Donal Grant Part 71

He crept up, and out of the castle by his own stair, so to the tool-house. It was locked. But lying near was a half-worn shovel: that might do! he would have a try with it! Like one in a dream of ancient ruins, creeping through mouldy and low-browed places, he went down once more into the entrails of the house.

Inserting the sharp edge of the worn shovel in the gap between the stone and that next it, he raised it more readily than he had hoped, and saw below it a small window, whose sill sloped steeply inward. How deep the place might be, and whether it would be possible to get out of it again, he must discover before entering. He took a letter from his pocket, lighted it, and threw it in. It revealed a descent of about seven feet, into what looked like a cellar. He blew his candle out, put it in his pocket, got into the window, slid down the slope, and reached his new level with ease. He then lighted his candle, and looked about him.

His eye first fell on a large flat stone in the floor, like a gravestone, but without any ornament or inscription. It was a roughly vaulted place, unpaved, its floor of damp hard-beaten earth. In the wall to the right of that through which he had entered, was another opening, low down, like the crown of an arch the rest of which was beneath the floor. As near as he could judge, it was right under the built-up door in the pa.s.sage above. He crept through it, and found himself under the spiral of the great stair, in the small s.p.a.ce at the bottom of its well. On the floor lay a dust-pan and a house-maid's-brush--and there was the tiny door at which they were shoved in, after their morning's use upon the stair! It was open--inwards; he crept through it: he was in the great hall of the house--and there was one of its windows wide open! Afraid of being by any chance discovered, he put out his light, and proceeded up the stair in the dark.

He had gone but a few steps when he heard the sound of descending feet.

He stopped and listened: they turned into the half-way room. When he reached it, he heard sounds which showed that the earl was in the closet behind it. Things rushed together in his mind. He hurried up to lady Arctura's room, thence descended, for the third time that night--but no farther than the oak door, pa.s.sed through it, entered the little chamber, and hastening to the farther end of it, laid his ear against the wall. Plainly enough he heard the sounds he had expected--those of the dream-walking rather than sleep-walking earl, moaning, and calling in a low voice of entreaty after some one whose name did not grow audible to the listener.

"Ah!" thought Donal, "who would find it hard to believe in roaming and haunting ghosts, that had once seen this poor man roaming his own house, and haunting that chamber! How easily I could punish him now, with a lightning blast of terror!"

It was but a thought; it did not amount to a temptation; Donal knew he had no right. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, for he alone knows how to use it.

I do not believe that mere punishment exists anywhere in the economy of the highest; I think mere punishment a human idea, not a divine one.

But the consuming fire is more terrible than any punishment invented by riotous and cruel imagination. Punishment indeed it is--not mere punishment; a power of G.o.d for his creature. Love is G.o.d's being; love is his creative energy; they are one: G.o.d's punishments are for the casting out of the sin that uncreates, for the recreating of the things his love made and sin has unmade.

He heard the lean hands of the earl go slowly sweeping, at the ends of his long arms, over the wall: he had seen the thing, else he could hardly have interpreted the sounds; and he heard him muttering on and on, though much too low for his words to be distinguishable. Had they been, Donal by this time was so convinced that he had to do with an evil and dangerous man, that he would have had little scruple in listening. It is only righteousness that has a right to secrecy, and does not want it; evil has no right to secrecy, alone intensely desires it, and rages at being foiled of it; for when its deeds come to the light, even evil has righteousness enough left to be ashamed of them.

But he could remain no longer; his very soul felt sick within him. He turned hastily away to leave the place. But carrying his light too much in front, and forgetting the stool, he came against it and knocked it over, not without noise. A loud cry from the other side of the wall revealed the dismay he had caused. It was followed by a stillness, and then a moaning.

He made haste to find Simmons, and send him to his master. He heard nothing afterwards of the affair.

CHAPTER LXIII.

THE CLOSET.

Tender over lady Arctura, Donal would ask a question or two of the housekeeper before disclosing what further he had found. He sought her room, therefore, while Arctura and Davie, much together now, were reading in the library.

"Did you ever hear anything about that little room on the stair, mistress Brookes?" he asked.

"I canna say," she answered--but thoughtfully, "--Bide a wee: auld auntie did mention something ance aboot--bide a wee--I hae a wullin'

memory--maybe I'll min' upo' 't i' the noo!--It was something aboot biggin' up an' takin' doon--something he was to do, an' something he never did!--I'm sure I canna tell! But gie me time, an' I'll min' upo'

't! Ance is aye wi' me--only I maun hae time!"

Donal waited, and said not a word.

"I min' this much," she said at length, "--that they used to be thegither i' that room. I min' too that there was something aboot buildin' up ae wa', an' pu'in' doon anither.--It's comin'--it's comin'

back to me!"

She paused again awhile, and then said:

"All I can recollec', Mr. Grant, is this: that efter her death, he biggit up something no far frae that room!--what was't noo?--an' there was something aboot makin' o' the room bigger! Hoo that could be by buildin' up, I canna think! Yet I feel sure that was what he did!"

"Would you mind coming to the place?" said Donal. "To see it might help you to remember."

"I wull, sir. Come ye here aboot half efter ten, an' we s' gang thegither."

As soon as the house was quiet, they went. But Mistress Brookes could recall nothing, and Donal gazed about him to no purpose.

"What's that?" he said at last, pointing to the wall on the other side of which was the little chamber.

Two arches, in chalk, as it seemed, had attracted his gaze. Light surely was about to draw nigh through the darkness! Chaos surely was settling a little towards order!

The one arch was drawn opposite the hidden chamber; the other against the earl's closet, as it had come to be called in the house--most of the domestics thinking he there said his prayers. It looked as if there had been an intention of piercing the wall with such arches, to throw the two small rooms on the other side as recesses into the larger. But if that had been the intent, what could the building of a wall, vaguely recollected by mistress Brookes, have been for? That a wall had been built he did not doubt, for he believed he knew the wall, but why?

"What's that?" said Donal.

"What?" returned Mrs. Brookes.

"Those two arches."

The housekeeper looked at them thoughtfully for a few moments.

"I canna help fancyin'," she said slowly, "--yes, I'm sure that's the varra thing my aunt told me aboot! That's the twa places whaur he was goin' to tak the wall doon, to mak the room lairger. But I'm sure she said something aboot buildin' a wall as weel!"

"Look here," said Donal; "I will measure the distance from the door to the other side of this first arch.--Now come into the closet behind.

Look here! This same measurement takes us right up to the end of the place! So you see if we were to open the other arch, it would be into something behind this wall."

"Then this may be the varra wa' he biggit?"

"I don't doubt it; but what could he have had it built for, if he was going to open the other wall? I must think it all over!--It was after his wife's death, you say?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"One might have thought he would not care about enlarging the room after she was gone!"

"But, sir, he wasna jist sic a pattren o' a guidman;" said the housekeeper. "An' what for mak this room less?"

"May it not have been for the sake of shutting out, or hiding something?" suggested Donal.

"I do remember a certain thing!--Curious!--But what then as to the openin' o' 't efter?"

"He has never done it!" said Donal significantly. "The thing takes shape to me in this way:--that he wanted to build something out of sight--to annihilate it; but in order to prevent speculation, he professed the intention of casting the one room into the other; then built the wall across, on the pretence that it was necessary for support when the other was broken through--or perhaps that two recesses with arches would look better; but when he had got the wall built, he put off opening the arches on one pretext or another, till the thing should be forgotten altogether--as you see it is already, almost entirely!--I have been at the back of that wall, and heard the earl moaning and crying on this side of it!"

"G.o.d bless me!" cried the good woman. "I'm no easy scaret, but that's fearfu' to think o'!"

"You would not care to come there with me?"

"No the nicht, sir. Come to my room again, an' I s' mak ye a cup o'

coffee, an' tell ye the story--it's a' come back to me noo--the thing 'at made my aunt tell me aboot the buildin' o' this wa'. 'Deed, sir, I hae hardly a doobt the thing was jist as ye say!"

They went to her room: there was lady Arctura sitting by the fire!

"My lady!" cried the housekeeper. "I thoucht I left ye soon' asleep!"

"So I was, I daresay," answered Arctura; "but I woke again, and finding you had not come up, I thought I would go down to you. I was certain you and Mr. Grant would be somewhere together! Have you been discovering anything more?"

Mrs. Brookes gave Donal a look: he left her to tell as much or as little as she pleased.