it was to his mind the music-march of the morning to his rescue from the dungeon of the night.
But that was no musical tone which made the darkness shudder around him! He sprang to his feet. It was a human groan—a groan as of one in dire pain, the pain of a soul's agony. It seemed to have descended the stair to him. The next instant Donal was feeling his way up—cautiously, as if on each succeeding step he might come against the man who had groaned. Tales of haunted houses rushed into his memory. What if he were but pursuing the groan of an actor in the past—a creature the slave of his own conscious memory—a mere haunter of the present which he could not influence—one without physical relation to the embodied, save in the groans he could yet utter! But it was more in awe than in fear that he went. Up and up he felt his way, all about him as still as darkness and the night could make it. A ghostly cold crept through his skin; it was drawn together as by a gently freezing process; and there was a pulling at the muscles of his chest, as if his mouth were being dragged open by a martingale.
As he felt his way along the wall, sweeping its great endless circle round and round in spiral ascent, all at once his hand seemed to go through it; he started and stopped. It was the door of the room into which he had been shown to meet the earl! It stood wide open. A faint glimmer came through the window from the star-filled sky. He stepped just within the doorway. Was not that another glimmer on the floor—from the back of the room—through a door he did not remember having seen yesterday? There again was the groan, and nigh at hand! Someone must be in sore need! He approached the door and looked through. A lamp, nearly spent, hung from the ceiling of a small room which might be an office or study, or a place where papers were kept. It had the look of an antechamber, but that it could not be, for there was but the one door!—In the dim light he descried a vague form leaning up against one of the walls, as if listening to something through it! As he gazed it grew plainer to him, and he saw a face, its eyes staring wide, which yet seemed not to see him. It was the face of the earl. Donal felt as if in the presence of the disembodied; he stood fascinated, nor made attempt to retire or conceal himself. The figure turned its face to the wall, put the palms of its hands against it, and moved them up and down, and this way and that; then looked at them, and began to rub them against each other.
Donal came to himself. He concluded it was a case of sleepwalking. He had read that it was dangerous to wake the sleeper, but that he seldom came to mischief when left alone, and was about to slip away as he had come, when the faint sound of a far-off chord crept through the silence. The earl again laid his ear to the wall. But there was only silence. He went through the same dumb show as before, then turned as if to leave the place. Donal turned also, and hurriedly felt his way to the stair. Then first he was in danger of terror; for in stealing through the darkness from one who could find his way without his eyes, he seemed pursued by a creature not of this world. On the stair he went down a step or two, then lingered, and heard the earl come on it also. He crept close to the newel, leaving the great width of the stair free, but the steps of the earl went upward. Donal descended, sat down again at the bottom of the stair, and began again to wait. No sound came to him through the rest of the night. The slow hours rolled away, and the slow light drew nearer. Now and then he was on the point of falling into a doze, but would suddenly start wide awake, listening through a silence that seemed to fill the whole universe and deepen around the castle.
At length he was aware that the darkness had, unobserved of him, grown weaker—that the approach of the light was sickening it: the dayspring was about to take hold of the ends of the earth that the wicked might be shaken out of its lap. He sought the long passage by which he had come, and felt his way to the other end: it would be safer to wait there if he could get no farther. But somehow he came to the foot of his own stair, and sped up as if it were the ladder of heaven. He threw himself on his bed, fell fast asleep, and did not wake till the sun was high.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SCHOOLROOM
Old Simmons, the butler, woke him.
"I was afraid something was the matter, sir. They tell me you did not come down last night; and breakfast has been waiting you two hours."
"I should not have known where to find it," said Donal. "The knowledge of an old castle is not intuitive."
"How long will you take to dress?" asked Simmons.
"Ten minutes, if there is any hurry," answered Donal.
"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 after you yesterday, but his lordship was poorly, and I had to be in attendance on him till after midnight."
Donal thought it impossible he should of himself have found his way to the schoolroom. With all he could do to remember the turnings, he found the endeavour hopeless, and gave it up with a not unpleasing despair. Through strange passages, through doors in all directions, up stairs and down they went, and at last came to a long, low room, barely furnished, with a pleasant outlook, and immediate access to the open air. The windows were upon a small grassy court, with a sundial in the centre; a door opened on a paved court. At one end of the room a table was laid with ten times as many things as he could desire to eat, though he came to it with a good appetite. The butler himself waited upon him. He was a good-natured old fellow, with a nose somewhat too red for the ordinary wear of one in his responsible position.
"I hope the earl is better this morning," said Donal.
"Well, I can't say. He's but a delicate man is the earl, and has been, so long as I have known him. He was with the army in India, and the sun, they say, give him a stroke, and ever since he have headaches that bad! But in between he seems pretty well, and nothing displeases him more than ask after his health, or how he slep the night. But he's a good master, and I hope to end my days with him. I'm not one as likes new faces and new places! One good place is enough for me, says I—so long as it is a good one.—Take some of this game pie, sir."
Donal made haste with his breakfast, and to Simmons's astonishment had ended when he thought him just well begun.
"How shall I find master Davie?" he asked.
"He is wild to see you, sir. When I've cleared away, just have the goodness to ring this bell out of that window, and he'll be with you as fast as he can lay his feet to the ground."
Donal rang the handbell. A shout mingled with the clang of it. Then came the running of swift feet over the stones of the court, and Davie burst into the room.
"Oh, sir," he cried, "I am glad! It is good of you to come!"
"Well, you see, Davie," returned Donal, "everybody has got to do something to carry the world on a bit: my work is to help make a man of you. Only I can't do much except you help me; and if I find I am not making a good job of you, I shan't stop many hours after the discovery. If you want to keep me, you must mind what I say, and so help me to make a man of you."
"It will be long before I am a man!" said Davie rather disconsolately.
"It depends on yourself. The boy that is longest in becoming a man, is the boy that thinks himself a man before he is a bit like one."
"Come then, let us do something!" said Davie.
"Come away," rejoined Donal. "What shall we do first?"
"I don't know: you must tell me, sir."
"What would you like best to do—I mean if you might do what you pleased?"
Davie thought a little, then said:
"I should like to write a book."
"What kind of a book?"
