Donal Grant

"I love you," he said, "and love you to all eternity! I have love enough now to live upon, if you should die to-night, and I should tarry till he come. O God, thou art too good to me! It is more than my heart can bear! To make men and women, and give them to each other, and not be one moment jealous of the love wherewith they love one another, is to be a God indeed!"

So said Donal—and spoke the high truth. But alas for the love wherewith men and women love each other! There were small room for God to be jealous of that! It is the little love with which they love each other, the great love with which they love themselves, that hurts the heart of their father.

Arctura signed at length a prayer for release, and he set her gently down in her chair again. Then he saw her face more beautiful than ever before; and the rose that bloomed there was the rose of a health deeper than sickness. These children of God were of the blessed few who love the more that they know him present, whose souls are naked before him, and not ashamed. Let him that hears understand! if he understand not, let him hold his peace, and it will be his wisdom! He who has no place for this love in his religion, who thinks to be more holy without it, is not of God's mind when he said, "Let us make man!" He may be a saint, but he cannot be a man after God's own heart. The finished man is the saved man. The saint may have to be saved from more than sin.

"When shall we be married?" asked Donal.

"Soon, soon," answered Arctura.

"To-morrow then?"

"No, not to-morrow: there is no such haste—now that we understand each other," she added with a rosy smile. "I want to be married to you before I die, that is all—not just to-morrow, or the next day."

"When you please, my love," said Donal.

She laid her head on his bosom.

"We are as good as married now," she said: "we know that each loves the other! How I shall wait for you! You will be mine, you know—a little bit mine—won't you?—even if you should marry some beautiful lady after I am gone?—I shall love her when she comes."

"Arctura!" said Donal.

CHAPTER LXXXI.

A WILL AND A WEDDING

But the opening of the windows of heaven, and the unspeakable rush of life through channels too narrow and banks too weak to hold its tide, caused a terrible inundation: the red flood broke its banks, and weakened all the land.

Arctura sent for Mr. Graeme, and commissioned him to fetch the family lawyer from Edinburgh. Alone with him she gave instructions concerning her will. The man of business shrugged his shoulders, laden with so many petty weights, bowed down with so many falsest opinions, and would have expostulated with her.

"Sir!" she said.

"You have a cousin who inherits the title!" he suggested.

"Mr. Fortune," she returned, "it may be I know as much of my family as you. I did not send for you to consult you, but to tell you how I would have my will drawn up!"

"I beg your pardon, my lady," rejoined the lawyer, "but there are things which may make it one's duty to speak out."

"Speak then; I will listen—that you may ease your mind."

He began a long, common-sense, worldly talk on the matter, nor once repeated himself. When he stopped,—

"Now have you eased your mind?" she asked.

"I have, my lady."

"Then listen to me. There is no necessity you should hurt either your feelings or your prejudices. If it goes against your conscience to do as I wish, I will not trouble you."

Mr. Fortune bowed, took his instructions, and rose.

"When will you bring it me?" she asked.

"In the course of a week or two, my lady."

"If it is not in my hands by the day after to-morrow, I will send for a gentleman from the town to prepare it."

"You shall have it, my lady," said Mr. Fortune.

She did have it, and it was signed and witnessed.

Then she sank more rapidly. Donal said no word about the marriage: it should be as she pleased! He was much by her bedside, reading to her when she was able to listen, talking to her or sitting silent when she was not.

Arctura had at once told mistress Brookes the relation in which she and Donal stood to each other. It cost the good woman many tears, for she thought such a love one of the saddest things in a sad world. Neither Arctura nor Donal thought so.

The earl at this time was a little better, though without prospect of even temporary recovery. He had grown much gentler, and sadness had partially displaced his sullenness. He seemed to have become in a measure aware of the bruteness of the life he had hitherto led: he must have had a glimpse of something better. It is wonderful what the sickness which human stupidity regards as the one evil thing, can do towards redemption! He showed concern at his niece's illness, and had himself carried down every other day to see her for a few minutes. She received him always with the greatest gentleness, and he showed something that seemed like genuine affection for her.

It was a morning in the month of May—

The naked twigs were shivering all for cold—

when Donal, who had been with Arctura the greater part of the night, and now lay on the couch in a neighbouring room, heard Mrs. Brookes call him.

"My lady wants you, sir," she said.

He started up, and went to her.

"Send for the minister," she whispered, "—not Mr. Carmichael; he does not know you. Send for Mr. Graeme too: he and mistress Brookes will be witnesses. I must call you husband once before I die!"

"I hope you will many a time after!" he returned.

She smiled on him with a look of love unutterable.

"Mind," she said, holding out her arms feebly, but drawing him fast to her bosom, "that this is how I love you! When you see me dull and stupid, and I hardly look at you—for though death makes bright, dying makes stupid—then say to yourself, 'This is not how she loves me; it is only how she is dying! She loves me and knows it—and by and by will be able to show it!'"

They were precious words both then and afterwards!

With some careful questioning, to satisfy himself that, so evidently at the gate of death she yet knew perfectly her own mind,—and not without some shakes of the head revealing disapprobation, the minister did as he was requested, and wrote a certificate of the fact, which was duly signed and witnessed.

And if he showed his disapproval yet more in the prayer with which he concluded the ceremony, none but mistress Brookes showed responsive indignation.

The bridegroom gave his bride one gentle kiss, and withdrew with the clergyman.

"Pardon me if I characterize this as a strange proceeding!" said the latter.

"Not so strange perhaps as it looks, sir!" said Donal.

"On the very brink of the other world!"

"The other world and its brink too are his who ordained marriage!"

"For this world only," said the minister.

"The gifts of God are without repentance," said Donal.

"I have heard of you!" returned the clergyman. "You are one, they tell me, given to misusing scripture."

He had conceived a painful doubt that he had been drawn into some plot!

"Sir!" said Donal sternly, "if you saw any impropriety in the ceremony, why did you perform it? I beg you will now reserve your remarks. You ought to have made them before or not at all. If you be silent, the thing will probably never be heard of, and I should greatly dislike having it the town-talk."

"Except I see reason—that is, if nothing follow to render disclosure necessary, I shall be silent," said the minister.

He would have declined the fee offered by Donal; but he was poor, and its amount prevailed: he accepted it, and took his leave with a stiffness he intended for dignity: he had a high sense, if not of the dignity of his office, at least of the dignity his office conferred on him.

Donal had next a brief interview with Mr. Graeme. The factor was in a state of utter bewilderment, and readily yielded Donal a promise of silence: the mere whim of a dying girl, it had better be ignored and forgotten! As to Grant's part in it he did not know what to think. It could not affect the property, he thought: it could hardly be a marriage! And then there was the will—of the contents of which he knew nothing! If it were a complete marriage, the will was worth nothing, being made before it!

I will not linger over the quiet, sad time that followed. Donal was to Arctura, she said, father, brother, husband, in one. Through him she had reaped the harvest of the world, in spite of falsehood, murder, fear, and distrust! She lay victorious on the battlefield!

In the heart of her bridegroom reigned a peace the world could not give or take away. He loved with a love that cast the love of former days into the shadow of a sweet but undesired remembrance. A long twilight life lay before him, but he would have plenty to do! and such was the love between him and Arctura, that every doing of the will of God was as the tying of a fresh bond between him and her: she was his because they were the Father's, whose will was the life and bond of the universe.

"I think," said Donal, that same night by her bed, "when my mother dies, she will go near you: I will, if I can, send you a message by her. But it will not matter; it can only tell you what you will know well enough—that I love you, and am waiting to come to you."

The stupidity of calling oneself a Christian, and doubting if we shall know our friends hereafter! In those who do not believe such a doubt is more than natural, but in those who profess to believe, it shows what a ragged scarecrow is the thing they call their faith—not worth that of many an old Jew, or that of here and there a pagan!

"I shall not be far from you, dear, I think—sometimes at least," she said, speaking very low. "If you dream anything nice about me, think I am thinking of you. If you should dream anything not nice, think something is lying to you about me. I do not know if I shall be allowed to come near you, but if I am—and I think I shall be—sometimes, I shall laugh to myself to think how near I am, and you fancying me a long way off! But any way all will be well, for the great life, our God, our father, is, and in him we cannot but be together."

After that she fell into a deep sleep, and slept for hours. Then suddenly she sat up. Donal put his arm behind and supported her. She looked a little wild, shuddered, murmured something he could not understand, then threw herself back into his arms. Her expression changed to a look of divinest, loveliest content, and she was gone.

CHAPTER LXXXII.

THE WILL

When her will was read, it was found that, except some legacies, and an annuity to Mrs. Brookes, she had left everything to Donal.

Mr. Graeme, rising the moment the lawyer looked up, congratulated Donal—politely, not cordially, and took his leave.

"If you are walking towards home," said Donal, "I will walk with you."

"I shall be happy," said Mr. Graeme—feeling it not a little hard that one who would soon be heir presumptive to the title should have to tend the family property in the service of a stranger and a peasant.

"Lord Morven cannot live long," said Donal as they went. "It is not to be wished he should."

Mr. Graeme returned no answer. Donal resumed.

"I think I ought to let you know at once that you are heir to the title."

"I think you owe the knowledge to myself!" said the factor, not without a touch of contempt.

"By no means," rejoined Donal: "on presumption, after lord Forgue, you told me;—after lord Morven, I tell you."

"I am at a loss to imagine on what you found such a statement," said Graeme, beginning to suspect insanity.

"Naturally; no one knows it but myself. Lord Morven knows that his son cannot succeed, but he does not know that you can. I am prepared, if not to prove, at least to convince you that he and his son's mother were not married."

Mr. Graeme was for a moment silent. Then he laughed a little laugh—not a pleasant one. "Another of Time's clownish tricks!" he said to himself: "the earl the factor on the family-estate!" Donal did not like the way he took it, but saw how natural it was.

"I hope you have known me long enough," he said, "to believe I have contrived nothing?"

"Excuse me, Mr. Grant: the whole business looks suspicious. The girl was dying! You knew it!"

"I do not understand you."

"What did you marry her for?"

"To make her my wife."

"Pray what could be the good of that except—?"

"Does it need any explanation but that we loved each other?"

"You will find it difficult to convince the world that such was your sole motive."

"Having no care for the opinion of the world, I shall be satisfied if I convince you. The world needs never hear of the thing. Would you, Mr. Graeme, have had me not marry her, because the world, including not a few honest men like yourself, would say my object was the property?"

"Don't put the question to me; I am not the proper person to answer it. There is not a man in a hundred millions who with the chance would not have done the same, or whom all the rest would not blame for doing it. It would have been better for you, however, that there had been no will."

"How?"

"It makes it look the more like a scheme:—the will might have been disputed."

"Why do you say—might have been?"

"Because it is not worth disputing now. If the marriage stands, it annuls the will."

"I did not know; and I suppose she did not know either. Or perhaps she wanted to make the thing sure: if the marriage was not enough, the will would be—she may have thought. But I knew nothing of it."

"You did not?"

"Of course I did not."

Mr. Graeme held his peace. For the first time he doubted Donal's word.

"But I wanted to have a little talk with you," resumed Donal. "I want to know whether you think your duty all to the owner of the land, or in any measure to the tenants also."

"That is easy to answer: one employed by the landlord can owe the tenant nothing."

It was not just the answer he would have given to another questioner.

"Do you not owe him justice?" asked Donal.

"Every legal advantage I ought to take for my employer."

"Even to the grinding of the faces of the poor?"

"I have nothing to do, as his employé, with my own ideas as to what may be equitable."

He drew the line thus hard in pure opposition to Donal.

"What then would you say if the land were your own? Would you say you had it solely for your own and your family's good, or for that of the tenants as well?"

"I should very likely reason that what was good for them would in the long run be good for me too.—But if you want to know how I have treated the tenants, there are intelligent men amongst them, not at all prejudiced in favour of the factor!"

"I wish you would be open with me," said Donal.

"I prefer keeping my own place," rejoined Mr. Graeme.

"You speak as one who found a change in me," returned Donal. "There is none."

So saying he shook hands with him, bade him good morning, and turned with the depression of failure.

"I did not lead up to the point properly!" he said to himself.

CHAPTER LXXXIII.

INSIGHT

Mr. Graeme was a good sort of man, and a gentleman; but he was not capable of meeting Donal on the ground on which he approached him: on that level he had never set foot. There is nothing more disappointing to the generous man than the way in which his absolute frankness is met by the man of the world—always looking out for motives, and imagining them after what is in himself.

There was great confidence between the brother and sister, and as he walked homeward, Mr. Graeme was not so well pleased with himself as to think with satisfaction on the report of the interview he could give Kate. He did not accuse himself with regard to anything he had said, but he felt his behaviour influenced by jealousy of the low-born youth who had supplanted him. For, if Percy could not succeed to the title, neither could he have succeeded to the property; and but for the will or the marriage, perhaps but for the two together, he would himself have come in for that also! The will was worth nothing except the marriage was disputed: annul the marriage, and the will was of force!

He told his sister, as nearly as he could, all that had passed between them.

"If he wanted me to talk to him," he said, "why did he tell me that about Forgue? It was infernally stupid of him! But what's bred in the bone—! A gentleman 's not made in a day!"

"Nor in a thousand years, Hector!" rejoined his sister. "Donal Grant is a gentleman in the best sense of the word! That you say he is not, lets me see you are vexed with yourself. He is a little awkward sometimes, I confess; but only when he is looking at a thing from some other point of view, and does not like to say you ought to have been looking at it from the same. And you can't say he shuffles, for he never stops till he has done his best to make you!—What have you been saying to him, Hector?"

"Nothing but what I have told you; it's rather what I have not been saying!" answered her brother. "He would have had me open out to him, and I wouldn't. How could I! Whatever I said that pleased him, would have looked as if I wanted to secure my situation! Hang it all! I have a good mind to throw it up. How is a Graeme to serve under a bumpkin?"

"The man is not a bumpkin; he is a scholar and a poet!" said the lady.

"Pooh! pooh! What's a poet?"

"One that may or may not be as good a man of business as yourself when it is required of him."

"Come, come! don't you turn against me, Kate! It's hard enough to bear as it is!"

Miss Graeme made no reply. She was meditating all she knew of Donal, to guide her to the something to which she was sure her brother had not let him come; and presently she made him recount again all they had said to each other.

"I tell you, Hector," she exclaimed, "you never made such a fool of yourself in your life! If I know human nature, that man is different from any other you have had to do with. It will take a woman, a better woman than your sister, I confess, to understand him; but I see a little farther into him than you do. He is a man who, never having had money enough to learn the bad uses of it, and never having formed habits it takes money to supply, having no ambition, living in books not in places, and for pleasure having more at his command in himself than the richest—he is a man who, I say, would find money an impediment to his happiness, for he must have a sense of duty with regard to it which would interfere with everything he liked best. Besides, though he does not care a straw for the judgment of the world where it differs from him, he would be sorry to seem to go against that judgment where he agrees with it: scorning to marry any woman for her money, he would not have the world think he had done so."

"Ah, Katey, there I have you! The world would entirely approve of his doing that!"

"I will take a better position then:—he would not willingly seem to have done a thing he himself despises. The man believes himself sent into the world to teach it something: he would not have it thrown in his teeth that, after all, he looks to the main chance as keenly as another! He would starve before he would have men say so—yes, even say so falsely. I am as sure he did not marry lady Arctura for her money, as I am sure lord Forgue, or you, Hector, would have done it if you had had a chance.—There!—My conviction is that the bumpkin sought a fit opening to tell you that the will was to go for nothing, and that no word need be said about the marriage. You know he made you promise not to mention it—only I wormed it out of you!"

"That's just like you women! The man you take a fancy to is always head and shoulders above other men!"

"As you take it so, I will tell you more: that man will never marry again!"

"Wait a bit. Admiration is sometimes mutual: who knows but he may ask you next!"

"If he did ask me, I might take him, but I should never think so much of him!"

"Heroic Kate!"

"If you had been a little more heroic, Hector, you would have responded to him—and found it considerably to your advantage."

"You don't imagine I would be indebted—"

"Hush! Hush! Don't pledge yourself in a hurry—even to me!" said Kate. "Leave as wide a sea-margin about your boat as you may. You don't know what you would or would not. Mr. Grant knows, but you do not."

"Mr. Grant again!—Well!"

"Well!—we shall see!"

And they soon did. For that same evening Donal called, and asked to see Miss Graeme.

"I am sorry my brother is gone down to the town," she said.

"It was you I wanted to see," he answered. "I wish to speak openly to you, for I imagine you will understand me better than your brother. Perhaps I ought rather to say—I shall be better able to explain myself to you."

There was that in his countenance which seemed to seize and hold her—a calm exaltation, as of a man who had outlived weakness and was facing the eternal. The spirit of a smile hovered about his mouth and eyes, embodying itself now and then in a grave, sweet, satisfied smile: the man seemed full of content, not with himself, but with something he would gladly share.

"I have been talking with your brother," he said, after a brief pause.

"I know," she answered. "I am afraid he did not meet you as he ought. He is a good and honourable man; but like most men he needs a moment to pull himself together. Few men, Mr. Grant, when suddenly called upon, answer from the best that is in them."

"The fact is simply this," resumed Donal: "I do not want the Morven property. I thank God for lady Arctura: what was hers I do not desire."

"But may it not be your duty to take it, Mr. Grant?—Pardon me for suggesting duty to one who always acts from it."

"I have reflected, and do not think God wants me to take it. Because she is mine, ought I of necessity to be enslaved to all her accidents? Must I, because I love her, hoard her gowns and shoes?"

Then first Miss Graeme noted that he never spoke of his wife as in the past.

"But there are others to be considered," she replied. "You have made me think about many things, Mr. Grant! My brother and I have had many talks as to what we would do if the land were ours."

"And yours it shall be," said Donal, "if you will take it as a trust for the good of all whom it supports. I have other work to do."

"I will tell my brother what you say," answered Miss Graeme, with victory in her heart—for was it not as she had divined?

"It is better," continued Donal, "to help make good men than happy tenants. Besides, I know how to do the one, and I do not know how to do the other. There would always be a prejudice against me too, as not to the manner born. But if your brother should accept my offer, I hope he will not think me interfering if I talk sometimes of the principles of the relation. Things go wrong, generally, because men have such absurd and impossible notions about possession. They call things their own which it is impossible, from their very nature, ever to possess or make their own. Power was never given to man over men for his own sake, and the nearer he that so uses it comes to success, the more utter will prove his discomfiture. Talk to your brother about it, Miss Graeme. Tell him that, as heir to the title, and as head of the family, he can do more than any other with the property, and I will gladly make it over to him without reserve. I would not be even partially turned aside from my own calling."

"I will tell him what you say. I told him he had misunderstood you. I saw into your generous thought."

"It is not generous at all. My dear Miss Graeme, you do not know how little of a temptation such things are to me! There are some who only care to inherit straight from the first Father. You may say the earth is the Lord's, and therefore a part of that first inheritance: I admit it; but such possession as this in question would not satisfy me in the least. I must inherit the earth in a far deeper, grander, truer way than calling the land mine, before I shall count myself to have come into my own. I want to have all things just as the maker of me wants me to have them.—I will call on you again to-morrow; I must now go back to the earl. Poor man, he is sinking fast! but I believe he is more at peace than he has ever been before!"