I will be content, And the world shall spin round Till its force be outspent.

It shall drop Like a top Spun by a boy, While I sit in my tent, In a featureless joy-- Sit without sound, And toss up my world, Till it burst and be drowned In the blackness upcurled From the deep h.e.l.l-ground.

The dreams of a G.o.d Are the worlds of his slaves: I will be my own G.o.d, And rule my own knaves!

He went on in this way for some minutes; then the rimes grew less perfect, and the utterance sank into measured prose. The tone of the speaker showed that he took the stuff for glowing verse, and regarded it as embodying his own present consciousness. One might have thought the worm would have a word to say in rejoinder; but no; the worm had vanished, and the buried dreamer had made himself a G.o.d--his own G.o.d!

Donal stole up softly behind him, and peeped at the open book: it was the Novum Organum!

They glided out of the room, and left the dreamer to his dreams.

"Do you think," said Donal, "I ought to tell Simmons?"

"It would be better. Do you know where to find him?"

"I do not."

"I will show you a bell that rings in his room. He will think his lordship has rung it."

They went and rang the bell. In a minute or two they heard the steps of the faithful servant seeking his master, and bade each other good-night.

CHAPTER XL.

A RELIGION-LESSON.

In the morning Donal learned from Simmons that his master was very ill--could not raise his head.

"The way he do moan and cry!" said Simmons. "You would think sure he was either out of his mind, or had something heavy upon it! All the years I known him, he been like that every now an' then, and back to his old self again, little the worse! Only the fits do come oftener."

Towards the close of school, as Donal was beginning to give his lesson in religion, lady Arctura entered, and sat down beside Davie.

"What would you think of me, Davie," Donal was saying, "if I were angry with you because you did not know something I had never taught you?"

Davie only laughed. It was to him a grotesque, an impossible supposition.

"If," Donal resumed, "I were to show you a proposition of Euclid which you had never seen before, and say to you, 'Now, Davie, this is one of the most beautiful of all Euclid's propositions, and you must immediately admire it, and admire Euclid for constructing it!'--what would you say?"

Davie thought, and looked puzzled.

"But you wouldn't do it, sir!" he said. "--I know you wouldn't do it!"

he added, after a moment.

"Why should I not?"

"It isn't your way, sir."

"But suppose I were to take that way?"

"You would not then be like yourself, sir!"

"Tell me how I should be unlike myself. Think."

"You would not be reasonable."

"What would you say to me?"

"I should say, 'Please, sir, let me learn the proposition first, and then I shall be able to admire it. I don't know it yet!'"

"Very good!--Now again, suppose, when you tried to learn it, you were not able to do so, and therefore could see no beauty in it--should I blame you?"

"No, sir; I am sure you would not--because I should not be to blame, and it would not be fair; and you never do what is not fair!"

"I am glad you think so: I try to be fair.--That looks as if you believed in me, Davie!"

"Of course I do, sir!"

"Why?"

"Just because you are fair."

"Suppose, Davie, I said to you, 'Here is a very beautiful thing I should like you to learn,' and you, after you had partly learned it, were to say 'I don't see anything beautiful in this: I am afraid I never shall!'--would that be to believe in me?"

"No, surely, sir! for you know best what I am able for."

"Suppose you said, 'I daresay it is all as good as you say, but I don't care to take so much trouble about it,'--what would that be?"

"Not to believe in you, sir. You would not want me to learn a thing that was not worth my trouble, or a thing I should not be glad of knowing when I did know it."

"Suppose you said, 'Sir, I don't doubt what you say, but I am so tired, I don't mean to do anything more you tell me,'--would you then be believing in me?"

"No. That might be to believe your word, but it would not be to trust you. It would be to think my thinks better than your thinks, and that would be no faith at all."

Davie had at times an oddly childish way of putting things.

"Suppose you were to say nothing, but go away and do nothing of what I told you--what would that be?"

"Worse and worse; it would be sneaking."

"One question more: what is faith--the big faith I mean--not the little faith between equals--the big faith we put in one above us?"

"It is to go at once and do the thing he tells us to do."

"If we don't, then we haven't faith in him?"

"No; certainly not."

"But might not that be his fault?"