第53章

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.