DONOVAN
A Novel
BY
EDNA LYALL
AUTHOR OF
"WON BY WAITING."
"And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around
Our incompleteness,--
Round our restlessness, His rest."
E. B. BROWNING.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1882.
_All rights reserved._
Contents
I. Cobwebs and Questions
II. A Crown of Fire
III. Good-bye
IV. A Man and a Brother
V. A Brave Sprite
VI. Old Friends
VII. Via Crucis
VIII. Temptation
IX. Charles Osmond
X. What is Forgiveness?
XI. Contrasted Lovers
XII. "Lame Dogs Over Stiles"
XIII. An Evolution, and a Nineteenth Century Foe
XIV. Duty's Call
XV. Via Lucis
XVI. Apprehension
XVII. Trevethan Speaks
XVIII. "My Hopes and Thine are One"
DONOVAN.
CHAPTER I.
COBWEBS AND QUESTIONS.
Then fiercely we dig the fountain,
Oh! whence do the waters rise?
Then panting we climb the mountain,
Oh! are there indeed blue skies?
And we dig till the soul is weary,
Nor find the waters out!
And we climb till all is dreary,
And still the sky is a doubt.
Search not the roots of the fountain,
But drink the water bright;
Gaze far above the mountain,
The sky may speak in light.
But if yet thou see no beauty--
If widowed thy heart yet cries--
With thy hands go and do thy duty,
And thy work will clear thine eyes.
_Violin Songs_. GEORGE MACDONALD.
The church at Porthkerran stood at some little distance from the
village. It was one of those old square-towered granite churches
which abound in the West, and the picturesque grave-yard, with its
rather sombre-looking slate tomb-stones, commanded a wide view of the
bay of Porthkerran and the great blue expanse beyond. The south wall
of the church-yard was on the very verge of the cliff, and here, one
evening in the end of September, Donovan and Waif established
themselves; service was going on, but both dog and master felt that
they had no part or lot in such things, and though not much given to
"meditations among the tombs," they had for some reason found their
way up to the church-yard. It was the evening of the Harvest
Festival, Donovan had been too busy to feel bored by the details of
the decorations with which in old times Adela used to rouse his ire,
but he could not help regretting that his last evening at Porthkerran
should be spent in enforced solitude.
The sense of isolation came to him for the first time since he had
been among the Tremains; Sunday after Sunday he had stayed
contentedly behind when they went to church, but this evening a
regret that he could not be with them was stirring in his heart. A
chance word of Nesta's had awakened it.
"Dono will stay with us till we do to bed," she had announced
triumphantly to Dick as he was leaving the house. "Dono is much
betterer than you, he doesn't do away and leave us."
It was impossible to escape from the small elf, she was on his
shoulder and her arms were clinging fast round his neck, but
Donovan's face glowed at her next remark.
"Don't you want to see the flowers and the corn they've putted in the
church, Dono? Won't you do when we're in bed?"
Dick came to the rescue.
"Mr. Dono will be much too busy with his skeleton, Nesta; don't you
know that he loves the skeleton better than he loves you?"
"The steleton's a very ugly thing," said Nesta, pouting, "and he
oughtn't to like it so much."
Then ensued a noisy romp; the rest of the party started for church.
Presently Jackie and Nesta were fetched by the nurse, and Donovan
shut himself into the study alone. But somehow Nesta's rival the
"steleton" engrossed him less than usual; the fascinating study of
bones did not still the feeling of unrest which the child's
unconscious words had stirred.
Did he not really want to join with the others? Was it any pleasure
to him to keep aloof? Had he not felt a pang of envy when he saw the
real delight which the prospect of this thanksgiving service gave to
the Tremains? Would it not be an infinite rest to be able to believe
in anything so ennobling, so comforting as Christianity? For nearly
three months he had been watching the life at Trenant. The Tremains
were by no means a faultless family, but their lives were very
different from any he had hitherto seen, and it had dawned on him as
a possibility that their belief might have something to do with this
difference. Christianity had hitherto shown itself to him as a thing
of creeds, not as a living of the Christ life, and how to explain
this new phenomenon he did not know. Were these people loveable in
spite of their creed, or because of it? One thing was plain, however
inexplicable it might be: they possessed something which he did not
possess, something which--it had come to that now--he _longed_ to
possess. While he was restless and unsatisfied, they were at peace;
while he was daily becoming more doubtful as to the truth of the
views he held, they were absolutely convinced that their Master was
not only true, but the Way to knowledge of all Truth. The more
enviable this certainty, however, the more impossible it seemed to
him to make the faith his own. Study and thought had indeed brought
him from his more positive atheism to a sort of agnosticism, but,
although this had at first seemed hopeful and restful in contrast
with his former creed, it now forced upon him an even worse agony.
He had accepted his dreamy certainty with stoicism, but to waver in
doubt, to know nothing, to feel that in knowledge only could there be
rest, and yet to despair of ever gaining that knowledge, this was
indeed a misery which he had never contemplated. He saw no way out
of his difficulty. To believe because belief would be pleasant was
(happily) quite as impossible to him now as it had been at
Codrington, when the chorus of "I _will_ believe" had dinned him into
a bitter denunciation of "cupboard" faith. The only prospect then
which seemed before him was a constant craving after the unknown.
To be conscious of hunger does not always bring us bread at once, but
it does prove our need of bread, and it does make us ready to receive
it when given.
The half-stifled thoughts which had lurked in his mind during his
stay at Trenant now forced themselves upon him. He grew too restless
and unhappy to work, and at last, whistling to Waif to follow him, he
left the house, and sauntered out in the cool evening. Instinctively
he mounted the hill to the church, stretched himself on the wall
already described, at no great distance from the cross which marked
his father's grave, and listened to the singing which, through open
door and window, was borne to him clearly. There were special psalms
that night. He found himself listening intently for Gladys's voice,
and in so doing he caught the words of the grand old descriptive poem.
"They went astray in the wilderness out of the way:
And found no city to dwell in.
Hungry and thirsty,
Their soul fainted in them.
So they cried unto the Lord in their trouble;
And He delivered them from their distress.
He led them forth by the right way
That they might go to the city where they dwelt.
* * * * * * * * *
For he satisfieth the empty soul;
And filleth the hungry soul with goodness."
He heard no more. The recollection of the time when he _had_ "cried"
unto the Great Unknown in his trouble, the time when his atheism had
brought him to the verge of madness, when his philosophy had failed,
and helplessly and illogically he had prayed that Dot's agony might
end, returned to him now. But that appeal had been an involuntary
one. He could not calmly and deliberately address a Being in whom he
did not believe; though he was hungering to find the Truth, he could
not try to find it by any unreal means.
Thus much he had arrived at when his attention was drawn away to a
tragedy in insect life which was going on close beside him. In an
angle of the wall was a large spider's web; caught in its meshes hung
an unusual victim--a wasp, who, in spite of his size and strength,
found the clinging gossamer threads too much for him. The spider
drew nearer and nearer. Donovan speculated which would get the best
of it, the spider with his cunning, or the wasp with his sting.
Buzz! whirr! buzz! the web would not yield, the prisoner struggled in
vain, on came the stealthy spider, evidently the victory would be
his. But a sudden fellow-feeling for the imprisoned insect rose in
Donovan's heart, he sprang up, demolished the cobweb, and had the
satisfaction of seeing the spider scuttle away as fast as his long
legs could carry him, while the wasp flew off in the still evening
air.
"Free! you lucky beast!" he exclaimed.
"Who is the lucky beast?" said a voice behind him.
He looked round and saw Dr. Tremain.
"I've just been fetched out of church to see a patient. I hope that
wasn't intended for a congratulation!"
Donovan laughed.
"No; I was apostrophizing a wasp I've just rescued from a cobweb.
Are you going far? May I come with you?"
"By all means; it's a message from St. Kerran's. Come and drive me,
will you?"
They left the churchyard arm-in-arm, and before long Star and Ajax
were bearing them rapidly away in the pony-chaise.
"It's a glorious night for a drive," said the doctor. "And I am glad
not to have missed you on your last evening. We shall be very dull
when you are gone, Donovan; as to Nesta, I think she will break her
heart. You have become a necessity to her."
"Or she to me?" said Donovan, smiling. "It's extraordinary what a
difference it makes to have children in a house."
"Is it not Huxley who speaks of 'the eminently sympathetic mind of
childhood'?" said Dr. Tremain. "That has always struck me very
much--the readiness with which a child makes itself one with all
around it, the freedom with which it gives its confidence, and the
delight with which it helps others; that readiness to serve and love
always seems to me stronger proof than anything that as
'Trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.'"
"Your Wordsworth is too spiritual and mystical for me," said Donovan,
with some bitterness.
"Or too simple?" questioned the doctor.
"No, no; or simple only to the favoured few who had these intimations
of immortality. For my part I am not aware that heaven ever 'lay
about me in my infancy.' I know that injustice and tyranny in very
visible forms were there, and only now do I know what a grudge I owe
them. If from your very babyhood you have had to fight your own
battles, and rely on yourself, it isn't very possible at two and
twenty to--to----" he hesitated.
"To become a child again," said Dr. Tremain, quietly, "and to
recognize that above the petty tyrannies and injustices of the world
is the Eternal Truth."
"You have never spoken to me of these things before," said Donovan,
trying to banish a certain constrained tone from his voice.
"No," replied the doctor. "And I should not have spoken now unless
you had led me up to it. There are some things, Donovan, for which
it is well to 'hope and quietly wait.' I am glad you have spoken.
Of course such a change as you speak of is infinitely hard, but if
the lesson of life be thoroughly to learn that truth of Father and
child, we shall not grudge the difficulty we find in learning it."
"If it seemed the least probable that one ever could learn it," said
Donovan, sadly. "But I own that I don't see my way to doing so.
Never was there a time when I realised so well the beauty of
Christianity, or felt so anxious to prove my own creed false, but yet
never was there a time when the usual belief seemed to me more
glaringly illogical, more impossible to hold. You don't know what it
is to toss about in a sea of doubts. I had rather have my old hard
and fast security in the material present, than flounder in this
cobweb like my wasp friend just now."
"Not if the old belief was a mistake and delusion, which for aught
you know it is," replied the doctor. "Besides, to take your wasp as
a parable, its flounderings were of some avail, it proved its need of
a rescuer, and the rescuer came--one who could sympathise even with a
vicious, stinging, six-legged ne'er-do-weel."
"But all I have got is a mere desire."
"Quite so, a desire to find the truth,--the right thing to start
with."
"No, it seems to me only a half-selfish desire to prop up a beautiful
legend, a discontent with truths of science."
"I should call it a natural and by no means selfish desire, and an
inevitable discovery that Science, great, and noble, and mighty as
she is, cannot satisfy all a man's needs."
"If you could give us scientific proof in religion, then belief might
be possible," said Donovan, his voice losing all its constraint and
changing to almost painful earnestness. "But see what a contrast
there is--in science all is proved with exquisite clearness, in
religion, there is absolutely no proof. I am crazy with sorrow, and
a man comes to me and says, 'Be comforted, we are immortal;' I ask
for proof, and he tells me it is probable, and instances the case of
the grub and the butterfly. Will that argument comfort a man in
bereavement?"
"No, for it begins at the wrong end," said the doctor. "There must
be faith before there can be belief. As to mathematical proof, of
course it is impossible when you are not treating of mathematical
subjects or dimensions, but the absolute conviction of the existence
of God will be as entirely independent of proof as my absolute
conviction that my wife is true to me."
Donovan did not speak, he seemed rather staggered by the breadth of
this assertion, not having as yet grasped the fact that the "truth"
which he was struggling after was not so much concerned with
intellectual difficulties to be overcome as with the awaking of a
spirit which slept.
"There are thousands of things of the truth of which we are perfectly
convinced, and which we nevertheless fail to prove like a
mathematical problem," continued the doctor. "Take the case of the
great heiress, Miss C----, whom I am now going to visit. We will
suppose that she falls in love with a penniless man; her parents
laugh at the affair, and bring forward the usual arguments: 'My dear,
he only wants your money, he is not in love with you.' All the time
the girl knows perfectly well that these arguments are false, and she
asserts, boldly, 'He does love me, I know he loves me,' but she can
give no scientific proof of this love, though it is to her the most
intense reality, a reality that alters all her world. It seems to me
to hold true that all things connected with the highest instincts of
our life--merely as natural beings, I mean, you know--are incapable
of mathematical or even experimental proof. But now-a-days people
are so apt to make the most sacred things mere blocks on which to
chop logic, that a morbid and unreasonable desire rises to have
everything explained to us in black and white."
"But religious people are so dogmatic; they assert 'this is so, that
is so, believe it or perish!'" complained Donovan. "I mean the
ordinary run; I don't call you a religious person."
"Thank you," said the doctor, laughing. "But surely, Donovan, you
used to be; I don't say you are now, but a very short time ago you
were quite as dogmatic as anyone, and asserted 'there is no spirit
because everything is matter, no supernatural because everything is
natural.'"
"Yes, I plead guilty to that, and could half wish now to fall back on
the old convictions. There are too many inexplicable mysteries in
religion; I shall never get further than this fog of agnosticism."
"Are there no inexplicable mysteries to an atheist?" said the doctor,
quietly. "How do you explain the existence of that immaterial thing
the will? Science can tell us absolutely nothing with regard to it,
but you are the last person who would deny its existence; on the
contrary, without any proof you have a stronger belief in the power
and functions of the will than anyone I know."
"Because I know--I _feel_ its existence."
"Quite so, and just in the same way, though science can't demonstrate
to me the existence of God, I know and feel His existence," replied
the doctor. "Or to take another argument which is often used: some
one asserts that there can be no Creator of the universe, because the
idea of such a Being is not mentally presentable; yet one of the
greatest men of science of the present day is obliged to own that
_consciousness_ is not mentally presentable, although it exists."
"I see you have faced all these questions," said Donovan, his sense
of union with his friend deepening. "From what I saw before knowing
you, I should have said that Christians accepted their belief on
authority, and stopped as wrong or presumptuous all free thought and
inquiry."
"I believe we all have to 'face' the questions, as you say, sooner or
later," said the doctor. "My dear boy, I have been through something
of this fog which you are now in, and to a certain extent have felt
what you are now feeling."
"You!" exclaimed Donovan, in the greatest surprise.
"Yes, in spite of every possible help in the way of home and
education, and speaking as one who has lived through this darkness, I
would say to you, don't grudge the suffering or the waiting, but go
on patiently."
"Go on doubting?" questioned Donovan.
"Go on living--by which I mean doing your duty," replied the doctor.
"Depend upon it, Donovan, that's the only thing to be clung to at
such a time--the rightness of right is, at least, clear to you."
"That much is clear, yes," said Donovan, musingly, "for the rest, I
suppose the humiliation of uncertainty is good for one's pride, the
ache of incompleteness wholesomely disagreeable."
"The beginning of health," said the doctor, half to himself; then
looking at the unsatisfied face, he added, in his firm, manly voice,
"Be patient, my boy."
"Patience implies hope," said Donovan, in a low tone, which veiled
very deep feeling. "Now tell me honestly"--he fixed his eyes
steadily on Dr. Tremain's face to read its first expression,--"do you
think I shall ever get beyond this wretched uncertainty?"
The doctor's face seemed positively to shine, as he replied,
"I am certain you will; sooner or later, here or there, all will be
made plain to you. Do you suppose that when we give thanks for the
'redemption of the _world_' we leave you out? Only be patient, and
in the right time the 'Truth shall make you free.' In the meanwhile
you are not left without one unfailing comfort: you can work, you can
act up to your conscience, and to any man who desires to do His will
knowledge of the truth is promised. You make me think of the words I
used just now, there is a seeming contradiction when we are told 'it
is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the
salvation of the Lord.' It seems impossible that waiting for
_health_ can be 'good,' we wish to have done at once with all
weakness, all restrictions; it is not till later on when we come to
look on all things with other eyes that we see the good of the
waiting, its very necessity."
There was silence after that for some minutes, one by one the stars
were beginning to shine out in the pale sky, the wind ruffled the
leaves in the high hedgerows. Star and Ajax trotted on briskly.
Everything that night left a lasting impression on Donovan's brain;
he could always see that glooming landscape, with the faint starlight
and the lingering streaks of gold in the west, always feel the
freshness of the evening air which seemed invigorating as the new
hope which was just dawning for him. But he was too choked to speak
when the doctor paused, too much taken up with the thoughts suggested
to him, to care to put anything of himself into expression.
Presently they came to a gate; he sprang out to open it. Then, as
they drove up to the house, the doctor said,
"I shall be half an hour, I daresay, so, if you like, drive on to the
post-office."
The postman did not come to Porthkerran on Sunday, and Donovan, glad
to be of any use, readily assented to the doctor's plan, and drove on
to the post-town--St. Kerran's. His mind was still full of the
subject they had just been discussing, and half absently he drew up
at the private door of the office and asked for the Trenant letters;
it was an understood thing that the doctor called for them at any
time he pleased; the head of the post-office, though something of a
Sabbatarian, bowed civilly and went in search of them, leaving the
door open, perhaps to air the house, perhaps that the strains of one
of Wesley's hymns which his children were singing might reach the
ears of the stranger who held the reins. But Donovan's thoughts were
far away, and the braying harmonium had no power to recall him to the
present. In a few moments the man came out of the office, there were
two letters in his hand. Donovan took them, hastily glancing at the
directions by the light of the street lamp; one was for Dr. Tremain,
the other was directed to "D. Farrant, Esq." A certain pleasurable
sensation stole over him, mingled with surprise, for the writing was
Adela's. She would send him news of his mother, and though still
only half allowing it to himself Donovan did care for his mother.
He paused to read the letter by one of the carriage-lamps as soon as
he had left the streets of St. Kerrans behind. Then, still more to
his surprise, he found that Adela had only written a note, just
explaining that the enclosed was from Mrs. Farrant.
The pretty but meaningless characters recalled him to his
school-days, when the arrival of his mother's occasional letters had
generally been the cause of more pain than pleasure. Things were
different now. The letter was very different.
"MY DEAR DONOVAN,
"Since Dr. Tremain's visit in the summer, I have felt very anxious
about you; but it is some comfort that we know where you are, and
Adela has promised that she will direct and post this to you. I am
not, as you know, a free agent. I have been shocked to think of the
straits you have been reduced to, and send you in this letter £20,
which is all I could save from the personal allowance my husband
makes me. I have been very poorly for some time. We are thinking of
spending the winter abroad. Poor Fido died last week, and I am still
feeling the shock. Doery has an attack of rheumatism, and her temper
is very trying; but Phœbe, who is now my maid, is a great comfort
to me. Forgive this short letter, but I do not feel equal to writing
any more to-day.
"With love, believe me,
"Your affectionate mother,
"HONORA FARRANT."
The saving of that money was the first voluntary act of self-denial
which Mrs. Farrant had ever made. Donovan knew how to appreciate
such unusual thought; the letter, which might to some have seemed
uninteresting and self-engrossed, meant a great deal to him, for was
it not more than he had ever dreamed of receiving?
When Dr. Tremain rejoined him, he saw at once that something must
have happened to raise his spirits in a most unusual degree.
"You found some letters?" he asked, as they drove home.
"One from my mother," said Donovan, without any comment, but in a
voice which spoke volumes.
"I am very glad," said the doctor, warmly.
"She has sent me some money," resumed Donovan, "for which, of course,
I care less than for the letter; it will be a great help, though.
£20 will get me some books, and then, if I can only get a
scholarship, I shall manage well enough. If not, I shall take to the
sixpence-a-day mode of life."
"I'm afraid, even if you get a scholarship, you'll find very rigid
economy necessary," said the doctor, unable to suppress an angry
thought of Ellis Farrant's calm enjoyment of his unjust gains, but
too prudent to allude to a subject which his guest seemed to have
willed to put altogether away.
"Oh! I know I shall only have enough for the necessaries of life,"
said Donovan. "But Waif and I can put up with the loss of a few
comforts."
"Bones and cigars to wit?" said the doctor.
"Bones are cheap luxuries," replied Donovan, laughing. "As to
cigars, I've given up smoking for the last three months, so that will
be no new privation. Oh! we shall scrape through well enough."
The doctor then fell back to reminiscences of his own hospital
career, which, stimulated by Donovan's questions, lasted till they
reached Trenant. The rest of the party had returned from church;
they found themselves just in time for that most restful part of the
Sunday, when no one was busy, when the unity of the household was
most apparent, when the reality of the peace and love which reigned
was most strongly borne in upon Donovan. To-night there was a tinge
of regret over all, for was not this his last evening with them? He
did not speak much to Gladys, but followed her everywhere with his
eyes, and when Dick asked for music took his place by the piano,
turning over a portfolio of songs while Gladys played the "Pastoral
Symphony." When it was ended, he took up his favourite song,
Blumenthal's "Truth shall thee Deliver."
"May we have this?" he asked, hoping that he had not overstepped
those incomprehensible boundaries which marked off Sunday from
week-day music.
But Gladys was well content to sing Chaucer's beautiful old song,
since Mrs. Causton was not there to be shocked, and perhaps, in her
low sweet voice, she gave Donovan the best counsel he could have had
for his new start in life. The quaint words lingered long after in
his memory.
"Fly from the press, and dwell with soothfastness,
Suffice unto thy good, though it be small.
* * * * * * * * *
Rede well thyself that other folks canst rede,
And truth shall thee deliver, it is no drede.
"That thee is sent receive in buxomness,
The wrestling of this world asketh a fall;
Here is no home, here is but wilderness;
Forth, pilgrim, forth! Best out of thy stall!
Look up on high and thank the God of all,
Waive thy lusts, and let thy ghost thee lead,
And truth shall thee deliver, it is no drede."
The following morning Star and Ajax were once more bearing Dr.
Tremain and his guest to St. Kerrans; the ivy-grown house was left
behind, and with Nesta's appealing "Come back adain very soon!"
ringing in his ears, and a last smile from Gladys to fortify him,
Donovan began the next era of his life.