第55章

Donal had to think. Here was a most untoward affair! What could he do? What ought he to attempt? From what he had seen of the young lord, he could not believe he intended wrong to the girl; but he might he selfishly amusing himself, and was hardly one to reflect that the least idle familiarity with her was a wrong! The thing, if there was the least truth in it, must be put a stop to at once! but it might be all a fancy of the justly jealous lover, to whom the girl had not of late been behaving as she ought! Or might there not be somebody else? At the same time there was nothing absurd in the idea that a youth, fresh from college and suddenly discompanioned at home, without society, possessed by no love of literature, and with almost no amusements, should, if only for very ennui, be attracted by the pretty face and figure of Eppy, and then enthralled by her coquetries of instinctive response. There was danger to the girl both in silence and in speech: if there was no ground for the apprehension, the very supposition was an injury--might even suggest the thing it was intended to frustrate! Still something must be risked! He had just been reading in sir Philip Sidney, that "whosoever in great things will think to prevent all objections, must lie still and do nothing." But what was he to do? The readiest and simplest thing was to go to the youth, tell him what he had heard, and ask him if there was any ground for it. But they must find the girl another situation! in either case distance must be put between them! He would tell her grandparents; but he feared, if there was any truth in it, they would have no great influence with her. If on the other hand, the thing was groundless, they might make it up between her and her fisherman, and have them married! She might only have been teasing him!--He would certainly speak to the young lord! Yet again, what if he should actually put the mischief into his thoughts! If there should be ever so slight a leaning in the direction, might he not so give a sudden and fatal impulse? He would take the housekeeper into his counsel! She must understand the girl! Things would at once show themselves to her on the one side or the other, which might reveal the path he ought to take. But did he know mistress Brookes well enough? Would she be prudent, or spoil everything by precipitation? She might ruin the girl if she acted without sympathy, caring only to get the appearance of evil out of the house!

The way the legally righteous act the policeman in the moral world would be amusing were it not so sad. They are always making the evil "move on," driving it to do its mischiefs to other people instead of them; dispersing nests of the degraded to crowd them the more, and with worse results, in other parts: why should such be shocked at the idea of sending out of the world those to whom they will not give a place in it to lay their heads? They treat them in this world as, according to the old theology, their God treats them in the next, keeping them alive for sin and suffering.

Some with the bright lamp of their intellect, others with the smoky lamp of their life, cast a shadow of God on the wall of the universe, and then believe or disbelieve in the shadow.

Donal was still in meditation when he reached home, and still undecided what he should do. Crossing a small court on his way to his aerie, he saw the housekeeper making signs to him from the window of her room. He turned and went to her. It was of Eppy she wanted to speak to him! How often is the discovery of a planet, of a truth, of a scientific fact, made at once in different places far apart! She asked him to sit down, and got him a glass of milk, which was his favourite refreshment, little imagining the expression she attributed to fatigue arose from the very thing occupying her own thoughts.

"It's a queer thing," she began, "for an auld wife like me to come til a yoong gentleman like yersel', sir, wi' sic a tale; but, as the sayin' is, 'needs maun whan the deil drives'; an' here's like to be an unco stramash aboot the place, gien we comena thegither upo' some gait oot o' 't. Dinna luik sae scaret like, sir; we may be in time yet er' the warst come to the warst, though it's some ill to say what may be the warst in sic an ill coopered kin' o' affair!

There's thae twa fules o' bairns--troth, they're nae better; an' the tane 's jist as muckle to blame as the tither--only the lass is waur to blame nor the lad, bein' made sharper, an' kennin' better nor him what comes o' sic!--Eh, but she is a gowk!"

Here Mrs. Brookes paused, lost in contemplation of the gowkedness of Eppy.