A TRADITION OF THE CASTLE.
“Well,” he said as he drew near, “I am glad to see you two getting on
so well!”
“How do you know we are?” asked his sister, with something of the
antagonistic tone which both in jest and earnest is too common between
near relations.
“Because you have been talking incessantly ever since you met.”
“We have been only contradicting each other.”
“I could tell that too by the sound of your voices; but I took it for a
good sign.”
“I fear you heard mine almost only!” said Donal. “I talk too much, and
I fear I have gathered the fault in a way that makes it difficult to
cure.”
“How was it?” asked Mr. Graeme.
“By having nobody to talk to. I learned it on the hill-side with the
sheep, and in the meadows with the cattle. At college I thought I was
nearly cured of it; but now, in my comparative solitude at the castle,
it seems to have returned.”
“Come here,” said Mr. Graeme, “when you find it getting too much for
you: my sister is quite equal to the task of re-curing you.”
“She has not begun to use her power yet!” remarked Donal, as Miss
Graeme, in hoydenish yet not ungraceful fashion, made an attempt to box
the ear of her slanderous brother--a proceeding he had anticipated, and
so was able to frustrate.
“When she knows you better,” he said, “you will find my sister Kate
more than your match.”
“If I were a talker,” she answered, “Mr. Grant would be too much for
me: he quite bewilders me! What do you think! he has been actually
trying to persuade me--”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Graeme; I have been trying to persuade you of
nothing.”
“What! not to believe in ghosts and necromancy and witchcraft and the
evil eye and ghouls and vampyres, and I don’t know what all out of
nursery stories and old annuals?”
“I give you my word, Mr. Graeme,” returned Donal, laughing, “I have not
been persuading your sister of any of these things! I am certain she
could be persuaded of nothing of which she did not first see the common
sense. What I did dwell upon, without a doubt she would accept it, was
the evident fact that writing and printing have done more to bring us
into personal relations with the great dead, than necromancy, granting
the magician the power he claimed, could ever do. For do we not come
into contact with the being of a man when we hear him pour forth his
thoughts of the things he likes best to think about, into the ear of
the universe? In such a position does the book of a great man place
us!--That was what I meant to convey to your sister.”
“And,” said Mr. Graeme, “she was not such a goose as to fail of
understanding you, however she may have chosen to put on the garb of
stupidity.”
“I am sure,” persisted Kate, “Mr. Grant talked so as to make me think
he believed in necromancy and all that sort of thing!”
“That may be,” said Donal; “but I did not try to persuade you to
believe.”
“Oh, if you hold me to the letter!” cried Miss Graeme, colouring a
little.--“It would be impossible to get on with such a man,” she
thought, “for he not only preached when you had no pulpit to protect
you from him, but stuck so to his text that there was no amusement to
be got out of the business!”
She did not know that if she could have met him, breaking the
ocean-tide of his thoughts with fitting opposition, his answers would
have come short and sharp as the flashes of waves on rocks.
“If Mr. Grant believes in such things,” said Mr. Graeme, “he must find
himself at home in the castle, every room of which may well be the
haunt of some weary ghost!”
“I do not believe,” said Donal, “that any work of man’s hands, however
awful with crime done in it, can have nearly such an influence for
belief in the marvellous, as the still presence of live Nature. I
never saw an old castle before--at least not to make any close
acquaintance with it, but there is not an aspect of the grim old
survival up there, interesting as every corner of it is, that moves me
like the mere thought of a hill-side with the veil of the twilight
coming down over it, making of it the last step of a stair for the
descending foot of the Lord.”
“Surely, Mr. Grant, you do not expect such a personal advent!” said
Miss Graeme.
“I should not like to say what I do or don’t expect,” answered
Donal--and held his peace, for he saw he was but casting
stumbling-blocks.
The silence grew awkward; and Mr. Graeme’s good breeding called on him
to say something; he supposed Donal felt himself snubbed by his sister.
“If you are fond of the marvellous, though, Mr. Grant,” he said, “there
are some old stories about the castle would interest you. One of them
was brought to my mind the other day in the town. It is strange how
superstition seems to have its ebbs and flows! A story or legend will
go to sleep, and after a time revive with fresh interest, no one knows
why.”
“Probably,” said Donal, “it is when the tale comes to ears fitted for
its reception. They are now in many counties trying to get together
and store the remnants of such tales: possibly the wind of some such
inquiry may have set old people recollecting, and young people
inventing. That would account for a good deal--would it not?”
“Yes, but not for all, I think. There has been no such inquiry made
anywhere near us, so far as I am aware. I went to the Morven Arms last
night to meet a tenant, and found the tradesmen were talking, over
their toddy, of various events at the castle, and especially of one,
the most frightful of all. It should have been forgotten by this time,
for the ratio of forgetting, increases.”
“I should like much to hear it!” said Donal.
“Do tell him, Hector,” said Miss Graeme, “and I will watch his hair.”
“It is the hair of those who mock at such things you should watch,”
returned Donal. “Their imagination is so rarely excited that, when it
is, it affects their nerves more than the belief of others affects
theirs.”
“Now I have you!” cried Miss Graeme. “There you confess yourself a
believer!”
“I fear you have come to too general a conclusion. Because I believe
the Bible, do I believe everything that comes from the pulpit? Some
tales I should reject with a contempt that would satisfy even Miss
Graeme; of others I should say--‘These seem as if they might be true;’
and of still others, ‘These ought to be true, I think.’--But do tell me
the story.”
“It is not,” replied Mr. Graeme, “a very peculiar one--certainly not
peculiar to our castle, though unique in some of its details; a similar
legend belongs to several houses in Scotland, and is to be found, I
fancy, in other countries as well. There is one not far from here,
around whose dark basements--or hoary battlements--who shall say
which?--floats a similar tale. It is of a hidden room, whose position
or entrance nobody knows. Whether it belongs to our castle by right I
cannot tell.”
“A species of report,” said Donal, “very likely to arise by a kind of
cryptogamic generation! The common people, accustomed to the narrowest
dwellings, gazing on the huge proportions of the place, and upon
occasion admitted, and walking through a succession of rooms and
passages, to them as intricate and confused as a rabbit-warren, must be
very ready, I should think, to imagine the existence within such a
pile, of places unknown even to the inhabitants of it themselves!--But
I beg your pardon: do tell us the story.”
“Mr. Grant,” said Kate, “you perplex me! I begin to doubt if you have
any principles. One moment you take one side and the next the other!”
“No, no; I but love my own side too well to let any traitors into its
ranks: I would have nothing to do with lies.”
“They are all lies together!”
“Then I want to hear this one,” said Donal.
“I daresay you have heard it before!” remarked Mr. Graeme, and began.
“It was in the earldom of a certain recklessly wicked wretch, who not
only robbed his poor neighbours, and even killed them when they opposed
him, but went so far as to behave as wickedly on the Sabbath as on any
other day of the week. Late one Saturday night, a company were seated
in the castle, playing cards, and drinking; and all the time Sunday was
drawing nearer and nearer, and nobody heeding. At length one of them,
seeing the hands of the clock at a quarter to twelve, made the remark
that it was time to stop. He did not mention the sacred day, but all
knew what he meant. The earl laughed, and said, if he was afraid of
the kirk-session, he might go, and another would take his hand. But
the man sat still, and said no more till the clock gave the warning.
Then he spoke again, and said the day was almost out, and they ought
not to go on playing into the Sabbath. And as he uttered the word, his
mouth was pulled all on one side. But the earl struck his fist on the
table, and swore a great oath that if any man rose he would run him
through. ‘What care I for the Sabbath!’ he said. ‘I gave you your
chance to go,’ he added, turning to the man who had spoken, who was
dressed in black like a minister, ‘and you would not take it: now you
shall sit where you are.’ He glared fiercely at him, and the man
returned him an equally fiery stare. And now first they began to
discover what, through the fumes of the whisky and the smoke of the
pine-torches, they had not observed, namely, that none of them knew the
man, or had ever seen him before. They looked at him, and could not
turn their eyes from him, and a cold terror began to creep through
their vitals. He kept his fierce scornful look fixed on the earl for a
moment, and then spoke. ‘And I gave you your chance,’ he said, ‘and you
would not take it: now you shall sit still where you are, and no
Sabbath shall you ever see.’ The clock began to strike, and the man’s
mouth came straight again. But when the hammer had struck eleven
times, it struck no more, and the clock stopped. ‘This day
twelvemonth,’ said the man, ‘you shall see me again; and so every year
till your time is up. I hope you will enjoy your game!’ The earl
would have sprung to his feet, but could not stir, and the man was
nowhere to be seen. He was gone, taking with him both door and windows
of the room--not as Samson carried off the gates of Gaza, however, for
he left not the least sign of where they had been.
“From that day to this no one has been able to find the room. There the
wicked earl and his companions still sit, playing with the same pack of
cards, and waiting their doom. It has been said that, on that same day
of the year--only, unfortunately, testimony differs as to the
day--shouts of drunken laughter may be heard issuing from somewhere in
the castle; but as to the direction whence they come, none can ever
agree. That is the story.”
“A very good one!” said Donal. “I wonder what the ground of it is! It
must have had its beginning!”
“Then you don’t believe it?” said Miss Graeme.
“Not quite,” he replied. “But I have myself had a strange experience up
there.”
“What! you have seen something?” cried Miss Graeme, her eyes growing
bigger.
“No; I have seen nothing,” answered Donal, “--only heard
something.--One night, the first I was there indeed, I heard the sound
of a far-off musical instrument, faint and sweet.”
The brother and sister exchanged looks. Donal went on.
“I got up and felt my way down the winding stair--I sleep at the top of
Baliol’s tower--but at the bottom lost myself, and had to sit down and
wait for the light. Then I heard it again, but seemed no nearer to it
than before. I have never heard it since, and have never mentioned the
thing. I presume, however, that speaking of it to you can do no harm.
You at least will not raise any fresh rumours to injure the
respectability of the castle! Do you think there is any instrument in
it from which such a sound might have proceeded? Lady Arctura is a
musician, I am told, but surely was not likely to be at her piano ‘in
the dead waste and middle of the night’!”
“It is impossible to say how far a sound may travel in the stillness of
the night, when there are no other sound-waves to cross and break it.”
“That is all very well, Hector,” said his sister; “but you know Mr.
Grant is neither the first nor the second that has heard that sound!”
“One thing is pretty clear,” said her brother, “it can have nothing to
do with the revellers at their cards! The sound reported is very
different from any attributed to them!”
“Are you sure,” suggested Donal, “that there was not a violin shut up
with them? Even if none of them could play, there has been time enough
to learn. The sound I heard might have been that of a ghostly violin.
Though like that of a stringed instrument, it was different from
anything I had ever heard before--except perhaps certain equally
inexplicable sounds occasionally heard among the hills.”
They went on talking about the thing for a while, pacing up and down
the garden, the sun hot above their heads, the grass cool under their
feet.
“It is enough,” said Miss Graeme, with a rather forced laugh, “to make
one glad the castle does not go with the title.”
“Why so?” asked Donal.
“Because,” she answered, “were anything to happen to the boys up there,
Hector would come in for the title.”
“I’m not of my sister’s mind!” said Mr. Graeme, laughing more
genuinely. “A title with nothing to keep it up is a simple misfortune.
I certainly should not take out the patent. No wise man would lay
claim to a title without the means to make it respected.”
“Have we come to that!” exclaimed Donal. “Must even the old titles of
the country be buttressed into respectability with money? Away in
quiet places, reading old history books, we peasants are accustomed to
think differently. If some millionaire money-lender were to buy the
old keep of Arundel castle, you would respect him just as much as the
present earl!”
“I would not,” said Mr. Graeme. “I confess you have the better of
me.--But is there not a fallacy in your argument?” he added, thinkingly.
“I believe not. If the title is worth nothing without the money, the
money must be more than the title!--If I were Lazarus,” Donal went on,
“and the inheritor of a title, I would use it, if only for a lesson to
Dives up stairs. I scorn to think that honour should wait on the heels
of wealth. You may think it is because I am and always shall be a poor
man; but if I know myself it is not therefore. At the same time a
title is but a trifle; and if you had given any other reason for not
using it than homage to Mammon, I should have said nothing.”
“For my part,” said Miss Graeme, “I have no quarrel with riches except
that they do not come my way. I should know how to use and not abuse
them!”
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.