The days went on and on, and still Donal saw nothing, or next to nothing of the earl. Thrice he met him on the way to the walled garden in which he was wont to take his unfrequent exercise; on one of these occasions his lordship spoke to him courteously, the next scarcely noticed him, the third passed him without recognition.
Donal, who with equal mind took everything as it came, troubled himself not at all about the matter. He was doing his work as well as he knew how, and that was enough.
Now also he saw scarcely anything of lord Forgue either; he no longer sought his superior scholarship. Lady Arctura he saw generally once a week at the religion-lesson; of Miss Carmichael happily nothing at all. But as he grew more familiar with the countenance of lady Arctura, it pained him more and more to see it so sad, so far from peaceful. What might be the cause of it?
Most well-meaning young women are in general tolerably happy--partly perhaps because they have few or no aspirations, not troubling themselves about what alone is the end of thought--and partly perhaps because they despise the sadness ever ready to assail them, as something unworthy. But if condemned to the round of a tormenting theological mill, and at the same time consumed with strenuous endeavour to order thoughts and feelings according to supposed requirements of the gospel, with little to employ them and no companions to make them forget themselves, such would be at once more sad and more worthy. The narrow ways trodden of men are miserable; they have high walls on each side, and but an occasional glimpse of the sky above; and in such paths lady Arctura was trying to walk. The true way, though narrow, is not unlovely: most footpaths are lovelier than high roads. It may be full of toil, but it cannot be miserable. It has not walls, but fields and forests and gardens around it, and limitless sky overhead. It has its sorrows, but many of them lie only on its borders, and they that leave the path gather them. Lady Arctura was devouring her soul in silence, with such effectual help thereto as the self-sufficient friend, who had never encountered a real difficulty in her life, plenteously gave her. Miss Carmichael dealt with her honestly according to her wisdom, but that wisdom was foolishness; she said what she thought right, but was wrong in what she counted right; nay, she did what she thought right--but no amount of doing wrong right can set the soul on the high table-land of freedom, or endow it with liberating help.
The autumn passed, and the winter was at hand--a terrible time to the old and ailing even in tracts nearer the sun--to the young and healthy a merry time even in the snows and bitter frosts of eastern Scotland. Davie looked chiefly to the skating, and in particular to the pleasure he was going to have in teaching Mr. Grant, who had never done any sliding except on the soles of his nailed shoes: when the time came, he acquired the art the more rapidly that he never minded what blunders he made in learning a thing. The dread of blundering is a great bar to success.
He visited the Comins often, and found continual comfort and help in their friendship. The letters he received from home, especially those of his friend sir Gibbie, who not unfrequently wrote also for Donal's father and mother, were a great nourishment to him.
As the cold and the nights grew, the water-level rose in Donal's well, and the poetry began to flow. When we have no summer without, we must supply it from within. Those must have comfort in themselves who are sent to help others. Up in his aerie, like an eagle above the low affairs of the earth, he led a keener life, breathed the breath of a more genuine existence than the rest of the house. No doubt the old cobbler, seated at his last over a mouldy shoe, breathed a yet higher air than Donal weaving his verse, or reading grand old Greek, in his tower; but Donal was on the same path, the only path with an infinite end--the divine destiny.
He had often thought of trying the old man with some of the best poetry he knew, desirous of knowing what receptivity he might have for it; but always when with him had hitherto forgot his proposed inquiry, and thought of it again only after he had left him: the original flow of the cobbler's life put the thought of testing it out of his mind.
One afternoon, when the last of the leaves had fallen, and the country was bare as the heart of an old man who has lived to himself, Donal, seated before a great fire of coal and boat-logs, fell a thinking of the old garden, vanished with the summer, but living in the memory of its delight. All that was left of it at the foot of the hill was its corpse, but its soul was in the heaven of Donal's spirit, and there this night gathered to itself a new form.
It grew and grew in him, till it filled with its thoughts the mind of the poet. He turned to his table, and began to write: with many emendations afterwards, the result was this:--
THE OLD GARDEN.
I.
