第52章

"Then you don't believe it?" said Miss Graeme.

"Not quite," he replied. "But I have myself had a strange experience up there."

"What! you have seen something?" cried Miss Graeme, her eyes growing bigger.

"No; I have seen nothing," answered Donal, "--only heard something.--One night, the first I was there indeed, I heard the sound of a far-off musical instrument, faint and sweet."

The brother and sister exchanged looks. Donal went on.

"I got up and felt my way down the winding stair--I sleep at the top of Baliol's tower--but at the bottom lost myself, and had to sit down and wait for the light. Then I heard it again, but seemed no nearer to it than before. I have never heard it since, and have never mentioned the thing. I presume, however, that speaking of it to you can do no harm. You at least will not raise any fresh rumours to injure the respectability of the castle! Do you think there is any instrument in it from which such a sound might have proceeded? Lady Arctura is a musician, I am told, but surely was not likely to be at her piano 'in the dead waste and middle of the night'!"

"It is impossible to say how far a sound may travel in the stillness of the night, when there are no other sound-waves to cross and break it."

"That is all very well, Hector," said his sister; "but you know Mr. Grant is neither the first nor the second that has heard that sound!"

"One thing is pretty clear," said her brother, "it can have nothing to do with the revellers at their cards! The sound reported is very different from any attributed to them!"

"Are you sure," suggested Donal, "that there was not a violin shut up with them? Even if none of them could play, there has been time enough to learn. The sound I heard might have been that of a ghostly violin. Though like that of a stringed instrument, it was different from anything I had ever heard before--except perhaps certain equally inexplicable sounds occasionally heard among the hills."

They went on talking about the thing for a while, pacing up and down the garden, the sun hot above their heads, the grass cool under their feet.

"It is enough," said Miss Graeme, with a rather forced laugh, "to make one glad the castle does not go with the title."

"Why so?" asked Donal.

"Because," she answered, "were anything to happen to the boys up there, Hector would come in for the title."

"I'm not of my sister's mind!" said Mr. Graeme, laughing more genuinely. "A title with nothing to keep it up is a simple misfortune. I certainly should not take out the patent. No wise man would lay claim to a title without the means to make it respected."

"Have we come to that!" exclaimed Donal. "Must even the old titles of the country be buttressed into respectability with money? Away in quiet places, reading old history books, we peasants are accustomed to think differently. If some millionaire money-lender were to buy the old keep of Arundel castle, you would respect him just as much as the present earl!"

"I would not," said Mr. Graeme. "I confess you have the better of me.--But is there not a fallacy in your argument?" he added, thinkingly.

"I believe not. If the title is worth nothing without the money, the money must be more than the title!--If I were Lazarus," Donal went on, "and the inheritor of a title, I would use it, if only for a lesson to Dives up stairs. I scorn to think that honour should wait on the heels of wealth. You may think it is because I am and always shall be a poor man; but if I know myself it is not therefore. At the same time a title is but a trifle; and if you had given any other reason for not using it than homage to Mammon, I should have said nothing."

"For my part," said Miss Graeme, "I have no quarrel with riches except that they do not come my way. I should know how to use and not abuse them!"

Donal made no other reply than to turn a look of divinely stupid surprise and pity upon the young woman. It was of no use to say anything! Were argument absolutely triumphant, Mammon would sit just where he was before! He had marked the great indifference of the Lord to the convincing of the understanding: when men knew the thing itself, then and not before would they understand its relations and reasons!

If truth belongs to the human soul, then the soul is able to see it and know it: if it do the truth, it takes therein the first possible, and almost the last necessary step towards understanding it.

Miss Graeme caught his look, and must have perceived its expression, for her face flushed a more than rosy red, and the conversation grew crumbly.

It was a half-holiday, and he stayed to tea, and after it went over the arm-buildings with Mr. Graeme, revealing such a practical knowledge of all that was going on, that his entertainer soon saw his opinion must be worth something whether his fancies were or not.