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

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!"

Donal took his leave, and Miss Graeme had plenty to think of till her brother's return: if she felt a little triumphant, it may be pardoned her.

He was ashamed, and not a little humbled by what she told him. He did not wait for Donal to come to him, but went to the castle early the next morning. Nor was he mistaken in trusting Donal to believe that it was not from eagerness to retrace in his own interest the false step he had taken, but from desire to show his shame of having behaved so ungenerously: Donal received him so as to make it plain he did not misunderstand him, and they had a long talk. Graeme was all the readier for his blunder to hear what Donal had to say, and Donal's unquestionable disinterestedness was endlessly potent with Graeme. Their interview resulted in Donal's thinking still better of him than before, and being satisfied that, up to his light, the man was honest-which is saying much-and thence open to conviction, and both sides of a question. But ere it was naturally over, Donal was summoned to the earl.

After his niece's death, no one would do for him but Donal; nobody could please him but Donal. His mind as well as his body was much weaker. But the intellect, great thing though it be, is yet but the soil out of which, or rather in which, higher things must grow, and it is well when that soil is not too strong, so to speak, for the most gracious and lovely of plants to root themselves in it. When the said soil is proud and unwilling to serve, it must be thinned and pulverized with sickness, failure, poverty, fear-that the good seeds of God's garden may be able to root themselves in it; when they get up a little, they will use all the riches and all the strength of the stiffest soil.

"Who will have the property now?" he asked one day. "Is the factor anywhere in the running?"

"Title and property both will be his," answered Donal.

"And my poor Davie?" said the earl, with wistful question in the eyes that gazed up in Donal's face. "Forgue, the rascal, has all my money in his power already."

"I will see to Davie," replied Donal. "When you and I meet, my lord-by and by, I shall not be ashamed."

The poor man was satisfied. He sent for Davie, and told him he was always to do as Mr. Grant wished, that he left him in his charge, and that he must behave to him like a son.

Davie was fast making acquaintance with death-but it was not to him dreadful as to most children, for he saw it through the face and words of the man whom he most honoured.


CHAPTER LXXXIV.

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