Donal Grant

As the clock upon the schoolroom chimney-piece struck the hour, Arctura entered, and at once took her seat at the table with Davie--much to the boy’s wonder and pleasure. Donal...

“Thank God,” he said to himself, “if my wife should come here some sad, sweet night, with a low moon-crescent, and a gently thinking wind, and wander about the garden, it will n...

The hour came, and with the very stroke of the clock, lady Arctura and Davie were in the schoolroom. A moment more, and they set out to climb the spiral of Baliol’s tower.

“Papa is very ill to-day, Simmons tells me,” said Davie, as Donal entered the schoolroom. “He says he has never seen him so ill. Oh, Mr. Grant, I hope he is not going to die!”

The same afternoon, while Donal was reading to Arctura in the library, there came a loud ringing of the door-bell. Donal ran to see, and to his great delight, there was mistress...

All this time, Donal had never again seen the earl, neither had the latter shown any interest in Davie’s progress. But lady Arctura was full of serious anxiety concerning him. H...

The great comforts of Donal’s life, next to those of the world in which his soul lived--the eternal world, whose doors are ever open to him who prays--were the society of his fa...

Ere he had finished his breakfast he had made up his mind that he must beware of the earl. He was satisfied that the experiences of the past night could not be the consequence o...

Now for a while, Donal seldom saw lady Arctura, and when he did, received from her no encouragement to address her. The troubled look had reappeared on her face. In her smile, a...

At length one evening Donal knocked at the door of Forgue’s room, and went in. He was seated in an easy chair before a blazing fire, looking comfortable, and showing in his pale...

Two years before, lady Arctura had been in the habit of riding a good deal, but after an accident to a favourite horse for which she blamed herself, she had scarcely ridden at a...

It was a lovely morning in the first of summer. Donal Grant was descending a path on a hillside to the valley below--a sheep-track of which he knew every winding as well as any...

She was a very small, spare woman, in a blue print with little white spots--straight, not bowed like her husband. Otherwise she seemed at first exactly like him. But ere the eve...

The winter came at last in good earnest--first black frost, then white snow, then sleet and wind and rain; then snow again, which fell steady and calm, and lay thick. After that...

“That’s right!” returned the cobbler with satisfaction. “I’m thinkin’ ye’ll be ane o’ the feow ’at can rule their ane hoose--that is, haud their ain tongues till the hoor for sp...

The health of the earl remained fluctuating. Its condition depended much on the special indulgence. There was hardly any sort of narcotic with which he did not at least make exp...

It was now almost three weeks since Donal had become an inmate of the castle, and he had scarcely set his eyes on the lady of the house. Once he had seen her back, and more than...

A dreary time followed. Sometimes the patient would lie awake half the night, howling with misery, and accusing Donal of heartless cruelty. He knew as well as he what would ease...

“I fear you heard mine almost only!” said Donal. “I talk too much, and I fear I have gathered the fault in a way that makes it difficult to cure.”

His first thought was of a long and delightful journey he had made on horseback with the earl--through scenes of entrancing interest and variety,--with the present result of a s...

“I will come again in twenty; or, if you are willing to save an old man’s bones, I will be at the bottom of the stair at that time to take charge of you. I would have looked aft...

Notwithstanding his weariness, Donal woke early, for he had slept thoroughly. He rose and dressed himself, drew aside the little curtain that shrouded the window, and looked out...

The day passed, and he heard nothing more. He was at work in his room in the warm evening twilight, when Davie came running to his door, and said Arkie was coming up after him....

The autumn brought terrible storms. Many fishing boats came to grief. Of some, the crews lost everything: of others, the loss of their lives delivered their crews from smaller l...

In the bosom of the family in which the elements seem most kindly mixed, there may yet lie some root of discord and disruption, upon which the foreign influence necessary to its...

One stormy Friday night in the month of March, when a bitter east wind was blowing, Donal, seated at the plain deal-table he had got Mrs. Brookes to find him that he might use i...

About this time her friend, Miss Carmichael, returned from a rather lengthened visit. But after the atonement that had taken place between her and Donal, it was with some anxiet...

He met no one on his way from the gate up through the wood. He ascended the hill with its dark ascending firs, to its crown of silvery birches, above which, as often as the slow...

Donal then took the light from her hand, and looked in. The opening went into the further wall and turned immediately to the left. He gave her back the candle, and went in. Arct...

Mr. Graeme was a good sort of man, and a gentleman; but he was not capable of meeting Donal on the ground on which he approached him: on that level he had never set foot. There...

Whatever lady Arctura might decide concerning the restoration of the chapel to the light of day, Donal thought it would not be amiss to find, without troubling her, what he coul...

“The way he do moan and cry!” said Simmons. “You would think sure he was either out of his mind, or had something heavy upon it! All the years I known him, he been like that eve...

Donal turned and went straight up to lord Morven’s apartment. As he passed the door of his bedroom opening on the corridor, he heard voices in debate. He entered the sitting-roo...

Suddenly what strength lady Arctura had, gave way, and she began to sink. But it was spring with the summer at hand; they hoped she would recover sufficiently to be removed to a...

He took the path by the river-side. The morning was glorious. The sun and the river and the birds were jubilant, and the wind gave life to everything. It rippled the stream, and...

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 unfreque...

Opposite Morven House was a building which had at one time been the stables to it, but was now part of a brewery; a high wall shut it off from the street; it was dinner-time wit...

There came a great burst of thunder. It was the last of the storm. It bellowed and shuddered, went, and came rolling up again. It died away at last in the great distance, with a...

He was now walking southward, but would soon, when the mountains were well behind him, turn toward the east. He carried a small wallet, filled chiefly with oatcake and hard skim...

On the Monday night Donal again went down into the hidden parts of the castle. Arctura had come to the schoolroom, but seemed ill able for her work, and he did not tell her what...

All at once came to his ear through the night a strange something. Whence or what it was he could not even conjecture. Was it a moan of the river from below? Was it a lost music...

At the end of the street he came to a low-arched gateway in the middle of a poor-looking house. Within it sat a little bowed man, cobbling diligently at a boot. The sun had left...

The twilight had fallen while he wrote, and the wind had risen. It was now blowing a gale. When he could no longer see, he rose to light his lamp, and looked out of the window....

But his lordship had his suspicions, and took measures to confirm or set them at rest--with the result that he concluded Donal madly in love with his niece, and unable, while sh...

When he reached the town, he rode into the yard of the Morven Arms, and having found a sleepy ostler, gave up his mare: he would be better without her at the castle!--whither he...

The old avenue of beeches, leading immediately nowhither any more, but closed at one end by a built-up gate, and at the other by a high wall, between which two points it stretch...

The next day he could find him nowhere, and in the evening went to see the Comins. It was pretty dark, but the moon would be up by and by.

“I was down last night, and want to go again this evening by myself--if you don’t mind, my lady,” he answered. “I am sure it will be better for you not to go down till you are r...

Possibly had the press stood in the recess, the latter would have suggested nothing; but having caught sight of the opening behind the press, Donal was attracted by it. It was i...

One thing then was clear to Donal, that for the present he had nothing to do with the affair. Supposing the earl’s assertion true, there was at present no question as to the suc...

On the day after the last _triad_ in the housekeeper’s parlour, as Donal sat in the schoolroom with Davie--about noon it was--he became aware that for some time he had been hear...

But the opening of the windows of heaven, and the unspeakable rush of life through channels too narrow and banks too weak to hold its tide, caused a terrible inundation: the red...

No sooner had he entered the castle, where his return had been watched for, than Simmons came to him with the message that his lordship wanted to see him. Then first Donal remem...

When Stephen Kennedy heard that Eppy had gone back to her grandparents, a faint hope revived in his bosom; he knew nothing of the late passage between the two parties. He but kn...

“This place makes me feel as I never felt before,” he said. “There is such a wonderful sense of vanished life about it. The whole garden seems dreaming about things of long ago-...

Donal was queer, some of my readers will think, and I admit it; for the man who regards the affairs of life from any other point than his own greedy self, must be queer indeed i...

When he reached the bottom of the hill, there at the gate was Forgue, walking up and down, apparently waiting for him. He would have passed him, but Forgue stepped in front of him.

Things went on very quietly for a time. Arctura grew better, resumed her studies, and made excellent progress. She would have worked harder, but Donal would not let her. He hate...

The night began to descend and he to be weary, and look about him for a place of repose. But there was a long twilight before him, and it was warm.

She was carried to her room and laid on her bed. The doctor requested Mrs. Brookes and Donal to remain, and dismissed the rest, then proceeded to examine her. There were no bone...

All through the terrible time, the sense of help and comfort and protection in the presence of the young tutor, went on growing in the mind of Arctura. It was nothing to her--wh...

During the first day and the next, Donal did not even come in sight of any other of the family; but on the third day, after their short early school--for he seldom let Davie wor...

He went as before, conducted by the butler, and formally announced. To his surprise, with the earl was lady Arctura. His lordship made him give her his arm, and followed.

But Donal did not feel that even then would he have exhausted the likelihood of discovery. That the source of the music that had so long haunted the house was an aeolian harp in...

On Wednesday evening Donal went to _The Morven Arms_ to inquire for the third time if his box was come. The landlord said, if a great heavy tool-chest was the thing he expected,...

When lord Morven heard of his son’s return, he sent for Donal, received him in a friendly way, gave him to understand that, however he might fail to fall in with his views, he d...

He would gladly have told his friend the cobbler all about the strange occurrence; but he did not feel sure it would be right to carry a report of the house where he held a posi...

One evening, as Donal was walking in the little avenue below the terraces, Davie, who was now advanced to doing a little work without his master’s immediate supervision, came ru...

They were hardly seated when Simmons appeared, saying he had been looking everywhere for her ladyship, for his lordship was taken as he had never seen him before: he had fainted...

“Noo I maun pey ye for my shune, for gien I dinna pey at ance, I canna tell hoo muckle to ca’ my ain, an’ what I hae to gang by till I get mair.”

The next day, when he saw lady Arctura, Donal was glad to learn that, for all the excitement of the day before, she had passed a good night, and never dreamed at all.

When Arctura woke from her unnatural sleep, she lay a while without thought, then began to _localize_ herself. The last place she recalled was the inn where they had tea: she mu...

Tender over lady Arctura, Donal would ask a question or two of the housekeeper before disclosing what further he had found. He sought her room, therefore, while Arctura and Davi...

“Arkie wants very much to have a ride to-day. She says Larkie--I gave him his name, to rime with _Arkie_--she says Larkie will forget her, and she does not wish to go out with F...

He had been at home about ten days, during which not a word had come to Davie or himself from the castle, and was beginning to grow, not perhaps anxious, but hungry for news of...

The next night, as if by a common understanding, for it was without word spoken, the three met again in the housekeeper’s room, where she had supper waiting. Of business nothing...

The avenue seemed to Donal about to stop dead against a high wall, but ere they quite reached the end, they turned at right angles, skirted the wall for some distance, then turn...

Donal avoided the town, and walked a long way round to get into the road beyond it, his head bent as if he were pondering a pain. At moments he felt as if he must return at once...

Spiritual insanity, cupidity, cruelty, and possibly immediate demoniacal temptation had long been working in and on a mind that had now ceased almost to distinguish between the...

“I shall be happy,” said Mr. Graeme--feeling it not a little hard that one who would soon be heir presumptive to the title should have to tend the family property in the service...

“Has it ever struck you how many born friends there are in the world who never meet--persons to love each other at first sight, but who never in this world have that sight?”

At the castle things fell into their old routine. Nothing had been arranged between lord Forgue and Eppy, and he seemed content that it should be so. Mrs. Brookes told him that...

Standing upon the edge of the stone leaned against the wall, Donal seized the edge of the slab which crossed the opening near the top, and drew himself up into the sloping windo...

The next day, Donal put on his best coat, and went to call on the minister. Shown into the study, he saw seated there the man he had met on his first day’s journey, the same who...