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.
CHAPTER XXIV.
STEPHEN KENNEDY.
The great comforts of Donal’s life, next to those of the world in which his soul lived—the eternal world, whose doors are ever open to him who prays—were the society of his favourite books, the fashioning of his thoughts into sweetly ordered sounds in the lofty solitude of his chamber, and not infrequent communion with the cobbler and his wife. To these he had as yet said nothing of what went on at the castle: he had learned the lesson the cobbler himself gave him. But many a lesson of greater value did he learn from the philosopher of the lapstone. He who understands because he endeavours, is a freed man of the realm of human effort. He who has no experience of his own, to him the experience of others is a sealed book. The convictions that in Donal rose vaporous were rapidly condensed and shaped when he found his new friend thought likewise.
By degrees he made more and more of a companion of Davie, and such was the sweet relation between them that he would sometimes have him in his room even when he was writing. When it was time to lay in his winter-fuel, he said to him—
“Up here, Davie, we must have a good fire when the nights are long; the darkness will be like solid cold. Simmons tells me I may have as much coal and wood as I like: will you help me to get them up?”
Davie sprang to his feet: he was ready that very minute.
“I shall never learn my lessons if I am cold,” added Donal, who could not bear a low temperature so well as when he was always in the open air.