DONOVAN

A Novel

BY

EDNA LYALL

AUTHOR OF "WON BY WAITING."

"And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around Our incompleteness,— Round our restlessness, His rest." E. B. BROWNING.

IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III.

LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1882.

All rights reserved.

Contents

I. Cobwebs and Questions II. A Crown of Fire III. Good-bye IV. A Man and a Brother V. A Brave Sprite VI. Old Friends VII. Via Crucis VIII. Temptation IX. Charles Osmond X. What is Forgiveness? XI. Contrasted Lovers XII. "Lame Dogs Over Stiles" XIII. An Evolution, and a Nineteenth Century Foe XIV. Duty's Call XV. Via Lucis XVI. Apprehension XVII. Trevethan Speaks XVIII. "My Hopes and Thine are One"

DONOVAN.

CHAPTER I. COBWEBS AND QUESTIONS.

Then fiercely we dig the fountain, Oh! whence do the waters rise? Then panting we climb the mountain, Oh! are there indeed blue skies? And we dig till the soul is weary, Nor find the waters out! And we climb till all is dreary, And still the sky is a doubt.

Search not the roots of the fountain, But drink the water bright; Gaze far above the mountain, The sky may speak in light. But if yet thou see no beauty— If widowed thy heart yet cries— With thy hands go and do thy duty, And thy work will clear thine eyes. Violin Songs. GEORGE MACDONALD.

The church at Porthkerran stood at some little distance from the village. It was one of those old square-towered granite churches which abound in the West, and the picturesque grave-yard, with its rather sombre-looking slate tomb-stones, commanded a wide view of the bay of Porthkerran and the great blue expanse beyond. The south wall of the church-yard was on the very verge of the cliff, and here, one evening in the end of September, Donovan and Waif established themselves; service was going on, but both dog and master felt that they had no part or lot in such things, and though not much given to "meditations among the tombs," they had for some reason found their way up to the church-yard. It was the evening of the Harvest Festival, Donovan had been too busy to feel bored by the details of the decorations with which in old times Adela used to rouse his ire, but he could not help regretting that his last evening at Porthkerran should be spent in enforced solitude.

The sense of isolation came to him for the first time since he had been among the Tremains; Sunday after Sunday he had stayed contentedly behind when they went to church, but this evening a regret that he could not be with them was stirring in his heart. A chance word of Nesta's had awakened it.

"Dono will stay with us till we do to bed," she had announced triumphantly to Dick as he was leaving the house. "Dono is much betterer than you, he doesn't do away and leave us."

It was impossible to escape from the small elf, she was on his shoulder and her arms were clinging fast round his neck, but Donovan's face glowed at her next remark.

"Don't you want to see the flowers and the corn they've putted in the church, Dono? Won't you do when we're in bed?"

Dick came to the rescue.

"Mr. Dono will be much too busy with his skeleton, Nesta; don't you know that he loves the skeleton better than he loves you?"

"The steleton's a very ugly thing," said Nesta, pouting, "and he oughtn't to like it so much."

Then ensued a noisy romp; the rest of the party started for church. Presently Jackie and Nesta were fetched by the nurse, and Donovan shut himself into the study alone. But somehow Nesta's rival the "steleton" engrossed him less than usual; the fascinating study of bones did not still the feeling of unrest which the child's unconscious words had stirred.

Did he not really want to join with the others? Was it any pleasure to him to keep aloof? Had he not felt a pang of envy when he saw the real delight which the prospect of this thanksgiving service gave to the Tremains? Would it not be an infinite rest to be able to believe in anything so ennobling, so comforting as Christianity? For nearly three months he had been watching the life at Trenant. The Tremains were by no means a faultless family, but their lives were very different from any he had hitherto seen, and it had dawned on him as a possibility that their belief might have something to do with this difference. Christianity had hitherto shown itself to him as a thing of creeds, not as a living of the Christ life, and how to explain this new phenomenon he did not know. Were these people loveable in spite of their creed, or because of it? One thing was plain, however inexplicable it might be: they possessed something which he did not possess, something which—it had come to that now—he longed to possess. While he was restless and unsatisfied, they were at peace; while he was

daily becoming more doubtful as to the truth of the views he held, they were absolutely convinced that their Master was not only true, but the Way to knowledge of all Truth. The more enviable this certainty, however, the more impossible it seemed to him to make the faith his own. Study and thought had indeed brought him from his more positive atheism to a sort of agnosticism, but, although this had at first seemed hopeful and restful in contrast with his former creed, it now forced upon him an even worse agony. He had accepted his dreamy certainty with stoicism, but to waver in doubt, to know nothing, to feel that in knowledge only could there be rest, and yet to despair of ever gaining that knowledge, this was indeed a misery which he had never contemplated. He saw no way out of his difficulty. To believe because belief would be pleasant was (happily) quite as impossible to him now as it had been at Codrington, when the chorus of "I will believe" had dinned him into a bitter denunciation of "cupboard" faith. The only prospect then which seemed before him was a constant

craving after the unknown.

To be conscious of hunger does not always bring us bread at once, but it does prove our need of bread, and it does make us ready to receive it when given.

The half-stifled thoughts which had lurked in his mind during his stay at Trenant now forced themselves upon him. He grew too restless and unhappy to work, and at last, whistling to Waif to follow him, he left the house, and sauntered out in the cool evening. Instinctively he mounted the hill to the church, stretched himself on the wall already described, at no great distance from the cross which marked his father's grave, and listened to the singing which, through open door and window, was borne to him clearly. There were special psalms that night. He found himself listening intently for Gladys's voice, and in so doing he caught the words of the grand old descriptive poem.

"They went astray in the wilderness out of the way: And found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, Their soul fainted in them. So they cried unto the Lord in their trouble; And He delivered them from their distress. He led them forth by the right way That they might go to the city where they dwelt. * * * * * * * * * For he satisfieth the empty soul; And filleth the hungry soul with goodness."

He heard no more. The recollection of the time when he had "cried" unto the Great Unknown in his trouble, the time when his atheism had brought him to the verge of madness, when his philosophy had failed, and helplessly and illogically he had prayed that Dot's agony might end, returned to him now. But that appeal had been an involuntary one. He could not calmly and deliberately address a Being in whom he did not believe; though he was hungering to find the Truth, he could not try to find it by any unreal means.

Thus much he had arrived at when his attention was drawn away to a tragedy in insect life which was going on close beside him. In an angle of the wall was a large spider's web; caught in its meshes hung an unusual victim—a wasp, who, in spite of his size and strength, found the clinging gossamer threads too much for him. The spider drew nearer and nearer. Donovan speculated which would get the best of it, the spider with his cunning, or the wasp with his sting. Buzz! whirr! buzz! the web would not yield, the prisoner struggled in vain, on came the stealthy spider, evidently the victory would be his. But a sudden fellow-feeling for the imprisoned insect rose in Donovan's heart, he sprang up, demolished the cobweb, and had the satisfaction of seeing the spider scuttle away as fast as his long legs could carry him, while the wasp flew off in the still evening air.

"Free! you lucky beast!" he exclaimed.

"Who is the lucky beast?" said a voice behind him.

He looked round and saw Dr. Tremain.

"I've just been fetched out of church to see a patient. I hope that wasn't intended for a congratulation!"

Donovan laughed.

"No; I was apostrophizing a wasp I've just rescued from a cobweb. Are you going far? May I come with you?"

"By all means; it's a message from St. Kerran's. Come and drive me, will you?"

They left the churchyard arm-in-arm, and before long Star and Ajax were bearing them rapidly away in the pony-chaise.

"It's a glorious night for a drive," said the doctor. "And I am glad not to have missed you on your last evening. We shall be very dull when you are gone, Donovan; as to Nesta, I think she will break her heart. You have become a necessity to her."

"Or she to me?" said Donovan, smiling. "It's extraordinary what a difference it makes to have children in a house."

"Is it not Huxley who speaks of 'the eminently sympathetic mind of childhood'?" said Dr. Tremain. "That has always struck me very much—the readiness with which a child makes itself one with all around it, the freedom with which it gives its confidence, and the delight with which it helps others; that readiness to serve and love always seems to me stronger proof than anything that as

'Trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home.'"

"Your Wordsworth is too spiritual and mystical for me," said Donovan, with some bitterness.

"Or too simple?" questioned the doctor.

"No, no; or simple only to the favoured few who had these intimations of immortality. For my part I am not aware that heaven ever 'lay about me in my infancy.' I know that injustice and tyranny in very visible forms were there, and only now do I know what a grudge I owe them. If from your very babyhood you have had to fight your own battles, and rely on yourself, it isn't very possible at two and twenty to—to——" he hesitated.

"To become a child again," said Dr. Tremain, quietly, "and to recognize that above the petty tyrannies and injustices of the world is the Eternal Truth."

"You have never spoken to me of these things before," said Donovan, trying to banish a certain constrained tone from his voice.

"No," replied the doctor. "And I should not have spoken now unless you had led me up to it. There are some things, Donovan, for which it is well to 'hope and quietly wait.' I am glad you have spoken. Of course such a change as you speak of is infinitely hard, but if the lesson of life be thoroughly to learn that truth of Father and child, we shall not grudge the difficulty we find in learning it."

"If it seemed the least probable that one ever could learn it," said Donovan, sadly. "But I own that I don't see my way to doing so. Never was there a time when I realised so well the beauty of Christianity, or felt so anxious to prove my own creed false, but yet never was there a time when the usual belief seemed to me more glaringly illogical, more impossible to hold. You don't know what it is to toss about in a sea of doubts. I had rather have my old hard and fast security in the material present, than flounder in this cobweb like my wasp friend just now."

"Not if the old belief was a mistake and delusion, which for aught you know it is," replied the doctor. "Besides, to take your wasp as a parable, its flounderings were of some avail, it proved its need of a rescuer, and the rescuer came—one who could sympathise even with a vicious, stinging, six-legged ne'er-do-weel."

"But all I have got is a mere desire."

"Quite so, a desire to find the truth,—the right thing to start with."

"No, it seems to me only a half-selfish desire to prop up a beautiful legend, a discontent with truths of science."

"I should call it a natural and by no means selfish desire, and an inevitable discovery that Science, great, and noble, and mighty as she is, cannot satisfy all a man's needs."

"If you could give us scientific proof in religion, then belief might be possible," said Donovan, his voice losing all its constraint and changing to almost painful earnestness. "But see what a contrast there is—in science all is proved with exquisite clearness, in religion, there is absolutely no proof. I am crazy with sorrow, and a man comes to me and says, 'Be comforted, we are immortal;' I ask for proof, and he tells me it is probable, and instances the case of the grub and the butterfly. Will that argument comfort a man in bereavement?"

"No, for it begins at the wrong end," said the doctor. "There must be faith before there can be belief. As to mathematical proof, of course it is impossible when you are not treating of mathematical subjects or dimensions, but the absolute conviction of the existence of God will be as entirely independent of proof as my absolute conviction that my wife is true to me."

Donovan did not speak, he seemed rather staggered by the breadth of this assertion, not having as yet grasped the fact that the "truth" which he was struggling after was not so much concerned with intellectual difficulties to be overcome as with the awaking of a spirit which slept.

"There are thousands of things of the truth of which we are perfectly convinced, and which we nevertheless fail to prove like a mathematical problem," continued the doctor. "Take the case of the great heiress, Miss C——, whom I am now going to visit. We will suppose that she falls in love with a penniless man; her parents laugh at the affair, and bring forward the usual arguments: 'My dear, he only wants your money, he is not in love with you.' All the time the girl knows perfectly well that these arguments are false, and she asserts, boldly, 'He does love me, I know he loves me,' but she can give no scientific proof of this love, though it is to her the most intense reality, a reality that alters all her world. It seems to me to hold true that all things connected with the highest instincts of our life—merely as natural beings, I mean, you know—are incapable of mathematical or even experimental proof. But now-a-days people are so apt to make the most sacred things mere blocks on which to chop logic, that a morbid and unreasonable desire rises to have everything explained to

us in black and white."

"But religious people are so dogmatic; they assert 'this is so, that is so, believe it or perish!'" complained Donovan. "I mean the ordinary run; I don't call you a religious person."

"Thank you," said the doctor, laughing. "But surely, Donovan, you used to be; I don't say you are now, but a very short time ago you were quite as dogmatic as anyone, and asserted 'there is no spirit because everything is matter, no supernatural because everything is natural.'"

"Yes, I plead guilty to that, and could half wish now to fall back on the old convictions. There are too many inexplicable mysteries in religion; I shall never get further than this fog of agnosticism."

"Are there no inexplicable mysteries to an atheist?" said the doctor, quietly. "How do you explain the existence of that immaterial thing the will? Science can tell us absolutely nothing with regard to it, but you are the last person who would deny its existence; on the contrary, without any proof you have a stronger belief in the power and functions of the will than anyone I know."

"Because I know—I feel its existence."

"Quite so, and just in the same way, though science can't demonstrate to me the existence of God, I know and feel His existence," replied the doctor. "Or to take another argument which is often used: some one asserts that there can be no Creator of the universe, because the idea of such a Being is not mentally presentable; yet one of the greatest men of science of the present day is obliged to own that consciousness is not mentally presentable, although it exists."

"I see you have faced all these questions," said Donovan, his sense of union with his friend deepening. "From what I saw before knowing you, I should have said that Christians accepted their belief on authority, and stopped as wrong or presumptuous all free thought and inquiry."

"I believe we all have to 'face' the questions, as you say, sooner or later," said the doctor. "My dear boy, I have been through something of this fog which you are now in, and to a certain extent have felt what you are now feeling."

"You!" exclaimed Donovan, in the greatest surprise.

"Yes, in spite of every possible help in the way of home and education, and speaking as one who has lived through this darkness, I would say to you, don't grudge the suffering or the waiting, but go on patiently."

"Go on doubting?" questioned Donovan.

"Go on living—by which I mean doing your duty," replied the doctor. "Depend upon it, Donovan, that's the only thing to be clung to at such a time—the rightness of right is, at least, clear to you."

"That much is clear, yes," said Donovan, musingly, "for the rest, I suppose the humiliation of uncertainty is good for one's pride, the ache of incompleteness wholesomely disagreeable."

"The beginning of health," said the doctor, half to himself; then looking at the unsatisfied face, he added, in his firm, manly voice, "Be patient, my boy."

"Patience implies hope," said Donovan, in a low tone, which veiled very deep feeling. "Now tell me honestly"—he fixed his eyes steadily on Dr. Tremain's face to read its first expression,—"do you think I shall ever get beyond this wretched uncertainty?"

The doctor's face seemed positively to shine, as he replied,

"I am certain you will; sooner or later, here or there, all will be made plain to you. Do you suppose that when we give thanks for the 'redemption of the world' we leave you out? Only be patient, and in the right time the 'Truth shall make you free.' In the meanwhile you are not left without one unfailing comfort: you can work, you can act up to your conscience, and to any man who desires to do His will knowledge of the truth is promised. You make me think of the words I used just now, there is a seeming contradiction when we are told 'it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.' It seems impossible that waiting for health can be 'good,' we wish to have done at once with all weakness, all restrictions; it is not till later on when we come to look on all things with other eyes that we see the good of the waiting, its very necessity."

There was silence after that for some minutes, one by one the stars were beginning to shine out in the pale sky, the wind ruffled the leaves in the high hedgerows. Star and Ajax trotted on briskly. Everything that night left a lasting impression on Donovan's brain; he could always see that glooming landscape, with the faint starlight and the lingering streaks of gold in the west, always feel the freshness of the evening air which seemed invigorating as the new hope which was just dawning for him. But he was too choked to speak when the doctor paused, too much taken up with the thoughts suggested to him, to care to put anything of himself into expression. Presently they came to a gate; he sprang out to open it. Then, as they drove up to the house, the doctor said,

"I shall be half an hour, I daresay, so, if you like, drive on to the post-office."