The clock in St. Catharine’s tower was striking ten as the two brothers moved along under the churchyard wall. With the departure of Mr. Quincunx James seemed to recover his normal spirits. This recovery was manifested in a way that rejoiced the heart of Luke, so congruous was it with all their old habits and associations; but to a stranger overhearing the words, it would have seemed the reverse of promising.
“Shall we take a glance at the grave?” the elder brother suggested, leaning his elbows on the moss-grown wall. Luke assented with alacrity, and the ancient stones of the wall lending themselves easily to such a proceeding, they both clambered over into the place of tombs.
Thus within the space of forty-eight hours the brothers Andersen had been together in no less than three sepulchral enclosures. One might have supposed that the same destiny that made of their father a kind of modern Old Mortality—less pious, it is true, than his prototype, but not less addicted to invasions of the unprotesting dead—had made it inevitable that the most critical moments of his sons’ lives should be passed in the presence of these mute witnesses.
They crossed over to where the head-stone of their parents’ grave rose, gigantic and imposing in the clear star light, as much larger than the other monuments as the beaver, into which Pau-Puk-Keewis changed himself, was larger than the other beavers. They sat down on a neighbouring mound and contemplated in silence their father’s work. The dark dome of the sky above them, strewn with innumerable points of glittering light, attracted Luke once more to his old astronomical speculations.
“I have an idea,” he said, “that there is more in the influence of these constellations than even the astrologers have guessed. Their method claims to be a scientific one, mathematical in the exactness of its inferences. My feeling about the matter is, that there is something much more arbitrary, much more living and wayward, in the manner in which they work their will upon us. I said ‘constellations,’ but I don’t believe, as a matter of fact, that it is from them at all that the influences come. The natural and obvious thing is that the planets should affect us, and affect us very much in the same way as we affect one another. The ancient races recognized this difference. The fixed stars are named after animals, or inanimate objects, or after powerful, but not more than human, heroes. The planets are all named from immortal gods, and it is as gods,—as wilful and arbitrary gods—that they influence our destinies.”
James Andersen surveyed the large and brilliant star which at that moment hung, like an enormous glow-worm, against the southern slope of Nevilton Mount.
“Some extremely evil planet must have been very active during these last weeks with Lacrima and with me,” he remarked. “Don’t get alarmed, my dear,” he added, noticing the look of apprehension which his brother turned upon him. “I shan’t worry you with any more silly talk. Those voices in my head have quite ceased. But that does not help Lacrima.” He laughed a sad little laugh.
“I suppose,” he added, “no one can help her in this devilish situation,—except that queer fellow who’s just left us. I would let him step over my dead body, if he would only carry her off and fool them all!”
Luke’s mind plunged into a difficult problem. His brother’s wits were certainly restored, and he seemed calm and clear-headed. But was he clear-headed enough to learn the details of the curious little conspiracy which Mr. Taxater’s diplomatic brain had evolved? How would this somewhat ambiguous transaction strike so romantic a nature as his?
Luke hesitated and pondered, the tall dark tower of St. Catharine’s Church affording him but scant inspiration, as it rose above them into the starlit sky. Should he tell him or should he keep the matter to himself, and enter into some new pretended scheme with his brother, to occupy his mind and distract it, for the time being?