 Chapter 21 of David Elginbrod. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. David Elginbrod by George McDonald. Chapter 21. Fatima. Those lips that loves own hand did make. Breathe forth the sound that said, I hate. To me that languished for her sake. But when she saw my woeful state, straight in her heart did mercy come. Chiding that tongue that, ever sweet, was used in giving gentle doom, and taught it thus anew to greet, I hate she altered with an end, that followed it as gentle day, death-fall a night, who, like a fiend, from heaven to hell is flown away. I hate from hate away she threw, and saved my life, saying not you. Shakespeare. Mr. Arnold was busy at home for a few days after this, and Hugh and Harry had to go out alone. One day, when the wind was rather cold, they took refuge in the barn, for it was part of Hugh's special care that Harry should be rendered hearty by never being exposed to more than he could bear without a sense of suffering. Soon as the boy began to feel fatigue, or cold, or any other discomfort, his tutor took measures accordingly. Harry would have crept into the straw house, but Hugh said pulling a book out of his pocket. I have a poem here for you, Harry. I want to read it to you now, and we can't see in there. They threw themselves down on the straw, and Hugh, opening a volume of Robert Browning's poems, read the famous ride from Ghent to I. He wrote the poem well and read it well. Harry was in raptures. I wish I could read that as you do, said he. Try, said Hugh. Harry tried the first verse and threw the book down and discussed it with himself. Why cannot I read it, said he. Because you can't ride. I could ride if I had such a horse as that to ride upon. But you could never have such a horse as that except you could ride and ride well first. After that, there is no saying but you might get one. You might, in fact, train one for yourself, tell from being a little full, it became your own wonderful horse. Oh, that would be delightful. Will you teach me horses as well, Mr. Sutherland? Perhaps I will. That evening at dinner, Hugh said to Mr. Arnold, Could you let me have a horse tomorrow morning, Mr. Arnold? Mr. Arnold stared a little as he always did in anything new, but Hugh went on. Harry and I want to have a ride tomorrow and I expect we shall like it so much that we shall want to ride very often. Yes, that we shall, cried Harry. Could not Mr. Sutherland have your white mare, Euphra, said Mr. Arnold, reconciled at once to the proposal. I would rather not, if you don't mind, Uncle. My fatty is not used to such a burden as I fear Mr. Sutherland would prove. She drops a little now on the hard road. The fact was, Euphra would want Fatima. Well, Harry, said Mr. Arnold, graciously pleased to be facetious. Don't you think your Welsh stray horse could carry Mr. Sutherland? Ha ha ha! Papa, do you know Mr. Sutherland set him up on his hind legs yesterday and made him walk on them like a dancing dog? He was going to lift him, but he kicked about so when he felt himself leaving the ground that he tumbled Mr. Sutherland into the horse trough. Even this solemn face of the butler relaxed into a smile, but Mr. Arnold's clouded instead. His boys tutor ought to be a gentleman. Wasn't it fun, Mr. Sutherland? It was to you, you little rogue, said Sutherland, laughing. And how you did run home dripping like a water cart and all the dogs after you. Mr. Arnold's monotonous solemnity soon checked Harry's prattle. I will see, Mr. Sutherland, what I can do to mount you. I don't care what it is, said Hugh, who though by no means a thorough horseman had been from boyhood in the habit of mounting everything in the shape of a horse that he could lay hands upon from a cart horse upward and downwards. There's an old bay that would carry me very well. That is my own horse, Mr. Sutherland. This stopped the conversation in that direction, but next morning after breakfast an excellent chestnut horse was waiting at the door along with Harry's new pony. Mr. Arnold could see them go off. This did not exactly suit Miss Cameron, but if she frowned it was when nobody saw her. Hugh put Harry up himself, told him to stick fast with his knees, and then mounted his chestnut. As they trotted slowly down the avenue, Euffrasia heard Mr. Arnold say to himself, the fellow sits well at all events. She took care to make herself agreeable to Hugh by reporting this with the omission of the initiatory epitaph, however. Harry returned from his ride rather tired but in high spirits. Oh, Euffra, he cried, Mr. Sutherland is such a ride. He jumps hedges and ditches and everything, and he has promised to teach me and my pony to jump, too. And if I am not too tired, we are to begin tomorrow, out on the common. Oh, jolly. The little fellow's heart was full of the sense of growing life and strength, and Hugh was delighted with his own success. He caught sight of a serpentine motion in Euffras' eyebrows as she bent her face again over the work from which she had lifted it on their entrance. He addressed her. You will be glad to hear that Harry hasn't ridden like a man. I am glad to hear it, Harry. Why did she reply to the subject of the remark and not to the speaker? Hugh perplexed himself in vain to answer this question, but a very small amount of experience would have made him able to understand at once as much of her behavior as was genuine. At luncheon she spoke only in reply and then so briefly as not to afford the smallest peg on which to hang a response. What can be the matter, thought Hugh? What a peculiar creature she is. But after what has passed between us, I can't stand this. When dinner was over that evening, she rose as usual and left the room, followed by Hugh and Harry, but as soon as they were in the drawing room she left it and returning to the dining room resumed her seat at the table. Take a glass of claret, Hugh, for dear, said Mr. Arnold. I will, if you please, Uncle, I should like it. I have seldom a minute with you alone now. Evidently flattered Mr. Arnold poured out a glass of claret, rose and carried it to his knees himself, and then took a chair beside her. Thank you, dear Uncle, she said with one of her bewitching flashes of smile. Harry has been getting on bravely with his riding. Has he not? She continued. So it would appear. Harry had been full of the story of the day at the dinner table where he still continued to present himself, for his father would not be satisfied without him. It was certainly good moral training for the boy to sit there almost without eating and none the worse than he found it rather hard sometimes. He talked much more freely now and asked the servants for anything he wanted without referring to Euphra. Now and then he would glance at her as if afraid of offending her, but the cords which bound him to her were evidently relaxing, and she saw it plainly enough though she made no reference to the unpleasing fact. I am only a little fearful, Uncle, lest Mr. Sutherland urge the boy to do more than his strength will admit of. He is exceedingly kind to him, but he has evidently never known what weakness is himself. True, there is danger of that, but you see he has taken him so entirely into his own hands. I don't seem to be allowed a word in the matter of his education anymore. Mr. Arnold spoke with the peevishness of weak importance. I wish you would take care that he does not carry things too far, Euphra. That was just what Euphra wanted. I think if you do not disapprove, Uncle, I will have Fatima saddle tomorrow morning and go with them myself. Thank you, my love. I shall be much obliged to you. The glass of claret was soon finished after this, a little more conversation about nothing followed, and Euphra rose the second time and returned to the drawing room. She found it unoccupied. She sat down to the piano and sang song after song, Scotch, Italian, and Bohemian, but Hugh did not make his appearance. The fact was he was busy writing to his mother whom he had rather neglected since he came. Writing to her made him think of David, and he began a letter to him too, but it was never finished and never sent. He did not return to the drawing room that evening. Indeed, except for a short time while Mr. Arnold was drinking his claret, he seldom showed himself there. Had Euphra repelled him too much, hurt him, she would make up for it tomorrow. Breakfast was scarcely over when the chestnut and the pony passed the window, accompanied by a lovely little Arab mare, broad-chested and light-limbed with a wonderfully small head. She was white as snow with keen dark eyes. Her curb-rain was red instead of white. Hearing their approach, and begging her uncle to excuse her, Euphra rose from the table and left the room, but reappeared in a wonderfully little while in a well-fitted writing habit of black velvet with the belt of dark red leather clasping a waist of the roundest and smallest. Her little hat, likewise black, had a single long white feather laid horizontally within the upturned brim, and drooping over it at the back. Her white mare would be just the right pedestal for the dusky figure, black eyes, tawny skin and all. As she stood, ready to mount, and Hugh was approaching to put her up, she called the groom, seemed just to touch his hand, and was in the saddle in a moment, foot in strup and skirt falling over it. Hugh thought she was carrying out the behavior of yesterday, and was determined to ask her what it meant. The little Arab began to rear and plunge with pride as soon as she felt her mistress on her back, but she seemed as much at home as if she had been on the music stool and padded her arching neck, talking to her in the same tone almost in which she had addressed the flowers. Be quiet, fatty dear, you're frightening Mr. Sutherland. But Hugh, seeing the next moment that she was in no danger, sprang into his saddle. Away they went, Fatima infusing life and frolic into the equine as you fray into the human portion of the cavalcade. Having reached the common out of sight of the house, Miss Cameron, instead of looking after Harry, lest he should have too much exercise, scampered about like a wild girl, jumping everything that came in her way, and so exciting Harry's pony that it was almost more than he could do to manage it, till at last Hugh had to beg her to go more quietly, for Harry's sake. She grew up alongside of them at once and made her mare stand as still as she could, while Harry made his first assay upon a little ditch. After crossing it two or three times he gathered courage and setting his pony at a larger one beyond, bounded across it beautifully. Bravo, Harry! cried both Euphra and Hugh. Harry gouted back and over it again, then came up to them with a glow of proud confidence on his pale face. You'll be a horseman yet, Harry, said Hugh. I hope so, said Harry, in an aspiring tone, which greatly satisfied his tutor. The boy's spirit was evidently reviving. Euphra must have managed him ill. Yet she was not in the least effeminate herself. It puzzled Hugh a good deal, but he did not think about it long, for Harry can't ring away in front. He had an opportunity of saying to Euphra, Are you offended with me, Miss Cameron? Affended with you? What do you mean? A girl like me offended with a man like you. She looked two and twenty as she spoke, but even at that she was older than Hugh. He, however, certainly looked considerably older than he really was. What makes you think so? She added, turning her face towards him. You would not speak to me when we came home yesterday. Not speak to you? I had a little headache and perhaps I was a little sullen from having been in such bad company all the morning. What company had you, asked Hugh, gazing at her in some surprise? My own, answered she with a lovely laugh, thrown full in his face. Then after a pause, Let me advise you, if you want to live in peace, not to embark on that ocean of discovery. What ocean? What discovery? asked Hugh bewildered and still gazing. The troubled ocean of ladies' looks, she replied. You will never be able to live in the same house with one of our kind if it be necessary to your peace to find out what every expression that puzzles you may mean. I did not intend to be inquisitive, it really troubled me. There it is, you must never mind us. We show so much sooner than men, but take warning, there is no making out what it is we do show. Your faces are legible, ours are so scratched and interlined, that you'd best give up at once the idea of deciphering them. You could not help looking once more at the smooth, simple, naive countenance shining upon him. There, you are at it again, said she, blushing a little and turning her head away. Well, to comfort you, I will confess I was rather cross yesterday, because... because you seem to have been quite happy with only one of your pupils. As she spoke the words, she gave Fatima the rain and bound it off, overtaking Harry's pony in a moment, nor did she leave her cousin during all the rest of their ride. Most women in whom the soul has anything like a chance of reaching the windows are more or less beautiful in their best moments. Euphor's best was when she was trying to fascinate. Then she was...fascinating. During the first morning that Hugh spent at Arnstead, she had probably been making up her mind whether, between her and Hugh, it was to be war to the knife or fascination. But she had no idea that the rain was now carrying him, but had she calculated that fascination may react as well. Hugh's heart bounded, like her Arab steed as she uttered the words last recorded. He gave his chestnut the rain in his turn to overtake her, but Fatima's canter quickened into a gallop, and inspired by her companionship and the fact that their heads were turned stable words. She then came up, taking three strides for Fatima's too, so that Hugh never got within three lengths of them till they drew rain at the hall door where the grooms were waiting them. Euphor was off her mare in a moment and had almost reached her own room before Hugh and Harriet crossed the hall. She came down to luncheon in a white muslin dress with the smallest possible red spot in it, and, taking her place at the table, seemed to Hugh to have put off not only her riding habit, for she chatted away in the most unconcerned and easy manner possible as if she had not been out of the room all the morning. She had ridden so hard that she had left her last speech in the middle of the common and its mood with it, and there seemed now no likelihood of either finding its way home. Chapter 21 Chapter 22 of David Elgin Broad This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org David Elgin Broad by George Macdonald Chapter 22 The Picture Gallery The house is crenciled to and fro, and hath so quaint, wazed, for to go, for it is shapen as the mace is wrought. The house is a tosser, legend of Ariadne. Lunchin' over and Harry dismissed as usual to lie down, Miss Cameron said to Hugh, You have never been over the old house yet, I believe, Mr. Sutherland. Would you not like to see it? I should indeed, said Hugh. It is what I have long hoped for and have often been on the point of begging. Come then, I will be your guide, if you will trust yourself with the attitudes of the old hive. Lead on to the family vaults, if you will, said Hugh. That might be possible, too, from below. We are not so very far from them. Even within the house there is an old chapel and some monuments worth looking at. Shall we take it last? As you think best, answered Hugh. She rose and rang the bell. When it was answered, Jacob, she said, Get me the keys of the house for Mrs. Horton. Jacob vanished and reappeared with a huge bunch of keys. She took them. Thank you. They should not be allowed to get quite rusty, Jacob. Please, Miss, Mrs. Horton desired me to say she would have seen to them if she had known you wanted them. Oh, never mind. Just tell my maid to bring me an old pair of gloves. Jacob went and the maid came with the required armor. Now, Mr. Sutherland, Jane, you will come with us. No, you need not take the keys. I will find those I want as we go. She unlocked a door in the corner of the hall, which Hugh had never seen open. Passing through a long, low passage, they came to a spiral staircase of stone, up which they went, arriving at another, wide hall, very dusty, but in perfect repair. Hugh asked if there was not some communication between the hall and the great oak staircase. Yes, answered Euphra, but this is the more direct way. As she said this, he felt somehow as if she cast on him one of her keenest glances, but the place was very dusky and he stood in a spot where the light fell upon him from an opening in a shutter, while she stood in deep shadow. Jane opened that shutter. The girl obeyed and the entering light revealed the walls covered with paintings, many of them apparently of no value, yet adding much to the effect of the place. Seeing that Hugh was at once attracted by the pictures, Euphra said, perhaps you would like to see the picture gallery first. Hugh ascended. Euphra chose key after key and opened door after door till they came into a long gallery well lighted from each end. The windows were soon opened. Mr. Arnold is very proud of his pictures, especially of his family portraits, but he is content with knowing he has them and never visits them except to show them, or perhaps once or twice a year when something or other keeps him at home for a day without anything particular to do. In glancing over the portraits, some of them by famous masters, Hugh's eyes were arrested by a blonde beauty in the dress of the time of Charles II. There was such a reality of self-willed boldness as well as something worse in her face that, though arrested by the picture, Hugh felt ashamed of looking at it in the presence of Euphra and her maid. The pictured woman almost put him out of countenance, and yet at the same time fascinated him. Dragging his eyes from it, he saw that Jane had turned her back upon it while Euphra regarded it steadily. Open that opposite window, Jane, said she. There is not enough light on this portrait. Jane obeyed. While she did so, Hugh caught a glimpse of her face and saw that the formerly rosy girl was deadly pale. He said to Euphra, your maid seems ill, Miss Cameron. Jane, what is the matter with you? She did not reply, but leaning against the wall seemed ready to faint. The place is closed, said her mistress. Go into the next room there, she pointed to a door, and opened the window. You will soon be well. If you please, Miss, I would rather stay with you. This place makes me feel that strange. She had come but lately and had never been over the house before. Nonsense, said Miss Cameron, looking at her sharply. What do you mean? Please don't be angry, Miss, but the first night air I slept here, I saw that very lady. Saw that lady. I mean, I dreamed that I saw her and I remembered her the minute I see her up there and she gave me a turn like. I'm all right now, Miss. Euphra fixed her eyes on her and kept them fixed till she was very nearly all wrong again. She turned as pale as before and began to draw her breath hard. You silly goose, said Euphra and withdrew her eyes upon which the girl began to breathe more freely. Hugh was making some wise remarks on the unsteady condition of a nature in which the imagination predominates over the powers of reflection. When Euphra turned to him and began to tell him that that was the picture of her three or four times great grandmother painted by Sir Peter Lele just after she was married. Isn't she fair? said she. She turned none at last, they say. She is more fair than honest, thought Hugh. It would take a great deal of none to make her into a saint. But he only said, she is more beautiful than lovely. What was her name? If you mean her maiden name, it was Halkar, Lady Euphrasia Halkar named after me, you see. She had foreign blood in her, of course. And to tell the truth there were strange stories told of her of more sorts than one. I know nothing of her family. It was never heard of in England, I believe, till after the Restoration. All the time Euphra was speaking he was being perplexed with that most annoying of perplexities. The flitting phantom of a resemblance which he could not catch. He was forced to dismiss it for the present, utterly baffled. Were you really named after her, Miss Cameron? No, no. It is a family name with us. Indeed, I may be said to be named after her for she was the first of us who bore it. You don't seem to like the portrait. I do not, but I cannot help looking at it for all that. I am so used to the Lady's face, that it makes no impression on me of any sort. But it is said, she added glancing at the maid who stood at some distance looking uneasily about her. And as she spoke, she lowered her voice over. It is said she cannot lie still. Cannot lie still. What do you mean? I mean down there in the chapel, she answered pointing. The Celtic nerves of Hugh shuddered. Euphra laughed and her voice echoed in silvery billows that broke on the faces of the men and women of all time, that had owned the whole whose lives had flowed and abbed in varied tides through the ancient house who had married and been given loans and had gone down to the chapel below. Below the prayers and below the Psalms and made a Sunday of all the week. Ashamed of his feeling of passing to Smae, he said just to say something. What a strange ornament that is. Is it a brooch or a pin? No, I declare, it is a ring, large enough for three cardinals and worn on her thumb. It seems almost a sparkle. Maybe or carbuncle or what? I don't know, some clumsy old thing answered Euphra carelessly. Oh, I see, said Hugh, it is not a red stone, the glow is only a reflection from part of her dress. It is as clear as a diamond, but that is impossible such a size. There seems to be something curious about it, and the longer I look at it, the more strange it appears. Euphra stole another of her piercing glances at him but said nothing. Surely Hugh went on, a ring like that would hardly be likely to be lost out of the family. Your uncle must have it somewhere. Euphra laughed, but this laugh was very different from the last. It rattled rather than rang. Hugh are wonderfully taken with the bobble, for a man of letters that is Mr. Sutherland. The stone may have been carried down any one of the hundred streams into which a family river is always dividing. It is a very remarkable ornament for a lady's finger notwithstanding said Hugh, smiling in his turn. But we shall never get through the pictures at this rate, remarked Euphra, and going on she directed Hugh's attention, now to this, now to that portrait, saying who each was, and mentioning anything remarkable in the history of their originals. She manifested a thorough acquaintance with the family's story and made in fact an excellent showwoman, having gone nearly to the other end of the gallery. This door, said she, stopping at one and turning over the keys, leads to one of the oldest portions of the house, the principal room in which is said to have belonged especially to the lady over there. As she said this, she fixed her eyes once more on the maid. Oh, don't you now miss, interrupted Jane. Hannah do say as how a whitey blue light shines in the window of a dark night sometimes. That lady's window, you know miss, don't you open the door, pray miss. Jane seemed on the point of falling into the same terror as before. Really Jane, said her mistress, I am ashamed of you and of myself for having such silly servants about me. I beg your pardon miss, but so Mr. Sutherland and I must give up our plan of going over the house because my maid's nerves are too delicate to permit her to accompany us for shame. Oh, do you now go without me, cried the girl, clasping her hands and you will wait here till we come back. Oh, don't you leave me here, just show me the way out and once more she turned pale as death. Mr. Sutherland, I am very sorry but we must put off the rest of our ramble till another time. I am like him, let very widely attended as you see. Come then you foolish girl, I am very sorry for your poor mildly. The poor maid, what with terror of Lady Euphrasia and respect for her mistress, was in a pitiable condition of moral helplessness. She seemed almost too frightened to walk behind them, but if she had been in front it would have been no better for, like other ghost fears, she seemed to feel very painfully that she had no eyes in her back. They returned as they came to Mrs. Horton's room, she sank on a chair in hysterics. I must get rid of that girl I fear, said Miss Cameron leading the way to the library. She will infect the whole household with her foolish tears. We shall not hear the last of this for some time to come. We had a fit of it the same year I came and I suppose the time has come round for another attack of the same epidemic. What is there about the room to terrify the poor thing? Was there ever an old house anywhere over Europe, especially an old family house, but what was said to be haunted? Hear the story centers in that room or at least in that room in the avenue in front of its windows. Is that the avenue called the Ghost Walk? Yes. Who told you? Harry would not let me cross it. Poor boy. This is really too bad. He cannot stand anything of that kind I'm sure. Those servants. Oh I hope we shall soon get him too well to be frightened at anything. Are these places said to be haunted by any particular ghost? Yes, by Lady Euphrasia rubbish. Had you possessed the yet keener perception of resemblance he would have seen that the phantom likeness which haunted him in the portrait of Euphrasia Halkar was that of Euphrasia Cameron by his side all the time. But the mere difference of complexion was sufficient to throw him out insignificant difference as that is besides the correspondence of features and their relations. Euphra herself was perfectly aware of the likeness but had no wish that Hugh should discover it. As if the likeness however had been dimly identified by the unconscious part of his being he sat in one corner of the library's sofa with his eyes fixed on the face of Euphra as she sat in the other. Presently he was made aware of his unintentional rudeness by seeing her turn pale as death and sink back in the sofa. In a moment she started up and began pacing about the room rubbing her eyes in temples. He was bewildered and alarmed. Miss Cameron are you ill? He exclaimed. She gave a kind of half hysterical laugh and said, no, nothing she was speaking of. I felt a little faint. That was all. I am better now. She turned full towards him and seemed to try to look all right but there was a kind of film over the clearness of her black eyes. I fear that you have a headache. A little but it is nothing. I will go and lie down. Do pray else you will not be well enough to appear at dinner. She retired and Hugh joined Harry. Euphra had another glass of Claret with her uncle that evening in order to give her a report of the morning's ride. Really there is not much to be afraid of uncle. He takes very good care of Harry. To be sure I had a case in several times to check him a little but he has this good quality in addition to a considerable aptitude for teaching that he perceives a hint and takes it at once. Knowing her uncle's formality and preference for precise and judicial modes of expression Euphra modeled her phrase to his mind. I am glad he has your good opinion so far Euphra for I confess there is something about the youth that pleases me. I was afraid at first that I might be annoyed by his overstepping the true boundaries of his position in my family. He seems to have been in good society too but your assurance that he can take a hint lessens my apprehension considerably. Tomorrow I will ask him to resume his seat after dessert. This was not exactly the object of Euphra's qualified commendation of Hugh but she could not help it now. I think however if you approve uncle that it will be more prudent to keep a little watch over the writing for a while. I confess too I should be glad of a little more of that exercise than I have had for some time. I found my seat not very secure today. Very desirable on both considerations my love and so the conference ended. End Chapter 22 Chapter 23 of David Elginbrod This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibraVox.org David Elginbrod by George McDonald Chapter 23 Nest Building If you will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do it is not anything you can do to the boughs but it is the stirring of the earth and putting new mold about the roots that must work it. Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning B2 In a short time Harry's health was so much improved and consequently the strength and activity of his mind so much increased that he began to give him more exact mental operations to perform. But as if he had been a reader of Lord Bacon which is yet he was not and had learned from him that wonder is the seat of knowledge. He came by a kind of sympathetic instinct to the same conclusion practically in the case of Harry. He tried to wake a question in him by showing him something that would rouse his interest. The reply to this question might be the whole rudiments of the science. Things themselves should lead to the science of them. If things are not interesting in themselves how can any amount of knowledge about them be? To be sure there is such a thing as a purely or abstractly intellectual interest. The pleasure of the mere operation of the intellect upon the science of things but this must spring from a highly exercised intellectual condition and is not to be expected before the pleasures of intellectual motion have been experienced through the employment of its means for other ends. Whether this is a higher condition or not is open to much disquisition. One day he was purposely engaged in taking the altitude of the highest turret of the house with an old quadrant he had found in the library when Harry came up. What are you doing big brother said he. For now that he was quite at home with you and was a wonderful mixture of familiarity and respect in him that was quite bewitching. Finding out how high your house is little brother answered you. How can you do it with that thing will it measure the height of other things besides the house? Yes, the height of a mountain or anything you like. Do show me how. He showed him as much of it as he could. But I don't understand it. Oh that is quite another thing. To do that you must learn a great many things Euclid to begin with. That very afternoon Harry began Euclid and soon found quite enough of interest on the road to the quadrant to prevent him from feeling any tediousness in its length. Of an afternoon he had taken to reading Shakespeare to Harry. Euphra was always a listener. On one occasion Harry said. I am so sorry Mr. Sutherland I understand the half of it. Sometimes when Euphra and you are laughing and sometimes when Euphra is crying added he looking at her slyly. I can't understand what it is all about. Am I so very stupid Mr. Sutherland? And he almost cried himself. Not a bit of it Harry my boy. Only you must learn a great many other things first. How can I learn them? I am willing to learn anything. I don't find it tired me now as it used. There are many things necessary to understand Shakespeare that I cannot teach you and that some people never learn. Most of them will come of themselves but of one thing you may be sure Harry that if you learn anything whatever it be you are so far near to understanding Shakespeare. The same afternoon when Harry had waked from his siesta upon which you still insisted they went out for a walk in the fields. The sun was half way down the sky but very hot and sultry. I wish we had our cave of straw to creep into now said Harry. I feel exactly like the middle field mouse you read to me about in Burns' poem when we went in that morning and found it all torn up and half of it carried away. We have no place to go to now for a peculiar own place and the consequence is you have not told me any stories about the Romans for a whole week. Well Harry is there any way of making another. There is no more straw line about that I know of answered Harry and it won't do to pull the inside out of a rick I am afraid. But don't you think it would be pleasant to have a change now and as we have lived underground or say in the snow like the North people try living in the air like some of the South people. Delightful, cried Harry, a balloon. No, not quite that. Don't you think a nest would do? Up in a tree. Yes. Harry darted off for Ron as the only means of expressing his delight. When he came back he said when shall we begin, Mr. Sutherland? We will go and look for a place at once. But I am not quite sure when we shall begin yet. I shall find out tonight though. They left the fields and went into the woods in the neighborhood of the house at the back. Here the trees had grown to a great size and some of them being very old indeed. They soon fixed upon a grotesque old oak as a proper tree in which to build their nest and Harry, who as well as Hugh had a good deal of constructiveness in his nature, was so delighted that the heat seemed to have no more influence upon him and Hugh, fearful of the reaction was compelled to restrain his gambles. Pursuing their way through the dark warp of the wood with its golden weft of crossing sunbeams Harry the story of the killing of Caesar by Brutus and the rest filling up the account with portions from Shakespeare. Fortunately he was able to give the orations of Brutus and Antony in full. Harry was an ecstasy over the eloquence of the two men. Well, what language do you think they spoke, Harry? said Hugh. Why? said Harry, hesitating. I suppose. Then as if a sudden light was upon him. Latin, of course. How strange. Why strange? That such men should talk such a dry, unpleasant language. I allow it is a difficult language, Harry, and very ponderous and mechanical but not necessarily dry or unpleasant. The Romans, you know, were particularly fond of law and everything and so they made a great many laws for their language or rather it grew so because they were of that sort. It was like their swords and armor generally. Not very graceful but very strong like their architecture too, Harry. Nobody can ever understand what a people is without knowing its language. It is not only that we find all these stories about them in their language but the language itself is more like them than anything else can be. Besides, Harry, I don't believe you know anything about Latin yet. I know all the declensions and conjunct conjugations but don't you think it must have been a very different thing to hear it spoken? Yes, to be sure and by such men, but however could they speak it? They spoke it just as you do English. It was as natural to them but you cannot say you know anything about it till you read what they wrote in it, till your ears delight in the sound of their poetry. Poetry? Yes, and beautiful letters and wise lessons and histories and plays. Oh, I should like you to teach me. Will it be as hard to learn always as it is now? Certainly not. I am sure you will like it. When will you begin me? Tomorrow and if you get on pretty well we will begin our nest too in the afternoon. Oh, how kind you are. I will try very hard. I am sure you will, Harry. Next morning, accordingly Hugh did begin him after a fashion of his own, namely by giving him a short simple story to read, finding out all the words with him in the dictionary and telling him what determinations of the words signified. For he found that he had already forgotten a very great deal of what, according to Euphra, he had been thoroughly taught. No one can remember what is entirely uninteresting to him. Hugh was as precise about the grammar of a language as any Scots professor of humanity, old prosody not accepted, but he thought at time enough to begin to that, when some interest in the words themselves should have been awakened in the mind of his pupil. He hated slovenliness as much as anyone, but the question was how best to arrive at thoroughness in the end, without losing the higher objects of study and not how, at all risk, to commence teaching the lesson of thoroughness at once and so waste on the shape of a pinhead the intellect which, properly directed, might arrive at the far more minute accuracies of a steam engine. The fault of Euphra in teaching Harry had been that with a certain kind of tyrannical accuracy, she had determined to have the thing done, not merely decently and in order, but prudously and pedantically, so that she deprived progress of the pleasure which ought naturally to attend it. She spoiled the walk to the distant outlook by stopping every step, not merely to pick flowers, but to botanize on the weeds and to calculate the distance advanced. It is quite true that we ought to learn to do things irrespective of the reward, but plenty of opportunities will be given in the progress of life and in much higher kinds of action to exercise our sense of duty in severe loneliness. We have no right to turn intellectual exercises into pure operations of conscience. These ought to involve essential duty, although no doubt there is plenty of room for mingling duty with those. While, on the other hand, the highest act of suffering self-denial is not without its accompanying reward. Neither is there any exercise of the higher intellectual powers in learning the mere grammar of a language necessary as it is for a means, and language having been made before grammar, a language must be in some measure understood before its grammar can become intelligible. Harry's weak, though true and keen, life could not force its way into any channel. His was a nature essentially dependent on sympathy. It could flow into truth through another loving mind. Left to itself, it could not find the way and sank in the dry sand of ennui and self-imposed obligations. Euphra was utterly incapable of understanding him, and the boy had been dying for lack of sympathy, though neither he nor anyone about him had suspected the fact. There was a strange disproportion between his knowledge and his capacity. He was able when his attention was directed, his gaze fixed, and his whole nature supported by Hugh, to see deep into many things, and his remarks were often strikingly original. But he was one of the most ignorant boys for his years that Hugh had ever come across. A long and severe illness when he was just passing into boyhood had thrown him back far into his childhood, and he was only now beginning to show that he had anything of the boy life in him. Hence arose the unequal development which has been sufficiently evident in the story. In the afternoon, they went to the wood and found the tree they had chosen for their nest. To Harry's intense admiration, Hugh, as he said, went up the tree like a squirrel, only he was too big for a bear even. Just one layer of foliage above the lowest branch, came to a place where he thought there was a suitable foundation for the nest. From the ground, Harry could scarcely see him, as with an axe which he had borrowed for the purpose, for there was a carpenter's workshop on the premises. He cut away several small branches from three of the principal ones, and so had these three as rafters ready dressed and placed for the foundation of the nest. Having made some measurements, he descended and, preparing with Harry to the workshop, procured some boarding and some tools which Harry assisted in carrying to the tree. Ascending again and drawing up his materials by the help of Harry with a piece of string, Hugh, in a very little while, had a level floor four feet square in the heart of the oak tree, quite invisible from below, buried in a cloud of green leaves. For greater safety, he fastened ropes as handrails all around it from one branch to another, and now nothing remained but to construct a bench to sit on, and such a stare as Harry could easily climb. The boy was quite restless with the anxiety to get up and see the nest, and kept calling out constantly to know if he might not come up yet. At length, Hugh allowed him to try, but the poor boy was not half strong enough to climb the tree without help. So Hugh descended, and with all his aid, Harry was soon standing on the new built platform. I feel just like an eagle, he cried, but here his voice faltered, and he was silent. What is the matter, Harry? said his tutor. Oh, nothing, replied he. Only I didn't exactly know whereabouts we were till I got up here. Whereabouts are we, then? Close to the end of the ghost's walk. But you don't mind that now, surely, Harry? No, sir. That is not so much as I used. Shall I take all this down again and build our nest somewhere else? Oh no, if you don't think it matters, it would be a great pity after you have taken so much trouble with it. Besides, I shall never be here without you, and I do not think I should be afraid of the ghost herself if you were with me. Yet Harry shuddered involuntarily at the thought of his own daring speech. Very well, Harry, my boy, we will finish it here. Now, if you stand there, I will fasten a plank across here between these two stumps. No, that won't do exactly. I must put a piece onto this one to raise it to a level with the other. Then we shall have a seat in a few minutes. Hammer and nails were busy again, and in a few minutes they sat down to enjoy the soft, pipe-ling cold which swung all the leaves about like little trap doors that opened into the infinite. Harry was highly contented. He drew a deep breath of satisfaction as, looking above and beneath and all about him, he saw that they were folded in an almost impenetrable net of foliage through which nothing could steal into their sanctuary save, the chartered libertine, the air, and a few stray beams of the setting sun filtering through the multitudinous leaves from which they caught a green tint as they passed. Fancy yourself a fish, said Hugh, in the depth of a cavern of seaweed that floats about in the slow, swinging motion of the heavy waters. What a funny notion. Not so absurd as you may think, Harry, for just as some fishes crawl about on the bottom of the sea, so do we men at the bottom of an ocean of air, which, if it be a thinner one, is certainly a deeper one, then the birds are the swimming fishes, are they not? Yes, to be sure. And you and I are two mermen, doing what? Waiting for Mother Mermaid to give us our dinner. I am getting hungry, but it will be a long time before a mermaid gets up here, I am afraid. That reminds me, said Hugh, that I must build a stair for you, Master Harry, for you are not mermen enough to get up with the stroke of your scaly tail. So here goes, you can sit there till I fetch you. Nailing a little root bracket here and there on the stem of the tree, just where Harry could avail himself a hand-hold as well, Hugh had soon finished a strangely irregular staircase, which it took Harry two or three times trying to learn quite off. Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of David Elginbrod This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. David Elginbrod Chapter 24 Geography Point I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the farthest inch of Asia. Bring you the length of Prestor John's foot. Fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard. Do you any embassage to the pygmies? Much ado about nothing. The next day after dinner, Mr. Arnold said to the Tudor, Well, Mr. Sutherland, how does Harry get on with his geography? Mr. Arnold, be it understood, had a weakness for geography. We have not done anything at that yet, Mr. Arnold. Not done anything at geography, and the boy getting quite robust now. I am astonished, Mr. Sutherland, why, when he was a mere child, he could repeat all the counties of England. Perhaps that may be the reason for the decided distaste he shows for it now, Mr. Arnold, but I will begin to teach him at once if you desire it. I do desire it, Mr. Sutherland. A thorough geographical knowledge is essential to the education of a gentleman. Ask me any question you please, Mr. Sutherland, on the map of the world or any of its divisions. He asked a few questions which Mr. Arnold answered at once. Poo-poo, said he, this is mere child's play. Let me ask you some, Mr. Sutherland. His very first question posed to you, whose knowledge in this science was not by any means my nude. I fear I am no gentleman, said he, laughing, but I can at least learn as well as teach. We shall begin tomorrow. What books have you? Oh, no books, if you please, just yet. If you are satisfied with Harry's progress so far, let me have my own way in this, too. But geography does not seem your strong point. No, but I may be able to teach it all the better from feeling the difficulties of a learner myself. Well, you shall have a fair trial. Next morning, Hugh and Harry went out for a walk to the top of a hill in the neighborhood. When they reached it, Hugh took a small compass from his pocket and set it on the ground, contemplating it and the horizon alternately. What are you doing, Mr. Sutherland? I am trying to find the exact line that would go through my home, said he. Is that funny little thing able to tell you? Yes, this along with other things. Isn't it curious, Harry, to have in my pocket a little thing with a kind of spirit in it that understands the spirit that is in the big world and always points to its north pole? Explain it to me. It is nearly as much a mystery to me as to you. Where is the north pole? Look, the little thing points to it. But I will turn it away. Oh, it won't go. It goes back and back. Do what I will. Yes, it will if you turn it away all day long. Look, Harry, if you were to go straight on in this direction, you would come to a lap-lander harnessing his broad-horse reindeer to his sledge. He's at it now, I dare say. If you were to go in this line exactly, you would go through the smoke and fire of a burning mountain in a land of ice. If you were to go this way straight on, you would find yourself in the middle of a forest with a lion glaring at your feet, for it is dark night there now and so hot. And over there, straight on, there is such a lovely sunset. The top of a snowy mountain is all pink with light, though the sun is down. Oh, such color is all about like fairyland. And there, there is a desert of sand and a camel dine and all his companions just disappearing on the horizon. And there, there is an awful sea without a boat to be seen on it, dark and dismal, with huge rocks all about it and waste-borders of sand so dreadful. How do you know all this, Mr. Sutherland? You have never walked along those lines, I know, for you couldn't. Geography has taught me. No, Mr. Sutherland, said Harry incredulously. Well, shall we travel along this line just to cross that crown of trees on the hill? Yes, do let us. Then, said Hugh, drawing a telescope from his pocket, this hill is henceforth geography point and all the world lies round about it. Do you know we are in the very middle of the earth? Are we indeed? Yes. Don't you know any point you like to choose on a ball is the middle of it. Oh, yes, of course. Very well, what lies at the bottom of the hill down there? Are instead, to be sure. And what beyond there? I don't know. Look through here. Oh, that must be the village we rode to yesterday. I forget the name of it. Hugh told him the name and then made him look with the telescope all along the receding line to the trees on the opposite hill. Just as he caught them, a voice beside them said, What are you about, Harry? Hugh felt a glow of pleasure as the voice fell on his ear. It was you, Fruz. Oh, replied Harry. Mr. Sutherland is teaching me geography with a telescope. It's such fun. He's a wonderful tutor, that of yours, Harry. Yes, isn't he just? He went on turning to Hugh. What are we to do now? We can't get farther for that hill. Ah, we must apply to your papa now to lend us some of his beautiful maps. They will teach us what lies beyond that hill, and then we can read in some of his books about the places, and so go on and on till we reach the beautiful wide restless sea, over which we must sail in spite of wind and tide, straight on and on till we come to land again. We must make a great many such journeys before we really know what sort of a place we are living in, and we shall have ever so many things to learn that will surprise us. Oh, it will be nice, cried Harry. After a little more geographical talk, they put up their instruments and began to descend the hill. Harry was in no need of Hugh's back now, but Euphra was in need of his hand. In fact, she spelled for its support. How awkward of me. I'm stumbling over the heather, shamefully. She was, in fact, stumbling over her own dress, which she would not hold up. Hugh offered his hand, and her small one seemed quite content to be swallowed up in his large one. Why do you never let me put you on your horse, said Hugh? You always managed to prevent me somehow or other. The last time I just turned my head, and behold, when I looked, you were gathering your reins. It's only a trick of independence, Hugh. Mr. Sutherland, I beg your pardon. I can make no excuse for you, Euphra, for she had positively never heard him called Hugh. There was no one to do so, but the slip had not therefore the less effect, for it sounded as if she had been saying his name over and over again to herself. I beg your pardon, repeated Euphra hastily, for as Hugh did not reply, she feared her arrow had swerved from its mark. For a sweet fault, Euphra, I beg your pardon, Miss Cameron. You punish me with forgiveness, returned she with one of her sweetest looks. Hugh could not help pressing the little hand. Was the pressure returned? So slight, so airy was the touch, that it might have been only the throb of his own pulses, all consciously vital about the wonderful woman hand that rested in his. If she had claimed it, she might easily have denied it, so ethereal and uncertain was it. Yet he believed in it. He never dreamed that she was exercising her skill upon him. What could be her object in bewitching a poor tutor? Ah, what indeed. Meantime, this much is certain, that she was drawing Hugh closer and closer to her side, that a soothing dream of delight had begun to steal over his spirit, soon to make it toss and feverish unrest. As the first effects of some poisons are like a dawn of tenfold strength, the mountain wind blew from her to him, sometimes sweeping her garments about him, and bathing him in their faint sweet odors, odors which somehow seemed to belong to her, whom they had only last visited. Sometimes so kindly strong did it blow, compelling her, or at least giving her excuse enough, to leave his hand and cling closely to his arm. A fresh spring began to burst from the very bosom of what had seemed before a perfect summer, a spring to summer. What would the following summer be? Ah, and what the autumn, and what the winter, for if the summer be tenfold summer, then must the winter be tenfold winter. But though knowledge is good for man, foreknowledge is not so good, and though love be good, a tempest of it in the brain will not ripen the fruits of a soft, steady wind, or waft the ships home to their desired haven. Perhaps what enslaved you most was the feeling that the damsel stooped to him without knowing that she stooped. She seemed to him in every way above him. She knew so many things of which he was ignorant, could say such lovely things, could, he did not doubt, write lovely verses, could sing like an angel, though Scott's songs are not of essentially angelic strain, nor Italian songs either, in general, and they were all that she could do. Was Mistress of a great, rich, wonderful house with a history, and, more than all, was, or appeared to him to be, a beautiful woman? It was true that his family was as good as hers, but he had disowned his family. So his pride declared, and the same pride made him despise his present position and look upon a tutor's employment as, as well as other people look upon it, as a rather contemptible one, in fact, especially for a young, powerful, six-foot fellow. The influence of Euphrasia was not of the best upon him from the first, for it had greatly increased this feeling about his occupation. It could not affect his feelings towards Harry, so the boy did not suffer as yet. But it set him upon a very unprofitable kind of castle building. He would be a soldier like his father. He would leave Arnstead to revisit it with a sword by his side and a serve before his name. Sir Hugh Sutherland would be somebody even in the eyes of the Master of Arnstead. Yes, a six-foot fellow, though he may be sensible in the main, is not, therefore, free from small vanities, especially if he be in love. But how leave Euphra? Again, I outrun my story. End Chapter 24 Chapter 25 of David Elgin Broad This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. David Elgin Broad by George McDonald Chapter 25 Italian Permissiva nella sita dolente. Tanta Through me thou goest into the city of grief. Of necessity, with so many shafts opened into the mountain of knowledge, a far greater amount of time must be devoted by Harry and his tutor to the working of the mind than they had given hitherto. This made a considerable alteration in the intercourse of the youth and the lady. For, although Euphra was often present during school hours, it must be said for Hugh that, during those hours, he paid almost all his attention to Harry. So much of it, indeed, that perhaps there was not enough left to please the lady. But she did not say so. She sat beside them in silence, occupied with her work, and saving up her glances for use. Now and then she would read, taken in opportunity sometimes, but not often, when a fitting pause occurred to ask him to explain some passage about which she was in doubt. It must be conceded that such passages were well chosen for the purpose, for she was too wise to do her own intellect discredit by feigning the difficulty where she saw none, intellect being the only gift in others for which she was conscious of any reverence. By and by she began to discontinue these visits to the schoolroom. Perhaps she found them dull. Perhaps, but we shall see. One morning in the course of their study, Euphra not present, Hugh had occasion to go from his own room, where for the most part they carried on the severe portion of their labors, down to the library for a book to enlighten them upon some point on which they were in doubt. As he was passing an open door, Euphra's voice called him. He entered and found himself in her private sitting room. He had not known before where it was. I beg your pardon, Mr. Sutherland, for calling you, but I am at this moment in a difficulty. I cannot manage this line in the inferno. Do help me. She moved the book towards him, as he now stood by her side. She, remaining seated at her table. To his mortification, he was compelled to confess his utter ignorance of the language. Oh, I am disappointed, said Euphra. Not so much as I am, replied Hugh, but could you spare me one or two of your Italian books? With pleasure, she answered, rising and going to her bookshelves. I want only a grammar, a dictionary, and a New Testament. There they are, she said, taking them down one after the other and bringing them to him. I dare say you will soon get up with poor stupid me. I shall do my best to get within hearing of your voice, at least, in which Italian must be lovely. No reply, but a sudden droop of the head. But, continued Hugh, upon second thoughts, lest I should be compelled to remain dumb or else annoy your delicate ear with discordant sounds. Just give me one lesson in the pronunciation. Let me hear you read a little first. With all my heart. Euphra began and read delightfully, for she was an excellent Italian scholar. It was necessary that Hugh should look over the book. This was difficult while he remained standing, as she did not offer to lift it from the table. Gradually, therefore, and hardly knowing how, he settled into a chair by her side. Half an hour went by like a minute to the silvery tones of her voice, breaking into a bell-like sound upon the double consonants of that sweet lady tongue. Then it was his turn to read and be corrected and read again, and be again corrected. Another half hour glided away and yet another. But it must be confessed he made good use of the time, if only it had been his own to use, for at the end of it he could pronounce Italian very tolerably, well enough at least, to keep him fixing errors in his pronunciation, while studying the language alone. Suddenly he came to himself and looked up as from a dream. Had she been bewitching him, he was in Euphra's room, alone with her, and the door was shut, how or when, and he looked at his watch. Poor little Harry had been waiting his return from the library for the last hour and a half. He was conscious, stricken. He gathered up the books hastily, thanked Euphra in the same hurried manner and left the room with considerable disquietude, closing the door very gently, almost guiltily behind him. I am afraid Euphra had been perfectly aware that he knew nothing about Italian. Did she see her own eyes shine in the mirror before her as he closed the door? Was she in love with him then? When he returned with the Italian books, instead of the encyclopedia he had gone to seek, he found Harry's sitting where he had left him, with his arms and head on the table fast asleep. Poor boy, said Hugh to himself, but he could not help feeling glad he was asleep. He stole out of the room again, passed the fatal door with the longing pain, found the volume of his quest in the library and returning with it sat down beside Harry. There he sat till he awoke. When he did awake at last, it was almost time for luncheon. The shame-faced boy was exceedingly penitent for what was no fault, while Hugh could not relieve him by confessing his. He could only say, It was my fault, Harry dear. I stayed away too long. You were so nicely asleep I would not wake you. You will not need a siesta, that is all. He was ashamed of himself as he uttered the false words to the true hearted child. But this, alas, was not the end of it all. Desirous of learning the language, but far more desirous of commending himself to Euphra, Hugh began in downright earnest. That very evening he felt that he had a little hold of the language. Harry was left to his own resources, nor was there any harm in this in itself. Hugh had a right to part of every day for his own uses, but then he had been with Harry almost every evening or a great part of it, and the boy missed him much, not yet self-dependent. He would have gone to Euphrasia, but somehow she happened to be engaged that evening. So he took refuge in the library where, in the desolation of his spirit, Paul Alexander began almost immediately to exercise its old very fascination upon him. Although he had not opened the book since Hugh had requested him to put it away, yet he had not given up the intention of finishing it some day, and now he took it down and opened it listlessly with the intention of doing something towards the gradual redeeming of the pledge he had given to himself. But he found it more irksome than ever. Still he read on, till at length he could discover no meaning at all in the sentences. Then he began to doubt whether he had read the words. He fixed his attention by main force on every individual word, but even then he began to doubt whether he could say he had read the words, for he might have missed seeing some of the letters composing each word. He grew so nervous and miserable over it, almost counting every letter, that at last he burst into tears and threw the book down. His intellect, which in itself was excellent, was quite of the parasitic order requiring to wind itself about a stronger intellect to keep itself in the region of fresh air and possible growth. Left to itself, its wheat stem could not raise it above the ground. It would grow and mass upon the earth until it decayed and corrupted for lack of room, light, and air. But of course there was no danger in the meantime. This was but the passing sadness of an occasional loneliness. He crept to Hugh's room and received an invitation to enter in answer to his gentle knock. But Hugh was so absorbed in his new study that he hardly took any notice of him, and Harry found it almost as dreary here as in the study. He would have gone out, but the sizzling rain was falling and he shrank into himself at the thought of the ghost's walk. The dinner bell was a welcome summons. Hugh, inspired by the reaction from close attention, by the presence of Euphra and by the desire to make himself generally agreeable, which sprung from the consciousness of having done wrong, talked almost brilliantly, delighting Euphra, overcoming Harry with reverent astonishment, with the latter Hugh had been gradually becoming a favorite, partly because he had discovered in him what he considered high-minded sentiments, for however stupid and conventional Mr. Arnold might be, he had a foundation of sterling worthiness of character. Euphra, instead of showing any jealousy of this growing friendliness, favored in every way in her power and now and then alluded to it in her conversation with Hugh as affording her great satisfaction. I am so glad he likes you, she would say. Why should she be glad, thought Hugh. This gentle claim of a kind of property in him added considerably to the strength of the attraction that drew him towards her, as towards the center of his spiritual gravitation. If indeed that could be called spiritual which had so little of the element of moral or spiritual admiration or even approval mingled with it. He never felt that Euphra was good, he only felt that she drew him with the vague force of feminine sovereignty, a charm which he could no more resist or explain than the iron could the attraction of the lodestone. Neither could he have said, had he really considered the matter, that she was beautiful, only that she often, very often looked beautiful. I suspect if she had been rather ugly it would have been all the same to you. He pursued his Italian studies with the singleness of aim and effort that carried him on rapidly. He asked no assistance from Euphra and said nothing to her about his progress, but he was so absorbed in it that it drew him still further from his pupil. Of course he went out with him, walking or riding every day that the weather would permit, and he had regular school hours with him within doors, and a ladder while Harry was doing something on his slate or riding or learning some lesson, which kind of work happened often or now than he could have approved of. He would take up his Italian and notwithstanding Harry's quiet hints that he had finished what had been set him, remained buried in it for a long time. When he woke at last to the necessity of taking some notice of the boy, he would only point him something else to occupy him again so as to leave himself free and follow his new bent. Now and then he would become aware of his blamable neglect and make a feeble struggle to rectify what seemed to be growing into a habit and one of the worst for a tutor, but he gradually sank back into the mire, for mire it was, comforting himself with the resolution that as soon as he was able to read Italian without absolutely spelling his way, he would let Euphra see what progress he had made and then return with renewed energy and education, keeping up his own new accomplishment by more moderate exercise therein. It must not be supposed, however, that a long course of time passed in this way. At the end of a fortnight he thought he might venture to request Euphra to show him the passage which had perplexed her. This time he knew where she was in her own room, for his mind had begun to haunt her whereabouts. He knocked at her door, heard this silvery, thrilling, happy sound, come in and entered trembling. Would you show me the passage in Dante that perplexed you the other day? Euphra looked a little surprised, but got the book and pointed it out at once. He glanced at it. His superior acquaintance with the general forms of language enabled him after finding two words in Euphra's larger dictionary to explain it to her immediate satisfaction. You astonish me, said Euphra. Latin gives me an advantage, you see, said Hugh modestly. It seems to me very wonderful, nevertheless. These were sweet sounds to Hugh's ear. He had gained his end and she hers. Well, she said, I have just come upon another passage that perplexes me not a little. Will you try your powers upon that for me? So saying, she proceeded to find it. It is school time, said Hugh. I fear I must not wait now. Poo poo. Don't make a pedagogue of yourself. You know you are here more as a guardian. Big brother, you know, to the dear child. By the way, I am rather afraid you are working him a little more than his constitution will stand. Do you think so? Returned Hugh, quite willing to be convinced. I should be very sorry. This is the passage, said Euphra. Hugh sat down once more at the table beside her. He found this morsel considerably tougher than the last, but at length he succeeded in pulling it to pieces and reconstructing it in a simpler form for the lady. She was full of thanks and admiration. Naturally enough, they went on to the next line and the next stanza and the next and the next tell, shall I be believed? The whole canto of the poem. Euphra knew more words by great many than Hugh, so that, what with her knowledge of the words and his insight into the construction, they made rare progress. What a beautiful passage it is, said Euphra. It is indeed, responded Hugh. I never read anything more beautiful. I wonder if it would be possible to turn that into English. I should like to try. You mean verse, of course. To be sure. Let us try, then. I will bring you mine when I have finished it. I fear it will take some time, though, to do it well. Shall it be in blank verse or what? Oh, don't you think we had better keep the terrazorima of the original? As you please, it will add much to the difficulty. Recreate, tonight, where you shrink from following the lead. Never, so help me my good pen, answered Hugh, and took his departure with burning cheeks and a trembling at the heart. Alas, the morning was gone. Harry was not in his study. He sought and found him in the library, apparently buried in Polexander. I am so glad you are come, said Harry. I am so tired. Why do you read that stupid book, then? Oh, you know, I told you. Tight, tight nonsense. Put it away, said Hugh, his dissatisfaction with himself, making him cross with Harry, who felt, in consequence, ten times more desolate than before. He could not understand the change. If it went ill before with the hours devoted to common labor, it went worse now. Hugh seized every gap of time and widened its margin shamefully in order to work at his translation. He found it very difficult to render the Italian in classical and poetic English. The three rhyming words and the mode in which the stanzas are looped together, added greatly to the difficulty. Blank verse he would have found quite easy compared to this. But he would not blench the thought of her praise and of the yet better favor he might gain spurred him on and Harry was the sacrifice. But he would make it all up to him once was once over. Indeed he would. Thus he baked cakes of clay to choke the barking of Cerberian conscience. But it would growl notwithstanding. The boy's spirit was sinking, but Hugh did not or would not see it. His step grew less elastic. He became more listless, more like his former self, sauntering about with his hands in his pockets. And Hugh, of course, found himself caring less about him. For the thought of him, rousing as it did the sense of his own neglect, had become troublesome. Sometimes he even passed poor Harry without speaking to him. Gradually, however, he grew still further into the favor of Mr. Arnold until he seemed to have even acquired some influence with him. Mr. Arnold would go out riding with them himself sometimes and express great satisfaction not only with the way Harry sat for which he accorded Hugh the credit due to him, but with the way in which Hugh managed his own horse as well. Mr. Arnold was a good horseman and his praise was especially grateful to Hugh because Euphra was always near and always heard it. I fear, however, that his progress in the good graces of Mr. Arnold was, in a considerable degree, the result of the greater anxiety to please, which sprung from the consciousness of not deserving approbation. For a man who was an easy substitute for well-doing, not acceptable to himself, he had the greater desire to be acceptable to others and so reflect the side beams of a false approbation on himself who needed true light and would be ill provided for with any substitute. For a man who was received as a millionaire can hardly help feeling like one at times, even if he knows he has overdrawn his banker's account. Mr. Arnold's feeling right drove him to this false mode of producing the false impression. If one only wants to feel virtuous there are several royal roads to that end, but fortunately the end itself would be unsatisfactory if gained, while not one of these roads does more than pretend to lead even to that land of delusion. The reaction in Hugh's mind was sometimes torturing enough, but he had not strength to resist Euphra and so reform. Weller Ildan at length his translation was finished, so was Euphra's. They exchanged papers for a private reading first and arranged to meet afterwards in order to compare criticisms. Chapter 25 Chapter 26 of David Elginbrod This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org David Elginbrod by George McDonald Chapter 26 The First Midnight Well if anything be damned it will be 12 o'clock at night. That 12 will never escape. Cyril Tornier The Revenger's Tragedy Letters arrived at Arnstead generally while the family was seated at breakfast. One morning the post bag having been brought in Mr. Arnold opened it himself according to his unvarying custom and found amongst other letters one in an old fashioned female hand which after reading it he passed to Euphra. You remember Mrs. Elton Euphra? Quite well uncle, a dear old lady. But the expression which passed across her face rather belied her words and seemed to you to mean I hope she is not going to bore us again. She took care however to show no sign with regard to the contents of the letter but laying it beside her on the table waited to hear her uncle's mind first. Poor dear girl said he at last. You must try to make her as comfortable as you can. There is consumption in the family you see he added with a meditative sigh. Of course I will uncle. Poor girl, I hope there is not much amiss though after all. But as she spoke an irrepressible flash of dislike or displeasure of some sort broke from her eyes and vanished. No one but himself seemed to you to have observed it but he was learned in the ladies eyes and their weather signs. Mr. Arnold rose from the table and left him apparently to write an answer to the letter. As soon as he was gone you forgave the letter to Hugh. He read as follows My dear Mr. Arnold will you extend the hospitality of your beautiful house to me and my young friend who has the honor of being your relative Lady Emily Lake for some time her health has seemed to be failing and she is ordered to spend the winter abroad at Pau or somewhere in the south of France. It is highly desirable that in the meantime she should have as much change as possible and it occurred to me remembering the charming month I passed at your seat and recalling the fact that Lady Emily is cousin only once removed to your late most lovely wife that there would be no impropriety in writing to ask you whether you could without inconvenience receive us as your guest for a short time. I say us for the dear girl has taken such a fancy to unworthy old me that she almost refuses to set out without me not to be cumbersome either to our friends or ourselves we shall bring only our two maids and a steady old man servant who has been in my family for many years. I trust you will not hesitate to refuse my request should I happen to have made it in an unsuitable season assured as you must be that we cannot attribute the refusal to any lack of hospitality or friendliness on your part at all events I trust you will excuse what seems now I have committed it to paper a great liberty I hope not presumption on mine I am my dear Mr. Arnold yours most sincerely Hannah Elton Hugh refolded the letter and laid it down without remark Harry had left the room isn't it a bore said Euphra Hugh answered only by a look a pause followed who is Mrs. Elton he said at last oh a good hearted creature enough frightfully prosy but that is a well written letter oh yes she is famed for her letter writing and I believe practices every morning on a slate it is the only thing that redeems her from absolute stupidity Euphra with her taper forefinger tapped the table cloth impatiently and shifted back in her chair as if struggling with an inward annoyance and what sort of person is lady Emily asked you I have never seen her some blue-eyed milkmaid with a title I suppose an in a consumption too I presume the dear girl is as religious as the old one good heavens what shall we do she burst out at length and rising from her chair she paced about the room hurriedly but all the time with the gliding kind of football that would have shaken none but the craziest floor dear Euphra he ventured to say never mind let us try to make the best of it she stopped in her walk turned towards him smiled as if ashamed and delighted at the same moment and slid out of the room had Euphra been the same all through she could hardly have smiled so without being in love with you that morning he sought her again in her room they talked over their versions of Dante Hughes was certainly the best for he was more practiced in such things than Euphra he showed her many faults which she at once perceived to be faults and so rose in his estimation but at the same time there were individual lines and passages of hers which he considered not merely better than the corresponding lines and passages than any part of his version this he was delighted to say and she seemed as delighted that he should think so a great part of the morning was spent thus I cannot stay longer said Hugh let us read for an hour then after we come upstairs tonight with more pleasure than I dare to say but you mean what you do say you can doubt it no more than myself yet he did not like Euphra's making the proposal no more did he like the flippant almost cruel way in which she referred to Lady Emily's illness but he put it down to annoyance and haste got over it somehow anyhow and began to feel that if she were a devil he could not help loving her and would not help it if he could the hope of meeting her alone that night gave him spirit and energy with Harry and the poor boy was much cheery and active than he had been for some time he thought his big brother was going to love him again as at the first Hugh's treatment of his pupil might still have seemed kind from another but Harry felt it a great change in him in the course of the day Euphra took an opportunity of whispering to him not in my room in the library I presume she thought it would be more prudent in the case of any interruption that evening Hugh did not go to the drawing room with Mr. Arnold but out into the woods about the house it was early in the twilight for now the sun set late the month was June and even a rich dreamful rosy even the sleep of a gorgeous day it was like the soul of a gracious woman thought Hugh charmed into a lucid interval of passion by the loveliness of the nature around him strange to tell at that moment of the hushed gloom of the library towards which he was hoping and leaning in his soul there arose before him the bare stern leafless pinewood for who can call it's foliage leaves with the chilly wind of a northern spring morning blowing through it with the wailing noise of waters and beneath a weird fur tree lofty gaunt in hues with bare goblin arms contorted sweepily in a strange mingling of the sublime and the grotesque beneath this fur tree Margaret sitting on one of its twisted roots the very image of peace with the face that seems stilled by the unexpected approach of a sacred and unknown gladness a face that would blossom the more gloriously because it's joy delayed its coming and above it the trees shown a still almost awful red in the level light of the morning the vision came in past for he did not invite its stay it rebuked him to the deepest soul he strayed in troubled pleasure restless and dissatisfied woods of the richest growth were around him heaps on heaps of leaves floating above him like clouds a trackless wilderness of very green wherein one might wish to dwell forever looking down into the vaults and aisles of the long ranging bowls beneath but no peace could rest on his face only at best a false mask put on to hide the trouble of the unresting heart had he been doing his duty to Harry his love for Euphra however unworthy she might be would not have troubled him thus he came upon an avenue at the further end the boughs of the old trees bare of leaves beneath met in a perfect pointed arch across which were barred the lingering colors of the sunset transforming the hall into a rich window full of stained glass and complex tracery closing up a gothic aisle in a temple of everlasting worship a kind of holy calm fell upon him as he regarded the dim dying colors and the spirit of the night is something that is neither silence nor sound and yet is like both sank into his soul and made a moment of summer twilight there he walked along the avenue for some distance and then leaving it passed on through the woods suddenly it flashed upon him that he had crossed the ghost's walk a slight but cold shutter passed through the region of his heart then he laughed at himself and as it were in despite of his own tremor turned and crossed yet again the path of the ghost a spiritual epicure in his pleasures he would not spoil the effect of the coming meeting by seeing Euphra in the drawing room first he went to his own study and remained till the hour had nearly arrived he tried to write some verses but he found that although the lovely form of its own niad lay on the brink of the well of song its waters would not flow during the sorokko of passion it springs withdraw into the cool caves of the life beneath at length he rose too much preoccupied to mind his want of success and going down the back stair reached the library there he needed himself and tried to read by the light of his chamber candle but it was scarcely even an attempt for every moment he was looking up to the door by which he expected her to enter suddenly an increase of light warned him that she was in the room how she had entered he could not tell one hand carried her candle the light of which fell on her pale face with its halo of blackness her hair which looked like a well of darkness that threatened to break from its bonds and overflowed the room with the second night dark enough to blot out that which was now looking in, treeful and deep at the uncurtained windows the other hand was busy trying to incarcerate a stray tress which had escaped from its net and made her olive shoulders look white beside it let it alone said hew let it be beautiful but she gently repelled the handy ways to hers and though she was forced to put down her candle first persisted in confining the refractory tress then seated herself at the table and taking from her pocket the manuscript which you had been criticizing in the morning unfolded it and showed him all the passages he had objected to neatly corrected or altered it was wonderfully done for the time she had had he went over it all with her again seated close to her their faces almost meeting as they followed the lines they had just finished it and were about to commence reading from the original when hew who missed the sheet of eufra's translation stooped under the table to look for it a few moments were spent in search before he discovered that eufra's foot was upon it he begged her to move a little but received no reply either by word or act looking up in some alarm he saw that she was either asleep or in a faint explicable to himself at the time he went at once to the windows and drew down the green blinds when he turned towards her again she was reviving or waking he could not tell which how stupid of me to go to sleep she said let us go on with our reading they had read for about half an hour when three taps upon one of the windows slight but peculiar and as if given with the point of a finger suddenly startled them he turned it once towards the windows but of course he could see nothing having just lowered the blinds he turned again towards eufra she had a strange wild look her lips were slightly parted in her nostrils wide her face was rigid and glimmering pale as death from the cloud of her black hair what was it said he affected by her fear with the horror of the unknown but she made no answer and continued staring towards one of the windows he rose and was about to advance to it when she caught him by the hand with the grasp of which hers would have been incapable except under the influence of terror at that moment a clock in the room began to strike it was a slow clock and went on deliberately striking one two three till it had struck twelve every stroke was a blow from the hammer of fear and his heart was the bell he could not breathe for dread so long as the awful clock was striking when it had ended they looked at each other again and he breathed once eufra he sighed but she made no answer she turned her eyes again to one of the windows they were both standing he sought to draw her to him I crossed the ghost's walk tonight said he in a hard whisper scarcely knowing that he uttered it till he heard his own words they seemed to fall upon his ear as if spoken by someone outside the room she looked at him once more and kept looking with the fixed stare gradually her face became less rigid and her eyes less wild she could move at last come come she said in a hurried whisper let us go no no not that way as he would have led her towards the private stair let us go the front way by the oak staircase they went up together when they reached the door of her room she said good night without even looking at him and passed in he went on in a state of utter bewilderment to his own apartment shut the door and locked it a thing he had never done before lighted both the candles on his table and then walked up and down the room trying like one aware that he is dreaming to come to his real self he said at last it was only a little bird or a large moth how odd it is that darkness can make a fool of one I am ashamed of myself I wish I had gone out at the window if only to show you fry was not afraid though of course there was nothing to be seen as he said this in his mind he could not have spoken it out for fear of hearing his own voice in the solitude he went to one of the windows of his sitting room which was nearly over the library and looked into the wood could it be yes he did see something white gliding through the wood away in the direction of the ghost's walk it vanished and he saw it no more the morning was far advanced before he could go to bed when the first light of the aurora broke the sky and the first glimmerings of the morning in the wood were more dreadful than the deepest darkness of the past night possessed by a new horror he thought how awful it would be to see a belated ghost hurrying away in helpless haste the specter would be yet more terrible in the gray light of the coming day and the azure breezes of the morning which to it would be like a new and more fearful death than amidst its own homely subholical darkness while the silence all around silence and light could be fit only that dread season of loneliness when men are lost in sleep and ghosts, if they walk at all walk in dismay but at length fear yielded to sleep though he troubled her short reign when he awoke he found it so late that it was all he could do to get down in time for breakfast but so anxious was he not to be later than usual that he was in the room before Mr. Arnold made his appearance Euphra however was there before him she greeted him in the usual way quite circumspectly but she looked troubled her face was very pale and her eyes were red as if from sleeplessness or weeping when her uncle entered she addressed him with more gaiety than usual and he did not perceive that anything was amiss with her but the whole of that day she walked as in a reverie avoiding Hugh that they chanced to meet without a third person in the neighborhood once in the forenoon when she was generally to be found in a room he could not refrain from trying to see her the change and the mystery were insupportable to him but when he tapped at her door no answer came and he walked back to Harry feeling as if by an unknown door in his own soul he had been shut out of the half of his being or rather a wall seemed to have been built or his eyes which still was there wherever he went as to the gliding phantom of the previous night the day denied at all telling him it was but the coinage of his own overwrought brain weakened by prolonged tension of the intellect and excited by the presence of Euphra at an hour claimed by phantoms when not yielded to sleep this was the easiest and most natural way of disposing of the difficulty the cloud around Euphra hid the ghost in its skirts although fear and some measure returned with the returning shadows he yet resolved to try to get Euphra to meet him again in the library that night but she never gave him a chance of even dropping a hint to that purpose she had not gone out with them in the morning and when he followed her into the drawing room she was already at the piano he thought he might convey his wish without interrupting the music but as often as he approached her the other glided out into song as if she had been singing in an undertone all the while he could not help seeing she did not intend to let him speak to her but all the time whatever she sang was something she knew he liked and as often as she spoke to him in the hearing of her uncle or cousin it was in a manner peculiarly graceful and simple he could not understand her and was more bewitched more fascinated than ever by seeing her through the folds of the incomprehensible in which element she had wrapped herself from his near vision she had always seemed above him now she seemed miles away as well a region of paradise into which he was forbidden to enter everything about her to her handkerchief and her gloves was haunted by a vague mystery of worshipfulness and drew him towards it with wonder and trembling when they parted for the night with a cool frankness that put him nearly beside himself with despair and when he found himself in his own room it was some time before he could collect his thoughts having succeeded however he resolved in spite of growing fears to go to the library and see whether it were not possible she might be there he took up a candle and went down the back stair but when he opened the library door a gust of wind blew his candle out to the left of his house within a sudden horror seized him and afraid of yielding to the inclination to bound up the stair lest he should go wild with terror of pursuit he crept slowly back feeling his way to his own room with a determined deliberate list could the library window have been left open else went the gust of wind next day and the next and the next he fared no better her behavior continued the same no opportunity of requesting an explanation End Chapter 26