“What do you mean?” he stammered. “I do not understand!”
His lips trembled: was it possible he had had to do with the stealing of it?
The truth was this: he had learned the existence of the cup from this very book; and had never rested until, after a search of more than ten years, he at length found it in the hands of a poor man who dared not offer it for sale. Once in his possession, the thought of giving it up, or of letting the owner redeem it, had never even occurred to him. Yet the treasure made him rejoice with a trembling which all his casuistry would have found it hard to explain; for he would not confess to himself its real cause—namely, that his God-born essence was uneasy with a vague knowledge that it lay in the bosom of a thief. “Don't you think, sir,” said Dawtie, “that whoever has that cup ought to send it back to the place it was stolen from?”
Had the old man been a developed hypocrite, he would have replied at once: “He certainly ought.” But by word of mouth to condemn himself would have been to acknowledge to himself that he ought to send the cup home, and this he dared not do. Men who will not do as they know, make strange confusion in themselves. The worst rancor in the vessel of peace is the consciousness of wrong in a not all-unrighteous soul. The laird was false to his own self, but to confess himself false would be to initiate a change which would render life worthless to him! What would all his fine things be without their heart of preciousness, the one jewel that now was nowhere in the world but in his house, in the secret chamber of his treasures, which would be a rifled case without it! As is natural to one who will not do right, he began to argue the moral question, treating it as a point of casuistry that troubled the mind of the girl.
“I don't know that, Dawtie!” he said. “It is not likely that the person that has the cup, whoever he may be—that is, if the cup be still in existence—is the same who stole it; and it would hardly be justice to punish the innocent for the guilty?—as would be the case, if, supposing I had bought the cup, I had to lose the money I paid for it. Should the man who had not taken care of his cup have his fault condoned at my expense? Did he not deserve, the many might say, to be so punished, placing huge temptation in the path of the needy, to the loss of their precious souls, and letting a priceless thing go loose in the world, to work ruin to whoever might innocently buy it?”
His logic did not serve to show him the falsehood of his reasoning, for his heart was in the lie. “Ought I or he,” he went on, “to be punished because he kept the thing ill? And how far would the quixotic obligation descend? A score of righteous men may by this time have bought and sold the cup!—is it some demon-talisman, that the last must meet the penalty, when the original owner, or some descendant of the man who lost it, chooses to claim it? For anything we know, he may himself have pocketed the price of the rumored theft! Can you not see it would be a flagrant injustice?—fit indeed to put an end to all buying and selling! It would annihilate transfer of property! Possession would mean only strength to keep, and the world would fall into confusion.”
“It would be hard, I grant,” confessed Dawtie; “but the man who has it ought at least to give the head of the family in which it had been the chance of buying it back at the price it cost him. If he could not buy it back—then the thing would have to be thought over.”
“I confess I don't see the thing,” returned the laird. “But the question needs not keep you out of bed, Dawtie! It is not often a girl in your position takes an interest in the abstract! Besides,” he resumed, another argument occurring to him, “a thing of such historical value and interest ought to be where it was cared for, not where it was in danger every moment.”
“There might be something in that,” allowed Dawtie, “if it were where everybody could see it. But where is the good if it be but for the eyes of one man?”
The eyes she meant fixed themselves upon her till their gaze grew to a stony stare. She must know that he had it! Or did she only suspect? He must not commit himself! He must set a watch on the door of his lips! What an uncomfortable girl to have in the house! Oh, those self-righteous Ingrams! What mischief they did! His impulse was to dart into his treasure-cave, lock himself in, and hug the radiant chalice. He dared not. He must endure instead the fastidious conscience and probing tongue of an intrusive maid-servant!