He sat beside it; he lighted candles and opened books, and now
and then he sat so still before them that he may have thought that he
read. But the books slipped away, and the candles guttered down, and
the fire went out. At last, in the thick darkness, he spread his arms
upon the table and bowed his head in them, and his frame shook with a
man's slow weeping.
CHAPTER XVI
The bright autumn sank into November, November winds and mists into a
muffled, gray-roofed, white-floored December. And still the laird of
Glenfernie lived with the work of the estate and, when that was done,
and when the long, lonely, rambling daily walk or ride was over, with
books. The room in the keep had now many books. He sat among them, and
he built his fire higher, and his candles burned into late night.
Whether he read or did not read, he stayed among them and drew what
restless comfort he might. Strickland, from his own high room, waking
in the night, saw the loophole slit of light.
He felt concern. The change that had come to his old pupil was marked
enough. Strickland's mind dwelt on the old laird. Was that the
personality, not of one, but of two, of the whole line, perhaps,
developing all the time, step by step with what seemed the plastic,
otherwise, free time of youth, appearing always in due season, when
its hour struck? Would Alexander, with minor differences, repeat his
father? How of the mother? Would the father drown the mother? In the
enormous all-one, the huge blend, what would arrive? Out of all
fathers and mothers, out of all causes?
It could not be said that Alexander was surly.
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