Donal Grant Part 48

"When I was teaching him to skate!" answered Davie, in a triumph of remembrance. "He said I knew better than he there, and so he would obey me. You wouldn't believe how splendidly he did it, Arkie--out and out!"

concluded Davie, in a tone almost of awe.

"Oh, yes, I would believe it--perfectly!" said Arctura.

Donal suddenly threw an arm round each of them, and pulled them down sitting. The same instant a fierce blast burst upon the roof. He had seen the squall whitening the sea, and looking nearer home saw the tops of the trees between streaming level towards the castle. But seated they were in no danger.

"Hark!" said Arctura again; "there it is!"

They all heard the wailing cry of the ghost-music. But while the blast continued they dared not pursue their hunt. It kept on in fits and gusts till the squall ceased--as suddenly almost as it had burst. The sky cleared, and the sun shone as a March sun can. But the blundering blasts and the swan-shot of the flying hail were all about still.

"When the storm is upon us," remarked Donal, as they rose from their crouching position, "it seems as if there never could be sunshine more; but our hopelessness does not keep back the sun when his hour to shine is come."

"I understand!" said Arctura: "when one is miserable, misery seems the law of being; and in the midst of it dwells some thought which nothing can ever set right! All at once it is gone, broken up and gone, like that hail-cloud. It just looks its own foolishness and vanishes."

"Do you know why things so often come right?" said Donal. "--I would say always come right, but that is matter of faith, not sight."

Arctura did not answer at once.

"I think I know what you are thinking," she said, "but I want to hear you answer your own question."

"Why do things come right so often, do you think, Davie?" repeated Donal.

"Is it," returned Davie, "because they were made right to begin with?"

"There is much in that, Davie; but there is a better reason than that.

It is because things are alive, and the life at the heart of them, that which keeps them going, is the great, beautiful G.o.d. So the sun for ever returns after the clouds. A doubting man, like him who wrote the book of Ecclesiasties, puts the evil last, and says 'the clouds return after the rain;' but the Christian knows that

One has mastery Who makes the joy the last in every song."

"You speak like one who has suffered!" said Arctura, with a kind look in his face.

"Who has not that lives?"

"It is how you are able to help others!"

"Am I able to help others? I am very glad to hear it. My ambition would be to help, if I had any ambition. But if I am able, it is because I have been helped myself, not because I have suffered."

"Will you tell me what you mean by saying you have no ambition?"

"Where your work is laid out for you, there is no room for ambition: you have got your work to do!--But give me your hand, my lady; put your other hand on my shoulder. You stop there, Davie, and don't move till I come to you. Now, my lady--a little jump! That's it! Now you are safe!--You were not afraid, were you?"

"Not in the least. But did you come here in the dark?"

"Yes. There is this advantage in the dark: you do not see how dangerous the way is. We take the darkness about us for the source of our difficulties: it is a great mistake. Christian would hardly have dared go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, had he not had the shield of the darkness all about him."

"Can the darkness be a shield? Is it not the evil thing?"

"Yes, the dark that is within us--the dark of distrust and unwillingness, but not the outside dark of mere human ignorance. Where we do not see, we are protected. Where we are most ignorant and most in danger, is in those things that affect the life of G.o.d in us: there the Father is every moment watching his child. If he were not constantly pardoning and punishing our sins, what would become of us! We must learn to trust him about our faults as much as about everything else!"

In the earnestness of his talk he had stopped, but now turned and went on.

"There is my land-, or roof-mark rather!" he said, "--that chimney-stack! Close by it I heard the music very near me indeed--when all at once the darkness and the wind came together so thick that I could do nothing more. We shall do better now in the daylight--and three of us instead of one!"

"What a huge block of chimneys!" said Arctura.

"Is it not!" returned Donal. "It indicates the hugeness of the building below us, of which we can see so little. Like the volcanoes of the world, it tells us how much fire is necessary to keep our dwelling warm."

"I thought it was the sun that kept the earth warm," said Davie.

"So it is, but not the sun alone. The earth is like a man: the great glowing fire is G.o.d in the heart of the earth, and the great sun is G.o.d in the sky, keeping it warm on the other side. Our gladness and pleasure, our trouble when we do wrong, our love for all about us, that is G.o.d inside us; and the beautiful things and lovable people, and all the lessons of life in history and poetry, in the Bible, and in whatever comes to us, is G.o.d outside of us. Every life is between two great fires of the love of G.o.d. So long as we do not give ourselves up heartily to him, we fear his fire will burn us. And burn us it does when we go against its flames and not with them, refusing to burn with the fire with which G.o.d is always burning. When we try to put it out, or oppose it, or get away from it, then indeed it burns!"

"I think I know," said Davie.

Arctura held her peace.

"But now," said Donal, "I must go round and have a peep at the other side of the chimney-stack."

He disappeared, and Arctura and Davie stood waiting his return. They looked each in the other's face with the delight of consciously sharing a great adventure. Beyond their feet lay the wide country and the great sea; over them the sky with the sun in it going down towards the mountains; under their feet the mighty old pile that was their home; and under that the earth with its molten heart of fire.

But Davie's look soon changed to one of triumph in his tutor. "Is is not grand," it said, "to be all day with a man like that--talking to you and teaching you?" That at least was how Arctura interpreted it, reading in it almost an a.s.sertion of superiority, in as much as this man was his tutor and not hers. She replied to the look in words:--

"I am his pupil, too, Davie," she said, "though Mr. Grant does not know it."

"How can that be," answered Davie, "when you are afraid of him? I am not a bit afraid of him!"

"How do you know I am afraid of him?" she asked.

"Oh, anybody could see that!"

She was afraid she had spoken foolishly, and Davie might repeat her words: she did not desire to hasten further intimacy with Donal; things were going in that direction fast enough! Her eyes, avoiding Davie's, kept reconnoitring the stack of chimneys.

"Aren't you glad to have such a castle all for your own--to do what you like with, Arkie? You know you could pull it all to pieces if you liked!"

"Would it be less mine," said Arctura, "if I was not at liberty to pull it all to pieces? And would it be more mine when I had pulled it to pieces, Davie?"

Donal was coming round the side of the stack, and heard what she said.

It pleased him, for it was not a little in his own style.

"What makes a thing your own, do you think, Davie?" she went on.

"To be able to do with it what you like," replied Davie.

"Whether that be good or bad?"

"Yes, I think so," answered Davie, doubtfully.

"Then I think you are quite wrong," she rejoined. "The moment you begin to use a thing wrong, that moment you make it less yours. I can't quite explain it, but that is how it looks to me."