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?"
"A beautiful story."
"Isn't it just as well to read such a book? Why should you want to write one?"
"Because then I should have it go just as I wanted it! I am always--almost always--disappointed with the thing that comes next.
But if I wrote it myself, then I shouldn't get tired of it; it would be what pleased me, and not what pleased somebody else."
"Well," said Donal, after thinking for a moment, "suppose you begin to write a book!"
"Oh, that will be fun!--much better than learning verbs and nouns!"
"But the verbs and nouns are just the things that go to make a story--with not a few adjectives and adverbs, and a host of conjunctions; and, if it be a very moving story, a good many interjections! These all you have got to put together with good choice, or the story will not be one you would care to read.--Perhaps you had better not begin till I see whether you know enough about those verbs and nouns to do the thing decently. Show me your school-books."
"There they all are--on that shelf! I haven't opened one of them since Percy came home. He laughed at them all, and so Arkie--that's lady Arctura, told him he might teach me himself. And he wouldn't; and she wouldn't--with him to laugh at her. And I've had such a jolly time ever since--reading books out of the library! Have you seen the library, Mr. Grant?"
"No; I've seen nothing yet. Suppose we begin with a holiday, and you begin by teaching me!"
"Teaching you, sir! I'm not able to teach you!"
"Why, didn't you as much as offer to teach me the library? Can't you teach me this great old castle? And aren't you going to teach yourself to me?"
"That would be a funny lesson, sir!"
"The least funny, the most serious lesson you could teach me! You are a book God has begun, and he has sent me to help him go on with it; so I must learn what he has written already before I try to do anything."
"But you know what a boy is, sir! Why should you want to learn me?"
"You might as well say that, because I have read one or two books, I must know every book. To understand one boy helps to understand another, but every boy is a new boy, different from every other boy, and every one has to be understood."
"Yes--for sometimes Arkie won't hear me out, and I feel so cross with her I should like to give her a good box on the ear. What king was it, sir, that made the law that no lady, however disagreeable, was to have her ears boxed? Do you think it a good law, sir?"
"It is good for you and me anyhow."
"And when Percy says, 'Oh, go away! don't bother,' I feel as if I could hit him hard! Yet, if I happen to hurt him, I am so sorry! and why then should I want to hurt him?"
