Although it was the sanctuary of fine records, he always associated it with the last definite memory of his elder brother. Two or three days before Douglas chose that easy way of shifting responsibilities which it takes a brave man or woman to evade, Richard had been carried pick-a-back by his elder brother down the long gallery; had been shown, with a certain solemnity, pathetic in view of what was so soon to occur, portrait upon portrait of their ancestors, notably men who were famous for good rather than great deeds.
There were two especial portraits before which they lingered, Richard remembered afterwards—that of their great-great-grandfather, upon whose tomb, by the wish of his country and his tenantry, the motto, "Noble by birth, noble in all things else," had been engraved; and one of his wife, known in her day as "The Ivory Mayde," because of the dazzling fairness of her skin. A contemporary poet wrote of her—
"Snow her fayre body—snowier white her soul."
"Something worth while, old chap, to have that said of one," Douglas had commented, and Richard, bored at the delay, overcome by the gloom and seclusion of the gallery, and long array of still figures in unaccustomed clothes; remembered butting at him with his head until his brother cried out for mercy and moved on.
The portraits—the knights in armour who guarded the entrance to the rooms so jealously, awed him still, but not as of old. They were his friends now, like the squirrels, and passionate love and pride thrilled him each time he entered the gallery. The deeds they had done, the records they had left, few even in Scotland could match. The blood they shed made a sea of glory which reflected the light of God; merely to cross the threshold was an act of faith.
Richard could have prayed to some of these more easily than to an unknown God. He knew their histories, man for man, woman for woman. Before some he habitually paused longer than before others. Had the veil invisible between that world and his been rent, and the familiar shades taken fleshly form before his eyes, and called to him, he would not have known fear. He was theirs and they were his; he faced them buoyantly, with head erect.
His mother and nurse shunned the gallery, believing it to be haunted—so much the better!
Time after time, generally at dead of night, but sometimes even in the day, Richard himself had fancied he heard the stir and rustle of a silken skirt close beside him, and saw the flash of some dead soldier's dirk. Whereupon, the moment being critical, a cold draught from some open door would generally blow in upon him, keen and sharp like the wind in mountain heather, to announce some ill-timed interruption of his nurse. Afterwards—a shrill scolding and imprisonment in a room from whose window he would immediately get out. Richard had no compunction as to flight when it was thus forced upon him, but by the time he returned the dream unfortunately, like many a later dream, would have had time to break.
"Do you think that is what dreams are made for, Dan—only to break?" he asked his collie sometimes. Whereupon Dan would look up with the profoundly wistful negation of one who, although dumb, is wiser than his master.
Eight—nine—ten—eleven.