-meadow^ for so it is called in Scotland ; and beyond lay a lovely meadow. Be}ond the meadow all was a plain, full of farms, stretching eastward. Behind him rose the high hill, shutting out his past. He had left it behind him. Before him lay the plain, a level way for him. It seemed as if God had walled up his past, and left his future open. He felt, not thought this, through the words he read as he munched his cheese, all its dryness for- gotten in the condiment his book supplied. When he had eaten as much as he thought his need could claim, he took his cap from his head, and going to the stream, filled it, drank heartily, threw away what was left, shook the last drops out of it, and put it again upon his head. FOOT FARING. 21 " Ho, ho, young man ! " cried a voice. Donal looked, and saw a man in the garb of a clergyman, regarding him from the road, and wiping his face with his sleeve. "You should mind," he went on, "how you scat- ter your favors." " I beg your pardon, sir," said Donal, taking off again the cap he had just put on : " I hadna a notion there was a leevin' cratur near me." " It's a fine day," said the minister. " It is that, sir," answered Donal. " Which way are you going ? " asked the minister, adding, as if in apology for his seeming curiosity, " you're a scholar, I see ! " and glan':ing towards the book he had left open upon the stone where he had been sitting. "No sae muckle o' that as I wad fain be, sir," answered Donal — then called to mind a resolve he had made, to endeavor to speak English for the future. He had hitherto always laughed at the affected attempts after English he had heard from some of the students, for he could not see that anything was gained, while much was lost, by the gradual decay of sound Scotch in the country, and the replacing of it with a mere bastard English. But it was worth while to be able to speak good modern English ; and he saw it was of no use to attempt withstanding the tide of growth, mingled as it was with so much unneces- sary change. He saw also that, no principal of right or wrong being concerned, it would be of conse- quence, when he sought a situation, that he should not seem so deficient as the language of the hillside 2 2 DONAL GRANT. would make him appear. He would use his mother- ton<;ue in private for the high uses of life and spirit — for devotion and verse; would talk to his God and Saviour in the sacred mother-tongue, and write at least his songs in it ; but would speak as good Eng- lish as he could, at best only book-P>nglish, to those about him, doing his best to keep from mixing the two, and spoiling both. I do not care in this my narrative to represent with accuracy the transition from the one mode of speech to the other. The result of his endeavor was, doubt- less, sometimes a little amusing, but it was not often ridiculous, because Donal was free from affectation, as a strong man naturally is. Things were to him good in their own truth and fact, and he had no desire to dress them in the tinsel of a vulgar fancy. The true source of vulgarity, itself the most vulgar thing in the world, is ambition. Of this Donal had none, therefore could not be vulgar. He had, on the other hand, a powerful and active sense of the beauty of perfection, and loved finish in everything. He aspired after the best, a thing as different from ambi- tion as heaven is from hell — so different that the one is the death of the other. Whatever Donal did he tried to do well. So now, when he went on speaking to the minister, he used something not a little like Eng- lish, though not quite so like it as I shall represent it. "You're a modest youth I see!" returned the clergyman; but Donal hardly liked the tone in which he said it. "That depends on what you mean by a scholar," he said, " O ! " answered the minister, not thinking much FOOT IwVRING. 23 abouL his reply, but in a rather bantering humor, and willing to draw the lad out, " the learned man mod- estly calls himself a scholar." '' Then there is no modesty in my saying I was not so much of one as I should like to be, for c\ery scholar would say the same. If you had said 3 ou meant a lear^wig man, I would have claimed then to be a scholar." " A very good answer, and a true distinction," said the clergyman, patronizingly. " But," he went on, " when would you say a man was a learned man .? " And the' minister smiled as he said it. He certainly was not prepared to answer the question himself. "That wants thinking about," answered Donal. *' It seems impossible for one learned man to say a thing but three or four other learned men start up to prove him all wrong in it ! " " There's some truth in that. But what good can there be then in being learned ? " " I would like to hear your answer to your own question, sir," said Donal. •' For one thing, you get the mental discipline," he answered. "It seem's to me," said Donal, "something of a pity to get one% discipline on things that may them- selves be all nonsense. It's just as good discipline to my teeth here, to make my dinner of good bread and cheese, as if I had been trying what I could make of the grass that suits the sheep there." " I've got hold of a humorist ! " said the clergyman to himself. " Which way are you going .^ " he asked. " I'^.astward now, 1 think," answered Donal. As he spoke he picked up his wallet and his book, 2 4 DONAL GRANT. and came down to the road where the cler2:vman stood. Then first the latter saw that he had no shoes. In his childhood the clergyman had himself often gone without shoes or socks, nevertheless the youth's lack of tliem ga\e him an unfavorable impression of him. '* Why, bless me ! he hasn't a shoe to his foot ! It must be the fellow's own fault ! " he said to himself. " He must be a bad lot ! But he needn't think to 2:et anything out of me! He would fain show to have ideas about things, but he sha'n't catch me with such chaff!" •' I took my degree last session," said Donal, as he jumped the little hollow that separated the hill from the road, "and now I'm on my way to find a situation further south. Money seems to be a sort of tropical plant somehow ! " Had Donal been alone, he would have forded the river, and gone to inquire his way at the nearest farmhouse ; but he thought it only polite to accom- pany the clergyman. The latter would have been better pleased if he had taken his own way. They walked some distance before either spoke. Each was doubtful of the other. " Where do you mean to stop to-night ? " asked the minister at length. " Where I can. I don't care whether it be in a barn or on the hill-side in this weather." "A young man like you, who has taken his degree," said the minister, not quite believing him, for there was a free look about Donal which he took to indi- cate lawlessness, " would do well, if he wants to get on, to pay some attention to appearances, and not lie out of doors except in extreme necessity." FOOT FARING. 25 " But, sir, you don't tliink what a decent bed costs ; and a barn is generally, and a hill-side, always clean. In fact the hill side's best of all. Many's the time I have slept out in the summer along with my sheep. Don't you think, sir," continued Donal, "it's a strange notion some people have — that it's more respectable to sleep under a roof made by hand than under the roof built bv the word of God ? " "It's not to be denied, however," said the minister with caution, " that those who have no settled abode are amongst the most disreputable of society." " Like Abraham," said Donal with a smile. " Some seem to me to think more of an abiding city than be- comes pilgrims and strangers. I fell asleep once," Donal continued, '^ upon the top of Glashgar. It's pretty fresh there any time, but I had my plaid. When I woke I almost believed myself a disembodied spirit, about to appear before my Maker. The suii was just looking over the edge of the horizon, and the earth away dov/n below me ever so far, was all coming to life under his look. I rose and gazed about me as if that moment I had been made like Adam, all there at or,cc. If God had that instant called me, I don't think I should have been the least astonished." " Or frightened ? " suggested the minister, rather cynically. " 1 don't think it, sir; I know no reason why a man should fear the presence of the only saviour of men." " You said vour maker, not vour saviour f^^ answ^ered the minister. " Are they then at two, and not at one in their 26 DONAL GRANT. thoughts ?" asked Donal. I have learnt that he is God our saviour ! j\Iy greatest desire is to come into tlie presence of him with wliom I have to do." "Under the sJieltcr of the atonement," said the minister. " Hoots ! " said Donal, forgetting his P^nglish " gien ye mean by that onything to come atween my God an' me, I'll hae nane o' 't. I'll hae naething to hide me frae the ee o' him wha made me ! That ee's the verra life o' men. I wadna hide a thocht frae him. The waur it is, the mair need for him to see't. It wad mak me meeserable to think there was ony- thing i' me he wadna luik at an' see til." "What book is that you are reading?" asked the minister sharply. He w^as now fairly angry with the presumptuous youth — and no wonder ; for the gospel the minister preached was a gospel but to the slavish and low- minded — and to others in proportion as the unfilial in them came in aid of their sense of duty to enable them to accept it. " It's a poor copy of the poet Shelley," answered Donal, recovering himself. Now, the minister had never read a word of the poet Shelley, and so had a very decided opinion con- cerning him ; both the state of inmu and tne outward condition of the youth seemed to him now very sufficiently accounted for. He gave a loud rude whistle. " So ! that's where you go for your theology ! I was, I confess, puzzled to understand you ; but now all is very plain ! — explained more clearly than satisfactorily ! Young man, you are on the broad FOOT P'ARING. 27 road to destruction — - nay, on the very brink of per- dition. Such a writer will poison your very vitals ! "' " Indeed, sir, he can't well do that, for he has never reached my vitals yet. He doesn't go deep enough for that ! But he came nearer touching them — not with poison though — than ever before, as 1 sat there eating my bread and cheese." The minister, from the moment of this discovery, took all the straightforwardness of Donal's speech for rudeness to what he called his cloth, and thence to himself. He thought he had the key to him when he was farther from finding it than ever. " He's an infidel ! '' he said fiercely. "A kind of one, perhaps," returned Donal, "but not of the worst sort. It's the people who mistakenly or falsely call themselves believers that drive the like of poor Shelley to the mouth of the pit — such as he cannot endure their low, selfish ways. How many do you know, sir, of whom }-ou would be ready to say to a man that didn't believe, ' Look — there is what Christianity makes of a man ! ' ? " "That has nothing to do with the matter. The truth is the truth, whatever be the behavior of those that profess it." " Yes ; but such won't make the truth look true to those that do not know it ; and that was how they : erved Shelley." *' He hated the truth," said the minister. "He was alwavs scekin^f after it," said Donal, " though to be sure he didn't get very far in the search. But just listen to this, sir, and say whether it be not something not so very far astray from Chris- tianity." zS DONAL OPANT. So saying, Donal opened his little volume, and sought the passage he meant. The minister, who was one of the many who consciously or unconsciously seek the priesthood for ambiiion, was inclined, but for curiosity, joined to the dread of seeming absurd, to stop his ears and refuse to listen. He was a man of not only dry, but deadly stale doctrines, which con- tinue to show a kind of galvanized life fiom the hold- ing of one measure of truth and the hiding of another. He was one of those who would have us love Christ for protecting us from God, instead of for leading us to God — the one home of safety — in whom alone is bliss, out of whom all is darkness and misery. He had not a glimmer of the truth that eternal life is to know God. He imagined justice and love dwelling in eternal opposition in the bosom of eternal unity. He knew next to nothing about God, and misrepre- sented him hideously every Sunday. If God were such as he showed him, it would indeed l^e the worst possible misfortune to have been created, or have anything to do with God at all. Donal had found the passage. It was from the " Mask of Anarchy," and contained amongst other stanzas which he read the followins: : — 'b Let a vast assembly be, And with great solemnity Declare with measured words that ye Are, as God made ye, free — Be your strong and simple words Keen to wound as sharpened swords, And wide as targes let them be, With their shade to cover ye. FOOT FARING. And if then the tyrants dare, Let them ride among you there, Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew,— What they like, that let them do. With folded arms and steady eyes, And little fear, and less surprise. Look upon them as they slay. Till their rage has died away. And that slaughter to the Nation Shall steam up like inspiration, Eloquent, oracular ; A volcano heard afar. When he had ended the reader turned to the lis- tener. But the listener had understood little of the meaning, and less of the spirit of the poem. He hated the very shadow of opposition to the powers that be, on the part of any beneath his own standing and dignity ; and he scorned also the idea of submit- ting to persecution. "What think you of that, sir? '" asked Donal. "Sheer nonsense!" answered the minister. "Where would Scotland be now, but for resist- ance ? " " There's more then one way of resisting, though," returned Donal. " It seems to me that enduring evil without returning evil was the Saviour's way. I don't know about Scotland, but I fancy there would be more Christians, and of a better stamp, in the world if that had been the mode of resistance always adopted. Anyhow it was his way." " Shelley's, you mean, I suppose ! " " I did not mean Shelley's, though there it stands in his words at least ; I meant Chrisfs. But in DONAL GRANT. spirit Shelley was nearer the trulli than tliose who made him despise the very name of Christianity, without knowing what it was. Thank God, he will give every man fair play." "Young man ! "' said the minister, with an assump- tion of great solemnity and no small authority, " I am bound by my holy calling to tell you that you are m a state of rebellion against God, and he will not be mocked. Good-morning to you ! " "Would you kindly tell me, sir, before we part," said ponal, " if you know any place where I could get a night's lodging between this and Anchars ? " " Pardon me ; I could not conscientiously send you where you would spread the seeds of your horrible infidelity." " I must be somewhere,- sir, and I would pay for my bed." The minister answered with a backward wave of the hand. Donal, desiring no more of such uncon- genial company, sat down on the roadside. He would let him get a good start of him — for his goal was in the same direction. Donal was never in a hurry. This gave him in the eyes of such as did not understand him, a look of sang ffoid and indifference which was far from expressing him. He never would admit occasion for hurr)'-, though often for promptitude. The teaching of his mother, still more from inward sympathy with her ways of thought, and from the evident and abso- lute correspondence of her behavior with her thought, patent to every one who knew her, had greatly helped him to take like her the words of our Lord as really meaning what they said, and as con- FOOT FARFNf'.. 3 1 cerning him more than any oilier things*said or done, now or anytime, on the face of the earth : they were to him things he had no choice but obey. Having led a simple and clean life, in close contact with the powers and influences of nature, never having seen at home any contradiction between the thing spoken and the thing done, he had a better start in the jour- ney of life than one in a million of young men with what is called a Christian education. He was men- tally and bodily in a condition such as no common youth of our cities can form an idea of, much less believe in the existence of when presented to him. Such are the men who, coming down from time to time into the mephitic air of the so-called world, keep alive in it, by living it themselves, the knowledge of the truth which will at last save it. Those to whom at best it is but an invention for their own consola- tion of worth}', weak-minded men, will not hold the idea long in the company of such as Donal Grant. That the earth was the Lord's and the fulness thereof, had been more present tlian ever to Donal as he walked his solitary way. And because it was the Lord's, he felt in heart and soul and brain that he possessed it too — after no private interpretation, but as one of the many children of the great Father. He had not even a place to work in, but was walking with him through his property to the spot where he meant him to stop and rest and sleep. It seems gen- erally imagined a happily exceptional thing, a man to walk, with God ; while superiority to superstition smiles at the idea. But when we rest upon, and act from nothinij but the truth of thinirs, then and then only are we men, and need not be ashamed of being DONAL r.RANT. creatures. Are these things for the pulpit, not for the novel? As the pulpit generally presents them, they are indeed unfit for the novel, unfit for the world, unfit for the human soul — miserable mis- representations of the all-glorious. Men will go without being sent. Donal took again his shabby little volume, and held more talk with the book-embodied spirit of Shel- ley. He saw more and more clearly how he was misled in his every notion of what Christianity in itself was — how different those who taught it to him must have been from the evangelists and apostles. He saw in the poet a boyish nature striving after lib- erty, with scarce a notion of what liberty really is. He did not know that it was to be found only in law — neither social, natural, nor moral law, but the law of liberty — oneness with the will and design which are our existence — these no arbitrary appointment, no invention of even the one who has the power to make, but the reproduction in increased degree of the same glorious necessities of existence as his own ' — the making of him in the very image of his maker. For the truth of God is the life of man. When the clergyman was long out of sight he rose and went on, and soon came to a bridge by which he crossed the river. Many well-to-do farmhouses he passed, without inclination to seek of one of them shelter or refreshment. He carried his breakfast as well as his supper yet in his haversack, which his bag literally was, for it had little but oat-cake in it. Since his last settling with himself his spirits had scarcely flagged ; when they did for a moment he had but to remind himself that his atmosphere did not affect the FOOT FARING. ^T^ celestial bodies. lie was a pilgrim on his way lo liis divine fate — if only he might never do aught to delay its coming — never cause the wheels of the heavenly chariot to drive Iieaxily. The night began to descend, and he to look about him for some place of repose. But there was a long twilight before him yet, during which to choose. His feet alone were aching; they would ha\e ached more, he said, if he had had shoes ! It was a warm night, and would not be dark. Memory and hope joined sun to sun. For some time the road had been ascending, and by and by Donal found himself on a bare moor, among heather not yet in bloom, and a forest of bracken. Here was a great beautiful bedroom for him ! What better bedstead could he have than God's earth and God's heather ! What better can- opy than God's great, star-studded night, with its airy curtains of dusky darkness ! It was in the same that Jacob had his vision of the mighty stair leading up to the gate of heaven ! It was under such a roof that Jesus spent his last nights on the earth. For comfort and a sense of protection he did not go under a roof, but out into his father's house — out under his Fath- er's heaven ! The small and narrow gave him no feeling of safety, but the wide open. Thick walls shelter men from the enemies they fear; the Lord sought space, and there his Father. In such places the angels come and go more freely than where roofs nest faithlessness and distrust. If nowadays one hear a far-off rumor of an angel-visit, it is from some soli- tary plain where children are left alone. The angels find it harder work, I fancy, to do anything for us in 34 DONAL GRANT. these days of sight and toucli. Faith is the electric spark that leaps from earth to heaven, making the current between them complete. It goes now only in throbs and fits ; no more in constant stream. There- fore we are miserable and moan, not even understand what is amiss with us. The moor was table-land. Donal walked along its petty high level till he was weary, and rest looked blissful. Then he turned aside from the rough track into the thick heather and brake, searching as fastid- iously as some do for the best hotel in a place. But when he came to a little hollow, dry as well as shel- tered, with a great thick growth of his loved heather, its tops almost as close as the bed on which he used to sleep in his father's cottage, he sought no farther. Taking his knife, he cut a quantity of heather and ferns, and heaped it on the top of the thickest brush in the hollow j then creeping in between the cut and the growing, cleared the former from his face, that he might see the great worlds over him, and putting his knapsack under his head, fell fast asleep, and just as he fell asleep, thought he smelt the sea. When he woke in the morning not even the shadow of a dream lingered to let him know that he had been dreaming. All seemed a blank. But he woke with such a clear mind, such an immediate uplifting of the soul towards heavenly places, that it seemed to him no less than to Jacob that he must have slept at the foot of the heavenly stairs. The wind came round him like the fit material of which to make new clean souls for the children of God. Every breath he drew seemed like God breathing afresh into his nostrils the breath of life. Who of the chemists knows what FOOT FARING. 35 the tbino; he calls oxygen is ? They know about it, but it th^ey do not know , just as a man may know a good deal about a man — yes, about the Man — and know himself not at all. The sun shone as if he were smiUng at the self-importance of the sulky darkness he had driven away, and the world seemed content with its being — content with a heavenly con- tent, no mere putting up with what could not be helped. So fresh was Donal's whole sense that he did not feel the same necessity for washing as when he slept in the house. It seemed as if his sleep within and the wind without had been washing him all the night, and being washed he needed not to be washed. So" peaceful, so blissful was he, that his heart longed to share its bliss. But there was no one within sight, and he set out again on his journey. He had not gone far when he came to a dip in the moorland, a round hollow with a cottage of turf in the middle of it, from whose chimney came a little smoke. There, too, the day was begun. He was glad he had not seen it before, for then he would have missed the glory of his night's rest. The face of the modest dwelling was turned towards him, and at the door of it stood a little girl in a blue frock. The moment she saw him she ran in, unused to the sight of a stranger. He went down and approached to" knock at the door. But it stood wide open, and he could not help seeing m. A man sat at the table in the middle of the floor, his forehead on his hand. Dcnal did not see his face, and his first thought was that he was waiting just' as his father used sometimes to wait a moment for the Book, while his mother got it down from the 36 DONAL (;RANT, top of the wall. He stepped over the ihreshold, and in the simplicity of liis uplifted heart, said : " Ye'U be gaein' to hae worship. I wad fain j'in ye gien ye dinna objec'." " Na, na," returned the man, raising his head, and taking a brief, hard stare at the applicant; *Sve dinna set up for bein' prayin' fowk i' this hoose. We lea' that to them that kens what they hae to be thankfu' for." " Ow, weel ! " returned Donal, " I but thocht ye micht hae been gaein' to say gude niornin' to yer makker, an' wad hae likit to j'in in wi' ye, for /kenna what I haena to be thankfu' for. Guid niornin' to ye." "Ye can bide an' tak yer parritch gien ye like." " Ow, na. Ye micht think I cam for the parritch an' no for the prayers. No bein' a hypocrite, I like as ill to be coontit ane as gien I war ane. Gude mornin'." " Ye can bide an' hae worship wi' 's, gien ye Hke to tak the buik yersel'." "^ I canna lead whaur there's nane to follow. Na ; I'll du better on the nuiir my lane." But the guidwife was a religious woman after her fashion — who can be after any one else's? — She had been listening, and now appeared with the Bible in her hand, and without a word laid it on the table. Thus invited, Donal, who had never yet prayed aloud, except in a murmur by himself on the hill, felt that he could not refuse. He read a psalm of trouble, changing from a minor to a major key in the close. Then he spoke as follows : " Freens, I'm but young, as ye see^ an* never afore FOOT FARING. 37 daurt open my moo i' sic fasliion, but it comes to me speyk, an' \vi' ycr leave speyk I wull. I cudna lielp thinl<.in' when I saw the gudeman's face 'at he was i' some trible, siclik maybe, as King Dawvid was in whan he composed this same psahn I hae read i' yer hearin'. Ye observt lioo it began lik a stormy mornin', or ane raillicr whan clood an' mist's the maist o' tlie veesible warl' ; but ye heard hoo it changed or a was dune. The sun comes oot bonny i' the en' ; an' ye hear the birds beginnin' to sing, tellin' natur' to gie ower her greitin'. An' what brings the guid man til's senses div ye think ? What but jist the thoucht o' Him 'at made him, 'at cares abuot him, him 'at maun come to ill himsel' afore he'll lat ony- thing he made come to iil. Sirs, hit's gang doon upo' oor knees, and commit the keepin' o' oor sowls to him as til a faithfu' creator wha winna miss his pairt 'atween him and hiz." They all went down on their knees, and Donal said, " O Lord, oor ain father an' saviour, the day ye hae sent's has arrived bonny an' gran', and we bless ye for sen'in' 't ; but oh, oor father, we need mair the licht that shines 'i the dark place. We need the dawn o' a spiritual day inside's, or the bonny day ootside winna gang for muckle. Lord, oor micht, speyk a w^ork o' peacefu' recall to ony dog o' thine 'at may be worryin' at the hert o' ony sheep o' thine 'at's run awa ; but dinna ca' him back sae as to lea' the puir sheep ahint him ; fess back dog and lamb thegither, O Lord. Hand's a' frae ill, an' guide's a' to gude, an' oor mornin' prayer's ower. ^ Amen." They rose from their knees, and sat silent for a moment. Then the gudewife put the pot on the fire 38 DONAL GRANT. with the water for the porridge. But Donal rose, and walked out of the cottage and away, half-wonder- ing at himself that he had dared as he had, yet feeling he had done but the most natural thing in the world. " Hoo a body's to win throuw the day wantin' the Lord o' the day an' the hour an' the minute is ayont me ! " he said to himself, and hastened on his way. Nor was the noon past when the blue line of the far ocean rose on the horizon. CHAPTER II. IN LODGINGS, FROM the two or three incidents of his journey recorded, my readers may see something of the sort of man Donal now was — not very like most of the people they know, but not, therefore, tire less worthy of being known, for though many are called — and come, too, in a w^ay — few are chosen. Hie taste of the present age is to hear of the common kind, not the uncommon, but it shall not from me. The story of the chosen must be better worth telling than that of the merely called. Donal was very queer, some of my readers will think, and I admit it ; for the man who regards the affairs of life from any other point than his own greedy self, must be queer indeed in the eyes of all slaves to their imagined necessities and unquestioned desires. It was evening when he drew nigh the point to which he had directed his steps. It was a little coun- try town, not very far from a famous seat of learning- there Donal would make inquiry before going farther. It was not so far from home as to make immediate return difficult, should anything happen to render his presence there desirable. Also the minister of his own parish knew the minister of the town, and had given him a letter of introduction to him. Thecoun try around had not a few dwellings of distinction in 39 40 DONA I. GRANT il, and at some one or other of these there might be children in want of a tutor. The sun was setting over tlie liills behind him as he entered the little town. At first it looked but like a village, for on the outskirts, through which the king's highway led, were but thatched cottages, with here and there a slated house of one story and an attic. Presently however began to appear houses of larger size, few of ihem of more than two stories, but most of them looking as if the}' had a long and not very happy history. All at once he found himself in a street, with quaint gables turned to it, gables with corbel steps, or. as they called ihem there, corbie- steps, with some occult allusion, perhaps, to the mes- senger sent out by Noah which never returned — in the minds of the children, places for tlie lazy bird to rest upon. There were one or two curious gateways with some attempts at decoration, and one house with two of those pepper-pots turrets which Scottish architecture has borrowed from the French chateau. The heart of the town consisted of a close built nar- row street, with several short closes and wynds opening out of it — in all of them ancient-looking houses. In the whole place was not one shop-front, as it is called. There were shops not a few, but their windows were the windows of dwelling-houses, as they had all been when the wants of the inhabi tants were fewer, and as their upper parts were now, Civilization brinirs desires, which orrow to wants tlien to imagined necessities, and so bring in weak- ness and arllficlalit3^ In those shops one could get as good a supply of the necessities of life as in any great town, and cheaper also You could not get IN LODGINGS. 4 I a coat so well cut, nor a pair of shoes to fit you so tight without hurting as in some larger towns, but you would get first-rate work — better mucii than in many places of superior pretention. Tliis was the town of Auchars — at least that is the name I choose to give it. The streets were roughly paved with round, waterworn stones, some so small that Donal was not sorry that he had not to walk far upon them. The setting sun sent his shadow before him as he entered the place. He went in the middle of the street, lookmg on this side and that for the hostelry to which he had been directed as a place to put up at, and whither he had despatched his chest before leaving home. One gloomy building, apparently uninhabited, specially attracted his attention, for an involuntary thrill went through his sjDirit when his eyes first fell upon it. It consisted of three low stories, all their windows defended by iron stanch- ions. The door was studded with great knobs of iron, and looked as if it had not been opened for years. A little Vjeyond, and just as the sun was disappearing behind him, he saw the sign he was in search of. It swung in front of an old fashioned, dingy building, with much for its share of the old world look that pervaded the place. The last red rays of the sun fell upon the sign, lightnigup a sorely faded coat-ofarms. Its supporters, two red horses on their hind legs, were all of it that could be made out with ease. The crest abo\'e suggested a skate, but could hardly have been intended for one. They were the Morven arms- A greedy-eyed man stood in the doorway, with his hands in his trouser 42 DONAL GRANT. pockets. He looked with contempluous scrutiny at him of the bare feet approaching his (rap. He had black hair and black eyes , and his nose looked as if a heavy finger had been set upon the top of its point, while it was yet in the condition of clay, and had pressed it downwards so that the nostrils swelled wide beyond, their base-, underneath was a big mouth with a good set of teeth, and a strong upturn- ing chin. It was an ambitious and greedy face. *■ A fine day, landlord ! " said Donal. "Av," answered tlie man, without chanofins: the posture of one taking his ease against his own door- post, or removing his hands from his pockets, but looking Donal up and down in the conscious superi ority caused by the undoubted friendship of Mam mon, and resting his eyes on his bare feet, and the trousers folded up to give free play to those labori- ous extremities, with a look befitting the indication th^y afforded of what was to be gained from their owner. "This'll be the Morven Arms, I m thinkin'?" said Donal. "It taksna muckle thoucht to think that," re- turned the innkeeper, "whan there they hing — ower ye he id there ! " " Ay," said Donal, there's something there — and it's airms I doobtna ; but it's no a'body has the preevilege o' a feenished eddication in heraldry like yersel', lan'lord ! I'm b'un' to confess for what I ken they micht be the airms o' ony faimily o' ten score." There was but one weapon wdth which John Glumm was assailable, and that was ridicule : with all his self-suf!iciency he stood in terror of that and IN LODGINGS. 43 the more covert the ridicule, so long as he suspected it, the more he resented as well as dreaded it. He stepped inlo the street, and taking a hand from a pocket, pointed up to his sign. '■ See til't ! " he said. " Dinna ye see the twa reid horse ? " ''Ay," answered Donal. "I see them weel eneuch, but I'm nane the wiser nor gien they were twa reid whauls. — Man," he went on, turning sharp lound upon the fellow, " ye're no cawpable o' conceivin' the extent o' my ignorance ! It's as rampant as the reid horse upo' your sign ! I'll yield to naebody i' the amoont o' things I dinna ken !" The man stared at him for a moment. "Is' warran'," he said, "ye ken mair nor ye care to lat on ! " "And what may that be ower the held o' them for a crest ? " asked Donal. " It's a base pearl-beset," answered the landlord. He had not a notion of what a base meant, nor yet pea?-I/)cse/, yet he prided himself on his knowl- edge of the words. " Eh," relumed Donal. " I took it for a skate ! " "A skate,'' repeated the landlord with offended sneer, and turned towards the house. " I was thinkin' to put up at yer hoose the nicht, gien ye could accommodate me at a rizzonable rate," said Donal. "I dinna ken," rejoined John Glumm, hesitating, with his back to Donal, between unwillingness to lose a penny, and resentment at the supposed badi- nage, which was in Donal nothing but humorous good faith ; " what wad ye ca' rizzonable ? " 44 DONAL GRANT " I wadna grutcli a saxpence for my bed ; a shil- lin' I wad coont ower iiiuckle," answered Donal. " Weel, ninepence than — for ye seenma owercome wi' siller." "Na," said Donal, ''I'm no that; whatever my burden, yon's no hit. The loss o' what I hae wad hardly mak me lich:er to rin the race set afore me! "' " Ye're a queer customer ! "' said the man, without the ghost of an idea as to Donal's meaning. "I'm no sae queer,"' rejoined Donal, *' but 1 hae a kist coniin' b}' the carrier, direckit to the Morven Airms. It'll be here in time, doobtless." " We'll see whan it comes," remarked the land- lord, implying the chest was easier for Donal to mention than for the landlord to believe." "The warst o' 't is," continued Donal, "that I canna weel shaw mysel' wantin' shune. 1 hae a pair i' my kist — but that's no o' my feet." " There's sutors anew i' the toon to mak shune for a regiment," said the innkeeper. "It's men'in,' no makin' I'm in want o'. — \Miaur does yer minister bide. Whaur's the manse, I mean .'' " " No far, but he's frae hame the noo ; an' forbye, he disna care aboot tramps. He winna waur muckle upo' the likes o' you." The landlord was recovering himself — therefore his insolence. Donal gave a laugh. The thoroughly simple, those content to be what they are, have the less con- cern about what they seem. The ambitious, who like to be taken for more than they are, may well be annoyed when they are taken for less. IN LODGINGS. 45 "I'm thinkin' jc wadna do niiickle for a tramp aither ! " he said, " 1 wad not," answered Glumm. " It's the pairt o' an' honest man to discoontenance a' kin' o' law- lessness." " Ye wadna hang the jjuir craturs, wad ye ? " aske Donal. *' 1 wad hang a wheen mair o' ihcm nor comes ah to the wuddie." "Ye mean weel, dootless , bnt gien ye was ae day to be in want yersel' ! " "We'll bide till that day comes. But what are ye stan'in' there jawin' for .^ Do ye take me for a gype? Are ye comin' in, or are ye no.^ " " It's a some cauld welcome ye offer me," said Donal. "It's true I'm tired, but Is' jist tak a link aboot afore I mak up my min'. A tramp, }e ken, canna stan' upo' ceremony ! " " He has to haud a ceevil tongue in's heid ! " said Glumm. Donal turned sharp round, but the man was al- ready in the house, and in the act of disappearing down a passage. He turned away and walked further along the street. He had not gone far before he came to a low- arched gateway in the middle of a poor-looking house. Within it, on one side, sat a little bowed man, cobbling diligently at a boot. The light of the west, where the sun had left behind hmi a heap of golden refuse and cuttings of rose and purple, shone right in at the archway, and enabled the little short-sighted man to go on after work-hours were naturally over. This was the very man Donal 46 DONAL GRANT. needed ! A respedahle shoemaker would have dis- dained to patch up sucli a pair of shoes as he car- ried — especially as llie owner had none on his feet. Ministry is not the rule of our Christianity. But liere was one who doubtless would minister to his need ! " It's a bonny nicht," said Donal. " Ve may wee! say that, sir ! " replied the cobbler, without looking up, for a somewhat critical stitch occupied him. " It's a balmy nicht." "That's raither a bonny word to put til't ! " re- turned Donal ; " there's a kin" o' an air aboot the place I wad hardly hae thocht balmy ! But doot less that's no the fau't o' the nicht !" " Ye're right there also," returned the cobbler: and his use of the conjunction impressed Donal as indicating a tendency to continuity of thought. " But the weather has to do wi' the smell — wi' the mair or less o' 't, that is. It comes frae a tanneree no far frae here. But it's no an ill smell to them 'at's used til't ; an' ye wad hardly belie\e me. sir, but I can smell the clover through 't a'. Maybe I'm some preejudeeced i' fawvour o' the place, seein' but for the tan-pits 1 couldna weel diive my trade : but sit- tin' here frae mornin' to nicht, I get a kin' o" a habit o' luikin' oot for my blessin's. To recognize an aid blessin' 's 'malst better nor to get a new ane. A jDair o' shune weel cobblet 's full better nor a pair o' new anes." ''Ay are they," said Donal, "but I dinna jist see hoo yer seemile applies." " Isna gettiti' on a pair o' auld weel-kent shoon, 'at winna nip yer feet nor lat in the watter, like com- IN LODGINGS. 47 in' to ken a blcssin' ye hae been haein' for months, maybe years, only ye didna ken 't for ane ? It's a suddent glorification o* the auld shiine." As he said this, the cobbler lifted a little wizened face and a pair of twinkling eyes to those of the student, revealing a soul as original as his own. Pie was one of the Inwardly inseparable, outwardly far divided company of Christian philosophers, among whom individuality as well as patience is free to work its perfect work — but a God-possessed indi viduality. In the moment of that glance Donal saw a ripe soul looking out of its tent door, all but ready to leap abroad in the sunshine of the new life. But the world would think not a straw more of a poor disciple if they saw the Lord sitting talking with him — nay if they heard their talk, for it would not be of (he electric light, or of telephones of shares, or of the opening of new hunting grounds for the manufacturers of the west , it would be only old- fashioned and superstitious, dealing with the roots of being and well-being. But what can money do to console a man with a headache ? Donal stood for a moment lost in a sort of eternal regard of the man, whom he seemed to have known for a few ages at least, when the cobbler looked up again. "" Ve'll be wantin' a job i' my line, I'm thmkin', " he said, with a kindly nod towards Donal 's shoeless feet. "There's sma' doot o' that," returned Donal. " I had scarce startit, but ower far frae hame to gang back, whan the sole o" ae shue cam aff, an I had to tramp it wi" nane but mine ain. But I fiess them on 48 DONAL GRANT. \vi' iiie, no fcarin' to fa' in \vi' atic o' ^our profession wha wad help me." "An' Is' warran' ye thankit ihe Lord, wlian the sole cam aff, 'al ye had been broucht up \vi' soles o' ycr ain as tench's ony leather, an' fit for wayfari'n' !" " I'o tell the truth," answered Donal. " 1 l:;ae sae niony things to be thankt'u' for at it's but sma' won'er gien I forget some o' them. liLit ye're i' the iicht,an' the Lord's name be pralst 'at he gae me feet tit for gangin' upo' ! Donal took his shoes from where they hung al his back, and untying the string that bound them pre- sented the ailing one, with deference of one asking help, to the cobbler. "That's what we may ca' deith ! " remarked the cobbler as he regarded the sorely Invalided shoe. Donal caufi^ht his meaning:. '' "Ay, deith it is," he answered, "for it's a sair divorce o' sole an' body." "]t"s a some auld farrand joke,"' said the cobbler, "but the fun iiiti! a thing doesna weir oot ony mair nor the poetry or the trowlh intil'l " Donal was charmed with his new acquaintance. "Who would dare say there was no providence in the loss of my shoe sole !" he remarked to himself. '' Here I am in this unknown place with a friend already ! *' The cobbler was submitting the shoes, first the sickly, then the comparatively sound one, to a thorough scrutiny. " Y'e dinna think them worth men'in, 'I doobt ! " said Donal, with a touch of anxiety m his tone. " 1 never thoucht that o' ony whaur the leather wad IN LODGINGS, 49 hand the steik," replied tlie cobbler. " But wliiles, I confess, I'm just a wheen tribled (o ken boo to chairge for tbe wark. For it's no barely to be considered the tune it'll tak' me to cloot them up, but whether the puir body's like to get eneuch oot o' them to mak' it worth their while to pey for a my time waurt. 1 canna tak mair frae them nor it'll be worth to them. Ye see, the waur the shune, the mair time they tak' to mak' them worth onything ava'," " I>ut surely you ought to be paid in proportion to your labor." " I)Ut i' that case I wad whiles hae to say til a ])uir body 'at hadna anither pair i' the worl', 'at that same bird-alane pair o' shune wasna worth men'in ; an' that micht be a hertbrak, an' sair feet forby — to sic as wasna, Hke yersel', sir, born weel shod." " lUit how will you make a living that way .? " said Donal, delighted to hear him. " Hoots the maister o' the trade 'ill see to my wauges." " An' wha may that be 1 " " He was never a cobbler himsel', but he was ance a vright (r " "Ayont a doobt." "Weel ! '' returned his wife with playful triumph. Donal saw that he had got hold — !iot of one, but of a pair of originals ; and that was a joy to the heart of one who was an original in the best sense himself — namely one that lived close to the simplicities of existence. Andrew Comin would never have asked any one before offering him house-room, but once his guest he would have thought it an equal lapse in breeding not to show the interest in him he felt, ai^l ask for some communication about himself. So, by and b)', after a little more talk, so far removed from the common- IN LODGINGS. 59 place that the commonplace mind would have found it only mirth-provoking, v/hile the angels would prob- ably be listening to it with a smile such as we give to a child wiser than ourselves, the cobbler said : " An' what pairt may ye hae yersel', sir, i' the min- nistry o' the temple ? " " I think I un'erstan' ye," replied Donal ; " my mother says curious things just like you." "Curious things is whiles curius only 'cause we're no used to them," remarked Andrew. A pause following he resumed. " Gien there be onything wad mak ye prefar waitin' till ye ken Doory an' me a bit better, sir," he said, " jist coont my ill-mainnert question no speirt." "There's nae sic thing," answered Donal. "I'll tell ye onything or a'thing aboot mysel'' — 'cep' ae thing an' that's no a sin." "Tell what ye wull, sir, an keep what }"e wull ; yer knowledge is yer ain," said the cobbler. "Weel," said Donal, "I was broucht up a herd- laddie, an' whiles a shepard-ane. For mony a year I kent mair about the hill-side nor the ingleneuk. But it's the same God an' Father upo' the hill-side or i' the ley, an i' the pailace o' the king — sic a king as passes on the praise to him to whom it's due." " Eh, but Fm glaid to hear ye ken a' aboot the win', air the cloods, an' the^v'ys o' God oot o' the hoose. I ken something about hoo he hands things gaein' inside the hoose — in a body's hert, I mean — in mine an' Doory's there ; but I ken little about the w'y he gars things work 'at lie's no sae for ben in.'^ "Div ye think, then, 'at God disna fill a'thmg?" said Donal. " Surely no ! " 6o DONAL GRANT. " Na, iia, I ken better nor that," answered the cobbler: "but ye maun aloo a tod's hole's no sae deep as the thro't o' a burnin' m'untain ! God hinv sel' canna win sae far ben in a shallow place as in a deep place; sae he canna be sae far ben i' the win's, though he gars them du as he likes, as he is or sud be i' your hert an' mine, sir." "I un'erstanV' responded Donal. "Could that hae been hoo the Lord had to rebuke the win's an' the wawves, as gien they had been gaein' at their ain free wull, i'stcad o' the wull o' him 'at made them, an' set them gaein'? " " Maybe, but I wad need to think aboot that afore I answert," replied the cobbler. A silence intervened. Then said the cobbler, thoughtfully, " But yer no a shepherd noo ! I thoucht, whan I saw ye, ye was maybe a lad frae a shop i' the muckle toon, or a clerk, as they ca' them, 'at sits frae morning to nicht makin' up accoonts." " Na — I'm no that, I thank God," said Donal. " What for thank ye God for that ? " asked Andrew. " A' place is his. I wadna hae ye thank God ye're no a cobbler like me ! Ye micht, for it's little ye ken the guid o' 't ! " " I'll tell ye what I mean, interrupted Donal. " I think mine maun be the mair excellent w'y. I ken weel the fowk o' the toons thinks't a heap better to deal wi' deid figures nor wi' live sheep ; but I'm no o' their min'. I could weel fancy an angel a shepherd noo, an' he wad coont my father guide company. Troth, he wad want wings an' airms an' feet an' a' to luik efter the lambs whiles. But gien he was a clerk IN LODGINGS. 6 1 in a coontin' hoose, he \vad hae to stow awa the wings ; I can;/*?/ see what use he wad hae for them there. He micht be an angel all the time, an' that no a fallen ane, but he bude to lay aside something to mak him fit the place." "But ye're no a shepherd the noo," said the cob- bler. " Na/' replied Donal — " cep' I be set to luik efter anither grade o' lamb. A kin' freen' — ye may hae h'ard his name — Sir Gilbert Galbraith — made the beginnin' o' a scholar o' me. I'm Maister o' Airts o' the auld University o' Inverdaur." " I thoucht as muckle ! " cried Mistress Comin in triumph. " I hadna time to say it to ye, Anerew, but I was sure he cam frae the college, an' had but ae pair o' shune 'cause he had to lea the wark for the learnin'." ^' I hae anither pair i' my kist, though — whan that comes," said Donal, laughing. " I'm glaid to hear't," she returned. " I only houp the kist winna be ower muckle to win up oor stair ! " " Ow, na ! I dinna think it. But we'll lea' 't i' the street afore that s' come 'atween 's ! " said Donal. "Gien ye'U hae me, sae lang's I'm i' the toon, I s' gang nae ither gait." "An' ye'll be able doobtless to read the Greek jist like yer mitlier-tongue ? " said the cobbler, with a long- ing admiration in his tone. " Na, no like that ; but weel eneuch to get some gude o' it." " Weel, that's jist the ae thing I grutch ye — na^ no grutch — I'm glaid ye hae't ; but the ae thing I wad fain hae been a scholar for mysel' ! To think 'at I 62 DONAL GRANT. ken no ane o' the soons i' the which the word was spoken by tlie Word hinisel' ! " " But ye ken the letter o' the word he made little o' comparet wi' the speerit ! " said Donal. "Ay, that's true! and yet it's whaur a man may weel be greedy, an' want to hae a'thing; whan he has the spirit, he wad fain hae the letter tu ! but it disna maitter; I s' set to learnin" 't the first thing when I gang up the stair — that ]s, gien it be the Lord's will." " Hoots ! " said his wife, " what wad ye du wi' Greek up there ! I s' warran' the fowk there, a}', an' the maister hirnsel', speyks guid honest Scotch ! Wliat for no ! What wad they du there wi' Greek, 'at a body w^ad hae to warstle wi' frae mornin' to nicht, an' no mak oot the half o' 't ! " Her husband laughed merrily, but Donal said, " 'Deed, maybe ye're no sae far wrang, gude-wnfe ! I'm thinkin' there'll be a kin' o' agran'-mither tongue there, 'at '11 soop up a' the lave, an' be better to un'er- stan' nor a body's ain mither-tongue — for it'll be yet mair his ain nor that." " Hear til him ! " said the cobbler with thorough approbation. Donal w'ent on. " Ye ken," he said, '^'at a' the languages o' the earth cam^ or luik as gien they had come, frae ane, though we're no jist dogsure o' that. There's my mither's ain Gaelic, for enstance ; it's as auld, maybe aulder nor the Greek ; onygait, it has mair Greek nor Latin words intil 't — an' ye ken the Greek's an aulder tongue nor the Laitin. W^eel, gien we could work cor w'y back to the auldest grit-gran '-mother-tongue o' a', I'm thinkin' it wad come a kin o' sae easy til 's IN LODGINGS. 63 'at, wi'the impruvt faculties o' oor h'avenly condition, we micht be able in a feow days to communicate \vi' ane anither i' that same, ohn stammert or hummt an' hawt." " But there's been sic a heap o' things fun' oot sin' syne i' the min' o' man^ as weel's i' the warl' ootside," said Andrew, "■ that sic a language wad be mair like a bairn's tongue, I'm thinkin', nor a mither's, whan set against a' 'at we wad hae to speyk aboot ! " " Ye're verra richt there, Idinnadoobt. But ance a' body startit frae the same p'int, ye see hoo easy it wad be for ilk ane to bring in the new word he wantit, haein' eneuch common afore to explain 't wi'; an' sae or lang, the language wad hae intil 't ilka word 'at was worth haein' in ony language 'at ever was spoken sin' the toor o' Babel wad grow nae mair." " Eh, sirs, but it's dreidfu' to think o' haein' to learn a' that ! " said the old woman. " I'm ower auld an' dottlet." Her husband laughed. " I dinna see what ye hae to laugh at ! " she returned, laughing too ; " ye'll be dottlet yersel' gien ye leeve lang eneuch ! " " I'm thinkin," said Andrew, "but I dinna ken, 'at it maun be a man's ain faut gien age maks him dot- tlet for gien he's aye been haudin' by the trowth, I dinna think he'll fin' the trowth hasna haudenbyhim. But I was lauchin' at the thoucht o' onybody bein' auld up there. We'll a' be yoong there, lass." " It sail be as the Lord wills," returned his wife. Her husband responded with a clear, almost merry, " Sae be't lass ! we want nae mair, nor nae less. Better there canna be." 64 DONAL GRANT. So the evening wore away. The talk was to tlie very mind of Donal, who never loved wisdom herself so much as when she appeared in her peasant-garb. That that should seem to him the fittest for her was natural, seeing he had first recognized her in that garb ; for it was in the form of his mother that Wisdom had made herself known to him. After one of those moments of silence that not unfrequently intervened, Mistress Comin was the first to speak. " I won'er," she said, " at yoong Eppie's no puttin' in her appearance ! I was sure o' her the nicht ; she hasna been near's a' the week ! " The cobbler turned to Donal to explain. He would not talk of things their guest did not understand ; it would be like shutting him out after taking him in ! "That's a granxhild o' oors, sir — the only ane we hae. She's a weel-behavet lass, though no sae muckle ta'en up wi' the things o' the upper warl' as her grannie an' me cud wuss. She's in a place no far frae here — no an easy ane, maybe, togie satisfactionin, but she's duin' no that ill." " Hoot, Anerew ! ye ken she's duin' jist as weel as ony lassie o' her years could in ony justice be expeckit to du," interposed the grandmother. " It's seldom the Lord 'at sets an auld heid upo' yoong shoothers." The words were hardly spoken when a light foot was heard coming up the stair. " Here comes the lass to answer for hersel' ! " added the grandmother joyously. The door of the room opened, and a good-looking girl of about eighteen came in. She looked shy when she saw a stranger present. IN LODGINGS. 65 " Weel, yoong Eppy, hoo's a' wi' ye ? " said the old man. The grandmother's name was Elspeth, and the grand-daughter's being the same, had therefore always the prefix. " Brawly, thank ye, gran'father," she answered. " Hoo are ye yersel' .? " "Ow, weel cobbled ! " he replied. " Sit ye doon," said the grandmother, " by the spark o' fire, for the nicht's some airy like." '• Na, grannie, I want nae fire," said the girl. " I hae run a' the ro'd jist to get a glimp' o' ye afore the week was oot. For I haena been able afore." " Hoo are things gaein' wi' ye up at the castle ? " " Ow, sic-l ike's usual — only the hoosekceper's been some dowry, an' that puts mair upo' the lave o' 's ; for whan she's weel she's no ane to spare hersel' — or ither fowk aither. I wadna care gien she wad but lippen til a body." This was said with a toss of the head. " We mauna speyk evil o' dignities, yoong Eppie ! " said the cobbler, with a twinkle in his eye. " Ca' ye Mistress Brooks a dignity, gran'father .? " said the girl with a laugh that was nowise rude. "I du that," he answered. "Isna she ower you.? An' haena ye to du as she tells ye? 'Atween her an' you that's eneuch to justifee the word." "I wmna dispute it. But, eh, it's a queer kin' o' a faimily yon ! " " Tak' care, yoong Eppie ! We maun baud oor tongues aboot things committit til 9ur trust ; ane paid to serve in a hoose maun tre't the affairs o' that hoose no as gien they war their ain to do as they likit wi'." 66 dona;, grant. " Deed, it wad be weel gien a'body aboot the hoose was as particular as ye wad hae me, gran'father ! But things arc said, wi' mair or less rizzon, 'at wad be better left alane ! " " Hoo's my lord, lass ? " '' Ow, muckle the same — aye up the stair an' doon the stair a' the forepairt o' the nicht, an' maist aye inveesible a' tlie day lang — 'cep it be to Miss Par ticular hersel'." " Noo, nae names, I beg ! " said the cobbler, and this time he spoke quite seriously. " I winna hae't. I canna bide them. Like sweirin', they come o' nae guid. Ca' a body by the name they war ca'd afore the face o' him 'at ca's them by ane o' lis ain. This yoong lass," he continued, turning to Donal, "has a w'y o' giein' fowk names out o' her ain hied, as gien she was Adam when the beasts war broucht til him. But gien onybody has onything to ca' his ain, surely it's the name gi'en him to honour or disgrace! " Donal said nothing. The girl cast a shy glance at him, as if she knew he was on her side against the older people, who yet must be humored. Donal was not too simple to understand her, and therefore gave the look no reception ; he was far more in rapport \\\l\\ the old people than with her, and was besides a true man and their guest, who not even by a passing look would be false to them. He saw in the presence of the girl a very different breed from that of her grand- parents — a powerful admixture of the worldly ele ment — perhaps more than their partiality allowed them to see ; bethinking himself, however, that they might have private matters to talk about, he rose and turning to his hostess, said : IN LODGINGS. 67 " Wi' yer leave, gudewife, I wad gang to my bed, for I hae traivelt a maitter o' thirty miles the day, 1 fancy, upo' my bare feet." " Eh, sir ! " she answered ; " I oucht to hae con- sidert that ! — Come, young Eppy, we maun get the gentleman's bed ready for him." With another toss of her pretty head, Eppy followed her grandmother to the next room, casting a glance behind her that seemed to ask what the old woman meant by calling a lad without shoes or stockings a gentleman. Not the less readily or actively, however, did she on that account assist her grandmother in preparing the tired wayfarer's couch. He was to her but another added to the many odd characters to whom the cobbler and his wife were famed and ridi- culed for giving shelter. In a very few minutes they returned, and the grandmother told him that the room was quite ready, adding a hope that he would sleep as sound as if his own mother had made the bed. He heard them 2:0 on talkimj for a little while after the door was closed between Iiiin and them. Then the girl rose and took her leave. Donal was just falling asleep in the luxury of consciously resting weariness, when the sound of the cobbler's hammer for a moment roused him, and he knew that the old man was a^ain at work on his behalf. A moment more and he was fast asleep. CHAPTER III. THE SADBATH. NOTWITHSTANDING his weariness he woke early, for he had slept as not often in his later years. Study is not so favourable to sleep as out-of-door labor. He rose and dressed himself, drew aside the little muslin curtain that shrouded the window, and looked out. It was a lovely morning. His prospect was the curious old main street of the town, the sunlight the only sign of life in it. The sun that had shone him nito the town, was now shin- ing into it from the other side, but not a single living creature cast a shadow upon the rough paving stones ! Yes ; there was a cat shooting across it like the cul prit he probably was ! Would there be a garden to the house? He would like to read a little in the fresh morning air ! He stole softly through the outer room, where the old couple slept, and down the stair , found the back-door and a water but, beyond, a garden consist- ing of two or three plots of flowers, carefully kept, and promising well ; also a seat, surrounded and almost canopied with honeysuckle, where doubtless the cobbler would sometimes smoke his pipe ! Why did he not work there rather than in the archway.? thought Donal — but concluded that he was more in 68 THE SABBATH. 69 the way of decrepit soles sitting where he had found him — his own constant advertisement. But the truth was that, much as he loved flowers and light and the free air of the garden, the old cobbler loved the faces of his kind most of all. His prayer for forty years had been to have his soul made like the soul of his master; and except it was answered, how was it that, every year, I might say every month he lived, he found himself loving the very faces of his fellows more. Instead of interfering with his contemplations, the passers by gave him the more things to think about — only sometimes sorely puzzling him as to how It was that this or that face raised in him these or those thoughts, perhaps to himself .new. Were these faces, he asked, the types of a celestial language in which God talked to him ? Donal sat down and took his Greek Testament from his pocket ; but ere he opened it, brilliantly as the sun was shining, full of the resurrection of a greater sun, all at once it seemed as if the light went out of his life, for the vision came back of the stone quarry and the girl turning from him in the wan moon- lioht. But swift as thouGfht followed the vision of the women weeping about the forsaken tomb ; and with the thought of his risen Lord he seemed to rise also — he could not have said how — up into a region far "above the smoke and stir of this dim spot," a region where life was good even with its sorrow, for there was he who .loved and suffered as no man else could, and yet was at peace. And he perceived afresh that the man who is able to look down and see that part of him capable of disappointment lying beneath him is far more blessed than he who rejoices in the fulfil- 70 DONAL GRANT. ment of his desires. Then prayer awoke, and in the sweet light of that morning of peace he drew near to the living one, and knew him as the source of his being. Weary then wiih blessedness he leaned back against the shadowing honeysuckle, gave a great sigh, smiled^ wiped his eye, and was ready for the day and whatever it might bring. But the peaceful bliss con- tinued yet, and for a while he sat in tlie conscious annihilation of life in higher life, when by degrees he became aware of the muffled sounds of the cobbler again at his work upon his disabled shoe. " Here is a true man ! " thought Donal — "a God- li-ke helper of his fellow ! '' The hamnier ceased, for now tlie cobbler was stitch- ing. Donal sat yet awhile, feeling rather than think- ing — how long he did not know; when, just after another litlle roll of the cobbler's drum giving glor}'- to God by doing His will — for the sweetest and most acceptable music is that which rises from work a doing, the incense thereof rises as from the river in its flowing, from the wind in its blowing, from the grass in its growing — he began to hear the voices of two women in the next garden close behind him, talk- in'^f too:ether. "Eh," said one, "there's that godless cratur, An'rew Comin, at his wark again upo' the Sawbath mornin' ! " " Ay, lass," answered the other, " I hear him ! Eh, but it '11 be an ill day for him when he has to appear afore the jeedge o' all. He winna hae his comman'- ments broken that gait ! " "Troth, na ! " returned the other; " it 'il be a sair sattlin day for /«>«./" THE SABBATH. 71 Donal rose, and looking about him, saw two decent, well dressed, elderly women on the other side of the low stone wall. He was approaching them with the request on his lips to know winch of the Lord's com- mandments they supposed the cobbler to be breaking, when, seeing that he must have overheard ihem, they turned their backs and walked away. But they left with Donal the idea that the Sabbath^ as, borrowing the Jewish name for our Saturday, they called the Lord's day, was simply one of the Scotch idols they were always falling down and worshipping — as an idol ought to be worshipped. At length his hostess, having discovered that he was in the garden came out to call him to breakfast — the simplest of meals — oatmeal porridge with a cup of tea after it, because it was Sunday, and there was danger of sleepiness at the kirk. "Yer shune's waitin' ye, sir,", said the cobbler. " Ye'U fin' them a better job nor ye expectit. They're a better job onygait nor I expectit mysel'." Donal made haste to put them on, and felt dressed for the Sunday — as he might well do who had worn none since the Friday. " Are ye gaein' to the kirk the day, Anerew .'' " asked the old woman, adding, as she turned to their guest — ''My man's some particlar aboot gaein' to the kirk ! Some days he'll gang three times, an" some days he winna gang ance! He kens himsel" what for," she added with a smile, whose sweetness confessed it to her the best possible reason in the world. " Ay, I'm gaein' the day. I want to gang wi' our veesitor," he answered. 72 DOXAL GRANT. "I'll tak' him gicn ye dinna care to gang," rejoined his wife. " Ow, I'll gang ! " he insisted. '' It'll gie's some- thing to talk aboot, an' sae we'll ken ane anither bet- ter yet; an' what's a greater maitter, we'll maybe come a bit nearer to ane anither; an' what's best o' a', maybe that gait a bit nearer to the maister him- sel'. For that same's the ae en' o' life. That's what we're here for — comin' an' gaein'." "As ye please, Anerew ! What's richt to you's aye richt to me ; though I wad o' my ain sel' be doobtfu' gien't was a richt rizzon for gaein' to the kirk — to hae something to speyk aboot." " It's a glide rizzon whaur ye haena abetter, sure," he answered. " It's aften I get at the kirk naething but what angers mc — it's sic awfu' lees again my Lord an' my God. Cut whan there's ane to talk it ower wi', ane 'at has some care for God as wheel's for himsel', there's some gude sure to come ooto' 't syne — some revelation o' the real richteousness, no what fowk 'at gangs by the ministers ca's richteousness. — Is yer shune comfortable to yer feet, sir .-^ " "Ay, that they are! an' I thank ye. They're full better nor new." "Weel, we winna hae worship this mornin', for whan we gang to the kirk it's like aitin' mair ner's guid for ye." " Hoots, Anerew ! ye dinna think a body can hae ower muckle o' the word ? *' said his wife, anxious as to the impression he might make on Donal. " Ow na gien they tak' it in an' disgest it. But it's no a bonny thing to hae the word sticken' about yer moo' an baggin oot yer pooches, no to say lyin' cauld THE SABBATH. 73 upo' yer stamack, whan it's for the life o' men. The less yet tak abune what ye put in practice the better ; an' gien it be o' a kin 'at has nac thing to do wi' practice, the less ye pay heed til't the better. Gien ye hae dune yer brakfast, sir, we'll gang — no 'at it's freely kirk-time ye't, but the Sabbath's maist the only day I get a bit o' a walk, an' gien ye hae nae objection til a turn aboot the Lord's muckle hoose afore we gane intil his little ane — we ca't his, but I doobt it's but a bairn's doll-house — I'll be ready in ameenute." Donal willingly agreed, and the cobbler, already partly clothed in his Sunday-best, in a pair of cordu- roy trousers of a mouse color, namely, having put on an ancient tail-coat of blue with gilt buttons, they set out together. I will not give their conversation. It was just the same as it would have been any other day. Where every day is not the Lord's, the Sunday is his least of all. There may be sickening unreality where there is no conscious hypocrisy. They left the town, and were soon walking in meadows through which ran a clear little river, shin- ing and speedy iii the morning sun. Its grassy banks were largely used for bleaching and the long lines of white in the lovely green of the natural grass, not so plentiful in Scotland as in England, were pleasant both to eye and mind. All about, the rooks were feeding in peace, knowing their freedom that day from the persecution to which, like all other doers of good in creation and for redemption they are in general exposed. Beyond the stream lay a level plain, stretching toward the sea, divided into number- less fields, and dotted with farmhouses and hamlets, but on the side where the friends were walking, the 74 DONAL GRANT. ground was more broken, rising in many places into small hills, many of them wooded. About half a mile away ^vas one of a conical shape, on whose top tow- ered a castle yet perfect and strong. Old and gray and sullen, it lifted itself from the foliage that sur- rounded it like a great rock ffom a summer sea against the clear blue sky of the June morning. The whole hill was covered with wood, mostly rather young, but at the bottom were some ancient firs and beeches. At the top, round the base of the castle the trees were mostly delicate birches, with moon- light skin, and feathery larches, not thriving over well. " What do they call the castle ? " questioned Donal. " It must be a place of some importance." "They maistly ca' 't jist the auld castel," answered the cobbler ; '' but its auld name — they ca' 't Castel Graham noo — its auld name is Graham's Grip. It's Lord Morven's place ; the faimiu'-name's Graham, ye ken. Noo, they ca' themsel's Graeme-Graham — jist twa w'ys o' spellin' the same name. The present lord, wha wasna upo' the main brainch, they tell me, spelt his name wi' the dipthong, an' wasna willin' to gie't up a'thegither for the H — sae pat the twa the- gither. That's whaur yoong Eppy's at service. An' that min's me, sir, ye haena tellt me yet what kin o' a place ye wad hae yersel'. It's no 'at a puir body like me has ony enfluence, as ye may suppose, but it's aye weel to lat fowk ken what ye're efter. A word gangs speirin' lang efter it's oot o' sicht — an' its answer may come back frae far. The Lord whiles brings aboot things i' the maist oonlikely fashion.'' " I'm ready for anything I'm fit to do,' said Donal THE SABBATH. 75 "but I have had what's called a good educatio.i — though in truth I think I liavc learned more from a sore heart than from any book — and so I would rather till the human than the earthly soil, for I take more interest in the schoolmaster's crops than in the farmer's. I can manage boys, and make a little thrashing go a long way. I taught a good deal while J was at college." "Wad ye hae ony objection to un'ertak the tuition o' ae scholar by himsel' — or say twa maybe ? " " None, if I thought myself fit for the task ? I had that same in my eye when I turned in this direction. Do you know of any such situation to be had ^ " " Na, 1 canna say that ; but there can be no hairm in mentionin' what yoong Eppy tellt her gran'mither last nicht — 'at there was a word aboot the place o' gettin' a tutor for the \oung ane. His sister's been dum' her best wi' 'im up to this present, but they say he's come to be needin' mair discipline nor she can weel gie 'im. I kenna hoc that maybe. Hae yeony means o' makin' an approacli to the place ? " "Not until the minister come, home," answered Donal. "I have a letter to him. Do you think it will be long before he comes ? " '' He'll be hame i' the middle o' the week, I hear them say." " Can you tell me anything about the people at the Castle ? " said Donal. "Ay," answered Andrew, " I could , but there's a heap o' things 'at's better to be fun' oot nor kenned afore han'. Ilka place has it's ain shape, an' maist things has to hae some parin' to gar them fit. Only i' the case o' a leevin' sowl the parin' maunna come j^ 76 DONAL GRANT. at the quick — that is at tlie conscience, to hurt it. Onything short o' that may and maun be put up vvi', for it's a' to tlie mortifeein' o' the auld man \vi' liis affections an' lusts. Tiiat's what I tell yoong Kppy — mony's the time ; but she canna see things plain yet. Maist fowk see but like liie blin' man when he was half cured, and could tell fowk frae trees only by their gangin'. Man, did it ever strick ye 'at maybe deith micht be the first waukin' to come fowk ? " "It has occuirt lo me,"' answered Donal ; "but mony things come intil a body's heid 'at there's nae time, for the time, to think oot ! They lie and bide their time though." " Ye're richt there. Dinna ye lat the clergy, or the lovers o' the law an' the letter, perswaud ye 'at the Lord wadna hae ye think. Him 'at obeys, though nane ither, can think wf safety. We" maun do first the thing 'at we ken, an' syne we may think aboot the thing at we dinna ken. I think 'at whiles he wadna say a thing jist no to stop fowk thinkin" aboot it. He was aye at gettin' them to make use o* the can"le o' the Lord, It's my belief 'at ae main obstacle 10 the growth o' the kingdom is first ihe oonbelief o' believers, an' neist the w'y 'at they lay doon the law. Afore they hae learnt the rudunen's o* the trowth themsel's .they begin to lay the grievious burden o' their dullness an' their ill-conceived notions o' holy things upo' the min's and consciences o' their neebours, fain to baud them frae growin' ony mair nor themsel's. Eh man, but the Lord's won'erfu' ! Ye may daur an' daur, an* no come i' sicht o' 'im ! " Donal had never before met one who seemed to have gone so much through the same spiritual THE SABBATH. 77 country he liad liimself gone through , and even [o a youth with an aching heart the friendship of such a man miglit well be a consolation. For the only cure for sorrow is the truth. It were indeed a sore thing were there any other. The church stood a little way out of the town, in a churchyard overgrown with grass, which the wind blew like a field of corn. Many of the stones were out of sight in it. The church, a relic of old Catholic days, rose out of it like one that had taken to growing and so got the better of his ills. Tiit-y walked into the musty, dingy, brown-atmosphered house. The cobbler led the way to his humble place behind a pillar, where Eppy was seated waiting them. The service was not so dreary to Donal as usual ; the sermon had some real thought in it ; and his heart was drawn to a man who could say he did not under- stand, or the way of the Lord was not revealed to him. "Yon was a fine discoorse,'' said the cobbler as they went homeward. Donal saw nothing very fme in it, but the scope of his experience was not so wide as that of the cobbler; the discourse had hinted mai.y things to him which had not been suggested to Donal. Some people demand from the householder none but new things others none but old, wlicreas we need of all the sorts in his treasury. "I hae na a doobt it was a' richt, as ye say sae, Anerew," said his wife ; " but formysel' I could mak naither heid nor tail o't." "I said na, Doory, it was a richt," returned her husband ; " that would be to say a heap for onything human; but it was aguid honest sermon." 78 DONAL GRANT. "What was yon at he said aboot the mirracles no bein' leeps ? " asked his wife. " It was God's trowth 'at lie said.'' " Gie me a share o' the same, Anerew." " \\'hat he said was this — 'at the sea 'at Peter gaed oot upo' wasna' first and foremost to be luikit upo' as a teep o' the inward an' spiritual troubles o' the be- liever, still less o' the troubles o' the Church 0' Christ. The Lord deals na wi' teeps but wi' fac's. Here was danger an' fear, an, the man had to trust or gang doon. Gien the hoose be on fire we maun trust ; gien the watter come in an' threaten to gang ower oor heids we maun trust ; gien the horse rin awa' wi' 's, we maun trust. Him "at canna trust in siclike, I wadna gie a plack for ony ither kin' o' faith he may hae. God's nae a mere thoucht i' the warl' o' thoucht, but a leevin' pooer in a' warl's alike Him 'at gangs to God wi' a sair held 'ill the suner gang til 'im wi' a sair hert ; an' them 'at thinks na he cares for the pains o' their bodies 'ill ill believe he cares for the doobts and perplexities o' their inquirin' speerits. To my min' he spak the best o' sense." " But I h'ard him say naethin' o' the kin' ! " said Donal. " Did ye no ? Weel, I thoucht it cam' frae him to me I " " Maybe I wasna' gaein' the best heed," acknowl edsfed Donal. " But what ve sav is as true as the sun i' the h'avens. It Stan's to rizzon." The day passed in wonderful pleasure and quiet. Donal felt he had found another father and mother. The next day, after breakfast, Donal said to his host — THE SABBATH. 79 " Noo I maun pey ye for my shune, for gien I dinna pey at ance, I canna tell hoo muckle to ca' my ain, an' what 1 hae to gang by till I get main" "Na, na," returned the cobbler. " There's jist ae preejudice I hae left concernin' the Sawbath-day. I most hrmly believe it's a preejudice, for siller's the Lord's wi' the lave o' the warl' he's made. But I canna win ower 't. I canna bring niysel' to tak siller for ony wark dune upo' 't. Sae ye maun jist be con- tent to lat that fie stick to the Lord's wa'. Ye'll du as muckle for me some day." " There's naething left me but to thank ye," said Donal. "But there's the ludgin' an' the boord — I maun keruaboot that afore we gang further." "That's nane o' my business," replied Andrew. " 1 lea' a' that — an' ye wad best do the same — to the gudewife. She's a capital manager, an' she winna chairge ye ower muckle." Donal laughingly agreed, and went out for a stroll. He wandered along the bank of the river till he came to the foot of the hill on which stood the old castle. Seeing a gate a little further off, he went to it, and finding it open and unattended, went in. A slow-ascendi.'jg drive went through the trees and round and round the hill, along which he took his way through the aromatic air that now blew and now paused as he went. Between the boles of the trees which seemed to be climbing up to attack the fortress above, he could see some of its lower windows, looking like those of cellars. When he had gone a little way, out of sight of the gate, he threw himself down among the trees, and fell into a deep reverie. The ancient time 8o DUNAL GRANT. arose before him, when, without a tree to cover the a,iproach of an enemy, the fortress rose defiant and bare in its strength, Hke an athlete stripped for the fight, and the little town cUislered close under its pro- tection. What wars had there blustered, what rumors blown, what fears whispered, what sorrows moaned ! But were there not as many things loud and boister- ous and hard to bear now as then ? Did not many an evil seem now as insurmountable as then ? The world will change only as the heart of man changes. Grow- ing intellect, growing civilization will heal man's wounds only to cause the deeper ill to break out afresh in new forms, nor can they satisfy one longing of the human soul. Its desires are deeper than that soul it- self, whence it groans with the groanings that cannot be uttered. As much in the times of civilization as in those of barbarity the soul needs an external pres- ence to make its life a good to it. In the rougher tinies of violence men were less conscious of the need than in our own. Time itself, the starving, vacant, unlovely time, is to many the one dread foe they have to encounter. Olliers have the awful consciousness of a house enpty and garnished in which neither Love nor Hope dwell, but doors and windows lie open to what evil things may enter. To others the very knowledge of self, with no God to protect from it, a self unrulable, insatiable, makes existence a hell. For Godless man is a horror of the unfinished, a hopeless necessity for the unattainable, in which arise and revel monstrous dreams of truest woe. Money, ease, honor, can help nothing: the most discontented are of those who have all that the truthless heart de- sires. THE SABBATH. Such thoughts were coming and going in the brain of the young philosopher when he heard a sHght sound somewhere near him — the lightest of sounds - — the turning of the leaf of a book. He raised his head and looked around him. At first he could see no one. He sharpened his eyes to see through the tree-boles up the slope ot the hill, and caught, a little distance from where he lay, the shine of an open hook, and the hand that held it. He took the hand for that of a lady, so white and small was it. The trunk of a laroe tree hid the rest of the reclining^ form. He thought whether he ought not to rise and go away: wherever the people of the place lii.ed to come, they would not like to meet a stranger usinj it like one of themselves. But this miHit be l)u.t a stranger like himself ! Still it would be better to get back to the road. There was the lo\e]y cloth-striped meadow to lie in if he would — only there was no shade there ! He rose q^uietly, but not quietly enough to steal his presence from the other — who had in truth been there for some time, and was aware of it. A ke n, pale, high-browed face came from behind the tree, and a young man, rather tall and slender, rose with a swift grace and came towards him. Donal stood to receive him. Seemingly about Donal's own age, though in fact two or three years yojnger, he came up to him and said, not without a haughtiness of which he was prob- ably unconscious, " I presume you are unaware that these grounds are not open to the public ! " " I beg your pardon, sir," said Donal. " I found 82 DONAL GRANT. the gate open, and the shade of the trees was enticing. I but meant to enjoy it for a few minutes." While he spoke the youth had been examining him, nor had found any difficulty in reading what he was. At St. iNIann's he had been familiar with the peasant- student. " It is ot no consequence," he returned with some condescension ; " only my father is apt to be annoyed if he sees any one in the grounds. You are a student — not from St. Mann's, or I should, I think, know you by sight ! " "From St. James's," answered Donal. " Oh, then "— He was interrupted by a cry from up the hill — " Oh, there you are, Percy ! " " And there you are, D-^.vy ! " he answered kindly. A boy of about ten came precipitately towards them, now and then jumping a stump as he darted down between the stems. " Take care, take care, Davy ! " cried the youth. "You may slip on a root and fall ! " "Oh, I know better than that. — But you are engaged ! " " Not at all. Come along." Donal lingered, not thinking that perhaps he ought to go : the youth had not finished the sentence he had begun ! " I went to Arkie," said the boy, " but she couldn't help me. I can't get the sense of this sentence ; and for want of it I can't understand. I wouldn't care if it weren't a story." He had an old folio under his arm. His brother took it with a smile. THE SABBATH. 83 " It is a curious taste for a child," he said, turning to Donal, " but this little brother of mine has an absurd attraction to the old romances, and reads every- thing of the kind he can lay his hands on." "Perhaps," suggested Donal, "they are the only fictions within his reach ? I should fancy it a prefer- ence easily overcome with a course of Sir Walter." " I daresay you are right," answered the youth. " Will you let me look at your book ? " said Donal, holding out his hand. The boy gave it him. On the top of the page Donal read: " The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia." He had heard of the book, or rather read of it, but had never seen it before. " That's a grand book ! " he said. " Do you know it ? " said the elder. " It is horri- bly dreary reading. I tried it but couldn't." "Tell me, sir," said the boy, before Donal could answer, " what this sentence means ? " " I will try," answered Donal, " but I may not be able, you know." "There it is ! " said the boy, smiling as he pointed out to him the passage. Donal began to read it at the top of the page. " That's not the place, sir ! " said the boy. " It is there." "To know anything, you must know something of what goes before," said Donal. " Oh, yes, sir ; I see ! " he answered, and stood silent while Donal read. He was a fair-haired bo}^, with ruddy cheeks and a healthy look ; sweet-tempered evidently, but perhaps wayward notwithstanding. 84 DONAL GRANT. Donal presently saw what the sentence meant — also the cause of the boy's difficulty. "This is what it means," he said, and told him. '■ Oh, thank you ! Of course it is ! " '" Vou took the word to mean almost the opposite, didn't you?" "I did, sir." " I thought so ! It does sometimes, but not always." "Thank you! thank you! Now I shall under- stand ! " said the boy, and ran away up the hill. " You seem to understand boys as well as their books ! " said the youth. ''J do a little," answered Donal. "My own boy- hood is dear to me. And I am so aware of ignorance that I know to deal with it. I have almost an ambi- tion to understand ignorance." The young man again cast a would-be penetrating glance at his interlocutor. " I should have thought it enough to understand knowledge," he said. " I never seem to understand anything till I under- stand its shadow : you know what queer shapes the shadows of the plainest things take." Once more the youth glanced keenly at Donal. " I wish I had had a tutor like you," he said. "Why?" asked Donal. " I should have done better. He was too old. — Where do you live? " Donal told him he was lodging with Andrew Comin, the cobbler. A curious smile just hovered over the youth's face and passed, followed by a look of slight perplexity. THE SABBATH. 85 "Good morning!" he said, as if waking from a brief silence. "Good morning! I shall not intrude again," returned Donal, and went away. On Thursday, the cobbler told him he had heard the minister was come home, and the same evening Donal went to the ^lorven Arms to inquire, for the third time, if his box was come. The landlord said if a great heavy tool-chest was the thing he meant, it had come — for Donal's box was indeed like a car- penter's chest, and though it had but few clothes had a good many books, which made it as heavy almost as any tool-chest. "-Donal Grant wad be the name upo' 't," said Donal. " Deed I didna luik," said the landlord.'^ " Gang an' luik : it's i' the back yard." The conversation took place in the entrance of the Morven Arms ; and as Donal passed through to the yard, he heard something of the talk going on in a room where a few of the townsfolk were drinking, and the name of the earl mentioned. Now Donal had not asked anything of Andrew con- cerning the young man with whom he told him he had been conversing ; for he had before perceived that the cobbler held himself bound, not to talk about the family in which his granddaughter was a servant. He was therefore now the more curious to know the town talk about the castle. What was said in public he thought he might hear. So he asked the landlord to let him have a bottle of ale, and went into the room and sat down. It was a decent sort of parlor with a sanded floor. 86 DONAL GRANT. The persons asseinbled were of the superior artisans of the town. They were having a tumbler of whisky- toddy together after the market-day. One of them was a stranger, and they had been giving him various pieces of information concerning the town and its neighborhood. One of the company was an old man, who lost never a chance of 'airing old scraps of knowledge — not one of which was too worthless to raise him by its mere possession miles in his own esti- mation above his fellow mortals. " I min' the auld man weel," he was saying as Donal entered. *' He was a verra different man frae this present yerl. He wad sit doon as ready as no wi' ony puir body like mysel' an' gie him his cracks an' hear the news, drinkin his glaiss, an' makin' nae- thing o' 't: But this man, haith ! he's no mouze to meddle wi'. Wha ever saw him cheenge word wi' brither man .'' That wad be ^i\ a' knowledge himsel' o' the family o' auld Adam ! " *' I never h'ard hoo he cam to the teetle ; they say he was but some far awa' cousin," remarked a farmer- lookinsf man. florid and stout. "I dinna freely un'erstan' the richts o' the case. But he was ain brither to the last yerl, wi' richt to the teetle, though, by some cantrip o' the law, I sup- pose, wi' nae richt to the properly. That he's but takin' care o' till his niece come o' age. This man was a heap aboot the place afore his brither dee'd, an' they war freen's as weel's brithers ; an' some says the lady Arctura — h'ard ye ever sic a hathenish name for. a lass! — is b'un' to marry the yoong lord. There was a yoong son o' the last yerl, 'at they said wad hae had the teetle as weel's the property, but he THE SABBATH. 87 dee'd a bairn shortly afore his father. There was a heep o' country clash about it," added the old man some- what mysteriously; it*s a' dee'd awa', though, haith! but there's queer stories about the place yet, only wha kens what to believe o' what fowk says ! There's naebody can be said to ken the yerl but his ain man, they tell me. Some wad hae't there's a curse upo' the place because o' something or ither 'at naebody kens but them 'at's been deid an' gane this mony a lang day. For mysel', I never was i' their coonsel — no' even to the buyin' or sellin' o' a lamb." "Weel," said a white-haired, pale-faced man who had not yet spoken, " we ken frae Scriptur' 'at the sins o' the fathers is veesitit upo' the children to the third an' fourth generation, an' wha can tell whaur sae mony things is dark .'' " '* Wha can tell," said another, who had a judicial look about him, in spite of an unshaven beard, and a certain general disregard to appearances, " wha can tell but the sins o' oor fathers may be lyin' upo' some o' oorsel's at this verra moment ? " " r that case, I can not see the thing wad be fair," said one. " We maunna interfere wi' the wull o' the Al- michty,'' rejoined the former. " It gangs its ain gait, an' mortal canna tell what that gait is. His justice winna stan' objections." Donal felt that to be silent now would be to hang back from witnessing. He shrunk from argument lest he should wrong the right, but he could take his place for God. He drew his chair towards the table. '* Wad ye lat a stranger put in a word, freen's .'' " he said. SS DONAL GRANT. "0\v ay, an' welcome ! " was the answer he heard. "We setna up here for bein' the men o' Gotham." " Weel, I wad speir a question gien ye wad lat me. " Speir awa'. The rizzonable answer I winna in- sure," said the man who had first spoken. "Weel, wad he please tell me what ye mean by the justice o' God ? " " Onybody can answer that : it's the punishment o' sin. He gies to the sinner what he deserv^es." "That's an unco ae-sidit definition o' justice." " Weel, what wad je mak' o' 't ? " " I wad say justice means fair play ; an' the justice o' God lies in this, 'at he gies ilka man, beast or deevil, fair play." " I'm doobtfu' aboot that," said a drover-looking fellow. " We maun gang by the word ; an' the word says 'at he veesits the ineequities o' the fathers upo' the children to the third and fourth generation : I never could see the fair play o' that ! " " Dinna ye meddle wi' things, John, 'at ye dinna un'erstan' ; ye may fin' yersel T the wrang box," said the old man. " I want to un'erstan'," returned John. " I'm no sayin' he disna du richt : I'm only sayin' I canna see the richt o' 't." " It may weel be a' richt an you no see 't." " Ay, weel that ! But what for sud I no say I din- na see 't ? Isna the blin' man to say 'at he's blin' ? " This was found unanswerable — at least no reply was forthcoming, and Donal ventured again to speak. " It seems to me," he said, " 'at we need first to THE SABBATH. 89 un'erstan' what's comprised i' the vocsiiin' o' the sins o' the fathers upo' the children afore we come to ony jeedgment concernin' the richt or the wrang o' 't." " Ay, that's sense eneuch ! " confessed the respon- sive murmur that followed. "I haena seen muckle o' this warl' yet, compared wi'you, sirs," Donal went on, "but I hae been a heap my lane amo' nowt an' sheep, an' I had leisure for a heap o' things to gang throuw my heid ; an' I haj seen something as well, though no muckle. I hae seen a man wha had a* his life been a douce honest man come mtil a heap o' siller, an' gang to the dogs ; no a neebour wad 'maist spei!; til 'ini." Again a murmur indicated a belief if not a similar knowledge on the part of the listeners. " Weel/' Donal went on, " he gaed a' to dir:, sae 'at the bairns he left ahint him whan he dee'd o' drink cam a' upo' the perris — or wad hae come but f; r lie compassion o' some 'at "kenned him in 's poverty. Noo, ye wad say, it was a veesitin' o' the sins o' the father upo' the children 'at they war left i' sic poverty an' disgrace." " Ay, doobtless ! " "Weel, whan I h'ard last aboot them, they were a' like eneuch to turn oot honest lads an' lasses, an' guid workers at what they were putten til." *' Ow^ I daur say ! '' " An' what micht ye think the probability gien they had come intil a lot o' siller whan their father dee'd — judgin' frae what it played wi' him ? " " Ow, deed, 'at they wad hae gane the same gait he did ! " " Was there hardship than, or was there favor 90 DONAL GRANT. i' that veesitation o' the sins o' their father upo' them ? " There was no answer. The toddy went down their throats, and the smoke came out of their mouths, but no one dared to think even that it mi2:ht be a eood thing to be born poor instead of rich. How few there are capable of fearing the possession of riches ! The disciples because they had brought only one loaf, and were afraid of a little hunger, did not know what the leaven of the Pharisees meant ! — and that with him in the boat whom they had seen feed five thousand. So entirely was the subject dropped that Donal thought he had failed to make himself understood. He did not yet know the objection people in general have to talkins: of thino's on the onlv irround on which they are worth talking about — the eternal principles of truth and right. They will set up for judges of right while they themselves are all wrong! He saw that he had cast a wet blanket over the com- pany, and judged it better to take his leave. Borrow- ing a wheelbarrow, he took his chest home, and unpacking it in the court, carried his books and clothes up to his room. The next day he put on his best coat, and went to call on the minister, to whom he had an intro- duction from the clergyman of his own parish. When he was shown into his study, there, seated at the table, he saw the same man he had met on his first day's journey, who had parted from him in such displeasure. He would let him, however, deal first with the matter, and presented his letter. Mr. Carmichael gave him a keen glance as he took it, but said nothmg till he had read it. THE SABBATH. 91 "Well, young man," he then asked, looking up at him with severity, " what would you have me do ? " " Give me a chance, if you please, of any employ- ment in the scholastic line you may happen to hear of, sir ; that's all," said Donal. "That's all!" repeated the clergyman, with some- thing very like a sneer; '^ but what if I think that all a very responsible thing to do ? What if I should imagine myself set in charge over the minds of the young to guard them from such influences as you and such as you would exercise over them ! What if I should have chanced to come to know you and your opinions rather better than the good man whose friendship for your parents has made him take such a kind interest in you ! You little thought how you were undermining your own prospects when you spoke as you did to a stranger on the road. My old friend would scarcely wish me to welcome to my parish a person whom if he had known him better he would have been glad to get rid of from his own ! The sooner you take yourself out of this, young man, the better ! You may go to the kitchen and have your dinner, for I have no desire to render evil for evil, but I will not bid you God-speed." " Would it not be well I were hanged at once, sir? " said Donal. " It might be well for the world at large," replied the minister, " but unhappily I have not the power." He smiled a grim smile, then repeated, "Go and have your dinner." " I thank you," answered Donal, " but I shall get my dinner from a more willing hand than yours." "Whose, if I may ask ? " said the minister, wishing 92 DONAL GRANT. to know with whom in his i arish he had already scraped a friendship. " From his who said, ' Whv dove not of yourselves judge what is rigiit ?' — as I was trying to do when it pleased you, sir, to find fault with me for it. Good morning, sir ! " With the words, Donal left the room, and on the doorstep of the house met a youth he had known by sight at the university, who had the repute of being one of the worst-behaved there : he must be the minister's son ! I wonder if the clergy ever ask themselves how it is that, notwithstanding lovely exceptions, the gener- ality of their sons have such a character attributed to them ! Is this a case of the sins of the fathers beins: visited on the children ? Does God not visit the virtues of the fathers on the children as well ? Parents whether of the clergy or laity, had better look to it. A little ruffled, and not a little disappointed, Donal walked away, almost unconsciously took the road to the castle, which was the most inviting in the imme- diate neighborhood of the town, and came to the gate, where he leaned on the top bar^ and stood thinking. Suddenly, down through the trees to the road came Davie, bounding, and pushed his hand through between the bars, to shake hands with him. "I have been looking out for you all day," he said. "Why?" asked Donal. " Foro^ue sent vou a messaire." " I have had no message. When did you send it ? " " Eppy took it this morning." " Ah, that explains ! I have not been at home since breakfast." THE SABBATH. 93 " It was a letter. My brother wrote it. It was to say that my father would like to see you." " I will go home and get the letter, and then I shall know what to do." " Why, do you live there ? The cobbler is such a dirty little man ! Your clothes will smell of leather." " He's not dirty," said Donal. *' His hands do get dirty — very dirty with his work — and his face too, and I daresay soap and water can't get the dirt off quite. But he will have a nice earth-bath one day, and that will take it all off. And if you could see his soul — that is as clean as clean can be — so clean it is quite shining." " Have you seen it ? " said the boy, looking up at Donal doubtfully, as if unsure whether he was making game of him, or meaning something very serious. " I have had a glimpse or two of it. I don't think I ever saw a cleaner. You know, my dear boy, there's a cleanness much deeper than the skin." " I know ! " said Davy, but stared at him as if he wondered he would speak about such things. Donal returned his gaze ; out of the fulness of his heart both his mouth spoke and his eyes shone. " Can you ride ? " said Davy. "Yes, a little." " Who taught you } " " An old mare of my master's when I was a herd boy." " An old mare ! — Ah, you are making game of me ! I do not like to be made game of," said Da\y. " No, indeed," affirmed Donal. " I never made game of anybody — But now I will go and see what is in the letter." 94 DONAL GRANT. "I would go with you," said the boy, "but my father will not let me go beyond the grounds. 1 don't know why, but it is a good big cage and I don't much mind." Donal hastened home, and found himself eagerly expected because of the letter young Eppy, as they always called her, had brought for him from her mas- ter — it was from the earl himself, not from his son. The purport of it w^as that his sons had informed him concerning their interv-iew with him, and it would give him pleasure to see him if he would favor him with a call. " Can you tell me anything about the earl," he said, having read it to the . cobbler and his wife, " that I may know what sort of man I have to do with ? " " No," answered the cobbler. " Onything I could tfeU ye wad be but hearsay, an' the jeedgment o' an- ither, which same I micht think wrang mysel' gien I had the chance o' jeedgin'. It's a heap better to gang wi' oonprejudiced e'en an' hert ; for the vera sicht o' the e'en's affeckit wi what ye're tellt afore. Ye see what ye're tellt to luik for, an' ye dinna see what ye're no tellt to luik for, by reason o' bein' upo' the ootluik for the ither. Gang an' jeedge for yersel' I say. It's better onygait to mak yer ain mistaks an' no ither fowk's. Ye'll be guidit, an' be allooed to see what ye're allooed to see." The cobbler had ceased his work as he spoke, but now he resumed it with vigor : he had spoken and meant to say nothing more. In a few minutes Donal was again on the way to the castle. CHAPTER IV. NEW ACQUAINTANCE. NOT a person did he meet on his way from the gate up through the wood. The hill ascended with its dark ascending firs, up to its crown of silvery birches, above which rose like a helmet the gray mass of the fortress. It was only the back of it he saw un- til the slowly circling road brought him to the other side. Like the thread of a fine screw it went round and up. Turret and tower, pinnacle and battlement, appeared and disappeared with continued change as he climbed. Not until at last he stood on the top, and from an open space beheld almost the whole front, could he tell what it was really like. It was a grand pile, but looked a gloomy one to live in. Who can, howev'Cr, tell anything from a mere outside ! He found himself on a broad platform, part of which was in grass. From the grass rose a gravelled ter- race, and from the terrace rose the castle. He ran his eye along the front seeking a door. Seeing none, he ascended the terrace by a broad flight of modern steps, and approached a deep recess in the front, where met apparently two portions of the house of differing date. On one side of the recess he found a door, not large, flush with the wall, thickly studded and bound with iron, surmounted by the Morven horses carved in the gray stone, and surrounded by 95 96 DONAL GRANT, several mouldings on the ilat of the wall. Seeking some means of announcing his presence, he saw a handle at the end of a rod of iron, which he con eluded to be a bell-pull. He pulled, but heard nothing: the sound of the bell was smothered in a wilderness of stone walls. Soon, however, appeared an old, and, as Donal thought, strange-looking ser- vant, a man bowed and slow, with plentiful hair white as wool, and a mingled look of childishness and cau- tion in his wrinkled countenance. " The earl wants to see me,'" said Donal. " What name ? " said the man. " Donal Grant; I don't think he knows my name." "Then how am I to make his lordship under- stand ? " rejoined the man. " Tell him the young man he wrote to at Andrew Comin's." The man left him, and Donal looked about him. The place where he stood was a mere entry for size — a small cell enclosed bv hu2:e walls — as he could see by the thickness of that through which he had entered, and another wherein was the low, round- headed door by which the butler had disappeared — a door like the entrance to a prison. There was nothing but bare stone around him, with again the arms of the Morven family cut deep into it on one side. The ceiling had no regular shape — was neither vaulted nor groined, but looked as if caused rather than constructed by the accidental coming together of ends of stone stairs and the corners of several floors at different elevations. This was all he had to look at for full ten minutes, when the butler returned, and asked him to go with him. NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 97 Through the little door they passed, and Donal found himself in what seemed but a larger and less irregular stone-case, adorned with heads and horns and skins of animals. Crossing this the man opened a door covered with red cloth, looking incongruous in the midst of the cold hard stone. And then Donal saw that which not only he never forgot, but of which the impression remained all his life fresh as at first. He was now in a place, which, though not very large, was yet fit to be regarded as the entrance-hall of a castle. It was octagonal, and its sides v/ere adorned with arms and armor of many kinds and shapes, up from the. top of the door in every side almost to the domed ceiling. The doors had carved lintels and doorposts of stone and were of oak that shone with the polish of care and cleaning through hundreds of vears. But the thincf that laid sudden hold on Donal's imagination was not anything of these : down, as it were descending suddenly, into it, out of some far removed region of height dropping right dow^n into it like a lighting bird at the last moment of a perfectly calculated descent, came the last of a wide turnpike stair of slow spiral sweep, and of enormous diameter — such a stair as he had never seen in the wildest Gothic story I*e had ever imagined. Like the swift-revolving centre of a huge shell, it shot upwards out of sight, with plain promise of endless convolutions beyond — a stair fit for the feet of Jacob's vision, though it was of no such stair he ever dreamed, but of one grander yet, whose ascent was visible, not to the imagination only but the eye, throughout to the very threshold of heaven, and dowm which you might see the angels descending for long hours before 98 DONAL GRANT. they reached you. But this stair, though not so grand, was of more wonderful construction, and indeed fitter to the way angels generally reach us — unseen till the last few steps of their descent from the far off infinite. It was of course of stone, and very old — yet not worn as would have been a narrow stair whereon the feet must constantly fall m much the same spots, wearing and wearing till one foolishly wonders how such thin steps can carry us so soon to such a height. A great rope of silk, a modern luxury, ran up along the wall for a hand-rail, and along this moving his withered hand, up the glorious ascent climbed the a2:ed servino: man, su2:2,"estin2f to Donal's eye as he followed, the crawling of a black beetle, and to his heart the redemption of the sons of God. With the stair yet ascending above them as if it would never stop, he paused upon a step no broader than the r^st, and opening a door in the round of the wall, said, " Mr. Grant, my Lord," and stood aside for Donal to enter, when he found himself in the presence of a man who looked as if he might have one time been a lord, but had broken down under that or some other burden. He was a tall but bowed man, with a large-featured white face, thin and worn with evident suffering, and a deep-sunken eye that gleamed with an unhealthy life. -His hair was thin, but plentiful enough to cover his head, and was only streaked with gray, His hands were long and thin and white ; his feet if not large, at least in large shoes, looking the larger that they came out from narrow trousers of the check called in Scotland shepherd-tartan. He wore also a coat of light-blue cloth, which must have been many years old, so high was its collar of velvet, and NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 99 SO much too wide was it for him now. A black silk neckerchief was tied carefully about his throat, and a waistcoat of the pine-apple pattern on a shawl-stuff completed his costume. On his long little fmger shone a stone which Donal took for a diamond. He motioned him to a seat, and turned to his writing, with a rudeness more like that of a successful contractor than a nobleman. But it gave Donal the unintended advantage of becoming a little acquainted both with his lordship and with his surroundings. The room in which he sat was comfortably furnished, with little in it worthy of remark — not large, nearly a square of fifteen feet or so, wainscoted high up, with a good many things on the walls, two or three riding whijDS, a fishing,rod, a pair or two of spurs, a sword with gilded hilt, a strange-looking dagger like a flame of fire, one or two old engravings, and what looked like a plan of the estate. The one window, small, with a stone mullion, looked to the south, and the summer sun was streaming in. The earl sat in the middle of its flood — pouring dowu on his head and shoulders, and in the heart of it looking cold and bloodless. He seemed about sixty or sixty-five 3'ears of age, and looked as if he had rarely or never smiled. Donal tried to imagine what the advent of a smile would do for his face, but failed in the attempt. He did not find himself in the least awed in the presence of the great man, or at all awkward or anxious as to his behavior. Earl or prince or king, what matters it to the man who respects everytliing human, has no ambition to look anything but what he is, has nothing to conceal, and nothing to gain but what no man can give him, is fearful of no to-morrow, and has no re- lOO DONAL GRANT. spect to riches? If Donal was not all this yet, it was toward all such being that the tide of his life set. He sat neither fidgeting nor staring, but quietly taking everything in. After a time the earl raised himself, pushed his writing from him, turned towards Donal, and said with courtesy, " Excuse me, Mr. Grant ; I wished to talk to you with the ease of duty done, and presumed a few min- utes would be of little consequence to you — of none indeed if we should, as I hope, come to know each other better." More polite the earl's address could not have been, but there seemed nevertheless a something between him and Donal that was not to be passed — nothing positive, but a gulf of the negative. This might how- ever be but the fancy that rushes to fill the vacuum of fact unknown. " I have plenty of time at your lordship's service," replied Donal, with the ease that comes of sim- plicity. " You have probably guessed already why I sent for you ? " "I have hoped, my lord; but guesses and hopes require confirmation or dissolution." The earl seemed pleased with his answer. There was something of old-world breeding about the lad that commended him to the man of the older world. Such breeding is nothing rare among Celt-born peasants. " My boys told me they had met a young man in the grounds" — " For which I beg your lordship's jDardon," said NE\^^ ACQUAINTS vet. TOI Donal. " I did not know the place was forbidden ground." " Do not mention it. I hope 3-011 will soon be familiar with the place. I am glad of the mistake. They told me you had a book of poetry in your hand, also that vou explained to the little fellow somethinfr that puzzled him. I surmised you might be a student in want of a situation — in a country where there are more brains and more education — more of every- thing: in fact than monev. I had been lookinof out for a young man to take charge of the boy — he is getting too much for his cousin — and I thought it possible you might serve my purpose. I do not doubt you can give such an account of yourself as will show you fit for the charge. I must of course think of Lord Forgue as well. He has just come home from St. Cross's, and will soon leave for Oxford. Over him of course you would have no direct authority, but you could not fail to influence him. He never went to school, but had tutors till he went to college. Do you honestly think yourself one to be trusted with such a charge ? " Donal had not a glimmer of false modesty, and an- swered immediately, *' I do honestly believe I am, my lord." " Tell me something of your history. — Where were you born ? and what were your parents .'' " Thereupon Donal told all he thought it of any con- sequence to the earl to know about him. His lordship did not once interrupt him witli ques- tion or remark, but heard him in silence. When he had ended — "Well," he said, "I like all you tell me. Those I02 DONAL GRANT. who have not had too many advantages are the more likely to enter into the difficulties of others and give them the help they require. You have of course some testimonials to show." " I have some from the professors, my lord, and one from the minister of the parish, who knew me all the time I was a farm-servant before I went to col- lege. I could get one from Mr. Sclater too, whose church I attended while there, if your lordship would write for it, or wish me to write." " Show me what you have," said his lordship, more and more pleased with him. Donal took the papers from the homely pocket- book his mother had made for him, and handed them to the earl. His lordship read them with some atten- tion, folding each as he had done with it, and return- ing it to him without remark, saying only with the last, " Quite satisfactory." "But," said Donal, " there is one thing I should be more at ease if I told your lordship : the minister of this parish would tell you I was an atheist, or some- thing very like it — an altogether unsafe person to trust with the care of man, woman, or child. But he knows nothing of me." " On what grounds then would he say so ? " asked the earl — without showing the least discomposure. ^' I thought you were a stranger to this place ! " Donal told him how they had met^ and what had passed between them, and how the minister had be- haved to him in consequence when he presented his introduction. The earl heard him gravely, made no comment, was silent for a moment, and then said, ** Should Mr. Carmichael address me on the sub- NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 103 ject, which I do not think Ukely, he will find me, I suspect, by that time too much prejudiced in your favor to be readily influenced against you. But I can easily imagine his mistaking your freedom of speech : you seem to me scarcely prudent enough for your own interests. Why say all you think ? You seem afraid of nothing." " I fear none but one, my lord." " And who may that be ? " " He who can destroy both soul and body in hell." "And who is that.^" " The devil, I take it, sir. I don't fear him as an enemy, but as a pretended friend, sir. I am afraid of his creeping in ! " The earl was silent ; his gray face seemed to grow grayer, but it might be only that the sun just then went under a cloud, and he was suddenly folded in its shadow. After a moment he spoke again. " I am quite satisfied with you so far as I know you Mr. Grant. And as I should not like to employ you in direct opposition to Mr. Carmichael, not that I belong to his church, for I am myself an Episcopa- lian, the best way will be to arrange matters at once before he can hear anything of the affair : then I can tell him I am bound to give you a trial. — What sal- ary do you want .-* " Donal replied he would prefer leaving the salary to his lordship's judgment if upon trial he found his work worth paying. " I am not a wealthy man," said his lordship, *' and would prefer some understanding on the matter." 104 DONAL GRANT. "Try me then for three months — I can't show how I do in less than tliat — give me my board and lodging, the use of your library, and at the end of the time a ten-pound note to send home, and after that we shall both see." The earl smiled and agreed. Donal departed to prepare for taking up his abode af the castle the next day, and with much satisfaction and a heart filled with hope walked to his lodging. He had before him the prospect of pleasant work, plenty of time and book-help to pursue the studies he most loved, an abode full of interest and beaut}^, and something to send home to his parents. The Comins warmly congratulated him on his suc- cess, and showed no small pleasure at the frustration of the minister's injustice. " Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee/' said the cobbler ; " the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain ! " Their mid-day meal was long over, but Mistress Comin had kept and now cooked to perfection for him a piece of fish, and he dined to his entire con- tent on what most English students would have regarded as very short commons indeed. Donal was in perfect health, thence able to make full use of whatever he ate^ and so could do with less than many. He had not, indeed, learned to eat largely, or to find any enticement in variety. What was lacking to him of education by sickness, which in its time is an essential, had in part been made up for by what most men would call hardship, but he would have ac- knowledged only as the hardness which Paul says a good soldier of Jesus Christ must endure, and by NEW ACQUAINTANCE. I05 the disappointment Ginevra had caused him ; with his cheerful and thorough response, he had not )'et required more. Suffering, more or less^ awaits every youth. How- ever lie may count it the one thing to be avoided, he shall not succeed in avoiding it, neither are they to be counted specially fortunate who escape with the least share of it. If they would but await what will come, and accept the thing that is sent ihem, it would make men of them in half the time. There is more to be had out of the ordained oppositions in things than from the smoothest going of the world's wheels. Whatever makes the children feel that they are only out to nurse, and have here no abiding city, but a school of righteousness and truth and love, is a precious uplifting step to the only success. In the afternoon Donal went out into the town to get some trifles he wanted before going to the castle. As he turned to the door of a certain draper's shop, he saw at the counter the minister talking to the draper. Having no desire to encounter him, he would have gone elsew^here for what he sought, but for unwillingness to turn his back on anything. He went in. By the minister stood a young lady, who having completed her purchases, was now listening to the conversation. The draper looked up when he entered. A glance passed between him and the minister. Then the draper came to Donal, and hav- ing heard what he wanted left him and went back to the minister. Donal, finding that no more notice was taken of him, found it awkward, and left the place. " High an' michty ! " said the draper, annoyed at To6 DONAL GRANT. losing the customer to whose dispraise, to say the least of it, he was listening : *' he micht hae waitit till his betters war saired ! " "Worse than dissent a good deal ! " said the niin^ ister, pursuing his own remarks. " Doobtless, sir ! it is that," answered the draper. "I'm thinkfu' to say I never had a doobt mysel', but ay took what I was tauld, ohn arglebarglet aboot trifles. Wliat hae we sic as yersel' set ower's for, gien it binna to haud's i' the straicht path o' what we're to believe an' no to believe ? Eh, it's a fine thing no to be accoontable ! " The minister was an honest man so far as he knew himself and honesty, and did not relish this form of submission, although in truth, it was the natural result of the same practically carried out ; for where is the difference between accepting the word of man, and accepting man's explanation of the word of God ? Has either any authority save in appeal to the heart and con- science ? He took a huge pinch from a black snuff- box and held his peace. In the evening Donal settled his account with the cobbler's wife. But he found her demand so much less than he expected, that he had to expostulate. She was firm, however, and assured him she had gained, not lost. As he was putting up his things. *' Lea' a buik or twa, sir," she said, " at whan ye luik in the place may luik hame-like. Wes' ca' the room yours yet. Come as aften as ye can. It does my Anerew's hert guid to hae a crack wi' ane 'at kens sae weel what the maister wad be at. ' Mony ane,' says he, ' 'ill ca' him Lord, but feow tak the trible to ken what he wad hae o' 'im.' But there's my NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 107 Anerew — it's true I canna tell, mony's the time, what he's efter, but I ken weel he's aye efter the maister. As he sits yon'er, at his wark, he'll be thinkin' by the hoor thegither, ower something 'at He said 'at he canna win at the richts o'. ' Dcpen' upo' 't ' he says whiles, ' depen' upo' 't lass, 'at whaur ony- thing he says disna luik richt to hiz, it maun be 'at we haena won at it ! ' " A; she ended, the cobbler came in, and taking up what he fancied the thread of the dialogue went on : "An' what are we to think o' the man," he said, " 'a/s content no to un'erstan' what he was at the trible to say ? To imaigine him say things 'at he dinna mean fowk to un'erstan' whan he said them, is to say he maks a mock o' 's." "Weel, Anerew," said his wife, "there's jist mony a thins: he said 'at I can not un'erstan' ; naither am I that muckle the better for yer ain explainin' o' the same ; sae I maun jist lat them sit. A' 'at's left me is to min' the sma' thina:s I div un'erstan'." Andrew laughed his quiet, pleased laugh. •' Weel, lass," he said, "the doin' o' ae thing's bets ter nor the un'erstan'in' o' twenty. Nor wuU ye be lang ohn un'erstan't muckle 'at's dark tae ye noo ; for the maister likes nane but the duer o' the word, an' her he likes weel. Be blyth, lass, for yes' hae yer fill o' un'erstan'in' yet ! " " I'm fain to believe ye speyk the trowth, Anerew ! " " It maun be the grit trowth," said Donal. The next morning came a cart from the castle to fetch his box ; and after breakfast he set out for his new abode. Once more he took the path by the river-side. The I08 DONAL GRANT. morning was full of jubilance. The sun and the river and the birds were jubilant, and the wind gave life to everything. It rippled the stream and fluttered the long webs stretched bleaching in the sun : they rose and fell like white waves on the bright green lake of the grass, and women, homely Nereids of the little sea, were besprinkling them with spray. Then there were dull wooden sounds of machinery near, 710 discorJ with the sweetness of the hour, speak- ing only of activity, not labor. These bleaching meadows went a long way by the nver-side, and from them seemed to rise the wooded base of the castle. A sudden swell of nature's delight heaved Donal's bosom ; then came a sting of self-reproach ; was he already forgetting what had seemed his inextinguish- able grief ? But again his bosom swelled as he said to himself, " God is more to me than the whole world of men and women ! When my maker puts joy in my heart, shall I not be glad ? When he calls my name shall I not answer ? He is at my right hand ; I shall not be moved. He is everything in himself, as well as himself beyond everything ! " He stepped out joyfully, and was soon climbing to the castle, where he was again admitted by the old butler. " Mr. Grant," he said, " I'll show you at once how you can go and come at liberty ; " and therewith led him through doors and along passages to a postern opening on a little walled garden at the east end of the castle. "That/' he said, "you will find convenient. It is, you observe, at the foot of the northeast tower, and the stair in that tower leads to your room, so that you can come and go as you please. I will show NEW ACQUAINTANCE. I09 it you. There was just room and no more for your box to be carried up, and I hope we shall not have to take it down again in a hurry ! " "I wish you had left it till I came," said Donal. "I would have taken the content and left the conti- nent. Books are so heavy ! " " Heaviefl* than all but plate and linen," returned the butler: "but they've broken neither backs nor wind." While he spoke the old man was leading the way up a stair so narrow it might almost have gone inside the newel of the great turnpike staircase. Up and up they went, until Donal began to wonder; and still they went up and passed door after door. "You're young, sir," said the butler, '-and sound of wind and limb, or I would not have put you here. You will think nothing of running up and down." " I never was up one so high before," said Donal. " The stair up the college-tower is nothing to it ! " " Oh, you'll soon learn to shoot up and down it like a bird. I used to do so almost without knowing it when I was page-boy to the old lord. I got into the way of keeping a shoulder foremost, and screwing up and down as if I was a blob of air rather than a lanky lad. How this old age does play the fool with us!" " You don't like it, then ? " "No, I do not — who does? What good is in growing old ! " " It's only that you get spent as you near the top of the stair. The fresh air at the top will soon set you up again," said Donal. But his conductor did not understand him. no DONAL GRANT. " Ah, that is all very well so long as you're young and don't feel it : but stay till the thing has got you, and then you'll pant and grumble like the rest of the old fellows." Donal said nothing. In the distance he saw Age on his slow, sure way after him, ready to claw him in his clutch, as the old song says. " Please God," he said to himself, " I'll be ready by the time he comes up, to try a fall with him ! Eternally young, the years have no hold on thee ; let them have none on thy child. I, too, shall have life eternal before thou hast done with me." They reached the top. The stair indeed went a little farther, for it seemed to go on through the roof ; ap- parently the tower had been meant to go higher yet. But at the place they had reached was a door; the man opened it, and Donal found himself in a small room, nearly round, a portion of the circle taken off by the stair. On the opposite side was a window pro- jecting from the wall, whence he could look in three different directions. The wide country lay at his feet. He saw the winding road by which he had ascended, the gate by which he had entered, the meadow with its white stripes through which he had come, and the river flowing down the vale. He fol- lowed it with his eyes : lo, there was the sea, shining in the sun like a diamond shield ! It was but the lit- tle German Ocean, but it was one with the great world-ocean. He turned to his conductor, who stood watching him. "Yes," said the old man, answering his look. " It's a glorious sight. When I came here first, fresh from the fiats of Essex, I thought I was look- NEW ACQUAINTANXE. Ill ing into eternity itself from the top of this tower. I would have contrived to have my room here, only I should never have known when I was wanted, and my master could not get on many minutes without me." The walls were bare even of plaster ; Donal could have counted the stones in them, but they were dry as a bone, and he was not careful of creature com- forts. The old man saw him look round, and inter- preting his look from his own experience : "I see, sir," he said, "you are wondering how to keep warm here in the winter ! See here : you can shut this door over the window ! See how thick and strong it is ; and there is your grate ! And for wood and peats and coal, there is plenty to be had below. It is a labor to carry them up, but if I was you, I would set to o' nights, when nobody was about, and had nothing else to do, and carry till I had a good stock laid in." " But," said Donal, " I should fill up my room so that I could not move about in it ! " "Ah, you don't know," said the old man, "what a space you have here, all to yourself ! Come this way." Two or three steps more up the stair, just one turn, and they came to another door. It opened into wide space, and from it, still following, Donal stepped on a ledge or bartizan, without any parapet, that ran round the front part of the tower, passing above the window of his room. It was well he had a tolerably steady brain, for he had to wonder why the height should affect him more than that of a much higher rock up on Glashgar. But doubtless he 1 I 2 DONAL GRANT. would soon get used to it, for the old man had ste])ped out upon the ledge without the smallest hes- itation ! Round the tower he followed him. Nearly opposite the door on the other side a few steps rose to a watch-tower — a sort of ornate sentry-box in stone, where one might sit and regard with wide vis- ion the whole country before him. Avoiding this, another step or two led them to the roof of the castle, consisting of great stone slabs. A, broad passage ran between the rise of the roof and a bat- tlemented parapet : here was no danger of falling. Advancing a little way they arrived at a flat roof, to which they descended by a few steps. Here stood several rough wooden sheds, with nothing in them. " Here is stowage enough! " said the old man. " Doubtless ! " answered Donal, the idea of his aerie growino: more and more ao-reeable the lonfrer he contemplated it. " But would there be no objec- tion to my using it for such a purpose ? " *' What objection could there be.?" returned the butler. " I do not believe a single person but my- self knows there is such a place." " And shall I be allowed to lay in what stock I please ? " *• Everything is under my care^ and I allow you," said the butler, with no little importance. '' Of course you will not waste — I am dead against waste ! but as to necessaries, keep your mind easy, sir. I'll see to you." Donal never thought to ask why he was placed so apart from the rest of the family, for he never plagued himself about his disfnitv, or the behavior of others to him : the subject was not interesting to him : NEW ACQUAINTANCE. II3 it was their business, not his : and that he should have such entire command of his own leisure and privacy as this isolation yielded him was a con- sequence exceedingly satisfactory. The butler left him witli the information that dinner would be ready for Inm in the schoolroom at seven o'clock, and he proceeded at once to settle himself in his new quar- ters. Finding some shelves in a recess of the wall, he arranged his books upon them, laid his few clothes in the chest of drawers, put on his lighter pair of shoes and a clean shirt, got out his writing material, and sat down. Though his open window was so high, the warm pure air came in full of the aromatic odors rising in the hot sunshine from the young pine-trees far below, while from a lark far above descended news of heaven-gate. Tlie scent came up and the song came down all the time he was writing to his mother — a long letter, telling her all that had befallen him since his arrival at Auchars. When he had closed and addressed it, he fell into a reverie. He was glad he was to have his meals by himself ; he would be able to read all the time ! But how was he to find the schoolroom ? He would have to go down and look about till he found it. Surely, however, some one would fetch him ! They would remember that he did not know his way about ! It wanted yet an hour to dinner-time, when finding himself drowsy, he threw himself on his bed, and presently fell fast asleep. The night descended while he slept, and when he came to himself, its silences were deep around him. But it was not dark : there was no moon, but the twilifrht was lon^f and clear. He could read by it the face of his watch, and found it was twelve 114 DONAL GRANT. o'clock ! No one had missed him, or taken pains to find him ! And now he was very hungry ! but he had been hungrier before and survived it ! What did it matter ! Then he remembered that in his wallet were still some remnants of oat cake ! Never before had he fallen so suddenly and so fast asleep except after a hard day's labor ! He was not particularly tired, having done little fol" many days. It must be something in the high air of the place, perhaps in the new sense of ease ! He must have been more anx- ious than he knew ! could a man have feelings he was not aware of ? At least he might not know them for what they were ! He took his wallet in his hand, and stepping out on the. bartizan, crept with cart-ful steps round to the watch-tower. There he seated himself in the stone chair, and ate his dry morsels in the starry presences with profound satisfaction. His sleep had refreshed him : he was wide awake ; yet was there upon him the sense of a strange existence. Never before had he so known himself ! Often had he passed the night in the open air, but never before had his night-consciousness been such ! He was as much alone, as much parted from the earth as the ship- boy on the giddy mast ! He could see nothing below but a dimness — the earth and all that was in it massed into a vague shadow. It was as if he had died and gone away to a world in which existence was independ- ent of solidity and sense. Above him was domed the vast of the starry heavens : he could neithef flee from it nor attain unto it ! For a moment he felt it the symbol of life as Christ meant it, and for a moment that life seemed a hopeless thing : he could never at- tain to it ! He hung suspended between heaven and NEW ACQUAINTANCE. I 15 earth, the outcast of both, the denizen of neither ! The true life seemed ever to retreat — ever as he was on the point of grasping its reality ! Was there any- thing could assure him of its reality less than the be- holding of the face of the Son of Man — the assurance from his own mouth that all is true, all as was said of him, all well — that life was a thins: so altoo;ether divine, that he could not know it till his very essence was pure ? Alas, how dreamlike was the old story ! Did he believe that God v/as indeed reached by the prayers, affected by the needs of men He was not God our Saviour if he was not ; but how was he to feel sure of it ? But already while he thought, he was crying into the great world around him to know whether there was an ear in it to hear. — What if there should come to him no answer ? Howfriiihtful then would be his loneliness ! But with the thought came courage and hope. He would cry ! Not to seem to be heard might be part of the discipline of his darkness ! It might be for the perfecting of faith that he was not to know how near God was to him ! Patience must have her perfect work ! "Lord !" he cried, "eternal life is to know thee and thy father. I do not know thee and thy father ; I have not eternal life ; I have but life enough to make me hunger for more. Lord, show me plainly of the Father whom thou alone knowest." And as he prayed thus, the thought of his Father in Heaven grew upon him till it seemed more than his heart could hold, and the universe that rose above him seemed not large enough to hold in the hollow of its immensity the heart that swelled with it. "God is enough," he said, and satin peace. Il6 DONAL GKANT. All at once came like a clang muffled to suffocation, through the night a strange something. Whence it came or what it was he could not even conjecture. Was it a moan of the river from below ? \\'as it a lost music-tone that had wandered from afar and grown faint? Was it one of those mysterious sounds he had read of, born in the air itself, and not yet ex- plained of science ? Was it the fluttered skirt of some anjrelic sons: of lamentation ? For if the ansiels rejoice, surely they must lament : it is a heathenish idea of perfection that it cannot sorrow where cause of sorrow is rife ! or was it a stifled human moaning? Was any wrong being done far down in the white- striped meadows below, by the banks of the stream whose platinum-gleam he could descry through the molten amethystine darkness of the starry night ! He could not tell ; he must wait and listen. Presently came a long protracetd moan, as it seemed, which yet he doubted might be the sound of some muffled musical instrument. Verily night was the time for strange things ! Might there not be sounds begotten in the fir-trees by the rays of the hot sun, and born in the stillness of the following dark silence, as the light which the diamond receives from the sun glows out in the following gloom ? Some parents and their progeny are doomed never at once to exist in a place, never to meet until the restoration of all things ! Again the sound — hardly to be called sound ! It was like that the organ gives out too deep to affect the hearing, only this seemed rather too high to be heard — for he could not be sure his ear heard it at all ; it seemed only his soul that heard it with NEW ACQ'TAINTANCE. II7 mysterious organ ! Sleep was gone far from him — why should he not steal softly down the dumb stone- stair ? He might somewhere, in or out of the house, find its source? Some creature of the earth, human or less, might be in trouble, and needing help ! He crept back along the bartizan to the stair, dark as the heart of the night itself, and groped his way down, thinking how the spiral stair is the safest of all, for you cannot tumble very far ere brought up by the enclosing cylinder. Arrived at the bottom, he found room, but feeling about, could not find the door out which the butler had shown him ; it was solid stone wherever his hands encountered wall. He began to fear he should not find the stair again ; after a few steps he could not tell in what direction it lay, and soon saw nothing before him but the prospect of spending the night he knew not where, waiting for the light. He might be going round and round without knowing it ! He had got into a long wdndowless passage con- necting two wings of the house. Along this he felt his way, now with one hand, now with the other on a wall, and on the ground with his feet, lest he might fall down some stair or trap, and came at last to a door — low-browed like so many in the house. Opening it — was it a thinner darkness or the faintest gleam of light he saw.-* The same moment he heard again the sound he had followed, now plainly enough a musical, but faint and far-off still ; a stray downy wind-wafted plume from the skirt of some harmony kept dropping at intervals within his aural ken. At such a time of the night surely it was strange ! But there was no need he should discover I iS DONAL GRANT. farther! The music doubtless was that of one who like himself could not sleep, seeking to solace him- self with sweet sounds, breathing a soul into the uncompanionable silence ! The question was what was he to do with himself? The conviction that the sounds were those of some musical instrument, had brouirht him the miserable consciousness of being like a spy in the house the first night he was in it. He must remain where he was, or run the risk of being found wandering over the house in the dead of the night, like a thief, or one searching into its secret?. He must sit down where he could, with the hope that the morning would enable him to find his way- back to his quarters. Feeling about him a little, his foot struck against what proved the step of a stair. Examining it with his hands, he was all but certain it was the same he had ascended in the morning : even in a frreat house like that there could not well be two such royal stairs ! to ascend here would be but to wander deeper into the labyrinth ! He sat down on the stair, and leaning his head on his hands composed himself to a patient waiting for the day. Waiting pure perhaps is the hardest thing for flesh and blood to do well. The relations of time to mind are very strange. Some of its phenomena seem to prove that time is only of the mind- — belonging to the intellect as good and evil belong to the spirit. •Anyhow, if it were not for the clocks of the universe, one man would live a year — a century — where another lives but a da}^ Leaving aside the sugges- tions of Rosalind in "As you like it," look at the testimony concerning the effect of certain drugs on the sense of time ; while in a dream a man may NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 1 19 seem to himself to have lived an age. But the mere motion, not to say the consciousness of empty time is something fearful. It is this empty time that the fool is always trying to kill instead of to fill. I believe nothing but the presence of the living God can fill it, though it be but the shape our existence takes to us. Only where He is, is no emptiness. Eternity itself will be but an intense present to the child with whom is the Father. Such thoughts alighted, flitted, and passed, for the few first mo- ments, through the mind of Donal as he sat half consciously waiting for the dawn. It was thousands of miles away, over the great round of the sunward- turning earth ! His imagination woke, and began to picture to him the great hunt of the shadows, as they fled before the arrows of the sun, over the broad face of the mighty world — its mountains, seas, and plains in turn confessing the light, and submitting to him who slew for them the haunting demons of their dark. The moments became but the small cogs on the wheels of time, by which the dark castle was turning ever to the light : he forgot the labor of waiting. The cogs were caught and turned swiftly, and the time and the darkness sped. "Now and then a tone would steal into his ears, and mingling with his fancy, would be the music-march of the light as it drew nearer and nearer to his fescue from the dungeon of the dark. But that was no musical tone that made the dark- ness shudder around him ! He sprang to his feet. It was plainly a human groan — a groan as one in dire pain, but the pain rather of a soul's agony. It seemed near him too ! but it is marvellous how I20 DONAL GRANT. sounds travel at niglit, nnd in certain airs and cer- tain buildings. It was much farther off than seemed. Hut the next instant he was feeling his way up the stair — cautiously, as if on each successive step he might come on the man who had groaned. Tales he had both heard and read of old haunted houses rushed upon him : what if he were now pursuing the sound of an invisible actor of the past — a creature of his own memory — a mere haunter of the present which he could not influence — one without relation to the tangible or the embodied, save in the groans that yet could enter a human ear! But it was more with awe than fear that he followed. Up and up he he felt his way, all about him as still as darkness and the night could make it. A ghostly cold crept over his skin : it seemed all being drawn together as by gently freezing process ; there was a pulling at the muscles of his chest, as if his mouth were being pulled open by a martingale. But he could not have been much afraid in the ordinary sense of the word, seeing he not merely noted but afterwards recollected the symptoms of his affection. But then there was in Donal a remarkable because unusual combination of great moral simplicity with specially acute personal consciousness. There is no reason why this should not be, or in his case it could not have been; but such consciousness is not unfre- quently associated with some tendency to duplicity : I do not say with duplicity^ but with some tendency thereto. As he felt his way along the wall, sweeping its great endless circle round and round in its spiral ascent, all at once his hand seemed to go through it, and he started and stopped. It was the door of the NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 12 1 room into which he had been shown to meet the earl ! It stood wide open, but all within was dark, except for the faintest glimmer through the window from the star-filled sky. But was not that a glimmer from so'iiewhere ? He stepped into the room, and stood just within the doorway. The glimmer came from a door he was sure he had not seen in the morning. The same moment he plainly heard the groan, but nearer. Some one must be in sore need of help ! He approached the door. It was in the same wall as that by which he had entered, but close to the other side of the room. It must open under the curve of the staircase ! What room could there be there ? He found when he went through it, that there was but room to turn right round to a second door in the same plane, immediately on the other side of the wall which stood at right angles to both and separated them from each other. This door was open. A lamp, nearly spent, hung from the ceiling of a small room of nondescript appearance, which might be an office or stud}^, or a sort of place where papers might be kept. It had rather the look of an antechamber, but that it could not be, for there was no door but that by which Donal had en- tered. This was, however, what he thought after- wards. He had now scarce a moment to think. For in the dim light he discovered almost immedi- ately the vague form* of a man leaning up against the wall, with his ear close to it, as if he were listen- ing to something beyond it. His face was a little towards Donal, and his eyes were staring wide, yet he took no notice of him, and seemed not to see him. Notwithstanding the signs of life about him. 122 DONAL GRANT. Donal felt as if in the presence of the disem- l:)odied, stood fascinated, and made no attempt to retire or conceal himself. The figure presently drew back from the wall, turned his face to it, put u]) both his hands fiat against it, and moved them u]j and down, and this way and that over it. Then, in a low muttering voice, he said — or seemed to Donal to say, "It's coming through ! I'm sure it's coming through," glanced at the palms of his two hands with horror, and began to rub them against each other, as one does to remove something that sticks fast. Donal soon came to himself. He had read of sleep-walking in " Macbeth," and concluded this was a case of it before him ; the open eyes, the pallid face, the moaning words, all seemed like it. He had read also that it was dangerous to wake one in that condition, and that such seldom came to mischief when left alone. He was therefore about to slip away as he had come, when the far-off sound of a single chord crept through the silence, and the same moment the earl once more laid his ear to the wall, but the silence seemed only to reign deeper. He went through the same feaiful dumb show as before, then spoke something like the same words, and rub- bed his hands together, and turned to the door. Donal made haste to get out of his path, and hastily felt his way back to the stair. "Then first Donal felt in danger of being overcome by dread ; for in steal- ing away through the darkness from one who could find his way without his eyes, he felt as if pursued by a creature not of this world, which might any moment lay its hands upon him. But he reached the stair in NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 1 23 safety, turned downwards a step cr two, then lingered. A moment or two more and he heard the earl step upon the stair. He crept as close to the newel as he could, leaving the great width of the stair for the earl to pass him, if he were going dow^n, but to his great relief, he turned upward instead, as he had hoped he would, and he heard his step grow duller and duller as he ascended. Donal went back to the bottom of the stair, and sitting down began again to wait. Not .another sound came to him through the night. The slow hours rolled away, and the slow light drew nearer. Sleep did not visit his eyes. As often as he was on the point of falling into a doze he would fancy he heard music, start wide awake, and listen intently through a silence that seemed to fill the whole universe and deepen around the castle. It did seem a strange place he had got into ! The more need of him perhaps for the young people in it. In the meantime he would be as if he knew nothing — and indeed what was it he knew beyond some of the vagaries of a sleep-walker ? — and wait for what would come ! At length he was aware that the darkness had, unob- served of him, growth weaker — that the approach of the light was sickening it with the knowledge that it was about to be shot through and through in all direc- tions. The dayspring was about to ''take hold of the ends of the earth that the wicked might be shaken out of its lap." The moment he thought he might be able to find his way, he sought again the long passage by which he had come. It was as dark as before, but again he felt his way along it, for at the other end there might be some light, and if not, it would be 124 DONAL GRANT. safer to wait there. He reached the other end, nor had to wait lonir during: the strife of dark and o o light ere he came upon the foot of his own stair. Up it he sped as if it were the ladder of heaven, closed the doors at the top, threw himself upon his bed, and after tossing about for two hours more, fell fast asleep and did not wake again till the sun was high in the heavens. CHAPTER V. IN THE NEW HOME. NOR did he then wake of himself ; the words of old Simmons, the butler, roused him. " I was afraid something was the matter, sir, when they told me you did not come down to dinner last night, and that you had not appeared for breakfast this morning." " If I had been awake," said Donal, " I should not have known where to find my breakfast. You forget that the knowledge of an old castle is not an intui- tion ! " That Simmons understood the remark, I will not venture to say ; but he made him a good answer not- withstanding. " How long will you take to dress ? " he asked. "Ten minutes," answered Donal. " Then I will come again in ten minutes ; or, if you are willing to save an old man's bones, I will be at the bottom of the stair in ten minutes to take charge Qf you. I would have looked after you better yester- day, but his lordship was taken very poorly last night, and I had to be in attendance upon him till after mid- night, and so the thing went out of my head." When he reached it, Donal thought it impossible he should ever of himself have found his w^ay to the schoolroom. With all he could do to remember the 125 126 DONAL GRANT. turnings, he found the endeavor at last hopeless, and for the time gave it up with a not unpleasant despair ; the failure bore testimony to space and room and wonder and interest. Through passages of many various widths and lengths, as it seemed to him, through doors apparently in all directions, and up-stairs and down they went, and at last came to a long low room, barely furnished, with a pleasant outlook, and an immediate, though not so pleasant access to the open air. The windows looked upon a small grassy court with a wall round it and a sundial in the centre of it, while a door opened immediately on a paved court in the centre of the castle. At one end of tlie long room a table was laid for him, wdth ten times as many things as he could desire to eat, although the comparative abstinence the previous day had prepared him for a good breakfast. The butler himself, a good natured old fellow, with a nose somewhat too red to be preferred for ordinary wear by one in his responsible position, as if to make up for his previous neglect, waited upon him. This service, Donal so little used to any, could not have endured without talking to him ; but further it did not make him feel awkw^ard, because he would just as readily have waited on the butler as have him wait on him. " I hope the earl is all right again this morning," he said. " Well I can't say he is quite himself. He's but a delicate man, is the earl, and has been so long as I have known him, which it's now a good many years. He was long with the army in India, and the sun, they say, give him a stroke, and ever since he have head- IN THE NEW HOME. 1 27 aches that bad that he can't abear anyone near him — not even his own sons, or his niece as is devoted to him. I never see a man so bad when he is bad ! But in between he's prelty well, and nothing dis- pleases him more than have any inquiry made after his health. I seen him sometimes look as if a man insulted him, astin' of him how did his lordship to-day, or how he have slep the night ! But he's a good- hearted man, and a good master, and I hope to end my days with him. I'm not one as likes to see new faces an' new places every other year! One good place is enough for me, says I — yes, and one good coat, so long as it is a good one. Take some of this gamepie, sir ; you'll find it good." Donal made haste with his breakfast, to Simmons' astonishment had ended when he thought him well begun. "Where should I be likely to come upon the young gentleman ? " he asked. " ^faster David is wild to see you, sir ; he's only afraid the news is too good to be true. When I've cleared away, you have only to ring this bell out of that window, and he'll be with you as fast as he can lay his feet to the ground. For Lord Forgue, he must do as he likes. Fle'll come to you, I daresay, when he's in the humor. He's the earl that is to be, you Ivuow, sir, though he's not to have the property. Castle and all belongs to my lady Arctura. It's all arranged, as everybody knows, that Lord Forgue is to marry lady Arctura, and then it will be all right. They say the brothers agreed about that long years ago. She's a little older than he, but that don't mat- ter where there's a title on the one side, and the 128 DONAL GRANT. property belonging to it on the other, and cousinship already between them." For an old servant, Donal thought him very com- municative concerning family affairs; but then doubt- less he told no more than, as he said, everybody knew. But what a name to give a girl — Arctura ! Surely it was a strange house he had got into ! Xo wonder Andrew Comin had left hhn to find out all about them himself ! As soon as Simmons had cleared the table, Donal rang the handbell from the window^ : a shout mingled with the last tones of it, next came the running of swift feet over the stones of the court, and Davy, wild with glee, burst into the room. " Oh, sir ! " he cried, ^' I aui so glad ! It is so good of you to come ! " "Well, you see, Davy," returned Donal, "every- body has got to do something to carry the world on a bit. I have got to work, and my w^ork now is to help make a man of you. But I can't do niuch except you help me. Only, mind, if I seem not to be making a good job of you, I sha'n't stay many hours after the discovery. So if you want to keep me you must mind what I say, and let me help you to be the right sort of man." " But it will be so long before I am a man," said Davy. " Not so long, perhaps. It depends greatly on yourself. The boy that is longest in becoming a man, is the boy that thinks himself a man before he is a bit like one." " Oh, come then, let us do something to make a man of me ! " said Davy. IN THE NEW HOME. 1 29 "Come along," assented Donal ; "I'm ready. What shall we do first ? " " Oh, I don't know. You must tell me, sir." " Tell me, Davy, what you would like best to do — I mean if you might do what you pleased." Davy thought for a little while, then said : " I should like to v/rite a book." "What kind of a book.?" " Oh, a beautiful story, of course ! " "Isn't it just as well to read such a book? Why should you want to write one ? " " Oh, because then I should have it go just as I wanted it! I am always — almost always — disap- pointed with the thing that comes next. But if I were to write it myself, then I couldn't get tired of it, you know, because it would be just as I wanted it, and not as somebody else wanted it ! " " Well," said Donal, after thinking for a moment, "suppose you begin to write a book — only I am afraid you will get tired of it before you have done enough to know whether you will like it on not." " Oh, no ! I am sure I shall not. It will be such fun ! So much better than learning verbs and nouns ! " " But the verbs and the nouns are just the things that go to make a story — with not a few adjectives and adverbs, and a host of conjunctions — and, if it be a very moving story, then a good many interjections ! and these all you've got to put together so that they shall make good sense, or it will never be a story that you will like to read, and I shall like to read, and your brother and cousin will like to read — and per- haps your father too ! " 130 DONAL GRANT. " Oil, no, sir I papa wouldn't read a story ! Arty told me he wouldn't. She doesn't either. But Percy reads lots — only he won't let me read the ones he reads.'' "Well," said Donal, "perhaps you had better not begin the story till I see whether you know enough about those verbs and nouns to do it decently well. Show me your school-books." "There they all are — on that shelf! I haven't opened one of them since Percy came home and laughed at them all. Then Arty — that's Lady Arc- tura, our cousin, you know, said he might teach me himself; and he w^ouldn't ; and she wouldn't; and I've had such a jolly time of it ever since — doing nothing but reading books out of the library ! Have you seen the library, Mr. Grant.'' " " No; I've hardly seen anything yet. Suppose we begin wdth a holiday, and you let me see what you like about the place, and so you wall begin by teach- ing me ! " "Teaching you, sir I I'm not able to teach you anything ! " " Wh.y, aren't 3^ou going to teach me the library ? And aren't you going to teach me the place — all about this great beautiful old castle .'' And aren't you — though that w^ill be without knowing it — going to teach me yourself .'' " " That would be a funny lesson, sir ! " " The least funny, and the most serious lesson you could teach me ! You are like a book that God has begun, and he has sent me to help him to go on with it, and I must learn what he has written already be- fore I know what to do next." IN THE NEW HOME. 13^ " But surely you know already what a boy is with- out learning me ! " " You might just as well say that because I have read one or two books, I must know every book, for the one is a book and the other is a book. To understand one boy helps to understand another, but it does not make one understand another. Every boy is a new boy, different from every other boy born before or after him. Every one has to be understood. If there be anybody that nobody understands, he is a very lonely boy indeed, and sometimes gets quite tired of life." " I know what you mean'; for sometimes Arty won't hear me out, and then I feel so cross I should like to crive her a good box on the ear. What king was it, sir, that made the law that no lady, however disagree- able, must have her ears boxed ? Do you think it is a good law, sir ? " " I think it is better fo^ you and me than for the lady, perhaps." " And sometimes when Percy says, ' Oh, go away ! don't bother me,' I feel as if I could box his ears too, and that's very odd ; for if I do hurt him ever, 1 am so sorry for it afterwards ! Why then should I ever want to hurt him ? " "There's something to be done with this little fel- low 1 " said Donal to himself. " Ah, why indeed ? " he answered. "You see you don't understand your- self quite yet ! " " No indeed ! " "Then how can you think I should understand you all at once — and a boy must be understood, else what's become of him? Me may be going 1 3 -J DOXAL GRANT. all wrong if nobody undcrstancls him ! Fancy a poor boy having to live all day, and sleep all night, and nobody understanding hrni ! " '' Ah, but yoic will understand me ! '' "Only a little. Ini not half wise enough to understand any boy." "Then — but isn't it what you came for? — I thought " — He meant — "Do you think you are fit to be a tutor then ! " and so Donal understood him. "Yes," he answered, "I think I am fit to be your tutor, for I know that I do not quite understand any boy, and so I am the less likely to fancy I under- stand him when I do not : and what is of much more consequence, I know who does : there is one and only one who understands every boy just as well as if there was no other boy than that one in the whole world." " I wish I knew who that was ! I should go to him, and be sure of having fair play." " That is just what I would have you to do." "Tell me where he lives." " I am a'oinir to teach vou where he lives if I can : mere telUng is not much use. Telling is what makes people think they know when they do not, and makes them foolish." "Tell me his name." " No, I will not, just yet : for then you would think you knew him, when you knew next to nothing about him. Look here ; look at this book," he went on, pulling a copy of Bcethius from his pocket, "look at the name on the back of it. It is the name of the man that wrote the book." IN THE NEW HO^FE. 1 33 Davy spelled it out. " Now you know all about the book, don't you? " " I don't know anything about it." " Well, then : my father's name is Robert Grant. Do you know what a good man he is ? " '^ No ; how should I ? I should like to see him though." " Ah, yes ! and you would love him. But, you see, your knowing the name of a person does not make you know the person." '' But you said, sir, that if you told me the name of that person, I would fancy I knew all about him : I don't fancy I know all about your father now you have told me his name ! " " You have me there ! " returned Donal. " I did not say quite what I ought to have said. I should have said that when we know a little about a person, and are used to hearing his name, then we are ready to think we know all about him. I heard a man the other day — a man who had never spoken to your father, profess to know all about him." " I think I know ! " said Davie ; but now Donal was silent. There are many who think that to confess ignor- ance is to lose respect, and doubtless it is so with the ignorant who claim to know. There is a worse thing, however, than to lose respect — to deserve to lose it, and that he who does who would gain a respect that does not belong to him. But such con- fession is even a ground of respect with an ordinarily well-bred child, and even with the ordinary run of boys will raise a teacher's influence : they recognize his loyalty to the truth. For to love the truth is a 134- DONAL ('.RANT, far i::;rcaler thing than to know it, for it is itself truth in the inward parts — act-trutli, as distinguished from fact-truth : in the Iiighest truth tlie knowledge and love of it are one, or, if not identical then coincident. The very sight of the truth is the loving of it. They went out together, and when they had gone the round of the place, Davie would have taken him over the house ; but Donal said they would leave something for another time, and made him lie down, and lie quite still for ten minutes. This he evidently thought a great hardship, but Donal saw that the boy needed to be taught to rest, as well as to have his activity directed — not to mention the discipline the lesson afforded. Even during those ten minutes he ten times forgot the command, and was on the point of" jumping up to do something, only a word from DOnal was enough to restrain him. What made this lesson the more necessary was that the restlessness of the bo}", though coupled with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, had its chief origin in brain-activit}^ rather than in general animal vigor. When the ten minutes were over, he set him to do an addition sum. The boy protested that he knew all the rules of arith- metic. " But," said Donal, " I must know that you know them^ for that is my business, as it is yours to know them. Do this one, however easy you find it." The boy obeyed, and in a few minutes brought him the sum — incorrect. •'Now, Davie," said Donal, "you said you knew all about addition, but you have not done the sum correctly." " I have only made a blunder, sir." IN THE NEW HOME. * I35 ''But a rule is no rule if it is not carried out. Everything goes on the supposition of its being itself ^ and not something else. People you know that talk about good things without doing them, find themselves left out. You are not master of simple addition until it becomes at least a very unlikely thing that you should made a blunder in it." He saw that the boy found it hard to fix his atten- tion ; to do this upon something he did not yet understand, would be too hard for him ; he must learn it in the pursuit of accuracy where he already so far understood. There he would not have to fight two difficulties at once — the difficulty to understand, I mean, and the difficulty to fix his attention. But for a long time he never kept him more than a quarter of an hour at work on the same thing. In order to become strong it is necessary to work as one who is not yet strong, only capable of doing a little more than hitherto ; it is ruinous to act as if strong already. When the sum was done correctly, and a second brought without need of correction, he told him to lay his slate aside and he would tell him a fairy story. In this he succeeded tolerably — in the opinion of Davie, wonderfully ; what a tutor was this, who let fairies into the schoolroom ! The tale in truth was of no very fine or original construction, being the product of a faculty much impaired by the disuse of genera- tions, though in the old time joyously exercised by the bards from whom Donal was descended. In it, as in so many such, the youngest brother gains in the path of righteousness what the elder ones lose through masterful selfishness. Donal had none of the objec- tions of a truncated people to the presentation of the 136 * DONAL GRANT. right as victorious ; they say it is not so in life. I say il is : Lazarus and Dives hardly look upon them- selves as dead, though their brethren may. To leach children that vice may have the best of it, would be to teach them that there is no God. Let such do so who believe there is none, and desire their children to reap the good of the fact. The main question is, whether the reward is made most of, dwelt upon with most delight, or the conduct which, through many struggles, is victorious at last. No teacher's object should be to train such as the world counts heroes or successful men, but lovers of the truth — such as will not think great things of them- selves because they do what any one is a coward or a liar for not doing. Truth and right are the lords of this w^orld also, and must ultimately prevail, let pre- scription and money and brains and all be against them. The common man, costermonger, millionaire, or artist, laughs at this : all he understands by life is the space between life and death ; the rest is to him a blank, a thing not to be thought about ; whereas there is not a single question small enough to be argued out in that space. Tell the boy he must do the thing because it is right, even if he die for it ; but do not tell him there is no one to care whether he does it well or not. If he be an honest man, he will yet do it, but his heart will sink within him ; he will take less and less interest in life, will see less and less what is right, and will at length go to sleep over the whole affair, for life will cease to interest him, for lack of an essential life to believe in. It were a poor truth indeed that did not brins: at last all thin^rs sub- ject to itself ! Is it a misfortune for men that truth IN THE NEW HOME. 137 shall be victorious ? That, as beauty and truth are one, so are truth and strength one ? Must God be ever on the cross, that we poor worshippers may pay him ^z/r highest honor ? Is it not enough to know that if the devil were the greater, yet would not God do him homage, but would hang for ever on his cross ? This is the condemnation, that men will not enter into the joy of their Lord. Truth is joy and victory ; and the true hero is adjudged to bliss, nor can in the nature of things, that is, of God who determines the very existence of things, escape it. Life is bliss ; it can be nothing else ; he who holds by life, opposing death, must be victorious, for his very life is a banish- ing, a slaying of death. • A true man comfortless will fight, but, I repeat, without God, his end will soon come, for either he will cease to be true, or sink and die the sooner for his truth. The self-caused life alone is strong enough to resist to the last^ and to make the God-born able to resist. There are different de2:rees of dying. A man may die for his opinion, but that is not dying for the truth ; it maybe only living for him- self. A man who dies for the truth, therein dies to himself, as well as to all besides that is not true. "What a beautiful fairy story ! " cried Davie, when It ceased. " Where did you get it, Mr. Grant ? " " Where all fairy stories come from." " What is the name of the book ? " "The think-book." " What a funny name ! I never heard of it! do you think it can be in the library ? " " No ; it is in no library. It is the book God is always writing at one end, and blotting out at the other, that it may be written over again. That book 13S DONAL GRANT. is made of thoughts, not words, and so it is the think- book." " Oh, I understand ! you got the story out of your own head ! " " Yes, perhaps ; but liow did it get into my head ? " " I can't tell that. Nobody can tell that." " Nobody can that never goes up above his own head — that never shuts the think-book, and stands upon it. When he does, the think book swells to a great mountain that lifts him up above all the world, and then he sees where the stories come from, and how they get into his head. And now, are you not going to have a ride to-day? It is time if you are. " " I go when I like. I do just as I like." "Well, we will now do what we both like, I hope. Now it will be two likes instead of one — that is, if we are to be true friends." '' We shall be true friends : that we shall ! " " How do you think that can be, between a little boy like you, and a grown man like me .'' " " By me being good." " By both of us being good — no other way. If one of us only was good, we could never be true friends. I must be good as well as you, else we sliall never understand each other." " How kind you are, Mr. Grant ! You treat me just like another one ! " said Davie. " But we must not forget that I am the big one and you the little one, and that we can't be the other one to each other except the little one does what the big one tells him — that's the way we fit into each other." "Oh, of course ! " answered Davie, as if there could not be two minds about that. IN THE NEW HOME. 139 This will be enough to show the footing on which Ddnal placed his relation with the boy. And Davie responded with the devotion of a simple loving nature that has found its master. Before a week was over, they were working together a very type of the big and the little brother. CHAPTER VI. NO COWARD. DURING that first day and the next, Donal never came in si^ht even of any other of the family. But on the third day, after their short early school — for he seldom let Davie work till he was tired, and never after — passing with him through the si able-yard, they came upon Lord Forgue as he mounted his horse for a ride. The horse was a small, fiery, thin-skinned thoroughbred. Kre his master was on him, he began to back and rear, nor would he be persuaded to go on. Regardless of the stones, Forgue gave him a cut with his whip. The animal went wild, dancing and plung- ing and kicking — going in every direc'.ion but for- ward. The young lord was a good horseman in the sense of having a good seat ; but he knew little about horses, for they were to him as creatures to be compelled^ not as friends of a most respectable lower order, with whom, their fashion understood, he might hold sweet counsel — and none the less that their relation w^as one of rule and obedience. He had not learned yet that to rule ill is worse than to obey ill. Kings may behave worse than is in the power of any subject, and many kings rank, and- must be seen of the universe to rank immeasurably lower than any thief among their people. As Forgue was raising his 140 NO COWARD. 141 arm for another useless, cruel, and dangerous blow, Donal darted to the horse's head. " You mustn't do that, my lord," he said. But the worse part of Forgue's nature was awake ; in a rage with his horse, all the vices of his family rushed to the front. He looked down upon Donal with a wrath checked only by contempt. *' Keep off,'" he said, "or it will be the worse for you. What do you know about horses .'' " "Enough to know that you are not fair to him; and I wi'.i not let you strike the poor animal like that. Just look at this water-chain ! " "Hold your tongue, and stand away, or, by" — " Ye winna fricht me, sir," said Donal, whose Eng- lish would, for years, upon any excitement, turn cow- ardly and run away, leaving his mother-tongue to bear the brunt — " I'm no timorsome." Forgue brought down his whip with a great sting- ing blovv upon Donal's shoulder and back. The fierce blood of the Highland Celt rushed to his brain, and had not the man in him held by God and trampled on the devil, there might tlien have been miserable work. But though he clenched his teeth, he fettered his hands, and ruled his tongue, and the master of men was mas- ter still. " My lord," he said, after one instant's thunderous silence, " there's that i' mc wad think as little o' throt- tlin' you as ye du o' ill-usin' yer puir horse. But I'm no gaein' to drop his quarrel, an' tak' up my ain. That wad be cooardly. He's a puir champion 'at '11 du a' but suffer for his neebour." Here Donal patted the streaming neck, and recovering at once his com- posure and his English, went on. " I tell you, my 142 DONAI. ('.RANT lord, the curb-chain is too tight. The animal is suf- fering as you have no conception of, or you would pity him." "Let him go," cried his lordship, ''or I will make you." And he raised his whip again to strike the horse. " I tell your lordship," said Donal, "it is my turn to strike if I choose to take it ; and if you hit the animal again before that chain is slackened, I will pitch you out of the saddle." For answer Forgue struck the horse over the head. The same moment he v^'as on the ground ; for Donal took him by the leg and threw him off on the other side. He was not horseman to keep, in such exceptional circumstances, his hold of the reins ; and Donal, who had taken but one hand to unseat him, and kept his hold of the snaffle reins with the other, led the horse a little way off, and left the youth to get up in safety. The maddened creature was pouring with sweat, shivering and trembling, and throwing his head back every moment. It was all Donal could manage to undo the chain : it was too tight because it was twisted — his lordship had fastened it himself — and the sharp edges of some of the links were pressed into his jaw at the least touch of the rein. He had not rehooked it when Forgue was again upon him with another furious blow of his whip. The horse went wild again at the sound, and it was all he could do to hold him. But as his lordship did not repeat the blow, he was at length able with much patient soothing to calm him down. When he looked about him, Forgue was gone. He led the horse into the stable, put him in NO COWARD. 143 his stall, and proceeded to uhsaddle him. Then first he was re-aware of the presence of Davie. He was stamping with fierce eyes and white face, choking with silent rage. " Davie, my boy ! " said Donal, and Davie recov- ered his power of speech. "I'll go and tell my father ! " he said, and made for the stable door. " Which of us are you going to tell upon ? " asked Donal with a smile. " Percy, of course ! " replied the boy almost with a scream. " You are a good man, Mr. Grant, and he is a bad fellow. My father will give it him well. He doesn't often — but oh, can't he just ! Him dar- ing to strike you ! I'll go to him at once, whether he's in bed or not." "No, you won't, my boy. Listen to me. Some people think it's a disgrace to be struck : I think it's a disgrace to strike. I have a right over your brother by that blow, and I mean to keep it — for his good. You didn't think I was afraid of him ? " "No, no; anybody could see you weren't a bit afraid of him. /would have struck him again if he had killed me for it." " I don't doubt you would. But when you under- stand, you will understand, you will not be so ready to strike. I could have killed your brother then more easilv than held his horse. You don't know how strong I am, or what a blow of my fist would be to a delicate fellow like that. I hope the fall has not hurt him." " I hope it has — a little, I mean, only a little," said the boy, looking in the face of his tutor. " But tell 144 DONAL GRANT. me why you did not strike him. It would be good for liim to be well beaten." " It will, I hope, be better for him to be forgiven : he will be ashamed of himself the sooner, I think. But I did not strike him, because I am not my own master." " But my father, I am sure, would not have been angry with you. He would have said you did no more than you had a right to do." "Perhaps ; but the earl is not my master." " Who is, then ? " "Jesus Christ." " b — oh ! " " He has said I must not return evil for evil, nor a blow for a blow. I don't mind what people say about it ; I know he would not have me do what there was any disgrace in. He never himself even threatened those that struck him." " But he wasn't a man, you know ! " " Not a man ! what was he then t " " He was God, vou know." "And isn't God a man — and ever so much more than a man ? " To this naturally the boy had no answer, and Donal went on. " Do you think that God would have his child do anything that was disgraceful ? Why, Da\-ie, you don't know your own father ! What he wants of you is to be a downright honest boy, and do what he tells you without fear. He'll take care that no harm comes to you." Davie was silent. His conscience reproved him^ as the conscience of an honest boy will rej^rove him, NO COWARD. 145 himself consciously to do his will. Donal said no more, and they went on their ramble about the place. In tliC evening Donal went to see Andrew Com in. " Weel, hoo are ye gettin' on wi' the yerl ? " asl.ed the cobbler. "You set me a good example of saying nothing about liim," answered Donal ; " and I will follow it — at least till I know something about him, I have scarce seen him yet." "That's right!" returned the cobbler, with satis- faction. "I'm thinkin' ye'll be ane o' the feow 'at can rule their ain hoose — that is, hand their ain tongues till the hoor for speech be come. Stick ye to that, my dear sir, an mair 'ill be weel nor in general is weel." "I'm come to ye for a bit help ; I want licht upon a question 'at's lang triblet me. — What think yc ? Hoo far does the comman' lain upo' 's, as to warfare 'atween man an' man reach ? Are we never to raise the han' to human bein' think ye ? " " Weel, I tu hae thoucht a heap aboot it, an' I daurna say 'at I'm jist absolute clear upo' the sub- jec' aither. But there may be pairt clear whaur a' 's 110 clear; an' by what we un'erstan' we come the nearer to what we dinna un'erstan'. There's ae thing unco plain — 'at we're on no account to return evil for evil : onybody 'at ca's himsel' a Christian oucht to un'erstan' that muckle. We're to gie no place to revenge, aither inside or oot. We're no therefore to gie blow for blow. Gien a man hits ye, ye're to take it i' God's name. But whether things mayna come to a p'int whaurat ye're b'un', still 1' God's name, to defen' the life God has gien 146 DONAL GRANT. at the nienlioii of llie name of God, until lie sets ye, I canna say — I haena the licht to justifee me in denyin' 't. There maun surely, I hae said it to my- sel', be a time whan a man may be required to du what God dis sae aften — mak use o' the strong han' ! But it's clear he maun never do 't in anger — that's ower near hate — an' hate's the deevil's ain. A man may, gien he live verra near the Lord, be whiles angry ohn sinned : but i' the main, the wrath o' man worketh not the richteousness o' God ; an' the wrath that rises i' the mids o' encoonter, is no like to be o' the divine natur'. To win at it gien 't be possible lat's consider the Lord — hoo he did! There's no word o' him ever liftin' han' to protect himsel'. The only thing like it was for ithers. To gar them lat his disciples alane — maybe till they war like eneuch til himsel' no to rin', but to bide wi' guid wuU what cam to them, he pat oot mair nor his han' upo' them 'at cam to tak him : he strak them sair wi' the pooer itsel' 'at' muvs a' airms. But no verra sair aither — he but knockit them doon — jist to lat them ken they war to do as he bade them, an' lat his fowk be — an' maybe to lat them ken 'at gien he loot them tak him, it was no 'at he couldna hin'er them gien he likit. I canna help thinkin' 'at we may aye stan' up for ither fowk. An' I'm no sayin' 'at we arena to defen' oor- sel's frae a set attack with design. But there's some- thing o' mair importance yet nor kennin' the richt o' ony question." " What can that be } What can be o' mair im.por- tance nor doin' richt i' the sicht o' God ? " said Donal. " Bein' richt wi' the varra thoucht o' God, sae 'at NO COWARD. 147 we canna mistak, but maun ken jist what he wad hae dune. That's the big Richt, 'at's the mother o' a' the rest o' the richts. That's to be as the maister was. Only, whatever we du, it maun be sic as to be dune, an' be dune i' the name o' God ; an' whan we du nae- thing we maun du that naething i' the name o' God. A body may weel say, ' O Lord, thoo liasna latten me see what 1 ouclU to du, sae I'll du naething ! ' Gien a man oucht to defen' himsel', but disna du't, 'cause he thinks God wadna hae him du't, God disna lea' him confedent for that. Or gien a body Stan's up i' the name o' God, an' fronts a haill airmy o' enemies, div ye think God 'ill forsake him 'cause he's made a mistak ? Whatever's dune wantin' faith maun be sin ; it canna help it. But whatever's dune in faith canna weel be sin, though it may be a mistak. Only let no man mak the fearsome mistak o' presumption for faith ! It's weel whan a man has made up his min', sae as to du his best, aither at endurin' or at fechtin': the thing 'at disna du's mixin' up the twa." "I thank ye," said Donal. "I think I may be better able to mak up my mind by considerin' what ye hae said." "But o' a' things," resumed the cobbler, " luik 'at ye lo'e fairplay. Fairplay's a won'erfu' word — a gran' thing constantly lost sicht o'. Man, though I hae been tryin' to win at the duin' o' the richt this mony a year, I daurna yet lat mysel' ack upo' the spur o' the moment whaur my ain enterest's concernt no yet — for fear my ain side blin' me to the ither man's side o' the business. Onybody can un'erstan' his ain richt, but it taks trible an' thoucht to un'erstan' what anither coonts his richt. Twa richts canna weel 148 DONAL GRANT. clash. It's a wrang an' a licht, or a pairt wrang an' pairt richt 'at clashes." '• (}ien a'body did that, I doobt there wad be but feow fortins made ! " said Donah " Aboot that I canna say, no kennin'; but it maks 't the mair likely to me 'at I never kent a heap o' siller du niuckle guid e'en i' the ban's o' fairly guid fowk. Min', I'm only savin' I never kenned. God forbid I sud discover a law whaur I haena knowledge ! But baud this i' yer mm', sir, 'at that same fairplay lies, alang wi' love, at the varr}' rute a\r ' f'undation o' the universe. The theologians had a glimmer o' the fac whan they made sae muckle 'o justice, only, whan they say what they mean by their justice, it's sic a meeicrable sma* bit plaixtcr eemage o' justice, 'at it maist gars an honest aukl body lauch. They seem to me like shepherds 'at rive doon the door-posts, an' syne block up the door wi' them." Then Donal told him of the quarrel he had had with young Lord Forgue, and asked him whether he thought he had done right. "Weel," answered the ccbbler, "I'm as far frae blamin' you as I am frae justifeein' the yoong lord." "He seems to me a fine kin' o' lad," said Donal " though some owerbeirin'." " That the likes of him are mair to be excust for nor ither fowk, for they hae great disadvantages i' the position an' the up bringin'. It's no easy for him 'at's broucht up a lord to believe 'at he's jist ane wi' the lave." Donal went for a stroll through, the town, to look on the movements of life in it. He met the minister. NO C 'WARD. 49 but he passed without taking notice of him. The poor man was greatly annoyed at the march, as he said, that the fellow had stolen upon him, and thought of him as one who had taken an unfair ad- vantage. What right had he to go by any other judgment of himself than the minister's? He had, it is true, little influence at the castle, for the earl never b\- any chance went to church. But his niece, Lady Arctura did, and took him for an authority in things spiritual — one of whom living water was to be had -without money and without price. But then what she counted spiritual things were very common earthly stuff, and for the water, it was stagnant water from the ditches of a sham theology. But what was a poor girl to do who did not know how to feed her- self.^ ^^'hat but apply to one who could not feed himself .\ Out of many difficulties she thought he helped her, only the difficulty would presently clasp her again the same as before, and she must deal with it as she best could, or rather couldn't, till, a new one arose with which to go to him again. She was one of those who feel the need of some help to live — some upholding from outside of themselves, but who, through the stupidity of teachers unconciously false, men in a place where they have no right to be — men so unfit that they do not know they are unfit, direct their efforts, first towards liaving correct notions — a very different thing from divine ideas — then to work up the feelings that rightly belong to those notions. She was an honest girl so far as she had been taught — perhaps not so far as she might have been without having been taught. How was Lady Arctura to think aright without having had more than ICO DONAL GRANT. a glimmer of higliest truths ? Mow was she to please God, as she called it, who thought of him in a way repulsive to every loving soul ? How was she to be acce])ted of God, who did not accept her own neigh- bor, but looked down, without knowing it, upon her fcllow-crcatures, with the exception of about half-a- dozen ? Is it any wonder that one in such a con- dition should neither enjoy nor recommend her religion ? It would have been the worse for her if she had enjoyed it — the worse for others if she had rec- ommended it. There was little of religion in her path but the difficulty of it, and that is hardly enough to make a religion. Religion is simply the way home to the Father. The true way is difficult enough be- cause of our unchildlikeness — uphill, steep, and difficult, but there is fresh life with every surmounted height, a purer air gained, more life for more climb- ing. But the path that is not the true one is not therefore an easy one. UiDhill w^ork is hard walking, but through a bog is worse. Those who seek God with their faces hardly turned towards him, who, instead of beholding the P'ather in the Son, take the stupidest opinions concerning him and his ways from men who, if they have themselves ever known him, have never taught him from their own knov/ledge of him, but from the dogmas of others, go wandering about in dark mountains, or through marsh, spending their strength in avoiding precipices and bog-holes, sighing and mourning over their sins instead of leav- ing them behind and fleeing to the Father, whom to know is eternal life. If they set themselves to find out what Christ thought and knew and meant, and to do it, they would soon forget their false teachers, and NO COWARD. 151 find it a good riddance. But alas ! they go on bow- ing before long-faced_, big-worded authority, the more fatally when it is embodied in a good man who, him- self a victim to faith in men sees the Son of God only through the theories of others, and not with the clear sight of his own spiritual eyes. All this time, however, Donal had not yet seen the lady. He neither ate, sat, nor worshipped with the family, but when not with Davie, spent his time in his tower-chamber, or out of doors. The grounds of the house 'were open to him, all but a certain walled garden on the southeastern slope, looking towards the sea, which the earl kept for himself, though he rarely walked in it. On the side of the hill away from the town was a large park reaching down to the river, and stretching a long way up its bank — full of delights in fine trees and glorious outlooks over a fair land to the sea on one horizon, and to the mountains on the other. Here Donal would wander, sometimes with a book, sometimes with Davie for his companion, and soon came to feel the boy's presence no interruption when he would think rather than talk. Any moment he would throw himself on the grass and read, sometimes aloud, when Davie would throw himself beside him, and let the words he could not understand flow over him in a sort of spiritual bath. Then on the river was a boat he could use when he pleased, and though at first he was awkward enough in the use of the oars, and would turn the bows in all directions when trying to row straight, he was soon master enough of the art to enjoy a row up or down the stream, especially in the twilight. He was alone with his book under a beech-lree on 152 DONAL GRANT. a steep slope to the river the day after the affair with Lord Forgue. Reading aloud, though in a low voice, he did not hear the approach of his lordship. *' Mr. Grant," he said, " if you will say you are sorry you threw me from my horse, 1 will say I am sorry I struck you." *' I am very sorry," said Donal, rising from the grass, that it was necessary to throw you from your horse: nnd perhaps your lordship may be able to re- member that you struck me before 1 did so." " That has nothing to -clo with it. I propose an accommodation or compromise, or what you choose to call it : if you will do the one, I will do the other." *' What I think I ought to do, my lord, 1 do with- out baro^ainino-. I am not sorrv I threw vou from your horse, and to say so would be to lie. Should I come to see I did wrong, I will apologise without any bargaining.'' " Of course everybody thinks himself in the right!" said his lordship v.ith a sneer — not a very offensive one, for his was not a sneering nature. "It docs not follow that no one is ever in the right," returned Donal. " Does your lordship think you were in the right — either to me or to the poor animal who would not obey you because he was in torture ? " '• I don't say I do." " Then everybody else does not think himself in the right. I take your lordship's admission for an apol- ogy." " By no means : when I make an apology, I will do it freely, not grudgingly. If I am in the wrong I will not sneak out of it." NO COWARD. 153 He was evidently at: strife with liimself ; he knew he was wrong, but could not yet bring himself to say so. It is one of the most unreasonable of human weak- nesses that a man should be ashamed of saying he has done wrong, instead of so much ashamed of being wrong that he cannot rest till he has said so — the shame cleaving fast to him all the time until the con- fession clears it away. There is endlessly more in the simplest working of a human mind than all human- ity can understand : how can a man live with 710 one to understand him ! Forgue walked aw^ay a step or two, and stood for a few moments with his back to Donal, poking tlie point of his stick into the ground then all at once turned and said : " I will apologise if you will tell me one thing." " I will tell you whether you apologise or no*," said Donal. '' I have never asked you to apologise." "Tell me, then, why you did not return my blows yesterday." " I should like to know why you ask — but I will answer you : simply because to do so would have been to disobey my master. I am bound to v\ill as he wills, because he knows all about it, and I am his." "That's a sort of thing I don't understand. It seems to me slavish. But that is none of my business. I only wanted to know that it was not cowardice; for I could not make an apology to a coward." " If I were a coward, you would owe me an apoiogy all the same ; and he is a poor creature who will not pay his debts. But I hope it is not necessary I should either thrash or insult your lordship to convince you that I fear you no more than that blackbird there ! " 54 DONAL GRANT. Forgiie gave a little laugh. A moment's pause fol- lowed, and then he held out his hand, but in a half- hesitating, almost sheepish way : "Well, well ! shake hands ! " he said. "No, my lord," replied Donal ; " I bear your lord- ship not the slightest ill-will, but I will shake hands with no one in a half-hearted way. When I shake hands with you it will be with my whole heart — and that is impossible while you are not sure whether I am a coward or not — the easiest way to convince you not being open to me." So saying, he lifted his bonnet, and threw himself down again upon the grass, and Lord Forgue walked away, offended afresh. The next morning he came into the schoolroom where Donal sat at lessons with Davie. He had a book in his hand. " Mr. Grant," he said, " will you help me with this passage in Xenophon ? " " With all my heart," answered Donal, and in a few moments had him out of his difficulty. But instead of going, his lordship sat down a little way off, and went on with his reading — sat until master and pupil went out, and left him sitting there. The next morn- ing he came again with a fresh request for Donal's assistance, when Donal found occasion to approve warmly of a [ roposed translation of Forgue's. From that time the young lord came almost every morning, and remained during the morning study, soon begin- ning to ask help with his mathematics too. He was no great scholar, but with the prospect of an English university before him, had a wholesome dread of mak- ing a fool of himself. CHAPTER VII. BECOMING ACQUAINTED. THE housekeeper at the castle was a good woman, and was very kind to Donal, feeling perhaps that he belonged to her care the more that he was by birth of her own class. For it was soon known in the castle that the tutor "made no pretence to being a gentleman, but was one none the less, per- haps all the more." When his dinner was served, Mrs. Brooks would sometimes herself appear, to sat- isfy herself that proper attention was paid him, and would then sit down and talk to him while he ate his dinner, ready to rise and serve him upon any need. Their early days had not a little in common, though she came from the southern highlands of green hills and more sheep. She volunteered some information about the family, which, she said, it was well Donal should receive ; and he soon concluded that the young people would not have been living together in so much peace but for the way in which her good temper and loving nature acted as a buffer between their sometimes conflicting notions. I had better tell here a little of what Donal learned from her. Lady Arctura was the daughter of the last lord Morven, and the sole heir to his property ; Forgue and his brother Davie were the sons of the present I5S 156 DONAL GRANT. earl, and beyond the hare title could inherit nothing. Their mother died very soon after Davie was born. The present lord was the cousin of the last, and had lived with him for years before he succeeded — before e\en Mrs. Brooks's aunt, who had been housekeeper there before her, came to the castle. He had always been a man of peculiar and studious habits; nobody ever seemed quite to take to him ; since liis wife's death, his health had been very precarious. He was a good and generous master, and no one had anything to say against him. His cousin had left him guardian to ladyArctura, and so he had continued to live in tl;e castle as before. His niece as well as Ins own chil- dren seemed sincerely attached to him, though it was little any of them saw of him. She had seen his wife — not very often, for she was a very delicate woman, and latterly all but confined to her own room ; no one who had ever seen her once could ever forget her, for she was a very lovely woman, and since her death a great change, every one said, had passed upon her husband.^ Certainly his behavior was sometimes very strange and hard to account for. "He never gangs tae the kirk — no ance m a twal- month," said Mrs. Brooks. " No to say I care varra muckle for the kirk mysel', but fowk should be da- cent, an' wha ever h'ard o' dacent fowk 'at dinna gang tae the kirk ance o' the Sabbath ! I dinna haud wi' gaein' twice mysel' ; ye hae na time tae read yer ain chapters gien ye do that. But the man's a weel be- havit man, neither sayin' nor doin' the thing he shouldna ; what he may think, wha's to say ! the mair ten'er conscience coonts itsel' the waur sinner; an' I'm no gaein' to think what I canna ken. There's BECOIMING ACQUAINTED. 157 somc'at says," she went on, " 'at he led a gey lowse kin' o' a Ufe afore he cam to l)i(le wi' the auld yerh He was i' the airmy, an' i' furreign pairts, they say, but aboot that I ken naething. The auld yerl was nae sanct hiinsel'. But rist the banes o' 'im ! We're no the jeedges o' the dcid, whatever we be o' the leevhi' ! I maun awa' to luik efler things, for a min- ute's an hour lost wi' they fule lasses. I'm sure whiles I dinna ken what to do wi' that lassie Comin', she's that upsetlin'. Ye wad think she was ane o' the faimil}'', the w'y she behaves whiles : an' ither whiles that silly, 'at I'm doobtfu' whether she be a' there or no." "I'm sorry to hear that," said Donal. "Her grandfather and mother I know very well ; they're the best of good people." " Oh, I daresay ! But there's just what I hae seen afore i' my life ; them 'at's broucht up their ain weel enouch, their sons bairns they'll jist Lit gang. Aither they're tired o' the thing, or they think they canna gang wrang. They hae aye lippent till yoong Eppie a heap ower muckle ; an' there'll come ill o' 't ayont a doobt. But I'm naither a prophet nor the son o' a prophet, as the minister said last Sunday — an' said weel, honest man ! for it's the plain trowth ; he's no ane o' the major nor yet o' the minor anes ! But hand him oot o' the pu'pit an' he dis no that ill. His dochter's no an ill lass aither^ an' a great freen'o' my leddy's. But I'm clean ashamed o' niysel' to gang on this gait. Hae ye dune wi' yer denner, Mr. Grant.-* Weel, I'll jist sen' yoong Eppy to clear awa' an' lat ye till yer lessons." It was now almost three weeks since Donal had be- 158 DONAL ORANT. come an inmate of the castle, and lie liad scarcely set his eyes upon the lady of the house. Once he had seen her back, and more than once he had caught a glimpse of her profile, but he had never really seen jier face, and they had never spoken to each other. One afternoon he was sauntering along a neglected walk, under the overhanirins: bougjhs of an avenue of beeches, once the approach to a more modern house where the family had lived, but which was now inhab- ited by a decayed branch of the same, and had another entrance. He never went out without a book, though he often came back without having even glanced at it. This time it was a copy of Apociypha, which he had never seen till he found it in the library. In his usual careful, unhurried fashion, he had begun to read it through, and was now in the book called the Wisdom of Solomon, at the seven- teenth chapter, which narrates the discomfiture of certain magicians. Taken with the beauty of the pas- sage, he sat down on an old stone roller, whose car- riage had rotted away and vanished years ago, and read aloud. The passage was this — it will enrich my page : — " For they that promised to drive away terrors and troubles -from a sick soul, were sick themselves of fear, worthy to be laughed at. ". . . . For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous, and being pressed with conscience, always forecasteth grievous things, ". . . . But they sleeping the same sleep that nio:ht, which was indeed intolerable, and which came upon them out of the bottoms of inevitable hell, "Were partly vexed with monstrous apparitions, BECOMING ACQUAINTED. 1 59 and partly fainted, their heart failing them : for a sudden fear, and not looked for, came upon them. ." So then whosoever there fell down was straitly kept, shut up in a prison with iron bars. " For whether he were husbandman, or shepherd, or a laborer in the field, he was overtaken, and en- dured that necessity, which could not be avoided ; for they were all bound with one chain of darkness. " Whether it were a whistling wind, or a melodious noise of birds among the sprcadmg branches, or a pleasing fall of water running violently. " Or a terrible sound of stones cast down, or a run- ning that could not be seen of skipping beasts, or a roaring voice of most savage wild bea'Sts, or a rebounding echo from the hollow mountains, these things made them to swoon for fear. " For the whole world shined with clear light, and none w^ere hindered in their labor : " Over them only was spread a heavy night, an im- age of that darkness which should afterward receive them : but yet were they unto themselves more griev- ous than the darkness." He had just finished so much^ and stopped to think a little, for through the seeming incongruity of it, which he did not doubt arose from poverty of im- agination disenabling the translator to see what the poet meant, there ran an indubitable vein of awful truth, wliether fully intended by the writer or not mat- tered little to such a reader as Donal — when, liftins: his eyes, he saw Lady Arctura standing before him with a strange listening look. Slie was but a few paces from him, and seemed to have been arrested as she was about to pass him by what she heard. She l6o DONAL GRANT. looked as if tliere were a spell upo:i l.cr. Her face was white, and her lips wh'«e and a little parted. At first attracted by the sound Ci. what was none the less like the Bible from the solemn half-crooning, halt- chanting way in which Donal read it to the congrega- tion of his own listening thoughts, yet was certainly not the Bible, she was presently fascinated by the vague terror of what she heard, and stood absorbed ; for without the smallest originative power she had an imagination of prompt and delicate and strong response, Donal had but a glance of her, for his eyes, oljeying a true instinct of good breeding, returned again at once to his book, and he sat silent and motionless, not seeing a word. For one instant, his ears told him, she stood quite still ; then he heard the soft sound of her dress as, with all but nciseless foot she stole back, and sought another way home. I must give my reader a shadow of her. She was rather tall, fair-skinned but dark-haired, like her cousin Forjrue. Her thick crinklv hair was drawn back from her rather low forehead, in a roll over that and her temples. Her eyes were softly dark, and her features very regular — her nose perhaps hardly large enough, or her chin, and her mouth rather thin-lipped, but it would have been sweet except for what seemed a habitual expression of pain. • Her forehead over- hung her sweet eyes with a pair of dark brows, that gave a look of doubtful temper, yet restored some- thing of the strength that was lacking in nose and chin. It was an interesting — scarcely a harmonious face, but in happiness might, Donal thought, look even beautiful. Her fi2:ure was eminentlv c:raceful : Donal saw this when he looked up at the sound of hei EECO.MINrr ACQUAINTED. l6l retreating steps. Pie did not speculate much on the cause of her strange behavior ; he onh' thought she need not ha\'e run away as if he was something dan- gerous ; she might liave passed him hke any other servant of the house. There was no presumption even in Donal's imagination : h.e was so full of the realities that he was less affected by shows than any but a very few in the world. Besides he had had h.is sorrow and had learned his lesson. Perhaps some of my readers will think this the more wonderful seeing he was a poet; but he was one of those few poets who have no weak longing after listening ears. The poet whose poetry is little to him without an audience, must indeed, wdiatever his poetry may be in the judg- ment of any audience, be but little of a poet in him- self. The poetry that is no good to the man himself, canr.ot be much good to anybody. There are the song-poets and the life poets : the one . set are the man-poems, the other the God-poems. Sympathy is lovely and dear where it comes unsought; but the fame after which so many would be, yea, so many real poets sigh, is but rubbish. Donal could sing his songs like the birds, content with the audience of any pass- ing angel that cared to listen. On the lonely hiil-sides he used to sing aloud, giving his songs their own musical form in full : but it was all to him such an outcome of merest natural necessity, that he never thought about it as a poor scribber for the public or for his own clique does — never thought about pub- lishing. His reception by the world or any represen- tative portion of it troubled him but little, because he was little troubled about himself. A look of estrangement on the face of a friend,' or a look 62 DONAL C;RANT. of suffering on anytliing human, would at once and sorely affect him ; but not the look of a disparaging thought on the face of a mere acquaint- ance or stranger, were that the loveliest woman he had ever seen. Goifs ti?fic sj/s all rigJtt v.as one of the main articles of his creed : why be troubled about a mere passing show? I have made use of the incident for a text, where- from to set forth the character of Donal. Though never yet had a word passed between her and any one on the subject, Lady Arctura knew, as somehow every- one both in the castle and the town believed, that as was natural, the great desire of the earl was that she should marry his son, and so the property and the title be also again joined. To this neither she nor Lord Forgue had made any objection ; though indeed how could either, if ever so much inclined, seeing the notion had never yet been mentioned to either ? And from any sign on either side no one could have told whether it would be acceptable to either. They lived like brother and sister, apparently without much in common, and still less of misunderstanding. There might have been more likelihood of their taking a fancy to each other if they had seen a little less of each other than they did, though indeed they were but little together, and that never alone. Lord For- gue had never been to school. His father had sent him straight from home and tutor to St. Cross's, whence he had now returned with his degree^ some love for general literature, and the desire to go to Oxford. Very few visitors came to the castle, and then only to call — some of the gentry of the neighborhood, and occasionally one of the Perthshire branches of the BECOMING ACQUAINTED. 1 63 family. Lord Morven very seldom saw any one, his excuse being his health, which w'as constantly poor, and often caused him suffering. Simmons, the butler, was also his chief personal attendant, and when he was worst, no one else saw him. CHAPTER VIII. WHAT IT INVOLVED. LADY ARCTURA was on terms of intimacy with Sophy Carmichael, the minister's daughter, to whom her father had poured out dissatisfaction with the character of Donal, and his indignation at his con- duct : he ought to have left the parish at once ! Whereas he had, against his decided wish, secured for himself the best, the only situation in it, leaving him no chance of warning his lordship against him I and certainly had he been heard before Donal ap- peared, and that notwithstanding the small weight Lord Morven would have laid on his recommendation, the character of Donal the minister was prepared to give would have been enough to prevent Lord ^^lorven from desiring his services, for his lordship was no un- believer, in the more modern use of the word. The more unjustifiably her father spoke against him, the more bitterly did Miss Carmichael regard him, for she was a good daughter, and looked up to her father as the wisest and best man in the parish ; wherefore she very naturally repeated his words to Lady Arctura. She in her turn repeated them to her uncle ; but he would not pay much heed to what she said. The thing was done ! He had seen and talked with Donal, and liked him ! The young man had him- 164 WHAT IT INVOLVED. 1 65 self told him of the clergyman's disapprobation. He would take the first opportunity of requesting him to avoid discourse upon religious subjects. And there- with he dismissed the matter, and forgot all about it. Anything requirini;- an effort of the will, or an arrang- ing of ideas, or some thought as to the best way of doing it, his lordship could not, because he would not encounter. Nothing was to him of such momciit that he must do it at once. Neither did Lady Arctura refer again to the matter : her uncle was not one to take liberties with — least of all to press to action. But she remained somewhat painfully doubtful whether she was not neglecting her duty, but she per- suaded herself that she was waiting till she should have something to say to her uncle from her own knowledge against the tutor. She could not satisfy herself as to what she was to conclude from his reading the Apocrypha : doubtless the fact was not to be interpreted to his advantage, for lie was reading what was not the Bible, and when he might have been readin^r the Bible itself ; and be- sides the Apocrypha was sham Bible and therefore, must be at least rather wicked. At the same time she could not drive from her mind the impressiveness both of the matter she had heard, and his manner of reading it — this chiefly because of the strong sound it had of judgment and condemnation in it, which came home to her, she could not have told how or why, except generally — because of her sins. For she was one of those — I think not very few — who from conjunction of a lovely conscience with an ill- instructed mind, are doomed for a time to much and serious suffering. In one very important particular I 66 DONAL GRANT she was largely different from lier friend Miss Car- michael — this namely, that the religious opinions of the latter — what she called her religious opinions were in reality rather metaphysical than religious, and bad either way — to which she clung with all the tenacity of a creature with claws, caused her no atom of mental discomposure whatever : perhaps that was in part, why she clung to them : they were as she would have them. She did not trouble herself about what God required of her, but would hold the doc- trine that most certainly guaranteed her future wel- fare — which welfare consisted in going to a place she l.eird called heaven, and avoiding another they called hell. Her conscience toward God had very lit- tle to do with her opinions, and her heart still less.^ Her head on the contrary, or perhaps rather her memory, was considerably occupied with the matter; for noth- ing had ever been by her regarded on its own merits — that is, on itj own individual claim to truth, but only as a thing which, handed down by her church, must therefore be true. To support these she would search out text after text in her Bible, and press them into the service, whatever might be their natural pre- dilections. Any meaning but that which the church of her fathers had given to any passage must be of the devil, and every man must be opposed to the truth who saw in that meaning anything but the true, whether the intelligible or not! In very truth it was impossible Miss Carmichael should see any meaning but that, even if she had looked for it; for she was as yet nowise qualified for discovering the truth, not being herself true or in love with the truth. What she saw and loved in the doctrines of her WHAT IT INVOLVED. 1 67 church was not that truth even, but the church-asser- tion that was in them. Iklieving as a matter of course, that is, as much as she believed anything, that a man's state is decided to all eternity the moment the breath is out of his body, she could see, in the only passage she was able "on the spur of the moment" to adduce in support of it— "As the tree falleth so shall it lie," nothing less than a triumphant proof of the doctrine. No matter what the context : if it did not mean that, what could it mean ? Whoever even questioned, not to say the doctrine, but the proving of it by that passage, was a dangerous person, and unsound concerning the inspiration of the Scriptures. But all the time neither her own acceptance of that or any other doctrine, nor her defence of it against gainsayers, made the slightest difference to her life one way or the other — as indeed how should it ? Such was the only so-called friend that Lady Arctura had — though not such as the friend so the friend; fur the conscience and heart of the younger woman were alive and awake to a degree that boded ill either for any doctrine that would stint its growth, or else for the nature unable to cast them off. Miss Car- michael was a woman about six-and-twenty— a woman in all her wants like, alas 1 too many Scotch girls, long before she was out of her teens. Self-sufficient, assured, with hardly shyness enough for modesty, a human flower cut and dried, an unpleasant specimen, and by no means valuable from its scarcity. Hand- some and hard, she was essentially and hopelessly a self-glorious Philistine ; nor would she ever be any- thing better, till something was sent to humble her, though what spiritual engine would be equal to the l6S DONAI. f.RANT. task was more tli;in man miglit imagine. From her cbildiiood she had had tiie ordering of all Lady Arc- lura"s opinions : vviiatever Sophie Carmichael said, Lady Arctura never thought of questioning. A he is indeed a thing in its nature unbelievable, but there is a false belief always ready to receive the false truth, and there is no end to the mischief the two then can work. The one awful punishment of untruth in ihe inward parts is that the man is given over to believe a lie. Lady Arctura was in herself a gentle creature who shrunk from either giving or receiving a rough touch : but she had an inherited pride, by herself quite un- recognized as such, which made her capable both of hurling and being hurt. Next to what she had been taught to consider the true doctrines of religion, she respected her own family, which in truth had no other claim to respect than that its little good and much e\ il had been done before the eyes of a large part of many generations. Hence she was born to think her- self distinguished, and to imagine a claim for the acknowledgment of distinction upon all except those of greatly higher rank than her own. This inborn arrogance was in some degree modified by respect for the writers of certain books, not one of them of any regard in the eyes of the thinkers of the age. Of the world's writers, beyond her Bible, either in this country or in any other, she knew nothing. Yet she had a real instinct, not only for what was good in morals, but for what was good in literature as well ; and of those writers to whom I have referred she not only liked the worthiest best, but liked best their best things. I need hardly say they were all religious WHAT IT INVOLVED, 169 writers ; for the keen conscience and ol:)eclient heart of the girl had made her very earl)- turn herself towards the quarter where the sun ouL;lit to rise, the quarter where all night long gleams the auroral hope. ITnhappil}', as with most, she Iiad not gone direct to the heavenly well in earthly ground — the very word of the Master himself. How could she.? From very childhood her mind had been filled with traditionary utterances concerning the divine character and the divine plans — the merest inventions of men far more desirous of understanding what they were notrequire.l to understand, than of doing what they were required to do, of obeying what they were commanded to obey — whence their crude and false utterances con- cerning a God of their own fancy — in whom it was a good man's duty, in the name of any possible God, to disbelieve. And just because she was in a measure true, authority had an immense power over her. The very sweetness of their nature forbids such to doubt the fitness of the claims of others. She had had a governess of the so-called orthodox type, a large pro- portion of whose teaching was of the worst kind of heresy, for it was lies against him who is light, and in whom is no darkness at all ; her doctrines were so many smoked glasses held up between the mind of her pupil and the glory of the living God — such as she would have seen it for herself in time had she gone to tlie only knowable truth concerning God, the face of Jesus Christ. Had she set herself to under- stand him the knowledge of whom is eternal life, she would have neither believed these thin^rs nor tauirht them to her little cousin. Nor had she yet met with any one to help her to cast aside the doctrines of men I 70 DONAL (.RANT. and lead lier face to face witli the Son of Man, the visible God. First lie of all she had been taught that she must believe so and sj before God would let her come near him or listen to her. The old cobbler could ha\e tau-'ht her differentlv ; but she would liave thought it altogether improper for her to hold conversation with such a man^ even if she had known him for the best man in Auchars. She was in sore and sad earnest notwithstanding to do the thing that was required of her and to believe as she was told she must believe. Instead of believing in Jesus Christ, that is beginning at once to do what he said — what he told people they must do if they would be his disciples, she tried hard to imagine herself one of the chosen, tried hard to believe herself the chief of sinners. No one told her that it is the man who sees something of the glory of God, the height and depth and breadth and length of his love and unselfishness, not a child dabbling with stupid doctrines, who can ever be able to feel that. She tried to feel that she deserved to be burnt in hell for ever and ever, and that it was boundlessly good of God who made her so that she could not help being a sinner, to give her the least chance of escaping it. She tried to feel that, tliough she could not be saved without something she had not got, if she was not saved it would be all her own fault ; while at the same time the God of perfect love could save her by giving her that something if he pleased, but he might not so please : — and so on through a whole miserable treadmill of contradictions. Sometimes she would feel for a moment able to say this or that she thought she ought to say, the next the feeling was gone, and she was miserable. Her WHAT IT INVOLVED. 171 ~ " " * friend did nothing to lead her to her own cahn in- difference, nor could she have succeeded had she attempted it. But, though she had never known trouble herself, just because she had never been in genuine earnest, she did not find it the less easy to take upon her the role of her spiritual adviser, and give her no end of counsel for the attainment of the assurance that she was one of the saved. She told her truly enough that all her trouble came of want of faith ; but she showed her no one fit for believing in ; for to talk of God and Christ, is not necessarily to show them. Neither could she have shown the por- traits of them that hung in her inner chamber would she at all more have shown anything worthy of being believed in — except indeed that no one can say any- thing about Christ without saying something that is true, and has a glimmer of hope in it. The misery is that the professional teacher of religion has for cen- turies practically so disbelieved in the oneness of the Godhead as to separate Father and Son so that innumerable hearts have loved the Son yet hated the idea of the Father : hated the Father they have not, for he that hath the Son hath the Father also. But I have undertaken a narrative, and not an attack on the serpents of hell ; but the same lies under the name of doctrines are still creeping about everywhere, though they do not now hiss so loud in the more edu- cated circles, and I must set my foot on one when I can. The rattlesnake may bite after he is unable any more to rattle : and the weakness of every human heart breeds its own stinging things. CHAPTER IX. BIASED BY OPINION. ALL this time, Donal had never again seen the earl but once or twice at a distance. He had never revealed any interest in, not to say anxiety as to how Davie was getting on. Lady Arctura on the other hand had been full of a more serious anxiety con- cerning him. Heavily prejudiced against the tutor by what she had heard from her friend, she naturally dreaded his poisoning the mind of her cousin, and causing in him the same active indifference, if one may use the phrase, towards religion as had mani- fested itself in his brother since last he came home from St. Cross's — superinduced by nothing he had heard there, but by the reading of certain books that had there fallen into his hands. There was a small recess in the schoolroom — it had been a deep bay window, but from a certain ar- chitectural necessity arising from the decay of age, all the lights of it except one had been built up — and in this Donal was one day sitting with a book, while Davie was busy writing ; it was past school' hours, but the weather did not invite them out of doors, and Donal had given Davie a poem to copy. Lady Arctura came into the room — as she had never done before since Donal came, and thinking he was alone, began to talk to the boy, supposing he was 172 BIASED BY OPINION. 1 73 " kept in " for some fault. She spoke in a low tone, and Donal, busy with his book, did not for some time even know that she was present; neither, when he did hear her — though again for some time not a word she was saying — did he suspect she fancied they were alone. But by degrees her voice grew louder, and presently these words reached him — " You know, Davie dear, every sin, whate\ er it is, and we can't live without sinning, for whatever is not of faith is sin — every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come — for ever and ever, Davie dear ! and if it hadn't been that Jesus Christ gave himself to bear the punish- ment for us, God would send us all to the place of misery. It is for his sake, not for ours, that he par- dons us." She had not ceased when Donal rose in the wrath of love, and came out into the light like an avenging angel. " Lady Arctura ! " he said, " I dare not sit still and hear such false things uttered against the blessed God." Lady Arctura started in dire dismay, but in virtue of her breed and her pride recoverered herself al- most immediately, and called anger to her aid ; what right had he to address her; she had not spoken ; he ou^ht to have been silent. And he dared assert liis atheistic heresies to her very face ! She drew herself up and said — " Mr. Grant, you forget yourself! " " Fm very willing to do that, my lady," said Donal, "but I cannot forget the honor of my God. If you were a heathen woman I miirht think whether the 174 DONAL GRANT. hour was come for enlightening you further; but to hear one who has had the Bible in licr hands from lier childhood say such things about the God who made iier and sent his Son to save her, without an- swering a word for him, would be cowardly ! " "What do you know about these things? What- givcs you a right to speak ? " said Lady Arctura, who found her pride-strength already beginning to desert her. "First," answered Donal, "I had a Christian mother — have her yet, thank God — who taught me to love nothing but the truth ; and next, I have stud- ied the Bible from my childhood, often whole days together, when I was out witli the cattle and the sheep ; and best of all to give a right to speak, I have tried to do what the master tells me, almost from the earliest time I can remember. And I set to my seal that God is true — that he is light, and there is no darkness either of unfairness or selfishness or human theology in him, whatever the ministers and any others may falsely teach the people concerning him. I love God with my whole heart and soul, my lady." Arctura tried to say she too loved him so, but her conscience interfered, and she could not. " I don't say you don't love him," Donal went on, "but how you can^and speak and believe such things of him, I don't understand. I daren't hear them without saying that whoever taught them first was a terrible liar against God ; no man can lie for God however he may try it, for God is lovelier than all the imaginations of all his creatures can think." Ere he finished the sentence Lady Arctura had turned and swept from the room, trembling from head BIASED I:Y opinion. 175 to foot. She could not ha\-e told why she trembled. But she was no sooner out of the room than she called Davie to come to her. Davie looked up in Donal's face, mutely asking whether he should obey her. " Go to her," said Donal. " I do not interfere be tween you and your cousin — only between her and her false notion of Jesus Christ's father." In less than a minute Davie came back, his eyes full of tears. " Arkie sa}^s she is going to tell papa you are not fit to be my tutor. Is it true, Mr. Grant, that you are a dangerous man? I never thought it — though I have wondered you should carry such a big knife." Donal laughed. " It was my grandfather's skeau dhu," he said ; " I mend my pens with it, as you know. But it is strange, Davie, that when anybody knows something other people don't know, they are so often angry with him, and think he wants to make them bad, when he wants to help them to be good." " But cousin Arkie /> good, Mr. Grant ! " " I am sure she is. But she does not know so much about God as I do, or she would never say such things of him ; we must talk about him more after this ! " "No, no, please, Mr. Grant ! we won't say a word about him, for Arkie says except you promise never to speak of God to me, she will tell papa, and he will send you away." "Davie," said Donal with solemnitv, '' I would not give you such a promise for the gift of this grand castle and all that is in it ; no, I wouldn't to save your 176 nONAL GRANT. life and that of everybody in it. For the master says, ' He tliat denieth me before men, him will I deny be- fore my father in heaven ; ' and rather than he should do that, I would jump from the top of the castle. Whv, Davie ! would a man deny his own father or mother ? " " r don't know," answered Davie ; *' I don't remem- ber my mother," '' But ril tell you what," said Donal, with a sudden happy thought, " ! will promise not to speak about God at any other time if she will promise to sit by when I do speak of him — say once a week. Per- haps we shall do what he tells us all the better that we don't talk so much about him." "Oh, thank you, Mr. Grant! I will tell her," cried Davie, jumping up greatly relieved. " Oh, thank you, Mr. Grant," he repeated, " I could not bear you to go away. I should never stop crying if you did. And you won't say any naughty things, will you ? for Arkie reads her Bible every day." "So do I, Davie." "Do you.?" returned Davie. "I'll tell her that too, and then she will see she must have been mis- taken." Davie hurried to his cousin with Donal's sugges- tion. It threw her into no small perplexity — first from doubt as to the propriety of the thing proposed, next because of the awkwardness of it; then from a little fear lest his specious tongue should lead herself into the bypaths of doubt, and to the castle of Giant Despair — at which indeed it was a gracious \vonder she had not arrived before. What if she should be persuaded of things she could not honestly disbelieve, but which yet it was impossible to believe and be BIASED BY OPINION. 1 77 saved ! She did yet see that those things she desired to beheve were in themselves essential damnation. For what could there be in heaven or earth for a soul that believed in an unjust God ? For a heart to re- joice in such a belief would be to be a devil of the worst sort, and to believe what it could not rejoice in, would be misery. No doubt a man may in a way believe wrong things not seeing that they are wrong, but that, while it frees him of the sin agninst the Holy Ghost, cannot keep him from the wretchedness of the mistake — from the loss of not knowing God as he is; for who can know him right while he be- lieves wrong things about him ? That good men do believe such things, only argues their hearts not yet united to fear him. They dwell on the good things they have learned about God, and forget the other things they have been taught, and forget with^ an ad- mirable and divine success. And what would Sophy say ? Lady Arctura would have sped to her friend for counsel before giving any answer to the audacious proposal, but she vs'as just then from home for a fortnight, and she must resolve on something. Then she bethought herself that it would be a very awkward thing to ask her uncle to take up the matter, especially as she was by no means sure how he would regard her interference, wuhout being able to tell him something more definite about the young man's false doctrine; and she reflected also, that, as she was well grounded in argument, knowing all the doctrine of the Shorter Cntccliism, it was absurd to tiunk she had anything to fear from one who but dabbled in theology in the strength of his own ignorant and presumptuous will, regardless of 178 DONAL GRANT. the opinions of the great fathers of the Church, and believing only the things that were pleasing to his own unregenerate nature. She did not reflect that out of the mouths of the babes and sucklings it is that he will / proach pleased Donal much. He fancied- her foot pressed the grass as if it loved it : if Donal was ready to love anything in the green world, it was neither roses nor hollyhocks, nor even sweet peas, but the grass that is trodden under foot, that springs in all waste places, and is glad of the dews of heaven to heal the hot cut of the scythe. Long had he abjured the no- tion that there is anything in the whole vegetable kingdom without some feeling of life and its enjoy- ment. He never liked to pluck a flower except to carry to some one who would be made happier by the sight of it : he was all but certain the fiower felt the chano-e. He took her hand in his and felt it an honest one — a safe, comfortable hand. " My brother told me he had brought you," she said. " I am glad to see you." ''You are good to me," said Donal. "I should not have thought either of you had known of my existence. I confess till a few minutes ago, I was not aware of yours." Was it a rude speech ? He was silent for a mo- ment with the silence that premises speech, then added — "Has it ever struck you how many born friends 242 DONAL GRANT. there are in the world wlio never meet — people who would love each other at first sight, but who never in this world gain that first sight ? " "No," returned Miss Graeme with a laugh in which humor predominated. " I certainly never had such a thought. I take those that come, and do not think of the rest. But of course }ou are right : it must be so." " It is like having a great many brothers and sisters you do not know," said Donah "My mother once told me," she rejoined, "of a man whose father had had so many wives and children that he positively did not know all his brothers and sisters." "I suspect," said Donal, "we have to know our brothers and sisters." " I do not understand." " We have even got to feel a man is our brother the first moment we see him," pursued Donal, enhancing his former remark. " That sounds rather alarming! " said Miss Graeme with another laugh, in which again humor not mer- riment predominated. " My poor little heart feels scarcely large enough to receive so many." ^' The worst of it is," continued Donal, w^ho once started was not ready to draw rein ; the things he thouMit much about he was readv to talk much of : out of the abundance of his heart his mouth spoke " — the plague is that those who have mostly advo- cated this extension of the family bonds, have gener- ally begun by loving their own imniediate relations less than they ought to love everybody. Extension with them has meant slackening — as if any one AN ALTERCATION, 243 could learn to love more by lov-ing less, and go on to do better without doing well ! That which is intens- est at the core must of course alone be able to spread farthest. He who loves his own little will not love others much if at all." " But how can we love those who are nothing to us ? " said Miss Graeme. " That would be impossible. The family relations are there to develop the love which is founded on a far deeper though less recognized relation. Tliey can only enable us to love what is lovable. But par- don me,- Miss Graeme. Meeting you for the first time, I immediately monopolize the conversation, as if I were your tutor as well as little Davie's." " I am very glad to listen," returned Miss Graeme. " I cannot say 1 am prepared to agree with you ; but it is something in this out-of-the-way corner, to hear even talk from which you must differ." " Ah, you can have that here as well as anywhere ! " " Indeed ! I am sure it is not in the pulpit." '•' For my part I hear little else from the pulpit. I ^spoke of talk from which you would differ, but with which I think you ought to agree. There is an old man in the town who can talk Ijetter than ever I heard man speak before, but as he is a poor wise man, with a despised handicraft, almost none heed him — as is natural to this world. But almost no community recognizes its great men till they are gone. The strongest influences are from their very nature of the most hidden working. They are deep out of sight." *' Where is the use then of being great ? " suggested Miss Graeme. 2 44 DONAL GRANT. "That depends on what tlie use of greatness is. Tlie desire to be known of men is destructive to all true irreatness ; nor is there any Iionor worth callin": honor but what comes from an unseen source. To be great is to seem small in the eyes of men." ]\riss Graeme made no answer. She was not much accustomed to consider things seriously. A good girl in a certain true sense, she had never seen that she had to set herself to be better, or indeed to be anything. But she was able to feel that Donal was in earnest though she was far from understanding him, and that was much. To recognize that a man means something, reveals, as things are, no despicable amount of personal developraent. "What a lovely old garden this is!" said Donal after the sequent pause. " I have never seen any- thins: like it before." "It is very old-fashioned," she answered. "Don't you find it very stiff and formal ? " " Stately and precise, I should say rather." "I do not mean I can help liking it in a way." " Who could help liking it that had not taken up notions from people, and not from the garden itself. We should always hear the thing itself — not what is said about it." " You cannot say this is like nature ! " "Yes, it is; it is like human nature. Man ought to learn of nature, but not in his work imitate nature. His work is, through the forms that Nature gives him, to express the idea or feeling that is in him. That, it seems to me, is far more likely to produce things in harmony with nature than the attempt to imitate nature upon the small human scale." AN AL'r],RCATION. 245 " You are loo much of a philosopher forme ! *' said Miss Graeme with a smile in which was no shadow of contempt. I daresay you are right but I have never read anything about art, and cannot follow you." " You have probably read as much as I have. I am only talking out of what the necessity for under- standing things has made me think. One must get things together in one's thoughts, if it be only to be able to go on thuiking." This too was beyond Miss Graeme. The silence again fell, and Donal let it lie, waiting for her to break it this time. But again he was the first. They had turned and gone a good way down the long garden^ and had again turned towards the house, which Donal was contemplating across the well- ordered wilderness. '' It makes me feel as I never felt before," he said. " There is such a sense of vanished life about the place ! I seem to be in a story-book. The whole garden seems dreaming; about thin2;s of lonsf 3.2:0 — when troops of ladies, now banished into pictures, wandered about the place, full of their own thoughts and fancies of life, as we are now — lo.jking at everything with ways of thinking as old-fashioned as their garments, but not therefore farther from nature than our ways. I could not be in this garden after nightfall without feeling as if every walk were being walked by unseen feet, as if every bush might be hiding behind it some fair shape returning to dream over old memories." " But where is the good of fancying what is not true ? I don't care a straw for what I know to be nonsense ! " 2 4^> DONAL GRANT. Miss Graeme was probably glad to find a spot wiicre she could put down the foot of contradiction. She came (;f a family known for what the neighbors called common sense, and long in the habit of casting contempt upon everything it thought fit to characterize as superstition. The educated lowlanders are as much set against everything that appeals to the imagination, chiefly because they have so little, as the highlanders are ready to attribute reality to any imagination powerful or beautiful enough to impress them. She had now, she felt, something to say for herself. '' How do yoLi know that ? " said Donal, looking round in her face with a brijjht smile. " Why imagine what you do not see ? " " Because I can only imagine what I do not see." " Nobody ever saw such creatures as }ou suppose in any garden. \A'hy fancy the dead so uncomfortable, or so ill looked after, that they must come back to plague us .-* " " Plainly they have never plagued you much ! " said Donal laughing. " But just let me ask you how often you have walked up and down these walks in the dead of night ? " " Never once," answered ]\Iiss Graeme, not with- out a spark of indignation. " I never was so absurd." " Then there may be a whole night-world that you know nothing about. You cannot tell that the place may not be thronged with ghosts, to whom you have never given a chance of appearing to you. I don't say it is so, for I know-nothing, or at least little about such things. I have had myself no experience of the sort any more than you — and I have often been out AN ALTERCATION. 247 whole nights on the mountains when I was a shepherd helping my father." " Why then should you care to trouble your fancy about them ? " '' Perhaps just for that reason." " I do not understand you." " I mean that just because I can come into no communication with such a world as may or might be about me, I therefore imagine it. I should think that if, whenever I walked abroad at night_, 1 was in the way of meeting and holding converse, sweet or other as the case might be with the disembodied, I should use my imagination little on their affairs, and chiefly take note of the facts I observed. But ' now that what seems might be, makes no show of itself, what can be more natural than that just there- upon I should occasiomilly employ my imagination ? What otherwise is the imagination there for ? " '' I am sure I do not know. I have always been in the way of thinking that the less one has to do with that faculty the better." " Then I should think the thing, whatever it be, should not be called a faculty, which means a power of doing something or other, but a weakness, or an impediment to doing." " Just so. I would grtnt that." " But, unfortunately for your idea, and happily for mine, the history of the world shows it could never have made any progress v/itliout suggestions upon wliich to ground experiments resulting in knowledge : and whence could these suggestions come but from this something or other we call imagination ? " Again there was silence. Miss Graeme began to 24S DONAL GRANT. doubt wliether there was any possibility of holding rational converse with a man who was always off into some high-flying region of which she knew nothing and for which she cared as ht'de, I^esides, he was always taking the upper Land with her, and wanting either to teach or contradict her, she thought. But nothing could have been farther from Donal's drift, not to say conscious intent. His unconscious desire was to meet her upon some common plane of thought, and instinctively he talked of whatever came up that interested him. He always wanted to ;,v<'t'/his fellow, and hence that occasional abundance of speech, winch, however poetic might be the things he said, some did not fail to call prosiness. Had he been a man of acknowledged fame, he might have said ten times as much and been heard as an oracle, yea, what was worth litde have been taken for mu^^h. Tliose only who are of the truth themselves, will take the truth from whatever mouth. But it was now JMiss Graeme's turn to resume. "I should have thought," she said, " if you wanted to set your imagination at work, you would have found that easier at the castle than here. This is a very simple and modern place compared to that." " It is a jDOor imagination," returned Donal, ''that requires either age or any other mere accessory to rouse it. The very absence of everything external, the bareness of the mere humanitv involved, mav in itself be an excitement greater than any accompani- ment of the antique or tlie picturesque. But in this old-fashioned garden, in the midst of these old- fashioned flowers, and with so many of the gentle- nesses of ancient life suirirested bv the surroundinirs, AN ALTERCATION. 249 it is easier to call back the people than where all is so cold, hard, severe — so much on the defensive as in that huge, sullen pile on the hilltop." "I am afraid you find it dull up there ! " said Miss Graeme, with a look of playful sympathy. " Not at all," returned Donal. " Even if I had not such an iiiteresting pupil, one who has been used to spend day after day alone, with cnly clouds and heather and sheep and dogs for his companions, does not depend much on the house he may be in to pro- vide him with pastime. Give me a chair and a table, enough fire to keep me from shivering, what books I have with me, and writing materials, and I am com- fortable ; whereas at the castle I have a fine library — useless to be sure for the purposes of any modern study, but full of precious old books. — Company! " continued Donal warming to his theme, " I can there at any moment be in the very best of company ! There is greater wonder in an old library than any magic can work." "I do not quite understand you," said the lady; but she would have spoken nearer the truth if she had said she had not a glimmer of what he meant. " Then let me explain," said Donal : " what could necromancy do for you at the best? " " Well ! " exclaimed Miss Graeme ; " — but I sup- pose if you believe in ghosts, you may as well believe in raising them too." " I did not mean to start any question about belief. I only wanted you to suppose necromancy for the moment a fact, and put it at its best. 1 mean — sup- pose the magician could do for you all he professed^ how much would it amount to.'* Would it not be 250 DONAL GRANT. only this — to brings before 3'our eyes a shadowy resemblance of the form of flesh and blood, itself but a passing shadow, in which the man moved on the earth, and was known to his fellow-men ? Perhaps also lie might succeed in drawing from him some ob- scure utterance concerning your future^ more likely destroy your courage than enable you to face it ; so )ou would depart from your peep into the unknown less able to meet the duties of life than before." *' If any one has a desire after such investigations, he must be very differently constituted from me ! " said Miss Graeme. " Are you sure of that ? Did you never make yourself unhappy about what might be going to come to you? Did you never wish you could know be- forehand something to guide you in ordering your way ? " "I should have to think a little before answering that question." *• Tell me, then, what does the art of writing, com- mon as that is nowadays, and its expansion, or development rather, in printing, do for a man who longs after personal communication with any great man who has lived before him ? Instead of mocking you with an airy semblance of his bodily form, and the sound of a few doubtful words from his lips, it places in your hands the means of making yourself pos- sessed of his inmost thoughts — and the best of those thoughts — the best at least that he had yet be- come able to communicate — for no man's thoughts are of much value who has not better behind that he cannot utter. You may be inclined to object that this is not personal communication, but I say it is far AN ALTERCATION. 25 I more truly personal than the other. A man's person- ality does not co:iSist in the clothes he wears, though it may appear in them ; no more does it consist in his body, but in himself who wears it." As he spoke, and he did not cease just there. Miss Graeme kept looking him gravely in the face, reveal- ing, however, more respect than interest. She had been accustomed to a very different tone in young men of her standing. In their intercourse with girls to be amusing was their main ambition ; to talk such sense as had reference to other uses than the imme- diate ones of this world was a strange, out-ofthe-way thing, little practised anywhere — certainly not in the pulpit, where the things spoken of had to do neither with this world nor with anv other that ever God made, except indeed it were by a long process of transposition and interpretation. I do not say that Miss Graeme appreciated what sense lay in Donal's talk, but she perceived that he was in earnest, and that she was happily so far able to appreciate as to respect a deep pond more than a shallow one. Her thought was — what a strange new specimen of humanity was here brought widiin her ken ; but her brother appearing put a stop to both his talk and her thinking in their respective directions. "Well," he said, as he drew near, "I am glad to see you getting on so well together." " How do you know we have been getting on well. Hector?" asked his sister, with something of tlie contradictory tone which both in jest and earnest is too common between near relations. " Because you have been talking incessantly ever since you met." DONAL GRANT. "Butweliave onlyl^ecn c ntr.icHcting each other." " I could tell that too by the sound of your voices at my dressing-room window ; but I took it for a good sign." "I fear mine was almost the only voice you heard," said Donal. *' It is a fault of mine to talk, and I fear I have learned it in a way that makes it diffi- cult to to be cured." "What Vv'ay was that ? " asked Mr. Graeme. " By having nobody to talk to. I learned it on the hillside with my sheep, and in the meadows with my cattle. At college I thought I was nearly cured of it; but now, in my comparative solitude at the castle, it has come back upon me." "You come here then," said Mr. Graeme, "when you find it getting too much for you. You will find my sister quite equal to the task of your deliverance. Similia similibus^ as the homoeopaths say." " She has shown no sign of such a power yet, I am sorry to say," remarked Donal. as Miss Graeme, in a some\Yhat hoydenish yet not ungraceful fashion, made an attempt to box the ear of her slanderous brother — a proceeding he had anticipated, and so was able to frustrate. "You wait till she knows you better," he said, " and you will find my sister Kate any man's match for volubility." " Even if I were," she answered, " I must know something about the thing in hand : Mr. Grant has been talking so as quite to bewilder me. He has been actually trying to persuade me " — " I beg your pardon, Miss Graeme, but I have been trying to persuade you of nothing." AN ALTERCATION. 253 " What ! not to believe in ghosts and neciomancy and witchcraft and the evil eye and ghouls and vam- pires, and I don't know what all of the things we used to hear from nurses and read in old annuals ! " " I give you my word, Mr. Graeme," answered Donal, laughing, " I have not been persuading your sister of any of these. I am certain she could be persuaded to nothing of which I liad not first showed her the common sense. What I did dwell upon, and that without a doubt that she would accept it, was the evident fact that writing and printing have done more to bring us into personal relations with the great ones of our race — and that by no figure of speech but in absolute fact —than necromancy could ever have done, even granting the magician all the power he claimed. The nearest, I say, that we can come to absolute contact with the being of a man is when we learn from himself the way he thinks about the things he loves best to think about, hearing him, as it were, in his own way, and without thought of our presence, pour forth his thoughts into the ear of the universe. And in such a position does the book of a great man place us. That was what I meant to convey to your sister." " And," said Mr. Graeme, "she is not such a goose as to have failed to understand you, though she has chosen to pretend stupidity." " I am sure," persisted the lady, " Mr. Grant talked so as to make me think he believed in necromancy and all that sort of thing." "That may be," said Donal, "but I did not try to persuade you to believe in it." " Oh, if you are going to hold me to the letter ! " 254 DONAL GRANT. said Miss Graeme, coloring a little. It would be im- possible to get on with such a man, she thought, who not only preached when you had not the pulpit to protect you from him, but stuck so to his text that there was no amusement to be got out of the busi- ness, lie was so loncj-winded ! She did not know that if she could have met him on his own ground, and broken the flow of his thoughts with fitting oppo- sition, his answers would have come short and sharp as the flashes of waves on rocks instead of in the slow roll of the ocean tide. "I should think," said Mr. Graeme, "if Mr. Grant believes in such things, he must find himself at home in the terrible old castle up there, every room of which might well be the haunt of some weary ghost!" " Excuse me, ]\rr. Graeme," said Donal, " but I think you are wrong in supposing that any work of man's hands, however awful because of crime done in it, he may leave behind him, could have an influ- ence on those that come afterwards to make them believe in the marvellous, in the least degree compar- able to the still presence of live thinking Nature lier- self. I never saw an old castle before — at least not to make any close acquaintance with it, but there is not a portion or an aspect of the grim old survival up there, interesting as it all is, that moves me at all as the mere thought of a hillside, vith the veil of the twilight coming down over it, slow revealing it — for some veils are for unveiling — as the last step of a stair for the descending foot of the Lord." " Surely, Mr. Grant, you do not expect such a per- sonal advent ! " said Miss Graeme. *' I should not like to say what I do or don't ex- AN ALTERCATION. 255 pect," said Donal — and held his peace, for he saw that this mode of uttering himself was a stumbling- block to his listeners. Then the silence grew so awkward that Mr. Graeme felt his good breeding require him to say something from the side of the man who he supposed felt him- self at last snubbed by his sister. "If you are fond of the marvellous, Mr. Grant,", he said, "there are a good many old stories about the castle that would interest you. In my childhood I was in the way of hearing not a few, and liked listen- ing to them so much — all the more for certain sen- sations about the roots of my hair — that it now seems to me strange how entirely they have passed from me. I can remember how I felt, but not the cause of mv so feelins:. One of them indeed was brouirht to my mind the other day in town. It is strange how superstition seems to have its ebbs and flows ! A story or legend will go to sleep for a time, and then revive with quite a fresh interest, no one knows why." " Probably," said Donal, " it is when the tale falls upon some fresh soil suited to its reception. They are now in many countries trying to get together and preserve the remnants of such tales : perhaps some wind of such inquiry may have set the old people rousing and searching their memories and the young ones inventing : that would account for a good deal, would it not .'' " " Yes, but not for all, I think. There have been no such inquiries made anywhere near us, so far as I am aware. I was at the Morven Arms last night to meet a tenant, and there the tradesmen were talking, 256 DUXAL GRANT, over their toddy, about various doings at the castle, and their frightful consequences, in one caj^e at last. I should have thought it had all been forgotten by this time. 'J'he ratio of forgetting increases." " I should like to hear it ! " said Donal. " Do tell him, Hector," said Aliss Graeme, " and I will watch his hair." *' That will vield vou no ";ratilication," returned Donal, " for it is the hair of those who mock at such things that is in danger of a breach of manners : when their imagination is excited in that direction It affects their nerves more than the belief of the others affects theirs." " Now I have you ! " cried Miss Graeme. " What you have just said shows quite plainly that you are a believer in those things." " That is too general a conclusion to come to. You might as w^ell say that because I believe the Bible I believe everything the man in the pulpit says ! In regard to every utterance we have a right, sometimes a duty of trying it whether it be of the truth or not. Some tales I should reject with a contempt that would satisfy even Miss Graeme; of others I might say — 'These seem as if they might be true' ; and of still others, ' These ought to be true, I think.' But do tell me the story." "It is not," replied Mr. Graeme, "a very peculiar one — certainly not peculiar to our castle; a similar legend belongs to several in Scotland, and, I fancy, in other countries as well. There is one not far from here round wliose dark basements — or hoary battle- ments — who shall say which ? floats a snnilar story. It is of a hidden room, whose position or entrance no- AN ALTERCATION. 257 body knows, and connected with which are various vague and broken rumors." " It is," said Donal, '' a species of report very Hkely to arise by a kind of crypto^anlic generations. The common people, seeing from without the huge proportions of the place, and themselves accustomed to the narrowest dwellings, and perhaps upon occa- sion admitted to a succession of rooms and passages, to them as intricate and confused as a rabbit-warren, in which they find it impossible to retrace even a few steps from the door, must be very ready, I should think, to imagine the existence of places within unknown even to the inhabitants themselves of the pile. — I beg your pardon. Do tell us the story of it?" "Mr. Grant," said Kate, "you perplex me. I begin to doubt if you have any principles. One moment you take one side and the next the other ! " •* No, no ; I only lovo my own side too well to let any traitors into its ranks. I would have nothing to do with lies." " Oh, it is all lies together." " Then I want to hear this one," said Donal mer- rily, and Mr. Graeme began. "Whether it belon'gs to this castle by right I can- not tell, but as I have heard it attributed to another, I daresay it is wide-spread and you have heard it before. It is this : During the earldom of a certain recklessly wicked man, who not only oppressed his poor neighbors by robbing them, and even slaying them where his wrath was kindled, but actually went so far as to break the Sabbath, and behave as wick- edly on that as on any other day of the week, a com- 258 DONAL GRANT. pany was seated late one Saturday night, playing cards, and drinking, and talking as such would talk. And all the time Sunday was drawing nearer and nearer, and nobody heeded. At length one of them, seeing the hands of the clock at a quarter to twelve, made the remark that it was time to stop. He did not mention the sacred day, but all knew what he meant. Thereupon the earl laughed, and told. him that, if he was afraid of the kirk-session, he might go, and another would take his hand. But the man sat still, and said no more till the clock gave the warning to the hour. Then he spoke again, and said it was almost the Sabbath day, and they ought not to go on playing. As he said it his mouth was pulled all on one side. But the earl struck his fist on the table, and swore a great oath that if any man rose he would run him through. " ' What care I for the Sabbath ! ' he said. ' I gave you your chance to go,' he added, turning to the man who had spoken : he was dressed in black like a min- ister — ' and vou would not take it : now you shall sit where you are.' He glared fiercely at the man, and the man returned his gaze with an equally fiery stare. And now the company first began to discover what per- haps through the fumes of the whiskey and the smoke of the pine-torches they had not observed before, that none of them knew the man ; not one of them had ever seen hlni before. And they looked at him and could not turn their eyes from him, and a cold terror began to creep through their vitals. But the stranger kept his fierce, scornful look fixed on the earl,. and spoke : ' And I have given you your chance/ he said, ' and you would not take it : now you shall sit still AN ALTERCATION. 259 where you are, and no Sabbath shall ^•ou ev^er see.' That moment the clock began to strike, and the man's mouth came straight again. But when the hammer had struck six times, it struck no more, and the clock stopped. ' This day twelvemonth,' said the man, ' you shall see me again, and once the same time every year till your time is up — and I hope you will enjoy your game ! ' The earl would have sprung to his feet, but could not, and the man was nowhere to be seen. He had vanished, taking with him both door and windows of the room — not as Samson carried off the gates of Gaza, however, for he left not the least sign of where they had been. And from that day to this no one has been -able to find the room ; and there the wicked earl and his companions to this day sit playing with the same pack of cards and waitins their doom. Some have said that on that same day of the year — only, unfortunately, testimony differs as to the day — shouts of drunken laughter may be heard issuing from somewhere in the castle, but as to whence they come — none can ever agree as to the direction even from which they come. That is the story." " And a very good one too ! " said Donal. " I wonder what the ground of it is ; small enough foun- dation is wanted for such ! It must have had its beginning as well as every true story ! " "Then you believe it ? " said Miss Graeme — "of course you do ? " "Not quite," he replied. "For one thing, a cer- tain experience I have had up there is rather against it." " What ! you have seen something ! " cried Miss 26o DONAL GRANT, Graeme, licr big eyes growing bigger, and revealing that she was quite ready to listen to a tale of wonder of her own time. " No, I have seen nothing," answered Donal, "only heard somethinir I cannot account for. — One night, the first I was there, indeed, waking up suddenlv, I heard the sound of a far off musical instrument, faint and sweet, but such as nearer might have been a pow- erful sound." The brother and sister changed looks. Donal went on. "I got up and felt my way down the winding stair — I sleep at the bottom of Baliol's tower — but at the bottom lost myself, and had to sit dowai and wait for the light. Then I heard it again, but seemed no nearer to it than before, and I have never heard it since. I have never mentioned tlie tiling before, but I presume speaking of it to you can do no harm. You at least will not raise any fresh rumors to injure the respectability of the castle. I cannot discover any instrument in the castle from which such a sound might ha\'e proceeded. Lady Arctura is no musician, I am told, and certainly was not likely to_ be at her piano in the middle of the night." " It is difficult to say how far sound may travel in the stillness of the night, when there are no other sound-waves to cross and break it." "That is all very well, Hector," said his sister, "but you know that Mr. Grant is neither the first nor the second who has heard that sound — and in the night too ! " "One thing is pretty clear," said her brother, " it can have nothing to do with the revellers at their AN ALTERCATION. 261 cards. The sounds reported are of a different kind from any tliat could come from them ! " "That," said Donal, "is why I said my experience was against the tale. But are you sure none of them had a violin with him ? He might be glad enough to take to one if he had, and the sound might have been that of a ghostly or ghastly violin." "What horrible words you use, Mr. Grant!" said Miss Graeme, with a shudder sufficient to reveal to Donal that it was from no lack of imagination that* she insisted on a commonplace view of things myste- rious. " The sound," pursued Donal, " though like that of a stringed instrument, was so different from anything I had ever heard before, except perhaps certain equally inexplicable sounds occasionally heard among the hills, that a word of eerie terror seems fittest to use with it." Thus they went on talking for a while, as up and down the sunny garden they walked, the sun hot above their heads, and the grass cool under their feet. "It is enough," said Miss Graeme, wdth a laugh a little forced, " to make one glad that the castle does not go with the title." "Why so?" asked Donal. "Because," she answered, "though we are but distantly related to the family, were anything to hap- pen to the boys up there. Hector would come in to the title." " Then you would only have the music to the bar- gain," said Donal. " I cannot say I am of my sister's mind," said Mr. 262 DONAL GRANT. Graeme. " A title with nothing to keep it up I should count a simple misfortune. I certainly should not take out the patent, or what do you call it ? No wise man would ever lay claim to a title except he had the means to make it respected." " Have we come to that," exclaimed Donal, " that even the old titles of the country must be buttressed into respectability by the money alongside of them .? We away in quiet places reading old history books are accustomed to think differently. What better are they then than that of Earl of Arundel would be if a millionaire money-lender were to buy the old keep ? " *' I believe that is the dangerous condition of that title," said Mr. Graeme, perhaps willing to give the subject the slip — only Donal would not let him. " If I were inheritor of a title," he persisted, " I would, were I as poor as Lazarus, take it and use it, if only to give a lesson to Dives up-stairs. I scorn to think that honor should wait on the heels of wealth. You may think it is because I am, have been, and always shall be a poor man, but if I know myself it is not so. At the same time it is but a trifle, and if you had said you would not use it for any other reason than in hom- age to mammom, I should have had nothing to say." " For my part," said Miss Graeme, " I have no quarrel with riches except that they do not come my way. I should know how to make good use of them ! " Donal made no other reply than lay in turning a look of divinely stupid surprise and pity upon the face of the young woman. He knew it was of no use to say anything. Argument was so little to the point that, were it absolutely triumphant, mammon would AN ALTERCATION. 263 sit just where he was before. In reading the New Testament — reading it, that is, as if the Master act- ually meant something, and that' the best thing, equally when he spoke and when he was silent, he had marked the great indifference of the Lord as to the convincing of the understanding : when they knew the thing itself, then they would understand its rela- tions and its reasons — certainlv not before. If truth belonged to the human soul, then that soul was able to see it and know it : if it did the truth, it took therein the first possible, and almost the last neces- sary, step towards understanding it. Miss Graeme caught his look, and must have up derstood its expression if not the cause of it, for her face became of a more than rosy red, ar^d the conver- sation grew crumbly. It was a half-holidav, and Lonal staved to tea with them, and after it went over the farm-buildings with Mr. Graeme, revealing such a practical knowledge of all that was going on there, that his entertainer soon saw he must treat him as one whose opinion was worth something whether his fancies were or not. And so began an acquaintance which, in the absence of others which might have been more attractive on either side, ripened into an intimacy, and thence into a friendship, which was a great comfort to Donal ; for, however capable of living alone, he was as ready as any man to flourish afresh in genial human atmospheres. He that loveth not his brother whom he Iiath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen ? CHAPTER XII. THE TRUE PATH. THE days went on and on, and still Donal saw next to nothing of the earl. Thrice he had met him on his way to or from the walled garden in which he was wont to take what little exercise he ever did take ; on one of those occasions his lordship had spoken to him very courteously, on another had scarcely noticed him, and on the third passed him without the smallest recognition. Donal, who with equal mind took everything as it came, troubled him- self not at all about the matter. He was doing his work as well as he knew how, and that was enough : why should he desire the recognition of what was an essential to his own being.' He saw scarcely anything now of Lord Forgue, whose ardor after mathematics and Greek, such as it had been, was so much abated that he no longer sought the superior scholarship of Donal. He could not help fancying also that the young fellow avoided him. Of Lady Arctura he saw as little as ever, and of Miss Carmichael happily nothing at all. But it pained him to see Lady Arctura, as often as he chanced to pass her about the place, looking so far from peaceful. What was the cause of it ? Most well-meaning young women are in general tolerably happy — partly perhaps because they are content 264 THE TRUE PATH. 265 with small attainments, and do not trouble themselves much about what alone is worth their thought — and perhaps the first impulse of such is to despise sadness as something unworthy. But if condemned to such a limited circle as poor Arctura, and at the same time consumed with strenuous and genuine attempts to order, not their ways, but their thoughts and feelings according to supposed requirements of the gospel, such would be at once more sad and more worthy themselves. It is the narrow ways trodden of men that are miserable. Those it is that have hiirh walls on each side, with but an occasional glimpse of the sky above : in such a path was Arctura trying to walk. But the true narrow is not unlovely ! It may be full of toil, but cannot be full of misery. In the world itself are many more lovely footpaths than high roads. The true path has not walls, but fields and forests and gardens around it, and limitless sky over- head. It has its sorrows, but they lie on its sides, and many leave the path to pick them up, alas ! Lady Arctura was devouring l.er own soul in silence, \Yith none but such wretched help as the self-sufficient Miss Carmichael, who had never encountered a real difficulty in her life, was able to give her. She dealt with her honestly according to her ability, doing right, but all wrong in what she thought right, and no amount of doing wrong right can put the soul in the place in which the doing of the real truth alone can set it — though it may, I grant, be the way towards it. The autumn passed, and the winter was at hand — a terrible time to the old and ailing even in lands near the sun — to the young and healthy a merry 266 DONAL GRANT. time even in the snows and bitter frosts of the east coast of Scotland. Davie was looking forward to the skating, and in particular to the pleasure he was going to have in teaching Mr. Grant, who had never done any sliding beyond that of a poor boy on the soles of his nailed shoes,- but who, when the time came, acquired it the more rapidly that he never cared what blunders he made in trying to learn a tljing. The dread of blundering is a great bar to the success of the self-anxious. He continued to visit the Comins often, and found continued comfort and help in their friendship, while the letters he received from home, especially those from his friend Sir Gibbie, who not unffequently wrote for Donal's father and mother, were a great nourishment to him. As the cold and the night-time grew, the water-level rose in Donal's well, and the poetry began to flow. When we have no summer without, we must supply it from within. Those must have comfort in themselves who are sent to comfort others. Up in his aerie, like an eagle above the low affairs of the earthy he led a keener life, breathed the breath of a more genuine existence than the rest of the house. No doubt the old cobbler, seated at his last over a mouldy shoe, breathed a yet higher air than Donal weaving his verse, or reading grand old Greek in his tower ; but Donal was on the same path — the only path that has an infinite end — -that of his divine destiny. He had often thought of trying the old man with some of the best poetry he knew^, desirous of knowing what receptivity he might have for it ; but alwa3s when with him he had hitherto forgot his proposed inquiry THE TRUE PATH. 267 and only thought of it again after he had left him ; apparently, the original flow of the cobbler's life put the thought of probing it out of his mind, for genuine life is above experiment. One afternoon, when the last of the leaves had fallen, and the country was as bare as the heart of an old man who has lived to himself, Donal, seated before a great fire of coal and boat-logs, fell a think- ing, of the old garden, now vanished v/iththe summer, and living only in the memory of his delight. It grew and grew in him, and brought forth its own thoughts in the mind of the poet. He turned to his table, and began to write what, after many emenda- tions upon following nights resulted in this : — THE OLD GARDEN. I. I stood in an ancient garden With high red walls around; Over them gray and green lichens In shadowy arabescjue wound. The topmost climbing blossoms On fields kine-haunted looked out ; But within were shelter and shadow, And daintiest odors about ; There were alleys and lurking arbors — Deep glooms into which to dive ; The lawns were as soft as tleeces — Of daisies I counted but five. The sun-dial was so aged It had gathered a thoughtful grace ; 26S DONAL GRANT. And the round-about of the shadow Seemed to have furrowed its face. The flowers were all of the oldest That ever in i^arden sprung; Red, and blood-red, and dark purple, The rose lamps flaming hung. Along the borders fringed With broad, thick edges of box, Stood foxgloves aiid gorgeous poppies, And great-eyed hollyhocks. There were junipers trimmed into castles, And ash-trces bowed into tents ; For the garden, though ancient and pensive, Still wore quaint ornaments. It was all so stately fantastic, Its old wind hardly would stir ; Young Spring, when she merrily entered, Must feel it no place for her. II. I stood in the summer morning Under a cavernous yew ; The sun was gently climbing, And the scents rose after the dew. I saw the wise old mansion. Like a cow in the noonday-heat, Stand in a lake of shadows That rippled about its feet. Its windows were oriel and latticed, Lowly and wide and fair ; And its chimneys like clustered pillars Stood in the thin blue air. THE TRUE PATH. 269 White doves, like the thoughts of a lady, Haunted it in and out ; With a train of green and blue comets, The peacock went marching about. The birds in the trees were singing A song as old as the world, Of love and green leaves and sunshine. And winter folded and furled. They sang that never was sadness But it melted and passed away ; They sang that never was darkness But in came the conquering day. And I knew that a maiden somewhere, In a sober sunlit gloom, In a nimbus of shining garments, An aureole of white-browed bloom, Looked out on the garden dreamy, And knew not that it was old ; Looked past the gray and the sombre, And saw but the green and the gold. IIL I stood in the gathering twilight. In a gently blowing wind ; And the house looked half uneasy, Like one that was left behind. The roses had lost their redness. And cold the grass had grown ; At roost were the pigeons and peacock, And the dial was dead gray stone. The world by the gathering twilight In a gauzy dusk was clad ; 270 DONAL GRANT. It went in through my eyes to my spirit, And made me a little sad. Grew and gathered the twilight, And filled my heart and brain; The sadness grew more than sadness, And turned to a gentle pain. Browned and brooded the twilight, And sank down through the calm, Till it seemed for some human sorrows There could not be any balm. IV. Then I knew that up a staircase, Which untrod will yet creak and shake, Deep in a distant chamber, A ghost was coming awake. In the growing darkness growing Growing till her eyes appear, Like spots of deeper twilight. But more transparent clear — Thin as hot air up-trembling. Thin as sun-molten crape, The deepening shadow of something Taketh a certain shape ; A shape whose hands are unlifted To throw' back her blinding hair; A shape whose bosom is heaving, But draws not in the air. And I know by what time the moonlight On her nest of shadows will sit, Out on the dim lawn gliding That shadow of shadows will flit. THE TRUE PATH. 27 I V. The moon is dreaming upward From a sea of cloud and gleam ; She looks as if she had seen us Never but in a dream. Down that stair I know she is coming, Bare-footed, lifting her train ; It creaks not — she hears it creaking, For the sound is in her brain. Out at the side-door she's coming, With a timid glance right and left ; Her look is hopeless 5fet eager, The look of a heart bereft. Across the lawn she is flitting Her eddying robe in the wind, Are her fair feet bending the grasses ? Her hair is half lifted behind ! VI. Shall I stay to look on her nearer ? Would she start and vanish away? Oh, no ! she will never see me, If I stand as near as I may. It is not this wind she is feeling, Not this cool grass below ; 'Tis the wind and the grass of an evening A hundred years ago. She sees no roses darkling, No stately hollyhocks dim ; She is only thinking and dreaming Of the garden, the night, and him ; 272 DONAL GRANT. Of the unlit wiiuhnvs behind her, Of tlie timeless dial-stone, Of the trees, and the moon, and the shadows, A hundred years agone. 'Tis a night for all ghostly lovers To haunt the best-loved spot : Is he come in his dreams to this garden? I gaze, but I see him not. VII. I will not look on her nearer — My heart would be torn in twain ; From mine eyes the garden would vanUh In the falling of their rain. I will not look on a sorrow That darkens into despair ; On the surge of a heart that cannot — Yet cannot cease to bear. My soul to hers would be calling — She would hear no word it said ; If I cried aloud in the stillness She would never turn her head. She is dreaming the sky above her, She is dreaming the earth below; This night she lost her lover A hundred years ago. It was mostly on half-holidays, when he had a good stretch of time before him that he made his verses; he did not indulge oftener. If thought do not greatly exceed utterance, no expression of it would be of much value. The twilight had fallen while he was writing, and the wind had risen. It was now blowing THE TRUE PATH. 273 a gale. When he could no longer see, he rose to light his lamp, and looked out of the window. All was dusk around him, above and below nothing to be distinguished from the mass, in which something and nothing seemed to share an equal uncertainty. He heard the wind, but could not see the clouds sweep- ing before it, for all w^as cloud overhead, and no change of light or feature showed the shifting of the measureless bulk. A gray stormy space was the whole idea of the creation. He seemed to gaze into a void, — say rather a condition of things inappreci- able by his senses, A strange feeling came over him as if he were looking out of a window in the walls of the visible world into the region unknown, to man shapeless quite, therefore terrible, w^herein wander the things all that have not yet found or form or sen- sible embodiment wherewithal to manifest themselves to eyes or ears or hands of mortals. In such a region imagination might indeed have scope, if imagination could live therein at all. As he gazed, the huge shapeless hulks of the ships of chaos, dimly awful suggestions of animals uncreate, yet vaguer motions of what was not, seemed to come heaving up, to vanish even from the fancy as they approached the window. Earth was far below, invisible, only through the dark came the moaning of the sea, wliich the wind drove in still enlarging waves upon the flat shore, a level of doubtful grass and sand, three miles away. It seemed to his ear as if the meaning of the sea was the voice of the darkness lamenting, like a repentant Satan or Judas, that it was not the light, and could not hold the light and become as the light, but must that moment cease when the light 274 DONAL GRANT, began to enter it. Darkness and moaning seemed to be all that the earth contained. Would the souls of the mariners shipwrecked this night go forth into the ceaseless turmoil ? or would they^ leaving behind them the sense for storms, as for all things soft and sweet as well, enter only a vast silence, where was nothing to be aware of but each solitary self ? Many thoughts, many theories passed through Donal's mind as he sought to land the conceivable from the wandering bosom of the limitless, and he was just arriving at the conclusion that, as all things seen must be after the fashion of the unseen whence they come, as the very genius of embodiment is likeness, therefore the soul of man must of course have natural relations with matter ; but, on the other hand, as the spirit must be the home and origin of all this moulding, assimilating, modeling power, and the spirit only that is in harmo- nious oneness with its origin can fully exercise this deputed creative power, then it must be only in pro- portion to the eternal life in them that spirits are able to draw to themselves matter and clothe themselves in it, so entering into full relation with the world of storms and sunsets — he was, I say, just arriving at this hazarded conclusion, when he started out of his reverie, and was suddenlv all ear to listen. A^ain ! Yes ! it was tlie same sound which had sent him that first night wandering through the house in fruitless quest. It came in two or three fitful chords that melted into each other like the colors in the lining of a shell, then ceased. He went to the door, opened it and listened. A cold wind came rushing up the stair. He heard nothing. He stepped out on the stair, shut his door, THE TRUE PATH. 275 and listened. It canie a:;Tiin — a strange unearthly sound. If ever disembodied sound went wandering in the wind, just such a sound must it be ! Donal, knowins: nothins: of music save in the forms ot tone and vowel change and rythm and rime, felt as if he could have listened forever to the wild wandering sweetness of lamentation. But almost immediately they ceased — then once more came ai^ain, but appar- ently from far off, dying away on the distant waves of the billowy air, out of whose wandering bosom it seemed to issue. It was as the wailing of a summer wind, caught and swept along in a tempest from the frozen north. The moment he ceased to expect it any more, he began to think whether it must not have come from the house after all. He stole down the st^ir. What he would do he did not know. He could not go fol- lowing an airy nothing all over -the house, of a great part of which he as yet knew nothing. His con- structive mind would have gladly gained a complete idea of the castle, outside and in — it was almost a passion with him to fit the outsides and insides of things together in his understanding; but tliere were whole suits of rooms into which, except the earl and Lady Arctura were to leave home for a while, he could not hope to enter. It was little more than mechanically that he went vaguely seeking the sound : ere he was half-way down the stair he recognized the hopelessness of the attempt, but kept on to the schoolroom, where his tea was waiting him. But after that soon came another phenomenon, involving more wonder, and doubt even painful. It pointed in the same direction as the former, though 276 DONAL CRAXT. what that direction was, it was impossible for Donal even to i;uess. He liad returned to liis room, and was sitting again at work, now reading and meditat- ing. How long he had thus sat he could not have told, for when the mind is busy, it takes little note of the phantasm Time, wlien, in one of the lulls of the storm, he became aware of another sound — one most unusual to his ears, for he never required any atten- tion in his room, that of the steps of some one com- ing up the stair — heavy steps, not such as of one accustomed to run up and down on ordinary service. He waited listening. The steps came nearer and nearer, and stopped at his door. A hand fumbled about it and found the latch, lifted it and entered. To Donal's surprise, and something to his dismay, it was the earl. The dismay was from his appearance. He was deadly pale, and his eyes more like those of a corpse than of a man moving about among his living fellows. Donal started to his feet. The earl turned his head towards him ; but in his look there was no atom of recognition, not as much as amounted to an acknowledgment of his presence ; the sound of his rising merely had its half-mechanical effect upon his brain. He turned away immediately, went to the window, and there stood much as Donal had stood a little while before, looking out, but with the attitude of one listening rather than one trying to see. There was indeed nothing now but the blackness to be seen — nor anything to be heard but the roaring of the wind, with the roaring of the great billows rol'ied along in it. As he stood the time to Donal seemed long : it was but about five minutes. Was the man out of his mind, or only a sleep-walker .'* How could THE TRUE PATH. 277 he be asleep so early in he night ? But as he stood doubting and wondering, once more came a musical cry out of the darkness. Immediately came from the earl what seemed a response — a soft, low murmur, by degrees becoming audible, in the tone of a man meditating aloud, but in a restrained ecstasy. From his words he seemed to be still hearing the sounds serial, though they came no more to the ears of Donal. " Yet once again, ere I forsake the flesh, are my ears blest with that voice ! It is the song of the eternal woman ! For me she sings ! Sing on, siren; my soul is a listening universe, and therein nought but thy voice ! " He paused, and after a time began afresh : — '• It is the wind in the tree of life ! Its leaves rustle in words of love. Under its shadow 1 shall one day lie, with her I loved — and killed ! Ere that day comes, she will have forgiven and forgotten, and all will be well. " Hark the notes ! Clear as a flute ! Full and downy as a violin ! They are colors ! They are flowers ! They are alive ! I can see them as they grow, as they blow ! Those are primroses ! Those are pimpernels ! Those high, intense burning ones — so soft, yet so certain — what are they! Jasmine .'' No, that flower is not a note ! It is a chord, and what a chord ! I mean what a flower ! I never saw that flower before — never on this earth ! It must be a flower of the paradise whence comes the music ! It is ! It is ! Do I not remember that night when I sailed in the great ship across the ocean of the stars, and scented the airs of heaven, and saw the pearly 2/8 DONAL GRANT gates gleaming across myriads of miles — saw, plain as I sec them now, the flowers in the fields within ! Ah, me ! The dragon that guards the golden aj^ples ! See his crest — his crest and his emerald eyes ! He comes floating up through the murky Lake ! It is Gcryon — come to bear me to the gyre below ! " With that he turned, and with a somewhat quick- ened step left the room, hastily shutting the door be- hind him, as if to keep back the creature of his \ ision. Strong-hearted and strong-brained, Donal had yet stood absorbed as if he too were out of the body, and knew nothing more of this earth and its presences. There is something more terrible in a presence that is not a presence than in a vision of the bodiless. A present gjiost is not so terrible as an absent one, as a present, but deserted body. He stood a moment helpless, then pulled himself together and tried to think. What should he do ? AMiat could lie do } What was required of him ? Was anything required of him t Had he any right to do anything ? Could anything be done that would not both be and cause a wrong t His first impulse w^as to follow : a man in such a condition, whatever was the condition, was surely not one to be left to go whither he would among the heights and depths of the castle, where he might break his neck any moment. Interference no doubt was dangerous, but he would follow him at least a little way ! He heard the steps going down the stair before him, and made haste after him. But ere the earl could have reached the bottom of the stair, the sound of his descending steps ceased ; and Donal knew he must have left it by one of the doors opening on other floors. CHAPTER XIIL IN COUNCIL. HE would gladly have told his friend the cobbler all about the strange occurrence; but he did not feel sure it would be right to carry from it a report of the house where he lield a position of trust : and what made him doubtful was that first he doubted whether the cobbler would consider it right. But he went to see him a day before his usual time, in the desire to be near the only man to whom it was jDossi- ble that he might perhaps tell it. The moment he entered the room where the cobbler sat at work beside his wife, he saw that something was the matter. But they welcomed him with their usual cordiality, nor was much time allowed to pass before Mrs. Com in made him acquainted with the cause of their' anxiety. ''We're jist a wee triblet, sir,'' she said, '^ aboot Eppie." " I'm very sorry," said Donal with a pang : he had thought things were going right with her. He begged to know what was the matter. " It's no sae easy to say," returned her grand- mother. " It may be only a fancy o' the auld fowk, but it seems to baith o' 's she has a w'y wi' her 'at disna come o' the richt. She'll be that meek as sien she thocht naething at a' o' hersel, and the next minute 279 :So DONAL GRANT. she'll be angert at a word. Shecanna bide a syllable said anent hersel' 'ats no correc' to the vena hair. It's as gien she drcedit waur ahint it, an' wad iiiairch to the defence. I'm no makin' mymeanin' that clear, I doobt, but ye'll ken it for a' that ! " "I think I do," said Donal. "I see nothing of her." " I wadna won'er at that, sir. She may weel hand oot o' your gait, feelin' rebuikit afore ye, wha ken a' aboot her gaein's on wi' my lord ! " " I don't know how I should see her, though," returned Donal. " Didna she sweep oot the schoolroom first whan ye gaed, sir ? " "When I think of it — yes." *' Does she still that same .'' " "■ I do not know. Understanding now at what hour in the morning the room will be ready for me, I do not go to it sooner." "It's but the luik, and the general cairriage o' the lassie ! " said the old woman. " Gien we had ony- thing to tak a baud o', we wad maybe think the less. True, she was aye some — what ye micht ca' a bit cheengeable in her w'ys ; but she used aye, whan she had the chance, to be unco' willin' to gie her mither there or mysel' a spark o' glaidness like. It plensed her to be pleasin' i' the eyes o' the auld fowk, though they war but her ain. But noo we maunna say a word til her. We hae nae business to luik til her for naething ! No 'at she's aye like that; but it comes sae aft 'at at last we hardly daur cpen our moo's for the fear o' hoo she'll tak it. Only a' the time it's mair as gien she was flingin' awa' something o' her IN COUNCIL. 281 ain something 'at she didna like an' wad fain be rid o'; than at she cared sae varra muckle for onything we said no til her mitr. She tuik a hand o' the words, nae doobt ; l)ut I canna help ihinkin' 'at maist whatever we had said, it wad hae been a' the same. Something to complain o' 's never far awa' whan ye're ill-pleased a'ready." "It's no the duin' o' the richt, ye see," said the cobbler. " I mean, that's no itsel' the en', but the richt humor o' the sowl towards a' things thocht or felt or dune. That's richteousness, an' oot o' that comes, o' the varra necessity o' natur', a' richt deeds o' whatever kin'. Whaur they comena furth, it's whaur the sowl, the thocht o' the man's no richt. Oor puir lassie shaws a' mainner o' sma' infirmities jist 'cause the humor o' her sowl's no hermonious \vi' the trow'th, no hermonious in itsel', no at ane wi' llie true thing — wi' the true man — wi' the true God. It may even be said it's a sma' thing' at a man should do wrang, sae lang as he's capable o' doin' wrang, and luves na the richt wi' hert and sowl." " But surely, Anerew," interposed his wife, holding up her hands in a mild deprecating horror, " ye wadna lat the lassie du wrang gien ye could hand her richt?" ■ " No, I w^adna," replied her husband, " supposin' her haudin' richt cam o' ony degree o' perception o* the richt on her pairt. But supposin' it was only 'at I had the pooer to baud her frae ill by ootward con- straint 0' ony kin' whatever, leavin' her ready upo' the first opportunity to turn aside ; whereas, gien she had dune wrang, she wad repent o't, an' see what a foul thing it was to gang again' the holy wuU o' him 282 DONAL GRANT. 'at made an' dee VI for her — I lea ye to jeege for yer- sel' what any man 'at luved God 'an luved the lass an' luved the richt wad chuise. We maun hand baith een open upo' the trowth an' no blink sidewise upo' the warld an' its richteousness \vi' ane o' them. Wha wadna be Zacchaeus wi' the Lord in his hoose, an' the richteousness o' God himsel' growin' in 's hert, raither nor the prood pharisee wha had done nae ill he wad acknowledge — maybe kent nane he was duin' at the time, an' thoucht it a shame to speak to sic a man ! " The grandmother held her peace, thinking prob- ably that so long as there was a chance of keeping respectable, she preferred regarding that possibility rather than the gain that might come through the loss of the world's opinion. " Is there onything ye think I could do .'' " said Donal, "I confess I'm some feart at meddlin"; there's sae mony a chance o' duin' mair ill nor guid." '• I wadna hae you appear, sir," said Andrew, " in onything concernin' her. Ye'er a yoong man yersel' and fowk's herts as weel as fowk's tongues are no to be lippent til. I hae seen fowk, 'cause they couldna believe in a body duin' a thing jist frae a sma' modi- cum o' guid wull, set themsel's to invent what they ca'd a motive to acoont for't — something, that is, that wad hae prevailt upo' themsel's to gar them du't. Sic fowk canna un'erstan' a body duin' onything jist 'cause it wms worth duin' in itsel'."* "But maybe," said the old woman, returning to the practical, " as ye hae been pleased to say ye're on freen'ly terms wi' mistress Brooks, \c could jist see gin she's observed ony resumption o' the auld affair '* IN COUNCIL. 283 Donal promised, and as soon as he reached the castle, sought an interview with the housekeeper. She told him she had been particularly plejised of late with Eppie's attention to her work, and readiness to make herself useful. If she did look sometimes a little out of heart, they must remember, she said, that they had been young themselves once, and that it was not easy to forget though one might give up. But she would keep her eyes open. CHAPTER XIV. TEACHER TURNED PUPIL. THE winter came at last in good earnest ; first black frost, then white snow, then sleet and wind and rain ; then it went back to snow again, which fell steady and calm, and lay thick. Next came hard frosts and brought Davie plenty of skat- ing, and the delight of teaching his master. Donal had many falls, but was soon, partly in virtue of those same falls, a very decent skater. Davie claimed all the merit of the successful training ; and when his master did anything particularly well, would immedi- ately remark with pride, that it was he who had taught him to skate. But the best thing was that Davie noted the immediate faith with which Donal did or tried to do what Davie told him ; for this re- acted in opening Davie's mind to the beauty and dignity of obedience, and went a long v^ay towards revealing to him the essentially low moral condition of the man who seeks freedom in refusing to act at the will of another. He who continues to do so will come by degrees to have no will of his own, and act only from impulse — which may be the will of a devil. So Davie and Donal grew together into one heart of friendship. Donal never longed for his hours with Davie to pass, and Davie was never so happy as when with Donal, whose was the delight of 284 TEACHER TURNED PUPIL. 285 leading a young soul gently into the paths of liberty. Nothing but the teaching of him who made the hu- man soul can make that soul free, but it is in great measure through those who have already learned that he teaches ; and Davie was an apt pupil, promising to need not much of the discipline of failure and pain, because he was strong to believe, and ready to obey. But Donal was not all the day with Davie, and lat- terly had begun to feel a little anxious about the time the boy spent away from him — partly with his brother^ partly with the people about the stable, and partly wdth his father. Of his father he evidently saw more than did Forsrue, but the amount of loneli- ness the earl could endure seemed to Donal, from what he had heard, amazing. Evidently, however, he found the presence of his younger son less irksome to him than that of any other. Concerning his time with his father, Donal after what he had seen and heard, felt more than concerning the rest of it, but felt it a very delicate thing to ask him any questions on the subject. At length, however, Davie himself had begun to open up on the matter. '' Mr. Grant,'' said he one day, " I wish you could hear the grand fairy stories my papa tells ! " " I wish I might," answered Donal. " I will ask him to let you come and hear. I have told him that you make fairy tales, too ; only he has another way of doing it quite ; and I must confess," added Davie a little pompously, " that I do not follow him so easily as you. And then, I sometimes think, there is nothing in what you call the cupboard behind the curtain of the story. I sometimes think it has no 286 IJONAL GRANT, cupboard or curlain at all. I will ask him to-day to let you come." "No, 1 think that would hardly do," said Donal, "your father likes to tell his boy fairy tales, but he might not care to tell them to a man. You must re- member to(j that, though I have been in the house wlvdt jou think a long time, your father has seen very little of me, and might feel me in the way ; invalids do not generally enjoy the company of strangers : you had better not ask him." " But I have often told him how good you are, Mr. Grant, and how you can't bear anything that is not right, and I am sure he must like you — I don't mean so well as I do, because you haven't to teach him anything, and nobody can love anybody so well as if he teaches him to be good." " There is truth in that," answered Donal, " but still I think you had better leave it alone, lest he should not like your asking him. I should not like you to be disappointed." " I could bear that, sir. I have learned not to mind so much as I used. And if you do not say positively that I am not to do it, I think I uill ven- ture." Donal said no more. He did not feel at lib- erty, from his own feeling merely, to stop the boy's action. The thing was not wrong, and something might be intended to come out of it ! He shrank from the least ruling of events, believing man's only call to action is that of the Right, demanding of him embodiment. So he left Davie to do as he pleased. But he went so much farther as to try to get from him some hint as to the sort of the fairy tales his father told him. TKACIIER TURNED PUPIL. 287 "It's not always he tells me one, sir ; I think it has something to do with the time of the day when I see him." " What time does he generally tell them ? " asked Donal. "Generally when I go to him after tea." " Do you go any time you like ? " " Ves ; but he does not always let me stay. Some- times he talks about mamma, I think, but so strangely that I cannot be sure whether it is not a part of the fairy tale. Sometimes," continued Davie, to make his statement correct, " he has told me one in the middle of the day. I wonder whether he would if I were to wake him up in the night. That of course I must not do, because papa is not at all strong, and has terrible headaches, Simmons says — and some- times the stories are so terrible that I beg him to stop." " And does he stop ? " " Well — no — I don't think he ever does. When a story is once begun, I suppose it ought to be fin- ished ! " Donal did not reply, but could not help think- ing there were stories it was better to cut short the telling of as soon as begun. So the matter rested for the time, and nothin": more was heard of it. But about a week after, Donal one morning received through the butler an invitation to dine with the earl. He concluded that this was due to Davie, and expected to find him with his father. He put on his best clothes, and followed the butler up the grand staircase. All the great rooms of the castle were on the first floor, but he 2 88 DONAL GRANT. passed the entrance to them, following his guide up and up, winding and winding, to the second floor, where the earl had his own apartment. Here he was shown into a comparativ-ely small room, richly fur- nished after a sombrely ornate fashion, but the drapery and coverings much faded, and worn even to considerable shabbiness. It had been for a century or so in use as the private sitting-room of the lady of the castle, and was now used, perhaps in memory of his w^ife, by the master of the house. Here he received his sons, and now Donal. The room in which Donal first saw him was a story and a half lower : there he received those who came to him on such business as he w^as compelled to pay or seem to pay attention to. But if there was one thing more than another that the earl hated it was anything bear- ing the appearance even of business, and less busi- ness could no man even be said to do. There was no one in the room when ,Donal entered, but in about ten minutes a door opened at the further end of the room, and Lord Morven entered from his bedroom. Donal rose. The earl shook hands with him with some faint show of kindness. Almost the same moment the butler entered from a third door, and said dinner waited. The earl turned and led the way, and Donal followed. The room they entered was again a rather small one, more like a breakfast than dinner room. The meal was laid on a little round table for two. Simmons alone was in waiting. While they ate and drank, which his lordship did sparingly, not a word was spoken. Donal would have found it embarrassing had he not been prepared for any amount, almost any kind of the peculiar. Beyond TEACHER TURNED PUPIL. 289 the silence there was nothing else that was strange, except that his lordship took no notice whatever of his guest, leaving all the attention to the care of the butler. He looked very white nnd worn — Donal thought a good deal worse than wlien he snw him first. His cheeks were more sunken, hi^: hair more gray, and his eyes more weary, with a consuming fire in them, that had no longer much fue! — was burning only the remnants. He stooped over his plate as if to hide the operation of eating, and_drank his wine with a trembling hand. Every motion seemed to Donal to indicate an apparent indifference to both food and drink : it w^as easy from the way in which his lordship sat for Donal to make such observation. At length the more solid part of the meal was removed, and he was left alone with the strange man, fruit upon the table, and two wine-decanters, from one of which the earl helped himself, and passed it to Donal, saying as he did so, "You are very good to my little Davie, Mr. Grant.' He is full of your kindness to him. There is*nobody like you ! " "A little goes a long way with Davie, my lord.'' '^ Then much must go a longer way," said the earl. There was nothing remarkable in the words, yet he spoke them apparently w^iih something of the same kind of difficulty with winch a man accustomed both to speak, and to weigh the words he uses, might upon occasion find in clothing a new thought to his satis- faction. The effort seemed to have tried him, and he took a sip of wine, as indeed Donal soon found he did for a time after every briefest sentence he uttered ; it was but a sip — nothing like a mouthful. 290 DONAL GRANT. Donal murmured something to the effect that the highest duty must be the pleasantest action ; and that Davie, of all the boys he had had to teacli, was l)y far the easiest to get on, and that because his moral na- ture was the most teachable. "You greatly gratify me, Mr. Grant," said the earl. " I have long wished to find such a man as I see you are, for my poor boy. I wish I had found you when Forgue was preparing for college — but you could not then have been prepared for such a charge." " True, my lord ; I was at that time at college myself in the winter, and the rest of the year helping my father with his sheep, or working on his master's farm." ^' Yes, yes, I remember ! you told me something of your history before. You Scotch peasants are a won- derful people 1 " " I am not aware of anything wonderful in us, my lord. But you may rest assured as to Davie, that what I think good I will do for him as long as your lord- ship gives me the privilege of being with him." " I wish that might be the measure of his privi- lege," said his lordship. " But you cannot be a tutor always. You must be soon entering on some more important sphere of labor ! Doubtless you are in training for the church ? " " My lord, I have no such goal in my eye." " What !" cried his lordship almost eagerly ; "you cannot intend to give up your life to teaching — though it may be a right noble calling ! — You would then, of course be a schoolmaster .? I have one such position almost in my gift." " My lord," returned Donal, " I never trouble TEACHER TURNED PUPIL. 29 1 about my future. I have got on very well as yet with- out doing so, and I have no .intention of lading the mule of the Present with the camel-load of the Future. I will take what comes — what is sent me, that is. I have much to be thankful for that my work occupies me with books and thoughts instead of figures and facts. I have no work to do that I do not like." "You are right, ^Ir. Grant, and if I were in your position, I should endeavor to think just as you do. But, alas, I have never had any freedom of choice ! " " Perhaps only your lordship has not chosen to choose," Donal was on the point of saying, but be- thousfht himself in time not to hazard the remark. " If I were a rich man, Mr. Grant," the earl con- tinued, "which it may sound strange to you to hear me say I am not, but which is nevertheless true, for as every one about here knows, not an acre of the property belongs to me, or goes with the title. Da- vie, dear boy, will have nothing but a thousand or two. Lord Forgue, will, however, be well provided for by the marriage I have in view for him." " I hope there will be some love in it," said DonrJ uneasily. "I had no intention," returned his lordship, with cold politeness, "of troubling you concerning Lord Forgue. You are of course interested only in your pupil Davie." "I beg your pardon, my lord," said Donal; and his lordship immediately resumed his former conde scendingly friendly, half sleepy tone of conversation. " Yes, Davie, poor boy — he is my anxiety ! What to do with him, I have not yet succeeded in deter- mining. If the Church of Scotland were Episcopal 292 DOXAL GRANT. now, we mi'j^lit put liim into lliat : he would be an honor to it ! Ikit ahas ! where there are positively no dif:^niiies, it would not be fair to one of his birth and social position to tie liini down to a few shabby hun- dreds a year and the associations he w^ould necessa- rily be thrown into — however honorable the thins: in itself ! " he added, with a bow to Donal, appar- ently unable to i2:et it out of his head that he was a clergyman in prospect at least and purpose. "Davie is not quite a man yet/' said Donal; "and bv the time he beq;ins to think of a profession, he wi]], I trust, be a good deal fitter to make a choice tlian he is now : the boy has a great deal of common sense. If your lordship will pardon me, I cannot heljD thinking there is no need for your lordship to trouble yourself about him — at least not before some liking or preference begins to show itself." " Ah, it is very Avell for one in your position to speak in that way, Mr. Grant. Men like you are free to choose ; you may make your bread as you please. But men in ours are greatly limited in their choice ; the paths open to them are few. They are compelled to follow in certain tracks. You are free, I say ; we are not. Tradition oppresses us. We are slaves to the dead and buried. 1 could well wish I had been born in your humbler but in truth less con- tracted sphere. Certain careers are hardly open to you, to be sure, but the vision of your life in the open air, following your sheep, and dreaming all things beautiful and errand in the world bevond vou — none of which are to be found on a nearer view — is en- trancing. That is the life to make a poet ! " "Or a king," thought Donal, "to be more remem- TEACHER TURNED PUPIL. 293 bered than all of them ! But the earl would have made but a discontented shepherd," he thought, for the man who is not content where he is would never have been content somewhere else, though he might have liked it better. "Take another glass of wine, Mr. Grant," said his lordship, filling his own from the other decanter. '• Try this, I believe you will like it better than the other. This is Madeira — a wine that threatens to forsake the earth forever." "In truths my lord," answered Donal, "I have drunk so little that I do not know one wine from another." " You know good whiskey better, eh .? would you Hke some now ? Just touch the bell behind you." " No, thank you, my lord ; I know as little about whiskey ; my mother would never let us even taste it, and I never have tasted it — strange as it may appear." " But don't you think it is a pity to limit the scope of life by too much self-deuial ? Every new taste is a gain to the being." '' I suspect, however, that a new appetite is only a loss." As he said this, Donal half mechanically filled a glass from the decanter which his host pushed to- wards him. " I should like you," resumed his lordship, after a short pause, "to keep your eyes open to the fact that Davie must do something for himself, and let me know by and by what you think him fit for." " I will with pleasure, my lord. Tastes may not be infallible guides to what is good for us, but they may conduct us to the knowledge of what we are fit 294 DONAL GRANT. for — whetlier that be fit for us remaining still a question," " Extremely well said ! " returned the earl. *' Shall I try how he takes to trigonometry — for land survey and measuring? There is a good deal to do in that way now. Gentlemen are now beginning to take charge of the lands of their more favored rel- atives. There is Mr. Graeme, your own factor, my lord — a relative, I understand." " A distant one, I believe," answered his lordship with marked coldness. " The degree of relationship is hardly to be connted." "In the Lowlands, my lord, you do not care to count kin so far as we do in the Highlands. My heart warms of itself to the word kinsman." " You have not found kinship so awkward as I have, possibly ! " said his lordship, with a watery smile. "The man in humble position may allow the claim of kin to any extent : he has nothing, therefore nothing can be got from him ! But the man who has, or, which is as bad, indeed a good deal worse, who is supposed to have, would soon be the poorest of the clan if he gave to every needy relation that turned up." " I never knew the man so poor," answered Donal, " that he had nothing to give. But the things the poor have to give would hardly be to the purpose of the mere predatory relative." " Predatory relative ! it is a good phrase," said his lordship with a sleepy laugh, though his eyes were wide open. His lips did not seem to care to move, yet he looked pleased. — "To tell you the truth," he begun again, " at one period of my history I gave TEACHER TURNED PUPIL. 295 and gave till I was tired of giving ; it was just as un- satisfactory as possession. Ingratitude was the sole return. At one time I had large possessions — laro-er than I like to think of now. If I had the tenth part of what I have given away, I should not now be uneasy concerning Davie's future." " There is no fear of Davie, my lord, so long as he is brought up with the idea that he must work for his bread." His lordship made no answer, and Donal saw that his look was of one far away from the present. A moment more, and he rose and began to pace the room. An indescribable something that suggested an invisible and yet luminous cloud seemed to hover about his forehead and eyes, which if not fixed on very vacancy itself, appeared to have got somewhere in the neighborhood of it. At length the fourth or fifth turn he opened the door by which he had entered, and as he did so he went on with something he had begun to say to Donal — of which although Donal heard every word, and seemed on the point of under- standing something, he had not yet caught any sense when his lordship disappeared. But as he went on talking, and kept up the tone of one conversing with Iiis neighbor, Donal thought it his part to follow him, and found himself in his lordship's bedroom. But out of this his lordship had already gone, through an oppo- site door; and Donal still following was presently where he had never been before — in an old picture gallery, of which he had heard Davie speak, but which the earl kept private for his exercise indoors. It was a long narrow place, hardly in width more than a corridor, and to Donal nowdiere appearing to afford 296 l^OXAL GRANT. distance enough for seeing any picture properly. But he could ill judge, for the sole light in the place came from the fires and candles in the rooms whose doors they had left open behind them, and just a faint glimmer from the vapor buried moon, sufficing to show the outline of window after window, and reveal- ing something of the great length of the gallery. By the time Donal caught sight of the earl, he was some distance down, holding straight on into the long dusk, and still talking. " This is my favorite promenade," he said, as if brought a little to himself by the sound of Donal's overtaking steps. '^ After dinner, always, Mr. Grant, wet weather or dry, still or stormy, I walk here. What do I care for the weather ! It will be time when I am old to consult the barometer ! " Donal wondered a little : there seemed no great hardihood in the worst of weathers to go pacing a picture-gallery, where the worst storm that ever blew could reach one only with little threads through the chinks of windows and doors — which were all double. " Yes," his lordship went on, " I taught myself hard- ship in my boyhood, and I now reap the fruits of it in the prime of life. — Come here ! I will show you a prospect unequalled." He stopped in front of a large picture and began to talk as if an expatiation upon the points of a real landscape outspread before him. His remarks belonged to something magnificent ; but whether they were applicable to the picture Donal could not tell; there was light enough only to return to a faint gleam from its gilded frame. " Reach beyond reach ! " said his lordship ; "end- TEACHER TURNED PUPIL. 297 less ! infinite ! how would not poor Turner with his ever vain attempt at the unattainable, have gloated on such a scene ! In nature alone you front success ! She does what she means ! She alone does what she means ! " " If," said Donal, more for the sake of confirming the earl's impression that he had a listener than from any idea that he in turn would listen — " If you mean that the object of Nature is to present perfection to our eyes, I cannot allow she does what she means. You rarely see her do anything she would herself call perfect. But if her object be to make us behold per- fection with the inner eye, this object she certainly does gain, and that just by stopping short of" — He did not finish the sentence. A sudden change came over him, absorbing him so in its results that for itself he never thought even of trying to account. Something seemed to give way in his head — as if a bubble burst in his brain ; and from that moment whatever the earl said, and what- ever arose in his own mind, seemed to have outward existence as well. He heard and knew the voice of his host, but seemed also in some- inexplicable way, which at the time occasioned him no surprise, to see the thinirs. which had their bcinp: onlv in the brain of the earl. Whether he went in very deed out with him into the night, he did not know — he felt as if he had gone, but thought he liad not — but when he woke the next morning in his own bed at the top of tlie tower, to wliich he had some memory of climbing, he was as wearv as if he had been walkins: all the night through. CHAPTER XV. A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. HIS first thought was of a long and delightful journey he had made on horseback in the company of the earl, through scenes of entrancing interest and variety, but the present result was a strange sense of weariness, almost of misery. What had befallen him to account for this ? Was the thing a fact or a fancy ? If a fancy, how was he so weary? If a fact, how could it have been ? Had he indeed been the earl's companion through such a long night as it seemed ? Had they visited so many places as the remembrance of lingered in his brain ? He was so confused, so bewildered, so haunted with a kind of shadowy misery — undefined yet plainly felt, that it seemed almost as if a man might lose hold of himself so as no more to be certain he had ever possessed or could ever possess himself with confidence again. Nothing like it had he ever expe- rienced before. At last he bethought himself that, as he had been so little accustomed to wine, or any kind of strong drink, he must have inadvertently taken more than his head could stand. Yet he re- membered leaving his glass unemptied to follow the earl, and certainly it was some time after that before the something came on that made of him a man beside himself ! Could it really have been drunken- 298 A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 299 ness ? Had it been slowly coming on without his knowing it ? He could hardly believe it. Whatever it was, it had left him unhappy, almost ashamed. What would the earl think of him ? He must have come to the conclusion that sucli a man was unfit any longer to take charge of his son ! He would lead him into all kinds of evil who was unable to com- mand himself. For his own part he did not feel that he was to blame, but rather that an accident had be- fallen him. Whence then this feeling akin to shame ? Why should he be ashamed of any accident permitted to come upon -him ? Of that shame he had to be ashamed, as of a lack of faith in God ! How could any accident whatever injure him ? Would God leave his creature who trusted in him at the mercy of a chance — of a glass of wine taken in ignorance? T/iere was a thing to be ashamed of, and with good cause ! He got up, and found to his dismay that it was*al- most ten o'clock — his hour for rising in winter being six. He dressed in haste, and went down, wondering that Davie had not come to see after him. In the schoolroom he found Davie waiting for him. The boy sprang up, and darted to meet him. " I hope you are better, Mr, Grant," he said. " I am so glad you are able to come down ! " "I am quite well," answered Donal. "I can't think what made me sleep so long ! Why didn't you come and wake me, Davie, my boy ? " " Because Simmons told me you were not well, and I must not disturb you, if you were ever so late in coming down to breakfast." " I hardly deserve any breakfast ! " rejoined Donal ; 300 DONAL GRANT. "but if voLi will stand by mc, and read while I take my cofTce, wc shall save a little time so." " Yes, sir. But your coffee must be quite cold ! I will ring." " No, no ; I must not waste any more time. A man who cannot drink cold coffee ought to come down while it is hot." " Forgue won't drink cold coffee ! " said Davie ; " I don't see why you should." '' Because I prefer to do with the coffee as I please — not to have hot coffee for my master. I won't , have it anythin;^^to me what humor the coffee may be in. I will be Donal Grant, whether the coffee be cold or hot. There is a bit of practical philosophy for you, Davie ! " " I think I understand you, sir : you would not have a man make a fuss about trifles." " Not if it be really a trifle. The co-relative of a tri§e, Davie, is a smile. But I would make no end of fuss about many things that are called trifles, Davie, if there is a point in the trifle that is the egg of an ought. I would not have myself care wdiether this or that is nice ; but I would have myself care not to care. It is a point of honor with us highlanders never to care what sort of dinner we have, but to eat as heartily of bread and cheese as of roast beef. That is what my father and mother used to teach me, though I fear that point in good manners is going out of fashion even with highlanders." ''It is good manners!" said Davie decidedly; " and more than good manners ; I should count it grand not to care what kind of dinner I_had, But I'm afraid it is more than I shall ever come to." A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 30I " You will never come to it by trying because it is grand. Only, mind, I did not say we were not to en- joy our roast beef more tlian our bread and cheese ; that would be not to discriminate where there is a difference. Wherever there is a difference we ought to recognize the difference. If bread and cheese were just as good to us as roast beef, there would be no victory in our contentment." "I see!" said Davie. — "Wouldn't it be well to put one's self in training then, Mr. Grant, to be able to do without things ? " " It is much better to do the lessons set you by one who knows how to teach than to pick lessans for your- self out of your books. I tell you what, Davie : I have not that confidence in myself to think I would make a good teacher of myself." " But you make a good teacher of me, sir." "I try — but then I'm set to teach you, and I am not set to teach myself: I am only set to make my- self do what I am taught. When you are my teacher, Davie — at skating, or anything else that may turn up, which you understand better than I do, I try — don't I — to do everything you tell me "^ " "Yes, indeed, sir ! " " But I am not set to be my own teacher." " No ; nor any one else : you do not need any one to be your teacher, sir." " Oh, don't I, Davie ! On the contrary, I could not get on for one solitary moment without somebody to teach me. Look you here, Davie : I have so many lessons given me, that I have no time or need to add to them any of my own. If you were to ask the cook to let you have a cold dinner, you would perhaps eat # 302 DONAL GRANT. it with pride, and take credit for what your hunger made quite agreeable to you. l]ut tlie man who does not grumble when he is told not to go out because it is raining and he has a cold, will not grumble either when he finds his dinner is not quite so nice as he would like it to be." Davie hung his head. It had been a very small grumble, but there are no sins for which there is less reason or less excuse than small ones ; in no sense are they worth committing. And w'e grown people conunit many more of such tlian little children do, and have our regard in childishness and the loss of childlikenees. " It is so easy," continued Donal, " to do the thing we ordain ourselves, for in holding to that, we make ourselves out fine fellows ; and that is such a mean kind of a thing ! And then when another who has the right lays a thing upon us, we grumble, though it be the truest and kindest thing, and the most reason- able and needful for us — even for our dignity — for our being worth anything ! I don't think we should ever do it had we any true idea of the place such things come from — the place where they come into being, I mean. Depend upon it, Davie, to do what we are told is a far grander thing than to lay the se- verest rules upon ourselves — ay^ and to stick to them too I " " But might there not be something good for us to do that we were not told of.'' " "Whoever does the thing he is told to do — the thing, that is, that has a plain ought in it, will soon be satisfied that there is one who will not forget to tell him what must be done as soon as he is fit to do it." A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 303 The conversation had lasted only while Donal ate his breakfast, with the little fellow standing beside him, and it was now over, but not likely to be forgot- ten. For the readiness of the boy to do what his master told him was rare — and a great help and comfort — sometimes a rousing rebuke to his master, whose thoughts would, when they turned to the past, sometimes tumble into one of the pitfalls of sorrow. "What!" he would say to himself, "am I so be- lieved in by this child, that he goes at once to do my words, and shall I for a moment doubt the heart of the father, or his power or will to set right whatever may have seemed to go wrong with his child ! Go on, Davie ! " he would say to himself ; " you are a good boy : I will be a better man ! " But naturally now, as soon as lessons were over, he fell aofain to thinkinsf what could have befallen him the nisfht before. The earl must have taken notice of it, for surely Simmons had not given Davie those in- junctions of himself — except indeed he had exposed his condition even to him! At what point did the aberration, whatever was its nature, begin ! If the earl had spoken to Simmons, then kindness seemed to have been intended him ; but it might have been merely care over the boy himself, that his feeling towards his tutor should not receive a shock. What was to be done ? He did not ponder the matter long. With that directness which was one of the most marked features of his nature, he resolved at once to request an inter- view with the earl, and make his apologies, explaining the mishap as the result of ignorance arising from in- experience in the matter of strong drinks. As soon. 304 DONAL GRANT. therefore, as his morning's work with Davie was over, he sought Simmons, and found him in the pantry rub- bing up the forks and spoons. "Ah! Mr. Grant," he said, before Donal could speak, " I was just coming to you with a message from his lordship ! He wants to see you." " And I came to you," replied Donal, " to say I w^anted to see his lordship." " That's well fitted, then, sir," returned Simmons. " I will go and see. His lordship is not up', nor ffkely to be for some hours yet ; he is in one of his low fits this morning. He told me yoii were not quite your- self last night." As he said this his red nose seemed to examine Donal's face with a kindly, but not altogether sympa- thetic scrutiny. " The fact is, Simmons," answered Donal, " not being used to wine, I drank more of his lordship's than was o^ood for me." "His lordship's wine," murmured Simmons, and there checked himself — "how much of it did you drink, sir — if I may ask such a question ? " " I had one glass during dinner, and nearly two glasses after. ^'' Pooh ! pooh, sir ! That would never hurt a strong man like you ! Look at me ! " But he did not go on with the illustration. " — Tut ! That make you sleep till ten o'clock of the day! — If you will kindly wait in the hall, or in the school- room, I will bring you his lordship's orders." So saying, while he washed his hands, and took off his white apron, Simmons departed on his errand to his lordship's room, while Donal went to the foot of A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 305 the grand staircase, and there waited. As he stood he heard a hght step above him, and involuntarily glancing up, saw the light shape of Lady Arctura just appearing round the last visible curv-e of the spiral stair, coming down rather slowly and very softly, as if her feet were thinking. She seemed to check her- self for an infinitesimal moment, then immediately moved on again as he stood aside with bended head to let her pass. If she acknowledged his salutation it was with the slightest return, but she lifted her eyes to his face as she passed him with a look that seemed to him to have in it a strange wistful trouble — not very marked, yet notable. She passed on and vanished, leaving that look a lingering presence in Donal's thought. What was it ? Was it anything } What could it mean ? Had he really seen it ? Was it there, or had he only imagined it ? Simmons kept him waiting a good while. He had found his lordship getting up, and had had to stay to help him dress. At length he came, excusing him- self that his lordship's temper at such times — that was in his dumpy fits — w^as not of the evenest, and required a gentle hand. His lordship would see him, and could Mr. Grant find the way himself, for his old bones ached with running up and down those endless stone steps .? Donal answered he knew the way, and sprang up the stair. But his mind was more occupied with the coming interview than with his rec- ollection of the wa}', which caused him to take a wrong turn after leaving the stair; thougli he had a good gift in space-relations, his instinct within a liouse was not so keen as on a hillside. The consequence was that he presently found himself in the picture- 3o6 DONAL GRANT. galler}'. A strange feeling of pain, as if of the pres- ence of a condition Jie did not wish to encourage awoke in him at the discovery. Huving entered it, as he judged, at the farther end, lie walked along, as thus taking the readiest to his lordship's apartment. Either he would find him in his bedroom, or could pass through that to his sitting-room. As he passed he glanced at the pictures on the walls, and seemed, strange to say, though, so far as he knew he had nevtr been in the place except in the dark, to recognize some of them as forming parts of the stuff of a dream in which he had been wanderincr throu^rh the ni"ht — only that was a glowing and gorgeous dream, whereas these pictures were even commonplace. Here was something to be meditated upon — but for-the pres- ent postponed ! His lordship was waiting for him ! Arrived, as he thought, at the door of the earl's bedroom, a sweet voice, which he knew at oi^ice as Lady Arctura's, called to him to enter. It was not the earl's chamber, but a lovely though gloomy little room, in w^hich sat the lady writing at a car\^ed table of black oak. Even in that moment DoulU could not help feeling how much better it would liave been for the thought-oppressed girl to have a room where the sunshine had free entrance and play : a fire blazed cheerfullv in the old-fashioned rrate, but there was only one low lattice window, and that to the west. She looked up, her face expressing literally nothing : she seemed no more surprised to see him there than if he had been a servant she had rung for. "I beg your pardon, my lady," he said ; "my lord' wished to see me, but I find I have lost my way, and taken your door for that of his room." A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 307 " I .will show you the way," said Lady Arctura gently, and rising- came to him. Then, as he turned, Donal saw that here the gal- lery, instead of ending, took a sharp turn, and he was still at some distance from the earl's bedroom. Lady Arctura, however, did not take him farther along the gallery, but through a door into a winding narrow passage by which she brought him within sight of the door of his lordship's sitting-room. She pointed it out to him, and turned away — again, Donal could not help thinking, with a look as of some slight anxiety that had to do with himself. He knocked once more, and the voice of the earl told him to enter. His lordship was in his dressing-gown, stretched on a couch of faded satin of a gold color, against which his pale yellow face looked cadaverous. "Good-morning, Mr. Grant ! " he said. ^' I'm glad to see you better." "I thank you, my lord," returned Donal. "You were kind enough to wish to see me : I was very desirous of seeing your lordship. I liave to make an apolo:^y. T cannot understand how it was, except that I have been so little accustomed to strong drink of any sort that " — " There is not the smallest occasion to say a word,"' interrupted his lordship. *' Believe me, you did not once forget yourself, or cease to behave like a gentleman." "Your lordship is very kind. Still I cannot help •being sorry. I shall take good care in future." " It might be as well," conceded the earl, "to set yourself a limit — necessarily in your case a narrow 3oS DOXAL C.RANT one. Some constitutions are so immediately respon- sive ! " lie added in a murmur. " The least exhibition of! But a man like,3'ou, Mr. Grant," he went on aloud, " will always know how to take care of him- self!" " Sometimes, apparently, when it is too late ! " rejoined Donal. *' But I must not annoy your lord- ship with any further expression of my regret ! " " Will you dine with me again to-night .'* " said the earl. ^' I am lonely now, and may well be glad of such a companion ! Sometimes, for months together, I feel no need of one : my books and pictures con- tent me. Then all at once a longing for society will seize me, and that longing my health will not pennit me to indulge. I am not by nature unsociable — much the contrary indeed. You may wonder that I do not admit my own family more freely ; but they are young and foolish ; and my wretched health causes me to shrink from the loud voices and abrupt motions of mere lads." "But Lady Arctura ! " thought Donal. "Your lordship will find me but a poor substitute, I fear," he said, "for the society you wo:ild prefer. But what I am is at your lordship's service." As he spoke Donal could not help turning his mind with a moment's lon^rino^ and re2;ret to his nest in the tower and the company of his books and his thoughts : these were to him far preferable to any of the social elements offered him as yet by his host. " Then come this evening and dine with me." Donal promised. In the evening he went as before, was conducted by the butler, and formally announced. With the A THING TO I;E ASHAMED OF. 309 earl, to his surprise, he found Lady Arctura. The earl made him give her his arm, and himself followed. It was to Donal a very different dinner from that of the evening before. Whether the presence of his niece made the earl rouse himself to be agreeable, or he had grown better since the morning and his spirits had risen, certainly he was not like the same man. He talked in a rather ponderously playful way, told two or three good stories, described with vivacity some of the adventures of his youth, spoke of several great men he had met, and in short was all that could be desired of a host. Donal took no wine during dinner, and the earl as before took very little, Lady Arctura none. She listened respectfully to her uncle's talk, and was attentive when Donal spoke : he thought she looked even sympathetic once or twice, and once he unwittingly surprised upon her face the same look as of anxiety that he had see there that day twice before. It was strange, he thought, that, not seeing her sometimes for a week together, he should thus have met her three times in the same day. When the last of the dinner was removed and the wine placed on the table, his lordship looked to Donal's eyes as if he expected his niece to go ; but she kept her place. He asked her which wine she would take, but she declined any. He filled his f^lass, and passed the decanter to Donal. He too filled his glass, and drank it slowly. Talk revived, but Donal could not help fancying that the eyes of the lady now and then sought his with a sort of question in them — almost as if she feared something might be going to happen him. He attributed it to her having heard that he had taken 3IO DONAL GRANT. too much the niglit before, and felt the situation rather unpleasant. He must, however, brave it out ! When he refused a second glass, which the earl by no means pressed upon him, he thought he saw her look relieved ; but once again he saw or fancied he saw her glance at him with the same expression of slight anxiety. In the course of the talk they came upon sheep, and Donal was telling them some of his experiences with them and their dogs, himself greatly interested in the subject, when all at once, just as before, some- thing seemed to burst in his head, and immediately, although he knew that he was sitting at the table wiih the earl and Lady Arctura, he could not be cer- tain that he was not at the same time upon the side of a lonely hill, closed in a magic night of high summer, his wooly and hairy friends lying all about him, and a light glimmering faintly on the heather a little way off, which he knew for the flame that comes from the feet of the angels when they touch ever so lightly the solid earth. He seemed to be reading the thoughts of his sheep as he had never been able to do before, yet all the time he went on talking and knew that he was talking to the earl and the lady. At length he found everything about him changed, and he was all but certain that he was no longer in their company, but alone, and outside the house — walking, indeed, swiftly through the park, in a fierce wind from the northeast, battling with which he seemed to be ruling it like a fiery horse. Presently came in hoarse, terrible music, the thunderous beat of the waves on the low shore. He felt it through his feet, as one feels without hearing the low tones of A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 31 1 an organ for which the building is too small to allow the natural vibration. The waves seemed to make the ground beat against the soles of his feet as he walked, and soon he heard it like an infinitely pro- longed roaring music on a sky-built organ. It was drawing him to the sea, whether in the body or out of the body he could not have told : he was but con- scious of certain forms of existence — that was all : whether those forms had an existence and relation to other things outside of him, or whether they belonged only to the world within him, he did not know. The roaring of the great water-organ grew louder and louder. He knew every step of the way across the fields and over the fences to the shore, turning this way and that, to avoid here a ditch, there a deep sandy patch where walking was difficult. And still the music grew louder and louder — and at length came the driving spray in his face. It was the flying touch of the wings on which the tones went hurrying past into the depths of awful distances ! His feet were now wading through the bent-covered sand, with the hard, bare, wave-beaten sand a little in front of him. Through the darkness he could see the white fierceness of the hurrying waves as they rushed to the shore, leaning, toppling, curling, self undermined, to hurl forth all the sound that was in them on a fall- ing n ar of defeat. Every wave was a complex chord, with winnowed tones feathering it round. He paced up and down the sand — it seemed to him for a^es. Why he ]^aced there he did not know — why always he turned and went back instead of going on. Sud^ denly he thought he saw something dark in the hollow of a wave, that swont to its fall. The moon 12 DONAL GRANT. came out as it broke, and the something appeared rolled on before it up the shore. Donal stood watching it. Why should he move .'' What was it to him ? The next wave would reclaim it fur the ocean! It looked like the body of a man, but what did it matter? Many such were tossed in the hollows of that music ! But something seemed to come back to him out of the ancient years ; in the ages gone by men did what they could ! There was a word they used to use ; they said they ought to do this or that. This body might not be dead — -or dead, some one would like to have it ; he rushed into the water and caught it ere the next wave broke, though hours of cogitation and ratiocination seemed to have passed. The breaking wave drenched him from head to foot, but he clung to his prize, and dragged it out. A moment's bewilderment, and he came to himself sitting on the sand with his arms round a tangled net lost from some fishing-boat. His delu- sion was gone. He was sitting in a cold wind, and wet to the skin, upon the border of a fierce stormy sea. A poor, shivering, altogether ordinary and un- comfortable mortal, he sat on the shore of the Ger- man Ocean, from which he had rescued a tangled mass of net mixed with seaweed. He dragged it up out of the reach of the waves, and set out for home ; and by the time he reached the castle he had got quite warm. His own door at the foot of the tower was open, he crept up to bed, and was soon fast asleep. He was not so late as before the next day, and be- fore he had finished his breakfast had made up his mind that he must beware of the earl. He was sat- A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 313 isfied that such could not be the consequences of one o-lass of wine. If he asked him again, he would again go to dinner with him, but he would take no wine. School was just over when Simmons came to him from his lordship, to inquire after him, and ask him to dine with him again that evening. Donal immedi- ately consented. This time Lady Arctura was not there. After, as during dinner, Donal declined to drink. His lord- ship cast on him a very keen and searching glance, but it was only a glance, and took no further notice of his refusal. After that, however, the conversation which had not been brilliant from the first, sank and sank till it was not; and after a cup of coffee, his lordship, remarking that he was not feeling so well as usual, begged Donal to excuse him and proceeded to retire. Donal rose, and expressing a hope that his lordship would have a good night and feel better in the morning, left the room. The passage outside was lighted only by a rather dim lamp, and in the distance Donal saw what he could but distinguish as the form of a woman stand- [nhat you took well enough! But we must not talk here. Come ! " She turned again, and went down the stair, and led the way straight to the housekeeper's room. There they found her darning a stocking. A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 315 " Mrs. Brooks," said Lady Arctura, " I want to •liave a little talk with Mr. Grant, and I did not know where to take him : there is no fire in the library. May we sit here ? '' " By all means ; pray sit down, my lady. Why, child 1 you look as cold as if you had been out on the roof I There ! sit close to the fire ! you are all of a tremble ! " Lady Arctura obeyed like the child Mrs. Brooks called her, and sat down in the chair given to her. " I've got something to see to in the still-room," said Mrs. Brooks. "You sit there and have your talk. Sit down, Mr. Grant. I'm glad to see you and my lady come to word of mouth at last. I began to think you never would ! " Had Donal been in the way of looking at his fellow for the sake of interpreting his words, he would now have seen a shadow sweep over Lady Arctura's face, followed by a flush, and would have attributed it to displeasure at the words of tiie housekeeper. But, with all his experience of the world within, and all hi:? unusually developed powder of entering into the feel- ings of others, he had never come to pry into these feelings, or to study their phenomena for the sake of possessing himself of the knowledge of them. Man was by no means an open book to him, — " no, n:;r woman neither." He would have scorned to hasten or supplement by investigation what a lady chose to reveal to him. So now he sat looking into the fire^ with an occasional upward glance, waiting for what was to come, and saw neither shadow nor flush. Lady Arctura also sat for some time gazing into the fire, and seemed in no haste to be^in. 3i6 DoxAL (;ka\t. "You are so good to Davie ! '" she said at length, and stopped. "No better than I have to be," returned Donal. *' Not to be good to Davie would be to be a wretch." ** You know, Mr. Grant, I cannot agree with you ! " " There is no immediate occasion, my lady." ** But I suppose one may be fair to another," she said as if doubling, ** and it is only fair to confess that he is much more manageable since you came. Only that is no good if it does not come from a good source." " Grapes do not come from thorns, my lady. That would 'be to allow in evil a power of working good." To this she did not reply. " lie minds everything I say to him now^," she resumed presently. " What is it that makes him so good ? — I wish I had such a tutor ! " She stopped again. She had spoken out of the simplicity of her thought, but the words looked as if they ought not to have been said. " What can have passed in her ? " thought Donal. *' She is so different ! Her very voice is so different ! " " But that is not what I wanted to speak to you about, Mr. Grant," she resumed, " though I did want you to know I w^as aware of the improvement in Davie. I wanted to say something about my uncle." Here followed another pause — embarrassing to the reticent lady — not at all to the profluent Donal, who sat waiting in perfect quiescence. '• You may have remarked," she said at length, " that, though we live together, and he is the head of the house as my guardian, there is not much com- munication between us." A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 317 " I have gathered as much. I cannot tell Davie not to talk to me." " Of course not. — Lord Morven is a very strange man. I cannot pretend to understand him, and I do not wan^ either to judge him or to set him out to the judgment of another. I can only speak of a certain fact concerning yourself which I do not feel at liberty to keep from you." Once more a pause followed. Though perfectly ladylike, there was nothing now of the grand superior about Arctura. There was plain evidence of the sweet girl-nature in her. She was perplexed. " Has nothing occurred to yourself ? " she said at length, abruptly. " Have you not suspected him of trying experiments upon you ? " " I have had a very vague undefined ghost of a sus- picion that pointed in that direction," answered Donal. " I suppose he is a dabbler in physiology, and he has a notion in his head he wants to verify ! Tell me what you please about it." ^'I should never have known anything about it, though, my room being near his, I should have been the more perplexed about some things, had he not, I do most entirely believe, made a similar experiment with myself a year ago." "Is it possible ? " "It may be all a fancy — I don't mean about what he did, of that I am sure — but I do sometimes fancy I have never been so well since. It was a great shock to me when I came to myself — you see I am trusting you, Mr. Grant ! You will remeniber I dared not have done so had I not believed you would be at least as discreet as myself in the matter ! I believe o iS DONAL GRANT. the chief cause of the state of his health is that, for years past, he has been in the habit of taking some horrible drug for the sake of its mental effects. You know there are people who do so. What the drug is I don't know, and I would rather not know. It seems to me just as bad as taking too much wine. He prides himself on his temperance in that respect. But he says nothing of the other thing. I have even heard him, in conversation with Mr. Carmichael, make the remark that taking opium is worse than getting drunk, for opium destroys the moral sense much more than whisky or anything of tliat kind. I don't say my uncle takes opium : I have heard there are other things, even worse, that people take." "And he dared to give it to you — whatever it was ! " said Donal with indisrnation. " I am sure he gave me something. For once that I dined with him — but I cannot describe to you the strange effect what he gave me had upon me. I think he w^anted to watch the effect of it on one who knew nothing of what she had taken. Tliey say the ef- fect of such things is a pleasant one upon most people, at least until they have indulged in it for some time, but for my part I found it very different. I would not go through such agonies again for the world ! " She ceased. Donal saw that she was stru2f2:linir with a painful remembrance. He hastened to speak. " Thank you heartih', my lady, for your warning. It was because of such a suspicion that this evening I did not even taste wine. If I have not taken any of the drng in something else, I am safe from the in- sanity — I can call it nothing less — that has pos- sessed me the last two nights." A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 319 " Was it very dreadful ? " asked Lady Arctura. "On the contrary, it gave me a feeling of innate faculty such as I -could never have conceived of." " Oh, Mr. Grant ! do take care. Do not be tempted to take it again. I don't kpow what it mi^ht not have led me to do if I had found it pleas- ant ; for I am sorely tried with painful thoughts : I feel sometimes I would do almost anything to get rid of them." • " There must be a good way of getting rid of them. Think it of God's mercy," said Donal, "that you can- not get rid of them so." " I do ; I do ! " " The shield of his presence was over you then." " How o-lad I should be to think so ! But we have no right to think so till we believe in Christ — and — it is a terrible thing to say — I don't know that I be- lieve." " Whoever taught you that will have to answer for teaching a terrible lie," said Donal. " Did Christ not do all he could to save the world, and will any one dare to say that God, whose visible presence Christ was, is not doing all he can, with all the power of a maker over the creature he has made, to help and deliver them ! " " T know he makes his sun to shine and his rain to fall upon the good and the bad ! but that is only of this world's good things ! " " Do you then — are you able to worship a God who will give you all the little things he does not care much about, but will not do his best for you — will not give you help to do the things he wants you to do, but which you do not know how to do ! " ;2o DONAL c;raxt. *' But there are things he cannot do till we believe in Christ." " That is very true. But that does not say that God does not do all that can be done for even the worst of men to help him to believe ! He finds it very hard to teach us, but he is never tired of trying. Any one who is willing to be taught of God will be taught, and thoroughly taught by him. People tell such terrible lies about God, judging him by their own foolish selves." " I am afraid I am doing wrong in listening to you, Mr. Grant ! I do wish what you say might be true, but are you not in danger — you will pardon me for saying it — of presumption : how could all the good people be wrong ? "' Because the greater part of the teachers among them have always set themselves more to explain God than to obey him. The gosjDel is given not to redeem our understandings, but our hearts ; that done, and only then, our understandings will be free. Our Lord said he had many things to tell his disciples, but they were not able to hear them. If the things be true which I have heard from Sunday to Sunday in church since I came here, then I say, the Lord brought us no salvati(5n at all, but only a change of shape to our miseries. It has not redeemed you, Lady Arctura, and never will. Nothing but Christ himself for your very own teacher and friend and brother, not all the doctrines about him, even if evervone of them were true, can save you. \Mien we poor orphan children, cannot find our God, they would have us take instead a something that is not God at all — but a very bad cariacature of him ! " A THING TO I5E ASIIAxMEI) OF. ''But how should wicked men know that such is not the true God ? " ''If a man desires God, he cannot help knowing enough of him to be capable of learning more. His idea of him cannot be all wrong. But that does not make him fit to teach others all about him — only to go on to learn for himself. But Jesus Christ is tk,e very God I want. I want a father like him, like the father of him who came as our big brother to take us home. No other than the God exactly like Christ can be the true God. Cast away from you that doc- trine of devils, that Jesus died to save us from our father. There is no safety, no good of any kind but with the father, his father and our father, his God and our God." "But you must allow that God hates and punishes sin — and that is a terrible thing." " It would be ten times more terrible if he did not hate and punish it. Do you think Jesus came to deliver us from the punishment of our sins ? He would not have moved a step for that. The terrible thing is to be bad, and all punishment is to heli^ to deliver us from it, nor will it cease till we have given up being bad. God will have us good ; and Jesus works out the will of his father. Where is tiic refuge of the child who fears his father.? — Where is that, my lady ? In the farthest corner of the room ? Down in the dungeon of the castle ? " " No, no ! " cried Lady Arctura; " in his father's arms ! " " There ! " said Donal, and was silent. " I hold by Jesus ! " he added after a pause, and rose as he said it, but stood where he rose. Lady Arctura sat 322 DONAL GRANT. motionless, divided between the reverence she felt for distorted and false forms of truth taught her from her earliest years, and her desire after a God whose very being is the bliss of his creatures. Some time passed in silence, and then she too rose to depart. She held out her hand to him with a kind of irresolute motion, then suddenly smiled and said, " I wish I might ask you something. I know it is a rude question, but if you could see all, you would answer me, and let the offence go." " I will answer you anything you choose to ask." " That makes it the more difficult, but I will ask it ; I cannot bear to remain longer in doubt ; did you really write that poem you gave to Kate Graeme — compose it, I mean, your own self? " " I made no secret of the authorship when I gave it her," said Donal, not perceiving her drift. "Then you did really write it.-* " Donal looked at her in perplexity. Her face grew very red, and the tears began to come in her eyes. " You must pardon me," she said. " I am so igno- rant ! And we live in such an out-of-the-way place, that — that it seems so unlikely a real poet — ! And then I have been told there are people who have a passion for appearing to do the thing they are not able to do ! and I was anxious to be sure ! And mv mind kept brooding over it, and longing so to be sure ! — so I resolved at last that I would, even at the risk of offending 30U, be rid of the doubt, I know I have been rude — unpardonably rude, but " — " But," supplemented Donal, with a most sympa- thetic smile, for he understood her as his own thought, "you do not feel quite sure yet ! Why, what a priori A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 323 reason can there be why I should not be able to write verses ? Is it because I happen to be in what you call an out-of the-way place ? There is no rule as to where poetry grows. One place is as good as another for that." " I hope you will forgive me ! I hope I have not offended you very much ! " *• Nobody in such a world as this ought to be offended at being asked for proof. Granted there are in it rogues that look like honest men, how is any one without a special gift of insight, to be sure of the honest man 1 Even the men whom women love best, sometimes prove the falsest, and tear their hearts to pieces 1 I will give you all the proof you can desire. And lest you should think I made up the proof itself between now and to-morrow mornins: " — " O, Mr. Grant ! spare me. I am not, indeed I am not so bad as that ! " "Who can tell when or where the doubt may wake again, or what may wake it ? " said Donal. "At least let me explain a little before you go," she said. " Certainly," he answered, reseating himself, in compliance with her example. " Miss Graeme told me that you had never seen a garden like that before." "I certainly never did. There are none such, I fancy in our part of the country." " Nor in our neighborhood either." " Then what is there surprising in that ? " " Nothing in that. But is there not something surprising in your being able to write a poem like that about such a ijarden, as if ^•ou had been from 324 DONAL (JRANT. childhood familiar with the look of it, and so had grown able to enter into the very spirit an ! heart of the place ? " " Perhaps if I had been familiar with the kind of thing from childhood, it might have just disabled me from seeing the spirit of it. The only two things necessary are, first, that there should be a spirit in the place, and next that the place should be beheld by one who has a spirit capable of giving house room to the spirit of the place. — Does it seem to you that the ghost-lady feels the place all right ? " " I do not quite know what you mean ; but I seemed, to feel the grass with her feet as I read, and the wind lifting my hair. It seems to me so nat- ural ! " " Now tell me were you ever a ghost ? " "No." " Did you ever see a ghost } " " No, never." " Then how do you know that all that is natural .'' " " I see ! I cannot answer you." Donal rose. " I am indeed ashamed of giving you so much trouble," said Lady Arctura. " Ashamed of giving me the chance of proving mv- self a true man ? " " It is no longer necessary." " But I want my revenge. As a punishment for doubting one whom you had so little ground for be- lieving, you shall be compelled to see the proof — that is if you will do me the favor to wait here till I come back. I shall not be long, but it is some small distance from here to the top of the north tower." A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 325 " Davie told me it was there they had put you ; do you like it ? Do you not find it very cold ? It must be terribly lonely! Do you ever hear anything? I wonder who it was that had you put there ! " She spoke hurriedly, and without waiting between any of the questions she put for an answer. Donal assured her he could not have had a place more to his mind, and left her to go and fetch his proofs. Before she could well think he had reached the foot of his stair, he was back with a bundle of papers in his hand, which he laid before her on the table. " There ! " he said, '' if you will take the trouble to go over these, you will see — hardly the poem as you may have read it, but the process of its growth. First you will find it blocked out rather roughly Then you will see it copied out — clean at first, but .afterwards scored and scored. Above you will see the words I chose instead of the first, and afterwards again rejected, till at last I reached those I have as yet let stand as Miss Graeme has them. I do not believe she doubts the verses being mine, for I am sure she thinks them great rubbish. I hope you don't — from your having taken such pains to know who wrote them." She thought he was satirical, from offence that she had doubted him ; lie saw her bite her lip and heard a slight sigh as of pain. It went to his heart. " I did not mean any reflection, believe me, Lady Arctura, on your desire for satisfaction,'' he said ; " it rather flatters me than otherwise. But is it not strange the heart should be less ready to believe any- thing that seems worth believing-? It seems always easier to doubt ! Something must be true : why not 326 ' DONAL GRANT. ihe worthy rather ofiencr ? Why should il be easier to believe hard things of God, for instance, than lovely things? — or that one man should have copied from another than that he should have done a thing him- self? Even now, some, set on not believing, would say that I contrived all this appearance of composi- tion in order to lay the more certain claim to that which was not my own ! and to that I should have no answer, for the kind of man who says that would hardly take the pains to follow the construction through all its stages. But it will not be a hard work for you, nor, I venture to believe, a bad exercise in logic and analysis, to examine whether or not tlie genuine growth of the poem be before you in those papers." " I shall find it most interesting," said Lady Arc- tura ; '' so much I can see already. I never saw any- ilnuz of the kind before, and had no idea how verses were made. Do all verses take as much labor as is evident here ? " " Some take much more : some none at all. The labor is in getting the husks of expression cleared off the thought, so that it may show for what it is. A man's whole life may have just ripened him before he begins to die to the generation or rather birth of one vital thought : if he be a thorough workman in words, none of that life-labor will appear in his utterance of the thought — save indeed we should say it is trans- formed into power manifested in ease. Yes ; nor will the labor to say clearly wdth half-fitting words and poor images, the thing to him clear as daylight, that labor even will not show ; it is a labor that obliterates itself." A THING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 327 At this point Mrs. Brooks, thinking tiie young people had had time enough for their conference, returned, and the three sat a while, and had a little talk. Then Lady Arctura kissed the housekeeper, and bade her good-night ; and Donal presently re- tired to his aerial chamber, with quite another idea of the lady of the house than he had gathered from the little he had seen of her before : either she had chanG:ed or he had misunderstood her ; changed presentment she certainly had ! From that time, whether it was that Lady Arctura had previously avoided meeting him, and now did not, or from other causes, Donal and she met much oftener about the place ; and now they never passed without a mutual smile and greeting. The next day but one she brought him back his papers to the schoolroom, and told him she had read every erasure and correction, and could no longer have a doubt, even had she not now perfect confi- dence in himself, that the man who had written those papers must be the maker of the verses. Donal saw in this yielding of the prejudices implanted in her by the clergyman and his polemic daughter. " They would probably fail to convince a jury how- ever,'^ he said, as he rose and went to throw them in the fire. Divining his intent, she darted after him, and caught them from his hand just in time. "Let me keep them," she said, "for my humilia- tion." " Do with them what your ladyship pleases," said Donal. "They are of no value to me — save indeed as I see you care for them." CHAPTER XVI. FURTHER INTERFERENCE. IN the bosom of [he family in which the elements seem most kindly mixed, there may yet lie brood- ing some element of discord and disruption, upon which the foreign element capable of setting in motion and developing it, has not yet come to oper- ate. That things are quiet is no proof, only a hope- ful sign of essential peace which is harmony. It was no wonder, then, that, in a family of such ill accord as this, where absence of strife was mainlv owins: to the undeveloped condition of jarring ideas, and where interests had not hitherto been brouMit near enouc:h to conflict, a volcanic eruption should suddenly shake its ordered frame, and darken its moral atmos- phere. Signs of such an outbreak had shown them- selves, as we have seen, very soon after Donal had become an inmate of the castle, but the destructive energy seemed to have ceased to assert itself. Lord Forgue had been for some time on a visit to Edinburgh, had doubtless there been made much of, and had returned with a considerable development of haughtiness and the consciousness of what he would have called independence, which generally in the mouths of the young means in reality subjugation to self, and freedom from the law of liberty. It is often when a man is least satisfied — not with himself but 328 FURTHER INTERFERICNXE. 329 with his immediate doings — that he is most ready to assert his superiority to the restraints he might for- merly have grumbled against, but had not dared to dispute — and even to claim from others the consid- eration necessary to enable him to keep up a false sense of his own personal standing. But for a while they barely came across each other, and Donal had no occasion to speculate concerning him or his con- ditions. Lord Forgue kept much to himself so far as the family was concerned — so much that even Davie lamented to his tutor, that Forgue was not half so jolly as he used to be. But from his very love of loyalty, peace, and right, Donal had ere long to take the part of the disrupting foreign element. For more than a week Eppie had not been to see her grandparents ; and as that same week something had prevented Donal also from paying them his usual visit, the old people had naturally become uneasy, and hence one frosty twilight, when the last of the sun lay cold green in the west, Andrew Comin appeared in the kitchen, asking to see Mrs. Brooks. He was kindly received by the servants, among whom Eppie was not present, and Mrs. Brooks, who, though she could not have understood him much, had, partly no doul^t already through Donal, a genuine respect for the cobbler, soon came to greet him. She told him she knew no reason why Eppie had failed in visiting them : she would send for her and she must explain for herself. In the meantime she sent to tell Donal as well that Andrew Comin was in the kitchen. Donal would much rather have had his friend up to his room, but he dreaded giving the old man such 330 DONAL GRANT. a climb, therefore rose at once and ran down to him. He found liini sitting alone, for when Mrs. Brooks came there had been a general resumption of work, and she had just quitted the kitchen. '' Come out, Andrew," said Donal, as he shook hands with him, "if you're not tired. It's a fine night, and we can talk well in the gloamin'." Andrew consented with alacrity, and they w^ent out. On the side of the castle away from the town, the descent was at first by a succession of terraces with steps from the one to the other, the terraces themselves being liule flower-gardens. At the bottom of the last of these terraces — after which the ground sloped more gently to the level of the river-bank — and parallel with them, was a double row of trees, and betw^een them a path along all the front of the castle, connect- ing two little doors in opposite walls. One of them led to some of the ofiices ; the other ii.to a fruit gar- den which turned the western shoulder of the hill, and found for the greater part a nearly southern exposure. At this time of the year the garden w'as a lonely enough place, and at this time of the day more than likely to be altogether deserted ; thither Donal would lead his friend. Goins: out bv tlie kitchen- door, they went first into a stable yard, from which descended steps to the castle well, on the level of the second terrace. Thence they arrived by more steps at the mews where in old times the hawks were kept, now rather ruinous though not quite neglected. Here the door in the wall opened on the path between trees which I have mentioned. It was one of the pleasantest walks in the immediate proximity of the castle. And now the first of the steely stars were FURTHER INTERFERENCE. 33 I shinins: throue:h the naked rafters of leafless boughs overhead, as Donal and the cobbler came gently talking out of the little door, and stepped into the cathedral aisle of trees. The old man looked up, and gazed for a moment in silence — then said : "'The h'avens declare the glory o' God, an' the firmament showeth his handy-work.' I used, whan I was a lad, to study astronomy, a wee, i' the houp o' better hearin' what the h'avens declared aboot the glory o' God ; I w\ad fain un'erstan' the speech ae day cried across the nicht to the ither. But I was sair disapp'intit. The things the astronomer tellt the semple fowk for whom he was writin', were varra won'erfu', but I couldna fin' i' my hert 'at they make me think ony mair o' God nor I did afore. I dinna mean to say they michtna be competent to work that same in anither, but that wasna my experience o' them. My hert was some sair at this ; for ye see I was set upo' winnin' intil the presence o' him I couldna bide frae, an' at that time I hadna learnt to gang straucht to him 'at's the express image o' 's person, but aye soucht'him throu the philosophy — eh, but it was queer bairnly philosophy! — o' theguid buiks 'at dwall upo' the natur' o' God and a' that, an' his hatred o' sin an' a' that — pairt an'pairt true, nae doobt. But I wanted God great an' near, an' they made him oot sma' ; sma', an' varra far aw^a'. Ae nicht, hooever, I was oot by mysel' upo' the shore, jist as the stars were peepin' oot. An' it was na as gien they war feart o' the sun, an' pleast 'at he was gane, but as gien they war a' teetin oot to see what had come o' their Father o' Lichts. A' at ance I seemt to come to mysel', as gien oot o' some wan- 332 DUNAL GI'.ANT. 'crin' delusion o' the faculties. Up I cuist my e'en aboon, an' cli, there was the h"a\en as God made it — awfu' ! — big an' deep, aye faddomless deep, an' fu' o' the wan'erin' yet steady lichts 'at naething can blaw oot but the breath o' his moolh ! It gaed awa' up an' up, an' deeper an' deeper; my e'en gaed travellin' awa' an' awa' till it seemed as gien they never could win back to me. A' at ance they drappit frae the lift like a laverock, an' lichtet upo' the hori- zon, whaur the sea an' the sky /net like richteous- ness an' peace kissin' ane anither, as the psalm says. I canna tell what it was, but jist there whaur the earth an' the pky cam thegither, it was. the meetin' o' my earthly sowl wi' God's h'avenly sowl ! There was bonny colours, an' bonny lichts, an' a bonny grit , star hangin' ower 't a', but it was nane o' a' thae things; it was something deeper than a', an' cam to the tap mair nor a' ! An' frae that moment I saw — no Jioo the h'avens declare the glory o' God, but I saw them declarin' o' 't, an' I wantit nae mair. Astron- omy for me might sit an' want for a better warl', whaur fowk didna weir oot their shune, an' ither fowk hadna to men' them. For what is the great glory o' God but that, though no man can compre- hend him, he comes doon, an' lays his cheek to his man's, an' says til him, 'Eh, my cratur ! '" While the cobbler was thus talking, they had gone the length of the little avenue, and were within less than two trees of the door of the fruit garden, when it opened, and was immediately and hurriedly shut again — not, however, before Donal had seen, as he believed, the form of Eppie. He called her by name, and ran to the door, followed by Andrew ; the same FURTHER INTERFERENCE. suspicion had struck both of them at once ! Donal seized the latch, and would have opened the door, but some one within held it against him, and he heard the noise of an attempt to push the rusty bolt into the staple. He set his strength to it, and forced it open, warding as he entered a blow from his head. Lord Forgue was on the other side of the door, and a little way off stood Eppie trembling. Forgue stood in a fury mingled with dismay, for he knew to what he exposed himself. Donal turned away from him, and said to the girl, " Eppie, here's your grandfather come to see after you." The cobbler, however, went up to Lord Forgue. "You're a young man, my lord," he said, "and may regaird it as folly in an auld man to interfere be- tween you an' your wull ; but I warn you, my lord, that excep' you cease to carry yourself towards my granddaughter in a manner you would not wish rep- resented to his lordship, your father, he shall be in- formed of the affair. — Eppie, you come home with me." " I will not," said Eppie, her voice trembling with passion, though which passion it were hard to say ; " I am a free woman. I make my own living, and I will not be treated like a child ! " " I will speak to Mrs. Brooks," said the old man with quiet dignity and self-restraint. "And make her turn me away ! " said Eppie. She seemed quite changed — bold and determined — was probably relieved that she had no more to play a false part. His lordship stood on one side and said nothing. 334 DONAL GRANT. "But don't you think, grandfather," continued Ep- pie, "that whatever slie does, I will go home with you ! I will go into lodgings. I have saved a little money, and as I can never get another place if you behave so as to take away my character, I will leave the country altogether.'' Here his lordship, having apparently made up his mind, advanced, and with strained composure said, " I confess, j\[r. Comin, things do look against us. It is awkward that you should have found us together, but you know" — and here he attempted a laugh — " we are told not to judge by appearances ! " " We may have no choice but to act by them, though, my lord ! " said Andrew. " At the moment I should indeed be sorry to judge either of you by them. Eppie must come home with me, or she will find it the more displeasant — perhaps for both of you I " " Oh, if you threaten us I " said his lordship contemJDtuously, " then of course we are very frightened ; but you had better beware, for thereby you will only make it the more difficult — perhaps impossible, who can tell — for me to do your grand- daughter the justice I have always intended." " What your lordship's notion o' justice may be, I will not trouble you to explain," said the old man, " all I desire is, that, whatever may have passed be- tween you, she will come with me." "Let us leave the matter to Mrs. Brooks," said Forgue. " I shall soon satisfy her that there is no occasion for any hurry. Believe me, you will only bring trouble on the innocent ! " FURTHER INTERFERENCE. " Then it cannot be on you, my lord, for in this thing you have not behaved as a gentleman ought ! " said the cobbler. " You dare tell me so to my face ! " cried Forgue, striding up to the little old man, as if he would sweep him away with the very wind of his approach. " Yes, for I would say it behind your back," replied the cobbler. "Didna your lordship promise there should be an end to this whole meeserable affair ? " " Not to you, anyhow ! " replied his lordship. " To me you did ! " said Donal, who had hitherto only waited in silence. " Do hold your tongue. Grant, and don't make thino-s worse. To you I can easily explain it. Be- sides, you have nothing to do with it now this honest man has taken it up. Believe me, a fellow may break his word to the ear, and yet keep it to the sense." " The onlv thins: could make that true, would be that you had married, or were about to marry her ! " Eppie would here have spoken ; but she only gave a little crv, for Forgue put his hand over her mouth. '' You hold your tongue," he said ; " you will only complicate matters ! " " My lord," said Donal, " you say I have nothing to do now with this affair :• I may not from my friend's side, but T have from my own." " What do you mean ? " "That I am in this house a paid servant: and I cannot allow anything to go on in it of which I know the master would so much disapprove without ac- quainting him with it." "You have just acknowledged, Mr. Grant, that you are neither more nor less than a paid servant. Vou ^^G DONAL GRANT do not seem to know your duty as sucli : I shall be happy to explain it to you. Vou have nothing what- ever to do wiih what may be going on in the house ; you have but to do your part of the work. You can scarcelv have forirotten that you are mv brother's tutor, not mine! To interfere with what I do, is nothing but a piece of damned impertinence ! " " The impertinence, however, I most certainly in- tend to be guilty of, and that without the delay of a moment more than is necessary to the getting au- dience of your father." " You will not, if I give 3'ou such explanation as will satisfy you that I have done the girl no harm, and that I mean honestly by her ? " said Forirue in a somewhat conciliatorv tone. " In any case," returned Donal, '' you having once promised, and then broken your promise, I shall without fail tell your father all I know." " And ruin her, and perhaps me too, for life .'' " "The truth will ruin onlv what it ou2,ht." Forgue sprang upon him and struck him a heavy blow between the eves. He had been havins: les- sons in boxing while in Edinburgh, and had now confidence in himself. It was a well-planted blow, and Donal altogether unprepared for it. He stag- gered back against the wall, and for a moment or two could not see. while all he knew was thai there was something or other he had to attend to. He did not see that his lordship, excusing himself doubt- less on the ground of necessity, and that there was a girl in the case, would have struck him again. But the old man saw it, and throwing himself between, received the blow. He fell at Donal's feet. FURTHER INTERFERENCE. 337 As Donal came to himself, he heard a groan from the ground. He looked down, saw Andrew, and understood. " Dear old man ! " he said, " did he dare strike you too ? " " He didn't mean it," returned Andrew feebly. " A.re you getting over it, sir ? He gave you a terrible one ! You might have heard it across the street ! " " I shall be all right in a minute," answered Donal, wiping the blood out of his eyes. " I've a good hard l:ead, thank God. But what has become of them .'' " " You didn't think he was waiting to see us get better ! " said the cobbler. " I wonder whether they have gone into the house ! " They were now on their feet, and looking at each other through the starlight, bewildered, and uncertain what step to take next. The cobbler was the first to recover his wits. " It's o' no use," he said, " to rouse the castel wi' a hue an' cry. What hae we to say but 'at we faund the twa i' the garden thcgither .? It wad but raise ill rumors, the which, fause or fac' wad do naething for naebody. His lordship maun be loot ken, as ye say : but will his lordship believe ye, sir.'* I'm some i' the min' the young man's awa' til's faither's a'rcady, to prejudeese him again onything ye may say." "That makes it the more necessary," said Donal, "that I should go at once to his lordship. He will fall out upon me, I can see, for not having told him at once; but I must not mind that. If I were not to tell him now, he would indeed have a good case against me ! " They were already walking towards the house, the ;3S DONAL GRAJ^T. old man giving a groan now and them. After what had happened, he said, he could not go in ; he would walk gently home, and perhaps Donal would overtake him. It was an hour and a half before Andrew got home, for it turned out one of his ribs was broken, and Donal had not overtaken him. Having washed the blood from his face, Donal sought Simmons. "His lordship can't see you now, I am sure, sir," answered the butler, " for Lord Forgue is with him." Donal turned away and went up the stairs to his lordship's apartment. As he passed the door of his bedroom opening on the corridor, he heard voices in debate, and found no one in the sittin2;-room. It was no time for ceremonv : he knocked at the door of the bedroom. The voices within were too loud : he knocked again, and received an angry summons to enter. He did so, closed the door behind him. and stood near it, in sight of his lordship, waiting what should follow. Lord Morven was sitting up in bed, his face so pale and distorted that Donal could hardly recognize his likeness. The bed was a large four-post bed, with curtains drawn close to the posts, admitting as much air as its construction would allow. At the foot of it stood Lord Forgue, his handsome, shallow face flushed with anger, his right arm straight down by his side, and the hand of it clenched hard. He turned when Donal entered. A fiercer flush overspread his face, but almost immediately rage seemed to yield to con- tempt, for a look of determined insult changed it, and he turned away. Possibly even the appearance of Donal was a relief to being alone with his father. FURTHER INTERFERENCE. 339 " Mr. Grant,*' stammered his lorclsliip, speakins: with pain, "you are well come! — Just in tiine to hear a father curse his son — for curse him I will if he does not presently change his tone." " A father's curse shall not make me play a dis- honorable part ! " said Forgue, looking however any- thing but honorable, for the heart, not the brain, moulds the expression. " Mr, Grant," resumed the father, " I have found you a man of sense and refinement ! If you had been tutor to this degenerate boy, this, the worst trouble of my life would never have come upon me ! " Forgue's lip curled, but he did not speak, and his lordship went on. " Here is this fellow come to tell me to my face that he intends the ruin and disgrace of the familvby a low marriage ! " " It would not be the first time it was so dis- graced ! " said the son — " if fresh peasant-blood be a disgrace to it." " The hussey is not even a wholesome peasant- girl ! " cried the father. — " Who do you think she is, Mr. Grant ? " " I do not require to guess, my lord," replied Donal. " I came to you now to inform your lordship of what I had myself seen as connecting Lord Forgue with one of the household." " She must leave the house this instant ! " " Then I too leave it, my lord ! " said Forgue. "With what funds? — may I presume to ask? Have you been assuming a right to your pleasure with my purse as well ? " His lordship glanced anxiously towards his bureau. 340 DONAL (iRANr The look of indignant scorn on Forgue's face ^vas followed by what niight have been the pain of re- membered impotence. But instead of answering his father's taunt he turned his attack upon Dqnal. "Your lordship certainly does not flatter me with confidence," he said : "but it is not the less my part to warn you against this man : it is months since first he knew of wliat was jroin^- on between us : he comes to tell you now because I was this evening compelled to chastise him for a rude interference.'* In cooler blopd Lord Forgue would not have shown such meanness ; but rage unmasks and brings to the front the meanness that lurks. "And it is no doubt to the necessity for forestal- ling his disclosure that I owe the present ingenuous confession ! " said Lord Morven. " But explain, i\Ir. Grant." "My lord," said Donal calmly, "I was some time ago made aware that something was going on be- tween them, and was, I confess, more alarmed for the girl than for him — the more that she is the child of friends to whom I am much beholden. But on the promise of both that the thing should be at an end, I concluded it better not to trouble your lordship with the affair. I may have made a mistake in this, but I sought to do the best. When, however, this night I saw that I had been hoodwinked, and that things were going on as before, "it became imperative on my position in your lordship's house that I should make you acquainted with the fact. It was on the state- ment of my intention of doing so at once, my Lord Forgue suddenly assaulted me, leaving me for the moment incapabje of the necessary action. He had FURTHER INTERFERENCE. 34 I asseverated that there was nothing dishonest between them, but, having deceived me once, how was I to trust him again ? " '' How indeed ! The young blackguard ! You liad ihe testimony of your own eyes ! " said his lordship, casting a fierce glance at his son. "Allow me to remark," said Forgue, ''that I de- ceived no one. What I jDromised was that that affair should not go on ; it did not ; the thing from that moment assumed an altogether serious aspect. Witness my presence in your bedLhamber, my lord, to tell you I have given my word to marry the girl." There was a grandiloquence in the tone of the speech that would have predjudiced any lover of simplicity against any hope of depth in the man — only better and older men than Forgue have imagined more or less of grandiloquence essential to dignity. " I tell you, Forgue, if you marry her I will disown you." Forgue smiled, an impertinent smile, and held his peace : the threat had for him no terror worth de- fending himself from. " I shall be the better able," continued his lord- ship, '• to provide suitably for Davie : he is something like a son ! But hear me, Forgue : you are, or ought to be, well enough aware that, if I left you all I had, it would be but beggary for one handicapped with an ancient title. You may think my anger with you \ery amusing, but it comes solely of anxiety on your account. Nothing but a suitable marriage — and the most suitable of all lies at your very door — cm save you from the life of a moneyless noble — the most pitiable on the face of the earth. Even could you 342 DONAL r.RANT. ignore your position, you b.avc no })rofcssion, no trade even, in these, trade-loving days, lo fall back upon. Vou may do as you please forine, but except you marry as I pl(.\ase, you will have nothing from me but tlie contempt of a title without one farthing to sustain it in conunonest decency. You have threatened to leave the house if I send the jade out of it: tell me honestly — can you pay for your own railway ticket — to anywhere ? " Forgue was silent. . But rage was growing more fierce within him. At length he spoke, and speaking compelled Donal to a measure of respect for him he had not been prepared to entertain, though all the time he could not help doubting, nor knew why, the genuineness of .the ring of his utterance. For it was that of a man who would do the right because that alone was it becoming in him to do ; not that of a man who loved righteousness and hated iniquity — still less that of one who loved a woman as she ought to be loved. The tone was that of one who believed himself conferring an honor. " i\Iy lord," he said, " I have given my word to the p-irl " — he never once uttered her name to his father in Donal's hearing — "that I will marry her: would you have me disgrace the family by breaking, my word?" " Tut ! tut ! There are words and words ! No one dreams of obligation in the rash promises of a lover — especially where his is an unworthy love! Still less are they binding where the man is not his own master. You are not your own master; you are under bonds to your family, under bonds to society, under bonds to your country. Marry this girl, and FURTHER INTERFERENCE. 343 you will find yourself an outcast ; marry as I would have you, and you will lind no one think the worse of you for a foolish vow of your boyhood — should the mere rumor of such a thing ever reach the serene air of your high position." " And let the girl go and break her heart ! " said Foro'ue with a look black as death. " You need not fear ! There is no ground for imagining yourself such a marvel in the world of humanity that even a kitchen.wench will break her heart for you. She will, like any other w^oman, be very sorry for herself, no doubt ; but you may rest assured it will be nothing more than she expected, and will only confirm her opinion of you. She knows well enough the risk she runs." While they talked, Donal, wailing his turn, stood as on hot iron. To hear his lordship utter such things was, I need not say, as abominable in his ears as any other foul talk of hell. The moment his lordship ceased, he turned to Forgue, and said. . " My lord, you have removed my harder thoughts of you. You have broken your word in an infinitely nobler way than I believed you capable of ! " Lord Morven stared dumfounded. "Your comments are out of place, jNIr. Grant," said Forgue, with something of recovered dignity. "The matter is between my father and myself. If you wanted to beg my pardon, you might ha\'e found a more fitting opportunity." Donal held his peace. He had felt bound to show his sympathy with his enemy wherein he was right. More than that was not at the moment called for. The earl was perplexed. His one poor ally had 344 DOXAL GRANT. apparently gone over to tlie enemy ! He took a glass wilii some colorless liquid in it from the table by his bedside, and drank its contents; then, after a mo- ment's silence, as if of exhaustion and suffering, said to Donal, • " Mr. Grant, I desire a word with you.- — Leave the room, Forgue."' This last was said rudely. " My lord," returned Forgue, '• I came to acquaint you with a resolve affecting both my honor and happi- ness, and }0U order me from the room to confer with one whose presence is an insult to me." " It seemed to me," said his father bitterly, " he w^as of your own mind in the matter, as, no doubt, all of similar low — I mean humble origin — whatever their education, must in* the nature of things be. But, so far, I have found ]\lr. Grant a man of honor, and I owe you no explanation of my desire to have some l^rivate conversation with him. 1 therefore request you will leave us alone together." All this was said so politely, so altogether dif- ferently from his former utterance, that the youth dared not refuse compliance. The moment he was out of the room, and had closed the door behind him, the earl said, "Just look through that little hole in tliC panel, Mr. Grant, and tell me whether the fire is burning; in the next room." " It is blazing," said Donal. " Had there been a head between, you would not have seen it. I am glad he yielded, for otherwise I should have had to ask you to jDut him out, and I hate rows. I presume you would have been able ? " FURTHER INTERFERENCE. 345 " I think so," answered Donal. " And you would have done it ? " " I would have tried." " Thank you. But you seemed a moment ago ready to take his part against me ! " "On the girl's part — yes; — for his own sake too, as an honest man." " Come now, Mr. Grant ; I understand your pre- judices. You cannot look on the affair as you would had you been differently brought up, I am glad to have a man of such sound general principles to form the character of my younger son, but a moment's reflection will satisfy you — the thing is as plain as a mountain — that what would be the duty of a young man in your rank of life towards a young woman in the same rank, would be — would be simple ruin to one in Lord Forgue's position. For one thing, a capable man like yourself can make his living anyhow ; while to one born to bear the burden of a title, and without the means of supporting it, marriage with such a girl would mean ihn times the sacrifice involved in the keeping of such a promise by one even in such a superior position as your own." " I do not dispute a word of wliat you have no-w said, my lord," answered Donal ; "but my feeling is, at the moment a man speaks words of love to a woman, be she as lowly and as ignorant as mother Eve, that moment rank and privilege vanish fioni between them. All such distinction is swallowed by the closer bond. After that if a man, without suffic- ing reason, should fail to fulfil his part, he is a traitor." The earl gave a small sharp smile. 146 DONAL GRANT. " Vou would make a good special pleader, Mr. Grant ; but if vou liad known half as much of the world as I have, and had seen the consequences of such marriages half as often as I have seen them, you would modify your feeling at least if not your opinion. If I now take you into my confidence in a small mat- ter belonging to the history of our family — but no ; better not ! mark this, however ; the marriage shall not take place — by God ! Do you imagine I could for one moment talk of it with such coolness were there the smallest actual danger of its occurrence — if I did not know that it could not, shall not take place ! The bov is a fool, and I will let him know he is a fool. I have him in my power — neck and heels in my power, though he does not know it, and never could of him- self arrive at the fact, were he to ponder over my assertion the rest of his life. One word from me, and the rascal is paralyzed. Will you do so much for me as tell him what I have just said ? The marriage shall not take place, I repeat. Sick man as I am, I am not yet reduced to lying in bed, and receiving announcements of the good pleasure of my sons." He took up a small bottle, poured a little from it. added water, and drank it — then resumed. " Now for the girl : who knows about the affair ia the house ? " " So f-ir as I am' aware, no one knows of what has just come to light, except the old man, her grand- father, who had come to the castle to inquire after her, and was with me when we came upon them in the fruit garden. If Lord Forgue tell no one, no one is likely to hear of it." " Then let no further notice be taken of it. Tell FURTHER INTERFERENCE. 347 no one — not even Mrs. Brooks. Let the young fools do as they please." ' I cannot consent to that, my lord." " Why, what the devil have you to do with it ? " *^I am bound by my friendship with the old man " — "Pooh ! pooh ! Don't talk rubbish. What is it to any old man ? Let them go their own way. I was foolish myself to take the matter so seriously. It will all come right. If no opposition be offered, the affair will soon settle itself. By Jove, I'm sorry you inter- fered. It would have been much better left alone." '' My lord," said Donal, " I can listen to nothing more in this strain." "Very well. All I ask is — give me your promise not to interfere ? " " I will not." " Thank you." " My lord, you mistake. I meant you to under- stand that I would give you no such pledge. What I can do, I do not now know ; but if I can do anything to save that girl from disgrace, I will do it." " Disgrace ! you seem to think nothing of the only disgrace worth the name — that of an ancient and noble family." " The honor of that family, my lord, will be best preserved in the person of the girl." " Damn you ! Do you take me for your pupil ? Do you think to preach to me ? " But notwithstanding his fierce words Donal could not help either seeing or imagining a cowering, almost a suppliant look in his lordship's eye. " You must do as I tell you in my house, or you 34^ DUNAL GI'ANT. will soon sec the outside of it. — Come, I will tell you what: u-iariy the girl yourself — they say she is duced pretty — and I will give you — five hundred pounds for your wedding journey. Only take her out of this ! — Poor Davie ! I am sorry." " Is it your lordship's wish I should give Lord Forgue your lordship's message before I go ?" "Go? where? — Ah, on your wedding journey. Ha, ha I — No, it will hardly be necessary then." " I did not mean that, my lord." '•' Where then ? To tell the damned cobbler to come and fetch the slut? I will see to that. Riuir the bell there." " I am sorry to refuse anything your lordship de- sires of me, but I will not ring the bell." "You won't?" " No, mv lord." " Then, damn you ! be off to your lessons. I can do very well without you. Mind you don't let the insolent face of you come across my path. You are good enough for Davie, but you won't do for me." " If I remain in your house, my lord, it will be as much for Eppie's as for Davie's sake." "Get out of my sight," was his lordship's reply, and Donal went. He had hardly closed the door behind him, when he heard the bell ring violently ; and ere he reached the bottom of the stair, he met the butler panting up as fast as his short legs and red nose would permit him to answer it. He would have stopped to ques- tion Donal, but he hastened past him to his own room, and there sat down to think what he ought to do. CHAPTER XVII. KEEPING ALOOF. HAD DoiKil Grant's own dignity in the eyes of others been with him a matter of importance, he would have left the castle the moment he had got his things together ; but he thought much more of Davie, and much more of poor Eppie. Vv'hat was to be done for her ? There was little good to be ex- pected from such a marriage, but was it likely the marriage would ever take place? Was he at liberty to favor it any n:iore than to oppose it. He was in the castle in the pay of the lord of the castle — not as the friend of the cobbler or his 2:randdau2:hter ! It would be treacherous to deliver the message first given him and then withdrawn, so warning the fellow to steal a march on his father and marry the girl ere he could interfere ! At the same time he had told the earl that he would remain in the castle in order partly to do what he could for Eppie. To break off the affair in any way would be equally satisfactory to Lord Morven ! First of all he must see Andrew Comin again — the rather that he was anxious about him after the rough treatment he had received, which he more than suspected he had met in seeking to defend his friend. He hastened therefore to the town. But when he reached the bottom of the hill, there 349 35© DONAL GRANT. at the gate was Forgue, walking up and down as if waiting for some one — it might be liimself or it might be Eppie. He would have passed with a salu- tation, but Forgue stepped right in his way. " Mr. Grant," he said, "it is well we should under- stand each other." " I think, my lord, if you do not yet understand me, it can scarcely be my fault. I have taken some pains both active and passive to explain myself." " Come, come ! No jesting ! The time is not suitable. What did my father say? " *' I would deliver to your lordship a message which at one part of our interview he gave me for you, had I not two reasons against doing so — one that 1 be- lieve he was not of the same mind at its close, and the other that I have made up my mind not to serve him or you in the matter so far even as to take a mes- sage between you." " Then you intend neither to meddle nor make ? " " That is my affair, my lord. I have not the inten- tion of taking your lordship into my confidence." "Don't be unreasonable, now. Do get down off your high horse. Can't you understand a fellow ? Everybody can't keep his temper as you do ! Believe me I mean the girl no harm." " I will hold no further conversation with you. And I give you warning that whatever you insist on saying to me against my will, I will use against you without the least scruple, should occasion offer in the cause of Eppie or her friends." As he spoke he caught a look on Forgue's face, and perceived a change in his manner ; and it struck him that it was not for him but for Eppie he had KEEPING ALOOF. 351 been waiting. He turned at once and went bacic to- wards the castle. If she were on her way to join Forgue, he might meet lier. Forgue called after him, but he did not heed him ; as if he had forgot some- thing, he hastened back up tiie hill, but not so nmch as rustle of mouse or bird did he hear as he went. He lingered about the top of the road for half an hour, but no one appeared. He turned and went back to the gate, but no one was there or near it. It was of no use applying to Mrs. Brooks ; except she locked the girl up she could not keep her if she was set on going ; neither was he at all desirous she should remain. If she could not be restored to the care ot her grandparents, there was nothing else to be done ! Again he set out to go to Andrew Comin, and hold with him and his wife a consultation. He found the old woman in great distress : not merely was she sore troubled concerning the child — she was not so able as her husband to think philo- sophically about the sad affair — but she had his con- dition also to make her unhappy, for the poor man was suffering great pain, so much that the moment Donal saw him he went without a word to fetch med- ical aid. The doctor said there was a rib broken, got him to bed, bound him up, and sent him some medi- cine. All done that could be done, Dcfnal sat down to watch beside him. He lay very still, with closed eyes and a white face. But so very patient was he that the very pain seemed to find utterance in a kind of blind smile, Donal did not know much about pain : he could read in that look the devotion of the man to the will of him whose being was his peace, but he did not know above what depths of suffering 352 DONAL GRANT. his faith lifted him, and held him hovering as it were in safety. For that faith brought him into contact witii the life itself. It is not the faith that is the sav- ing power, but the eternal life in whose arms it en- ables us to lie. Then in closest contact with the divine, the original relation restored, the source once more holding its issue, the divine love is pouring itself into the deep- est vessel of the man's being, itself but a vessel for the hokiing of the diviner and divinest. If this be so, who can wonder if even in keenest pain a man should be able to smile ? Tliere are few who have reached that point of health that they can laugh at disease, but are there none ? Let no man say that because he cannot, therefore no one can. The old woman, too, was very calm, only every now and then she would lift her hands and shake' her head — and look as if the universe were going to pieces, because her old man lay there broken by the hand of the ungodly. And, doubtless, if he had lain there forgotten, or the ill had befallen him because he was forgotten, then indeed tl^ie universe would have been gcing to pieces. When he coughed, and the pain was keenest, every pang seemed to go through her body to her heart. Love is as lovely in the old as in the yoitng — lovelier wdien in them, as often, more sympathetic and unselfish, that is true. Donal could not leave her to the labor of watching the night long. He wrote to Mrs. Brooks, telling her he would not be home that night, but would be back to breakfast in the morning; and, having found a messenger at the inn, made his arrangements to watch through the night. KEEPING ALOOF. 353 It glided quietly over. Andrew slept a good deal, and seemed to be having pleasant visions. He was proving something of the yet unexplored meaning of the words, '"ye shall be saved." Sometimes his lips would move as if he were holding talk with friendly soul. Once Donal heard the murmured words, "Lord, I'm a' yer ain ;" and after that he noted his sleep grew deeper ; nor did he wake till the day began to dawn, when he asked for something to diink. Seeing Donal, and perceiving that he had been by his bedside all the night, he thanked him with a smile and a little nod, which somehow served to bring to Donal's memory certain words Andrew had spoken on another occasion : " there's ane^ an' there's a' ; an' the a' 's ane, an' the ane's a'." When Donal reached the castle, he found his breakfast waiting him, and Mrs. Brooks too waiting to help him to it, and let him know something that had taken place, which also concerned his friends. Eppie, she said, had the night before come in from the garden, and meeting her in the passage, 1 ad burst into tears ; but she could get nothing out of her, and had sent her to her room. This morning she had not come down at the proper time, and when she sent after her did not come. Then she went up herself, and found her in a strange mood. She would explain nothing, only declared herself determmed to leave the castle that very day, and she was now packing her things to go ; nor did Mrs. Brooks see any good in trying to prevent her. Work was worthless when the heart was out of it ! Donal agreed with her, and said if only she would go home, there was plenty for her to do there, for her 354 DONAL GRANT. i^randfather was in bed with a broken rib, and \erv feverish ; old people's bones were brittle and not easy to mend ! There would be plenty to do before they got him round again ! Mrs. Brooks agreed it would be the best thing for her to go home, where she would be looked after by those who had a better right and a smaller house. The girl would never do at the castle, it was clear! For her part she would not keep her now if she were to beg to stay; it was evident some nonsense was yet sticking in her head that would breed her grief, and she would rather it did not arrive while she was under her charge ! Donal asked her if she could see that she went home. Mrs. Brooks said she would take her home herself, adding, " The lass is no an ill ane ; she's but hitey-titey, an disna ken what she wad be at. She wants some o' the Lord's ain discipleen, I'm thinkin' ! " " An' that ye may be sure she'll get^ Mistress Brooks," said Donal. Managed by the housekeeper, Eppie readily yielded, and was even readier to go home to help her grand- mother nurse her grandfather than she had expected. For the poor girl expected the whole thing would presently be known, and was in terror of Lord Mor- ven, whom everybody in the castle feared — except Mrs. Brooks and Donal — it would have been difficult to say precisely why, or what shape the fear took : I think it came in part of their seeing him so seldom ; he had come nearly to represent the ghost, said to issue from the invisible room and haunt the castle. It made it the easier for her to go home that her grandmother would be glad of her help, and that her KEEPING ALOOF. 355 grandfather, of whom she was more afraid, would not be able to say much to her. With all her faults she was an affectionate girl, and was concerned lo hear of the state of her grandfather — the more that, if she did not know, she must have suspected something of how he had met with his accident — a thing she would feel more than she would resent; for the love of being loved is such a poor inspiration, that the greatest injustice from the dearest to the next dearest will bv some natures be easily tolerated. ]n ourselves, God help us ! we are a mean set — and meanest the man who is ablest to justify himself ! Mrs. Brooks, having got ready a heavy basket of good things for Epple to carry home to her grand- mother, and I suspect having made it the heavier for the sake of punishing Eppie a little, set out presently to take her home, saying to herself, '■The jaud wants a wheen harder wark nor I ha'e ever handed til her han' ! Her to be settin' up for company to the young lord ! She's but a cart-horse, an' i' the shafts she's gang what I hae left o' the cawin' o' her ! " But she was kindly received, and without a word of reproach, by her grandmother. The invalid smiled to her when she came near his bedside, and the poor girl turned away to conceal the tears she could not repress. She loved her grandparents, and she loved the young lord, and she could not get the two loves to dwell peaceably in her mind together — a common difficulty with our weak, easily divided, hardly united natures — frangible, friable, easily distorted, easily coming to pieces ! It needs no less than God him- self, not only to unite us to one another, but to join up 35 " " Perhaps I should not have said happy^'' an- swered Donal, who never refused to be put right. '* What I mean is, as able to go on and order your ways arig/it. — \\'hat I want most of all to teach you,'' h.e addded, " is to leave the door on the latch for some one — you know whom I mean — to come in." This he said more for the sake of the less declared pupil. " Race me up the stair, Arkie," said Davie when they came to the foot of the spiral. " Very well,"' assented his cousin. "Which side will you have — the broad or the narrow ? " A VISITOR. 395 " The broad." '' Well then — one, two, three, and away we go ! " Davie mounted like a clever goat, his hand and arm thrown about the newel, and slipping easily round it. Arctura's ascent was easier but slower, and she found her garments in her way. She gave it up and waited for Donal, who was ascending leisurely. Davie, thinking he heard her footsteps behind him, flew up shrieking with the sweet terror of the im- agined pursuit of love. " What a sweet boy he is ! " said Arctura, when Donal overtook her. " Yes," answered Donal ; "one cannot help fancying such a child might run straight into the kingdom of heaven. Yet I suppose he must have his temptations and trials before he will be fit for it. It is out of the storm alone that the true peace comes." " Then I may hope that what I have got to go through will not be lost, but will serve some good in me .'' " There had never been any allusion to her trouble between them, but Donal took it as understood, and answered, " Doubtless. Every pain and every fear, yes, every doubt is a cry after God. What mother refuses to go to her child because he is only crying^ not calling her by name ! " " Oh, if I could but think that ! It would be so delightful — I mean, to be able to think that about God ! For don't you think, if it be all right with God — I mean, if God be such a God that we can love him with all our heart and all our strength of loving, then all is well ? Is it not so, Mr. Grant ? " " Indeed it is i — And you are not far from the 39^ DONAL GRANT. kingdom of heaven," he was on the point of saying, but did not, because she was in it already — only unable vet to verify the things around her, like the man who had but half-way received his sight. When they reached the top, he took them past his door, and higher up the stair to another, opening on the roof, upon wliich they at once stepped out. Donal told Davie to keep close to Lady Arctura and follow him. He led them first to his stores of fuel, his ammunition, he said, for fighting the winter. Then l:e showed them where he was when first he heard the music the night before, and threw down his bucket to follow it, and how when he came back he had to feel for it in the dark. Then he began to lead them, as nearly as he could, the way he had then gone, but with some detours for their sakes desirable-. One steep-sloping roof they had to cross, but it had a little stair of its own up the middle of it, and down the other side. They came at last, however, to a part over which, seeing it in the daylight, he was not quite sure about taking them. Stopping to bethink him- self, they all turned and looked behind. The sun was approaching the sea, and slione so bright over the flat wet country that they could not tell where the sea beiran and the land ended. But as thev looked a irreat cloud came over the sun, and the sea turned cold and gray like death — a true March sea, and the land lay low and desolate between. The spring was gone, and the winter was there. A gust of wind, full of keen dashing hail, drove sharp in their faces. '' Ah, that settles the question ! " said Donal. " We must not go any farther just at present. The music bird must wait. We will call upon her another day. A VISITOR, 397 It is funny, isn't it Davie, to go a bird's-nestini^^ after music on the roof of the house ! " " Hark ! " said Arctura ; " I think T heard it ! The music bird wants us to find her nest ! T really don't think we ought to go back for a little blast of wind, and a few pellets of hail ! What do you think, Davie ? " " Oh, for me; I don't think I would turn for ever so big a storm,'' said Davie ; " but you know, Arkie, it's not you or me, it's Mr. Grant that's the captain of this expedition, and we must do as he bids us." " Oh, surely, Davie ! I never meant to dispute that. Only Mr. Grant is not a tyrant, and will let a lady say what she thinks." " Oh, yes, he likes me to say what I think ; he says we can't get at each other otherwise. And do you know he obeys me sometimes ! " Arctura glanced a keen question at the boy. " It is quite true," said Davie. " Last winter, for days together, not all day, you know, I had to obey him most of the time : but at certain times I was as sure of Mr. Grant doing as I told him as he is now of me doing as he tells me." '- What were those times," asked Arctura, thinking to hear of some odd pedagogic device. *' It was when I was teaching liim to skate," answered Davie, with a kind of triumph. " He said I knew better than he did there, and therefore he would obey me. And you wouldn't believe how he did it — out and out ! " concluded Davie, in a voice of something almost like awe. "Oh, ves, I would believe it — perfectly well!" said Arctura. 39^ DONAL GRANT. Here Donal suddenly tlirew an arm round eacli of them, for he stood between them, and pulled them down sitting. The same instant a fierce blast burst upon the roof. Donal had seen the squall Avhitening the sea, and looking nearer home saw the tops of the trees all streaming towards the castle. It fell upon them with fur\'. But seated they were in no danger, for they were almost under the lee of a parapet. " Hark ! " said Arctura again, " there it is ! " And they all heard the wailing cry of the ghost- music. But while the blast continued they dared not prosecute their hunt after it. Still they heard it. It kept on in fits and gusts of sound, till the squall ceased, as suddenly almost as it had risen. Then the sky was again clear, and the sun shone out as a March sun can between the blundering blasts and the swan-shot of the flying hail. "When the storm is upon us," said Donal, as they rose from their crouching position, " it seems as if there never could be any sunshine more ; but our hopelessness does not keep back the sun when his hour to shine is come."' ''I understand," said Arctura. "When one is miserable, misery seems the law of being. There i s some thouo-ht which it seems nothinof can ever set right ; but all at once it is gone, broken up and gone, like that hail-cloud. Without any argument all at once it will look its own foolishness and vanish." " Do you know why things so often come right ? " said Donal. "I would say always come right, only that is matter of faith, not sight." " I think I know what you are thinking, but I do not want to answer," said Arctura. A VISITOR. 399 " Why do things come right so often, Davie, do you think ? " repeated Donal. "Is it," returned Davie, " because they were made right to begin with ? " *' There is much in that, Davie ; but there is a bet- ter reason than that. It is because thin2:s are all alive, and the life at the heart of them, that which keeps them going, is the great, beautiful God. So the sun forever returns after the clouds. A doubtin"- man, like him who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, puts the evil last, and says the clouds return after the rain ; but the Christian knows that One has mastery Who makes the joy the last in every song. Those are the words of faith." " You speak always like one who has suffered ! " said Arctura, v/ith a kind look up at him. " Who has not that lives at all ? " " That -is how you are able to help otnei's ! " "Am I able to help others! I am very glad to hear it. My ambition would be to help other people, if I had any ambition. But if I am so able, it must be because I have been helped myself, not because I have suffered." " But what do you mean by saying if you had any ambition ? " " Where your work is laid out for you, there is no room for ambition. You have got your work to do ! But give me your hand, my lady ; put your other hand on my shoulder. You stop there, Davie, and don't move till T come to you. Now, my lady, a little jump ! 400 DONAL GRANT. Thai's it ! Now you are safe ! You were not afraid, were you ? '' " Not in the least — with you to help me. But did you come here in the dark ? " "Yes ; but there is sometimes an advantage in the dark ; you do not see how dangerous the way is. We sometimes take the darkness about us for the source of all our difficulties, but that may be a great mistake. Christian would hardly have dared go through the valley of the shadow of death had he not had the shield of the darkness about him." " Can the darkness be a shield ? Is not the dark the evil thins: ? " " Yes, the dark of distrust and unwillingness, not the dark of mere human ignorance. Where we do not see we are protected. And what can our self- protection do. for us by day any more than by night ? The things that are really dangerous to us are those that affect the life of the image of the living God ; we are so ignorant about that as yet, though it is our deepest nature that there the Father must every moment take care of his child. If he were not, for instance, constantly pardoning our sins, what would become of us ! We should soon be overwhelmed with our wrong doings, not to say our mistakes and blunders. But in him we live and move and have our being, which surely means that we are pretty close to him. Ah, yes, we must learn to trust him about our faults as well as about ever3^thing else." Donal had stopped in the earnestness of his talk, but now turning to go on. " There is my mark ! " he said, " that chimney-stack ! I was close by it when I heard the music very near me indeed : but then all at once A VISITOR. 401 it grew so dark with clouds deepening over the moon that I could do nothing more. We shall do better now in the daylight, and three of us together ! " " What a huge block of chimney ! " said Arctura. " Is it not ! " returned Donal. " It indicates the greatness of the building below us, of which we can see so little. It is like the volcanoes of the world, telling us how much fire is necessary to keep the old earth warm." " I thought it was the sun that kept the earth warm," said Davie. " So it is, but not the sun alone. The earth is like the human heart. The great glowing fire is God in the heart of the earth, and the great sun is God in the sky, keeping it warm on the other side. Your gladness and pleasure, your trouble when you do wrong, your love for all about you, that is God inside you ; and all the beautiful things and lovable people, all the lessons you get, and whatever comes to you, is God outside of you. Every life is between two great fires of love of God, that is. so long as we do not give ourselves up right heartily to him, we fear the fire will burn us. And so it does when we go against its flames and not with them, refusing to burn with the same glorious fire with which God is rdwavs burn- ing. When we try to put it out, or get away from it, then indeed it burns." "I think I know," said Davie. But Arctura held he peace. " But now," said Donal, " I must go round and have a peep at the other side of the chimneys." He disappeared, and Arctura and Davie stood waiting his return. They looked each in the other's 402 DONAL GRANT. face with delight, as if in the conscious sharing of the great adventure. Beyond their feet lay the wide country and the great sea ; over them the sky with the sun in it going down towards the sea ; under their feet the mighty old pile that was their house ; and under that the earth with its molten heart of fire. But Davie's look was in reality one of triumph in his tutor. It said, "Is it not grand to be all day with a man like that, talking to you and teaching you ? " That at least was how Arctura interpreted his look. It seemed almost an assertion of superiority to her, in as much as this man was his tutor and not hers ; and she replied to the thing unspoken, perhaps unthought except by herself. " I am his pupil, too, Davie," she said, " though I do not think ]\Ir. Grant knows it." "How can that be," answered Davie, "when you are afraid of him ? I am not a bit afraid of him ! " " How do you know that I am afraid of him ? " she asked. " Oh, anybody could see that ! " Since she turned the talk on Donal, Arctura had not cared to look the boy in the face. She was afraid she had spoken foolishly, and Davie might repeat her words. She did not quite wish to hasten any further intimacy with him ; things seemed going in that direction fast enough. Her eyes avoiding Davie's countenance, kept reconnoitring the stack of chimneys. " Ain't you glad to have such a castle to call your own — to do what you like with, Arkie ? You could pull it all to pieces if you liked ! " "Would it be less mine," said Arctura, **if I were A VISITOR. 403 not at liberty to pull it to pieces ? And would it be mine when I had pulled it to pieces, Davie ? " Donal had come round the other side of the stack, and heard what she said. It pleased him, for it was not a little in his own style. " What makes a thing your own, do you think, Davie ? " she went on. "To be able to do with it what you like," replied Davie. " Whether it be good or bad.'* " " Yes^ I think so," answered' Davie, doubtfully. "There I think you are quite wrong," she rejoined. "The moment you begin to use a thing wrong, that moment you make it less yours. I can't quite explain it, but that is how ft looks to me." She ceased and after a moment Donal took up the question. " Lady Arctura is quite right, Davie," he said. " The nature, that is the use of a thing, is that only by which it can be possessed. Any other possession is like a slave-owning, not a righteous having. Tlie right to use to the true purpose and the power to do so, is what makes a thing ours. I am not thinking of the law in what I say, but of the nature of things. Suppose you had a very beautiful picture, but from some defect in your sight you could never see that picture as it really was, while a servant in the house not only saw it as it was meant to be seen, but had such an intense delight in gazing at it that even in his dreams it came to him and made him think of many things he would not have thought of but for knowing it — which of you, you or the servant in your house, would have the more real possession of 404 DONAL GRANT. that picture ? You could sell it away from yourself, and never know anything about it, but you could not by all the power of a tyrant take away that picture from your servant." " Ah ! now I understand," said Davie, with a look at lady Arctura which seemed to say, " You see how Mr. Grant can make me understand." " I wonder," said Lady Arctura, " what that curious opening in the side of the chimney stack means. It can't be meant for the smoke to come out at." " No," said Donal ; " there is not a mark of smoke about it. Besides if it had been meant for that, it would hardly have been put half-way from the top. I can't make it out. A hole like that in any chimney would surely interfere with the draught. The mouth of that chimney seems to be up among the rest of them. I must get a ladder and see whether it be a chimney." " If you were to put me up on your shoulders," said Davie, " I should be able to see into the hole." " Come then ; up you go," said Donal. And up went Davie standing on his tutor's shoulders, and peeped into the slit which ran hori- zontallv across. " It looks very like a chimney," he said, turning his head and thrustino^ it in sidewavs. " It ffoes riaht down to somewhere," he said. " But there is some- thing across it a little way down — to prevent the jackdaws from getting in, I suppose." " What is it ? " asked Donal. " Something like a grating," answered Davie, " — no, not a gratmg exactly. It is what you might call a grating, but it seems made of wires all run- A VISITOR. 405 ning one way. I don't think it would keep a strong bird out if lie wanted to get in." " Aha ! " said Donal to himself, ^' I suspect there is something here. What if those wires were tuned ! Did you ever see an^olian harp, my lady ? " he asked. — "I never did." "Yes," answered Lady Arctura, " — once when I was a little girl. And now you suggest it, I think the sounds we hear are not unlike those of an ^olian harp ! The strings are all about the same length, I remember that — only differently tuned. But I do not understand the principle of it at all. Somehow they all play together, and make the strangest, wild- est harmonies, when the wind blows across them in a particular way." " I fancy we have found the nest of our music- bird," said Donal. " The wires Davie speaks of may be the strings of an yEolian harp ! I wonder if there is any possibility of a draught across them ! I must get up and see ! I will go and get a ladder." " But \vo^ cvuld there be an ^olian harp up here .'* " said Arctura. "Something is here," answered Donal, "which needs accounting for , it may be an ^olian harp." " But in a chimney ! the soot would spoil the strings \ " " Then perhaps it is not a chimney : is there any sign of soot about, Davie .'' " " No, sir ; there is nothing but pretty clean stone and lime." " You see, my lady, that we do not even know that this is a chimney ! " "What else could it be, standing with the rest.'' " 4o6 DONAL GRANT. "At least it has never served the uses of a chim- ney, so far as we cah see. It may have been built for one • if it had ever been used for one, the marks of smoke would remain, had it been disused ever so long. But now we will go, and to-morrow I will come up with a ladder." "Will you not get it now.?" said Arctura. *' I should so like to be there when it was found out." " As you please, my lady. I will go at once and get a ladder. There is one not far from the bottom of the tower." " If you do not mind the trouble ; I should so like' to see the end of the thing ! " " I will come and help you carry it," said Davie. " You mustn't leave your cousin alone^ Besides, I am not sure I can get it up the stair , I am afraid it is too long. Anyhow you could not very well help me. If I find I cannot get it up that way, we will rig up our old tackle and fetch it up as we did the fuel." He went, and the cousins sat down to wait his re- turn. It was a cold evening, but Arctura was \vell wrapt up, and Davie was hardy. They sat at the foot of the chimneys and began to talk. "It is such a long time since you told me any- thing, Arkie ! " said the boy. " You do not need me now to tell you anything You have Mr. Grant. You like him much better than ever you did me ! " " You see," said Davie, not denying the assertion, "he began by making me a little afraid of him — not that he meant to do that, I think ; he only meant that I should do what he told me. I was never afraid of you, Arkie ! " A VISITOR. 407 " Yet I was much crosser to you than Mr. Grant, I am sure." " j\Ir. Grant is never cross ; and if ever you were, I have forgotten it, Arkie. I only remember that I was not good to you. I am sorry for it now when I He awake in bed ; but I say to myself you forgive me, and go to sleep." '* What makes you think I forgive you, Davie ? " said Arctura. " Because I love you." This was not very logical, and set Arctura thinking. She did not forgive the boy because he loved her; but the boy's love to her might make him sure she forgave him. Love is its own justification, and sees its reflection in all its objects. Forgiveness is an es- sential belonging of love, and cannot be parted from it." " Are you very fond of my brother ? " asked Davie after a pause. '' Why do you ask me that ? " " Because they say you and he are going to be married some day, and yet you don't seem to care to be much together." "It is all nonsense," replied Arctura, reddening. " I wdsh people would not talk such foolishness ! " "Well, I do think he is not so fond of you as of Eppie." " Hush ! hush ! you must not talk of such things." " But, I've seen him kiss Eppie, and I never saw him kiss you." " No, indeed ! " '■But is it right of Forgue, if he is going to marry you, to kiss Eppie ? — that's what I want to know ! " 4o8 DONAL GRANT. "But he is not going lo marry me." " He would, if you told him you wished it. Papa wishes it very much." " How do you know that ? " "From many things I have heard him say Once he said, ' Afterwards, when the house is our own,' and I asked him what he meant by it, and he said, 'When Forgue marries your pretty cousin, then the castle wdll be Forgue's. That will be how it ought to be, you know ; for property and title ought never to be parted.' " The hot blood rose to Arctura's temples ; was she a thing to be flung in as a makeweight to property ? But she called to mind how strange her uncle was, and how he had been growing ever stranger. Surely but for that he would not, whatever he might think, have been guilty of the imprudence of talking in that way to a boy whose very simplicity rendered him the more dangerous ! "You would not like to have to give away your cas- tle, would you, Arkie ? " he went on. " Not to any one I did not love." " If I were you, I would not marry any one, but keep my castle to myself. I don't see why Forgue or any- one else should have your castle } " " Then you think I should make my castle mj husband ? " " He would be a good big husband anyhow, and l strong one, and one that would defend you from yout enemies, and not talk when you wanted to be quiet.'' "That is all very true ; but one might for all thai o;et a little weary of such a stupid husband, howevei big and strong he might be." A VISITOR. 409 " But he would never be a cruel husband ! I have heard papa say a great deal about some cruel husbands ; it seemed sometimes as if he meant himself ; but that could not be, because papa could never ha\e been a cruel husband." Arctura made no reply. All but vanished memories of things she had heard when a child, hints and signs here and there that all was not right between her uncle and aunt vaguely returned. Could it be that now at last he was repenting of harshness to his wife, and the thought of it was preying upon him, and driv- ing him to a refuge of lies ? But in the presence of the boy she could not think thus about his father, and was relieved by the return of Donal. He had found it rather a diiificult job to get the ladder round the sharp curves of the stair ; but now at last they saw him with it upon his shoulder coming over a distant part of the roof. " Now we shall see," he said, as he set it down, leaned it up against the chimney, and stood panting. " You have tired yourself out," said Lady Arctura, " with that ladder." " Well, Where's the harm, my lady, in that ? A man was meant to get tired a good many limes before he lies down for the last time ! " rejoined Donal lightly. Said Davie, " Was a woman meant, Mr. Grant, to marry a man she does not love? " " No, certainly, Davie." " Mr. Grant," said Arctura, in dread of what Davie might say next, " what do you take to be the chief duty of one belonging to an ancient family, and inher- iting a large property .? Ought a woman to get rid of it, or attend to its duties herself? " 41 DONAL GRANT. Donal thought a httle. *' We must first settle what is the main duty of property, and that I am hardly prepared to discuss." " But is there not a duty owing to the family ? " " There are a thousand duties owing to the family." " I don't n-ican those you are living with, but those who are gone before you, and have left the property to you."' "The property called mine belongs to my family rather than to me, and if there had been a son it would have gone to him. Should I not be doing better for the family by giving it up to the next heir, and letting him manage it? I am not disinterested quite in starting the question, for power and property are of no great importance in my eyes. To me they are rather hindrances in the path I want to walk in." " It seems to me," said Donal, "that the fact that you would not have succeeded had there been a son, points to anotlier fact, that there has been another disposer of events concerned in the matter : you were sent into the world to take the property." " God of course is over all, and overrules all things to his ends." " And if he has been pleased to let the property come to you, he expects you to perform the duties of it. These are not to be got rid of by throwing the thing aside, or given to another to do instead of you. Perhaps if your first duty in regard to the property- was to your family as the giver, and not to God, the question might put itself as you suggest — but I con- fess I have hardly interest in such matters to be capable of discussing them. I understand my duty to my sheep or cattle, to my master, to my father or A VISITOR. 411 mother, to my brother or sister, to my pupil Davie here ; I owe my ancestors love and honor, and the keeping of their name unspotted, though that duty is forestalled by a higher ; but as to the property they leave behind them, over which they have no more power, and which now in all probability they neither value nor think about, except perhaps it be to bemoan the added difficulty it is to the escape of their chil- dren, I do not see you can be under any obligation to them beyond or other than that which is comprised in the duties of the property itself." " But a family is not merely those that are gone before, but those that are to come after : would you say it was one's duty to get rid of property in order that those to come after micrht not be burdened with its temptations and responsibilities.'*" '' Not at least by merely shifting the difficulties from your own family to that of another. Besides, it would be to take the appointment of things into your own hands, instead of obeying the orders gi\en you. And here ae'ain, the best thin.<^ for those to come after is to receive the property with its duties performed with the light of righteousness radiating from it." "What then do you call the duties of property? " " In what does the property consist.-*" "In land, to begin with." " If the land were of no value, would the possession of it involve duties ? " " I suppose not." " In what does the value of the land consist.'* " Lady Arctura did not at once attempt an answer to the questions, and Donal, after a little pause, re- sumed. 412 DONAL GRANT. " If you valued things as the world values them I should not care to put the thing to you ; but I am afraid you may have some lingering notion that God's way is the true way, but man's \vay must not be dis- regarded. One thing, however, must be held for certain, that nothing that is against God's way can be true ; and therefore I say the value of property con- sists only in its being means, ground, or material to work his will withal. There is no success in the uni- verse but in his will being done." Arctura was silent. She had inherited prejudices which, while she hated sellishness, were yet thoroughly selfish. Those belong to the evils in us hardest to get rid of. They are even cherished for a lifetime by some of the otherwise loveliest of souls. Therefore knowing that here she must think, and would think, Donal went no farther for the time : a house must have its foundations well settled before they are built upon ; argument where the grounds of it are in dis- pute, is worse than useless. He turned to his ladder, set it up carefully, mounted, and peered into the opening. At the length of his arm he could reach the wires Davie had described : they were taut, and free of rust — were therefore not iron or steel. He saw also that a little down the shaft light came in from the opposite side — there was an opening there too. Next he saw that each following string — for strings he already counted them, itself horizontal — was placed a little lower than that before it, so that their succession was inclined to the other side and dowmwards, apparently in a plane between the two openings, that a draught might pass along them in one plane, and that their own plane : this must surely A VISITOR. 413 be the instrument whence the music flowed ! He descended. " Do you know, m\ lady," he asked Arctura, "how the .(^olian harp is placed in relation to the wind that wakes it ? " "The only one I have seen," she answered, " was made to fit into a window, in which the lower sash was opened just wide enough to let it in, so that the wind entering must pass across the strings." Then Donal was satisfied — he was at least all but certain. " Of course," he said to Arctura, after describing to her the whole arrangement, " we cannot be abso- lutely certain until we have been here present with the music, and have experimented by covering and uncovering the opening. For that we must wait the next southeast wind." "I should so much like to be here," she said, " when it comes!" " If it be neither dark, nor in the middle of the night," said Donal, " nothing will be easier." So they descended and parted. CHAPTER XXI. MEETING OF THE THREE. BUT Donal did not feel that even then would he have exhausted the likelihood of discovery. That the source of the music that had so long haunted the house was an ^olian harp in a chimney that had never or scarcely been used, might be enough for the other dwellers in the castle, but Donal wanted to know as well whv, if this was a chimney, it had been seldom and was never used ; also to what room it was a chimney. For the thought had struck him — could the music have anything to do with the main legend that hung vaporous about the ancient house ? Perhaps he might not so imme- diately have sought a possible connection between the two, but that the talk about the unknown room in the castle had gone on spreading ; inquiry after popular legendary lore had come nearer and nearer, and that had naturally increased the talk about it. At the same time were heard occasional and increas- ing hints as to a ghost being even now seen at times about the castle. As to this latter, Donal had con- cluded that one or more of the domestics might have had a glimpse of the earl in his restless night walks about the house, and had either imagined a ghost or had chosen to use the memory of their own fright to produce like effect upon yielded listeners. With all 414 MEETING OF THE THREE. 415 its vagueness, the report was yet, as was natural, associated with that of the lost chamber, as if from that the spectre issued, and to that he returned. Various were the conjectures as to what ghost it might be — among the few who were inclined to believe in such things, according to the version of the story adopted. Donal, by nature strongly urged towards the roots of things, could not fail to let his mind rest at times even on such a comparatively unimportant rumor of mystery, and cherish a desire to discover whether any or how much truth was at the root of it — for a root, great or small, there must be to everything — even the greatest lie that was ever told — a root that is, if not in the material, then in the moral world. But he had no right to go pry- ing about the place, or doing anything which if known might be disagreeable. He must take an opportunity of first suggesting the idea to Lady Arc- tura ! By the way she took it he would be guided. For the present he must wait ! His spare hours were now much occupied with his friend, Andrew Comin. The good man had so far recovered as to think himself able to work again ; but he soon found it was very little he could do. His strength was gone, and the exertion necessary to the lightest labor caused him pain. It was sad to watch him on his stool, now putting in a stitch, now stopping for the cough which so sorely haunted his thin, wind-blown tent. His face had grown very white and thin, and he had nearly lost his merriment, though not his cheerfulness, for he never looked other than quite content however things were with him. He had made up his mind that he was not to 41 6 DONAL GRANT. get better, but was to go home through a lingering ilhiess. He was ready to go and ready to linger, as God pleased. Nor was there anything wonderful in its being so with such a man. To most it will appear more wonderful that he had no uneasiness as to how his Doory would fare when he was gone. The house was their own, but there was no money in it — not even enough to pay the taxes ; and if she sold it, the proceeds would not be enough for her to live upon. The neighbors with the instinct of inferior natures, were severe upon Andrew's indifference to her wel- fare, manifest, they judged, in his great cheerfulness on the brink of the grave ; but scarce one of them knew the world of faith in which he lived, or could have understood that for the cobbler to allow the smallest danger of things going wrong for Doory, would have been to go down to the grave with the feeling that the universe was upheld only in the slip- pery arms of chance. A little moan escaping from Doory, as she looked one evening into her money-teapot, made Donal ask her a question or two. She confessed that she had but a sixpence left. Now Donal had spent next to nothing since he came, and had therefore a few pounds in hand. His father and mother, he knew, were in want of nothing; his friend Sir Gibbie Gal- braith was such a good son to them that, compared with foregone hardships, never at the time counted such, they were now living in luxury. Old Robert doubted whether he was not ministering to the flesh in letting Janet provide beef-brose for him twice in the week. So Donal was free to spend for the friends next him — which was just what the people MEETING OF THE THREE. 417 at home, who were grand in the way they thought about money, would have approved of. Never in that little cottage had a penny been wasted ; never once one refused where there was immediate need. But first he must talk to Andrew. " An'rew," he said, " I'm thinkin'ye maun be grow- in' some short o' siller i' tbae times o' warklessness! " " Deed, I wadna won'er ! " answered Andrew, " Doory says naething aboot sic triffles." " Well," returned Donal, " thank God I hae some i' the ill pickle o' no bein' itherwise wantit, an' sae in danger o' cankerin' ; an' atween brithers there sudna be twa purses." "Ye hae yer ain fowk to luik efter, sir," said Andrew. "They're weel luikit efter — better nor ever they war i' their lives — they're as weel a£f as I am mysel' up i' yon gran' castle. They hae a freen wha but for them, or somebody i' their stead, wad ill hae lived to be the great man he is the noo ; an' there's naething ower muckle for him to do for them ; sae my siller's my ain to do wi' as I like — an' I like you an' Doory, as ye weel ken, better onybody but a feow auld freens." Thereupon the old man put him through a cate- chism as to his ways and means and prospects, and finding that Donal believed as firmly as himself in the care of the master, and was convinced there was nothing that master would rather see him do with his money than help those who needed it, especially those who trusted in him, he yielded. "It's no, ye see," said Donal, " that I hae ony doobt o' the Lord providin' gien I had failt, but he 4l8 DONAL GRANT. bauds the thing to my han', just as muckle as gien he said, ' tlierc's for you to du, Donal ! ' The fowk o' this waiT, An'rew, micht say it was hard on a puir student to hae to pairt his hard won cash ; but you an' me kens better, An'rew. We ken there's nae guid in siller, ony mair tlian in onything ither, but to do the wull o' the Lord \vi' it — an' help to ane an ither is the thing he likes best to see come o' the siller. It's no 't he's short himsel', ye ken, Andrew ! " "Weel, I'll tak it," said the old man. "There's what I hae," returned Donal, handing him the money. " Na, na; nane o' that!" said Andrew. " Ye're treatin' me like a muckle receivin' sornin' beggar — offerin' me a' that at ance ! Whaur syne wad be the prolonged sweetness o' haein' 't frae yer han' as frae the neb o' an anj^el-corbie sent frae varra ha me wi' yer denner." Here shone a glimmer of the old mer- riment through the worn look and pale eyes. — " Na, na, sir," he went on; "jist talk the thing ower wi' Doorv, an' lat her hae what she wants an' nae mair. She wadna like it. Wha kens what may come i' the meantime — Deilh himsel', maybe! Or see — gie Doory a five shillins, an' whan that's done she can lat ye ken." Donal was forced to leave it thus, but he did his utmost to impress upon Doory that all he had was at her disposal. "I got new clothes," he said, "just before I came ; I have all I can possibly want to eat, and drink, and n-^uch more ; and for books, there's a whole ancient library at my service! — what can I want more? It's just a mere luxury to hand the money MEETING OK THE THREE. 419 over to you, Doory. I'm thinkin', Doory," for he had got by this time to address the old woman by her husband's pet name for her, " there's naebody i' this warl', 'cep' the oonseen Lord himsel', lo'es yer man sae weel as you an' me. Weel ken I you an' him wad share yer last crust wi' me ; an' I'm only giein' ye o' yer ain good wull whan ye tak sae lang as 1 hae onything." Thus adjured the old woman made no difficulty; if her husband was satisfied, she was satisfied. The time was now drawing nigh for the return of Lord Forgue, but Eppiehad learned only his absense, and nothing concerning his return. But as if she foresaw it, there was a restless light in her eyes. When Stephen Kennedy heard that Eppie had gone back to her grandparents, a faint hope re- vived in his bosom ; he knew nothing of the late passage between the lovers and her friends. He but knew that she was looking sad, as if she had lost her lover, and it seemed to hini as if now she- might at least admit him to be of some service to her. Separation had begotten more and more o-entle thoughts of her in his heart ; he was ready to forgive everything, and believe nothing serious against her, if only she would let him love her again. The modesty of true love had, however, restrained him from throwing himself in her way, until some time should have elapsed, allowing her to forget a little. He haunted the house, however, in the hope of getting a peep of her; and when she began to go again into the town he saw her repeatedly, following her for the sake of being near her, but taking care she should not see him, and 42 O DONAL GRANT. partly from her self-absorption, he succeeded in escap- ing her notice. At length, however, one night rather more than a month after her return, he tried to summon up courage to accost her. It was a warm, lovely, moonlit night, half the street floored with quaint black shadows from the gables, the other shining like the sand on the seashore in the yellow light. On the moony side the people standing at their doors could recognize each others' faces, but in the shadow it was not easy to tell who was passing at a little distance. Eppie had gone into the baker's, "whose daughter was her friend ; Kennedy had seen her go in, and stood in the shadow, waiting for her to come out, and all but determined to speak to her that night if he could. She remained within a good while, but one accustomed to wait for the fish of the sea learns patience. At length she appeared. By this time, however, though not his patience, •Kennedy's courage had nearly evaporated, and when he saw her coming towards him, he stepped under an archway, let her pass, and followed afresh. All at once a resolve, which yet was no resolve, awoke in him. He did not know how or whence it came. He said it was as if some one — not that he feU anything — had taken him by the shoulders and pushed him up to her. She started when he stepped in front of her, and gave a little cry„ " Dinna be feart at me, Eppie," said Kennedy. " I wadna hurt a hair o' yer held. I wad raither be skinned mvsel' ! " " Gang awa," said Eppie. " Ye hae nae richt to come afore me." MEETING OF THE THREE. 42 1 "Nane but the richt o' lo'ein' ye better nor ever," said Kennedy, "gien sae be as ye'll lat me ony gait shaw 't ! " The words softened her: she had dreaded re- proaches, if not some outbreak of indignant remon- strance. She began to cry. "Gien onything i' my pooer wud tak' the grief aff o' ye, Eppie," said Kennedy, "ye hae but to speak — ye maun ken that! I'm no gauin' to ask ye to merry me, for that I ken ye wudna care aboot ; but gien I can be a freen to you or yours, or may be alloot to do onything to help i' yer trible, I'm ready to lay me i' the dirt afore ye. I hae nae care for mysel' ony mair, an' therefore maun do something for somebody — an' wha sae soon as yersel', Eppie ! " For sole answer, Eppie went on crying. She was far from happy. She had nearly, she thought, per- suaded herself that all was over between her and Lord Forgue, and she felt almost as if she could but for shame have allowed Kennedy to comfort her as an old friend. But everything in her mind was so confused, and everything around her so mis- erable that there was nothing to be done but cry. And as she continued crying, and they were in a walled lane into which no windows looked, Kennedy, in the simplicity of his heart, and the desire to com- fort her, who little from him deserved comfort, came quietly, but with throbbing heart up to her, and put- ting his arm around lier, said again : " Dinna be feart at me, Eppie. I'm a man ower sair hertit to do ye ony hurt. It's no as my ain, Eppie, I wad preshume to do onything for ye, but 42 2 DONAL GRANT. only as an auld freen, fain to tak the dog aff o' ye. Are ye in want o' onything? Ye maun hae a heap o' trible, I weel ken, \vi' yer gran'father's mis- chance, an' it's but easy to un'(;rstan' things may weel be turnin' scarce wi' ye ; but be sure o' this, that as lang's my mither has onything, she'll be blyth to share the same wi' you an' yours." He said his 7}iother^ but she had nothing save what he provided for her. " Thank ye, Stephen," said Eppie, touched with his goodness, " but there's nae necessity. We hae plenty." She moved on, her apron still to her eyes. Kennedy followed her. " Gien the young lord hae wranged ye ony gait," he said, " an' gien there be ony amends ye wad hae o' him" — She turned on him with a quickness that was almost fierce, and in the dim light Kennedy saw her eyes blazing. " I want naething frae your han', Stephen Kennedy," she said. "My lord's naething to you — nor yet muckle to me!" she added, with sudden reaction, and an outburst of self-pity,- and fell a weeping and sobbing violently. Again, with the timidity of a strong man before a girl he loves, and whose displeasure he fears, Ken- nedy tried to comfort her, seeking to wipe her eyes with her apron, as if that would stop her tears. While he was thus engaged, another man, turning a corner quickly, came nearly upon them. ' He started back, then came nearer as if to satisfy himself who they were, and spoke. It was Lord Forgue. MEETING OF THE THREE. 423 "Eppie ! " he cried, in a tone in wliich indignation blended with surprise. Eppie uttered a little shriek, and ran to him. I]ut he pushed her away. " My lord," said Kennedy, " the lass will nane o' me — or my help. I sair doobt there's nane but yoursel' can please her. But I sweir by God, my lord, gien ye do her ony wrang, I'll no rest, nicht nor day, till I hae made ye repent it." " Go to the devil ! " said Forgue ; " what have you to do with her? Speak out like a man, and show your right, and you may take her. I am hardly pre- pared to go halves with you." Again Eppie would have clung to him, but again he pushed her away. " Oh, my lord ! " and could go no farther for weep- ing. This touched him. " How is it I find you here with this man," he said. " I don't want to be unfair to you, but you will own this is rather too much." *' My lord," said Kennedy. " Hold your tongue and let her speak for herself and you too." " I had no tryst wi' him, my lord ! I never bade him come near me," sobbed Eppie. " — Ye see what ye 'hae done !" she went on turning in anger upon Kennedy, and her tears suddenly ceasing; ''never but ill hae ye brocht upo' me ! What business had ye to come after me this gait, an' mak' mischief 'atween my lord an' me? Can a body no set fut ayont the door-sill, but they maun be follow't o' them they wad see far eneuch ? " Kennedy turned without a word and went. Eppie 424 DONAL GRANT. with a fresh burst of tears turned to go also. But she had satisfied Forgue that there was nothing between them, and taking his turn he was soon more successful than Kennedy in consoling her. He had while absent been able enough to get on without her, but no sooner was he home than, in the weary lack of anything else to interest him, the feel- ings he had begun to think, without knowing whether to lament or rejoice over them, on the point of being lost, began to revive, and he had set out to gain if possible a sight of Eppie, whom, when he saw in such close relations, as it appeared, with her old lover, first a sense of unpardonable injury possessed him, and next the conviction that he was, as he called it, as madly in love with her as ever. Satisfied that the interview had not been of her seeking, neither was to her satisfaction, he felt the tide of old tenderness come streaming back over the ghastly sands of jeal- ousy, and ere they parted he had made with her an appointment to meet the next night in a more suitable spot. Before Eppie re-entered the house she did her best to remove all traces of the varied emotions she had undergone, but she could not help the shining of her eyes, for the joy lamp relighted in her bosom shone through them. Donal was seated by her grandfather reading ; he had now the opportunity of reading to him many things of which the old man had no idea that such existed. I believe those last days of sick- ness and weakness were among the most blessed of his life ; things could be done for a man like him which could not be done for even many a good man with ten times his education. He looked up when MEETING OF THE THREE. 425 Eppie entered, and the same moment Donal knew her secret — not from her face, but from Andrew's; the grandfather read it from hers, and Donal read it from his, " She has seen Forgue ! " he saic* to him- self, and added, " I hope the old man will be dead before she comes to worse 1 " CHAPTER XXII. ADVICE REJECTED. WHEN Lord Morven heard of his son's return he sent for Donal, received him in a friendly way, gave him to understand that, however he might fail to fall in with his views, he depended thoroughly on whatever he said or undertook, and made to him the request that he would keep him informed of any- thing he might be able to discover with regard to his son's proceedings. " I am told the girl has gone back to her relations," he concluded. Donal replied that while he fully acknowledged his lordship's right to know 'what his son was doing, there were others concerned also, and he did not feel at liberty to pledge hunself to anything — certainly he could not consent to watch Lord Forgue, which would be neither more nor less than to take the posi- tion of a spy. " I will however warn him," he concluded, " that 1 may see it right to let his father know what he is about. I fancy, however, he knows that pretty well already." "Pooh ! that would be only to give him warning — to teach him the necessity for the more cunning!" said the earl. I can do nothing underhand," replied Donal. 426 (( ADVICE REJECTED. 427 " I will help no man to keep an unrighteous secret, but neither will I secretly disclose it." Meeting Forgue a few days after, his lordship would have passed him without recognition, but Donal stopped him and said " I believe, my lord, you have seen Eppie since your return." "What the deuce is that to you ? " " I wish your lordship to understand that whatever comes to my knowledge concerning your proceedings in regard to her, I consider myself at perfect liberty to report to your father if I see fit ; he has a right to know of them." " Thank you ! the warning was quite unnecessary. Still it is an advantage few informers would have given me, and I thank you, for so far I am indebted to you. It does nothing however, to redeem you from the shame of such a profession ! " "When your lordsliip has proved himself an hon- orable gentleman, it will begin to be possible for nle to take some shadow of interest in what your lord- ship may judge of my proceedings. In the meantime it is no more to me than what yon rook up there thinks." " As much as to say you do not think me an hon- orable man ! " said Forgue with a sneer. " Only at present that I continue in doubt of you. Time will show what is in you. Now I do not think you know it yourself. For God's sake, my lord, look to your own soul ! " " Sucli threats are no more to me than the black man of the nursery. I would rather do wrong for love than right for fear." 428 DONAL GRANT. ''Threats, my lord!" repeated Donal. ''Is it a threat to warn you not to make your consciousness a curse to you? To tell you that to know yourself may by your own deed be made a torture to you ? that you may bring yourself like Macbeth to dwell in the midst of trembling, to make it the first care of your life to forget that you are what you are? Do you know those lines of Shakespeare's about Tar- quin — Besides, his soul's fair temple is defaced ; To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares, To ask the spotted princess how she fares — ? "Oh, hang your preaching!" cried Forgue, and turned away. " My lord," said Donal, if you will not hear me, there are preachers you must hear." "They must not be quite so long-winded then!" Forgue answered, speaking as he went, without turn- ing his head. " You are right," said Donal ; " they will not have much to say, but they may neither be more welcome nor more brief." All Forgue's thoughts were now occupied with the question how Eppie and he were to meet without danger of interruption. I do not think he contem- plated treachery. I think that at this time of his life he could not have respected himself, little as was required for that, had he been consciously treacher- ous ; but no man who m love yet loves himself most, is safe from becoming a traitor : potentially he is one already : treachery to him who commits it seems only ADVICE REJECTED. 429 natural and justifiable self-preservation. The man who can do a vile thing is incapable of seeing it as it is ; and that ought to make us very doubtful of our own judgments of ourselves, especially if they be defensive judgments. Forgue did not suspect him- self. Yet he had but just had his passion for the girl revivified by the sight of Kennedy with her, and the idea of another man having her as his own ! He never confessed to himself that he had begun to for- get her, and had only been roused to fresh desire by the confronting of his past of partial possession with the threatened future of another's marriage with her. If he had stayed away six months, his heart at least would have forgotten her altogether. This may seem hard to believe. Some, perhaps may be inclined to argue that, if he had devotion enough to surmount the vulgarities of her position and manners and ways of thinking, his love could hardly be such as to yield so soon. But Eppie was not vulgar. Many poorer than she are far less vulgar than some of the so-called leaders of societv. No doubt the conventionalities of a man like Forgue must naturally have been not unfre- quently shocked in familiar intercourse with one like Eppie. But while he was merely flirting with her, they would only amuse him ; and by the time he was nearer being in love with her, he must have got so accustomed to them that the growing passion obscured them altogether, and he never for the time thought of them. There is no doubt that, brought out as his wife, and confronted with the com- mon people of society, while the flower of his passion was fast withering, he must become painfully aware of many things in her which then he would call vul- 430 DONAL GRANT, garities when perhaps they were only simplicities ; but in the meantime she was no more vulgar to him than a lamb, or a fool or a babv is vulgar, however unfit one or the other of them may be for a Belgrav- ian drawing-room. Yet vulgar, doubtless, he would now have thought and felt her, but for the love that caused him for the time to do her justice. Love is the opener as well as closer of eyes. But men who, having seen, return to their blindness, are of the read- iest to say they have had their eyes opened. For some time there was no change in Eppie's behavior but that she was not so tearful as before. She continued diligent, never grumbled at the hard- est work, and seemed desirous of making up for remissness in the past, when in truth she was trying to make up for something else in the present — to atone for something she could not tell, by doing im- mediate duty with the greater diligence. But by and by she began again to show both in manner and countenance a little of the old pertness, mingled with an uneasiness amounting to something like fear. But these phenomena of her nature were so intermittent and unpronounced as to be manifest only to e3^es lov- ing and before familiar with her looks and ways : her grandparents and Donal saw them. It was clear, to the last especially, that the former relations between her and Forgue must be resumed. She never went out in the evening, however, except she were sent by her grandfather ; and then she was always home very quickly — anxious, it seemed, to avoid every possible suspicion. She appeared also disinclined to get out during the day except in like fashion, but her grand- mother insisted on her having more or less of a walk ADVICE REJECTED. 43 1 every morning, and with apparent reluctance she consented. At such a time of the day, when every- body was about, and all the business of the town going on, what danger could there be ? the old woman said to herself. It was the custom with Donal and Davie to go often into the woods in the fine weather — they called them their observation class-room — to learn wdiat they might of the multitudinous goings on in that one of nature's workshops. There each for himself and the other exercised his individual powers of seeing and noting and putting together — Donal's being the better ; for although he knew little about woodland matters, having been accustomed almost exclusively to the meadows, fields, and bare hillsides, yet having had his powers thus cultivated in the open air, he was very keen to observe even new things, and could the better teach perhaps that he was but a learner himself. One day, while they were walking together wdth open eyes and ears under the thin shade of a fir- thicket, Davie said with a sudden change of subject — " I wonder if we shall meet Forgue to-day ! he gets up early now, and goes out. I know it is neither to fish nor shoot, for he does not take his rod or his gun : so there must be something he has got to watch and find out ! Shouldn't you say so, Mr. Grant ? " This set Donal thinking. Eppio was never out at night, or only for a few minutes: in the morning Forgue went out early ! But what could he do in the matter? If Eppie would meet him, how could any one help it ? CHAPTER XXIII. DIFFERENCES. T HINGS went on for a while, and nothing new occurred. Donal seldom met Lady Arctura, and when he did, received from her no encourage- ment to address her. But he could not help think- ing the troubled look had begun to reappear on her face, while in her smile, as they would pass in hall or corridor, glimmered, he thought, an expression almost pathetic — something almost like an appeal, as if she found herself in need of his help, but was not able to ask him for it. And now she was again, and more than ever, in the company of Miss Carmichael. Donal knew this, and so had good cause to fear that the pharisaism of her would-be directress was coming down upon her, not like rain on the mown grass, but like snow on the spring flowers. The impossibility of piercing the lovers of tradition in any vital part, so pachyder- matous are they — so utterly incapable of admitting any argument of a spiritual nature — is a sore trial to the old Adam still unslain in lovers of the Truth. At the same time no discipline is more potent in giving patience opportunity for working her perfect work. But it is well such people cannot be reached by argument, and so persuaded of the truth of these things ; for so they would but enter the circles of 432 DIFFERENCES. 433 the faithful to work fresh schisms and breed fresh imposduimes. Donal prayed to God for Lady Arctura, and waited. The hour was not yet ripe. Every one that is ready the Father brings to Jesus ; the dis- ciple is not greater than his master, and must not think to hasten the time, or lead one who is not yet given him to lead. One ought not to be mis- erable about another as if God had forgotten him — only to pray and be ready. Strange helpers must we be for God, if, thinking to do his work, we act as if he were himself neglecting it ! To wait for God, believing it his one design to redeem his creatures, ready to put to the hand the moment his hour strikes, is faith fit for a fellow-worker with him. But Donal had begun to think that perhaps he had been too forbearing towards the hideous doctrines advocated by Miss Carmichael. It is one thing where evil doctrines are quietly held, and the truth that is associated with them turned into the food of life by good people doing their best with what has been taught them, and quite another thing where they are forced upon some shrinking nature against all its most sacred instincts — some nature rendered weak to resist by the very reverence in which it excels. The finer nature, from very inability to think of another as less pure in intent than itself, is at a sreat disadvantacfc in the hands of the coarser. He made up his mind that, risk as it was to enter into disputation with any worshipper of the letter, seeing that for purposes of argument the letter is so much more manageable than the spirit, which 434 DONAL GRANT. while it lies in the letter iinperceived, has no force — the letter-worshipper being incapable of seeing that no utterance of God could possibly mean what he makes out of it — he resolved, I say, notwithstand- ing this consideration, to hold himself ready, and if anything was given him, to cry aloud, and not spare. Nor had he long resolved ere the opportunity came. For a place so much unsought as I have repre- sented the old avenue, a rather large proportion of the incidents of my narrative there occurred : it w^as in a great measure because of its desertion that Donal frequented it, and it was with intent, and in the pride of her confidence in her own ac- quaintance with scripture, and in her power to use it, that Miss Carmichael on the occasion led her rather unwilling, rather recusant, and very unhappy desciple thitherward, in the hope because of what she had been reporting concerning his words of an encounter with him. Such attacks upon the old- established faith must be met, and such an obnoxious influence frustrated! It M'as a bright autumn day. The trees had been sorely bereaved, but some foliage hung yet in thin yellow clouds upon their outspread patient boughs. There was plenty of what Davie called scushlm, that is making a noise with the feet amongst the thick-lying, withered leaves. But less foliage means more sunlight. Donal was walking along, his book in his hand, now and then reading a little, and now and then looking up to the half- bared branches, crossing and mingling so inextricably over his head, now and then like Davie, sweeping a cloud of the fallen multitude before him. He DIFFERENCES. 435 was in this childish act when, looking up he saw the two ladies approaching, a few yards in front. But he did not see the peculiar look Miss Carmichael threw her companion — "Behold your prophet!" it said. He would have passed with a lifted bonnet, but Miss Carmichael stopped — with a smile which Vvas bright because it showed her good teeth, but was not pleasant because it showed nothing else. " Glorying over the fallen, Mr. Grant ? " she said. Donal in his turn smiled. *' That is scarcely Mr. Grant's way ? " said Arctura, " — so far at least as I have known him ! " " Poor children ! " said Miss Carmichael, feeling or affecting a sympathy with the fallen leaves, and looking down on them compassionately. " Pardon me," said Donal, " if I grudge them your pity ; it seems to me misplaced. There is nothins: more of children in those leaves than there is in the hair that falls on the barber's floor." "I don't think it very gracious to pull a lady up so sharply," returned Miss Carmichael. " I spoke poetically." "There is no poetry in what is not true," rejoined Donal. "Those are not the children of the tree." "Of course! I know that," she answered, with properly moderated scorn at being misunderstood ; " a tree has no children, but" — " A tree no children ! " repeated Donal. " What then are all those beech-nuts among the fallen leaves ! They are the children of the tree ! " " Lost like the leaves ! " sighed Miss Carmichael, willing to shift her ground. 436 DONAL GRANT. ''Why cl(j you say tlicy are lost? They must fuhil llie end for which ihey were made ; ^nd if so — "W'liat end were they made for? " "I do not know; but who can tell wliat they do for the ground ? One thing we know, that, if they were all to grow up beech-trees, they would be a good deal in the way." "Then you mean there are more seeds than are required ? " "No, surely; for I do not know what is required of them — or how necessary it may be for the true life of the tree to produce them all." " But you must allow that some things are lost! " said Miss Carmichael. " Yes, surely ! " answered Dohal ; " why else should he have to come and look for them till he find them? " This was hardly such an answer as the theologian had expected, and she was not immediately ready with her rejoinder. " But some of them are lost after all ! " she said. " Doubtless," replied Donal ; " some of his sheep run away again. But he goes after again." '* Does he always? " "Yes." "I do not believe it." "Then you do not believe that God is infinite?" " Yes, I do." " How can you ? Is he not the Lord God merciful and gracious ? " " I am glad you know that." "But if his mercy and his graciousness are not infinite, then is he not infinite." DIFFERENCES. 437 " There are other attributes in which he is infinite." " But he is not infinite in them alL Pie is not infi- nite in those which are the most beautiful, the most divine, the most Christ-hke ! Just in those he is measurable, bounded, not infinite ! " " I do not care for human argument. I go by the word of God." " Let me hear then." Now it had so fallen that the two ladies were talk- ing about the doctrine of adoption when they came up to Donal ; and so this was the first thing to occur to the champion of orthodoxy. "There is the doctrine of adoption," she said; ''one of the most precious, if one may say so, -in the whole Bible ; does not that even teach us that God chooses to make some his children and not others ? He adopts some, and leaves the others out. If you say that then he is not infinite in mercy, when the Bible says he is, you are guilty of blasphemy." But if Miss Carmichael was a little astonished at what she accounted, after her own reasoning, a denial of the infinitude of God's mercy, where Donal was only denying that to be infinite which she called infinite, and so asserting the real infinitude, she was very much astonished at what he said next. In a tone calm even to solemnity, he said — ''God's mercy is infinite; and the doctrine of adoption is one of the falsest of all the doctrines invented, in its own bitter lack of the spirit whereby we cry Abba, Father, by the so-called Church, and used by yet less loving teachers to oppress withal the souls of God's true children, and scare them from their Father's arms." 438 DONAL GRANT. " I hate sentiment,*' said Miss Carmichael. "You shall have none," returned Donal. "Tell me what is meant by adoption.*' "The taking of children,"' said Miss Carmichael, who was sharp enough already to see a rock ahead, "and treating them as your own." " Whose children ? " asked Donal. "Any one's." "Whose, I ask," repeated Donal, ^' are the chil- dren whom God adopts } " Here was the rock. Her bark was upon it, and Miss Carmichael was a little staggered. But she pulled up courage and said — " The children of Satan." " But if Satan made them, how are they to be blamed for doing the deeds of their father .? " "You know very well what I mean ; Satan did not make them. God made them but they have sinned and fallen." " Then did God repudiate them ? " " Well, yes." " And they became the children of another } " " Yes, of Satan, as I said." **Then first, God disowns his children, and then when they are the children of another makes them his own again by adoption. Is that like a father.? Because his children do not please him, he repudiates them altogether till another takes them up, and then he wants them again — not, however, as his own, but as the children of the other requiring to be adopted to be his I The old relation of their origin has no longer any force, any reality with their very own father I " DIFFERENCES. 439 "Even you dare not surely say that the wicked are the children of God just the same as the good." '' That be far from me ! Those who do the will of God are ten times more his children than those who do not ; they are born then of the highest part of the divine nature, of the nature of Jesus Christ, which is obedience. But if they were not in the first place and in the most profound fact the children of God, they could never become his children in that higher, yea, highest sense, by any fiction of adoption. Do you think if the devil could create, his children could ever become the children of God? But you and I, and the most wretched self-lover ever born, are all the children of God to begin with. That is what makes all the misery and all the hope. Hence we must become his children in heart and soul, or be for ever wretched. If we ceased to be his, if the relations between us were destroyed, which is impossible, then there would be no redemption possible, for there would be nothing left to redeem." " You may reason as you please, Mr. Grant, but while Paul teaches the doctrine, I will hold it. He may perhaps know a little better than you." " Paul teaches no such doctrine. He teaches just what I have been saying. The word is used for adoption, but the original of it is a placing in the position of a son, and he applies it to the raising of one who is a son to the true position of a son." " It seems to me more presumptuous in you than I can say to take on you to determine what the apostle meant." " Why, Miss Carmichael, do you think the gospel comes to us as to a set of fools ? Is there any way 440 ])UNAL GRANT. of receiving a message other than by first understand- ing the message ? I am bound by the express com- mand of the master to understand the things lie says to me. He commands me to see their rectitude, because, they being true, I ought to be able to see them true. In that hope I read my Greek Testament every day. But it is not necessary to know Greek to see Avhat Paul means by adoption. You have only to consider his words with intent to find out his mean- ing, not to find in them the teaching of this or that community. In the epistle to Galatians, whose child does he speak of as adopted .'' It is the father's own child, his heir, who differs nothing from a slave until he enters upon his true relation to his father — the full condition of a son. So also in another jDassage by the same word he means the redemption of the body — our passing into the higher condition of out- ward things lit for the sons and daughters of God — becoming such in all the grandeur and glory of the relation completed even outwardly — the heavenly condition of things as differing from the earthly. Then we are no more like aliens, but like what we are, the children of the house. Any use of a single word Paul says to oppress a human heart with the feeling that it is not by birth, making, origin, or what- ever word of closer meaning can be found, the child of God, comes of the devil, the father of evil, and not either of Paul or of Christ. Why, my lady," Donal went on, turning to Arctura, "all the evil lies in this — that he is our father and we are not his children. To fulfil the very necessities of our being we must be his children in brain and heart, in body and soul and spirit, in obedience and hope and gladness and love DIFFERENCES. 441 — his out and out beyond all that tongue can say, mind think or heart desire. Then only is our crea- tion fulfilled — then only shall we be what we were made for, and make capable of, and what we are troubled on all sides that we may become." He ceased. Miss Carmichael was astonished and intellectually cowed, but her heart was nowise touched. She had never had that longing after closest relation with God which sends us feelins: after the father. But taking courage under the overshadowing of the wing of the divine Arctura spoke. " I do hope what you say is true, Mr. Grant ! " she sighed. " Oh, yes, hope ! we all hope ! But it is the word we have to do with, not hope," said Miss Carmichael. " I have given you the true word," said Donal. But as if she heard neither of them Arctura went on, " If it were but true," she moaned, " it would set right everything on the face of the earth." "You mean far more than that, my lady!" said Donal. " You mean everything in the human heart, which will to all eternity keep moaning and cry- ing out for the Father until it is in very truth one with its own nearest : onlv real relation in the uni- verse or in the scope of the divine imagination itself, which is creation original and potent. All other relations whatever are but the outcome and necessity from the all-embracing relation to Him." Judging his work over, Donal here lifted his bon- net, and would have passed on. " One word, Mr. Grant," said Miss Carmichael. Donal stopped. 442 DONAL GRANT. "It is but fair to warn you," she said, "that no man holding such doctrines can honestly desire to be- come a cler2:vman of the Church of Scotland." "The worse for the Church of Scotland!" said Donal, laughing ; " but as I do not desire to hold re- lation with it or any other Church, except that of love to every member of the one only real Church, you need have no anxiety lest I should use its organiza- tion for the spread of the truth — for the truth of God, that which I have spoken I believe with my whole soul to be." " Thank you from my heart, Mr. Grant ! " said Lady Arctura, as again he took his leave of them. When he was gone, the ladies resumed their walk in silence. At length Miss Carmichael spoke, and thus : " Well, I must say, of all the conceited young men I have had the misfortune to meet, your Mr. Grant is the first in self-assurance and forwardness." "Are you sure, Sophia," rejoined Arctura, "that it is self-assurance, and not conviction of the truth of what he has to say, that gives him the courage to speak as he does .'* " "How can it be when it is not true? — when it goes against all that has for ages been taught and be- lieved .'' " " What if God should now be sending fresh ligh.t into the minds of His people ? " "The old is good enough for me." " But it may not be good enough for God ! What if Mr. Grant should be his messen^rer to us ! " " A likely thing, indeed ! A mere student from the North, raw from college ! " DIFFERENCES. 443 *' No matter ! I cannot help a profound hope that he may be in the right after all. Was not that the way they spoke in the old time, when they said, ' Can any good thing come out of Galilee?'" "Ah, I see the influence has gone farther with you than I had hoped ! You are infected not merely with his doctrine, but with his frightful irreverence ! To dare the comparison of that poor creature with Jesus Christ ! " " If he were a messenger of Jesus Christ," said Arctura, quietly — "I neither say he is or he is not — but the reception you now give him would be pre- cisely what he would expect, for the Lord said the disciple should be as his master ! " The words entered and stung. Miss Carmichael stopped short, her face in a flame, but her words were cold and hard. " I am sorry," she said, " our friendship should come to so abrupt a conclusion, Lady Arctura ; but it is time it should end when you can speak so to me, who have for so many years done my best to help you ! If that is the first result of your new gospel — well ! Remember who said, ' If an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than I have preached, let him be accursed ! ' '' She turned back to go again down the avenue. "O, Sophia! do not leave me so," cried Lady Arctura. But Sophia was already yards away, her skirt mak- ing a small whirlwind that went following her among the withered leaves. Arctura burst into tears, and sat down at the root of one of the great beeches. Miss Carmichael never looked behind her, but went 444 DONAL GRANT. Straight home. She met Donal ai;ain in the avenue, for he, too, liacl turned. Once more he uncovered his head, but she took no notice of Iiim. She had done with him — probably to all eternity ! Those horrible new views ! Her poor Arctura ! Donal, walking quietly back with his book, on which, however, he now looked more than he read, trying with but partial success to dismiss the thought of what had occurred, when a little fluffy fringe of one of poor Lady Arctura's sobs reached his ear. He looked up and saw her sitting like one rejected, weeping. He could not pass and leave her thus ! But he approached her slowly, that she might have time to get over the worst of her passion. She heard his steps in the withered leaves, glanced up, saw who it was, buried her face for one moment in her hands, then sought her handkerchief, raised her head, and rose with a feeble attempt at a smile. Donal saw and understood the smiles. She would not have him feel any compunction as the cause of what had taken place. " Mr. Grant," she said, coming towards him, " St. Paul said that should an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than his, he was accursed. 'Let him be accursed,' he said. Even an angel from heaven^ you see, Mr. Grant ! It is terrible ! " " It is terrible, and I say amen to it with all my heart,'' replied Donal. " But the gospel you have received is not the gospel of Paul, but one substi- tuted for it — by no angel from heaven, neither with any design of substitution, but by men with hide- bound souls, who in order to get them into their own intellectual pockets, melted down the gold of the DIFFERENCES. 445 kingdom and recast it in the moulds of wretched legal thought, learned of the Romans, who crucified their Master. Grand childlike heavenly things they would explain b.y vulgar worldly notions of law and right ! But they meant well, seeking to justify the ways of God to men, therefore the curse of the apostle does not fall I think upon them. They sought a way out of their difficuliies, and thought they had found one, when in reality it was their faith that carried them over the top of their enclosing walls. But gladly would I see discomfited such as taking their inven- tions at the hundreth hand, and moved by none of the fervor of those who first promulgated the doc- trines, lay them as the word and will of God — lumps of iron and heaps of dust — upon the live, beating, longing hearts that cry out after their God — vanished afresh in the clouds these have raised around the Master^ the express image of the Father's person." " Oh, I do hope what you say is true ! " panted Arctura. " I think I shall die if I find it is not ! " " You can find nothing but what the Lord teaches you. If you find what I tell you untrue, it will be in not being enough — in not being grand and free and bounteous enough. To think anything too good to be true is to deny God — to say the untrue is better than the true — to commit the sin against the Holy Ghost. It will be something better and better, lovelier and lovelier that Christ will teach you. Onlv vou must leave human teachers altogether, and give yourself to Him to be taught. If there is any truth in these things, then Christ is in the world now as then, and within our call." "I will try to do as you tell me," said Arctura. 446 DONAL GRANT, " If lliere is anything that troubles you," said Donal, as he took it. " I shall be most glad to try and help you; but it is better there should not be much talk. The thing lies between you and the living light." With these words he left her. Arctura followed slowly to the house, and went straight to her own room, her mind filling as she went with slow reviving strength and a great hope. No doul)t there came some of her relief in the departure of her incubus friend ; but that would have soon vanished in fresh sorrow, but for the hope and strength to which this departure yielded the room to spring up in her heart. By the time she saw her again she trusted she would be more firmly grounded in her ideas concerning many things, and would be able to set them forth aright. She was not yet free of the notion that you must be able to argue in defence of your convictions : that you are hardly at liberty to say you believe a thing so long as any one is able to bring up an argu- ment against it, which you only see and cannot show to be false. Alas for us if our beliefs went no farther than experience or logic, or an embracing understanding even of the beliefs themselves could justify them ! Alas for our beliefs, if they are not what we shape our lives, our actions, our aspirations, our hopes, our repentances by I Donal was glad indeed to think that now at length an open door stood before the poor girl. He had been growing much interested in her, as one on whom life lay heavy, one who seemed ripe for the kingdom of heaven, in whose way stood one who would neither enter herself, nor allow to enter her that would. She DIFFERENCES. 447 was indeed fit for nothing but the kingdom of heaven, so much was she already the child of him whom hitherto she had longed after, not daring to call him her father. But his regard for her was entirely that of the gentle strong toward the weak he would fain help. He had been doubtless gratified by the confidence she placed in him now and then, but, possibly, if he had cared more for her, he might have taken less good-humored pains to satisfy her in the matter of the authorship ; about this I am not sure. But now that he could hope of her that she was fairly started on the path of life, namely, towards the knowledge of him who is the life, he felt his care over her grow more tender, though still and always that of the stronger whose part it is, divinely ordered, to serve the weak, to minister of that whereby the weak may grow strong. Few men could be more aware than he that the presence of the purest personal ends must cast doubt upon the best teaching. Whoever speaks from himself must be a liar. Therefore he never sought opportunities of what is called doing good j he always waited till such were given him. In telling this, I judge no one ; I merely narrate. And I beg my reader to remember there is an active as well as a passive waiting. But when he saw that a word was required of him, who more ready than he, for his hour was then come. After this, he rather than otherwise avoided meet- ing Lady Arctura — certainly, at least, he did not seek her. Whether she at all sought him, I can hardly say ; I think not ; I am sure only that for a good many days they did not so much as see each other. The health of the earl was as usual fluctuating. It 448 DONAL GRANT. depended much on tlie nature of his special indul gences. There was hardly any sort of narcotic with which he did not a't least make experiment, if not in which he did not indulge. In so doing he made no pretence even to himself of experiment for the fur- therance of knowledge ; he knew that he wanted solely and merely to find how this or that, thus or thus modified or combined, would affect himself and contribute to his living a life such as he would have it, and plainly other than that ordered for him by ^ power which least of all powers he chose to acknowl- edge : the power of drugs he was eager to under- stand ; the power of the living source of him and them he would scarcely recognize. This came of no hostility to religion other than the worst hostility of all, that of a life inconsistent with any acknowledge- ment of supernal claim. He believed neither like saint nor devil ; he believed and did not obey ; he believed and did not ji'^?/ tremble. The one day he was better, the other worse. I say, according to the character and degree of his in- dulgence. At one time it greatly affected his temper, taking from him all mastery of himself ; at another made him so dull and stupid, that he resented noth- ing except any attempt to rouse him from his habi- tude. But the worst influence of all was a constant one — yet one of which, if he was at all for the pres- ent conscious, he was yet entirely regardless. How- ever the different things might vary in their operations upon him, to one end at least they all tended, and that was the destruction of whatever remained to him of a moral nature. Moved all his life by rebellion against what he DIFFERENCES. 449 called the conventionalities of society, he had com- mitted great wrongs — whether also what are called crimes, I cannot tell : no repentance had followed, whatever remorse the consequences of them may have occasioned. Even the possibility of remorse was gradually disappeariu!:^ from his nature. But so long as nothing occurs causing the possible to em- body itself in the actual, such a man may li\e honored, and die respected, although in truth he be- longs rather to the kind demoniacal than the kind human. There remains, however, always the danger of his real nature, or rather unnature breaking out in this way or that demoniacal. Although he went so little out of the house, and apparently never beyond the grounds, he yet learned a good deal at times of thing going on in the neighborhood. Davie brought him news ; so did Simmons ; and now and then he would have an inter- view with his half-acknowledged relative at the home farm, for years not a few the faithful agent of the family in what concerned the land and its tenancies. One morning before the earl was up, he sent for Donal, and requested him to give Davie half-holiday, and do something for him instead. "You know, or perhaps you don't know," he said, "that I have a house in the town — the only house, indeed, now belonging to the title — a strange and not very attractive house ; you must have noticed it — on the main street, a little before you come to the Mor- ven Arms." " I believe I know the house, my lord," answered Donal — "with strong iron stanchions to the lower windows, and " — 450 DONAL GRANT. "Yes, that is the house ; I see you know it ; and I daresay you know the story of it — how it came to be deserted as it now is ! That was more than a hun- dred years ago! But I have spent some nights in it since myself notwithstanding." " I should like to hear the story, my lord," said Donal. His lordship eyed him as if he doubted him ; then, apparently satisfied, went on. "Well," he said, "you may as well have the story from myself as from another. Happily it does not come near any one living. The family was not then represented by the same branch as now, else I might perhaps be thin-skinned about it. This is- no legend, mind you : it is a simple and very dreadful fact, and led to the abandonment of the house. I think myself, however, it is nearly time it should be so far forgotten that at least the house should let. It misfht bv this time be considered as purified I The castle and the title had not then parted company; that is a tale worth telling too ! there was no fair play in that either ! but I will not trouble you with it now. One at a time is enough. " Into the generation then above ground, by one of those freaks of nature specially strange, and yet more inexplicable than the rest, had been born an original savage. Mark me — just as the old type, upon which ever so many modifications have been wrought, will yet sometimes reappear in the midst of the newest edition, so it was now ; I speak in no figure of speech when I say that the apparition, the phenomenon, was a savage. I do not mean too that he was an excep- tional rough man for his position, but for any position DIFFERENCES. 451 in the Scotland of that age. No doubt he was regarded as a madman, and used as a madman ; but my opinion is the more philosophical — namely, that just as a fool has in our day been born with three feet to one lejz, like his ancestors of the old marshv time, when but for those three feet to a leg the ground would have swallowed up the race, so here, by hn arrest of development, into the middle of ladies and gentlemen came a veritable savage, their brother, and that out of no darkest age of history, but from beyond all history, out of the awful prehistoric times." Here his lordship visibly and involuntarily shud- dered, as from the memory of something he had actually seen, and Donal concluded that into that region too he had wandered in some one or perhaps many of his visions. " He was a fierce and furious savage," he went on, — "worse than anything you can imagine. The only sign of the influence of civilization upon him was that for the moment he was cowed by the eye of the man who acted as his keeper. Never, except by the rarest chance, was he left alone and not asleep : expe- rience had proved that no one could tell what lie might not do. " He was of gigantic size, with coarse black hair — the brawniest fellow and the ugliest, they say : for you may suppose my description is legendary : there is no portrait of him on any of our walls ! — with a huge, shapeless, cruel, greedy mouth." As his lord- ship said the words, Donal, with involuntary insight, saw both cruelty and greed in the mouth that spoke, though it was neither huge nor shapeless — "lips hideously red and large, with the whitest teeth inside 45- DONAL GRANT. them. I give you the description thus minute," said liis lordship, who evidently lingered with pleasure on the details of his recital, "just as I used to hear it from the mouth of an old nurse who had been all her life in the family, and had had it from her mother who was in the family at the time. His great passion, his keenest delight, was animal food. He ate enormously — more, they said, than two of the heartiest men could have eaten. And to eat he was ready at any and every hour of the day, except that in which he had just gorged himself. Roast flesh was his main delight, but he was very fond of broth also. He must have been more like Mrs. Shelley's F?'a7ikejistein than .any other of fact or fancy! All the time that, as quite a young man, I was reading the story, I had the vision of my far-off cousin constantly before me, as I had seen him in my mind's eye while my nurse described him, and I kept wondering whether Mrs. Shelley could ever have heard the same description of him. As the creature was unfit for any kind of society what- ever — in an earlier age they would have got rid of him by readier and more thorough means, if only for shame of having brought such a being into the world — they sent him w"ith his keeper, a little man with a powerful eye, to the house of which I speak ; for away in an altogether solitary place they could not persuade any man to live with him. At night he was always secured to the bed w-hen he slept, otherwise his keeper could never have felt secure enough to sleep at all, for he was as cunning as he was hideous. When he slept during the day, which he did frequently after a meal, his attendant would content himself with locking his door, and keeping his ears awake. At DIFFERENCES. 453 such times he would step just outside the street door, to look on the world, and exchange what words he might with any one who happened to be passing ; he would neither leave the door, nor shut it behind him, lest the savage should perhaps escape from his room and bar it, and then set the house on fire. " One beautiful Sunday morning, the brute, after a good breakfast, had fallen asleep on his bed, and the keeper had gone down-stairs, and was standing in tiie street with the door open immediately behind him. It was Sunday morning, all the people were at church, and the street was empty as a desert. He had stood there for some time, enjoying the sweet air and the scent of the flowers, then went in and got a light to his pipe, put coals on the fire, and saw that the huge cauldron of broth which the cook had left in his char2:e when he went to church — it was to serve for dinner and supper both, was boiling beautifully, then went back, and again took his station in front of the open door. Presently came a neiglibor woman from her house, leading by the hand a little girl too young to go to church. The woman and he stood talking for some time. Suddenly cried the woman, *^'Good Lord! what's come o' the bairn .^ ' The same instant came one piercing shriek to their ears — from some distance it seemed. The mother darted down the neighboring close. But the keeper, then first discovering that the door behind him was shut, was filled with horrible dismay. He hurried to another entrance in the close, of which he always kept the key about him, and entering went straight to the kitchen. There by the fire stood the savage, gazing with a fixed fishy rapture at the cauldron, which the steam, issuing 454 DONAL GRANT. in little sharp jets from under the lid, showed to be boiling furiously, with grand prophecy of broth. With a ghastly horror creeping through his very bones, the keeper hastily lifted the lid — and there, with tlie broth bubbling in waves over it, lay the body of the child ! The demon had torn off her frock, and thrust her, into the boiling cauldron ! " Not a whit was the "monster ashamed of his deed ! There rose such an outcry that the family was com- pelled to put him in chains and carry him to some place unknown where he lived to old age, nurse said. And ever since then the house has been uninhabited, with, of course, the reputation of being haunted. If you happen to be in its neighborhood when it begins to grow dark, you v«ill see the children hurrying past it in silence from the playground near, now and then dancins: back in dread lest the creature should have opened the never-opened door, and be stealing after them. They are afraid of the Red Et'm, as they call him — only this ogre was black, I am sorry to say: red would have been the better color for him." " It is indeed a horrible story/' said Donal. " It is there I want you to go for me ; you don't mind it, do vou .'' " "Not in the least," answered Donal. " I want you to search a certain bureau there for some papers." " You would like me to go at once ? " " Yes." "Very well, my lord," said Donal. " By the way," said the earl, as if he had but just thought of the thing, " have you no news to give me about Forgue's affair? " DIFFERENCES. 455 "No, my lord," answered Donal. "Whether they meet now 1 do not know, but 1 am afraid." "'Oh, I daresay," rejoined his lordship, " like many another, the whim is wearing off ! One pellet drives out another, and with the conviction behind it in the popgun that it would be simple ruin — eh, Mr. Grant .'' But we Graemes are stiff-necked in our ways both with God and man, and I don't trust him much." " He gave you no promise, if you remember, my lord." " I remember very well ; why the deuce should I not remember ? I am not in the way of forgetting things! No, by God! nor forgiving them either! Where there is anything to forgive there is no fear of my forgetting! I remember that I may not forgive." He followed this inhuman utterance with a laugh, as if he would have it pass for a joke, but there was no ring in the laugh. He then gave Donal detailed instructions as to where the bureau stood, how he was to open it with a curious key he made him find for himself in one of the drawers in the room, how also he was to open the more secret part of the bureau in which the papers lay. " Forget ! " he echoed, returning to his last utter- ance ; " I have not been in that house for twenty years ! you can judge whether I forget ! No ! " he added with an oath, "if I found myself forgetting I should thinl-c it time to look out ; but there is no sign of that yet, thank God! There! take the keys, and be off with you ! Simmons will give you the key of the house. You had better fake that of the door in the close : it is easier to open." 456 DONAL GRANT. Donal went away wondering at the pleasure the earl had seemed to take in the details of his horrible story — worse they were than I have cared to record — especially in describing how the mother took the body of her child out of the pot. He went at once to Simmons and asked him for the key of the side door, which opened in the close. The butler went to fetch it, but returned saying he could not lay his hands upon it, but there was the key of the front door, which, however, he was afraid might prove rather stiff to turn. Donal taking what he could get, and oiling it well, set out for Morven House. But on his way he turned aside into the humble dwelling in which he had spent so many hours with one who had loved the truth of things with his whole heart. Andrew seemed so much worse that he thought he must be sinking. So apparently thought Andrew, for the moment he saw Donal he requested they might be left alone for a few minutes. " My yoong freen," he said, "the Lord has fauvored me greatly in grantin' my last days the licht o' your coontenance. I hae learnt a heap o' things frae ye 'at I kenna hoo I could hae come at wantin' ye." "Eh, An'rew!" interrupted Donal, "I dinna weel ken hoo that can be, for it aye seemt to me ye had a' the knowledge 'at was gaein' ! " " Weel, that man can ill taich wha's no gaein' on to learn; an' maybe whiles he learns mair frae the man 'at he teaches nor that man learns frae him. But it's a' frae the Lord — for the Lord is that speerit — the speerit 0' a' won'erfu' an' gran' things ; an' that 'cause first o' a' he's the speerit o' obeddience to the high DIFFERENCES. 457 will o' richt an' trowth. But, my son, maybe it may comfort ye a wee in some o' the troubles the Lord may hae for ye i' the time to come, to reflec' that the auld cobbler, Anerew ComLn, gaed intil the new warl, fitter company for them that was there afore him, for the help 'at ye gied him afore he gaed. An' may the Lord mak a sicht o' use o' ye for that same ! Fowk say a heap aboot savin' sowls ; but ower aften, whan they think they hae savit them, it seems to me they hae but laen frae them the sense that they're sair in want o' savin'. I wad hae a man ken in himsel' mair an' mair the need o' bein' saved, til he cries oot an' shouts, ' I am saved, for there's nane in H'aven but thee, and there's nane upo' the earth I desire beside thee! for lika man, wuman, child, an' live cratur, is to me but as a portion o' thee, whaur on to lat rin ower the love that wull aye be raisin' in him lik a f'untain ! ' Whan a man can say that, he's saved, but no till than, though he may hae been lang years upo' the ro'd, an' aye comin' nearer to that goal o' a houp, the hert o' the father o' me, an' you, an Doory, an' P^ppie, an' a' the nations o' the earth ! " He stopped weary, but his eyes, fixed on Donal, went on where his voice had ended, and for a time Donal seemed to hear what his soul was saying, and to hearken with content. But suddenly their light went out, he gave a sigh, and said — "It's ower for this warl, my freen. It's comin — the hoor o' darkness. But the thing 'at's true whan the licht shines is jist as true i' the dark ; ye canna work, that's a'. God 'ill gie me grace to lie still. It's a' ane. I wad lie jist as I used to sit, i' the days whan I men'it fowk's shune and Doory happent to 458 DONAL GRANT. tak awa' the licht for a moment — I wad sit aye luikin' doon throw the mirk at my wark, though I couldna see a stime o't, wi' the alsion {awl) \ my han', ready, aye. ready to put in liie neist stoek the moment the licht fell upon the spot whaur it was to gang. I wad lie like that whan I'm deein', just waitin' for the licht, an' making' an incense-offerin' o' my patience whan I hae naething ither, naither thoucht nor gladness nor sorrow, naething but patience burnin' in pain to offer. He'll accep' that. For, my son, the Maister's jist as easy to please as he's ill to satisfee. Ye hae seen a mither ower her wee lassie's sampler \ She'll praise an' praise an' be richt pleest wi't \ but wow, gien she was to be content wi' the thing in her han ! That lassie's man, whan she cam to ha'e ane, wad hae an ill time o't wi' his hose an' sarks ! An' noo I hae a fauvor to beg o' ye, no' for my sake but for her's. Gin ye hae the warnin', ye'll be wi' me when I gang ? It may be a comfort to me — I dinna ken — nane can tell 'at hasna dee'd afore ; nor even than, for deiths are sae different. Doobtless Lazarus's twa deiths war far frae alike. But it'll be a great comfort to Doory. She winna find hersel' sae lanesome like, losin' sicht o' her auld man, gin the freen o' his hert be aside her when he gangs." "Please God, I'll be atyer command," said Donal. " Noo cry upo' Doory to come, for I wadna see less o' her nor I may. It may be years afore I get a sicht o' her lo'in' face again. But the same Lord's in her an' me, an we canna far be sun'ert, however lang the lime may be afore we meet again." Donal obeyed, called Doory, and took his leave. Opposite Morven House was a building which had DIFFERENCES. 459 at one time been the stables to it, but was now part of a brewery, and a hii^h wall shut it off from the street. It was now dinner-time wiih ilie humble peo- ple of the town, and there was not a soul visible in the street ; so Donal put the key in the lock of the front door, opened it, and entered without, so far as he knew, a soul having seen him. So far successful, for he desired to rouse no idle curiosity, which mii^ht have led crowding feet to the ill-haunted dwelling, he moved almost on tiptoe as he entered the deserted place. He w^as in a lofty hall, rising high above the first story. The dust lay thick on a large marble table in it — but what was that .'' — a streak all across it, brushed sharply through the middle of the dust ! It was strange ! but he could not wait to speculate now! He must do his work tirst ! and proceeded therefore to find the room to which the earl had directed. It was on the first floor, and had at one time been made some quiet use of by the present earl when a comparatively young man. He ascended therefore, the great black oak staircase, which went up and along the sides of the hall. The house had never been dismantled, although things had at differ- ent times been taken out of it ; and when Donal opened a bit of shutter toward the street, he saw a good-sized room, with tables and chairs and cabinets inlaid with silver and ivory. It looked stately and comfortable, but everything was deep in dust, the curtains and carpet were thick with the deserted sepulchres of moths, and the air somehow suggested a tomb — so that Donal thought at once of the tombs of the kings of Egypt, which, before ravaging conquerors broke into and spoiled them, were filled with such gorgeous 460 DONAL GRANT. furniture as great kings could desire for tlie souls destined to return and reanimate the bodies so care- fully spiced and stored in cerements and coffins, ready- to welcome their return, when the great kings would be themselves again, with the added wisdom of the dead and judged. Conscious of a curious timidity, a kind of awesomeness about every form in the place, he hastened, but soflly, to the bureau, applied its key, and following carefully the directions given him, for the lock was an Italian one and had more than one quip and crank and wanton wile about it, succeeded in opening it. His instructions had been so complete that he had no difficulty in finding the secret place, nor the packet which was concealed in it. But just as he laid his hands upon it, he was suddenly aware of a swift passage along the floor without, and past the door of the room, and apparently up the next stair. There was nothing lie could distinguish as footsteps, or even as the rustle of a dress, only the ghostly-like motion that could not be described. He darted to the door, which he had only by instinct shut behind him, and opened it swiftly and noiselessly. Nothing was to be seen ! But it need be no ghost. The stairs were covered with thick carpet, and a light foot might have passed and gone up without any sound at all but for the haste. It was but the wind of the troubled air that had told the tale. He turned and closed the bureau, leaving the packet where it lay. If there was any one in the house, who could tell what might follow ! It was in truth the merest ghost of a sound he had heard ; but he would go after it ! Some one might be using the earl's house for his own purposes ! He must find out ! DIFFERENCES. 46 1 Going softly up, he paused at the top, and looked around him. An iron-clenched door stood nearly opposite the head of the stair ; and at the father end of the long passage a door stood a little way open. From that direction came the sound of a little move- ment and then of low voices — one surely that of a woman ! Then it flashed upon him that this might be the place of Eppie's rendezvous with Forgue. Afraid of being discovered before he had gathered his wits to bear on the subject, he stepped softly across the passage to the strong door opposite, opened it, not however without some noise, and stepped in, standing for a moment in dread of hav- ing thus given an alarm. It was the strangest looking chamber into which he had stepped — doubtless, he concluded, that occu- pied by the ogre ! Even in the bewilderment of the moment, the tale he had heard in the morning was so present to his mind that he could not help casting his eyes round, and noting several things to confirm the conclusion. But the next instant came from below what sounded like a thundering knock at the street-door — a single knock, loud and fierce. I may mentio nhere that no one ever discovered what that knock was. The inmates of any other house in the town would have taken it merely for a runaway's knock. It was hardly like that of the knocker on the door. That Donal tried, for he long puzzled over it ; but he never could satisfy himself concerning it. The start it gave him set his heart shaking in his bosom. There came a cry along the passage, and the cioor at the end opened. A hurried step came along, passed Donal, and went down the stair. 462 DONAL GRANT. " If I am right, now is my time," said Donal to himself, " Eppie is left alone." He issued from his retreat, and went along the passage. The door at the end of it was half-open, and Eppie stood in the gap. Whether she had seen him come out of the ogre's room, or whether indeed she knew what the room was, I do not know, but she stood gazing with widespread eyes of terror, as if looking on the approach of the Red Etin himself. As he came nearer the blue e3'es opened wider, and seemed to fix in their orbits. Just as her name was on his lips, Eppie dropped with a moan on the floor. Donal caught her up — he was equal to a good deal more than the weight of a girl like Eppie — and hur- ried down. He had but reached the first floor when he heard the sound of swift ascending steps, and the next moment was face to face with Forgue. The latter started back, and for a moment stood staring. But mounting rage restored him to his self-possession. His first thought had been like that of Ahab — "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy ? '' But his first words were : " Put her down, you scoundrel ! " " She can't stand," replied Donal quietly. " You've killed her, you damned sneaking spy ! " " Then I should have been more kind than you ! " "What are you going to do with her ?" "Take her home to her dvinir o-randfather." "You've hurt her, you devil ! I know you have ! " " She is only frightened. She is coming to herself already. I feel her coming awake." "You feel her!" cried Forgue with a great oath; " I will make you feel me presently. Put her down, DIFFERENCES. 463 I say ! " He hissed the words from between his teeth, for he dared not speak aloud for fear of rousing the neighborhood. Eppie began to writhe and struggle in Donal's arms. Forgue laid hold of her, and Donal was com- pelled to put her down. She threw herself into the arms of her lover, and was on the point of fainting away again for joy at her deliverance. " Go out of the house, you spy I " said Forgue. " I am here by your father's desire," said Donal. " As a spy," insisted Forgue. " Not to my knowledge," returned Donal. " He sent me to look for some papers." " You lie ! " said Forgue ; " I see it in your face." "So long as I speak the truth," said Donal, "it matters little to me that you should think me a liar. But, my lord, I request that you will give Eppie up to me, that I may take her home to her people." "A likely thing!" said Forgue, straining Eppie to him, and looking with contempt at Donal. "Then I tell you, on the word of a man whom neither you nor the world shall find a liar, that I will rouse the town, and have a crowd about the house in five minutes." " You are the devil, I do believe, come from hell for my ruin ! " cried Forgue. " There ! take her. Only mind it is you, and not I to blame that I do not marry her! I would have done my part. Leave us alone and Fll marry her ; take her from me in this sneaking fashion, and I make no promises! " "Oh, but ■ you vv^ill, dearest?" said Eppie in a beseeching, frightened tone. Forgue pushed her from him. She burst into 464 DONAL GRANT. tears. He look her in liis arms and began soothing her Hke a child, assuring lier he meant nothing by what he had said. "You are my own little wife," he went on, "you know you are, whatever your enemies may drive us to. Nothing can part us now. Go with him for the present. The time will come when the truth shall be known, and we will laugh at them all. If it were not for your sake and the scandal of the thing, I should send the villain to the bottom of the stair in double quick time. But it is better to be patient." Sobbing bitterly, Eppie went with Donal down the stair, leaving Forgue shaking with impotent rage behind him. When they got into the street Donal turned to lock the door. Eppie seized the oppor- tunity, darted from him, and ran down the close to the side door. But it was locked, and she could not get in. Then came a sudden thought to Donal. He was with her in a moment. "You go home alone, Eppie," he said; "it will be just as well you should not go in with me. I am going to see Lord Forgue out of this." "Eh, ye winna hurt him ! " pleaded Eppie. "I will not if I can help it; but he may put it out of my power to spare him. I don't want to hurt him ; there is no revenge in me. You go home. It will be better for him as well as for you." She went slowly away, weeping, but trying to keep what appearance of calm she might. As soon as she was round the corner, Donal hurried back to the front door, and hastening to the side door took the key from the lock. Then returning to the hall, he summoned Forgue. DIFFERENCES. 465 " My lord," he said at the bottom of the stair, loud enough to be heard through the empty house, " I have got both the keys ; the side door is locked, and I am about to lock the front door. I do not want to shut you in. Pray come down before I go." Forgue came leaping down the stair, and threw himself upon Donal. A fierce struggle for the possession of the key which Donal held in his hand commenced. The sudden assault stag-o-ered Donal, and he fell on the floor with Forgue above him, who immediately laid hold of the key, and tried to wrest it from him. But Donal was much the stronger of the two, and had soon thrown his lordship off him. For a moment he was a little tempted to give him a good thrashing, but the thought of Eppie helped him to restrain himself, and he would not let him up, but contented him- self with holding him down till he yielded. For a while he kept kicking and striking out in all directions, but at last lay still. "Will you promise to walk out quietly if I let you up?" said Donal, still holding him down. "If you will not, I will drag you out into the street by the legs." "I will," said Forgue; and getting up walked out and away without another word. Donal locked the door, and, forgetting all about the papers, went back to Andrew's. There was Eppie busy in the outer room, and for the present he was satisfied. She kept her back to him, and he took care not to address her. With a word or two to the grandmother, and a hint to keep the girl in the house as much as possible, reminding 466 DONAL GRANT. her that she might have no other to send for him if her husband should want him, he took his leave, and went home, revolving all the way one question after another as to what he ought to do or could do. Should he tell the father how the son was carrying himself^ or should he not ? Had the father been a man of rectitude, or even so far such as to dread the doing more than the suffering of evil, he would not have hesitated a moment ; but knowing he did not care one pin what became of Eppie, so long as his son was prevented from marrying her, he did not feel bound by the mere fact that he was tutor to the younger son, without the smallest responsibility for the other, to carry the evil report of the elder. The father might have a right to know^ but had he a right to know from him ? A noble nature finds it impossible to deal with questions except on the highest grounds : where those grounds are unrecognized, the relations of responsibility may be difficult indeed to determine. All he was able to conclude on his way, and he did not hurry, was — that if he were asked any questions, he would speak out what he knew — be absolutely open. If that should put a weapon in the hand of the enemy, a weapon was not the victory. Scarcely had he entered the castle, where his return had been watched for, when Simmons came to him with a message that his lordship wanted to see him. Then first Donal remembered that he had not brought the papers ! Had he not been sent for, he would have gone back at once to fetch them. As it was he must see the earl first. He found him in a worse condition than usual. DIFFERENCES. 467 His last drug or mixture had not agreed with him, or he had taken too mucli, and the reaction was corre- spondent : anyhow, he was in a vile temper. Donal told him at once he had been to the house, and had found the papers, but had not brought them — had, in fact, forgotten them. " A pretty fellow you are ! " cried the earl. " What, you have left those papers lying about where any rascal may find them and play the deuce with the history of my house ! " Donal tried to assure him that they were perfectly safe, under the same locks and keys in fact as before, but the earl, having mistaken something he said, and having had it explained, broke out upon him afresh, as one always going about the bush, and ne\er coming to the point. " How the devil was it you locked them up again and did not bring them with you ? " he asked. Then Donal told him he had heard a noise in the house. As much of the story, in fact, as his lordship permitted ; for straightway he fell out upon him again for meddling with things which did not belong to him. What had he to do with his son's pleasures ? Things of the sort were much better taken no notice of, especially within the household. At the castle the linen had to be washed as elsewhere, but it was not done in the great court ! His son was a youth of position, who must not be balked in his fancies ! They might otherwise take a wrong turn to the detriment of society ! Donal took advantage of a pause to ask whether he might not go back directly and bring the papers. He would run all the way he said. 468 DONAL GRANT " No, damn you," answered the earl. " Give me the keys — all the keys — house keys and all. I will never trust such a fool a2:ain wilh anvthing:." At this juncture, and just as Donal had laid the keys on his lordship's table — lie was still in bed — Simmons appeared, saying that Lord Forgue desired to know if his father would see him. "Oh, yes! send him up," cried the earl in a fury. " Let me have all the devils in hell at once. I may as well swallow all the blasted sulphur at once ! " There is no logic to be looked for where a man is talking out of a deeper discomfort than the matter in hand. His lordship's rages had to do with abysses of misery no man knew^ but himself. "You go into the next room, Grant," he said, when Simmons was gone, "and wait there till I call you." Donal retired, sat down, took a book from the table and tried to read. He heard the door open and close again, and then the sounds of their tw^o voices. By degrees they grew louder, and at length the earl roared out, but so wdldly and incoherently that Donal caught only a word here and there. "I'll be damned soul and body in hell, but I'll put a stop to this ! Why, you son of a snake, I have but to speak the word, and you are — well, what ? — Yes, but I hold my tongue for the present. By God ! I have held it too long already, though — letting you grow up the most damnably ungrateful dog that ever snuffed carrion, while I was perilling my soul for you, you rascal ! " " What have you to give me, my lord, but the title ! " said Forgue coolly. " Thank heaven, that DIFFERENCES. 469 you cannot take from me, however good your will may be, my country will see to that." " Damn you and your country ! You have no more right to the title than the beggarly kitchen maid you have married. If you but knew yourself you would crow in another fashion." Up to this last sentence Donal, I say, had heard only a word here and there, and had set all he did hear down to his lordship's fierce scolding folly of rage ; but now it was time he should speak. He opened the door. " I must warn your lordship," he said, " that if you speak so loud, I shall hear every word you say." " Hear and be damned to you ! That fellow there — you see him standing there — the mushroom that he is ! Good God ! How I loved his mother ! and this is the way he serves me ! But there was a Providence in the whole affair ! It has all come out right ! Small occasion had I to be breaking my heart and conscience over it ever since she left me ! Hans: the pinchbeck rascal ! He's no more Forgue than you are, Grant, and never will be Morven if he live a hundred years ! He's not one whit better than any bastard in the street ! His mother was the loveliest woman ever breathed ! — and loved me — ah ! God ! It is something after all to have been loved so — and by such a woman ! A woman, by God ! ready and willing and happy to give up — everything for me ! Everything, do you hear, you damned rascal ? I was never married to her ! Do you hear, Mr. Grant .'' I take you to witness my words : She, that fellow's mother and I were never married — not by any law, Scotch, or French, or Dutch, what you will ! He's a 47© DONAL GRANT. damned bastard, and may go about his business when he pleases. Oh, yes ! Pray do ! Go and marry your scullion when you please ! You are your own master — very much indeed your own master — free as the wind that blows to go where you will, and do what you please ! I wash my hands of you. You'll do as you please ! Pray do ; it is nothing, and a good deal less than nothing to me ! I tell you once for all, the moment I know for certain that you are mar- ried to that girl, that very moment I publish to the world — that is, I acquaint certain gossips with the fact I have just told you, and the next Lord Morven will have to be hunted for like a trufifle — Ha! ha! ha!" He burst into a fiendish fit of laughter, and fell back on his pillow, dark with rage and the unutter- able fury that made of his whole being a moral vol- cano. The two men had been standing as if struck dumb, Donal truly sorry for him upon whom this phial of devilish wrath had been emptied, and the other white and trembling with dismay. An abject creature he looked, crushed by his cruel parent. When his father ceased, unable from the reaction of his rage to go on, he still stood speechless and as if all power to move or speak were gone from him. A moment and he turned whiter still, uttered a groan, and wavered. Donal caught and supported him to a chair, where he leaned back with the perspiration streaming down his face. Donal thought what a pity it was that one capable of such emotion in a matter concerning his worldly position and regard should be apparently so indifferent to what alone can in reality affect a man — the right or wrong of his actions. He could feel DIFFERENCES. 47 1 injustice to himself right keenly, and yet would not shrink from endangering to the last degree the well- being and reputation of the person he professed to love better, and himself believed he loved better than any one else in the world. But these thoughts went on in him as it seemed almost without his thinking- them at all — outwardly he was engrossed with the passions before him. The father, too, seemed now to have lost the power of motion, and lay with his eyes closed breathing heavily. But presently he made what Donal took for a sign to ring the bell. He did so, and Simmons came. The moment he entered, and saw the state his master was in, he hastened to a cupboard in the room, took thence a bottle, poured from it a teaspoonful of something colorless, and gave it to him in water. It brought him to himself. He sat up again, and in a voice hoarse and terrible as if it came from the tomb, said, "Think, Lord Forgue, of what I have told you. While you do as I would have you, all is safe. But take your way without me, and 1 will take mine with- out you. You can go." Donal went at once, leaving Forgue where he had placed him, apparently still unable to move. And what was Donal to do or think now ? Per- plexities accumulated upon him. Happily there was time to think and to pray. Here was a secret come to his knowledge affecting the whole history, not merely of the youth who was his enemy and the boy who was his dear friend, but society itself, and it might be the condition of many. Alas for the chil- dren upon whom the sins of the fathers are visited by those guilty or capable of like sins themselves ! But 472 DONAL GRANT. there is anotlier who visits them, and in another fashion ! Wliat was he to do ? To hold his tongue and leave the thing alone as not belonging to him, or to speak out as he would have done had the case been his own, and let the truth be known — the onlv thin": that ought to be, the only thing indeed that can be known ? Ought this man to be allowed a chance of marrying his cousin ? Ought the next heir to the lordship to be left to go without his title ? Had he not a claim upon Donal for the truth ? True, Donal thought little of such things himself, but that hardly affected his dutv in the matter. He mi2:ht think little of money, but would he therefore look on while a pocket was being picked ? He would rather have had nothing to do with the matter, but if he had to do with it, he must act. In the meantime however, he could have no assurance that the earl was speaking the truth — that he was not merely making the state- ment and using the threat that he might have his way with his son ! True or not, what a double-dyed villain was the father ! That afternoon Davie found his tutor absent, and requiring to have a question said over to him again before he was able to comprehend and answer it. CHAPTER XXIV. INTO THE OLD GROOVES. ONE thing only was clear to Donal, that for the present he had literally nothing to do with the affair. There was now no question as to the succes- sion , before that arose Forgue might be dead ; before that, his father might have betrayed the secret of his birth ; and, more than all, the longer Donal thought about the affair the greater was his doubt whether the father had spoken the truth — whether he had not merely made the statement, and uttered the threat founded upon it, in order to get the better of his son, and reduce him to obedience — \vhether an evil or righteous obedience being no matter. Certainly the man who could to his son say such a thing of his mother, must be capable of the wickedness the sup- position assumed ! But the thing remaining uncertain, he was assuredly not called upon to act- in the matter. He could not however fail to be interested in seeing how Forgue would carry himself ; his behavior now would go far to settle his character for life ! If he were indeed as honorable as he would like to be thought, he would explain all to Eppie, and set him- self to find some way of earning his and her bread. Coming to his father with the request that he would help to put him in the way of doing so, the unnatural sire would, if there was untruth in what he had said, 473 474 DONAL GRANT. be thus compelled to confess it. But the youth him- self did not seem to cherish any doubt of the truth of what had fallen in rage from his father's lips ; to judge by his appearance, in the few and brief glances Donal had of him during the next week or so, the iron had sunk into his soul. He looked more wretched than Donal could have believed it possible for man to be — abject quite, manifesting very plainly what a miserable thing, how weak and weakening is the pride of this world. And Donal could not help thinking at first that he who could be so cast down was not one from whom to expect any greatness of action. There was on the contrary great ground for fearing that he w'ould not show honesty enough to oppose his father, declining a succession which was not his — and that although it would leave the way clear to his marrying Eppie. Whether any of Forgue's uneasiness arose from the fact that he had been present at the disclos- ure, or pretended disclosure concerning his social posi- tion, Donal could not tell. Thinking of Donal as his enemy, he could hardly fail to regard him as a danger- ous holder of his secret ; even were Donal the honest man he was not willing to allow him to be, might he not be supposed the rather to feel bound to do something in the matter ? But on the other hand, such had seemed the paralyzing influence of the shock upon him, that Donal doubted if he had been, at any time during the interview, so much aware of his pres- ence as not to have forgotten it entirely before he came to himself. Had he remembered the fact, would he not have come to him either to attempt securing his complicity, or at least to pretend to ask his advice ? Certainly, if he wanted to do right, he INTO THE OLD GROOVES. 475 could scarcely stand in need of advice ; there could be but one way, and that was plain before him ! So it seemed at the first flush to Donal ; but presently he began to see that there were many diings an equiv- ocating demon could urge on the other side ; tlie claims of his mother; the fact that there was no near heir ; — he did not even know who would come in his place ! that he would do quite as well with the pro- perty as another ; that he had been already grievously wronged, and his mother's memory would yet be more grievously wronged were the truth declared : that the whole matter of marriage was but a form ; that the marriage had been a marriage in the sight of God, and as such surely he of all men was in heaven's right to regard it ! His mother had been the truest of wives to his father, though he could by no means feel sure that his father had been the same to her ! These and many things more Donal saw he might plead with himself; and if he was indeed the man he had given him no small ground to think, he would in all proba- bility listen to them. He would assert the existence of many precedents in the history of noble families — that it was hardly to be believed by one knowing the too frequent character of their heads, that any one of the noble descents in possession was without some blot on its scutcheon, however well it might have been concealed ; and he would judge it the cruellest thing of all to have let him know the blii^hting: fact, seein^ that in ignorance he might have succeeded, though without a right, yet none the less with a good con- science. But what kind of a father was this, thought Donal, who would thus defile his son's conscience 1 476 DONAL GRANT. For to wliat end could he have told him but one that, involved that as a necessary concomitancy — he had not done it in revenge, but to gain his object by his son's submission ! Whether the poor fellow leaned to the noble or ignoble it was no marvel, he said then, that he should wander about looking hardly worthy of the name of man ! He wished he would come to him, that he might try to heljD him. He could at least encourage him to refuse the evil and choose the good. But the foregone passages between them rendered that sorely improbable. In the meantime, seeing he did not go to her at once, it was no wonder that his visits to Eppie should be intermitted, as Donal, from what he could read in her countenance and bearinsf, judged they were : in such mood he must at least be occasionally regarding as conceivably his treachery against both her and society; he could not be saying " Lead me not into temptation ; " if not actively tempting himself, he was submitting to being tempetd ; he was lingering in the evil land. Andrew Comin staid yet a week — slowly, gently fading out into life — darkening into eternal day — forgetting into knowledge itself. Donal was with them when he went, but there was little done or said: he crept into the open air in his sleep, to wake from the dreams of life and the dreams of sleep both at once, and see them all mingling together behind him, blending into the look of one vanishing dream of a somewhat troubled, yet oh how precious night now it was past and gone ! What must not that be ? And it is waiting each of us ay we meet it in peace ; and when we wake may we find ourselves still with him I Doory was perfectly calm. When Andrew gave INTO THE OLD GROOVES. 477 his last sigh, she sighed too, said, " I winna be lang, Anerew ! " and said no more. Eppie wept bitterly. Some of her sorrow was, that she had not done as he would have had her, and more came from the thought of how little he had reproached her. Donal went every day to see them till the funeral was over — at which it was surprising to see so many of the town's folk. Most of them had regarded the cobbler as a poor talkative enthusiast with far more tongue than brains. Because they were so far behind and beneath him they saw him very small. One cannot help reflecting what an indifferent trifle the funeral, whether plain to bareness, as in Scotland, or lovely with meaning as it often is in England, to the spirit who has dropped his hunting shoes on the weary road, with all the clothes and dust and heat of the journey — nay, who has dropped the whole world of his pilgrimage, which never was, never could be, never was meant to be to any one his home, but merely the place of his sojourning, in which the stateliest house of marble can be but a tent — cannot be a house, still less a home. Those of us who do not, never could be made to feel at home here save by a mutilation, a depression, a lessening of our being ; and those who do feel at home, will one day, by the growth of that being, come also to feel that this is not their home, not the true house of their birth. For some time Donal's savings continued to sup- port the old woman and her granddaughter. But ere long she got so much to do in the way of knitting stockings and other small things, and was set to so many light jobs by kindly people who respected her 478 DONAL GRANT. more than her luisband because she was more ordi- nary, tliat she seldom troubled him. Miss Carmichael had offered to do what she could to get Eppie a place, if she answered certain questions to her satisfaction. How she met her catechising I do not know ; perhaps she had the sense to reflect that she had herself made the thing necessary — anyhow, she so far satisfied her interrogater that she set herself in earnest to find for her a place in Edinburgh. Eppie wept bitterly at thought of leaving a country in which she had had so much joy and sorrow; but she knew there was no help for it ; rumor had been cruel and not all untrue, and in that neighborhood there was no place for her such as she would take. And all the time she waited, not once did Lord Forgue, so far as she knew, try to see her ! When he gave her up to Donal, he had given her up altogether, thought Eppie ; and notwith- standing his kindness to her house, she all but hated Donal — perhaps the more nearly hated him that her conscience told her he was in the right in all that he had done. A place was found for her, one in which she would be well looked after, Miss Carmichael flattered her- self, and easily persuaded the old grandmother; and with many tears, and without one sight of her lover, Eppie went away. Then things with Donal returned into the old grooves at the castle, only the happy thousfht of his friend the cobbler hammerinof and '& stitching down below was gone. It did not matter : the craftsman \Vas a nobleman now — because such he had always been. Forgue kept mooning about, doing nothing, and recognizing nowhere any prospect of help save in INTO THE OLD GROOVES. 479 Utter defeat. If he had had anything like the faith in Donal his brother had, he might have had help fit to make a man of him, and that he would have found in himself to be something more than being an earl. He would have helped him to look things in the face and call them by their own names, and it might have been the redemption of his being. To let things be as they in reality are, and act with truth in respect of them, is to be a man. Forgue showed little sign of manhood, present or to come. He was to be seen oftener than before on horseback, now riding furiously over everything, as if driven by the very fiend, now dawdling along with the reins on the neck of his v/eary animal. Thus Donal once met him in a narrow lane. The moment Forgue saw him, he pulled up his horse's head, spurred him hard, and fiew past Donal as if he did not see him, but looking as if he would have had the lane yet narrower: Donal shoved himself half into the hedge and escaped with a little mud. CHAPTER XXV. FURTHER SEARCH. ONE morning as Donal sat in the schoolroom with Davie, there came a knock to the door, and Lady Arctura entered. "The wind is blowing from the southeast," she said. " Listen then, my lady, whether you can hear any- thing," said Donal. " 1 fancy it is a very precise wind that is required to enter properly." " I will listen," she answered, and went. The day passed and he heard nothing more. He was at work in his room in a warm evening twilight, when Davie came running to his door, and said that Arkie was coming up after him. He rose and stood at the top of the stair to receive her. She had heard the music, she said, — very soft. Would he not go on the roof ? "Where were you, my lady," asked Donal, "when you heard it ? I have heard nothing up here." " In my own little parlor," she answered. " It was very faint, but I could not mistake it." They went at once upon the roof. The wind was soft and low. an excellent thing in winds. They made their way quickly over the roof. They knew the paths of it better now, and they had plenty of light, although the moon, rising large and round, gave 480 FURTHER SEARCH. 48 1 them little of hers yet, and were presently at the foot of the great chimney-stack, which grew like a tree out of the roof, its roots going clown to tlie very roots of the house itself. There they sat down and waited and hearkened. " I am almost sorry to have made this discovery," said Donal. "Why," asked Lady Arctura. "Should not the truth be found, whatever it may be ? " " Most certainly," answered Donal. " And if this be the truth, as I fully expect it will prove, then it is w^ell it should be found to be the truth. What I meant was that I could have wished — I should have liked better that it had been something we could not explain." " I do not quite understand you." "Things that cannot be explained so widen the horizon around us ! open to us fresh regions for question and answer, for possibility and delight ! They are so many kernels of knowledge closed in the liard nuts of seeming contradiction. — You know, my lady, there are stories of certain houses being haunted by a mysterious music presaging some so-called evil to the family.? " " I think I have heard of such. But if our music had been of that kind, we should, don't you think, hav^ had more than the usual share of earthly ills ? " " And yet," rejoined Donal, " if we had believed so about it, 1 can hardly doubt that, watching, we should have found some evil or other, always at hand to assume the place of the thing predicted by the music — though never once surmised, or in the least prepared for thorough means of the warning." 482 DONAL GRANT. " Where can be the use of such intimations ? " said Arctura. " I do not know," answered Donal. " I see not the smallest use in them. If they were of use, surely thev would be more common. If thev were of use, why should those less blessed of the Lord of the uni- verse have them, and his poor not have them ? " " Perhaps just for the same reason that they have their other good things in this life," said Arctura. " I am answered," confessed Donal, "and have no more to say to that point. But there is not much use in speculating before we know that they are facts upon which we would speculate. I am not denying the occurrence of such things — only saying that I should like to examine into them before speculating upon them. But there are some who, if 5-ou propose to examine into anything, immediately set you down as an unbeliever in that thing. A man who wants to find out what the Bible really means, is, by those who do not believe in it a tenth part as much as he, set down as an unbeliever in the Bible ; whereas it is a proof of the very strongest probability to the con- trary. But for these tales, if they require of us the belief in any special care over such houses, as if they were more precious in the eyes of God than the poorest cottage in the land, I cast them from me." " But," said Arctura, in a deprecating tone, " are not those houses which have more influence more im- portant in the sight of God than others 1 " "Surely — those vv'hich have the most good influ- ence ; such, so far as history goes, are not the great houses of a country. Our Lord was not an Asmo- nean prince, but the son of a maiden with no FURTHER SEARCH. 483 worldly claim, his reputed father a poor workin"- man." " I do not see what that has to do with it ! — I mean, I should like to understand what you mean by that." "You maybe sure the Lord took the position in life in which it was most possible to do the highest good ! and without driving the argument, for every work has its own specialty, it seems at least probable that the true ends of his coming may thereafter be better furthered from the standpoint of humble circum- stances, than from that of rank and position." " I notice this in you," said Arctura, " that you always speak as if there were nothing else to be cared about, or minded as anything worth, but the things that Jesus Christ came for ? Is there Jiot/iing but salvation worthy a human being's regard ? " "If you give a true enough and large enough mean ing to the word salvation, I answer you at once, nothing. Just in proportion as a man is saved, will he do the w^ork of God's world aright — the whole design of it being this — to rear a beautiful holy family for himself, the Father in Heaven ,and for each other his children. The world is his nursery for his upper rooms — for a higher and nobler state of beino- — a state which can be developed only by the doincr of the will of God. Any state that could be other- wise developed would be nothing worth. Through that alone can we be filled with lum as our conscious life, and that is salvation. Oneness with God is the end of all this order of things. When that is attained, God only knows in what glorious regions of life and labor he will place us, able to do greater things than 484 DONAL GRANT. the Lord himself did when lie was on earth! — But was not that .^iolus ? Listen ! " They listened, and there came a low prolonged wail. Donal had left the ladder on the roof in readiness from their last visit ; he set it up in haste, chmbed to the gap, and with a great sheet of brown paper which he had had ready in his room, stood leaning against the chimney, on the northern side of the cleft, waiting for tlie next outcry of the prisoned chords For some time there was no further sound, and he was getting a little hopeless and tired of his position, while Arctura stood at the bottom of the ladder looking up, when suddenly came a louder blast, and he heard the music quite distinctly in the shaft beside hun. It swelled and grew. He spread his sheet of paper over the opening; the wind blew it fiat against the chimney ; the sound immediately ceased. He re- moved it, the wind still blowing, and again came the sound quite plainly. The wind grew stronger, and they were able to use the simple experiment until there was no shadow of a doubt left on either of their minds that they had discovered the source of the music : by certain dispositions of the paper they were even able to modify it. At length Donal descended, and addressing Davie, said, " Davie, I wish you not to say a word about this to any one until Lady Arctura or I give you leave. You have a secret with us now, and with no other person. You know the castle belongs to Lady Arctura, and she has a right to ask you not to say this to afiy one without her permission. — I have a reason, my lady, FURTHER SEARCH. 485 for wishing this," he added, turning to Arctura ; — " will you join me in desiring it of Davie at my re- quest ? I will immediately tell you why I wish it, but I do not want Davie to know yet. You can at once withdraw your prohibition, you know, if you should not think my reason a good one." " Davie," said Arctura, " I too have faith in Mr. Grant ; and I beg you will do as he says." " Oh surely, cousin Arkie ! " said Davie ; " I would have minded without being told so very solemnly." "Very well, then, Davie," said Donal : ''you run down and wait for me in my room. I want to have a little talk with Lady Arctura. Mind you go exactly the way we came." Davie went, and Donal turning to Arctura, said, " You know the story of the hidden room in the castle, my lady?" •' Surely you do not believe in that ! " she an- swered. " I think there may be such a place, though I need not therefore accept any of the stories I have heard about it." " But surely if there were such a place it would have been found long ago." " They might have said that on the first reports of the discovery of America ! " returned Donal. " That was so far off, and across a great ocean." " Here may be thick walls, and hearts careles.s or frightened ! Has any one ever set in earnest about finding it ? " " Never that I know of." " Then your argument falls to the ground. If you could have told me that any had tried to find it, but 486 DONAL GRANT. without success, I would have admitted the force of it, though even then it would not have satisfied me without knowing the plans they had taken — that they were sufficient, and had been thoroughly carried out. On the other hand it may have been known to many who never told it. — Would you like to know the truth about this as well as about the music ? " " I should indeed. But would not you be sorry to lose another mystery ? " " On the contrary, there is only the rumor of a mystery now ; we do not know that there really is one. We do not quite believe the report. We are not indeed at liberty, in the name of good sense, quite to believe it now. But perhaps we may find that there is really a mystery — even one that must continue for the present a mystery — one we may never in this world be able to account for, one sug- gesting a hundred mysterious explanations. I would not for a moment annoy you. I do not even wish to press it." Lady Arctura smiled very sw^eetly. " I have not the slightest objection," she said. *' If I seemed for a moment to hesitate, it was only that I wondered what my uncle would say to it. I should not like to vex him." " Certainly not ; but do you not think he would be pleased } " " I will speak to him," she said, " and find out. He hates what he calls superstition, and I fancy has more curiosity than delight in legendary things : he will be willing enough, I think. I should not wonder if he joined you in the search." But Donal thought with himself that if he were so FURTHER SEARCH. 487 inclined it was strange he had never undertaken the thing. Something in him said that the earl would not like the proposal. They were now slowly making their way to the stair. " But just tell me, Mr. Grant, how you would set about it," said Arctura. *' If the question were merely whether or not there was such a room, I would " — '' But how could you tell that there was one except you found it ? " "By finding that there was some space not accounted for." " I do not see how." '' Would you mind coming to my room ? It will be a lesson for Davie, too : I will show you in a few mmutes." She assented. They joined Davie, and Donal gave them a lesson in cubic measure and contents. He showed her how to tell exactly how much space must be inside any given boundaries : if they could not find so much, then some of it was hidden some- how ! If they measured all the walls of the castle, allowing of course for the thickness of those walls, and then, measuring all the rooms and open places within those walls, allowing also for the dividing walls, found the space they gave fell short of what they had to expect, they must conclude either that they had measured or calculated wrong, or that there was a space in the castle to which they had no access. " But," continued. Donal, " if the thing was to dis- cover the room itself, I would set about it in a differ- ent way ; I should not care about all that previous 4S8 DONAL GRANT. measuring ; I should begin to go all over the castle, and get it right in my head, fitting everything inside the castle into the shape of it in my brain. Then if I came to a part I thought suspicious, I should examine that more closely, take exact measurements both of the angles and sides of the different rooms, passages, etc., and so find ^vhether they enclosed more than I could see. I need not trouble you with the exact process as there will probably be no occasion to use it." "Oh, yes, there maybe," returned Lady Arctura. " I think my uncle will be quite willing." With that she turned to the door and they went down together. When they reached the hall Davie ran away to get his kite and go out. " But you have not told me why you would not have the music spoken of," said Arctura, stopping and turning to Donal. "Only because, if we went to make any further researches, the talk about the one would make them notice the other ; and the more quietly it can be done the better. If we resolve to do nothing, we may at once unfold our discovery. " We will be quiet in the meantime," said Arctura. That night the earl had another of his wandering fits, also that night the wind blew strong from the southeast. Whether that had anything to do with the way in which he heard his niece's proposal the next day, I will leave to my reader : but it made Arctura very uncomfortable. The instant he understood what she wished his countenance grew black as thunder. "What!" he cried. " You would go pulling the grand old hulk to pieces for the sake of a foolish tale FURTHER SEARCH. 489 about the devil and a rascally set of card-players ! By my soul ! I'll be damned if you do. — Not while I'm above ground at least ! That's what comes of giving such a place into the hands of a woman ! It's sacrilege ! By heaven, I'll throw my brother's will into chancery rather ! " He went on raging so that he compelled her to imagine there was more in it than seemed, and while she could not help trembling at the wildness of the temper she had roused, she repented of the courtesy she had shown him : she had a perfect right to make what investigations she pleased. If her father had left her the property, doubtless he had good reasons for doing so ; and those reasons might have lain in the character of the man before her ! Possibly through all his rage the earl read some- thing of the thought which had sent the blood of the Graemes mantling in her cheek and brow. " I beg your pardon, my love," he said, " but he was my brother, and has been dead and gone for so many years ! 'Tis no great treason to remark upon the wisdom of a dead man — dead and all but forgotten ! Doubtless he was your father'' — " He is my father ! " said Arctura sternly and coldly. "Ah; well as you please! but must I therefore regard him as Solon .? " " I wish you good-night, my lord," said Arctura, and came away very angry. But when presently she found that she could not lift up her heart to her Father in Heaven, gladly would she have sent that anger from her. Was that a thing to be indulged in — was it not plainly in its nature 49° DONAL GRANT. something else than good \vhcn it came between her and her. Father in Heaven ? With all her might she struggled and prayed against it. A great part of the night she was awake,, but ended by pitying her uncle too much to be very angry with him any more, and then fell asleep. In the morning she found that while she was no longer in wrath against him, any sense of his having authority over her had all but vanished. It was not his suggestion concerning her father's will that had offended her, but the way he spoke of her father. He might do as he pleased about the will ! she would do as she pleased about the house. If her father knew him as she knew him, and wisely feared his son would be like him, certainly he had done well to leave the property to her ! But was it not time that she took upon herself something of the duties of a landlord .'* " I wonder," she said to herself, " what Mr. Grant thinks of me — doing next to nothing for the people" committed to my care ? " — She was afraid she could never do anything while her uncle con- tinued to receive the rents as before^ and give orders to Mr. Graeme ! She ought to take the thing in her own hands ! But what was she to say to Mr. Grant about the present matter 1 She thought and thought, and concluded to say nothing, but encourage him to make some of the calculations he had proposed. This she did, and for some days nothing more was said. But she was haunted with that interview with her uncle, and began to be haunted with vague uneasiness as to the existence of some dreadful secret about the house. It must be remembered that she was of a most delicately impressionable nature ; that FURTHER SEARCH. • 49 1 the very rarity of her mental gifts depended in part upon this impressionableness , that she felt things keenly and retained the sting long after most would have forgotten the cause of it. I cannot help fancy- ing that but for the derived instincts of her race, this sensitiveness might have degenerated into weakness. It had not, however, and now never would — for she had developed will and faith. CHAPTER XXVI. THE DREAM. ONE evening, as Donal was walking in the park, Davie, who was now advanced to doing a little work without his master's immediate supervision, came running to him to say that Arkie was in the schoolroom and wanted to see him. He hastened to her. " I want a word witli you without Davie,'' she said, and Donal sent the boy away. " I have debated with myself all day whether I should tell you," she began, with a trembling voice, " but I think I shall not be so much afraid to go to bed to-night if I tell you what I dreamt last night." Her face was very pale, and there was a quiver about her mouth : it seemed as if she would burst into tears. " Do you think it is very silly to mind one's dream .'' " she added. "Silly or not," answered Donal, "as regards the general run of dreams, it is pretty plain you have had one that must be paid some attention to. What we must heed, it cannot be silly to heed. No doubt many of our dreams are silly as to their contents, which yet as dreams may be noteworthy phenomena." This he added seeking to calm her evident pertur- bation with the coolness of the remark. 492 THE DREAM. 493 " I am in no mood, I fear, for any philosophy, " said Arctura, trying to smile. " This one has taken such a hold of me that I cannot rest till I have told it, and there is no one I could tell it to but yourself. Any one else would laugh at me — at least I know Sophia would — but you never laugh at anything ■ — at least any person — I mean unbelievingly or unkindly. It will be enough to you that the dream troubles m.e, and I cannot get it out of my head. I shudder to think of it. I fell asleep as usual, quite well, and no more inclined to dream than usual, except that I had for some days been troubled with the feeling that there was somethino; not ri^ht about the house. The dream however does not seem to have anything to do with that. I found myself in the midst of a terrible because most miserable place. It was like brick-fields, but deserted brick-fields — that had never been of any use. Heaps of bricks were all about, but they were all broken, or only half burnt. For miles and miles they stretched around me. I walked and walked to get out of it. Not a soul was near me or in sight, nor si":n of human habitation from horizon to horizon. All at once I saw before me an old church. It was old, but showed its age only in being tumbled-down and dirtv — it was not in the least venerable. It was very ugly too — a huge building without any shape, like most of our Scotch churches. I shrunk from the look of it; it was horrible to me ; I feared it; but I must go in. I went in. It looked as if nobody had crossed its threshold for a hundred years. The pews remained, but were mouldering away ; the sounding- board had half fallen on the pulpit, and rested its. edge on the book-board ; and the great galleries had 494 DONAL GRANT. tumbled in parts into tlie body of the church, and in others hung sloping from the walls. When I had gone in a little way^ I saw that the centre of the door had fallen in, and there was a great, descending, soft- looking slope of earth, mixed and strewn with bits of broken and decayed wood, from the pews that had fallen in when the ground gave way, or it might be from the coffins of the dead, underneath which the gulf had opened. I stood gazing down in horror unutterable. It went down and down I could not see how far. I stood fascinated with the unknown depth, and the feeling of its possible contents, when suddenly I perceived that something was moving in the dark- ness — something dead — something yellow-white. It came nearer, and I saw it was slowly climbing the slope — a figure as of one dead and stiff, laboring up the steep incline. I would have shrieked, but I could neither cry nor move. At last, when about three yards below me, it raised its head : it was my uncle — but as if he had been dead for a week, and all dressed for the grave. He raised his hand and beckoned me — and I knew in my soul that down there I must go, without question of would or would not. I had to go ; and I never once thought of resisting — whether from a sense of the mastery of fate, born in me from some unbelieving sire, I cannot tell, but immediately, my heart going down within me like lead, I began the descent. My feet sank in the mould of the ancient dead as I went ; it was soft as if thousands of grave- yard moles were for ever burrowing in it ; down and down I went, sinking, and sliding with t4ie moving heap of black mould. Then I began to see — I know not how — you see somehow in dreams without light THE DREAM. 495 — I saw the sides and ends of coflins in the earth that made the walls of the gulf, which came closer and closer together, and at length, scarcely left me room to get through without touching the coffins. But I sought courage in the thought that these had long been dead, and must by this time be at rest, though my uncle was not, and would not stretch out mouldy hands to lay hold of me. At last I saw he had got to the very point and bottom of the descent, where it was not possible to go any farther, and I stood, more composed than I can understand, and waited." " The wonder is we are so believing in our dreams," said Donal, *' and not more terrified." " Then I was able to speak and I said to my uncle, ' Where are you taking me ? ' but he gave me no an- swer. I saw now that he was heaving and pulling at a coffin that seemed to bar up the way in front. I be- gan to think I was dead and condemned- to be there, alive and conscious, nor allowed to go out of mv body till the day of the resurrection because I could not believe that the very same flesh and bones were to rise again. But just as my uncle got the coffin out of the way, I saw a bright silver handle on it with the Morven crest ; and the same instant the lid of it rose, and one rose out of it, and it was my father, and he looked alive and bright, and my uncle looked beside hun like a corpse beside a soul. 'What do you want here with my child ? ' he said ; and my uncle seemed to cower before him. 'This is no place for her,' he said, and took my hand in his and said, 'Come with me, my child.' And I followed him — oh, so gladly ! ^ And my fear was all gone, and so was my uncle. He was leading me up where we had come down, but just 496 DONAL GRANT as\ve\vere steppin:^ up, as I thouglu, into tlie horrible old church, where do you think I found myself — in my own room. I looked round me, and no one was near me, and I was very sorr}' my father wns gone, but glad to be in my own room. Then I woke — but not in my bed — standing in the middle of the floor, just where my dream had left me ! That was the most terrible thing about it. I caniiOt get rid of the thousfht that I went somewhere wanderinii about. I have been haunted the whole day with the terror of it. It keeps coming back and back, so that I am some- times afraid of going silly with thinking of it." " Did your uncle give you anything ? " asked Donal. " I do not see how he could ; but that would have explained it." " You must change your room, and get Mrs. Brooks to sleep near you." "That is just what I should like, but I am ashamed to ask her." '•' Tell her you had a dreadful dream, and would like to change your room for a while." " I will. I feel almost as if I had been poisoned." Gladly would Donal have offered to sleep, like one of his own old colleys, on the door-mat to make her feel more safe ; but that would not do. Mrs. Brooks was the only one to help her. She had her bed moved to another part of the castle altogether, and Mrs. Brooks slept in the dressing-room. For Donal, the dream roused sti'ange thoughts in him. He would gladly have asked leave to occupy her room for a while, but he feared thereby to keep Lady Arctura's imagination on the stretch, which already seemed overwrought. THE DREAM. 497 " Make of them what he may," said Donal to him- self, "man cannot get rid of the element which in our ignorance and outsideness we call the supernat- urjil, as if anything could be supernatural except the God who is above the nature ! " He had already begun to make some observations towards verifying the existence of the hidden room. But he made them in the quietest way, attracting no attention, and had already satisfied himself it could not be in this or that r.art of the castle. It might be in the foundations, among the dungeons and cellars, and built up ; but legend pointed elsewhere. If he could have had any one, even Davie, to help him, he would have set himself at once to find out what there was to be found out concerning the musical chimney ; but that he could not easily do alone, for he could not go poking here and there into every room, and examin- ing its chimney without attracting attention. And as to his measurements, such was the total irregularity of a building that had grown through centuries to fit the varying needs and changing tastes of the gen- erations, he found it harder to satisfy himself than he had thought : without free scope to go about and make them and his observations at his leisure, he could not quite succeed. He could carry a good deal in his head, but not so much as he found necessar}', so great, considered from the point of architecture, was the seemingly chaotic element in the congeries of erections and additions of different ages, fitted together by various contrivances more or less ingenious, and with variously invented communication with each other. Within the castle, besides the two great courts, were other smaller spaces for the admission 49^ DONAL GRANT. of light and air, which added to the difficulty ; all the principal buildings and many of the stories were of different heights ; there were partial breaks in the continuity of floors ; and various other obstructing irregularities. ^' CHAPTER XXVII. FINDING THE PLACE. THE autumn brought terrible storms. Many fishing boats came to grief. Of some, the crews lost everything : of others, the loss of their lives delivered them from ihe smaller losses. There were many bereaved families in the village, and Donal went about among them, doing what he could, and seeking help for them where his own ability would not reach their necessity. Lady Arctura wanted no persuasion to go with him in many of his visits, and this intercourse with humanity in its sim- pler forms, of which she had not had enough for the health of her nature, was of the greatest service in her renewed efforts to lay hold upon the skirt of the Father of men, for nothing helps many, perhaps all, to believe in God so much as the active practical love of the neighbor. If he who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, can ill love God whom he hath not seen, then he who loves his brother must find it the easier to love God. To visit the widow and the fatherless in their affiictions ; to see and know them as her own kind ; so to enter into their sorrows : to share in the elevating influence of grief genuine and simple, the same thing in every human soul, Arctura found was to draw near to God. She met him in his children without being able to produce any theologi- 499 500 DOXAL GRANT. cal justification of the fact. She did not yet know that to honor, love, and be just to our neighbor, is to be religious ; and the man who does so will soon find that he cannot do without that higher part of religion, which is the love of God, and without which the rest will sooner or later die away, leaving the man the worse for having once had it. She found the path to God the easier that she was now walking it in com- pany with her fellows. We do not understand the next page of God's lesson-book ; we see orhly the one before us ; nor shall we be allowed — it is indeed impossible we should do it — to turn the leaf until we have learned the lesson of that before us : when we understand the one before us, then first are we able to turn the next. The troubles of others now took her so far off her own, that, seeing them at a little distance from her, she was better able to under- stand them ; and all the time her soul, being honest, had been growing in capacity to understand. The Perfect Heart could never have created us except to make us wise, loving, obedient, honorable children of our Father in Heaven. One day, after the fishing boats had gone out, there came on a terrible storm. Most of them made for the harbor again — such as it was, and succeeded in gaining its shelter ; but one boat failed. How much its failure was owning to Lord Forgue and Eppie, cannot be said, but Stephen Kennedy's boat drifted ashore bottom upward. His body came ashore close to the spot where Donal, half asleep, half awake, dragged the net out of the wave. There was sorrow afresh throughout the village. Kennedy was a favor- ite ; and his mother was left with no son to come FINDING THE PLACE. 50I sauntering in with his long slouch in the gloamin', and with but half a hope of ever seeing him again. For the common Christianity does not go so much farther than paganism towards comforting those whose living loves have disappeared from their gaze ! What Forgue thought I do not know — nothing at all, prob- ably, as to any share of his in the catastrophe. But I believe it made him care a little less about marrying the girl, now that he had no rival ready to take her. I think perhaps he may have felt that he had one enemy the less, and one danger the less, in the path he would like to tread. Soon after, he left the castle, and if his father knew where he was, he was the only one who did so. He did not even say good-by to Arctura. His father had been pressing his desire that he would begin to show some interest in the owner of the castle ; he had professed himself unequal to it at present, but said that, if he were away for a while, it would be easier when he returned. The storms were over, and the hedges and hidden roots had begun to dream of spring, when one after- noon Arctura, after Davie was gone, with whom she had been at work in the schoolroom over some geom- etry, told Donal her dream had come again. " I cannot bear it," she said. " This time I came out not into my own room, but on to the great stair, I thought ; and I came up the stair to the room I am in now, and got into bed. And the dreadful thing is that Mrs. Brooks tells me she saw me standing in the middle of the floor." " Do you imagine you had been out of the room ? " asked Donal in some dismay. *' I do not know ; I cannot tell. If I were to find 502 DONAL GRANT. that I had been, it would drive me out of my senses, I think. I keep on thinking about the lost room ; and I am almost sure it lias something to do with that ! When the thought comes to me I try to send it away, but it keeps coming." " Would it not be better to find the place, and have done with it ? " said Donal. " If you think we could," she answered, *' without attracting any attention." " If you will help me, I think we can," he answered. ** That there is such a place I am greatly inclined to believe." "I will help you all I can." "Then first, we will make a small experiment upon the shaft of the music-chimney. It has never been used for smoke at all events since those chords were put there ; may it not be the chimney to the very room ? I will get a weight and a strong cord. The wires will be a plague, but I think we can manage to pass them. Then we shall see how far the weight goes down, and shall know on what floor it is arrested. That will be something gained, limiting so far the plane of inquiry. It may not be satisfactory, you know; there maybe a turn in it to prevent the weight from going to the bottom ; but it is worth trying." Lady Arctura seemed already relieved and bright- ened by the proposal. " When shall we set about it ? " she asked almost eagerly. " At once, if you like," said Donal. • She went at once to get a shawl, that she might go on the roof with him. They agreed it would still be better not to tell Davie. There should be no danger FINDING THE PLACE. 503 of their design oozing out. The least hint might give rise to a shrewd guess, and then to a watchful obser- vation, with the true idea for a guide ; that would be just as bad as full information ! Donal found a suitable cord in the gardener's tool- house, also a seven pound weight. But would that pass the wires? He laid it aside, remembering an old eight-day clock on a back stair, which was never ^oino;. He hastened to it, and rot out its heavier weight, which he felt almost sure might be got through the cords. These he carried to his own stair, at the foot of which he found Lady Arctura waiting for him. There was that in being thus associated with the lovely girl, and in knowing that her peace had begun to grow through him, that she trusted him implicitly, looking to him for help, and even protection ; in knowing too that nothing but assault in one sense, and another could be looked for from uncle or cousin, and that he held in his mind a doubt, a strong ground of suspicion against them which might one day put in his hands the means of protecting her, should any undue influence be brought to bear upon her to make her marry Forgue ; there was that in all this I say, that stirred to its depths the devotion of Donal's deeply devoted nature : with the help of God he would help her to overcome all her enemies, and leave her a fre* woman — a thing worth any man's doing, if he did no more on this earth, and returned to God who sent him ! Many an angel had been sent on a shorter errand ! He would give himself to it, after his duty to Davie ! Such were his thoughts as he followed Arctura up the stair, she carrying the weight and the cord, he the 504 DONAL GRANT. ladder, which it was not easy to get round the screw of tlie stair. Arctura trembled with excitement as she ascended, and grew frightened as often as she found she had outstripped him. Then she would wait till she saw the end of it come poking round, when she would start again towards the top. Her dreams had disquieted her, and she feared at times they might be sent her as a warning. Had she not been taking a way of her own, and choosing a guide instead of accepting the instruction of those whose calling it was to instruct in the way, to le^d in the way of understanding ? But the moment she found herself in the healthy open air of Donal's company, her doubts seemed to vanish ; such a one as he must surely know better than any of those the true way of the spirit ! Was he not, for one thing, much more childlike, much more straightforward, simple and obedient than those ? Doubtless the truth was the truth ; and nothing but the truth could be of the smallest final consequence; but was not Donal at least as likely to possess the truth as Mr. Carmichael ? Older, and possibly more experienced, w^as he one whose light shone clearer than Donal's ? He might be a priest in the temple, but there was a Samuel in the temple as well as an Eli ! It was the young, strong, ruddy David, the slayer of lion and bear in defence of his flock, who was the chosen of God and sent to kill the giant ! What although he could not wear big Saul's armor? he could kill a man too big to put it on. Thus meditated Arctura as she climbed the stair, and her hope and courage grew. If there was in Arctura some tendency to disease, it was the disease that comes of the combination of FINDING THE PLACE. 505 over delicate feelings with keen faculties, and these subjected to the rough rasping influences of the coarse, self-satisfied, and unspiritual. Naturally con- ditioned no one could be sounder than she ; but the disorder of a headache would be enough to bring her afresh under the influence of the hideously false sys- tems she had been taught, and would wake in her all kinds of painful and deranging doubts and conscious- nesses. Subjugated as she had been lo the untrue, she required for a time till her spiritual being should be somewhat individualized, strengthened, and settled by sympathy, to be under the genial influences of one who was not afraid to believe, one individually and immediately under the teaching of the master. Nor was there danger so long as he sought no end of his own, desiring only his will so long as he could say, "Whom is there in Heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee ! " By the time she reached the top she was radiant, not merely with the exertion of climbing, loaded as she was ; she was joyous in the prospect of a quiet hour with one whose presence and words gave her strength, who made the world look less mournful, and the will of God altogether beautiful ; who taught her that the glory of the father's lo\'e lay in the inexora- bility of its demands, that it is of his deepest mercy that no one can get out without paying the uttermost farthing. She was learning these things — understood them not a little in her best moments. They, stepped out upon the roof into the gorgeous afterglow of an autumn sunset. The whole country, like another sea, seemed fl.owing out from that well of color, in tidal waves of an ever advancing creation. 5o6 DONAL GRANT. It broke on the old roofs and chimneys, splashing its many tinted foam all over them, while folded in it came a cold thin wind, that told of coming death, but fused the death and the creation into one, and so presented them to the faith of the Christian. She breathed a deep breath, and her joy grew. It is wonderful how small a physical elevation, lifting us into a thinner, but how little thinner, air, serves to raise the human spirits ! We are like barometers, only work the other way : the higher we go, the higher rises our mercury. They stood for a moment in deep enjoyment, then simultaneously turned to each other. *' My lady," said Donal, " with such a sky as that out there, it hardly seems as if there could be room for such a thing as our search to-night ! The' search into hollow places, hidden of man's hands, does not seem to go with it at all ! You read there the story of gracious invention and deepest devotion, here the story of greed, and self-seeking, which all concealment involves." " But there may be nothing, you know, Mr. Grant ! " said Arctura, a little troubled about her ancient house. " True ; but if we do find such a room, you may be sure it has had to do with terrible wrong, though what we may never find out. I doubt if we shall even dis- cover any traces of it. I hope in any case you will keep a good courage." " I shall not be afraid while you are with me," she answered. " It is the terrible dreaming that makes me weak. In the morning I tremble as if J had been in the hands of some evil power in the night." FINDING THE PLACE. 507 Donal turned his eyes upon her. How thin she looked in the last of the sunlight ! A pang went through him at the thought that one day he might be alone with Davie in the castle, untended by the con- sciousness that a living light and loveliness was some- where — what matter where? — flitting about its gloomy and ungenial walls. But now he would banish the thought! He would not think it! How that dismal Miss Carmichael must have worried her! That was the way they of the circumcision worried St. Paul ; only he was able to bear, and able to de- fend himself from their doctrine ! When the very hope of the creature in his creator is attacked in the name of religion ; when his longing after a living God is met with the offer of a paltry escape from hell, how is the creature to live.? It is God we want, not Heaven I God, not an imputed righteousness! re- mission, not mere letting off ! love, not endurance for the sake of another, even if that other be the one loveliest of all. They turned from the sunset and made their way to the chimney-stack. There once more Donal set up his ladder, and having tied the clock-weight to the end of his cord, dropped it in, and with a little manage- ment got it through the wires. Then it went down and down, gently lowered, till the cord was all out, and still it would go. " Do run and get some more,"' said Arctura. " You do not mind being left alone ? " asked Donal. '' Not if you will not be long," she answered. " I will run," he said, and run he did, for she had scarcely begun to feel the loneliness when he returned panting. 5o8 DONAL GRANT. Taking the end she had been holding, he tied on ihe fresh cord he liad brought, and again lowered away. Ji-ist as he was beginning to fear that after all he had not brought enough, the weight stopped, rest- ins, and drew no more. " If only we had eyes in that weight," said Arctura, " like those the snails have at the end of their horns ! " "We might have greased the weight," said Donal, " as they do the sea lead to know what kind of thing is at the bottom ! It would be something to see whether it brought up ashes ! I will move it up and down a little, and if it will not go any farther, I will mark the string at the mouth, and draw it up." He did so. " Now we must mark off it the height of the chim- - ney above the parapet wall," said Donal ; ' and now I will lower the weight into the little court, until this last knot comes to the wall; then we shall know how far down the height of the house it went inside it. — Ah, I thought so ! " he went on, looking over, — "only to the first floor, or thereabouts. — No, I think it is lower ! But you see, my lady, the place with which the chimney, if chimney it be, communicates is some- where about the middle of the house, and it may be on the first floor : we can't judge very well here. Can you imagine what place it might be .?" " I cannot," answered Lady Arctura; "but I will go to ever}^ room to-morrow — or this evening per- haps." "Then I will draw the weight up, and let it down the chimney again as far as it will go, and there leave it for you to see, if you can, somewhere below. If FINDING THE PLACE. 509 you find it, then we must leave the chimney, and try another plan." It was done, and they descended together. Donal went back to the schoolroom, not expecting to see Lady Arctura before the next day. But in half an hour she came to him, saying she had been into every room on the floor and its adjoining levels, but had failed to see the weight in any chimney. "The probability then is," said Donal, "that some- where thereabout lies the secret ; but we cannot be sure, for the weight may never have reached the bottom of the shaft, but be resting at some angle in its course. Now let us think what we shall do next." As he spoke he placed a chair for her by the fire. Davie was not there, and they had the room to them- selves. CHAPTER XXVIII. A CONFIDENTIAL TALK. BUT they were hardly seated when Simmons ap- peared, saying he had been looking everywhere for her ladyship, for his lordship was taken as he had never seen him before : he had fainted right away in the half-way room, as they called that on the stair. " I will come to you instantly, Simmons. Hurry and get what things you think likely : you know him much better than I do." Lady Arctura and Donal hastened to the room in- dicated, and there saw. the earl stretched motionless and pale on a couch. But for a twitching in a muscle of the face they might have concluded him dead. When Simmons came they tried to get something down his throat, but without success ; he could not swallow. Lady Arctura thought it would be better to get him to his room, and the two men carried him up the stair. He had not been long laid on his bed before he began to come to himself ; and then Lady Arctura thought it better to leave him with Simmons whom she told to come to the library when he could, and let them know how he was. In about an hour he came and told them his master was better. "Do you know any cause for the attack?" asked her ladyship, 510 A CONFIDENTIAL TALK. 5 l I "No, my lady — only this," answered the butler, "that while I was there with him, giving him my monthly accounts — I'm sure I wonder he takes the trouble to ask for them ! I could charge him half as much again for everything, he pays so little atten- tion to the particulars ! — I was standing by my lord doing nothing, while he was pretending to look at my bills, when all at once there came a curious noise in the wall. I'm sure I can't think what it was — an in- ward rumbling it was, that seemed to go up and down the wall like a groaning, and then stopped all at once and altogether. It sounded nothing very dreadful to me, only perhaps if it had been in the middle of the night, I mightn't have liked it. But his lordship started, turned quite pale and gasped, and cried out, and laid his hand on his heart. I made haste to do what I could for him, but it wasn't altogether like one of his ordinary attacks, and I got frightened and came for you. He's such a ticklish subject, you see, my lady ! I get quite alarmed sometimes to be left alone with him. It's his heart, you see, my lady ; and you know, my lady, I should be sorry to frighten you, but yoic know, Mr. Grant^ with that complaint a gentleman may go off at any moment, without warning. I must go "back" to him now, my lady, if 3'ou please." When Simmons was gone^ Arctura turned and looked at Donal. " We must be careful," he said. "We must," she answered. " Thereabouts is one of the few places in the house where you can hear the music." " But why should my lord be so frightened .-* " " He is not like other people, you know. ' He 512 DONAL GRANT. leads such a second, and perhaps more life-like life because of the things he takes, that I believe he does not know with any certainty whether some things actually happen to him or not. But I must go." "One word," said Donal : "where did you use to hear the music ? It seems to me, when I think of it, that, though all in the house have heard it, you and your uncle have heard it oftener than any one else," " 1 hear it in my own room. I don't think my uncle does in his ; but you know where we found him that night ; in his strange frts he often goes there. But we can talk more to-morrow. Good-night." " I will remain here for the rest of the evening," said Donal, " in case Simmons might want me to help with his lordship." It was well into the night, and Donal still sat read- ing in the library, when Mrs. Brooks came to him. She had had to get his lordship *' what he ca'd a cat — something or ither, but was naething but mus- tard to the soles o' 's feet to draw away the bluid." " He's better noo," she said. " He's taen some ane or ither o' thae horrid drogues he's aye potterin' wi' — tryin' I doobtna to learn the trade o' livin' for ever. But that's a thing the Lord has keepit in 's ain ban's frae the first, seein' the tree o' life was never aten o', an' never wull be noo i' this wad', seein it's lang transplantit. But eh as to livin' for ever, or I wad be his lordship, I wad gie up the ghost at ance ! " " What gars ye say that, Mistress Brooks .'' " asked Donal. " It's no ilk ane I wad answer sic a question til ! " she replied ; "but I'm sae weel assured ye hae sense an' hert eneucli baith no to hurt a cratur', 'at I may A CONFIDENTIAL TALK. 513 jist gang sae far as say to yerscT, an' 'atween the twa' o's, 'at I hae h'ard frae them that's awa' — them 'at weel kent, bcin' aboot the phice aiv trustit, tliat whan the fit was upon hun he was fell cruel to the bonnie wife he had men led somewhaur abro'd and broucht hame wi' him — til a cauld-hertit countr\', 1 hae na doobt, puir thing-, she thoucht it ! " " But how could he have been cruel to her in the house with his brother? ZT^' would never have con- nived at the ill-treatment of any woman under his roof, even if his brother was the wretch to be guilty of it ! " " Hoo ken jc sae weel what the auld yerl was like ? " said Mrs. Brooks, with a sly glance at the speaker. " I ken only," answered Donal, straight out, as was his wont, " 'at sic a bonny dauchter could hardly hae been born o' ony but a man 'at — well 'at wad at least behave til a wuman like a man." " Weel, ye're richt ! He was the ten'erest-herlit man, they say. But he was far frae stoot, an' was a heap by himsel', nearhan as muckle as his lordship, the present yerl. An' the lady was that prood, an' that dewotit to the man she ca'd her ain, that never a word o' what gaed on cam to the ears o' his brither, or Is' warran' ye there wad hae been a fine steer! His cruelty cam', she said — my auld auntie said — o' jist some kin' o' madness 'at they hadna gotten a name for yet ; but I doobt there's a madness o' the hert as weeks o' the held — a madness 'at taks men to think their women a kin' o' a property o' their ain, han' let ony gait the deevil puts intil them. I winna say mair aboot it, but cries i' the deid o' the nicht, an' never a shaw i' the mornin' but white cheeks an' reid 514 . DONAL GRANT. een, tells their ain tale. Ony gait, she dee'd 'at niicht hae lived but for hini^ an' her bairnie dee'd afore her; an' the wrangs o' bairns an' women stick lang to the wa's o' the universe, an' some said she cam efter him again efter she was gane — I kenna ; but 1 hae seen an' hard i' this hoose what — but Is' baud my tongue an' ken naething : a' I say is, he was no a guid man to the puir woman ! — for whan it comes to that, it's no my kddy an' mei?i. but we're a' women thedther. She dee'd no here, I un'erstan." CHAPTER XXIX. ANOTHER SUGGESTION. THE next day, when he saw Lady Arctura, Donal said to her, " It seems to me, my lady, that, if your uncle heard the noise of our plummet inside the wall, the place can hardly be on the floor you searched; for that room, you know, is on the stair before you come to the first floor. Still sound does travel so through a wall ! I cannot tell. We must betake ourselves to measurement, and that is not easy to do thoroughly without being seen. There was another thing, how- ever, came into my head last night ; it might serve to give us a sort of parallax. You tell me you hear the music in your room • I should like if you would kt me have a look about it ; something might suggest itself ! Is it the room I saw you in when once I opened the door by mistake .'' " " Not that," answered Arctura, " but the bedroom opening from it — the one I have left for the present . you can examine it when you please. Will you come now ? " Is there any danger of the earl's suspecting what we are after.'' " " Not the least. The room is not far from his, but is not in the same block of the building, and there are thick walls between. Besides he is too ill to be up." 515 5l6 DONAL GRANT. She led the way, and Donal followed to and up the main staircase to the second floor, and into the small, curious old-fashioned room, evidently one of the oldest in the castle, which Lady Arctura had chosen, chiefly from her pleasure in its old antiquity, to occupy as her own sitting-room. Perhaps if she had lived less in the shadow, she might have chosen a less gloomy one : she could see the sky only through a little lane of walls and gables and battlements. But inside, it was very charming with the oddest nooks and corners, recesses and projections. It looked as if it had been an afterthought, and accommodated to a space all but intruded upon from every quarter, and by every shape of threatening material. Donal cast round his eyes, and turning to Lady Arctura said : " I do wish, my lady, you would not sit so much where there is so little sunlight! All outer and inner things are so tied together ! or, rather, are indeed in their origin one — so that the light of the sun, being the natural world-clothing of the truth, the mind that sits much in the physical dark, is in danger of missing a great help to understanding the things of the light. — If I had been your spiritual adviser," he went on with a smile, " I would have counselled you to change this room for one with a broad fair outlook, so that, when you had gloomy thoughts about God, they might have his eternal contradiction in the face of his world and his shining sun." " It is but fair to tell you," said Arctura, " that Sophia would have had me do so ; but while I felt about God as she had taught me, what could the light of the sun be to me ? " " Yes, what indeed I " returned Donal. — " I feel, ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 517 do you know," he added presently, his eyes straying about the room as if in search of a suggestion, "as if I were here searching into a human nature. A house looks always to me so like a mind — full of strange inexplicable shapes at first sight, which gradually arrange, disentangle, and explain themselves as you go on to know them. Then in all houses, there are places we know nothing about yet, or have but a vague idea or feeling of their existence — just as in our own selves, who carry in us deeper mysteries far than any we can suspect in another." " But it is a very old house," said Arctura, " so many hands have been employed in the building through so many generations, and so many fancied as well as real, necessities have been at work ! " " That is true ; but where the house continues in the same family, the builders have transmitted their nature as well as their house .to those who come after them." " Then you think," said Arctura, almost with a shudder, " that I cannot but inherit from my ances- tors a nature like the house they have left me — that the house is therefore a fit outside to my inner nature — as the shell fits the snail .'* " "Yes; but with an infinite power to modify the relation. I do not forget that every one is born nearer to God than to any ancestor, and that it rests with every one to cultivate either the god/iess in him, or his ancestral nature — to choose whether he will be of God, or those that have gone before him in the way of the world. It is only another way of putting the old story of the natural and the spiritual man, the fight betwen whom is just the history of the world, 5l8 DONAL GRANT. that is, of tlie human race. The one who sets right in himself the faults which he has inherited from those that went before him makes an atonement for the sins of those who went before him ; he is bap- tized for the dead, only in a far more powerful way, not with water but with fire." ''That seems to me very strange doctrine," said Arctura, with tremulous objection. " One thing only I insist upon in regard to it," said Donal, — " that if you do not like it, you will not try to believe it. It is, however, unavoidably true that we inherit from our ancestors, if not vices any more than virtues, yet tendencies to both vices and virtues. That which was a vice indulged in by my great-great-grandfather, may be in me a tendency to the same or a similar vice." " Oh, how horrible ! " cried Arctura. " We need God not the more, but we know the better 'how much we need him," said Donal. — " But," he continued, " I am only bringing nearer to you the thing you have been taught from childhood. You allow that we are all born with a tendency to sin, which, as is generally said, we inherit from Adam : this horrifies nobody, for it seems far back and away from us ; men forget that it is in them all the same ; and when, instead of referring the thing to Adam, I say some nearer relative, the fact assumes a definite and individual relation which makes it horrible — as indeed it may well seem ! " " But is it not horrible to — to — have to believe that vices are mine, come down to me from old wicked people, of whom I only know that they were wicked ? " ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 519 " God, I say again, is nearer to you — between you and those vices. In you they are not vices — only possibilities v/hich cannot become vices until they are obeyed. It rests with the man to destroy in himself even the possibility of them, by opening the door to him who knocks. Then, again, there are all kinds of counteracting and redeeming influences in opposite directions. Perhaps, wherein the said ancestor was most wicked, his wife, from whom is the descent as much as from him, was specially lovely. The ances- tor may, for instance, have been cruel, and the an- cestress tender as the hen that gathers her chickens under her wing. The danger, in an otherwise even nature, is of being caught in some sudden gust of un- suspected passionate impulse, and carried away of the one tendency before the other has time to assert and the will to rouse itself. But that is not likely to hap- pen except where there is self-confidence or much self-blindness. Those who try to do right may hope for warning. They will not, I think, be allowed to go far wrong for want of that ! " " You comfort me a little." "And then you must remember," continued Donal, " that nothing in its immediate root is evil ; th;it sometimes it is from the best human roots that the worst things spring' — just because the conscience and the will have not been brought to bear upon them. If the king of the grandest country will not rule it in the fear of God, that country must come to deso- lation. No one, for instance, will be so, full of indig- nations, of fierceness, of revenge, as the selfish man born with a strong sense of justice. If the scope and tenor of his way have been for self, this sense will 520 DONAL GRANT. have borne mainly or only upon his own concerns, and the result must be as I have said, and may end in murder. Ourselves our centre instead of God, is the source of all wrong and all inLscry. It is terrible to think of being one moment without him. Never deserted child could be other than a poor picture of that. Even in our commonest every-day work we need the consciousness of his constant presence I know there are many will say this is but to encourage a diseased religiosity ; I say it is simplest, highest, healthiest — nay the only healthy nature. All disease lies in being self-occupied, and that is just what noth- ing can deliver us from but the conscious presence of him who, whether we know it or not, is nearer to us than our consciousness. To become conscious of the great fact of life cannot surel}'' be other than healthful, yea healing to the uttermost ! What shall the nature do that is made like God^ and so finds itself anything but enough for itself.'' I but argue for the knowing of the truth, as the truth, immedi- ately and clearly. It can be no complete nature that requires to have its own necessities hidden from it. We may need to have the intermediate operations hidden, lest we should be absorbed in them, as we are in the cares and means of the world ; but not the life itself, the source of all, the only pledge of harmonious being to those who have not created themselves and must live. If that be hidden, we worship idols — worst of all ourselves. The animals are not yet, I suppose, so much in the image of God that they need this^ and yet I cannot help thinking that they are in some way aware of God's presence, though the^' do not know it as his presence : I utter ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 52 1 but a truism, for what is their own life but his pres- ence? I have been a good deal occupied lately," continued Donal, "with a strange inquiry: how much the devil may have had to do with the animal creation. Of course he never could have created anything ; evil can only destroy ; but he may have been able to spoil awfully ; and that may be why the Lord speaks of serpents and scorpions as belonging to the power of the enemy. But this is not the room in which you have heard the music ! " " No, it is through here." Lady Arctura opened the door of her bedroom. Donal glanced round it. It was as old-fashioned as the other. "What is behind that press there — that wardrobe, I think you call it.? " asked Donal. " Only a shallow recess," answered Lady Arctura. "' I had the wardrobe put there, but was disappointed to find it too high to get into it — that is all ; there is no mystery there ! " Possibly had the press stood right into the recess, Donal would not have thought anything about it, but having caught sight of the opening past the side of it. he was attracted by it, and fancied he should like to examine it. It was in the same wall in which was the fireplace, but did not seem formed by the projection of the chimney into the room : it did not go to the ceiling. "Would you mind if I moved the press a little aside ? " he asked. " Do what you like," she answered. Donal moved it with ease — it was but a single hanging press. The opening behind it was small and 1^2 2 DONAL GRANT. rather deep for its size. The walls were wainscotted all around to the height of four feet or so, but the recess was not. There were signs of hinges and a bolt at the front edges of it, which seemed to show that it had once been a cupboard or press, with a door that probably corresponded with the wainscotting, only there were no signs of shelves in it. It seemed as old as the wall, and the plaster as hard as the stone itself. But he wms not satisfied. Taking a big knife from his pocket, he began tapping it all round. The moment he struck the right hand side of it, he started. There was something peculiar about the sound it gave. It was smoother than the rest too, though quite as hard. " You do not mind if I make a little dust here ? " he said. " Do anything you please," again answered Lady Arctura. " Then could you find me something to put down, that the housemaid may see nothing to attract her attention ? " She brought him a towel and he spread it on the floor. The point of his knife would not go through the plaster ! It was not plaster he thought, but stone whitewashed — one smooth stone or slab, for he could find nothing like a joint. Searching with his knife near the edge of the recess however, he found its outer limit a few inches from the edge, and began to clear it. It gave him a line straight from the bottom to the top of the recess where it turned in at right angles. *' There does seem, my lady,'' said Donal, '' to be some kind of opening here closed up, though of course ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 523 it may turn out of no interest to us ; shall I go on and see what it really is ? " "By all means," she answered, turning pale. Donal looked at her a little anxiously. She under- stood his look. "You must not mind my feeling a little silly," she said. " I am not silly enough to give way to it." Donal smiled a satisfied smile, and went on a^^ain with his knife, until at last he had cleared the whole outline of a slab of stone, or it might be slate, that filled nearly all the side of the recess. It was scarcely ,sunk in the wall, and had but a thin coating of plaster over it. Clearing the plaster then from the outside edge of the recess, he came upon apiece of iron fixed in it, which might have been part of some former fastening. He showed it to his companion. " Go on ! go on ! " she only said. " I fear I must get a better tool or two," answered Donal. " How will you like to be left ? " " I can bear it. But do not be long. A few min- utes may be enough to evaporate my courage," Donal hurried down, and got a hammer and chisel, and a pail to put the broken plaster in. I.ady Arctura stood and waited, and the silence closed in upon her. She began to feel eerie^ and as if she could if she were only to will to exert a power latent in her, see through the wall when she pleased, and discover what lay beyond it. But she did her endeavor to prevent herself from so willing, and sat mentally reduced to all but inaction. She started to her feet with a smothered cry; a knock not over gentle, sounded on the door of the sitting-room, between which and the bedroom where she was the door stood open. She 5^4 DONAL GRANT. darted to it, and flung it to — then to the press — it was very light and with one push had it almost in its place ngain. Then she opened the door of communi- cation, thinking she would wait for a second knock before she answered, that it might seem she had not heard the first. But as she opened the one door, the other slowly, softly opened also — a little way, and the face she would least of all have chosen to see looked in ; at that moment she would rather have had a visit from behind the press ! It was her uncle. His face was cadaverous ; his eyes dull, but with a kind of glitter in them, and his bearing like that of a housebreaker. In terror of his looks, in terror lest he should come into the room and discover what they had been about, in terror lest Donal should the next moment appear in the passage, wishing to warn the latter, and aware that even at that early hour of the day her uncle was not quite himself, with sudden intuitive impulse she cried out hurriedly the moment almost she saw him, " Uncle ! uncle ! what is that behind you ? " She thought afterwards it was a cruel thing to do, but she did it, as I have said, by swift, unreflecting Instinct. He turned like one struck on the back, imagined something doubtless of which Arctura knew nothing, cowered to two thirds of his height, and crept away. Though herself trembling from head to foot, Arctura was seized with such a pity that she followed him till she saw him into his room, but dared not go farther, she could not have said why. She stood a moment in the passage, and presently thought she heard his bell ring. This caused another undesirable risk : Sim- ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 525 mons might meet Donal ! But she was the next moment reheved by seeing Donal appear round the corner in the passage, carrying the implements he had gone to procure. She signed to him to make haste, and he was hardly inside her room when she saw Simmons coming along on his way to his master's room. She drew the door to her, as if she had just come out, and said, " Knock at my door as you come back, and tell me how he is, I heard his bell ring." " I will, my lady," answered Simmons, and went. Then Arctura told Donal to go on with his work, but stop it the moment she made a noise with the handle of the door. She then resumed her piece outside till Simmons should reappear. For full ten minutes she stood waiting: it seemed an hour. Though she heard Donal at work within, and knew Simmons must soon appear ; though the room behind her was her own and known to her from childhood, the long empty passage in front of her as familiar to her as any in the house, appeared almost frightful. At last she heard her uncle's door, and steps, and the butler came. " I can't make him out, my lady," he said. "It is nothing very bad I think this time, but, my lady, he gets worse and worse — always a taking more and more of them horrid drugs. It's no use trying to hide it: he'll drop oil sudden one o' these days. I've heard say laudanum don'tshorten life; but it's not one nor two, nor half-a-dozen sorts o' laudanums he keeps mixing in that inside of his ! The end must come, and what iCll be who can tell ! It's better you should be prepared for it w^hen it do come, my lady ! 'I've just been a-giving him some under the skin — 526 DONAL GRANT. with a little sharp-pointed thing, you know, my lady, he says it's the only way to take some medicines. He's just a slave to his medicines, my lady ! " Arctura returned to Donal, and told him what had happened. He had found the plaster hard, but had already knocked it all away, disclosing a slab much like one of the great stones covering some of the roofs. Nor was it long now before he succeeded in prising it out. The same instant a sense of dank chill assailed them both, accompanied by a humid smell as from a long-closed cellar. ' The room grew cold and colder as they stood and looked, now at each other, now at the opening in the wall, where they could see nothing but darkness. Donal was anxious as to how Arctura would stand the discovery, and she was anxious to see how he would take it. In truth he had enough to do to hide for her sake all ex- pression of the awe he felt creeping over him ; he must treat the thing as lightly as he could ! " We are not very far from something, my lady ! " he said. " It makes one think of what he said who carries the light everj^where — that there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Shall we leave it and put in the stone again ? " " I can bear anything," said Arctura, with a shiver " except an unknown, terrible something." " But what can you do when we have found it all out } " " I can let the daylight in upon it all." Donal was glad to see her color return as she spoke, and a look of determination come in her eyes. " You will not be afraid then to go down with ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 527 me ? " he said, "or will you not rather wait till I ex- plore a little, and come and let you know what I have found ? " " That would be cowardly. I will share with you. I shall be afraid of nothing — not much — not too much, I mean — with you with me." Fancying from his not immediately replying that Donal was hesitating to take her, "See!" she said ; " I am going to light a candle and ask you to come down with me — if down it be, for who knows yet if it be not up ? " She lighted the candle. " We had better lock the door, don't you think, my lady? " said Donal. " If any one were to come it migiht be awkward." So it would be to have the door locked," answered Arctura. " And we should have to lock both doors ! — I mean the one into the passage too, and that would make it look very strange if I were wanted. We had better replace the press as nearly as we can — pull it after us when we are behind it." " You are right, my lady. But I will first stow away these things — may I put them here t " " Anywhere out of sight." " Now can you take some matches with you? " " Yes, to be sure." " I will let you carry the candle. I must have my hands free. You will let the light shine as much past me as you can, that I may see as well as I may where I am going. But I shall depend most on what my hands and feet tell me. Their preparations made, Donal took the light and looked in at the opening. It went into the outside 52S DONAL GRANT. wall of the house, and turned immediately to the left. He gave back the candle to Arctura, and went in. Arctura followed close, holding the light to the best advantage she could. There was a stair in the thick- ness of the wall, going down steep and straight. It was not wide enough to let two go down abreast. " Put your hand on my shoulder, my lady," said Donal. " That will keep us together ; and if I fall, you must stand till I get up again." She did as he said, and they began their descent. The steps were narrow and high, therefore the stair was steep, but there was no turning. They had gone down about thirty steps, when they came to a level passage, turning again at right angles to the left. It was twice the width of the stair, the sides of it, like those of the stair, unplastered, of roughly dressed stones. It led them straight to a strong: door which opened towards them, but which they could not move : it was locked, and in the rusty lock, through the key- hole, they could see the key in it. But to the right was another door, smaller, which stood wide open. They went through, and by a short passage entered an open space. Here on one side seemed no wall, and they stood for a moment afraid to move lest they should tumble into darkness. But by sending the light in this direction and that, and feeling about with hands and feet they soon came to an idea of the kind of place in which they were. It seemed a sort of little gallery with arches on one side, opening into a larger place, the character of which they could only conjec- ture, so vaguely could they see into it. Almost all they could. determine v.-as that it went below and rose above where they stood. Behind them was a plain ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 529 wall such as they had already passed on both sides of them. They had been talking in suppressed, awe-filled whispers, and were now in silence endeavoring to send their sight through the darkness when Donal said, " My lady, listen." Yes ; from above their heads came the soft faint sounds of the serial music. It had such a strange effect ! — like news of the still airy night and the keen stars, away in spaces so wide that, in meeting extremes, they affect us as the most awful of prisons — come down through secret ways into the dark places of the earth. It restored Arctura's courage greatly. " That must be just as the songs of angels sounded, with news of high Heaven, to the people of old times ! " she said. But-Donal's mind was in a less poetic mood. He was occupied with the material side of things at the moment. "We cannot be far," he said, "from the place where our plummet came down ! But let us try on a little further." At the other end of the little gallery, they came again to a door and on to a stair, turning again to the right, and again they went down. Arctura kept up bravely. The air was not so bad as they might have feared, though it was very cold and damp. This time they went down only about seven feet or so, and came to a door to the right. To Donal's hand it revealed itself as much decayed, and when he raised an ancieiit rusted latch and pushed it, it swung open against the 530 DONAL GRANT. wall, dropping from one hinge as it moved. Two steps more they descended, and stood on a floor, apparenily of stone. Donal thought at first they must be in one of the dungeons of the place which had been built up; but recalling how far they had come down, he saw it could not be so. A halo of damp clung to the weak light of their candle, and it was some moments before they even began to take in the things around them, so as to perceive what sort of a place they were in. Some- thing about the floor caught Donal's eye, and looking down in the circle of the light, he saw, thickly covered with dust as it was, that it was of marble, in squares of black and white. Then there came to him a stream of white from the wall, and he saw it v/as a tablet of marble; and at the other end was something that looked like an altar, or perhaps a tomb. " We are in the old chapel of the castle I do believe!" he said — but he added instantly with an involuntary change of voice and a shudder through his whole being, *' What is that.?" Arctura turned ; her hand sought his, and clasped it convulsively, nor did she make other answer. They stood close to something on w^hich their glance had not yet rested ; for Arctura had been holding the candle so that the light had been between them and it : before they could be conscious of even an idea of what it might be, they both felt the muscles of neck and face drawn, as if something was assuming a dominion over their persons which was about to take them out of their own power. But they were both persons ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 53 1 with living wills and would not thus be overcome. They gazed ; perception cleared itself, and slowly they not only saw but understood what the thing was. They saw and knew that, with strangest dream-like incongruity and unfitness, the thing they stood beside was a bedstead — dark, with carved posts and wooden tester, low but richly carved, for that even the poor one candle sufficed to show sufficiently to fix it in llie memory of their eyes, ready to return thereafter ; a carved bedstead in the middle of the floor of what was plainly a chapel ! There was no speculating for them, however; they could only see, not think. Donal took the candle from Arctura, and moved it about, looking. From under the tester hung large fragments of some heavy stuff that had once served for curtains, but was now only clouts. They did not dare to touch it. It looked as if it had scarcely so much cohesion as the dust on a cobweb. It was dust indeed, hanging together only in virtue of tlie lightness to which its decay had reduced it. On the bedstead lay a dark mass, that looked like bed clothes and bedding turned to dust, or almost to dust, for they could see something like embroidery : yet in one or two places — oh so terrible in the dismay of its dismal ash-like decay — dark almost like burnt paper or half-burnt rags, flaky and horrid, like a mem- ory out of which the love is gone ! But heavens ! what is that shape in the middle of the heap : and what was that on the black pillow? — and what was that thick line that stretched towards one of the posts at the head? They stared in silence. Arctura pressed close to Donal. Involuntarily almost his arm went round her to protect her from what no 532 DONAL GRANT. human arm could protect her from — to protect her from \vlKit threatened indeed to overwhelm liimself — the inroad of an unearthly horror. Plain to the eyes of both of them, though neither spoke to say so, the form in the middle of the bed before them was that of I human body, which had slowly crumbled where it lay. Bedding and blankets and quilts, sheets and pillows had crumbled with it through the long wasting years, but the mass had carried some- thing of its shapes down into the dust ; that was a head that lay on the jdIHows ; that was the line of a long arm that came out from under the clothes and pointed away towards the right-hand bedpost. But what was that which came down from the bedpost to meet the arm of dust ? God in Heaven ! there was a ring round the post, and from it came a chain ; and there was anothei* ring on the pillow, through which — yes, actually through it, though it was dust — the line of dust passed. The thing was clear — so far clear, at least, as that here was a death-bed, indeed — perhaps a murder-bed — certainly a bier, for still upon it laid the body that had died on it — had lain, as it seemed, for hundreds of years, nor ever been moved for kindly burial : the place had been closed up and so left! A bed in a chapel, and one dead thereon ! how could it have been ? Had the woman — for Donal imagined he could see even then in the form of the dust that it was the body of a woman — been carried thither for the sake of dying in a holy place ? or had she there sought refuge from some persecutor ? No, alas ! for she had not escaped thither ; she was a prisoner, mad perhaps, more likely hated, and the victim of a terrible revenge — ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 533 — left perhaps to die in hunger, or in disease. — Ere they left the place another conjecture had occurred to both of tlieni which neither spoke. — Neglected or tended who could tell ? but there she had died, and so been buried ! Donal felt Arctura trembling in his arm — either from the cold or the gathering terror of the place, and the presence of ancient unburied death. He drew her closer to him, and turning would have borne her from it. But she said, whispering in his ear almost, as if the dust might hear and be disturbed, " I am not afraid — not very. Do not let us go till we have seen the place." They moved from the bed and went to the other end of the chapel, almost clinging to each other as they went, and noting three narrow lancet windows, with what seemed stained glass in them, and a stone wall outside them, and the tablet, carved with an in- scription they did not care to stop and read. It was an altar table they came to with a marble top, which had also been covered with a piece of em- broidery. There also on the cloth whose remains yet covered the marble lay something that more than suggested the human shape — small — so small though — plainly the dust of a very little child. The sight was full of suggestion as sad as it was fearful. Neither of them spoke. They turned away, nor either looked at the other. The awful silence of the place seemed to settle down around them, with some- thing positive in its negation. Donal cast his eyes around once more. As near as he could judge the place might be fifteen feet wide and five and twenty long, but it was hard to tell with so little light, and 534 DONAL GRANT. he was anxious now to get Lady Arctura out of it. There would be plenty of time to examine further. He drew her away and she yielded. When they reached the narrow stair, he made her go first now : he would be between her and the terror of the place ! As they passed the door on the other side of the little gallery, down whose spiracle came no faintest sound of the aerial music, Donal thought with himself that there was the direction of further in- vestigation ; but he would say nothing of it until Lady Arctura should be a little accustomed to the thought of the strange and terrible things they had already discovered. So slowly, the lady still leading, they ascended to the room they had just quitted. Donal replaced the slab, and propped it in its position, so that there should be as little draught as possible to betray the gap ; and having replaced the press, put a screw which he had provided when he went down, through the bottom of it from the inside into the floor, so as to fix it in its place, lest any one should move it. The difficulty now was, how, after such an experi- ence together, to part, and spend the rest of the day separated ! There was all the long afternoon and the evening to be accounted for ! "What a happy thing," said Donal, "that you had already changed your bedroom ! " " It is well indeed ! " she answered quietly. Look- ing in her face now once more, for he had then just risen from fixing the press, he saw that she looked very white, as was not surprising. " Do sit down for a minute, my lady," he said. " I would run and send Mrs. Brooks to you, but I do not like to leave you." ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 535 " No, no ; we will go down together ! Will you please get me that bottle of Eau cle Cologne." Donal hardly knew what a bottle of Eau de Cologne was like, but he darted to the table and guessed cor- rectly. She poured some on her handkerchief, and began presently to take deep breaths, as recovering from an attack of faintness. The air of the place and its terrible contents had begun to show their effects. But with a strong effort she seemed now to banish their oppression, and rose to go down : it seemed as if no word could yet be spoken between them as to what they had discovered. But Donal felt and saw that she must continue with him as much as possible for the rest of the day. " Would you not like, my lady," he ventured to say, " to come to the schoolroom this afternoon, and do something while I give Davie his lessons .'* There is surely something I could help you in." "Yes : " she answered at once. " I should like it so much ! Is there not something you could make me do .'' — something you could teach me ? " " I should like very much to set you going with a little Greek, and a little mathematics — geometry to begin with." " You frighten me ! " " The fright wouldn't outlast the beginning," said Donal. '' Anyhow, there you will have Davie and me for company ! You must feel it very lonely some- times, now you see so little of Miss Carmichael, I fancy." " She has not been near me since that day — you remember .? " " Very well." 536 DONAL GRANT. " I suppose she will not come again till I ask her : and I fear she would take advantay;e of that, assum ing that I was sorry, and could not do without her." " I would let her w^ait, if I were you, my lady," said Donal, " she sorely wants a little humbling : and she will have it one day, or more probably many days, before she will have enough." " You do not know her, Mr. Grant, if you think anything I could do or say would have that effect on her ! " " And you mistake me, my lady, if you suppose I think it your business to humble her ! Only you need not allow her to ride over you as she used to do, all in virtue of her knowing nothing really, and a great many things un really. Unreal knowledge is, I some- times think, worse than absolute ignorance. Let her wait till she wants to see you. Is not Miss Graeme a much more desirable person for a friend ? " " She is much more lovcable : but she does not trouble her head about the things I care for. I mean religion," she added hesitatingly. " So much the better " — "Mr. Grant!" "You did not let me finish, my lady!" said Donal amused. " So much the better, I was going to say, till she has begun to trouble her heart about it — or rather to untrouble her heart with it ! The pharisee troubled his head, and I daresay his conscience too and did not go away altogether unjustified; but the poor publican, as we, in our stupid pitying ways, are ready to call him, troubled his heart about it, and that trouble once set a going, there was no fear of the rest. Head and all must soon follow." ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 537 " I understand you now, and I beg your pardon. You are always right, I do think ! " "That no one can be, else the whole thing that con- cerns us would be much too small for us. — But how am I to carry away this pail of plaster without being seen ? That is the next thing! " " I will show you the way to your own stair with- out going down the great staircase — the way we came once, you may remember. Then you can take it to the top of the house till it is dark, I know you don't mind what you do. But I do not feel comfortable about my uncle's visit. I hope he does not already suspect something! If he were to come in now, how- ever, I think he would imagine everything right. I wonder if he knows all the time where the chapel is — and all about the stair here ! " "It is impossible to sa}^ I think he is a man to enjoy having and keeping a secret. — But tell me now, my lady," Donal went on, desirous of relieving her mind from the power of external horrors by bringing them into spiritual relations, "don't the things we were saying about the likeness of house to man find general corroboration in our discovery.?" "You don't mean it is like anything in me.'* " said Arctura, looking frightened. "I mean no individual application — except as it is like every human soul, and so like me and you and all of us. Here is the chapel of the house, the place they used to pray to God in, when, perhaps, they did not do so anywhere else in the whole building, lost, forgotten, filled with dust and damp, — and the mouldering dead lying there before the Lord, waiting to be made live again — waiting to praise him ! " 538 DONAL GRANT. '' I told you you meant me ! " said Arctura, with a faint sad smile. " No, I was not meaning you. I was meaning the family rather. The time is past when it might have meant you. You were long ago aware that there was a dead self lying down in the lost chapel of your being ; you were a hungry soul that missed both, and knew without being sure of it that they must be some- where. You have kept searching for them in spite of all the influences brought to persuade you that there was no such place as you desired, but at best one that would do well enough for common needs, a sort of an old granite quarry to pray in ; and you have caught at least a few glimpses of a lovely temple of the living, loving, seeking God, however in some it may be as yet from crime and neglect a mere place of dead men's bones and uncleanness." " I will clean out the temple ! " said Arctura, speak- ing as if to herself, and Donal did not know which temple she intended, whether the chapel of the castle or the temple of her own soul, but I believe, and so did he, that she was mingling the two in her mind. " I will pull down that wall," she went on, " and the light shall come in again through those windows, and astonish the place with its presence. And all the house will be glad, because there will no more be a dead chapel at the heart of it, but a living temple wiih God himself in it — there always and forever. She had spoken under great excitement, her eyes shining in her pale face ; she ceased and burst into tears. Donal turned away and proceeded to fill the pail with the broken plaster, and by the time he had done it she had recovered her usual calm. They went ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 539 as far as the turret-stair together, and there parted till after luncheon, Donal going up, and Arctura going down. As the clock upon the schoolroom chimney-piece was striking the hour for lessons, Arctura entered, and as if she had been a pupil from the first, sat down at the table witli Davie. Donal set before her a copy of Euclid, and appointed her a task as he might any other pupil, and she began at once to learn it. After a while^ so brief that Davie stared incredulous, she said, "If you please, Mr. Grant, I think I could be questioned upon it now;" and a very few moments sufficed to show Donal that she thoroughly understood what she had been learning. He set her then a little more, and so the afternoon went — much to the de- light of Davie, who thought it delightful to have cousin Arkie for a fellow pupil. That suchlike intel- lectual occupation must greatly subserve lady Arc- tura's healthy both of body and mind, Donal, before the afternoon was over, had not a doubt left. It was enough to see with what entire devotion she gave herself to the work set her ; and he was glad at heart for her sake, believing that all knowledge helps to the knowing of God by one who already knows him, inas- much as there is nothing to be known but has its being in him. But he could not help thinking also what a superior nature hers must be, seeing that, after the strange and dreadful things she had been going through that very morning, she was yet able to work so calmly at matters of the mere intellect ; not many women, and just as few men, he thought, would have been capable of it. School over, and Davie gone to his rabbits. 540 DONAL GRANT. " Mrs. Brooks invites us to take supper with her," said Lady Arctura, '* I asked her to ask us. So if you do not mind, Mr. Grant, you had better make a good tea, and we shall not have dinner to-day. You see I want to shorten the hours of the night as much as I can, and not go to bed till I am quite sleepy. You don't mind, do you .'' " " I am very glad, and you are very wise, my lady," responded Donal. " I quite approve of the plan, and shall be delighted to spend as much of the night in Mrs. Brooks' parlor as you please." •' Don't you think we had better tell her all about it?" " As you judge fit, my lady. The secret is in no sense mine; it is only yours, and the sooner it ceases to be a secret the better for all us, I venture to think." " I have only one reason for a delay," she returned. " I need hardly tell you what it is ! " " You would avoid any risk of annoying your uncle, I presume." " Yes ; I cannot quite tell how he might take it, but I know he w^ould not like it. It is perhaps natural that a man like him should think of himself as having the first and real authoritv in the house, but there are many reasons why I should not give way to that." " There are indeed ! " assented Donal. " Still, I should be sorry to offend him more than I cannot help. If he were a man like my father, I should never dream of going against his liking in anything; I should in fact leave every- thing to him as long as he pleased to take interest in what was going on. But you know, being the man he ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 54 1 is, that would be absurd. I must not, I dare not, let him manage my affairs for me much longer. I must understand for myself, for surely that was my father's design, how things are going with my tenants 1 " "You will not, I hope, do anything without the ad- vice, I should say the presence of a lawyer," said Donal, — "I mean in conference with your uncle .<* " " Do you say so .'' " " I do indeed. I think it would be very undesir- able. I fear I have less confidence in your uncle than you have ! " Arctura made no reply, and Donal grew afraid she did not like his having ventured an opinion about her uncle ; but the next moment she looked up with a sad smile, and said, " Well, poor man ! we must not begin comparing our opinions about him ; he is my father's brother after all, and I shall be glad if I get through without offending him. But I know my father would be far from satisfied if I left everything to him just as if he had not left everything to me. I cannot help think- ing that if he had been another sort of man, my father would have left the estate to him. I wonder they got on together so well as they did." Donal did not care to say what he thought about this — which was, that very likely, the earl had been cunning enough to present at least a modified char- acter to his brother. He must have blinded him somehow ; for how else could those things of which Mrs. Brooks had spoken to him have gone on in the house ? while doubtless the state of the late earl's health had rendered the thing easier. At nine o'clock they were in the housekeeper's 542 DONAL GRANT. room — a low-ceiled, but rather large room, lined almost all round with oak presses, which were Mrs. Brooks' delight, for she had more than usual nowadays of the old-fashioned housekeeper about her. She welcomed them as if she had been in her own house, and made an excellent hostess, presiding over a Scotch supper of minced collops and mashed potatoes, to which she had added some splendid coffee, on the making of which she prided herself. Nor were her guests loath to partake of it, for neither of them had any desire to shorten their time together, or feared being kept awake. Upon the coffee waited scones of the true sort, just such as Donal's mother would occasionally make for the greatest kind of treat they ever had ; and he thought it the nicest meal he had had since leaving home. Mrs. Brooks would have had him, after old, so at least time-honored custom, mix himself a glass of toddy, in which she would have liked to share in a modest fashion, but Donal would not ; his mother was prevalent still ; and for his own part he never liked his higher to be operated upon from his lower. He felt then as if possessed by a false or at least not quite real self, and as I say, did not like it. But the root of his dislike lay in the teaching of his mother. Unlike not a few young men and women too, he was proud to have learned this or that from his father or mother; it was to him a patent of nobility, a voucher that he was honorably descended : of his birth he was as proud as any man. And this nidit, arisins: from his refusal to make himself a tumbler of toddy, the conversation took such a turn that, to Arctura's delight, he was led on to talk about his father and mother, and the surroundings of his ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 543 childhood. He told her all about the life he had led ; how at one time he kept cattle in the fields, at another sheep on the mountains ; he told her how he had come to be sent to college, and then came all the story about Sir Gilbert Galbraith ; and the night wore on, and Arctura was enchanted. For himself Donal found it a greater pleasure than he had dared hope for to call back the history which already seemed so far behind him ; for he found that he could more easily than he had expected leave out the part con- cerning himself which he could not tell : though it had seemed to him all his life latterly, and inextricably mingled with that of his friends, he found as he told that it was nowise necessary to the understanding of the rest. But indeed it surprised him to find also how calmly he could now contemplate what had seemed at one time to threaten an everlasting winter of the soul. Nor was the discovery a pain, as he certainly would have found it, had it come of his ceasing to care for Lady Galbraith : sb.e was his truest friend, whom he could trust with anything ; the dearest of sisters, whom he would rather nojv, so true and lovely was the relation between them, have for a sister than for a wife. It was far the better thins: that she should be Gibbie'swife and Donal's sister. When they got to Heaven, she would give him tlie kiss she had refused him down in the granite quarry ! He had fallen into a brief brown study over these things, when all at once a sound of knocking fell on his ear. He started. There was something in it that affected him strangely. Neither of his companions took any notice of it. Yet it was now past one o'clock. It was like a knocking three or four times 544 DONAL GRANT. with the knuckles of the hand against the other side of tlie wall of the room. • '"What can that be?" he said, listening for more. H'ard ye never tliat afore, maister Grant ? " said the housekeeper. " I hae grown sae used til't that my ears hardly tak notice o't ! " "What is it? " asked Donal. " Av, what is't ? " Tell ye me that, gien ye can," she returned. " It's jist a chappin', an' God's trowth that's a' I ken aboot the same ! It comes, I believe I'm safe to say, ilka nicht ; but I couldna tak my aith upo' 't, 'cause I hae sae entirely ceased to pay attention til't. There's queer things aboot mony an auld hoose, Mr. Grants that'll tak the day of judg- ment to explain. But they comena nearer me nor the ither side o' the wa', sae far as I ken ; an' sae lang as they keep to their ain side o' that, I dinna see that I need tribble my held aboot them. Mony nichts I couldna say I h'ard them at a'; yet I dinna doobt they hae been, a' the same. Efter the experi- ence I had as a yoong lass, awa' doon in Englan' yon'er, at a place my auntie got me intil — for she kenned a heap o' grand fowk throu being hersel' sae near conneckit \vi' them as hoosekeeper i' this same castel — efter that, I'm sayin', I wadna need to be that easy scaret ! " " Do tell us about it," said Lady Arctura. " I don't think you ever told me." "No, my dear lady, I wad never hae thocht o' tellin' ye ony sic story, sae lang as ye was ower yoong no to be frichtit at it; for 'deed I think they're muckle to blame that tells bairns the varra things they're no fit to hear, an' sae the dreid gets fixt afore ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 545 the sense comes. But Is' tell ye the noo, gin ye wad like to hear't. It's maybe a some avvsome story, but there's something- unco fulish like iiitil't as weel. I canna say I think niuckle o' craters that triblc their heids aboot their heids — but that's tellin' afore- han' ! " Here the good woman j^aused thoughtful. '* I am longing to hear your story, Mrs. Brooks," said Donal, thinking she waited for some encourage- ment. •' I'm but thinkin' boo to begin," she returned, " sae as to gie ye the richt baud o' the thing at ance. — I'm thinkin' I canna do better nor jist tell 't as it cam to mysel' ! — Weel, ye see, I was but a yoong lass, aboot — weel I micht hae been twenty or sae, mair or less, whan I gaed til the place I speak o'. It was awa' upo' the borders o' Wales, like as gien folk ower there i' Perth war doobtfu' whether sic or sic a place was i' the hiclan's or the low^lan's. The maister o' the hoose was a yoong man awa' upo' 's travels, I kenna whaur — some whaur upo' the conti- nent, but thar's a muckle word ; an' as he had the intention o' bein' awa' for some time to come, no carin' that muckle to settle doon an' luik efter his ain, there was but ae gey auld woman to hoosekecp, an' me to help her, an' a man or twa aboot the place to luik efter the garden — an' that was a'. The place was to let, an' was put intil the ban's o' ane 0* thae agents, as they ca' them, for that same purpose — to be let, that is for a term o' years. Weel ae day there cam a gentleman to luik at the place, an' he was sae weel pleased wi' 't, as weel he micht, for eh, it was a bonny place — aye lauchin' like, whaur this 546 DONAL GRANT. place is aye i' the sulks ! — Na no aye, I clinna mean that my lady, forgettin' 'at it's yours ! But ye maun own it taks a heap o' sunlicht to gat this auld hoose here look onything but some dour — an' I beg yer pardon, my lady," " You are quite right, Mistress Brooks ! " said Arctura, with a smile. " If it were not for you in it, it would be dour, dour." But with that she cast a look at Donal, as much as to say, " I did not mean not to include you ! " "You do not know how much — T don't believe Mistress Brooks herself knows liow much I owe to her, ]\Ir. Grant ! I must have gone out of my mind for very dreariness if it had not been for her." " That I could easily imagine," said Donal ; and Mrs. Brooks besfan ao:ain. " The short an' the lang o' 't was, that the place was let and taen, muckle to the satisfaction o' baith parlies, I mak nae docbt ; and it was arranged that not only should the auld hoosekeeper, she bein' a fixtur like, should bide, but that I should bide as weel, and as afore, under the hoosekeeper, and haein' naething to do wi' the stranger servants. '' An' sae they cam. There Vv-as a gentleman o' a middle age, wi' his leddy some yoonger nor himsel', han'some but no bonnie — only that has naething to do wi' my tale, and I needna tak up yer time, for it's growin' some late." " Never mind the time, Mistress Brooks, said Arctura; "we can do just as v/e please with that. One time is as good as another — isn't it, Mr. Grant ? " " One who has often staid out on tlie hill all night," ANOTHER SUGCxESTION' 547 said Dona], 'Ms not likely to fancy it a duty to go to bed at a certain hour ! I sometimes sit up half the night myself. I like to know what God's night is like. Only it won't do often, for we have no right to make God's brain into a stupid, ill-working thing, like a watch that won't go." "It's sair upsettin' to the wark, though," said the housekeeper. " I wonder what the house would be like if I was to do that, and sleep — in the next mornin' ! " " Of course we must all mind what is required of us, if we would take any freedoms with a good con- science," said Donal. " But this will never do for our story ! Do go on, please. Mistress Brooks." '' Weel, sir, an' my lady, I'm ready to sit up till the cocks hae dune crawin', an' the day has dune dawin', gien it be to please the ane or the twa o' ve ! an' sae for my true tale! — They war verra dacent, weel- behavet fowk, wi' a fine faimily, some grown an' some growin', aboot them. It was jist a fawvour to see sic a halesome clan — frae auchteen or thereawa' doon to a wee toddlin' lassie, was the verra apple o' the e'e to a' the e'en aboot the place. But that's neither here nor yet there ! A' gaed on jist as it should gang on whaur the servan's are no ower gran' for their ain wark, nor ower meddlesome wi' the wark o' their neebors ; naetihng was negleckit, U' r onything girned aboot; and a' was peace an' he mony, as it gangs i' the au"ld sang aboot bonn. Kilmeny — that is, (ill ae nicht. Ye see I'm tellin' ye as it cam' to mysel' an' no til anither ! "As I lay i' my bed that nicht, an' ye may be sure at my age I lay nae langer nor jist to turn me ower 548 DONAL GRANT. ance, an' in gineral no that ance — jist as I was fa'in' asleep, up gat sic a romage i' the servan's ha', jist 'aneth whaiir I was lyin', tliat I ihocht wi' mysel', what iipo' earth's come to the place ! Glen it bena the day o' jiidgnient, trotli it's no the day o' sma' things ! I said. It was as gien a' the cheers and tables the- gither war bein' routit oot o' the places, an' syne set back again, an' the tables turnt heels owerhead, an' a' the glaiss an' a' the plate for the denner knockit aboot as gien they had been sae money hailstanes that warna wantit ony mair, but micht jist lie whaur they fell. I couldna for the life o' me think what it micht betoken, save an' excep' a general frenzy had seized upo' every man an' woman i' the hoose ! I got up in a hurry : whatever was gaein' on, I wadna wil- lingly gang withoot my share ! An' jist as I opened my door, I heard the maister cry — What i' the name o' a' that's holy, says he, is the meanin' o' this ! An' I ran till him oot o' the passage an' through the swing-door into the great corridor, an' says T, 'Deed sir, I was jist won'erin' ! an' wi' yer leave, sir, I'il gang an' see, I said, gatherin' my shawl aboot me as weel as I could, to hide what was aneth it. or rather what wasna aneth it, for I hadna that muckle on. But, says he, No, no, you must not go ; who knows what it may be! I'll go myself. They may be rob- bers, and the men fighting them. You stop where you are. Sayin' that, he was half way down the stair. I followed him as far as the top, and stood there, looking down and hearkening, and the noise still going on. But he could hardly have won the len'th o' the hall whan it stoppit a' at ance an' a'thegither. Ye may think what a din it maun hae been, whan I ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 549 tell ye the quaict that cam upo' the heels o't jist seemed to sting my twa lugs. The same moment I h'ard the maister cryin' til me to come doon. I ran, an' whan I reached the servan's ha whaur he stood jist inside the door, I glowered, for wad ye believe me, the place was as dacent and quiet as ony kirk- yard 'i the muinlicht ! There wasna a thing oot o' its place, nor an' air o' dust, nor the sma'est disorder to be seen ! A' the things luikit as gien they had sattlet themsel's to sleep as usual, an' had sleepit til we cam an' waukit them. The maister glowert at me, an' I glowert at the maister. But a' he said was — A false alarm, ye see, Rose ! An' what he thocht I canna tell, hut wi'oot anither word we turn t, an' gaed up the stair again thegither. " Whan we war at the tap o' the stair, whaur a long passage ran awa' intil the dark aforc's — they ca'd it the corridor — for the can'le the maister carried flangna licht half way to the en' o' 't, frae oot o' the mirk on a suddent cam to meet 's a rampaugin' an' a rattlin' like o' a score o' nowt rinnin' awa' wi' their iron tethers aboot their necks — sic a rattlin' o' iron chains as ye never h'ard ! an' agroanin' an' a gruntin' jist fearsome. Again we stood an' luikit at an' anither; an' my word! but noo the maister's face was enough to fricht a body o' itsel', lat alane the thing we h'ard an' saw naething to account for ! Gang awa' back to yer bed, Rose, he said ; this'll never do. And hoo are ye to help it, sir ? said I. That I can- not tell, answered he : but I wouldn't for the world your mistress heard it. I left her fast asleep, and I hope she'll sleep through it. Did you ever hear any- thing strange about the house before we came ^ 55° DONAL GRANT. Never, sir, said I, as sure as I stan' licre shiverin' — for tlie nicht was i' the simmer, an' warm to that degree! an' yet I was shiveriiv as gien I was i' the cauld fit o' a fever, an' my moo' wad hardly consent to mak the words I soucht to frame. " We stood that way for a minute or twa, an' there was naething mair, an' by degrees we grew a kin' o' ashamet, like as gien we war dootfu' we had h'ard onything : an' when he said to me gang to my bed a second time, I gaed to my bed, an' wasna lang upo' the road, for fear I wad hear something mair, an' intil my bed, an' my heid 'aneth the claes, an' lay trim'Iin.' But there was nae mair o' 't that nicht, an' I wasna ower muckle owercome to fa' asleep. " r the mornin' I tellt the hoosekeeper a' aboot it ; but she heild her tongue in a manner that was, to say the least o' 't, varra strange to me. She didna laugh, not yet say the thing was nonsense, but she jist h'ard an' h'ard an' saidna a word. I thocht wi' mysel', is't possible she disna believe me. But I couldna mak that oot aither. Sae as she heild her tongue, I jist pu'd the bridle o' mine, an' vooed there should be never another word said by me till she spak hersel'. An' I wad sune hae had eneuch o' haudin' my tongue, but I hadna to haud it to onybody' but her ; an' I cam to the conclusion that she was feart o' bein' speirt questions by them that had a richt to speir them, for that she had h'ard o' something afore, an' kenned mair nor she was at liberty to speak aboot. "But that was only the beginnin', an' little to what followed ! for frae that nicht there was na ae nicht passed but some ane or twa disturbit ; an' whiles wi' some it was past a' bidin'. The noises an' the rum'- ANOTHER SUGGESTION. 551 lin's, and abune a' the clankin' o' chains, that gaed on i' that hoose, an' the groans, an' the cries, an' whiles the vvhustlin', an' what was maist wanr nor a', the launchin', was something dreidfu', an' ayont be- lievin' to ony but them that was intil't. I sometimes think that maybe the terror o' 't maks it luik waur i' the recollection nor it was ; but I canna keep my senses an' doobt there wasna somethino" a'theeither by ord'nar' i' the affair. An' whan, or lang, it cam to the knowledge o' the lady, an' she was waukit up at nicht, an' h'ard the thing, whatever it was that made it a', an' syne whan the bairns was waukit up, an' aye the romage, noo i' this room, noo i' that, sae that the leevin' wad be cryin' as lood as the deid, though they could ill mak sic a din, it was beyond beirin', an' the maister made up his min' to bide nae langer, but to flit at ance, come o't what micht ! " For, as I oucht to hae tellt ye, he had written to the owner o' the hoose, that was my ain maister, for it was nae u'se sayin' onything mair to the agent, wha only lauch, an' declaret it maun be some o' his ain folk that was playin' tricks on him — which it an<^ert him to hear, bin' as impossible as it was fause — sae wrote straucht awa' to his landlord, as I say ; but, as he was travellin' aboot on the continent, he supposed either that the letter had not reached him, and never would reach him, or that he was shelterin' himsel' under the idea that they would think he had never had it, no wantin' to move in the matter. But the verra day he had mnde up his min' that nothing should mal