CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE CASTLE-ROOF
One stormy Friday night in the month of March, when a bitter east wind was blowing, Donal, seated at the plain deal-table he had got Mrs. Brookes to find him that he might use it regardless of ink, was drawing upon it a diagram, in quest of a simplification for Davie, when a sudden sense of cold made him cast a glance at his fire. He had been aware that it was sinking, but, as there was no fuel in the room, had forgotten it again: it was very low, and he must at once fetch both wood and coal! In certain directions and degrees of wind this was rather a ticklish task; but he had taken the precaution of putting up here and there a bit of rope. Closing the door behind him to keep in what warmth he might, and ascending the stairs a few feet higher, he stepped out on the bartizan, and so round the tower to the roof. There he stood for a moment to look about him.
It was a moonlit night, so far as the clouds, blown in huge and almost continuous masses over the heavens, would permit the light of the moon to emerge. The roaring of the sea came like a low rolling mist across the flats. The air gloomed and darkened and lightened again around him, as the folds of the cloud-blanket overhead were torn, or dropped trailing, or gathered again in the arms of the hurrying wind. As he stood, it seemed suddenly to change, and take a touch of south in its blowing. The same instant came to his ear a loud wail: it was the ghost-music! There was in it the cry of a discord, mingling with a wild rolling change of harmonies. He stood "like one forbid," and listened with all his power. It came again, and again, and was more continuous than he had ever heard it before. Here was now a chance indeed of tracing it home! As a gaze-hound with his eyes, as a sleuth-hound with his nose, he stood ready to start hunting with his listing listening ear. The seeming approach and recession of the sounds might be occasioned by changes in their strength, not by any change of position!
"It must come from somewhere on the roof!" he said, and setting down the pail he had brought, he got on his hands and knees, first to escape the wind in his ears, and next to diminish its hold on his person. Over roof after roof he crept like a cat, stopping to listen every time a new gush of the sound came, then starting afresh in the search for its source. Upon a great gathering of roofs like these, erected at various times on various levels, and with all kinds of architectural accommodations of one part to another, sound would be variously deflected, and as difficult to trace as inside the house! Careless of cold or danger, he persisted, creeping up, creeping down, over flat leads, over sloping slates, over great roofing stones, along low parapets, and round ticklish corners—following the sound ever, as a cat a flitting unconscious bird: when it ceased, he would keep slowly on in the direction last chosen. Sometimes, when the moon was more profoundly obscured, he would have to stop altogether, unable to get a peep of his way.
On one such occasion, when it was nearly pitch-dark, and the sound had for some time ceased, he was crouching upon a high-pitched roof of great slabs, his fingers clutched around the edges of one of them, and his mountaineering habits standing him in good stead, protected a little from the force of the blast by a huge stack of chimneys that rose to windward: while he clung thus waiting—louder than he had yet heard it, almost in his very ear, arose the musical ghost-cry—this time like that of a soul in torture. The moon came out, as at the cry, to see, but Donal could spy nothing to suggest its origin. As if disappointed, the moon instantly withdrew, the darkness again fell, and the wind rushed upon him full of keen slanting rain, as if with fierce intent of protecting the secret: there was little chance of success that night! he must break off the hunt till daylight! If there was any material factor in the sound, he would be better able to discover it then! By the great chimney-stack he could identify the spot where he had been nearest to it! There remained for the present but the task of finding his way back to his tower.
A difficult task it was—more difficult than he anticipated. He had not an idea in what direction his tower lay—had not an idea of the track, if track it could be called, by which he had come. One thing only was clear—it was somewhere else than where he was. He set out therefore, like any honest pilgrim who knows only he must go somewhere else, and began his wanderings. He found himself far more obstructed than in coming. Again and again he could go no farther in the direction he was trying, again and again had to turn and try another. It was half-an-hour at least before he came to a spot he knew, and by that time, with the rain the wind had fallen a little. Against a break in the clouds he saw the outline of one of his store-sheds, and his way was thenceforward plain. He caught up his pail, filled it with coal and wood, and hastened to his nest as quickly as cramped joints would carry him, hopeless almost of finding his fire still alive.
But when he reached the stair, and had gone down a few steps, he saw a strange sight: below him, at his door, with a small wax-taper in her hand, stood the form of a woman, in the posture of one who had just knocked, and was hearkening for an answer. So intent was she, and so loud was the wind among the roofs, that she had not heard his step, and he stood a moment afraid to speak lest he should startle her. Presently she knocked again. He made an attempt at ventriloquy, saying in a voice to sound farther off than it was, "Come in." A hand rose to the latch, and opened the door. By the hand he knew it was lady Arctura.
"Welcome to the stormy sky, my lady!" he said, as he entered the room after her—a pleasant object after his crawling excursion!
She started a little at his voice behind her, and turning was more startled still.
Donal was more like a chimney-sweep than a tutor in a lord's castle. He was begrimed and blackened from head to foot, and carried a pailful of coals and wood. Reading readily her look, he made haste to explain.
"I have been on the roof for the last hour," he said.
"What were you doing there," she asked, with a strange mingling of expressions, "in such a night?"
"I heard the music, my lady—the ghost-music, you know, that haunts the castle, and—"
"I heard it too," she murmured, with a look almost of terror. "I have often heard it before, but never so loud as to-night. Have you any notion about it, Mr. Grant?"
"None whatever—except that I am nearly sure it comes from somewhere about the roof."
"If you could clear up the mystery!"
"I have some hope of it.—You are not frightened, my lady?"
She had caught hold of the back of a chair.
"Do sit down. I will get you some water."
"No, no; I shall be right in a moment!" she answered. "Your stair has taken my breath away. But my uncle is in such a strange condition that I could not help coming to you."
"I have seen him myself, more than once, very strange."
"Will you come with me?"
"Anywhere."
"Come then."
She left the room, and led the way, by the light of her dim taper, down the stair. About the middle of it, she stopped at a door, and turning said, with a smile like that of a child, and the first untroubled look Donal had yet seen upon her face—
"How delightful it is to be taken out of fear! I am not the least afraid now!"
"I am very glad," said Donal. "I should like to kill fear; it is the shadow that follows at the heels of wrong.—Do you think the music has anything to do with your uncle's condition?"
"I do not know."
She turned again hastily, and passing through the door, entered a part of the house with which Donal had no acquaintance. With many bewildering turns, she led him to the great staircase, down which she continued her course. The house was very still: it must surely be later than he had thought—only there were so few servants in it for its extent! His guide went very fast, with a step light as a bird's: at one moment he had all but lost sight of her in the great curve. At the room in which Donal first saw the earl, she stopped.
The door was open, but there was no light within. She led him across to the door of the little chamber behind. A murmur, but no light, came from it. In a moment it was gone, and the deepest silence filled the world. Arctura entered. One step within the door she stood still, and held high her taper. Donal looked in sideways.
A small box was on the floor against the foot of the farthest wall, and on the box, in a long dressing gown of rich faded stuff, the silk and gold in which shone feebly in the dim light, stood the tall meagre form of the earl, with his back to the door, his face to the wall, close to it, and his arms and hands stretched out against it, like one upon a cross. He stood without moving a muscle or uttering a sound. What could it mean? Donal gazed in a blank dismay.
Not a minute had passed, though it was to him a long and painful time, when the murmuring came again. He listened as to a voice from another world—a thing terrible to those whose fear dwells in another world. But to Donal it was terrible as a voice from no other world could have been; it came from an unseen world of sin and suffering—a world almost a negation of the eternal, a world of darkness and the shadow of death. But surely there was hope for that world yet!—for whose were the words in which its indwelling despair grew audible?
"And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss!"
Again the silence fell, but the form did not move, and still they stood regarding him.
From far away came the sound of the ghost-music. The head against the wall began to move as if waking from sleep. The hands sank along the wall and fell by the sides. The earl gave a deep sigh, but still stood leaning his forehead against the wall.
Arctura turned, and they left the room.
She went down the stair, and on to the library. Its dark oak cases and old bindings reflected hardly a ray of the poor taper she carried; but the fire was not yet quite out. She set down the light, and looked at Donal in silence.
"What does it all mean?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
"God knows!" she returned solemnly.
"Are we safe?" he asked. "May he not come here?"
"I do not think he will. I have seen him in many parts of the house, but never here."
Even as she spoke the door swung noiselessly open, and the earl entered. His face was ghastly pale; his eyes were wide open; he came straight towards them. But he did not see them; or if he did, he saw them but as phantoms of the dream in which he was walking—phantoms which had not yet become active in the dream. He drew a chair to the embers, in his fancy doubtless a great fire, sat for a moment or two gazing into them, rose, went the whole length of the room, took down a book, returned with it to the fire, drew towards him Arctura's tiny taper, opened the book, and began to read in an audible murmur. Donal, trying afterwards to recall and set down what he had heard, wrote nothing better than this:—
In the heart of the earth-cave
Lay the king.
Through chancel and choir and nave
The bells ring.
Said the worm at his side,
Sweet fool,
Turn to thy bride;
Is the night so cool?
Wouldst thou lie like a stone till the aching morn
Out of the dark be born?
Heavily pressed the night enorm,
But he heard the voice of the worm,
Like the sound of a muttered thunder low,
In the realms where no feet go.
And he said, I will rise,
I will will myself glad;
I will open my eyes,
And no more sleep sad.
For who is a god
But the man who can spring
Up from the sod,
And be his own king?
I will model my gladness,
Dig my despair—
And let goodness or badness
Be folly's own care!
I will be content,
And the world shall spin round
Till its force be outspent.
It shall drop
Like a top
Spun by a boy,
While I sit in my tent,
In a featureless joy—
Sit without sound,
And toss up my world,
Till it burst and be drowned
In the blackness upcurled
From the deep hell-ground.
The dreams of a god
Are the worlds of his slaves:
I will be my own god,
And rule my own knaves!
He went on in this way for some minutes; then the rimes grew less perfect, and the utterance sank into measured prose. The tone of the speaker showed that he took the stuff for glowing verse, and regarded it as embodying his own present consciousness. One might have thought the worm would have a word to say in rejoinder; but no; the worm had vanished, and the buried dreamer had made himself a god—his own god! Donal stole up softly behind him, and peeped at the open book: it was the Novum Organum!
They glided out of the room, and left the dreamer to his dreams.
"Do you think," said Donal, "I ought to tell Simmons?"
"It would be better. Do you know where to find him?"
"I do not."
"I will show you a bell that rings in his room. He will think his lordship has rung it."
They went and rang the bell. In a minute or two they heard the steps of the faithful servant seeking his master, and bade each other good-night.
CHAPTER XL.
A RELIGION-LESSON
In the morning Donal learned from Simmons that his master was very ill—could not raise his head.
"The way he do moan and cry!" said Simmons. "You would think sure he was either out of his mind, or had something heavy upon it! All the years I known him, he been like that every now an' then, and back to his old self again, little the worse! Only the fits do come oftener."
Towards the close of school, as Donal was beginning to give his lesson in religion, lady Arctura entered, and sat down beside Davie.
"What would you think of me, Davie," Donal was saying, "if I were angry with you because you did not know something I had never taught you?"
Davie only laughed. It was to him a grotesque, an impossible supposition.
"If," Donal resumed, "I were to show you a proposition of Euclid which you had never seen before, and say to you, 'Now, Davie, this is one of the most beautiful of all Euclid's propositions, and you must immediately admire it, and admire Euclid for constructing it!'—what would you say?"
Davie thought, and looked puzzled.
"But you wouldn't do it, sir!" he said. "—I know you wouldn't do it!" he added, after a moment.
"Why should I not?"
"It isn't your way, sir."
"But suppose I were to take that way?"
"You would not then be like yourself, sir!"
"Tell me how I should be unlike myself. Think."
"You would not be reasonable."
"What would you say to me?"
"I should say, 'Please, sir, let me learn the proposition first, and then I shall be able to admire it. I don't know it yet!'"
"Very good!—Now again, suppose, when you tried to learn it, you were not able to do so, and therefore could see no beauty in it—should I blame you?"
"No, sir; I am sure you would not—because I should not be to blame, and it would not be fair; and you never do what is not fair!"
"I am glad you think so: I try to be fair.—That looks as if you believed in me, Davie!"
"Of course I do, sir!"
"Why?"
"Just because you are fair."
"Suppose, Davie, I said to you, 'Here is a very beautiful thing I should like you to learn,' and you, after you had partly learned it, were to say 'I don't see anything beautiful in this: I am afraid I never shall!'—would that be to believe in me?"
"No, surely, sir! for you know best what I am able for."
"Suppose you said, 'I daresay it is all as good as you say, but I don't care to take so much trouble about it,'—what would that be?"
"Not to believe in you, sir. You would not want me to learn a thing that was not worth my trouble, or a thing I should not be glad of knowing when I did know it."
"Suppose you said, 'Sir, I don't doubt what you say, but I am so tired, I don't mean to do anything more you tell me,'—would you then be believing in me?"
"No. That might be to believe your word, but it would not be to trust you. It would be to think my thinks better than your thinks, and that would be no faith at all."
Davie had at times an oddly childish way of putting things.
"Suppose you were to say nothing, but go away and do nothing of what I told you—what would that be?"
"Worse and worse; it would be sneaking."
"One question more: what is faith—the big faith I mean—not the little faith between equals—the big faith we put in one above us?"
"It is to go at once and do the thing he tells us to do."
"If we don't, then we haven't faith in him?"
"No; certainly not."
"But might not that be his fault?"
"Yes—if he was not good—and so I could not trust him. If he said I was to do one kind of thing, and he did another kind of thing himself, then of course I could not have faith in him."
"And yet you might feel you must do what he told you!"
"Yes."
"Would that be faith in him?"
"No."
"Would you always do what he told you?"
"Not if he told me to do what it would be wrong to do."
"Now tell me, Davie, what is the biggest faith of all—the faith to put in the one only altogether good person."
"You mean God, Mr. Grant?"
"Whom else could I mean?"
"You might mean Jesus."
"They are one; they mean always the same thing, do always the same thing, always agree. There is only one thing they don't do the same in—they do not love the same person."
"What do you mean, Mr. Grant?" interrupted Arctura.
She had been listening intently: was the cloven foot of Mr. Grant's heresy now at last about to appear plainly?
"I mean this," answered Donal, with a smile that seemed to Arctura such a light as she had never seen on human face, "—that God loves Jesus, not God; and Jesus loves God, not Jesus. We love one another, not ourselves—don't we, Davie?"
"You do, Mr. Grant," answered Davie modestly.
"Now tell me, Davie, what is the great big faith of all—that which we have to put in the Father of us, who is as good not only as thought can think, but as good as heart can wish—infinitely better than anybody but Jesus Christ can think—what is the faith to put in him?"
"Oh, it is everything!" answered Davie.
"But what first?" asked Donal.
"First, it is to do what he tells us."
"Yes, Davie: it is to learn his problems by going and doing his will; not trying to understand things first, but trying first to do things. We must spread out our arms to him as a child does to his mother when he wants her to take him; then when he sets us down, saying, 'Go and do this or that,' we must make all the haste in us to go and do it. And when we get hungry to see him, we must look at his picture."
"Where is that, sir?"
"Ah, Davie, Davie! don't you know that yet? Don't you know that, besides being himself, and just because he is himself, Jesus is the living picture of God?"
"I know, sir! We have to go and read about him in the book."
"May I ask you a question, Mr. Grant?" said Arctura.
"With perfect freedom," answered Donal. "I only hope I may be able to answer it."
"When we read about Jesus, we have to draw for ourselves his likeness from words, and you know what kind of a likeness the best artist would make that way, who had never seen with his own eyes the person whose portrait he had to paint!"
"I understand you quite," returned Donal. "Some go to other men to draw it for them; and some go to others to hear from them what they must draw—thus getting all their blunders in addition to those they must make for themselves. But the nearest likeness you can see of him, is the one drawn by yourself while doing what he tells you. He has promised to come into those who keep his word. He will then be much nearer to them than in bodily presence; and such may well be able to draw for themselves the likeness of God.—But first of all, and before everything else, mind, Davie, OBEDIENCE!"
"Yes, Mr. Grant; I know," said Davie.
"Then off with you! Only think sometimes it is God who gave you your game."
"I'm going to fly my kite, Mr. Grant."
"Do. God likes to see you fly your kite, and it is all in his March wind it flies. It could not go up a foot but for that."
Davie went.
"You have heard that my uncle is very ill to-day!" said Arctura.
"I have. Poor man!" replied Donal.
"He must be in a very peculiar condition."
"Of body and mind both. He greatly perplexes me."
"You would be quite as much perplexed if you had known him as long as I have! Never since my father's death, which seems a century ago, have I felt safe; never in my uncle's presence at ease. I get no nearer to him. It seems to me, Mr. Grant, that the cause of discomfort and strife is never that we are too near others, but that we are not near enough."
This was a remark after Donal's own heart.
"I understand you," he said, "and entirely agree with you."
"I never feel that my uncle cares for me except as one of the family, and the holder of its chief property. He would have liked me better, perhaps, if I had been dependent on him."
"How long will he be your guardian?" asked Donal.
"He is no longer my guardian legally. The time set by my father's will ended last year. I am three and twenty, and my own mistress. But of course it is much better to have the head of the house with me. I wish he were a little more like other people!—But tell me about the ghost-music: we had not time to talk of it last night!"
"I got pretty near the place it came from. But the wind blew so, and it was so dark, that I could do nothing more then."
"You will try again?"
"I shall indeed."
"I am afraid, if you find a natural cause for it, I shall be a little sorry."
"How can there be any other than a natural cause, my lady? God and Nature are one. God is the causing Nature.—Tell me, is not the music heard only in stormy nights, or at least nights with a good deal of wind?"
"I have heard it in the daytime!"
"On a still day?"
"I think not. I think too I never heard it on a still summer night."
"Do you think it comes in all storms?"
"I think not."
"Then perhaps it has something to do not merely with the wind, but with the direction of the wind!"
"Perhaps. I cannot say."
"That might account for the uncertainty of its visits! The instrument may be accessible, yet its converse with the operating power so rare that it has not yet been discovered. It is a case in which experiment is not permitted us: we cannot make a wind blow, neither can we vary the direction of the wind blowing; observation alone is left us, and that can be only at such times when the sound is heard."
"Then you can do nothing till the music comes again?"
"I think I can do something now; for, last night I seemed so near the place whence the sounds were coming, that the eye may now be able to supplement the ear, and find the music-bird silent on her nest. If the wind fall, as I think it will in the afternoon, I shall go again and see whether I can find anything. I noticed last night that simultaneously with the sound came a change in the wind—towards the south, I think.—What a night it was after I left you!"
"I think," said Arctura, "the wind has something to do with my uncle's fits. Was there anything very strange about it last night? When the wind blows so angrily, I always think of that passage about the prince of the power of the air being the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. Tell me what it means."
"I do not know what it means," answered Donal; "but I suppose the epithet involves a symbol of the difference between the wind of God that inspires the spiritual true self of man, and the wind of the world that works by thousands of impulses and influences in the lower, the selfish self of children that will not obey. I will look at the passage and see what I can make out of it. Only the spiritual and the natural blend so that we may one day be astonished!—Would you like to join the music-hunt, my lady?"
"Do you mean, go on the roof? Should I be able?"
"I would not have you go in the night, and the wind blowing," said Donal with a laugh; "but you can come and see, and judge for yourself. The bartizan is the only anxious place, but as I mean to take Davie with me, you may think I do not count it very dangerous!"
"Will it be safe for Davie?"
"I can venture more with Davie than with another: he obeys in a moment."
"I will obey too if you will take me," said Arctura.
"Then, please, come to the schoolroom at four o'clock. But we shall not go except the wind be fallen."
When Davie heard what his tutor proposed, he was filled with the restlessness of anticipation. Often while helping Donal with his fuel, he had gazed up at him on the roof with longing eyes, but Donal had never let him go upon it.