Donal Grant

She ceased, evidently troubled by the harassing remembrance. Donal hastened to speak.

"It was because of such a suspicion, my lady, that this evening I would not even taste his wine. I am safe to-night, I trust, from the insanity—I can call it nothing else—that possessed me the last two nights."

"Was it very dreadful?" asked lady Arctura.

"On the contrary, I had a sense of life and power such as I could never of myself have imagined!"

"Oh, Mr. Grant, do take care! Do not be tempted to take it again. I don't know where it might not have led me if I had found it as pleasant as it was horrible; for I am sorely tried with painful thoughts, and feel sometimes as if 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 cannot get rid of them the other way."

"I do; I do!"

"The shield of his presence was over you."

"How glad I should be to think so! But we have no right to think he cares for us till we believe in Christ—and—and—I don't know that I do believe in him!"

"Wherever you learned that, it is a terrible lie," said Donal. "Is not Christ the same always, and is he not of one mind with God? Was it not while we were yet sinners that he poured out his soul for us? It is a fearful thing to say of the perfect Love, that he is not doing all he can, with all the power of a maker over the creature he has made, to help and deliver him!"

"I know he makes his sun to shine and his rain to fall upon the evil and the good; but those good things are only of this world!"

"Are those the good things then that the Lord says the Father will give to those that ask him? How can you worship a God who gives you all the little things he does not care much about, but will not do his best for you?"

"But are there not things he cannot do for us till we believe in Christ?"

"Certainly there are. But what I want you to see is that he does all that can be done. He finds it very hard to teach us, but he is never tired of trying. Anyone who is willing to be taught of God, will by him be taught, and thoroughly taught."

"I am afraid I am doing wrong in listening to you, Mr. Grant—and the more that I cannot help wishing what you say might be true! But are you not in danger—you will pardon me for saying it—of presumption?—How can all the good people be wrong?"

"Because the greater part of their teachers have set themselves to explain God rather than to obey and enforce his will. The gospel is given to convince, not our understandings, but our hearts; that done, and never till 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 since I came here, the Lord has brought us no salvation at all, but only a change of shape to our miseries. They have not redeemed you, lady Arctura, and never will. Nothing but Christ himself, your lord and friend and brother, not all the doctrines about him, even if every one of them were true, can save you. Poor orphan children, we cannot find our God, and they would have us take instead a shocking caricature of him!"

"But how should sinners know what is or is not like the true God?"

"If a man desires God, he cannot help knowing enough of him to be capable of learning more—else how should he desire him? Made in the image of God, his idea of him cannot be all wrong. That does not make him fit to teach others—only fit to go on learning for himself. But in Jesus Christ I see the very God I want. I want a father like him. He reproaches some of those about him for not knowing him—for, if they had known God, they would have known him: they were to blame for not knowing God. No other than the God exactly like Christ can be the true God. It is a doctrine of devils that Jesus died to save us from our father. There is no safety, no good, no gladness, no purity, but with the Father, his father and our father, his God and our God."

"But God hates sin and punishes it!"

"It would be terrible if he did not. All hatred of sin is love to the sinner. Do you think Jesus came to deliver us from the punishment of our sins? He would not have moved a step for that. The horrible thing is being bad, and all punishment is help to deliver us from that, nor will punishment cease till we have ceased to be bad. God will have us good, and Jesus works out the will of his father. Where is the refuge of the child who fears his father? Is it in the farthest corner of the room? Is it down in the dungeon of the castle, my lady?"

"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 motionless, divided between reverence for distorted and false forms of truth taught her from her earliest years, and 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 Donal with a kind of irresolute motion, but withdrawing it, smiled almost beseechingly, 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—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 that 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 tears began to come in her eyes.

"You must pardon me!" she said: "I am so ignorant! And we live in such an out-of-the-way place that—that it seems very 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 quite sure! My mind would keep brooding over it, and wondering, and longing to know for certain!—So I resolved at last that I would be rid of the doubt, even at the risk of offending you. I know I have been rude—unpardonably rude, but—"

"But," supplemented Donal, with a most sympathetic smile, for he understood her as his own thought, "you do not feel quite sure yet! What a priori reason do you see why I should not be able to write verses? 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. If there are in it rogues that look like honest men, how is any one, without a special gift of insight, to be always sure of the honest man? Even the man whom a woman loves best will sometimes tear her heart to pieces! I will give you all the proof you can desire.—And lest the tempter should say I made up the proof itself between now and to-morrow morning, I will fetch it at once."

"Oh, Mr. Grant, spare me! I am not, indeed I am not so bad as that!"

"Who can tell when or whence the doubt may wake again, or what may wake it!"

"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 theirs before!"

"I never did. There are none such, I fancy, in our part of the country."

"Nor in our neighbourhood either."

"Then what is surprising in it?"

"Nothing in that. But is there not something in your being able to write a poem like that about a garden such as you had never seen? One would say you must have been familiar with it from childhood to be able so to enter into the spirit of the place!"

"Perhaps if I had been familiar with it from childhood, that might have disabled me from feeling the spirit of it, for then might it not have looked to me as it looked to those in whose time such gardens were the fashion? Two things are necessary—first, that there should be a spirit in a place, and next that the place should be seen by one whose spirit is capable of giving house-room to its spirit.—By the way, does the ghost-lady feel the place all right?"

"I am not sure that I know what you mean; but I felt the grass with her feet as I read, and the wind lifting my hair. I seemed to know exactly how she felt!"

"Now tell me, were you ever a ghost?"

"No," she answered, looking in his face like a child—without even a smile.

"Did you ever see a ghost?"

"No, never."

"Then how should you know how a ghost would feel?"

"I see! I cannot answer you."

Donal rose.

"I am indeed ashamed!" said lady Arctura.

"Ashamed of giving me the chance of proving myself a true man?"

"That, at least, is no longer necessary!"

"But I want my revenge. As a punishment for doubting one whom you had so little ground for believing, you shall be compelled to see the proof—that is, if you will do me the favour to wait here till I come back. I shall not be long, though it is some distance to the top of Baliol's tower."

"Davie told me your room was there: do you not find it cold? It must be very lonely! I wonder why mistress Brookes put you there!"

Donal assured her he could not have had a place more to his mind, and before she could well think he had reached the foot of his stair, was back with a roll of papers, which he laid on the table.

"There!" he said, opening it out; "if you will take the trouble to go over these, you may read the growth of the poem. Here first you see it blocked out rather roughly, and much blotted with erasures and substitutions. Here next you see the result copied—clean to begin with, but afterwards scored and scored. You see the words I chose instead of the first, and afterwards in their turn rejected, until in the proofs I reached those which I have as yet let stand. I do not fancy Miss Graeme has any doubt the verses are mine, for it was plain she thought them rubbish. From your pains to know who wrote them, I believe you do not think so badly of them!"

She thought he was satirical, and gave a slight sigh as of pain. It went to his heart.

"I did not mean the smallest reflection, my lady, on your desire for satisfaction," he said; "rather, indeed, it flatters me. But is it not strange the heart should be less ready to believe what seems worth believing? Something must be true: why not the worthy—oftener at least than the unworthy? Why should it be easier to believe hard things of God, for instance, than lovely things?—or that one man copied from another, than that he should have made the thing himself? Some would yet say I contrived all this semblance of composition in order to lay the surer claim to that to which I had none—nor would take the trouble to follow the thing through its development! But it will be easy for you, my lady, and no bad exercise in logic and analysis, to determine whether the genuine growth of the poem be before you in these papers or not."

"I shall find it most interesting," said lady Arctura: "so much I can tell already! I never saw anything of the kind before, and had no idea how poetry was made. Does it always take so much labour?"

"Some verses take much more; some none at all. The labour is in getting the husks of expression cleared off, so that the thought may show itself plainly."

At this point Mrs. Brookes, thinking probably the young people had had long enough conference, entered, and after a little talk with her, lady Arctura kissed her and bade her good night. Donal retired to his aerial chamber, wondering whether the lady of the house had indeed changed as much as she seemed to have changed.

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 as they went about the place, nor did they ever pass without a mutual smile and greeting.

The next day but one, she brought him his papers to the schoolroom. She had read every erasure and correction, she told him, and could no longer have had a doubt that the writer of the papers was the maker of the verses, even had she not previously learned thorough confidence in the man himself.

"They would possibly fail to convince a jury though!" he said, as he rose and went to throw them in the fire.

Divining his intent, Arctura darted after him, and caught them just in time.

"Let me keep them," she pleaded, "—for my humiliation!"

"Do with them what you like, my lady," said Donal. "They are of no value to me—except that you care for them."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

COBBLER AND CASTLE

In the bosom of the family in which the elements seem most kindly mixed, there may yet lie some root of discord and disruption, upon which the foreign influence necessary to its appearance above ground, has not yet come to operate. That things are quiet is no proof, only a hopeful sign of harmony. In a family of such poor accord as that at the castle, the peace might well at any moment be broken.

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 of that freedom which means subjugation to self, and freedom from the law of liberty. It is often when a man is least satisfied—not with himself but with his immediate doings—that he is most ready to assert his superiority to the restraints he might formerly have grumbled against, but had not dared to dispute—and to claim from others such consideration as accords with a false idea of his personal standing. But for a while Donal and he barely saw each other; Donal had no occasion to regard him; and lord Forgue kept so much to himself that Davie made lamentation: Percy was not half so jolly as he used to be!

For a fortnight Eppy had not been to see her grand-parents; and as the last week something had prevented Donal also from paying them his customary visit, the old people had naturally become uneasy; and one frosty twilight, when the last of the sunlight had turned to cold green in the west, Andrew Comin appeared in the castle kitchen, asking to see mistress Brookes. He was kindly received by the servants, among whom Eppy was not present; and Mrs. Brookes, who had a genuine respect for the cobbler, soon came to greet him. She told him she knew no reason why Eppy had not gone to inquire after them as usual: she would send for her, she said, and left the kitchen.

Eppy was not at the moment to be found, but Donal, whom mistress Brookes had gone herself to seek, went at once to the kitchen.

"Will you come out a bit, Andrew," he said, "—if you're not tired? It's a fine night, and it's easy to talk in the gloamin'!"

Andrew consented with alacrity.

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 little flower-gardens. At the bottom of the last of these terraces and parallel with them, was a double row of trees, forming a long narrow avenue between two little doors in two walls at opposite ends of the castle. One of these led to some of the offices; the other admitted to a fruit garden which turned the western shoulder of the hill, and found for the greater part a nearly southern exposure. At this time of the year it was a lonely enough place, and at this time of the day more than likely to be altogether deserted: thither Donal would lead his friend. Going out therefore by the 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 one wall-door opened on the avenue which led to the other. It was one of the pleasantest walks in immediate proximity to the castle.

The first of the steely stars were shining through the naked rafters of leafless boughs overhead, as Donal and the cobbler stepped, gently talking, into the aisle of trees. The old man looked up, gazed for a moment in silence, and said:—

"'The heavens 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 wud 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 semple fowk war verra won'erfu', but I couldna fin' i' my hert 'at they made me think ony mair o' God nor I did afore. I dinna mean to say they michtna be competent to work that in anither, but it wasna my experrience 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 wha's the express image o' 's person, but, aye soucht him throuw the philosophy—eh, but it was bairnly philosophy!—o' the guid buiks 'at dwall upo' the natur' o' God an' a' that, an' his hatred o' sin an' a' that—pairt an' pairt true, nae doobt! but I wantit God great an' near, an' they made him oot sma', sma', an' unco' far awa'. Ae nicht I was oot by mysel' upo' the shore, jist as the stars war teetin' oot. An' it wasna 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 cam to mysel', like oot o' some blin' delusion. Up I cuist my e'en aboon—an' eh, there was the h'aven as God made it—awfu'!—big an' deep, ay faddomless deep, an' fu' o' the wan'erin' yet steady lichts 'at naething can blaw oot, but the breath o' his mooth! Awa' up an' up it gaed, an' deeper an' deeper! an' my e'en gaed traivellin' awa' an' awa', till it seemed as though they never could win back to me. A' at ance they drappit frae the lift like a laverock, an' lichtit upo' the horizon, whaur the sea an' the sky met like richteousness an' peace kissin' ane anither, as the psalm says. Noo I canna tell what it was, but jist there whaur the earth an' the sky cam thegither, 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 hingin' ower 't a', but it was nane o' a' thae things; it was something deeper nor a', an' heicher nor a'! Frae that moment I saw—no hoo the h'avens declare the glory o' God, but I saw them declarin' 't, an' I wantit nae mair. Astronomy for me micht sit an' wait 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 comprehen' him, he comes doon, an' lays his cheek til his man's, an' says til him, 'Eh, my cratur!'"

While the cobbler was thus talking, they had gone the length of the avenue, and were within less than two trees of the door of the fruit-garden, when it opened, and was hurriedly shut again—not, however, before Donal had caught sight, as he believed, of the form of Eppy. He called her by name, and ran to the door, followed by Andrew: the same suspicion had struck both of them at once! Donal lifted the latch, and would have opened the door, but some one 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 the door open. Lord Forgue was on the other side of it, and a little way off stood Eppy trembling. Donal turned away from his lordship, and said to the girl,

"Eppy, here's your grandfather come to see you!"

The cobbler, however, went up to lord Forgue.

"You're a young man, my lord," he said, "an' may regard it as folly in an auld man to interfere between you an' your wull; but I warn ye, my lord, excep' you cease to carry yourself thus towards my granddaughter, his lordship, your father, shall be informed of the matter. Eppy, you come home with me."

"I will not," said Eppy, her voice trembling with passion, though which passion it were hard to say; "I am a free woman. I make my own living. I will not be treated like a child!"

"I will speak to mistress Brookes," said the old man, with sad dignity.

"And make her turn me away!" said Eppy.

She seemed quite changed—bold and determined—was probably relieved that she could no more play a false part. His lordship stood and said nothing.

"But don't you think, grandfather," continued Eppy, "that whatever mistress Brookes says or does, I'll go home with you! I've saved money, and, as I can't get another place here when you've taken away my character, I'll leave the country."

His lordship advanced, and with strained composure said,

"I confess, Mr. Comin, things do look against us. It is awkward 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 be forced to act by them, though, my lord!" said Andrew. "I should be sorry to judge aither of you by them. Eppy must come home with me, or it will be more awkward yet for both of you!"

"Oh, if you threaten us," said Forgue contemptuously, "then of course we are very frightened! But you had better beware! You will only make it the more difficult for me to do your granddaughter the justice I always intended."

"What your lordship's notion o' justice may be, I wull not trouble you to explain," said the old man. "All I desire for the present is, that she come home with me."

"Let us leave the matter to mistress Brookes!" said Forgue. "I shall easily satisfy her that there is no occasion for any hurry. Believe me, you will only bring trouble on the innocent!"

"Then it canna 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!" 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 else how should I say it to another, an' that may soon be necessar'!" answered the cobbler. "Didna yer lordship promise an en' to the haill meeserable affair?"

"I remember nothing of the sort."

"You did to me!" said Donal.

"Do hold your tongue, Grant, and don't make things worse. To you I can easily explain it. Besides, you have nothing to do with it now this good fellow has taken it up. It is quite possible, besides, to break one's word to the ear and yet keep it to the sense."

"The only thing to justify that suggestion," said Donal, "would be that you had married Eppy, or were about to marry her!"

Eppy would have spoken; but she only gave a little cry, for Forgue put his hand over her mouth.

"You hold your tongue!" he said; "you will only complicate matters!"

"And there's another point, my lord," resumed Donal: "you say I have nothing to do now with the affair: if not for my friend's sake, I have for my own."

"What do you mean?"

"That I am in the house a paid servant, and must not allow anything mischievous to go on in it without acquainting my master."

"You acknowledge, Mr. Grant, that you are neither more nor less than a paid servant, but you mistake your duty as such: I shall be happy to explain it to you.—You have nothing whatever to do with what goes on in the house; you have but to mind your work. I told you before, you are my brother's tutor, not mine! To interfere with what I do, is nothing less than a piece of damned impertinence!"

"That impertinence, however, I intend to be guilty of the moment I can get audience of your father."

"You will not, if I give you such explanation as satisfies you I have done the girl no harm, and mean honestly by her!" said Forgue in a confident, yet somewhat conciliatory 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 only those that ought to be ruined!" said Donal.

Forgue sprang upon him, and struck him a heavy blow between the eyes. He had been having lessons in boxing while in Edinburgh, and had confidence in himself. It was a well-planted blow, and Donal unprepared for it. He staggered against the wall, and for a moment could neither see nor think: all he knew was that there was something or other he had to attend to. His lordship, excusing himself perhaps on the ground of necessity, there being a girl in the case, would have struck him again; but Andrew threw himself between, and received the blow for him.