Donal Grant

They went on talking about the thing for a while, pacing up and down the garden, the sun hot above their heads, the grass cool under their feet.

"It is enough," said Miss Graeme, with a rather forced laugh, "to make one glad the castle does not go with the title."

"Why so?" asked Donal.

"Because," she answered, "were anything to happen to the boys up there, Hector would come in for the title."

"I'm not of my sister's mind!" said Mr. Graeme, laughing more genuinely. "A title with nothing to keep it up is a simple misfortune. I certainly should not take out the patent. No wise man would lay claim to a title without the means to make it respected."

"Have we come to that!" exclaimed Donal. "Must even the old titles of the country be buttressed into respectability with money? Away in quiet places, reading old history books, we peasants are accustomed to think differently. If some millionaire money-lender were to buy the old keep of Arundel castle, you would respect him just as much as the present earl!"

"I would not," said Mr. Graeme. "I confess you have the better of me.—But is there not a fallacy in your argument?" he added, thinkingly.

"I believe not. If the title is worth nothing without the money, the money must be more than the title!—If I were Lazarus," Donal went on, "and the inheritor of a title, I would use it, if only for a lesson to Dives up stairs. I scorn to think that honour should wait on the heels of wealth. You may think it is because I am and always shall be a poor man; but if I know myself it is not therefore. At the same time a title is but a trifle; and if you had given any other reason for not using it than homage to Mammon, I should have said nothing."

"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 use and not abuse them!"

Donal made no other reply than to turn a look of divinely stupid surprise and pity upon the young woman. It was of no use to say anything! Were argument absolutely triumphant, Mammon would sit just where he was before! He had marked the great indifference of the Lord to the convincing of the understanding: when men knew the thing itself, then and not before would they understand its relations and reasons!

If truth belongs to the human soul, then the soul is able to see it and know it: if it do the truth, it takes therein the first possible, and almost the last necessary step towards understanding it.

Miss Graeme caught his look, and must have perceived its expression, for her face flushed a more than rosy red, and the conversation grew crumbly.

It was a half-holiday, and he stayed to tea, and after it went over the arm-buildings with Mr. Graeme, revealing such a practical knowledge of all that was going on, that his entertainer soon saw his opinion must be worth something whether his fancies were or not.

CHAPTER XXIV.

STEPHEN KENNEDY

The great comforts of Donal's life, next to those of the world in which his soul lived—the eternal world, whose doors are ever open to him who prays—were the society of his favourite books, the fashioning of his thoughts into sweetly ordered sounds in the lofty solitude of his chamber, and not infrequent communion with the cobbler and his wife. To these he had as yet said nothing of what went on at the castle: he had learned the lesson the cobbler himself gave him. But many a lesson of greater value did he learn from the philosopher of the lapstone. He who understands because he endeavours, is a freed man of the realm of human effort. He who has no experience of his own, to him the experience of others is a sealed book. The convictions that in Donal rose vaporous were rapidly condensed and shaped when he found his new friend thought likewise.

By degrees he made more and more of a companion of Davie, and such was the sweet relation between them that he would sometimes have him in his room even when he was writing. When it was time to lay in his winter-fuel, he said to him—

"Up here, Davie, we must have a good fire when the nights are long; the darkness will be like solid cold. Simmons tells me I may have as much coal and wood as I like: will you help me to get them up?"

Davie sprang to his feet: he was ready that very minute.

"I shall never learn my lessons if I am cold," added Donal, who could not bear a low temperature so well as when he was always in the open air.

"Do you learn lessons, Mr. Grant?"

"Yes indeed I do," replied Donal. "One great help to the understanding of things is to brood over them as a hen broods over her eggs: words are thought-eggs, and their chickens are truths; and in order to brood I sometimes learn by heart. I have set myself to learn, before the winter is over if I can, the gospel of John in the Greek."

"What a big lesson!" exclaimed Davie.

"Ah, but how rich it will make me!" said Donal, and that set Davie pondering.

They began to carry up the fuel, Donal taking the coals, and Davie the wood. But Donal got weary of the time it took, and set himself to find a quicker way. So next Saturday afternoon, the rudimentary remnant of the Jewish Sabbath, and the schoolboy's weekly carnival before Lent, he directed his walk to a certain fishing village, the nearest on the coast, about three miles off, and there succeeded in hiring a spare boat-spar with a block and tackle. The spar he ran out, through a notch of the battlement, near the sheds, and having stayed it well back, rove the rope through the block at the peak of it, and lowered it with a hook at the end. A moment of Davie's help below, and a bucket filled with coals was on its way up: this part of the roof was over a yard belonging to the household offices, and Davie filled the bucket from a heap they had there made. "Stand back, Davie," Donal would cry, and up would go the bucket, to the ever renewed delight of the boy. When it reached the block, Donal, by means of a guy, swung the spar on its but-end, and the bucket came to the roof through the next notch of the battlement. There he would empty it, and in a moment it would be down again to be re-filled. When he thought he had enough of coal, he turned to the wood; and thus they spent an hour of a good many of the cool evenings of autumn. Davie enjoyed it immensely; and it was no small thing for a boy delicately nurtured to be helped out of the feeling that he must have every thing done for him. When after a time he saw the heap on the roof, he was greatly impressed with the amount that could be done by little and little. In return Donal told him that if he worked well through the week, he should every Saturday evening spend an hour with him by the fire he had thus helped to provide, and they would then do something together.

After his first visit Donal went again and again to the village: he had made acquaintance with some of the people, and liked them. There was one man, however, who, although, attracted by his look despite its apparent sullenness, he had tried to draw him into conversation, seemed to avoid, almost to resent his advances. But one day as he was walking home, Stephen Kennedy overtook him, and saying he was going in his direction, walked alongside of him—to the pleasure of Donal, who loved all humanity, and especially the portion of it acquainted with hard work. He was a middle-sized young fellow, with a slouching walk, but a well shaped and well set head, and a not uncomely countenance. He was brown as sun and salt sea-winds could make him, and had very blue eyes and dark hair, telling of Norwegian ancestry. He lounged along with his hands in his pockets, as if he did not care to walk, yet got over the ground as fast as Donal, who, with yet some remnant of the peasant's stride, covered the ground as if he meant walking. After their greeting a great and enduring silence fell, which lasted till the journey was half-way over; then all at once the fisherman spoke.

"There's a lass at the castel, sir," he said, "they ca' Eppy Comin."

"There is," answered Donal.

"Do ye ken the lass, sir—to speak til her, I mean?"

"Surely," replied Donal. "I know her grandfather and grandmother well."

"Dacent fowk!" said Stephen.

"They are that!" responded Donal, "—as good people as I know!"

"Wud ye du them a guid turn?" asked the fisherman.

"Indeed I would!"

"Weel, it's this, sir: I hae grit doobts gien a' be gaein' verra weel wi' the lass at the castel."

As he said the words he turned his head aside, and spoke so low and in such a muffled way that Donal could but just make out what he said.

"You must be a little plainer if you would have me do anything," he returned.

"I'll be richt plain wi' ye, sir," answered Stephen, and then fell silent as if he would never speak again.

Donal waited, nor uttered a sound. At last he spoke once more.

"Ye maun ken, sir," he said "I hae had a fancy to the lass this mony a day; for ye'll alloo she's baith bonny an' winsome!"

Donal did not reply, for although he was ready to grant her bonny, he had never felt her winsome.

"Weel," he went on, "her an' me 's been coortin' this twa year; an' guid freen's we aye was till this last spring, whan a' at ance she turnt highty-tighty like, nor, du what I micht, could I get her to say what it was 'at cheengt her: sae far as I kenned I had dune naething, nor wad she say I had gi'en her ony cause o' complaint. But though she couldna say I had ever gi'en mair nor a ceevil word to ony lass but hersel', she appeart unco wullin' to fix me wi' this ane an' that ane or ony ane! I couldna think what had come ower her! But at last—an' a sair last it is!—I hae come to the un'erstan'in o' 't: she wud fain hae a pretence for br'akin' wi' me! She wad hae 't 'at I was duin' as she was duin' hersel'—haudin' company wi' anither!"

"Are you quite sure of what you say?" asked Donal.

"Ower sure, sir, though I'm no at leeberty to tell ye hoo I cam to be.—Dinna think, sir, 'at I'm ane to haud a lass til her word whan her hert disna back it; I wud hae said naething aboot it, but jist borne the hert-brak wi' the becomin' silence, for greitin' nor ragin' men' no nets, nor tak the life o' nae dogfish. But it's God's trowth, sir, I'm terrible feart for the lassie hersel'. She's that ta'en up wi' him, they tell me, 'at she can think o' naething but him; an' he's a yoong lord, no a puir lad like me—an' that's what fears me!"

A great dread and a great compassion together laid hold of Donal, but he did not speak.

"Gien it cam to that," resumed Stephen, "I doobt the fisher-lad wud win her better breid nor my lord; for gien a' tales be true, he wud hae to work for his ain breid; the castel 's no his, nor canna be 'cep' he merry the leddy o' 't. But it's no merryin' Eppy he'll be efter, or ony the likes o' 'im!"

"You don't surely hint," said Donal, "that there's anything between her and lord Forgue? She must be an idle girl to take such a thing into her head!"

"I wuss weel she hae ta'en 't intil her heid! she'll get it the easier oot o' her hert? But 'deed, sir, I'm sair feart! I speakna o' 't for my ain sake; for gien there be trowth intil't, there can never be mair 'atween her and me! But, eh, sir, the peety o' 't wi' sic a bonny lass!—for he canna mean fair by her! Thae gran' fowk does fearsome things! It's sma' won'er 'at whiles the puir fowk rises wi' a roar, an' tears doon a', as they did i' France!"

"All you say is quite true; but the charge is such a serious one!"

"It is that, sir! But though it be true, I'm no gaein' to mak it 'afore the warl'."