the next day he seemed better, and alexa began to hope again. but in the afternoon his pulse began to sink, and when crawford came he could welcome him only with a smile and a vain effort to put out his hand. george bent down to him. the others, at a sign from his eyes, left the room.
“i can't find it, george!” he whispered.
“i put it away for you last night, you remember!” answered george.
“oh, no, you didn't! i had it in my hand a minute ago! but i fell into a doze, and it is gone! george, get it!—get it for me, or i shall go mad!” george went and brought it him.
“thank you! thank you! now i remember! i thought i was in hell, and they took it from me!”
“don't you be afraid, sir! fall asleep when you feel inclined. i will keep my eye on the cup.”
“you will not go away?”
“no; i will stay as long as you like; there is nothing to take me away. if i had thought you would be worse, i would not have gone last night.”
“i'm not worse! what put that in your head? don't you hear me speaking better? i've thought about it, george, and am convinced the cup is a talisman! i am better all the time i hold it! it was because i let you put it away that i was worse last night—for no other reason. if it were not a talisman, how else could it have so nestled itself into my heart! i feel better, always, the moment i take it in my hand! there is something more than common about that chalice! george, what if it should be the holy grail!”
he said it with bated breath, and a great white awe upon his countenance. his eyes were shining; his breath came and went fast. slowly his aged cheeks flushed with two bright spots. he looked as if the joy of his life was come.
“what if it should be the holy grail!” he repeated, and fell asleep with the words on his lips.
as the evening deepened into night, he woke. crawford was sitting beside him. a change had come over him. he stared at george as if he could not make him out, closed his eyes, opened them, stared, and again closed them. he seemed to think he was there for no good.
“would you like me to call alexa?” said george.
“call dawtie; call dawtie!” he replied.
george rose to go and call her.
“beware of her!” said the laird, with glazy eyes, “beware of dawtie!”
“how?” asked george.
“beware of her,” he repeated. “if she can get the cup, she will! she would take it from me now, if she dared! she will steal it yet! call dawtie; call dawtie!”
alexa was in the drawing-room, on the other side of the hall. george went and told her that her father wanted dawtie.
“i will find her,” she said, and rose, but turned and asked:
“how does he seem now?”
“rather worse,” george answered.
“are you going to be with him through the night?”
“i am; he insists on my staying with him,” replied george, almost apologetically.
“then,” she returned, “you must have some supper. we will go down, and send up dawtie.”
he followed her to the kitchen. dawtie was not there, but her mistress found her.
when she entered her master's room, he lay motionless, “and white with the whiteness of what is dead.”
she got brandy, and made him swallow some. as soon as he recovered a little, he began to talk wildly.
“oh, agnes!” he cried, “do not leave me. i'm not a bad man! i'm not what dawtie calls me. i believe in the atonement; i put no trust in myself; my righteousness is as filthy rags. take me with you. i will go with you. there! slip that under your white robe—washed in the blood of the lamb. that will hide it—with the rest of my sins! the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife. take it; take it; i should be lost in heaven without it! i can't see what i've got on, but it must be the robe of his righteousness, for i have none of my own! what should i be without it! it's all i've got! i couldn't bring away a single thing besides—and it's so cold to have but one thing on—i mean one thing in your hands! do you say they will make me sell it? that would be worse than coming without it!”
he was talking to his wife!—persuading her to smuggle the cup into heaven! dawtie went on her knees behind the curtain, and began to pray for him all she could. but something seemed stopping her, and making her prayer come only from her lips.
“ah,” said the voice of her master, “i thought so! how could i go up, and you praying against me like that! cup or no cup, the thing was impossible!”
dawtie opened her eyes—and there he was, holding back the curtain and looking round the edge of it with a face of eagerness, effort, and hate, as of one struggling to go, and unable to break away.
she rose to her feet.
“you are a fiend!” he cried. “i will go with agnes!” he gave a cry, and ceased, and all was still. they heard the cry in the kitchen, and came running up.
they found dawtie bending over her master, with a scared face. he seemed to have struck her, for one cheek was marked with red streaks across its whiteness.
“the grail! the holy grail!” he cried. “i found it! i was bringing it home! she took it from me! she wants it to—”
his jaw fell, and he was dead. alexa threw herself beside the body. george would have raised her, but she resisted, and lay motionless. he stood then behind her, watching an opportunity to get the cup from under the bed-clothes, that he might put it in the closet.
he ordered dawtie to fetch water for her mistress; but alexa told her she did not want any. once and again george tried to raise her, and get his hand under the bed-clothes to feel for the cup.
“he is not dead!” cried alexa; “he moved!”
“get some brandy,” said george.
she rose, and went to the table for the brandy. george, with the pretense of feeling the dead man's heart, threw back the clothes. he could find no cup. it had got further down! he would wait!
alexa lifted her father's head on her arm, but it was plain that brandy could not help. she went and sat on a chair away from the bed, hopeless and exhausted.
george lifted the clothes from the foot of the bed, then from the further side, and then from the nearer, without attracting her attention. the cup was nowhere to be seen! he put his hand under the body, but the cup was not there! he had to leave the room that dawtie and meg might prepare it for burial. alexa went to her chamber.
a moment after, george returned, called meg to the door, and said:
“there must be a brass cup in the bed somewhere! i brought it to amuse him. he was fond of odd things, you know! if you should find it—”
“i will take care of it,” answered meg, and turned from him curtly.
george felt he had not a friend in the house, and that he must leave things as they were! the door of the closet was locked, and he could not go again to the death-chamber to take the laird's keys from the head of the bed! he knew that the two women would not let him. it had been an oversight not to secure them! he was glad the watch was safe: that he had put in the closet before!—but it mattered little when the cup was missing! he went to the stable, got out his horse, and rode home in the still gray of a midsummer night.
the stillness and the night seemed thinking to each other. george had little imagination, but what he had woke in him now as he rode slowly along. step by step the old man seemed following him, on silent church-yard feet, through the eerie whiteness of the night. there was neither cloud nor moon, only stars above and around, and a great cold crack in the north-east. he was crying after him, in a voice he could not make him hear! was he not straggling to warn him not to come into like condemnation? the voice seemed trying to say, “i know! i know now! i would not believe, but i know now! give back the cup; give it back!”
george did not allow to himself that there was “anything” there. it was but a vague movement in that commonplace, unmysterious region, his mind! he heard nothing, positively nothing, with his ears—therefore there was nothing! it was indeed somehow as if one were saying the words, but in reality they came only as a thought rising, continually rising, in his mind! it was but a thought-sound, and no speech: “i know now! i know now! give it back; give the cup back!” he did not ask himself how the thought came; he cast it away as only that insignificant thing, a thought—cast it away none the less that he found himself answering it—“i can't give it back; i can't find it! where did you put it? you must have taken it with you!”
“what rubbish!” he said to himself ten times, waking up; “of course dawtie took it! didn't the poor old fellow warn me to beware of her! nobody but her was in the room when we ran in, and found him at the point of death! where did you put it? i can't find it! i can't give it back!”
he went over in his mind all that had taken place. the laird had the cup when he left him to call dawtie; and when they came, it was nowhere! he was convinced the girl had secured it—in obedience, doubtless, to the instruction of her director, ambitious to do justice, and curry favor by restoring it! but he could do nothing till the will was read! was it possible lexy had put it away? no; she had not had the opportunity!
