"How can that be," answered Davie, "when you are afraid of him? I am not a bit afraid of him!"
"How do you know I am afraid of him?" she asked.
"Oh, anybody could see that!"
She was afraid she had spoken foolishly, and Davie might repeat her words: she did not desire to hasten further intimacy with Donal; things were going in that direction fast enough! Her eyes, avoiding Davie's, kept reconnoitring the stack of chimneys.
"Aren't you glad to have such a castle all for your own--to do what you like with, Arkie? You know you could pull it all to pieces if you liked!"
"Would it be less mine," said Arctura, "if I was not at liberty to pull it all to pieces? And would it be more mine when I had pulled it to pieces, Davie?"
Donal was coming round the side of the stack, and heard what she said. It pleased him, for it was not a little in his own style.
"What makes a thing your own, do you think, Davie?" she went on.
"To be able to do with it what you like," replied Davie.
"Whether that be good or bad?"
"Yes, I think so," answered Davie, doubtfully.
"Then I think you are quite wrong," she rejoined. "The moment you begin to use a thing wrong, that moment you make it less yours. I can't quite explain it, but that is how it looks to me."
She ceased, and after a moment Donal took up the question.
"Lady Arctura is quite right, Davie," he said. "The nature, that is the good of a thing, is that only by which it can be possessed. Any other possession is like slave-owning; it is not a righteous having.
The right and the power to use it to its true purpose, and the using it so, are the conditions that make a thing ours. To have the right and the power, and not use it so, would be to make the thing less ours than anybody's.--Suppose you had a very beautiful picture, but from some defect in your sight you could never see that picture as it really was, while a servant in your house not only saw it as it was meant to be seen, but had such delight in gazing on it, that even in his dreams it came to him, and made him think of things he would not have thought of but for it:--which of you, you or the servant in your house, would have the more real possession of that picture? You could sell it away from yourself, and never know anything about it more; but you could not by all the power of a tyrant take it from your servant."
"Ah, now I understand!" said Davie, with a look at lady Arctura which seemed to say, "You see how Mr. Grant can make me understand!"
"I wonder," said lady Arctura, "what that curious opening in the side of the chimney-stack means! It can't be for smoke to come out at!"
"No," said Donal; "there is not a mark of smoke about it. If it had been meant for that, it would hardly have been put half-way from the top! I can't make it out! A hole like that in any chimney must surely interfere with the draught! I must get a ladder!"
"Let me climb on your shoulders, Mr. Grant," said Davie.
"Come then; up you go!" said Donal.
And up went Davie, and peeped into the horizontal slit.
"It looks very like a chimney," he said, turning his head and thrusting it in sideways. "It goes right down to somewhere," he added, bringing his head out again, "but there is something across it a little way down--to prevent the jackdaws from tumbling in, I suppose."
"What is it?" asked Donal.
"Something like a grating," answered Davie; "--no, not a grating exactly; it is what you might call a grating, but it seems made of wires. I don't think it would keep a strong bird out if he wanted to get in."
"Aha!" said Donal to himself; "what if those wires be tuned! Did you ever see an aeolian harp, my lady?" he asked: "I never did."
"Yes," answered lady Arctura, "--once, when I was a little girl. And now you suggest it, I think the sounds we hear are not unlike those of an aeolian harp! The strings are all the same length, if I remember. But I do not understand the principle. They seem all to play together, and make the strangest, wildest harmonies, when the wind blows across them in a particular way."
"I fancy then we have found the nest of our music-bird!" said Donal.
"The wires Davie speaks of may be the strings of an aeolian harp! I wonder if there could be a draught across them! I must get up and see! I must go and get a ladder!"
"But how could there be an aeolian harp up here?" said Arctura.
"It will be time enough to answer that question," replied Donal, "when it changes to, 'How did an aeolian harp get up here?'
Something is here that wants accounting for: it may be an aeolian harp!"
"But in a chimney! The soot would spoil the strings!"
"Then perhaps it is not a chimney: is there any sign of soot about, Davie?"
"No, sir; there is nothing but clean stone and lime."
"You see, my lady! We do not even know that it is a chimney!"
"What else can it be, standing with the rest?"
"It may have been built for one; but if it had ever been used for one, the marks of smoke would remain, had it been disused ever so long. But to-morrow I will bring up a ladder."
"Could you not do it now?" said Arctura, almost coaxingly. "I should so like to have the thing settled!"
"As you please, my lady! I will go at once. There is one leaning against the garden-wall, not far from the bottom of the tower."
"If you do not mind the trouble!"
"I will come and help," said Davie.
"You mustn't leave lady Arctura. I am not sure if I can get it up the stair; I am afraid it is too long. If I cannot, we will haul it up as we did the coal."
He went, and the cousins sat down to wait his return. It was a cold evening, but Arctura was well wrapt up, and Davie was hardy. They sat at the foot of the chimney-stack, and began to talk.
"It is such a long time since you told me anything, Arkie!" said the boy.
"You do not need me now to tell you anything: you have Mr. Grant!
You like him much better than ever you did me!"
"You see," said Davie, thoughtfully, and making no defence against her half-reproach, "he began by making me afraid of him--not that he meant to do it, I think! he only meant that I should do what he told me: I was never afraid of you, Arkie!"
"I was much crosser to you than Mr. Grant, I am sure!"
