Donal Grant, George MacDonald [classic novels for teens txt] 📗

whom all had believed his wife. Through the marriage of the eldest with the heiress, he would make him the head of the house in power as in dignity, and this was now almost the only tie that bound him to the reality of things. He cared little enough about Forgue, but his conscience was haunted with his cruelties to the youth's mother. These were often such as I dare not put on record: they came all of the pride of self-love and self-worship-as evil demons as ever raged in the fiercest fire of Moloch. In the madness with which they possessed him, he had inflicted upon her not only sorest humiliations, but bodily tortures: he would see, he said, what she would bear for his sake! In the horrible presentments of his drug-procured dreams they returned upon him in terrible forms of righteous retaliation. And now, though to himself he was constantly denying a life beyond, the conviction had begun to visit and overwhelm him that he must one day meet her again: fain then would he be armed with something which for her sake he had done for her children! One of the horrible laws of the false existence he led was that, for the deadening of the mind to any evil, there was no necessity it should be done and done again; it had but to be presented in the form of a thing done, or a thing going to be done, to seem a thing reasonable and doable. In his being, a world of false appearances had taken the place of reality; a creation of his own had displaced the creation of the essential Life, by whose power alone he himself falsely created; and in this world he was the dupe of his own home-born phantoms. Out of this conspiracy of marsh and mirage, what vile things might not issue! Over such a chaos the devil has power all but creative. He cannot in truth create, but he can with the degenerate created work moral horrors too hideous to be analogized by any of the horrors of the unperfected animal world. Such are being constantly produced in human society; many of them die in the darkness in which they are generated; now and then one issues, blasting the public day with its hideous glare. Because they are seldom seen, many deny they exist, or need be spoken of if they do. But to terrify a man at the possibilities of his neglected nature, is to do something towards the redemption of that nature.

School-hours were over, but Davie was seated where he had left him, still working. At sight of him Donal, feeling as if he had just come from the presence of the damned, almost burst into tears. A moment more and Arctura entered: it was as if the roof of hell gave way, and the blue sky of the eternal came pouring in heavenly deluge through the ruined vault.

"I have been to call upon Sophia," she said.

"I am glad to hear it," answered Donal: any news from an outer world of yet salvable humanity was welcome as summer to a land of ice.

"Yes," she said; "I am able to go and see her now, because I am no longer afraid of her-partly, I think, because I no longer care what she thinks of me. Her power over me is gone."

"And will never return," said Donal, "while you keep close to the master. With him you need no human being to set you right, and will allow no human being to set you wrong; you will need neither friend nor minister nor church, though all will help you. I am very glad, for something seems to tell me I shall not be long here."

Arctura dropped on a chair-pale as rosy before.

"Has anything fresh happened?" she asked, in a low voice that did not sound like hers. "Surely you will not leave me while-.-I thought-I thought-.-What is it?"

"It is only a feeling I have," he answered. "I believe I am out of spirits."

"I never saw you so before!" said Arctura. "I hope you are not going to be ill."

"Oh, no; it is not that! I will tell you some day, but I cannot now. All is in God's hands!"

She looked anxiously at him, but did not ask him any question more. She proposed they should take a turn in the park, and his gloom wore gradually off.


CHAPTER LIX.

DUST TO DUST.

The next night, as if by a common understanding, for it was without word spoken, the three met again in the housekeeper's room, where she had supper waiting. Of business nothing was said until that was over. Mistress Brookes told them two or three of the stories of which she had so many, and Donal recounted one or two of those that floated about his country-side.

"I've been thinkin'," said mistress Brookes at length, "seein' it's a bonny starry nicht, we couldna do better than lift an' lay doon this varra nicht. The hoose is asleep."

"What do you say to that place in the park where was once a mausoleum?" said Donal.

"It's the varra place!-an' the sooner the better-dinna ye think, my lady?"

Arctura with a look referred the question to Donal.

"Surely," he answered. "But will there not be some preparations to make?"

"There's no need o' mony!" returned the housekeeper. "I'll get a fine auld sheet, an' intil 't we'll put the remains, an' row them up, an' carry them to their hame. I'll go an' get it, my lady.-But wouldna 't be better for you and me, sir, to get a' that dune by oorsel's? My leddy could j'in us whan we cam up."

"She wouldn't like to be left here alone. There is nothing to be called fearsome!"

"Nothing at all," said Arctura.

"The forces of nature," said Donal, "are constantly at work to destroy the dreadful, and restore the wholesome. It is but a few handfuls of clean dust."

The housekeeper went to one of her presses, and brought out a sheet. Donal put a plaid round lady Arctura. They went up to her room, and so down to the chapel. Half-way down the narrow descent mistress Brookes murmured, "Eh, sirs!" and said no more.

Each carried a light, and the two could see the chapel better. A stately little place it was: when the windows were unmasked, it would be beautiful!

They stood for some moments by the side of the bed, regarding in silence. Seldom sure had bed borne one who slept so long!-one who, never waking might lie there still! When they spoke it was in whispers.

"How are we to manage it, mistress Brookes?" said Donal.

"Lay the sheet handy, alang the side o' the bed, maister Grant, an' I s' lay in the dist, han'fu' by han'fu'. I hae that respec' for the deid, I hae no difficlety aboot han'lin' onything belongin' to them."

"Gien it hadna been that he tuik it again," said Donal, "the Lord's ain body wad hae come to this."

As he spoke he laid the sheet on the bed, and began to lay in it the dry dust and air-wasted bones, handling them as reverently as if the spirit had but just departed. Mistress Brookes would have prevented Arctura, but she insisted on having her share in the burying of her own: who they were God knew, but they should be hers anyhow, and one day she would know! For to fancy we go into the other world a set of spiritual moles burrowing in the dark of a new and unknown existence, is worthy only of such as have a lifeless Law to their sire. We shall enter it as children with a history, as children going home to a long line of living ancestors, to develop closest relations with them. She would yet talk, live face to face, with those whose dust she was now lifting in her two hands to restore it to its dust. Then they carried the sheet to the altar, and thence swept into it every little particle, back to its mother dust. That done, Donal knotted the sheet together, and they began to look around them.

Desirous of discovering where the main entrance to the chapel had been, Donal spied under the windows a second door, and opened it with difficulty. It disclosed a passage below the stair, three steps lower than the floor of the chapel, parallel with the wall, and turning, at right angles under the gallery. Here he saw signs of an obliterated door in the outer wall, but could examine no farther for the present.

In the meantime his companions had made another sort of discovery: near the foot of the bed was a little table, on which were two drinking vessels, apparently of pewter, and a mouldering pack of cards! Card-playing and the hidden room did hold some relation with each other! The cards and the devil were real!

Donal took up the sheet-a light burden, and Arctura led the way. Arrived at her room, they went softly across to the door opening on Donal's stair-not without fear of the earl, whom indeed they might meet anywhere-and by that descending, reached the open air, and took their way down the terraces and through the park to the place of burial.

It was a frosty night, with the waning sickle of a moon low in the heaven, and many brilliant stars above it. Followed by faint ethereal shadows, they passed over the grass, through the ghostly luminous dusk-of funereal processions one of the strangest that ever sought a tomb.

The ruin was in a hollow, surrounded by trees. Donal removed a number of fallen stones and dug a grave. They lowered into it the knotted sheet, threw in the earth again, heaped the stones above, and left the dust with its dust. Then silent they went back, straight along the green, moon-regarded rather than moon-lit grass: if any one had seen them through the pale starry night, he would surely have taken them for a procession of the dead themselves!

No dream of death sought Arctura that night, but in the morning she woke suddenly from one of disembodied delight.

CHAPTER LX.

A LESSON ABOUT DEATH.

WHATEVER lady Arctura might decide concerning the restoration of the chapel to the light of day, Donal thought it would not be amiss to find, without troubling her, what he could of its relation to the rest of the house: and it favoured his wish that Arctura was prevailed upon by the housekeeper to remain in bed the next day. Her strong will, good courage, and trusting heart, had made severe demands upon an organization as delicate as responsive. It was now Saturday: he resolved to go alone in the afternoon to explore-and first of all would try the door beside the little gallery.

As soon as he was free, he got the tools he judged necessary, and went down.

The door was of strong sound oak, with ornate iron hinges right across it. He was on the better side for opening it, that is, the inside, but though the ends of the hinges were exposed, the door was so well within the frame that it was useless to think of heaving them off the bearing-pins. The huge lock and its bolt were likewise before him, but the key was in the lock from the other side, so that it could not be picked; while the nails that fastened it to the door were probably riveted through a plate. But there was the socket into which the bolt