CHAPTER XVII.
LADY ARCTURA
It was now almost three weeks since Donal had become an inmate of the castle, and he had scarcely set his eyes on the lady of the house. Once he had seen her back, and more than once had caught a glimpse of her profile, but he had never really seen her face, and they had never spoken to each other.
One afternoon he was sauntering along under the overhanging boughs of an avenue of beeches, formerly the approach to a house in which the family had once lived, but which had now another entrance. He had in his hand a copy of the Apocrypha, which he had never seen till he found this in the library. In his usual fashion he had begun to read it through, and was now in the book called the Wisdom of Solomon, at the 17th chapter, narrating the discomfiture of certain magicians. Taken with the beauty of the passage, he sat down on an old stone-roller, and read aloud. Parts of the passage were these—they will enrich my page:—
"For they, that promised to drive away terrors and troubles from a sick soul, were sick themselves of fear, worthy to be laughed at.
"…For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous, and being pressed with conscience, always forecasteth grievous things.
"…But they sleeping the same sleep that night, which was indeed intolerable, and which came upon them out of the bottoms of inevitable hell,
"Were partly vexed with monstrous apparitions, and partly fainted, their heart failing them: for a sudden fear, and not looked for, came upon them.
"So then whosoever there fell down was straitly kept, shut up in a prison without iron bars.
"For whether he were husbandman, or shepherd, or a labourer in the field, he was overtaken, and endured that necessity, which could not be avoided: for they were all bound with one chain of darkness.
"Whether it were a whistling wind, or a melodious noise of birds among the spreading branches, or a pleasing fall of water running violently,
"Or a terrible sound of stones cast down, or a running that could not be seen of skipping beasts, or a roaring voice of most savage wild beasts, or a rebounding echo from the hollow mountains; these things made them to swoon for fear.
"For the whole world shined with clear light, and none were hindered in their labour:
"Over them only was spread an heavy night, an image of that darkness which should afterward receive them: but yet were they unto themselves more grievous than the darkness."
He had read so much, and stopped to think a little; for through the incongruity of it, which he did not doubt arose from poverty of imagination in the translator, rendering him unable to see what the poet meant, ran yet an indubitable vein of awful truth, whether fully intended by the writer or not mattered little to such a reader as Donal—when, lifting his eyes, he saw lady Arctura standing before him with a strange listening look. A spell seemed upon her; her face was white, her lips white and a little parted.
Attracted, as she was about to pass him, by the sound of what was none the less like the Bible from the solemn crooning way in which Donal read it to the congregation of his listening thoughts, yet was certainly not the Bible, she was presently fascinated by the vague terror of what she heard, and stood absorbed: without much originative power, she had an imagination prompt and delicate and strong in response.
Donal had but a glance of her; his eyes returned again at once to his book, and he sat silent and motionless, though not seeing a word. For one instant she stood still; then he heard the soft sound of her dress as, with noiseless foot, she stole back, and took another way.
I must give my reader a shadow of her. She was rather tall, slender, and fair. But her hair was dark, and so crinkly that, when merely parted, it did all the rest itself. Her forehead was rather low. Her eyes were softly dark, and her features very regular—her nose perhaps hardly large enough, or her chin. Her mouth was rather thin-lipped, but would have been sweet except for a seemingly habitual expression of pain. A pair of dark brows overhung her sweet eyes, and gave a look of doubtful temper, yet restored something of the strength lacking a little in nose and chin. It was an interesting—not a quite harmonious face, and in happiness might, Donal thought, be beautiful even. Her figure was eminently graceful—as Donal saw when he raised his eyes at the sound of her retreat. He thought she needed not have run away as from something dangerous: why did she not pass him like any other servant of the house? But what seemed to him like contempt did not hurt him. He was too full of realities to be much affected by opinion however shown. Besides, he had had his sorrow and had learned his lesson. He was a poet—but one of the few without any weak longing after listening ears. The poet whose poetry needs an audience, can be but little of a poet; neither can the poetry that is of no good to the man himself, be of much good to anybody else. There are the song-poets and the life-poets, or rather the God-poems. Sympathy is lovely and dear—chiefly when it comes unsought; but the fame after which so many would-be, yea, so many real poets sigh, is poorest froth. Donal could sing his songs like the birds, content with the blue heaven or the sheep for an audience—or any passing angel that cared to listen. On the hill-sides he would sing them aloud, but it was of the merest natural necessity. A look of estrangement on the face of a friend, a look of suffering on that of any animal, would at once and sorely affect him, but not a disparaging expression on the face of a comparative stranger, were she the loveliest woman he had ever seen. He was little troubled about the world, because little troubled about himself.
Lady Arctura and lord Forgue lived together like brother and sister, apparently without much in common, and still less of misunderstanding. There would have been more chance of their taking a fancy to each other if they had not been brought up together; they were now little together, and never alone together.
Very few visitors came to the castle, and then only to call. Lord Morven seldom saw any one, his excuse being his health.
But lady Arctura was on terms of intimacy with Sophia Carmichael, the minister's daughter—to whom her father had communicated his dissatisfaction with the character of Donal, and poured out his indignation at his conduct. He ought to have left the parish at once! whereas he had instead secured for himself the best, the only situation in it, without giving him a chance of warning his lordship! The more injustice her father spoke against him, the more Miss Carmichael condemned him; for she was a good daughter, and looked up to her father as the wisest and best man in the parish. Very naturally therefore she repeated his words to lady Arctura. She in her turn conveyed them to her uncle. He would not, however, pay much attention to them. The thing was done, he said. He had himself seen and talked with Donal, and liked him! The young man had himself told him of the clergyman's disapprobation! He would request him to avoid all reference to religious subjects! Therewith he dismissed the matter, and forgot all about it. Anything requiring an effort of the will, an arrangement of ideas, or thought as to mode, his lordship would not encounter. Nor was anything to him of such moment that he must do it at once. Lady Arctura did not again refer to the matter: her uncle was not one to take liberties with—least of all to press to action. But she continued painfully doubtful whether she was not neglecting her duty, trying to persuade herself that she was waiting only till she should have something definite to say of her own knowledge against him.
And now what was she to conclude from his reading the Apocrypha? The fact was not to be interpreted to his advantage: was he not reading what was not the Bible as if it were the Bible, and when he might have been reading the Bible itself? Besides, the Apocrypha came so near the Bible when it was not the Bible! it must be at least rather wicked! At the same time she could not drive from her mind the impressiveness both of the matter she had heard, and his manner of reading it: the strong sound of judgment and condemnation in it came home to her—she could not have told how or why, except generally because of her sins. She was one of those—not very few I think—who from conjunction of a lovely conscience with an ill-instructed mind, are doomed for a season to much suffering. She was largely different from her friend: the religious opinions of the latter—they were in reality rather metaphysical than religious, and bad either way—though she clung to them with all the tenacity of a creature with claws, occasioned her not an atom of mental discomposure: perhaps that was in part why she clung to them! they were as she would have them! She did not trouble herself about what God required of her, beyond holding the doctrine the holding of which guaranteed, as she thought, her future welfare. Conscience toward God had very little to do with her opinions, and her heart still less. Her head on the contrary, perhaps rather her memory, was considerably occupied with the matter; nothing she held had ever been by her regarded on its own merits—that is, on its individual claim to truth; if it had been handed down by her church, that was enough; to support it she would search out text after text, and press it into the service. Any meaning but that which the church of her fathers gave to a passage must be of the devil, and every man opposed to the truth who saw in that meaning anything but truth! It was indeed impossible Miss Carmichael should see any meaning but that, even if she had looked for it; she was nowise qualified for discovering truth, not being herself true. What she saw and loved in the doctrines of her church was not the truth, but the assertion; and whoever questioned, not to say the doctrine, but even the proving of it by any particular passage, was a dangerous person, and unsound. All the time her acceptance and defence of any doctrine made not the slightest difference to her life—as indeed how should it?
Such was the only friend lady Arctura had. But the conscience and heart of the younger woman were alive to a degree that boded ill either for the doctrine that stinted their growth, or the nature unable to cast it off. Miss Carmichael was a woman about six-and-twenty—and had been a woman, like too many Scotch girls, long before she was out of her teens—a human flower cut and dried—an unpleasant specimen, and by no means valuable from its scarcity. Self-sufficient, assured, with scarce shyness enough for modesty, handsome and hard, she was essentially a self-glorious Philistine; nor would she be anything better till something was sent to humble her, though what spiritual engine might be equal to the task was not for man to imagine. She was clever, but her cleverness made nobody happier; she had great confidence, but her confidence gave courage to no one, and took it from many; she had little fancy, and less imagination than any other I ever knew. The divine wonder was, that she had not yet driven the delicate, truth-loving Arctura mad. From her childhood she had had the ordering of all her opinions: whatever Sophy Carmichael said, lady Arctura never thought of questioning. A lie is indeed a thing in its nature unbelievable, but there is a false belief always ready to receive the false truth, and there is no end to the mischief the two can work. The awful punishment of untruth in the inward parts is that the man is given over to believe a lie.
Lady Arctura was in herself a gentle creature who shrank from either giving or receiving a rough touch; but she had an inherited pride, by herself unrecognized as such, which made her capable of hurting as well as being hurt. Next to the doctrines of the Scottish church, she respected her own family: it had in truth no other claim to respect than that its little good and much evil had been done before the eyes of a large part of many generations—whence she was born to think herself distinguished, and to imagine a claim for the acknowledgment of distinction upon all except those of greatly higher rank than her own. This inborn arrogance was in some degree modified by respect for the writers of certain books—not one of whom was of any regard in the eyes of the thinkers of the age. Of any writers of power, beyond those of the Bible, either in this country or another, she knew nothing. Yet she had a real instinct for what was good in literature; and of the writers to whom I have referred she not only liked the worthiest best, but liked best their best things. I need hardly say they were all religious writers; for the keen conscience and obedient heart of the girl had made her very early turn herself towards the quarter where the sun ought to rise, the quarter where all night long gleams the auroral hope; but unhappily she had not gone direct to the heavenly well in earthly ground—the words of the Master himself. How could she? From very childhood her mind had been filled with traditionary utterances concerning the divine character and the divine plans—the merest inventions of men far more desirous of understanding what they were not required to understand, than of doing what they were required to do—whence their crude and false utterances concerning a God of their own fancy—in whom it was a good man's duty, in the name of any possible God, to disbelieve; and just because she was true, authority had immense power over her. The very sweetness of their nature forbids such to doubt the fitness of others.
She had besides had a governess of the orthodox type, a large proportion of whose teaching was of the worst heresy, for it was lies against him who is light, and in whom is no darkness at all; her doctrines were so many smoked glasses held up between the mind of her pupil and the glory of the living God; nor had she once directed her gaze to the very likeness of God, the face of Jesus Christ. Had Arctura set herself to understand him the knowledge of whom is eternal life, she would have believed none of these false reports of him, but she had not yet met with any one to help her to cast aside the doctrines of men, and go face to face with the Son of Man, the visible God. First lie of all, she had been taught that she must believe so and so before God would let her come near him or listen to her. The old cobbler could have taught her differently; but she would have thought it improper to hold conversation with such a man, even if she had known him for the best man in Auchars. She was in sore and sad earnest to believe as she was told she must believe; therefore instead of beginning to do what Jesus Christ said, she tried hard to imagine herself one of the chosen, tried hard to believe herself the chief of sinners. There was no one to tell her that it is only the man who sees something of the glory of God, the height and depth and breadth and length of his love and unselfishness, not a child dabbling in stupid doctrines, that can feel like St. Paul. She tried to feel that she deserved to be burned in hell for ever and ever, and that it was boundlessly good of God—who made her so that she could not help being a sinner—to give her the least chance of escaping it. She tried to feel that, though she could not be saved without something which the God of perfect love could give her if he pleased, but might not please to give her, yet if she was not saved it would be all her own fault: and so ever the round of a great miserable treadmill of contradictions! For a moment she would be able to say this or that she thought she ought to say; the next the feeling would be gone, and she as miserable as before. Her friend made no attempt to imbue her with her own calm indifference, nor could she have succeeded had she attempted it. But though she had never been troubled herself, and that because she had never been in earnest, she did not find it the less easy to take upon her the rôle of a spiritual adviser, and gave no end of counsel for the attainment of assurance. She told her truly enough that all her trouble came of want of faith; but she showed her no one fit to believe in.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A CLASH
All this time, Donal had never again seen the earl, neither had the latter shown any interest in Davie's progress. But lady Arctura was full of serious anxiety concerning him. Heavily prejudiced against the tutor, she dreaded his influence on the mind of her little cousin.
There was a small recess in the schoolroom—it had been a bay window, but from an architectural necessity arising from decay, it had, all except a narrow eastern light, been built up—and in this recess Donal was one day sitting with a book, while Davie was busy writing at the table in the middle of the room: it was past school-hours, but the weather did not invite them out of doors, and Donal had given Davie a poem to copy. Lady Arctura came into the room—she had never entered it before since Donal came—and thinking he was alone, began to talk to the boy. She spoke in so gentle a tone that Donal, busy with his book, did not for some time distinguish a word she said. He never suspected she was unaware of his presence. By degrees her voice grew a little louder, and by and by these words reached him:
"You know, Davie dear, every sin, whatever it is, deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come; and if it had not been that Jesus Christ gave himself to turn away his anger and satisfy his justice by bearing the punishment for us, God would send us all to the place of misery for ever and ever. It is for his sake, not for ours, that he pardons us."
She had not yet ceased when Donal rose in the wrath of love, and came out into the room.
"Lady Arctura," he said, "I dare not sit still and hear such false things uttered against the blessed God!"
Lady Arctura started in dire dismay, but in virtue of her breed and her pride recovered herself immediately, drew herself up, and said—
"Mr. Grant, you forget yourself!"
"I'm very willing to do that, my lady," answered Donal, "but I must not forget the honour of my God. If you were a heathen woman I might think whether the hour was come for enlightening you further, but to hear one who has had the Bible in her hands from her childhood say such things about the God who made her and sent his Son to save her, without answering a word for him, would be cowardly!"
"What do you know about such things? What gives you a right to speak?" said lady Arctura.
Her pride-strength was already beginning to desert her.
"I had a Christian mother," answered Donal, "—have her yet, thank God!—who taught me to love nothing but the truth; I have studied the Bible from my childhood, often whole days together, when I was out with the cattle or the sheep; and I have tried to do what the Lords tells me, from nearly the earliest time I can remember. Therefore I am able to set to my seal that God is true—that he is light, and there is no darkness of unfairness or selfishness in him. I love God with my whole heart and soul, my lady."
Arctura tried to say she too loved him so, but her conscience interfered, and she could not.
"I don't say you don't love him," Donal went on; "but how you can love him and believe such things of him, I don't understand. Whoever taught them first was a terrible liar against God, who is lovelier than all the imaginations of all his creatures can think."
Lady Arctura swept from the room—though she was trembling from head to foot. At the door she turned and called Davie. The boy looked up in his tutor's face, mutely asking if he should obey her.
"Go," said Donal.
In less than a minute he came back, his eyes full of tears.
"Arkie says she is going to tell papa. Is it true, Mr. Grant, that you are a dangerous man? I do not believe it—though you do carry such a big knife."
Donal laughed.
"It is my grandfather's skean dhu," he said: "I mend my pens with it, you know! But it is strange, Davie, that, when a body knows something other people don't, they should be angry with him! They will even think he wants to make them bad when he wants to help them to be good!"
"But Arkie is good, Mr. Grant!"
"I am sure she is. But she does not know so much about God as I do, or she would never say such things of him: we must talk about him more after this!"
"No, no, please, Mr. Grant! We won't say a word about him, for Arkie says except you promise never to speak of God, she will tell papa, and he will send you away."
"Davie," said Donal with solemnity, "I would not give such a promise for the castle and all it contains—no, not to save your life and the life of everybody in it! For Jesus says, 'Whosoever denieth me before men, him will I deny before my father in heaven;' and rather than that, I would jump from the top of the castle. Why, Davie! would a man deny his own father or mother?"
"I don't know," answered Davie; "I don't remember my mother."
"I'll tell you what," said Donal, with sudden inspiration: "I will promise not to speak about God at any other time, if she will promise to sit by when I do speak of him—say once a week.—Perhaps we shall do what he tells us all the better that we don't talk so much about him!"
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Grant!—I will tell her," cried Davie, jumping up relieved. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Grant!" he repeated; "I could not bear you to go away. I should never stop crying if you did. And you won't say any wicked things, will you? for Arkie reads her Bible every day."
"So do I, Davie."
"Do you?" returned Davie, "I'll tell her that too, and then she will see she must have been mistaken."
He hurried to his cousin with Donal's suggestion.
It threw her into no small perplexity—first from doubt as to the propriety of the thing proposed, next because of the awkwardness of it, then from a sudden fear lest his specious tongue should lead herself into the bypaths of doubt, and to the castle of Giant Despair—at which, indeed, it was a gracious wonder she had not arrived ere now. What if she should be persuaded of things which it was impossible to believe and be saved! She did not see that such belief as she desired to have was in itself essential damnation. For what can there be in heaven or earth for a soul that believes in an unjust God? To rejoice in such a belief would be to be a devil, and to believe what cannot be rejoiced in, is misery. No doubt a man may not see the true nature of the things he thinks she believes, but that cannot save him from the loss of not knowing God, whom to know is alone eternal life; for who can know him that believes evil things of him? That many a good man does believe such things, only argues his heart not yet one towards him. To make his belief possible he must dwell on the good things he has learned about God, and not think about the bad things.
And what would Sophia say? Lady Arctura would have sped to her friend for counsel before giving any answer to the audacious proposal, but she was just then from home for a fortnight, and she must resolve without her! She reflected also that she had not yet anything sufficiently definite to say to her uncle about the young man's false doctrine; and, for herself, concluded that, as she was well grounded for argument, knowing thoroughly the Shorter Catechism with the proofs from scripture of every doctrine it contained, it was foolish to fear anything from one who went in the strength of his own ignorant and presumptuous will, regardless of the opinions of the fathers of the church, and accepting only such things as were pleasing to his unregenerate nature.
But she hesitated; and after waiting for a week without receiving any answer to his proposal, Donal said to Davie,
"We shall have a lesson in the New Testament to-morrow: you had better mention it to your cousin."
The next morning he asked him if he had mentioned it. The boy said he had.
"What did she say, Davie?"
"Nothing—only looked strange," answered Davie.
When the hour of noon was past, and lady Arctura did not appear, Donal said,
"Davie, we'll have our New Testament lesson out of doors: that is the best place for it!"
"It is the best place!" responded Davie, jumping up. "But you're not taking your book, Mr. Grant!"
"Never mind; I will give you a lesson or two without book first."
Just as they were leaving the room, appeared lady Arctura with Miss Carmichael.
"I understood," said the former, with not a little haughtiness, "that you—"
She hesitated, and Miss Carmichael took up the word.
"We wish to form our own judgment," she said, "on the nature of the religious instruction you give your pupil."
"I invited lady Arctura to be present when I taught him about God," said Donal.
"Then are you not now going to do so?" said Arctura.
"As your ladyship made no answer to my proposal, and school hours were over, I concluded you were not coming."
"And you would not give the lesson without her ladyship!" said Miss Carmichael. "Very right!"
"Excuse me," returned Donal; "we were going to have it out of doors."
"But you had agreed not to give him any so-called religious instruction but in the presence of lady Arctura!"
"By no means. I only offered to give it in her presence if she chose. There was no question of the lessons being given."
Miss Carmichael looked at lady Arctura as much as to say—"Is he speaking the truth?" and if she replied, it was in the same fashion.
Donal looked at Miss Carmichael. He did not at all relish her interference. He had never said he would give his lesson before any who chose to be present! But he did not see how to meet the intrusion. Neither could he turn back into the schoolroom, sit down, and begin. He put his hand on Davie's shoulder, and walked slowly towards the lawn. The ladies followed in silence. He sought to forget their presence, and be conscious only of his pupil's and his master's. On the lawn he stopped suddenly.
"Davie," he said, "where do you fancy the first lesson in the New Testament ought to begin?"
"At the beginning," replied Davie.
"When a thing is perfect, Davie, it is difficult to say what is the beginning of it: show me one of your marbles."
The boy produced from his pocket a pure white one—a real marble.
"That is a good one for the purpose," remarked Donal, "—very smooth and white, with just one red streak in it! Now where is the beginning of this marble?"
"Nowhere," answered Davie.
"If I should say everywhere?" suggested Donal.
"Ah, yes!" said the boy.
"But I agree with you that it begins nowhere."
"It can't do both!"
"Oh, yes, it can! it begins nowhere for itself, but everywhere for us. Only all its beginnings are endings, and all its endings are beginnings. Look here: suppose we begin at this red streak, it is just there we should end again. That is because it is a perfect thing.—Well, there was one who said, 'I am Alpha and Omega,'—the first Greek letter and the last, you know—'the beginning and the end, the first and the last.' All the New Testament is about him. He is perfect, and I may begin about him where I best can. Listen then as if you had never heard anything about him before.—Many years ago—about fifty or sixty grandfathers off—there appeared in the world a few men who said that a certain man had been their companion for some time and had just left them; that he was killed by cruel men, and buried by his friends; but that, as he had told them he would, he lay in the grave only three days, and left it on the third alive and well; and that, after forty days, during which they saw him several times, he went up into the sky, and disappeared.—It wasn't a very likely story, was it?"
"No," replied Davie.
The ladies exchanged looks of horror. Neither spoke, but each leaned eagerly forward, in fascinated expectation of worse to follow.
"But, Davie," Donal went on, "however unlikely it must have seemed to those who heard it, I believe every word of it."
A ripple of contempt passed over Miss Carmichael's face.
"For," continued Donal, "the man said he was the son of God, come down from his father to see his brothers, his father's children, and take home with him to his father those who would go."
"Excuse me," interrupted Miss Carmichael, with a pungent smile: "what he said was, that if any man believed in him, he should be saved."
"Run along, Davie," said Donal. "I will tell you more of what he said next lesson. Don't forget what I've told you now."
"No, sir," answered Davie, and ran off.
Donal lifted his hat, and would have gone towards the river. But Miss Carmichael, stepping forward, said,
"Mr. Grant, I cannot let you go till you answer me one question: do you believe in the atonement?"
"I do," answered Donal.
"Favour me then with your views upon it," she said.
"Are you troubled in your mind on the subject?" asked Donal.
"Not in the least," she replied, with a slight curl of her lip.
"Then I see no occasion for giving you my views."
"But I insist."
Donald smiled.
"Of what consequence can my opinions be to you, ma'am? Why should you compel a confession of my faith?"
"As the friend of this family, and the daughter of the clergyman of this parish, I have a right to ask what your opinions are: you have a most important charge committed to you—a child for whose soul you have to account!"
"For that I am accountable, but, pardon me, not to you."
"You are accountable to lord Morven for what you teach his child."
"I am not."
"What! He will turn you away at a moment's notice if you say so to him."
"I should be quite ready to go. If I were accountable to him for what I taught, I should of course teach only what he pleased. But do you suppose I would take any situation on such a condition?"
"It is nothing to me, or his lordship either, I presume, what you would or would not do."
"Then I see no reason why you should detain me.—Lady Arctura, I did not offer to give my lesson in the presence of any other than yourself: I will not do so again. You will be welcome, for you have a right to know what I am teaching him. If you bring another, except it be my lord Morven, I will take David to my own room."