Donal Grant

"It is much better to do the lessons set you by one who knows how to teach, than to pick lessons for yourself out of your books. Davie, I have not that confidence in myself to think I should be a good teacher of myself."

"But you are 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 myself do what I am taught. When you are my teacher, Davie, I try—don't I—to do everything you tell me?"

"Yes, indeed, sir!"

"But I am not set to obey myself!"

"No, nor anyone else, sir! You do not need to obey anyone, or have anyone teach you, 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 it with pride, and take credit for what your hunger yet made quite agreeable to you. But the boy who does not grumble when he is told not to go out because it is raining and he has a cold, will not perhaps grumble either should he happen to find his dinner not at all nice."

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 we grown people commit many more such than little children, and have our reward in childishness instead of childlikeness.

"It is so easy," continued Donal, "to do the thing we ordain ourselves, for in holding to it we make ourselves out fine fellows!—and that is such a mean kind of thing! 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 reasonable and needful for us—even for our dignity—for our being worth anything! Depend upon it, Davie, to do what we are told is a far grander thing than to lay the severest rules upon ourselves—ay, and to stick to them, too!"

"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 become 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."

The conversation lasted only while Donal ate his breakfast, with the little fellow standing beside him; it was soon over, but not soon to be forgotten. For the readiness of the boy to do what his master told him, was beautiful—and a great help and comfort, sometimes a rousing rebuke to his master, whose thoughts would yet occasionally tumble into one of the pitfalls of sorrow.

"What!" he would say to himself, "am I so believed 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! You are a good boy; I will be a better man!"

But naturally, as soon as lessons were over, he fell again to thinking what could have befallen him the night before. At what point did the aberration begin? The earl must have taken notice of it, for surely Simmons had not given Davie those injunctions of himself—except indeed he had exposed his condition even to him! If the earl had spoken to Simmons, kindness seemed intended him; but it might have been merely care over the boy! Anyhow, 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 interview with the earl, and make his apologies. He sought Simmons, therefore, and found him in the pantry rubbing 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 wanted to see his lordship!"

"That's well fitted, then, sir!" returned Simmons. "I will go and see when. His lordship is not up, nor likely to be for some hours yet; he is in one of his low fits this morning. He told me you were not quite yourself last night."

As he spoke his red nose seemed to examine Donal's face with a kindly, but not altogether sympathetic scrutiny.

"The fact is, Simmons," answered Donal, "not being used to wine, I fear I drank more of his lordship's than was good for me."

"His lordship's wine," murmured Simmons, and there checked himself. "—How much did you drink, sir—if I may make so bold?"

"I had one glass during dinner, and more than one, but not nearly two, after."

"Pooh! pooh, sir! That could never hurt a strong man like you! You ought to know better than that! Look at me!"

But he did not go on with his illustration.

"Tut!" he resumed, "that make you sleep till ten o'clock!—If you will kindly wait in the hall, or in the schoolroom, 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 master. Donal went to the foot of the grand staircase, and there waited.

As he stood he heard a light step above him, and involuntarily glancing up, saw the light shape of lady Arctura come round the curve of the spiral stair, descending rather slowly and very softly, as if her feet were thinking. She checked herself for an infinitesimal moment, then moved on again. Donal stood with bended head as she passed. If she acknowledged his obeisance it was with the slightest return, but she lifted her eyes to his face with a look that seemed 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 himself that his lordship's temper at such times—that was, in his dumpy fits—was not of the evenest, and required a gentle hand. But 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 the way to it, which caused him to take a wrong turn after leaving the stair: he had a good gift in space-relations, but instinct was here not so keen as on a hill-side. The consequence was that he found himself in the picture-gallery.

A strange feeling of pain, as at the presence of a condition he did not wish to encourage, awoke in him at the discovery. He walked along, however, thus taking, he thought, the readiest way to his lordship's apartment: either he would find him in his bedroom, or could go through that to his sitting-room! He glanced at the pictures he passed, and seemed, strange to say, though, so far as he knew, he had never been in the place except in the dark, to recognize some of them as belonging to the stuff of the dream in which he had been wandering through the night—only that was a glowing and gorgeous dream, whereas the pictures were even commonplace! Here was something to be meditated upon—but for the present postponed! His lordship was expecting him!

Arrived, as he thought, at the door of the earl's bedroom, he knocked, and receiving no answer, opened it, and found himself in a narrow passage. Nearly opposite was another door, partly open, and hearing a movement within, he ventured to knock there. A voice he knew at once to be lady Arctura's, invited him to enter. It was an old, lovely, gloomy little room, in which sat the lady writing. It had but one low lattice-window, to the west, but a fire blazed cheerfully in the old-fashioned grate. She looked up, nor showed more surprise 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 have lost my way."

"I will show it you," she answered, and rising came to him.

She led him along the winding narrow passage, pointed out to him the door of his lordship's sitting-room, and turned away—again, Donal could not help thinking, with a look as of some anxiety about him.

He knocked, and the voice of the earl bade him enter.

His lordship was in his dressing-gown, on a couch of faded satin of a gold colour, against which his pale yellow face looked cadaverous.

"Good morning, Mr. Grant," he said. "I am glad to see you better!"

"I thank you, my lord," returned Donal. "I have to make an apology. I cannot understand how it was, except, perhaps, that, being so little accustomed to strong drink,—"

"There is not the smallest occasion to say a word," interrupted his lordship. "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 the future."

"It might be as well," conceded the earl, "to set yourself a limit—necessarily in your case a narrow one.—Some constitutions are so immediately responsive!" he added in a murmur. "The least exhibition of—!—But a man like you, Mr. Grant," he went on aloud, "will always know to take care of himself!"

"Sometimes, apparently, when it is too late!" rejoined Donal. "But I must not annoy your lordship with any further expression of my regret!"

"Will you dine with me to-night?" said the earl. "I am lonely now. Sometimes, for months together, I feel no need of a companion: my books and pictures content me. All at once a longing for society will seize me, and that longing my health will not permit me to indulge. I am not by nature unsociable—much the contrary. You may wonder I do not admit my own family more freely; but my wretched health makes me shrink from loud voices and abrupt motions."

"But lady Arctura!" thought Donal. "Your lordship will find me a poor substitute, I fear," he said, "for the society you would like. But I am at your lordship's service."

He could not help turning with a moment's longing and regret to his tower-nest and the company of his books and thoughts; but he did not feel that he had a choice.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE SECOND DINNER WITH THE EARL

He went as before, conducted by the butler, and formally announced. To his surprise, with the earl was lady Arctura. His lordship made him give her his arm, and followed.

This 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 forced-playful way, but 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 in a host. Donal took no wine during dinner, the earl as before took very little, and lady Arctura none. She listened respectfully to her uncle's talk, and was attentive when Donal spoke; he thought she looked even sympathetic two or three times; and once he caught the expression as of anxiety he had seen on her face that same day twice before. It was strange, too, he thought, that, not seeing her sometimes for a week together, he should thus meet her three times in one day. When the last of the dinner was removed and the wine placed on the table, Donal thought his lordship looked as if he expected his niece to go; but she kept her place. He asked her which wine she would have, but she declined any. He filled his glass, and pushed the decanter to Donal. He too filled his glass, and drank slowly.

The 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 was going to happen to him. He attributed this to her having heard that he took too much wine the night before. The situation was unpleasant. He must, however, brave it out! When he refused a second glass, which the earl by no means pressed, he thought he saw her look relieved; but more than once thereafter he saw, or fancied he saw her glance at him with that expression of slight anxiety.

In its course the talk fell upon sheep, and Donal was relating some of his experiences with them and their dogs, greatly interested in the subject; when all at once, just as before, something seemed to burst in his head, and immediately, although he knew he was sitting at table with the earl and lady Arctura, he was uncertain whether he was not at the same time upon the side of a lonely hill, closed in a magic night of high summer, his woolly 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 marks for a moment the footstep of an angel, when he touches ever so lightly the solid earth. He seemed to be reading the thoughts of his sheep around him, yet all the time went on talking, and knew he was talking, with the earl and the lady.

After a while, everything was changed. He was no longer either with his sheep or his company. He was alone, and walking swiftly through and beyond the park, in a fierce wind from the north-east, battling with it, and ruling it like a fiery horse. By and by came a hoarse, terrible music, which he knew for the thunderous beat of the waves on the low shore, yet imagined issuing from an indescribable instrument, gigantic and grotesque. He felt it first—through his feet, as one feels without hearing the tones of an organ for which the building is too small to allow scope to their vibration: the waves made the ground beat against the soles of his feet as he walked; but soon he heard it like the infinitely prolonged roaring of a sky-built organ. It was drawing him to the sea, whether in the body or out of the body he knew not: he was but conscious of forms of existence: whether those forms had relation to things outside him, or whether they belonged only to the world within him, he was unaware. The roaring of the great water-organ grew louder and louder. He knew every step of the way to the shore—across the fields and over fences and stiles. He turned this way and that, to avoid here a ditch, there a deep sandy patch. And still the music grew louder and louder—and at length came in his face the driving spray: it was the flying touch of the wings on which the tones went hurrying past into the depths of awful distance! His feet were now wading through the bent-tufted sand, with the hard, bare, wave-beaten sand in front of him. Through the dark he could see the white fierceness of the hurrying waves as they rushed to the shore, then leaning, toppling, curling, self-undermined, hurled forth at once all the sound that was in them in a falling roar of defeat. Every wave was a complex chord, with winnowed tones feathering it round. He paced up and down the sand—it seemed for ages. Why he paced there he did not know—why always he turned and went back instead of going on.

Suddenly he thought he saw something dark in the hollow of a wave that swept to its fall. The moon came out as it broke, and the something was rolled in the surf up the shore. Donal stood watching it. Why should he move? What was it to him? The next wave would reclaim it for 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 came back to him out of the ancient years: in the ages gone by men did what they could! There was a word they used then: they said men ought to do this or that! This body might not be dead—or dead, some one might like to have it! He rushed into the water, and caught it—ere the next wave broke, though hours of cogitation, ratiocination, recollection, seemed to have intervened. The breaking wave drenched him from head to foot: he clung to his prize and dragged it out. A moment's bewilderment, and he came to himself lying on the sand, his arms round a great lump of net, lost from some fishing boat.

His illusions were gone. He was sitting in a cold wind, wet to the skin, on the border of a wild sea. A poor, shivering, altogether ordinary and uncomfortable mortal, he sat on the shore of the German Ocean, from which he had rescued a tangled mass of net and seaweed! He dragged it beyond the reach of the waves, and set out for home.

By the time he reached the castle he was quite warm. His door at the foot of the tower was open, he crept up, and was soon fast asleep.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM

He was not so late the next morning.

Ere he had finished his breakfast he had made up his mind that he must beware of the earl. He was satisfied that the experiences of the past night could not be the consequence of one glass of wine. If he asked him again, he would go to dinner with him, but would drink nothing but water.

School was just over when Simmons came from his lordship, to inquire after him, and invite him to dine with him that evening. Donald immediately consented.

This time lady Arctura was not with the earl.

After as during dinner Donal declined to drink. His lordship cast on him a keen, searching glance, but it was only a glance, and took no farther notice of his refusal. The conversation, however, which had not been brilliant from the first, now sank and sank till it was not; and after a cup of coffee, his lordship, remarking that he was not feeling himself, begged Donal to excuse him, and proceeded to retire. Donal rose, and with 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, standing by the door which opened upon the great staircase. He supposed it at first to be one of the maids; but the servants were so few compared with the size of the castle that one was seldom to be met on stair or in passage; and besides, the form stood as if waiting for some one! As he drew nearer, he saw it was lady Arctura, and would have passed with an obeisance. But ere he could lay his hand on the lock, hers was there to prevent him. He then saw that she was agitated, and that she had stopped him thus because her voice had at the moment failed her. The next moment, however, she recovered it, and her self-possession as well.

"Mr. Grant," she said, in a low voice, "I wish to speak to you—if you will allow me."

"I am at your service, my lady," answered Donal.

"But we cannot here! My uncle—"

"Shall we go into the picture-gallery?" suggested Donal; "there is moonlight there."

"No; that would be still nearer my uncle. His hearing is sometimes preternaturally keen; and besides, as you know, he often walks there after his evening meal. But—excuse me, Mr. Grant—you will understand me presently—are you—are you quite—?"

"You mean, my lady—am I quite myself this evening!" said Donal, wishing to help her with the embarrassing question: "—I have drunk nothing but water to-night."

With that she opened the door, and descended the stair, he following; but as soon as the curve of the staircase hid the door they had left, she stopped, and turning to him said,

"I would not have you mistake me, Mr. Grant! I should be ashamed to speak to you if—"

"Indeed I am very sorry!" said Donal, "—though hardly so much to blame as I fear you think me."

"You mistake me at once! You suppose I imagine you took too much wine last night! It would be absurd. I saw what you took! But we must not talk here. Come."

She turned again, and going down, led the way to the housekeeper's room.

They found her at work with her needle.

"Mistress Brookes," said lady Arctura, "I want to have a little talk with Mr. Grant, and there is no fire in the library: may we sit here?"

"By all means! Sit doon, my lady! Why, bairn! you look as cold as if you had been on the roof! There! sit close to the fire; you're all trem'lin'!"

Lady Arctura obeyed like the child Mrs. Brookes called her, and sat down in the chair she gave up to her.

"I've something to see efter i' the still-room," said the housekeeper. "You sit here and hae yer crack. Sit doon, Mr. Grant. I'm glad to see you an' my lady come to word o' mooth at last. I began to think it wud never be!"

Had Donal been in the way of looking to faces for the interpretation of words and thoughts, he would have seen a shadow sweep over lady Arctura's, followed by a flush, which he would have attributed to displeasure at this utterance of the housekeeper. But, with all his experience of the world within, and all his unusually developed power of entering into the feelings of others, he had never come to pry into those feelings, or to study their phenomena for the sake of possessing himself of them. Man was by no means an open book to him—"no, nor woman neither," but he would have scorned to supplement by such investigation what a lady chose to tell him. 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 sat also gazing into the fire, and seemed in no haste to begin.

"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 necessity, my lady."

"But I suppose one may be fair to another!" she went on, doubtingly, "—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 the right source."

"Grapes do not come from thorns, my lady. We must not allow in evil a power of good."

She did not reply.

"He minds everything I say to him now," she resumed. "What is it makes him so good?—I wish I had had such a tutor!"

She stopped again: she had spoken out of the simplicity of her thought, but the words when said looked to her as if they ought not to have been said.

"Something is working in her!" thought Donal. "She is so different! Her voice is different!"

"But that is not what I wanted to speak to you about, Mr. Grant," she re-commenced, "—though I did want you to know I was aware of the improvement in Davie. I wished to say something about my uncle."

Here followed another pause.

"You may have remarked," she said at length, "that, though we live together, and he is my guardian, and the head of the house, there is not much communication between us."

"I have gathered as much: I ask no questions, but I cannot tell Davie not to talk to me!"

"Of course not.—Lord Morven is a strange man. I do not understand him, and I do not want to judge him, or make you judge him. But I must speak of a fact, concerning yourself, which I have no right to keep from you."

Once more a pause followed. There was nothing now of the grand dame about Arctura.

"Has nothing occurred to wake a doubt in you?" she said at last, abruptly. "Have you not suspected him of—of using you in any way?"

"I have had an undefined ghost of a suspicion," answered Donal. "Please tell me what you know."

"I should know nothing—although, my room being near his, I should have been the more perplexed about some things—had he not made an experiment upon myself a year ago."

"Is it possible?"

"I sometimes fancy I have not been so well since. It was a great shock to me when I came to myself:—you see I am trusting you, Mr. Grant!"

"I thank you heartily, my lady," said Donal.

"I believe," continued lady Arctura, gathering courage, "that my uncle is in the habit of taking some horrible drug for the sake of its effect on his brain. There are people who do so! What it is I don't know, and I would rather not know. It is just as bad, surely, as taking too much wine! I have heard himself remark to Mr. Carmichael that opium was worse than wine, for it destroyed the moral sense more. Mind I don't say it is opium he takes!"

"There are other things," said Donal, "even worse!—But surely you do not mean he dared try anything of the sort on you!"

"I am sure he gave me something! For, once that I dined with him,—but I cannot describe the effect it had upon me! I think he wanted to see its operation on one who did not even know she had taken anything. The influence of such things is a pleasant one, they say, at first, but I would not go through such agonies as I had for the world!"