Part 38 (2/2)
”Certainly,” he answered, reseating himself, in compliance with her example.
”Miss Graeme told me that you had never seen a garden like theirs before!”
”I never did. There are none such, I fancy, in our part of the country.”
”Nor in our neighbourhood either.”
”Then what is surprising in it?”
”Nothing in that. But is there not something in your being able to write a poem like that about a garden such as you had never seen? One would say you must have been familiar with it from childhood to be able so to enter into the spirit of the place!”
”Perhaps if I had been familiar with it from childhood, that might have disabled me from feeling the spirit of it, for then might it not have looked to me as it looked to those in whose time such gardens were the fas.h.i.+on? Two things are necessary--first, that there should be a spirit in a place, and next that the place should be seen by one whose spirit is capable of giving house-room to its spirit.--By the way, does the ghost-lady feel the place all right?”
”I am not sure that I know what you mean; but I felt the gra.s.s with her feet as I read, and the wind lifting my hair. I seemed to know exactly how she felt!”
”Now tell me, were you ever a ghost?”
”No,” she answered, looking in his face like a child--without even a smile.
”Did you ever see a ghost?”
”No, never.”
”Then how should you know how a ghost would feel?”
”I see! I cannot answer you.”
Donal rose.
”I am indeed ashamed!” said lady Arctura.
”Ashamed of giving me the chance of proving myself a true man?”
”That, at least, is no longer necessary!”
”But I want my revenge. As a punishment for doubting one whom you had so little ground for believing, you shall be compelled to see the proof--that is, if you will do me the favour to wait here till I come back. I shall not be long, though it is some distance to the top of Baliol's tower.”
”Davie told me your room was there: do you not find it cold? It must be very lonely! I wonder why mistress Brookes put you there!”
Donal a.s.sured her he could not have had a place more to his mind, and before she could well think he had reached the foot of his stair, was back with a roll of papers, which he laid on the table.
”There!” he said, opening it out; ”if you will take the trouble to go over these, you may read the growth of the poem. Here first you see it blocked out rather roughly, and much blotted with erasures and subst.i.tutions. Here next you see the result copied--clean to begin with, but afterwards scored and scored. You see the words I chose instead of the first, and afterwards in their turn rejected, until in the proofs I reached those which I have as yet let stand. I do not fancy Miss Graeme has any doubt the verses are mine, for it was plain she thought them rubbish. From your pains to know who wrote them, I believe you do not think so badly of them!”
She thought he was satirical, and gave a slight sigh as of pain. It went to his heart.
”I did not mean the smallest reflection, my lady, on your desire for satisfaction,” he said; ”rather, indeed, it flatters me. But is it not strange the heart should be less ready to believe what seems worth believing? Something must be true: why not the worthy--oftener at least than the unworthy? Why should it be easier to believe hard things of G.o.d, for instance, than lovely things?--or that one man copied from another, than that he should have made the thing himself? Some would yet say I contrived all this semblance of composition in order to lay the surer claim to that to which I had none--nor would take the trouble to follow the thing through its development! But it will be easy for you, my lady, and no bad exercise in logic and a.n.a.lysis, to determine whether the genuine growth of the poem be before you in these papers or not.”
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