Donal Grant Part 16

When he had done the sum correctly, and a second without need of correction, he told him to lay his slate aside, and he would tell him a fairy-story. Therein he succeeded tolerably--in the opinion of Davie, wonderfully: what a tutor was this, who let fairies into the school-room!

The tale was of no very original construction--the youngest brother gaining in the path of righteousness what the elder brothers lose through masterful selfishness. A man must do a thing because it is right, even if he die for it; but truth were poor indeed if it did not bring at last all things subject to it! As beauty and truth are one, so are truth and strength one. Must G.o.d be ever on the cross, that we poor worshippers may pay him our highest honour? Is it not enough to know that if the devil were the greater, yet would not G.o.d do him homage, but would hang for ever on his cross? Truth is joy and victory. The true hero is adjudged to bliss, nor can in the nature of things, that is, of G.o.d, escape it. He who holds by life and resists death, must be victorious; his very life is a slaying of death. A man may die for his opinion, and may only be living to himself: a man who dies for the truth, dies to himself and to all that is not true.

"What a beautiful story!" cried Davie when it ceased. "Where did you get it, Mr. Grant?"

"Where all stories come from."

"Where is that?"

"The Think-book."

"What a funny name! I never heard it! Will it be in the library?"

"No; it is in no library. It is the book G.o.d is always writing at one end, and blotting out at the other. It is made of thoughts, not words.

It is the Think-book."

"Now I understand! You got the story out of your own head!"

"Yes, perhaps. But how did it get in to my head?"

"I can't tell that. n.o.body can tell that!"

"n.o.body can that never goes up above his own head--that never shuts the Think-book, and stands upon it. When one does, then the Think-book swells to a great mountain and lifts him up above all the world: then he sees where the stories come from, and how they get into his head.--Are you to have a ride to-day?"

"I ride or not just as I like."

"Well, we will now do just as we both like, I hope, and it will be two likes instead of one--that is, if we are true friends."

"We shall be true friends--that we shall!"

"How can that be--between a little boy like you, and a grown man like me?"

"By me being good."

"By both of us being good--no other way. If one of us only was good, we could never be true friends. I must be good as well as you, else we shall never understand each other!"

"How kind you are, Mr. Grant! You treat me just like another one!"

said Davie.

"But we must not forget that I am the big one and you the little one, and that we can't be the other one to each other except the little one does what the big one tells him! That's the way to fit into each other."

"Oh, of course!" answered Davie, as if there could not be two minds about that.

CHAPTER XV.

HORSE AND MAN.

During the first day and the next, Donal did not even come in sight of any other of the family; but on the third day, after their short early school--for he seldom let Davie work till he was tired, and never after--going with him through the stable-yard, they came upon lord Forgue as he mounted his horse--a nervous, fiery, thin-skinned thoroughbred. The moment his master was on him, he began to back and rear. Forgue gave him a cut with his whip. He went wild, plunging and dancing and kicking. The young lord was a horseman in the sense of having a good seat; but he knew little about horses; they were to him creatures to be compelled, not friends with whom to hold sweet concert.

He had not learned that to rule ill is worse than to obey ill. Kings may be worse than it is in the power of any subject to be. As he was raising his arm for a second useless, cruel, and dangerous blow, Donal darted to the horse's head.

"You mustn't do that, my lord!" he said. "You'll drive him mad."

But the worst part of Forgue's nature was uppermost, in his rage all the vices of his family rushed to the top. He looked down on Donal with a fury checked only by contempt.

"Keep off," he said, "or it will be the worse for you. What do you know about horses?"

"Enough to know that you are not fair to him. I will not let you strike the poor animal. Just look at this water-chain!"

"Hold your tongue, and stand away, or, by--"

"Ye winna fricht me, sir," said Donal, whose English would, for years, upon any excitement, turn cowardly and run away, leaving his mother-tongue to bear the brunt, "--I'm no timorsome."

Forgue brought down his whip with a great stinging blow upon Donal's shoulder and back. The fierce blood of the highland Celt rushed to his brain, and had not the man in him held by G.o.d and trampled on the devil, there might then have been miserable work. But though he clenched his teeth, he fettered his hands, and ruled his tongue, and the Master of men was master still.

"My lord," he said, after one instant's thunderous silence, "there's that i' me wad think as little o' throttlin' ye as ye du o' ill-usin'

yer puir beast. But I'm no gaein' to drop his quarrel, an' tak up my ain: that wad be cooardly." Here he patted the creature's neck, and recovering his composure and his English, went on. "I tell you, my lord, the curb-chain is too tight! The animal is suffering as you can have no conception of, or you would pity him."

"Let him go," cried Forgue, "or I will make you."

He raised his whip again, the more enraged that the groom stood looking on with his mouth open.

"I tell your lordship," said Donal, "it is my turn to strike; and if you hit the animal again before that chain is slackened, I will pitch you out of the saddle."

For answer Forgue struck the horse over the head. The same moment he was on the ground; Donal had taken him by the leg and thrown him off.

He was not horseman enough to keep his hold of the reins, and Donal led the horse a little way off, and left him to get up in safety. The poor animal was pouring with sweat, shivering and trembling, yet throwing his head back every moment. Donal could scarcely undo the chain; it was twisted--his lordship had fastened it himself--and sharp edges pressed his jaw at the least touch of the rein. He had not yet rehooked it, when Forgue was upon him with a second blow of his whip.

The horse was scared afresh at the sound, and it was all he could do to hold him, but he succeeded at length in calming him. When he looked about him, Forgue was gone. He led the horse into the stable, put him in his stall, and proceeded to unsaddle him. Then first he was re-aware of the presence of Davie. The boy was stamping--with fierce eyes and white face--choking with silent rage.

"Davie, my child!" said Donal, and Davie recovered his power of speech.

"I'll go and tell my father!" he said, and made for the stable door.

"Which of us are you going to tell upon?" asked Donal with a smile.

"Percy, of course!" he replied, almost with a scream. "You are a good man, Mr. Grant, and he is a bad fellow. My father will give it him well. He doesn't often--but oh, can't he just! To dare to strike you!

I'll go to him at once, whether he's in bed or not!"

"No, you won't, my boy! Listen to me. Some people think it's a disgrace to be struck: I think it a disgrace to strike. I have a right over your brother by that blow, and I mean to keep it--for his good.

You didn't think I was afraid of him?"

"No, no; anybody could see you weren't a bit afraid of him. I would have struck him again if he had killed me for it!"

"I don't doubt you would. But when you understand, you will not be so ready to strike. I could have killed your brother more easily than held his horse. You don't know how strong I am, or what a blow of my fist would be to a delicate fellow like that. I hope his fall has not hurt him."

"I hope it has--a little, I mean, only a little," said the boy, looking in the face of his tutor. "But tell me why you did not strike him. It would be good for him to be well beaten."

"It will, I hope, be better for him to be well forgiven: he will be ashamed of himself the sooner, I think. But why I did not strike him was, that I am not my own master."