Produced by John Bechard
ROBERT FALCONER
By George Macdonald
Note from electronic text creator: I have compiled a glossary with
definitions of most of the Scottish words found in this work and placed
it at the end of this electronic text. This glossary does not belong to
the original work, but is designed to help with the conversations and
references in Broad Scots found in this work. A further explanation of
this list can be found towards the end of this document, preceding the
glossary.
Any notes that I have made in the text (e.g. relating to Greek words in
the text) have been enclosed in {} brackets.
TO
THE MEMORY
OF THE MAN WHO
STANDS HIGHEST IN THE ORATORY
OF MY MEMORY,
ALEXANDER JOHN SCOTT,
I, DARING, PRESUME TO DEDICATE THIS BOOK.
PART I.--HIS BOYHOOD.
CHAPTER I. A RECOLLECTION.
Robert Falconer, school-boy, aged fourteen, thought he had never seen
his father; that is, thought he had no recollection of having ever seen
him. But the moment when my story begins, he had begun to doubt whether
his belief in the matter was correct. And, as he went on thinking, he
became more and more assured that he had seen his father somewhere about
six years before, as near as a thoughtful boy of his age could judge
of the lapse of a period that would form half of that portion of his
existence which was bound into one by the reticulations of memory.
For there dawned upon his mind the vision of one Sunday afternoon. Betty
had gone to church, and he was alone with his grandmother, reading
The Pilgrim's Progress to her, when, just as Christian knocked at the
wicket-gate, a tap came to the street door, and he went to open it.
There he saw a tall, somewhat haggard-looking man, in a shabby
black coat (the vision gradually dawned upon him till it reached the
minuteness of all these particulars), his hat pulled down on to his
projecting eyebrows, and his shoes very dusty, as with a long journey
on foot--it was a hot Sunday, he remembered that--who looked at him very
strangely, and without a word pushed him aside, and went straight into
his grandmother's parlour, shutting the door behind him. He followed,
not doubting that the man must have a right to go there, but questioning
very much his right to shut him out. When he reached the door, however,
he found it bolted; and outside he had to stay all alone, in the
desolate remainder of the house, till Betty came home from church.
He could even recall, as he thought about it, how drearily the afternoon
had passed. First he had opened the street door, and stood in it. There
was nothing alive to be seen, except a sparrow picking up crumbs, and he
would not stop till he was tired of him. The Royal Oak, down the street
to the right, had not even a horseless gig or cart standing before it;
and King Charles, grinning awfully in its branches on the signboard, was
invisible from the distance at which he stood. In at the other end of
the empty street, looked the distant uplands, whose waving corn and
grass were likewise invisible, and beyond them rose one blue truncated
peak in the distance, all of them wearily at rest this weary Sabbath
day. However, there was one thing than which this was better, and that
was being at church, which, to this boy at least, was the very fifth
essence of dreariness.
He closed the door and went into the kitchen. That was nearly as bad.
The kettle was on the fire, to be sure, in anticipation of tea; but the
coals under it were black on the top, and it made only faint efforts,
after immeasurable intervals of silence, to break into a song, giving
a hum like that of a bee a mile off, and then relapsing into hopeless
inactivity. Having just had his dinner, he was not hungry enough to find
any resource in the drawer where the oatcakes lay, and, unfortunately,
the old wooden clock in the corner was going, else there would have been
some amusement in trying to torment it into demonstrations of life, as
he had often done in less desperate circumstances than the present. At
last he went up-stairs to the very room in which he now was, and sat
down upon the floor, just as he was sitting now. He had not even brought
his Pilgrim's Progress with him from his grandmother's room. But,
searching about in all holes and corners, he at length found Klopstock's
Messiah translated into English, and took refuge there till Betty came
home. Nor did he go down till she called him to tea, when, expecting to
join his grandmother and the stranger, he found, on the contrary, that
he was to have his tea with Betty in the kitchen, after which he again
took refuge with Klopstock in the garret, and remained there till it
grew dark, when Betty came in search of him, and put him to bed in the
gable-room, and not in his usual chamber. In the morning, every trace of
the visitor had vanished, even to the thorn stick which he had set down
behind the door as he entered.
All this Robert Falconer saw slowly revive on the palimpsest of his
memory, as he washed it with the vivifying waters of recollection.