第38章

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?