GEORGE AND THE LAIRD.
Alexa's money was nearly exhausted, and most of her chickens had been
devoured by the flourishing convalescent, but not yet would the doctor
allow him to return to business.
One night the electric condition of the atmosphere made it heavy, sultry
and unrefreshing, and George could not sleep. There came a terrible
burst of thunder; then a bannered spear of vividest lightning seemed to
lap the house in its flashing folds, and the simultaneous thunder was
mingled with the sound, as it seemed, of the fall of some part of the
building. George sat up in bed and listened. All was still. He must rise
and see what had happened, and whether any one was hurt. He might meet
Alexa, and a talk with her would be a pleasant episode in his sleepless
night. He got into his dressing-gown, and taking his stick, walked
softly from the room.
His door opened immediately on the top of the stair. He stood and
listened, but was aware of no sequel to the noise. Another flash came,
and lighted up the space around him, with its walls of many angles. When
the darkness was returned and the dazzling gone, and while the thunder
yet bellowed, he caught the glimmer of a light under the door of the
study, and made his way toward it over the worn slabs. He knocked, but
there was no answer. He pushed the door, and saw that the light came
from behind a projecting book-case. He hesitated a moment, and glanced
about him.
A little clinking sound came from somewhere. He stole nearer the source
of the light; a thief might be there. He peeped round the end of the
book-case. With his back to him the laird was kneeling before an open
chest. He had just counted a few pieces of gold, and was putting them
away. He turned over his shoulder a face deathly pale, and his eyes for
a moment stared blank. Then with a shivering smile he rose. He had a
thin-worn dressing-gown over his night-shirt, and looked a thread of a
man.
“You take me for a miser?” he said, trembling, and stood expecting an
answer.
Crawford was bewildered: what business had he there?
“I am _not_ a miser!” resumed the laird. “A man may count his money
without being a miser!”
He stood and stared, still trembling, at his guest, either too much
startled or too gentle to find fault with his intrusion.
“I beg your pardon, laird,” said George. “I knocked, but receiving no
answer, feared something was wrong.”
“But why are you out of bed--and you an invalid?” returned Mr. Fordyce.
“I heard a heavy fall, and feared the lightning had done some damage.”
“We shall see about that in the morning, and in the meantime you had
better go to bed,” said the laird.
They turned together toward the door.
“What a multitude of books, you have, Mr. Fordyce!” remarked George. “I
had not a notion of such a library in the county!”
“I have been a lover of books all my life,” returned the laird. “And
they gather, they gather!” he added.
“Your love draws them,” said George.
“The storm is over, I think,” said the laird.
He did not tell his guest that there was scarcely a book on those
shelves not sought after by book-buyers--not one that was not worth
money in the book-market. Here and there the dulled gold of a fine
antique binding returned the gleam of the candle, but any gathering of
old law or worthless divinity would have looked much the same.
“I should like to glance over them,” said George. “There must be some
valuable volumes among so many!”
“Rubbish! rubbish!” rejoined the old man, testily, almost hustling him
from the room. “I am ashamed to hear it called a library.”
It seemed to Crawford, as again he lay awake in his bed, altogether a
strange incident. A man may count his money when he pleases, but not the
less must it seem odd that he should do so in the middle of the night,
and with such a storm flashing and roaring around him, apparently
unheeded. The next morning he got his cousin to talk about her father,
but drew from her nothing to cast light on what he had seen.