Donal Grant

MORVEN HOUSE.

In the evening Donal went again to the home-farm. Finding himself alone in the drawing-room, he walked out into the old garden.

"Thank God," he said to himself, "if my wife should come here some sad, sweet night, with a low moon-crescent, and a gently thinking wind, and wander about the garden, it will not be to know herself forgotten!"

He went up and down the grassy paths. Once again, all as long ago--for it seemed long now--he was joined by Miss Graeme.

"I couldn't help fancying," she said as she came up to him, "that I saw lady Arctura walking by your side.--God forgive me! how could I be so heartless as mention her!"

"Her name will always be pleasant in my ears," returned Donal. "I was thinking of her--that was how you felt as if you saw her! You did not really see anything, did you?"

"Oh, no!"

"She is nearer me than that," said Donal. "She will be with me wherever I am; I shall never be sad. God is with me, and I do not weep that I cannot see him: I wait; I wait."

Miss Graeme was in tears.

"Mr. Grant," she said, "she is gone a happy angel to heaven instead of a pining woman! That is your doing! God bless you!--You will let me think of you as a friend?"

"Always; always: you loved her."

"I did not at first; I thought of her only as a poor troubled creature! Now I know there was more life in her trouble than in my content. I came not only to love her, but to look up to her as a saint: if ever there was one, it was she, Mr. Grant. She often came here after I showed her that poem. She used to walk here alone in the twilight. That horrid Miss Carmichael! she was the plague of her life!"

"She was God's messenger--to buffet her, and make her know her need of him. Be sure, Miss Graeme, not a soul can do without him."

Here Mr. Graeme joined them.

"I do not think the earl will last many days," said Donal. "It would be well, it seems to me, at once upon his death to take possession of the house in the town. It is the only property that goes with the title. And of course you would at once take up your abode in the castle! You will find in the earl's papers many proofs, I imagine, that his son has no claim. I would have a deed of gift drawn up, but would rather you seemed to come in by natural succession. We are not bound to tell the world everything; we are only bound to be able without shame to tell it everything. And then I shall have a favour to ask: Morven House, down in the town, is of no great use to you: let me rent it of you. I should like to live there and have a school, with Davie for my first pupil. When we get another, we will try to make a man of him too. We will not care so much about making a great scholar, or a great anything of him, but a true man. We will try to help the whole man of him into the likeness of the one man."

Here Mr. Graeme broke in.

"You will never make a living that way!" he said.

Donal opened his eyes and looked at him. Like one convicted and ashamed, the eyes of the man of business fell before those of the man of God.

"Ah," said Donal, "you have not an idea, Mr. Graeme, on how little I could live!--Here, you had better take the will," he added, pulling it from his pocket.

Mr. Graeme hesitated.

"If you would rather not, I will keep it. I would throw it in the fire, but either you or I must keep it for a time as against all chances."

Mr. Graeme took it.

That night the earl died.

Donal wrote to Percy that his father was dead. Two days after, he appeared. The new earl met him in the hall.

"Mr. Graeme," said Percy,--

"I am lord Morven, Mr. Graeme," returned his lordship.

The fellow said an evil word, turned on his heel, and left them to bury his father without him.

The funeral over, the earl turned to Donal and looked him in the face: they walked back to the castle arm in arm, and from that moment were as brothers.

Earl Hector did nothing of importance without consulting Donal, and Donal had the more influence both with landlord and tenants that he had no interest in the property.

The same week he left the castle, and took possession of Morven House. The people said Mr. Grant had played his cards well: had they known what he had really done, they would have called him a born idiot.

Davie, to whom no calamity could be overwhelming so long as he had Mr. Grant, accompanied him gladly, more than content to live with him till he went to college, whither the earl wished to send him. Donal hindered rather than sped the day. When it came, the earl would have had him go too, but Donal would not.

"I have done what I can," he said. "It is time he should walk alone."

It was soon evident that the boy would not disgrace him. There is no certainty as to how deep any teaching may have gone--as to whether it has reached the issues of life or not, until a youth is left by himself, and has to choose and refuse companions: the most promising youths are often but promisers.

With the full concurrence of Miss Graeme, Donal had persuaded mistress Brookes--easy persuasion where the suggestion was enough!--to keep house for him. They went together, and together unlocked the door of Morven House.

Mistress Brookes said the place was in an awful state. There was not much, to be sure, for the mason to do, but for the carpenter! It had not been touched for generations! He must go away, and stay away till she summoned him!

Donal gladly went home to his hills, and took Davie with him. He told his father and mother, sir Gibbie and his lady, the things that had befallen him, and every one approved heartily of what he had done. His mother took his renunciation of the property as a matter of course. All agreed it should not be spoken of. When they returned to Auchars, sir Gibbie and lady Galbraith went with them, and staid for some weeks. The townsfolk said he was but a poor baronet that could not speak mortal word.

Lord Morven and Miss Graeme had done their best to make the house what they thought Donal would like. But in the castle they kept for him the rooms lady Arctura had called her own. There he gathered the books, and a few other of the more immediately personal possessions of his wife--her piano for one--upon which he taught himself to play a little; and thither he betook himself often on holidays, and always on Sunday evenings. What went on then I leave to the imagination of the reader who knows that alone one may meet many, sitting still may travel far, and silent make the universe hear.

Lord Morven kept Larkie for Davie. The last I heard of Davie was that he was in India, an officer in the army, beloved of his men, and exercising a most beneficial influence on his regiment. The things he had learned he had so learned that they went out from him, finding new ground in which to root and grow. In his day and generation he helped the coming of the kingdom of truth and righteousness, and so fulfilled his high calling.

It was some time before Donal had any pupils, and he never had many, for he was regarded as a most peculiar man, with ideas about education odd in the extreme. It was granted, however, that, if a boy stayed, or rather if he allowed him to stay with him long enough, he was sure to turn out a gentleman: that which was deeper and was the life of the gentleman, people seldom saw--would seldom have valued if they had seen. Most parents would like their children to be ladies and gentlemen; that they should be sons and daughters of God, they do not care!

The few wise souls in the neighbourhood know Donal as the heart of the place--the man to go to in any difficulty, in any trouble or apprehension.

Miss Carmichael grew by degrees less talkative, and less obtrusive of her opinions. After some years she condescended to marry a farmer on lord Morven's estate. Their only child, a thoughtful boy, and a true reader, sought the company of the grave man with the sweet smile, going often to his house to ask him about this or that. He reminded him of Davie, and grew very dear to him. The mother discovering that, as often as he stole away, it was to go to the master--everybody called him the maister--scolded and forbade. But the prohibition brought such a time of tears and gloom and loss of appetite, and her husband so little shared her prejudices against the master, that she was compelled to recall it, and the boy went and went as before. When he was taken ill, and on his deathbed, nobody could make him happy but the master; he almost nursed him through the last few days of his short earthly life. But the mother seemed not to like him any the better--rather to regard him as having deprived her of some of her rights in the love of her boy.

Donal is still a present power of heat and light in the town of Auchars. He wears the same solemn look, the same hovering smile. They say to those who can read them, "I know in whom I have believed." It is the God who is the Father of the Lord that he believes in. His life is hid with Christ in God, and he has no anxiety about anything. The wheels of the coming chariot, moving fast or slow to fetch him, are always moving; and whether it arrive at night, or at cock-crowing, or in the blaze of noon, is one to him. He is ready for the life his Arctura knows. "God is," he says, "and all is well." He never disputes, rarely seeks to convince. "I will let what light I have shine; but disputation is smoke. It is to no profit!--And I do like," he says, "to give and to get the good of things!"

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