CHAPTER XXXVI.

A NIGHT-WATCH.

When he reached the bottom of the hill, there at the gate was Forgue,

walking up and down, apparently waiting for him. He would have passed

him, but Forgue stepped in front of him.

“Grant,” he said, “it is well we should understand each other!”

“I think, my lord, if you do not yet understand me, it can scarcely be

my fault.”

“What did my father say?”

“I would deliver to your lordship a message he gave me for you but for

two reasons--one, that I believe he changed his mind though he did not

precisely say so, and the other, that I will not serve him or you in

the matter.”

“Then you intend neither to meddle nor make?”

“That is my affair, my lord. I will not take your lordship into my

confidence.”

“Don’t be unreasonable, now! Do get off your high horse. Can’t you

understand a fellow? Everybody can’t keep his temper as you do! I mean

the girl no harm.”

“I will not talk with you about her. And whatever you insist on saying

to me, I will use against you without scruple, should occasion offer.”

As he spoke he caught a look on Forgue’s face which revealed somehow

that it was not for him he had been waiting, but for Eppy. He turned

and went back towards the castle: he might meet her! Forgue called

after him, but he paid no heed.

As he hastened up the hill, not so much as the rustle of bird or mouse

did he hear. He lingered about the top of the road for half an hour,

then turned and went to the cobbler’s.

He found Doory in great distress; for she was not merely sore troubled

about her son’s child, but Andrew was in bed and suffering great pain.

The moment Donal saw him he went for the doctor. He said a rib was

broken, bound him up, and gave him some medicine. All done that could

be done, Donal sat down to watch beside him.

He lay still, with closed eyes and white face. So patient was he that

his very pain found utterance in a sort of blind smile. Donal did not

know much about pain: he could read in Andrew’s look his devotion to

the will of him whose being was his peace, but he did not know above

what suffering his faith lifted him, and held him hovering yet safe.

His faith made him one with life, the eternal Life--and that is

salvation.

In closest contact with the divine, the original relation restored, the

source once more holding its issue, the divine love pouring itself into

the deepest vessel of the man’s being, itself but a vessel for the

holding of the diviner and divinest, who can wonder if keenest pain

should not be able to quench the smile of the prostrate! Few indeed

have reached the point of health to laugh at disease, but are there

none? Let not a man say because he cannot that no one can.

The old woman was very calm, only every now and then she would lift her

hands and shake her head, and look as if the universe were going to

pieces, because her husband lay there by the stroke of the ungodly. And

if he had lain there forgotten, then indeed the universe would have

been going to pieces! When he coughed, every pang seemed to go through

her body to her heart. Love is as lovely in the old as in the

young--lovelier when in them, as often, it is more sympathetic and

unselfish--that is, more true.

Donal wrote to Mrs. Brookes that he would not be home that night; and

having found a messenger at the inn, settled himself to watch by his

friend.

The hours glided quietly over. Andrew slept a good deal, and seemed to

have pleasant visions. He was finding yet more saving. Now and then his

lips would move as if he were holding talk with some friendly soul.

Once Donal heard the murmured words, “Lord, I’m a’ yer ain;” and noted

that his sleep grew deeper thereafter. He did not wake till the day

began to dawn. Then he asked for some water. Seeing Donal, and divining

that he had been by his bedside all the night, he thanked him with a

smile and a little nod--which somehow brought to his memory certain

words Andrew had spoken on another occasion: “There’s ane, an’ there’s

a’; an’ the a’ ’s ane, an’ the ane ’s a’.”

When Donal reached the castle, he found his breakfast and Mrs. Brookes

waiting for him. She told him that Eppy, meeting her in the passage the

night before, had burst into tears, but she could get nothing out of

her, and had sent her to her room; this morning she had not come down

at the proper time, and when she sent after her, did not come: she went

up herself, and found her determined to leave the castle that very day;

she was now packing her things to go, nor did she see any good in

trying to prevent her.

Donal said if she would go home, there was plenty for her to do there;

old people’s bones were not easy to mend, and it would be some time

before her grandfather was well again!

Mrs. Brookes said she would not keep her now if she begged to stay; she

was afraid she would come to grief, and would rather she went home; she

would take her home herself.

“The lass is no an ill ane,” she added: “but she disna ken what she wud

be at. She wants some o’ the Lord’s ain discipleen, I’m thinkin!”

“An’ that ye may be sure she’ll get, mistress Brookes!” said Donal.

Eppy was quite ready to go home and help nurse her grandfather. She

thought her conduct must by this time be the talk of the castle, and

was in mortal terror of lord Morven. All the domestics feared him--it

would be hard to say precisely why; it came in part of seeing him so

seldom that he had almost come to represent the ghost some said lived

in the invisible room and haunted the castle.

It was the easier for Eppy to go home that her grandmother needed her,

and that her grandfather would not be able to say much to her. She was

an affectionate girl, and yet her grandfather’s condition roused in her

no indignation; for the love of being loved is such a blinding thing,

that the greatest injustice from the dearest to the next dearest will

by some natures be readily tolerated. God help us! we are a mean

set--and meanest the man who is ablest to justify himself!

Mrs. Brookes, having prepared a heavy basket of good things for Eppy to

carry home to her grandmother, and made it the heavier for the sake of

punishing her with the weight of it, set out with her, saying to

herself,

“The jaud wants a wheen harder wark nor I hae hauden till her han’, an’

doobtless it’s preparin’ for her!”

She was kindly received, without a word of reproach, by her

grandmother; the sufferer, forgetful of, or forgiving her words of

rejection in the garden, smiled when she came near his bedside; and she

turned away to conceal the tears she could not repress. She loved her

grandparents, and she loved the young lord, and she could not get the

two loves to dwell together peaceably in her mind--a common difficulty

with our weak, easily divided, hardly united natures--frangible,

friable, readily distorted! It needs no less than God himself, not only

to unite us to one another, but to make a whole of the ill-fitting,

roughly disjointed portions of our individual beings. Tearfully but

diligently she set about her duties; and not only the heart, but the

limbs and joints of her grandmother were relieved by her presence;

while doubtless she herself found some refuge from anxious thought in

the service she rendered. What she saw as her probable future, I cannot

say; one hour her confidence in her lover’s faithfulness would be

complete, the next it would be dashed with huge blots of uncertainty;

but her grandmother rejoiced over her as out of harm’s way.