第94章

"With perfect freedom," answered Donal. "I only hope I may be able to answer it."

"When we read about Jesus, we have to draw for ourselves his likeness from words, and you know what kind of a likeness the best artist would make that way, who had never seen with his own eyes the person whose portrait he had to paint!"

"I understand you quite," returned Donal. "Some go to other men to draw it for them; and some go to others to hear from them what they must draw--thus getting all their blunders in addition to those they must make for themselves. But the nearest likeness you can see of him, is the one drawn by yourself while doing what he tells you. He has promised to come into those who keep his word. He will then be much nearer to them than in bodily presence; and such may well be able to draw for themselves the likeness of God.--But first of all, and before everything else, mind, Davie, OBEDIENCE!"

"Yes, Mr. Grant; I know," said Davie.

"Then off with you! Only think sometimes it is God who gave you your game."

"I'm going to fly my kite, Mr. Grant."

"Do. God likes to see you fly your kite, and it is all in his March wind it flies. It could not go up a foot but for that."

Davie went.

"You have heard that my uncle is very ill to-day!" said Arctura.

"I have. Poor man!" replied Donal.

"He must be in a very peculiar condition."

"Of body and mind both. He greatly perplexes me."

"You would be quite as much perplexed if you had known him as long as I have! Never since my father's death, which seems a century ago, have I felt safe; never in my uncle's presence at ease. I get no nearer to him. It seems to me, Mr. Grant, that the cause of discomfort and strife is never that we are too near others, but that we are not near enough."

This was a remark after Donal's own heart.

"I understand you," he said, "and entirely agree with you."

"I never feel that my uncle cares for me except as one of the family, and the holder of its chief property. He would have liked me better, perhaps, if I had been dependent on him."

"How long will he be your guardian?" asked Donal.

"He is no longer my guardian legally. The time set by my father's will ended last year. I am three and twenty, and my own mistress.

But of course it is much better to have the head of the house with me. I wish he were a little more like other people!--But tell me about the ghost-music: we had not time to talk of it last night!"

"I got pretty near the place it came from. But the wind blew so, and it was so dark, that I could do nothing more then."

"You will try again?"

"I shall indeed."

"I am afraid, if you find a natural cause for it, I shall be a little sorry."

"How can there be any other than a natural cause, my lady? God and Nature are one. God is the causing Nature.--Tell me, is not the music heard only in stormy nights, or at least nights with a good deal of wind?"

"I have heard it in the daytime!"

"On a still day?"

"I think not. I think too I never heard it on a still summer night."

"Do you think it comes in all storms?"

"I think not."

"Then perhaps it has something to do not merely with the wind, but with the direction of the wind!"

"Perhaps. I cannot say."

"That might account for the uncertainty of its visits! The instrument may be accessible, yet its converse with the operating power so rare that it has not yet been discovered. It is a case in which experiment is not permitted us: we cannot make a wind blow, neither can we vary the direction of the wind blowing; observation alone is left us, and that can be only at such times when the sound is heard."

"Then you can do nothing till the music comes again?"

"I think I can do something now; for, last night I seemed so near the place whence the sounds were coming, that the eye may now be able to supplement the ear, and find the music-bird silent on her nest. If the wind fall, as I think it will in the afternoon, I shall go again and see whether I can find anything. I noticed last night that simultaneously with the sound came a change in the wind--towards the south, I think.--What a night it was after I left you!"

"I think," said Arctura, "the wind has something to do with my uncle's fits. Was there anything very strange about it last night?

When the wind blows so angrily, I always think of that passage about the prince of the power of the air being the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. Tell me what it means."

"I do not know what it means," answered Donal; "but I suppose the epithet involves a symbol of the difference between the wind of God that inspires the spiritual true self of man, and the wind of the world that works by thousands of impulses and influences in the lower, the selfish self of children that will not obey. I will look at the passage and see what I can make out of it. Only the spiritual and the natural blend so that we may one day be astonished!--Would you like to join the music-hunt, my lady?"

"Do you mean, go on the roof? Should I be able?"

"I would not have you go in the night, and the wind blowing," said Donal with a laugh; "but you can come and see, and judge for yourself. The bartizan is the only anxious place, but as I mean to take Davie with me, you may think I do not count it very dangerous!"

"Will it be safe for Davie?"

"I can venture more with Davie than with another: he obeys in a moment."

"I will obey too if you will take me," said Arctura.

"Then, please, come to the schoolroom at four o'clock. But we shall not go except the wind be fallen."

When Davie heard what his tutor proposed, he was filled with the restlessness of anticipation. Often while helping Donal with his fuel, he had gazed up at him on the roof with longing eyes, but Donal had never let him go upon it.