CHAPTER XXV. THE GATES OF PARADISE.

Robert had his first lesson the next Saturday afternoon. Eager

and undismayed by the presence of Mrs. Forsyth, good-natured and

contemptuous--for had he not a protecting angel by him?--he hearkened

for every word of Miss St. John, combated every fault, and undermined

every awkwardness with earnest patience. Nothing delighted Robert so

much as to give himself up to one greater. His mistress was thoroughly

pleased, and even Mrs. Forsyth gave him two of her soft finger tips to

do something or other with--Robert did not know what, and let them go.

About eight o'clock that same evening, his heart beating like a captured

bird's, he crept from grannie's parlour, past the kitchen, and up the

low stair to the mysterious door. He had been trying for an hour to

summon up courage to rise, feeling as if his grandmother must suspect

where he was going. Arrived at the barrier, twice his courage failed

him; twice he turned and sped back to the parlour. A third time he made

the essay, a third time stood at the wondrous door--so long as blank as

a wall to his careless eyes, now like the door of the magic Sesame that

led to the treasure-cave of Ali Baba. He laid his hand on the knob,

withdrew it, thought he heard some one in the transe, rushed up the

garret stair, and stood listening, hastened down, and with a sudden

influx of determination opened the door, saw that the trap was raised,

closed the door behind him, and standing with his head on the level of

the floor, gazed into the paradise of Miss St. John's room. To have one

peep into such a room was a kind of salvation to the half-starved nature

of the boy. All before him was elegance, richness, mystery. Womanhood

radiated from everything. A fire blazed in the chimney. A rug of long

white wool lay before it. A little way off stood the piano. Ornaments

sparkled and shone upon the dressing-table. The door of a wardrobe had

swung a little open, and discovered the sombre shimmer of a black silk

dress. Something gorgeously red, a China crape shawl, hung glowing

beyond it. He dared not gaze any longer. He had already been guilty of

an immodesty. He hastened to ascend, and seated himself at the piano.

Let my reader aid me for a moment with his imagination--reflecting what

it was to a boy like Robert, and in Robert's misery, to open a door in

his own meagre dwelling and gaze into such a room--free to him. If he

will aid me so, then let him aid himself by thinking that the house of

his own soul has such a door into the infinite beauty, whether he has

yet found it or not.

'Just think,' Robert said to himself, 'o' me in sic a place! It's a

pailace. It's a fairy pailace. And that angel o' a leddy bides here, and

sleeps there! I wonner gin she ever dreams aboot onything as bonny 's

hersel'!'

Then his thoughts took another turn.

'I wonner gin the room was onything like this whan my mamma sleepit in

't? I cudna hae been born in sic a gran' place. But my mamma micht hae

weel lien here.'

The face of the miniature, and the sad words written below the hymn,

came back upon him, and he bowed his head upon his hands. He was sitting

thus when Miss St. John came behind him, and heard him murmur the one

word Mamma! She laid her hand on his shoulder. He started and rose.

'I beg yer pardon, mem. I hae no business to be here, excep' to play.

But I cudna help thinkin' aboot my mother; for I was born in this room,

mem. Will I gang awa' again?'

He turned towards the door.

'No, no,' said Miss St. John. 'I only came to see if you were here. I

cannot stop now; but to-morrow you must tell me about your mother. Sit

down, and don't lose any more time. Your grandmother will miss you. And

then what would come of it?'

Thus was this rough diamond of a Scotch boy, rude in speech, but full

of delicate thought, gathered under the modelling influences of

the finished, refined, tender, sweet-tongued, and sweet-thoughted

Englishwoman, who, if she had been less of a woman, would have been

repelled by his uncouthness; if she had been less of a lady, would have

mistaken his commonness for vulgarity. But she was just, like the

type of womankind, a virgin-mother. She saw the nobility of his nature

through its homely garments, and had been, indeed, sent to carry on the

work from which his mother had been too early taken away.

'There's jist ae thing mem, that vexes me a wee, an' I dinna ken what

to think aboot it,' said Robert, as Miss St. John was leaving the room.

'Maybe ye cud bide ae minute till I tell ye.'

'Yes, I can. What is it?'

'I'm nearhan' sure that whan I lea' the parlour, grannie 'ill think I'm

awa' to my prayers; and sae she'll think better o' me nor I deserve. An'

I canna bide that.'

'What should make you suppose that she will think so?'

'Fowk kens what ane anither's aboot, ye ken, mem.'

'Then she'll know you are not at your prayers.'

'Na. For sometimes I div gang to my prayers for a whilie like, but nae

for lang, for I'm nae like ane o' them 'at he wad care to hear sayin' a

lang screed o' a prayer till 'im. I hae but ae thing to pray aboot.'

'And what's that, Robert?'

One of his silences had seized him. He looked confused, and turned away.

'Never mind,' said Miss St. John, anxious to relieve him, and establish

a comfortable relation between them; 'you will tell me another time.'

'I doobt no, mem,' answered Robert, with what most people would think an

excess of honesty.

But Miss St. John made a better conjecture as to his apparent closeness.

'At all events,' she said, 'don't mind what your grannie may think, so

long as you have no wish to make her think it. Good-night.'

Had she been indeed an angel from heaven, Robert could not have

worshipped her more. And why should he? Was she less God's messenger

that she had beautiful arms instead of less beautiful wings?

He practised his scales till his unaccustomed fingers were stiff, then

shut the piano with reverence, and departed, carefully peeping into the

disenchanted region without the gates to see that no enemy lay in wait

for him as he passed beyond them. He closed the door gently; and in one

moment the rich lovely room and the beautiful lady were behind him, and

before him the bare stair between two white-washed walls, and the

long flagged transe that led to his silent grandmother seated in her

arm-chair, gazing into the red coals--for somehow grannie's fire always

glowed, and never blazed--with her round-toed shoes pointed at them

from the top of her little wooden stool. He traversed the stair and the

transe, entered the parlour, and sat down to his open book as though

nothing had happened. But his grandmother saw the light in his face, and

did think he had just come from his prayers. And she blessed God that he

had put it into her heart to burn the fiddle.

The next night Robert took with him the miniature of his mother, and

showed it to Miss St. John, who saw at once that, whatever might be

his present surroundings, his mother must have been a lady. A certain

fancied resemblance in it to her own mother likewise drew her heart to

the boy. Then Robert took from his pocket the gold thimble, and said,

'This thimmel was my mamma's. Will ye tak it, mem, for ye ken it's o'

nae use to me.'

Miss St. John hesitated for a moment.

'I will keep it for you, if you like,' she said, for she could not bear

to refuse it.

'Na, mem; I want ye to keep it to yersel'; for I'm sure my mamma wad hae

likit you to hae 't better nor ony ither body.'

'Well, I will use it sometimes for your sake. But mind, I will not take

it from you; I will only keep it for you.'

'Weel, weel, mem; gin ye'll keep it till I speir for 't, that'll du weel

eneuch,' answered Robert, with a smile.

He laboured diligently; and his progress corresponded to his labour.

It was more than intellect that guided him: Falconer had genius for

whatever he cared for.

Meantime the love he bore his teacher, and the influence of her beauty,

began to mould him, in his kind and degree, after her likeness, so that

he grew nice in his person and dress, and smoothed the roughness and

moderated the broadness of his speech with the amenities of the English

which she made so sweet upon her tongue. He became still more obedient

to his grandmother, and more diligent at school; gathered to himself

golden opinions without knowing it, and was gradually developing into a

rustic gentleman.

Nor did the piano absorb all his faculties. Every divine influence tends

to the rounded perfection of the whole. His love of Nature grew more

rapidly. Hitherto it was only in summer that he had felt the presence of

a power in her and yet above her: in winter, now, the sky was true and

deep, though the world was waste and sad; and the tones of the wind

that roared at night about the goddess-haunted house, and moaned in the

chimneys of the lowly dwelling that nestled against it, woke harmonies

within him which already he tried to spell out falteringly. Miss St.

John began to find that he put expressions of his own into the simple

things she gave him to play, and even dreamed a little at his own will

when alone with the passive instrument. Little did Mrs. Falconer think

into what a seventh heaven of accursed music she had driven her boy.

But not yet did he tell his friend, much as he loved and much as he

trusted her, the little he knew of his mother's sorrows and his father's

sins, or whose the hand that had struck him when she found him lying in

the waste factory.

For a time almost all his trouble about God went from him. Nor do I

think that this was only because he rarely thought of him at all: God

gave him of himself in Miss St. John. But words dropped now and then

from off the shelves where his old difficulties lay, and they fell like

seeds upon the heart of Miss St. John, took root, and rose in thoughts:

in the heart of a true woman the talk of a child even will take life.

One evening Robert rose from the table, not unwatched of his

grandmother, and sped swiftly and silently through the dark, as was his

custom, to enter the chamber of enchantment. Never before had his hand

failed to alight, sure as a lark on its nest, upon the brass handle of

the door that admitted him to his paradise. It missed it now, and fell

on something damp, and rough, and repellent instead. Horrible, but true

suspicion! While he was at school that day, his grandmother, moved by

what doubt or by what certainty she never revealed, had had the doorway

walled up. He felt the place all over. It was to his hands the living

tomb of his mother's vicar on earth.

He returned to his book, pale as death, but said never a word. The next

day the stones were plastered over.

Thus the door of bliss vanished from the earth. And neither the boy nor

his grandmother ever said that it had been.

PART II.--HIS YOUTH.

CHAPTER I. ROBERT KNOCKS--AND THE DOOR IS NOT OPENED.

The remainder of that winter was dreary indeed. Every time Robert went

up the stair to his garret, he passed the door of a tomb. With that gray

mortar Mary St. John was walled up, like the nun he had read of in the

Marmion she had lent him. He might have rung the bell at the street

door, and been admitted into the temple of his goddess, but a certain

vague terror of his grannie, combined with equally vague qualms of

conscience for having deceived her, and the approach in the far distance

of a ghastly suspicion that violins, pianos, moonlight, and lovely women

were distasteful to the over-ruling Fate, and obnoxious to the vengeance

stored in the gray cloud of his providence, drove him from the awful

entrance of the temple of his Isis.

Nor did Miss St. John dare to make any advances to the dreadful old

lady. She would wait. For Mrs. Forsyth, she cared nothing about

the whole affair. It only gave her fresh opportunity for smiling

condescensions about 'poor Mrs. Falconer.' So Paradise was over and

gone.

But though the loss of Miss St. John and the piano was the last blow,

his sorrow did not rest there, but returned to brood over his bonny

lady. She was scattered to the winds. Would any of her ashes ever rise

in the corn, and moan in the ripening wind of autumn? Might not some

atoms of the bonny leddy creep into the pines on the hill, whose 'soft

and soul-like sounds' had taught him to play the Flowers of the Forest

on those strings which, like the nerves of an amputated limb, yet

thrilled through his being? Or might not some particle find its way by

winds and waters to sycamore forest of Italy, there creep up through the

channels of its life to some finely-rounded curve of noble tree, on

the side that ever looks sunwards, and be chosen once again by the

violin-hunter, to be wrought into a new and fame-gathering instrument?

Could it be that his bonny lady had learned her wondrous music in those

forests, from the shine of the sun, and the sighing of the winds through

the sycamores and pines? For Robert knew that the broad-leaved sycamore,

and the sharp, needle-leaved pine, had each its share in the violin.

Only as the wild innocence of human nature, uncorrupted by wrong,

untaught by suffering, is to that nature struggling out of darkness into

light, such and so different is the living wood, with its sweetest tones

of obedient impulse, answering only to the wind which bloweth where it

listeth, to that wood, chosen, separated, individualized, tortured into

strange, almost vital shape, after a law to us nearly unknown, strung

with strings from animal organizations, and put into the hands of man

to utter the feelings of a soul that has passed through a like history.

This Robert could not yet think, and had to grow able to think it by

being himself made an instrument of God's music.

What he could think was that the glorious mystery of his bonny leddy was

gone for ever--and alas! she had no soul. Here was an eternal sorrow.

He could never meet her again. His affections, which must live for

ever, were set upon that which had passed away. But the child that weeps

because his mutilated doll will not rise from the dead, shall yet find

relief from his sorrow, a true relief, both human and divine. He shall

know that that which in the doll made him love the doll, has not passed

away. And Robert must yet be comforted for the loss of his bonny leddy.

If she had had a soul, nothing but her own self could ever satisfy him.

As she had no soul, another body might take her place, nor occasion

reproach of inconstancy.

But, in the meantime, the shears of Fate having cut the string of the

sky-soaring kite of his imagination, had left him with the stick in his

hand. And thus the rest of that winter was dreary enough. The glow was

out of his heart; the glow was out of the world. The bleak, kindless

wind was hissing through those pines that clothed the hill above

Bodyfauld, and over the dead garden, where in the summer time the rose

had looked down so lovingly on the heartsease. If he had stood once more

at gloaming in that barley-stubble, not even the wail of Flodden-field

would have found him there, but a keen sense of personal misery and

hopeless cold. Was the summer a lie?

Not so. The winter restrains, that the summer may have the needful time

to do its work well; for the winter is but the sleep of summer.

Now in the winter of his discontent, and in Nature finding no help,

Robert was driven inwards--into his garret, into his soul. There, the

door of his paradise being walled up, he began, vaguely, blindly, to

knock against other doors--sometimes against stone-walls and rocks,

taking them for doors--as travel-worn, and hence brain-sick men have

done in a desert of mountains. A door, out or in, he must find, or

perish.

It fell, too, that Miss St. John went to visit some friends who lived

in a coast town twenty miles off; and a season of heavy snow followed

by frost setting in, she was absent for six weeks, during which time,

without a single care to trouble him from without, Robert was in the

very desert of desolation. His spirits sank fearfully. He would pass his

old music-master in the street with scarce a recognition, as if the bond

of their relation had been utterly broken, had vanished in the smoke of

the martyred violin, and all their affection had gone into the dust-heap

of the past.

Dooble Sanny's character did not improve. He took more and more whisky,

his bouts of drinking alternating as before with fits of hopeless

repentance. His work was more neglected than ever, and his wife having

no money to spend even upon necessaries, applied in desperation to her

husband's bottle for comfort. This comfort, to do him justice, he never

grudged her; and sometimes before midday they would both be drunk--a

condition expedited by the lack of food. When they began to recover,

they would quarrel fiercely; and at last they became a nuisance to the

whole street. Little did the whisky-hating old lady know to what god she

had really offered up that violin--if the consequences of the holocaust

can be admitted as indicating the power which had accepted it.

But now began to appear in Robert the first signs of a practical outcome

of such truth as his grandmother had taught him, operating upon the

necessities of a simple and earnest nature. Reality, however lapt in

vanity, or even in falsehood, cannot lose its power. It is--the other is

not. She had taught him to look up--that there was a God. He would put

it to the test. Not that he doubted it yet: he only doubted whether

there was a hearing God. But was not that worse? It was, I think. For it

is of far more consequence what kind of a God, than whether a God or no.

Let not my reader suppose I think it possible there could be other than

a perfect God--perfect--even to the vision of his creatures, the faith

that supplies the lack of vision being yet faithful to that vision. I

speak from Robert's point of outlook. But, indeed, whether better or

worse is no great matter, so long as he would see it or what there was.

He had no comfort, and, without reasoning about it, he felt that life

ought to have comfort--from which point he began to conclude that the

only thing left was to try whether the God in whom his grandmother

believed might not help him. If the God would but hear him, it was all

he had yet learned to require of his Godhood. And that must ever be the

first thing to require. More demands would come, and greater answers he

would find. But now--if God would but hear him! If he spoke to him but

one kind word, it would be the very soul of comfort; he could no more

be lonely. A fountain of glad imaginations gushed up in his heart at the

thought. What if, from the cold winter of his life, he had but to open

the door of his garret-room, and, kneeling by the bare bedstead, enter

into the summer of God's presence! What if God spoke to him face to

face! He had so spoken to Moses. He sought him from no fear of the

future, but from present desolation; and if God came near to him, it

would not be with storm and tempest, but with the voice of a friend.

And surely, if there was a God at all, that is, not a power greater than

man, but a power by whose power man was, he must hear the voice of the

creature whom he had made, a voice that came crying out of the very need

which he had created. Younger people than Robert are capable of

such divine metaphysics. Hence he continued to disappear from his

grandmother's parlour at much the same hour as before. In the cold,

desolate garret, he knelt and cried out into that which lay beyond the

thought that cried, the unknowable infinite, after the God that may be

known as surely as a little child knows his mysterious mother. And from

behind him, the pale-blue, star-crowded sky shone upon his head, through

the window that looked upwards only.

Mrs. Falconer saw that he still went away as he had been wont, and

instituted observations, the result of which was the knowledge that

he went to his own room. Her heart smote her, and she saw that the boy

looked sad and troubled. There was scarce room in her heart for increase

of love, but much for increase of kindness, and she did increase it. In

truth, he needed the smallest crumb of comfort that might drop from the

table of God's 'feastful friends.'

Night after night he returned to the parlour cold to the very heart.

God was not to be found, he said then. He said afterwards that even then

'God was with him though he knew it not.'

For the very first night, the moment that he knelt and cried, 'O Father

in heaven, hear me, and let thy face shine upon me'--like a flash of

burning fire the words shot from the door of his heart: 'I dinna care

for him to love me, gin he doesna love ilka body;' and no more prayer

went from the desolate boy that night, although he knelt an hour

of agony in the freezing dark. Loyal to what he had been taught, he

struggled hard to reduce his rebellious will to what he supposed to be

the will of God. It was all in vain. Ever a voice within him--surely the

voice of that God who he thought was not hearing--told him that what he

wanted was the love belonging to his human nature, his human needs--not

the preference of a court-favourite. He had a dim consciousness that

he would be a traitor to his race if he accepted a love, even from God,

given him as an exception from his kind. But he did not care to have

such a love. It was not what his heart yearned for. It was not love.

He could not love such a love. Yet he strove against it all--fought for

religion against right as he could; struggled to reduce his rebellious

feelings, to love that which was unlovely, to choose that which was

abhorrent, until nature almost gave way under the effort. Often would he

sink moaning on the floor, or stretch himself like a corpse, save that

it was face downwards, on the boards of the bedstead. Night after night

he returned to the battle, but with no permanent success. What a success

that would have been! Night after night he came pale and worn from

the conflict, found his grandmother and Shargar composed, and in the

quietness of despair sat down beside them to his Latin version.

He little thought, that every night, at the moment when he stirred to

leave the upper room, a pale-faced, red-eyed figure rose from its

seat on the top of the stair by the door, and sped with long-legged

noiselessness to resume its seat by the grandmother before he should

enter. Shargar saw that Robert was unhappy, and the nearest he could

come to the sharing of his unhappiness was to take his place outside

the door within which he had retreated. Little, too, did Shargar, on

his part, think that Robert, without knowing it, was pleading for him

inside--pleading for him and for all his race in the weeping that would

not be comforted.

Robert had not the vaguest fancy that God was with him--the spirit of

the Father groaning with the spirit of the boy in intercession that

could not be uttered. If God had come to him then and comforted him with

the assurance of individual favour--but the very supposition is a taking

of his name in vain--had Robert found comfort in the fancied assurance

that God was his friend in especial, that some private favour was

granted to his prayers, that, indeed, would have been to be left to

his own inventions, to bring forth not fruits meet for repentance, but

fruits for which repentance alone is meet. But God was with him, and was

indeed victorious in the boy when he rose from his knees, for the

last time, as he thought, saying, 'I cannot yield--I will pray no

more.'--With a burst of bitter tears he sat down on the bedside till the

loudest of the storm was over, then dried his dull eyes, in which

the old outlook had withered away, and trod unknowingly in the silent

footsteps of Shargar, who was ever one corner in advance of him, down

to the dreary lessons and unheeded prayers; but, thank God, not to the

sleepless night, for some griefs bring sleep the sooner.

My reader must not mistake my use of the words especial and private, or

suppose that I do not believe in an individual relation between every

man and God, yes, a peculiar relation, differing from the relation

between every other man and God! But this very individuality and

peculiarity can only be founded on the broadest truths of the Godhood

and the manhood.

Mrs. Falconer, ere she went to sleep, gave thanks that the boys had been

at their prayers together. And so, in a very deep sense, they had.

And well they might have been; for Shargar was nearly as desolate as

Robert, and would certainly, had his mother claimed him now, have gone

on the tramp with her again. Wherein could this civilized life show

itself to him better than that to which he had been born? For clothing

he cared little, and he had always managed to kill his hunger or thirst,

if at longer intervals, then with greater satisfaction. Wherein is the

life of that man who merely does his eating and drinking and clothing

after a civilized fashion better than that of the gipsy or tramp? If the

civilized man is honest to boot, and gives good work in return for the

bread or turtle on which he dines, and the gipsy, on the other hand,

steals his dinner, I recognize the importance of the difference; but

if the rich man plunders the community by exorbitant profits, or

speculation with other people's money, while the gipsy adds a fowl or

two to the produce of his tinkering; or, once again, if the gipsy is as

honest as the honest citizen, which is not so rare a case by any means

as people imagine, I return to my question: Wherein, I say, is the warm

house, the windows hung with purple, and the table covered with fine

linen, more divine than the tent or the blue sky, and the dipping in the

dish? Why should not Shargar prefer a life with the mother God had given

him to a life with Mrs. Falconer? Why should he prefer geography to

rambling, or Latin to Romany? His purposelessness and his love for

Robert alone kept him where he was.

The next evening, having given up his praying, Robert sat with his

Sallust before him. But the fount of tears began to swell, and the more

he tried to keep it down, the more it went on swelling till his throat

was filled with a lump of pain. He rose and left the room. But he could

not go near the garret. That door too was closed. He opened the house

door instead, and went out into the street. There, nothing was to be

seen but faint blue air full of moonlight, solid houses, and shining

snow. Bareheaded he wandered round the corner of the house to the window

whence first he had heard the sweet sounds of the pianoforte. The fire

within lighted up the crimson curtains, but no voice of music came

forth. The window was as dumb as the pale, faintly befogged moon

overhead, itself seeming but a skylight through which shone the sickly

light of the passionless world of the dead. Not a form was in the

street. The eyes of the houses gleamed here and there upon the snow.

He leaned his elbow on the window-sill behind which stood that sealed

fountain of lovely sound, looked up at the moon, careless of her or

of aught else in heaven or on earth, and sunk into a reverie, in which

nothing was consciously present but a stream of fog-smoke that flowed

slowly, listlessly across the face of the moon, like the ghost of a

dead cataract. All at once a wailful sound arose in his head. He did not

think for some time whether it was born in his brain, or entered it from

without. At length he recognized the Flowers of the Forest, played as

only the soutar could play it. But alas! the cry responsive to his bow

came only from the auld wife--no more from the bonny leddy! Then he

remembered that there had been a humble wedding that morning on the

opposite side of the way; in the street department of the jollity

of which Shargar had taken a small share by firing a brass cannon,

subsequently confiscated by Mrs. Falconer. But this was a strange tune

to play at a wedding! The soutar half-way to his goal of drunkenness,

had begun to repent for the fiftieth time that year, had with his

repentance mingled the memory of the bonny leddy ruthlessly tortured

to death for his wrong, and had glided from a strathspey into that

sorrowful moaning. The lament interpreted itself to his disconsolate

pupil as he had never understood it before, not even in the

stubble-field; for it now spoke his own feelings of waste misery,

forsaken loneliness. Indeed Robert learned more of music in those few

minutes of the foggy winter night and open street, shut out of all

doors, with the tones of an ancient grief and lamentation floating

through the blotted moonlight over his ever-present sorrow, than he

could have learned from many lessons even of Miss St. John. He was cold

to the heart, yet went in a little comforted.

Things had gone ill with him. Outside of Paradise, deserted of his

angel, in the frost and the snow, the voice of the despised violin once

more the source of a sad comfort! But there is no better discipline

than an occasional descent from what we count well-being, to a former

despised or less happy condition. One of the results of this taste of

damnation in Robert was, that when he was in bed that night, his heart

began to turn gently towards his old master. How much did he not owe

him, after all! Had he not acted ill and ungratefully in deserting him?

His own vessel filled to the brim with grief, had he not let the waters

of its bitterness overflow into the heart of the soutar? The wail of

that violin echoed now in Robert's heart, not for Flodden, not for

himself, but for the debased nature that drew forth the plaint. Comrades

in misery, why should they part? What right had he to forsake an old

friend and benefactor because he himself was unhappy? He would go and

see him the very next night. And he would make friends once more with

the much 'suffering instrument' he had so wrongfully despised.

CHAPTER II. THE STROKE.

The following night, he left his books on the table, and the house

itself behind him, and sped like a grayhound to Dooble Sanny's shop,

lifted the latch, and entered.

By the light of a single dip set on a chair, he saw the shoemaker seated

on his stool, one hand lying on the lap of his leathern apron, his other

hand hanging down by his side, and the fiddle on the ground at his feet.

His wife stood behind him, wiping her eyes with her blue apron. Through

all its accumulated dirt, the face of the soutar looked ghastly, and

they were eyes of despair that he lifted to the face of the youth as

he stood holding the latch in his hand. Mrs. Alexander moved towards

Robert, drew him in, and gently closed the door behind him, resuming her

station like a sculptured mourner behind her motionless husband.

'What on airth's the maitter wi' ye, Sandy?' said Robert.

'Eh, Robert!' returned the shoemaker, and a tone of affection tinged the

mournfulness with which he uttered the strange words--'eh, Robert! the

Almichty will gang his ain gait, and I'm in his grup noo.'

'He's had a stroke,' said his wife, without removing her apron from her

eyes.

'I hae gotten my pecks (blows),' resumed the soutar, in a despairing

voice, which gave yet more effect to the fantastic eccentricity of

conscience which from the midst of so many grave faults chose such a one

as especially bringing the divine displeasure upon him: 'I hae gotten my

pecks for cryin' doon my ain auld wife to set up your bonny leddy. The

tane's gane a' to aise an' stew (ashes and dust), an' frae the tither,'

he went on, looking down on the violin at his feet as if it had been

something dead in its youth--'an' frae the tither I canna draw a cheep,

for my richt han' has forgotten her cunnin'. Man, Robert, I canna lift it

frae my side.'

'Ye maun gang to yer bed,' said Robert, greatly concerned.

'Ow, ay, I maun gang to my bed, and syne to the kirkyaird, and syne to

hell, I ken that weel eneuch. Robert, I lea my fiddle to you. Be guid to

the auld wife, man--better nor I hae been. An auld wife's better nor nae

fiddle.'

He stooped, lifted the violin with his left hand, gave it to Robert,

rose, and made for the door. They helped him up the creaking stair, got

him half-undressed, and laid him in his bed. Robert put the violin on

the top of a press within sight of the sufferer, left him groaning, and

ran for the doctor. Having seen him set out for the patient's dwelling,

he ran home to his grandmother.

Now while Robert was absent, occasion had arisen to look for him:

unusual occurrence, a visitor had appeared, no less a person than Mr.

Innes, the school-master. Shargar had been banished in consequence

from the parlour, and had seated himself outside Robert's room, never

doubting that Robert was inside. Presently he heard the bell ring, and

then Betty came up the stair, and said Robert was wanted. Thereupon

Shargar knocked at the door, and as there was neither voice nor hearing,

opened it, and found, with a well-known horror, that he had been

watching an empty room. He made no haste to communicate the fact.

Robert might return in a moment, and his absence from the house not be

discovered. He sat down on the bedstead and waited. But Betty came up

again, and before Shargar could prevent her, walked into the room with

her candle in her hand. In vain did Shargar intreat her to go and say

that Robert was coming. Betty would not risk the danger of discovery in

connivance, and descended to open afresh the fountain of the old lady's

anxiety. She did not, however, betray her disquietude to Mr. Innes.

She had asked the school-master to visit her, in order that she might

consult him about Robert's future. Mr. Innes expressed a high opinion of

the boy's faculties and attainments, and strongly urged that he should

be sent to college. Mrs. Falconer inwardly shuddered at the temptations

to which this course would expose him; but he must leave home or be

apprentice to some trade. She would have chosen the latter, I believe,

but for religion towards the boy's parents, who would never have thought

of other than a profession for him. While the school-master was dwelling

on the argument that he was pretty sure to gain a good bursary, and she

would thus be relieved for four years, probably for ever, from further

expense on his account, Robert entered.

'Whaur hae ye been, Robert?' asked Mrs. Falconer.

'At Dooble Sanny's,' answered the boy.

'What hae ye been at there?'

'Helpin' him till 's bed.'

'What's come ower him?'

'A stroke.'

'That's what comes o' playin' the fiddle.'

'I never heard o' a stroke comin' frae a fiddle, grannie. It comes oot

o' a clood whiles. Gin he had hauden till 's fiddle, he wad hae been

playin' her the nicht, in place o' 's airm lyin' at 's side like a lang

lingel (ligneul--shoemaker's thread).'

'Hm!' said his grandmother, concealing her indignation at this freedom

of speech, 'ye dinna believe in God's judgments!'

'Nae upo' fiddles,' returned Robert.

Mr. Innes sat and said nothing, with difficulty concealing his amusement

at this passage of arms.

It was but within the last few days that Robert had become capable of

speaking thus. His nature had at length arrived at the point of so far

casting off the incubus of his grandmother's authority as to assert some

measure of freedom and act openly. His very hopelessness of a hearing

in heaven had made him indifferent to things on earth, and therefore

bolder. Thus, strange as it may seem, the blessing of God descended on

him in the despair which enabled him to speak out and free his soul from

the weight of concealment. But it was not despair alone that gave him

strength. On his way home from the shoemaker's he had been thinking what

he could do for him; and had resolved, come of it what might, that he

would visit him every evening, and try whether he could not comfort

him a little by playing upon his violin. So that it was loving-kindness

towards man, as well as despair towards God, that gave him strength to

resolve that between him and his grandmother all should be above-board

from henceforth.

'Nae upo' fiddles,' Robert had said.

'But upo' them 'at plays them,' returned his grandmother.

'Na; nor upo' them 'at burns them,' retorted Robert--impudently it must

be confessed; for every man is open to commit the fault of which he is

least capable.

But Mrs. Falconer had too much regard to her own dignity to indulge her

feelings. Possibly too her sense of justice, which Falconer always said

was stronger than that of any other woman he had ever known, as well as

some movement of her conscience interfered. She was silent, and Robert

rushed into the breach which his last discharge had effected.

'An' I want to tell ye, grannie, that I mean to gang an' play the fiddle

to puir Sanny ilka nicht for the best pairt o' an hoor; an' excep' ye

lock the door an' hide the key, I will gang. The puir sinner sanna be

desertit by God an' man baith.'

He scarcely knew what he was saying before it was out of his mouth; and

as if to cover it up, he hurried on.

'An' there's mair in 't.--Dr. Anderson gae Shargar an' me a sovereign

the piece. An' Dooble Sanny s' hae them, to haud him ohn deid o' hunger

an' cauld.'

'What for didna ye tell me 'at Dr. Anderson had gien ye sic a sicht o'

siller? It was ill-faured o' ye--an' him as weel.'

''Cause ye wad hae sent it back till 'im; an' Shargar and me we thocht

we wad raither keep it.'

'Considerin' 'at I'm at sae muckle expense wi' ye baith, it wadna hae

been ill-contrived to hae brocht the siller to me, an' latten me du wi'

't as I thocht fit.--Gang na awa', laddie,' she added, as she saw Robert

about to leave the room.

'I'll be back in a minute, grannie,' returned Robert.

'He's a fine lad, that!' said Mr. Innes; 'an' guid 'll come o' 'm, and

that 'll be heard tell o'.'

'Gin he had but the grace o' God, there wadna be muckle to compleen o','

acquiesced his grandmother.

'There's time eneuch for that, Mrs. Faukner. Ye canna get auld heids

upo' young shoothers, ye ken.'

''Deed for that maitter, ye may get mony an auld heid upo' auld

shoothers, and nae a spark o' grace in 't to lat it see hoo to lay

itsel' doon i' the grave.'

Robert returned before Mr. Innes had made up his mind as to whether the

old lady intended a personal rebuke.

'Hae, grannie,' he said, going up to her, and putting the two sovereigns

in her white palm.

He had found some difficulty in making Shargar give up his, else he

would have returned sooner.

'What's this o' 't, laddie?' said Mrs. Falconer. 'Hoots! I'm nae gaein'

to tak yer siller. Lat the puir soutar-craturs hae 't. But dinna gie

them mair nor a shillin' or twa at ance--jist to haud them in life. They

deserve nae mair. But they maunna sterve. And jist ye tell them, laddie,

at gin they spen' ae saxpence o' 't upo' whusky, they s' get nae mair.'

'Ay, ay, grannie,' responded Robert, with a glimmer of gladness in his

heart. 'And what aboot the fiddlin', grannie?' he added, half playfully,

hoping for some kind concession therein as well.

But he had gone too far. She vouchsafed no reply, and her face grew

stern with offence. It was one thing to give bread to eat, another to

give music and gladness. No music but that which sprung from effectual

calling and the perseverance of the saints could be lawful in a world

that was under the wrath and curse of God. Robert waited in vain for a

reply.

'Gang yer wa's,' she said at length. 'Mr. Innes and me has some business

to mak an en' o', an' we want nae assistance.'

Robert rejoined Shargar, who was still bemoaning the loss of his

sovereign. His face brightened when he saw its well-known yellow shine

once more, but darkened again as soon as Robert told him to what service

it was now devoted.

'It's my ain,' he said, with a suppressed expostulatory growl.

Robert threw the coin on the floor.

'Tak yer filthy lucre!' he exclaimed with contempt, and turned to leave

Shargar alone in the garret with his sovereign.

'Bob!' Shargar almost screamed, 'tak it, or I'll cut my throat.'

This was his constant threat when he was thoroughly in earnest.

'Cut it, an' hae dune wi' 't,' said Robert cruelly.

Shargar burst out crying.

'Len' me yer knife, than, Bob,' he sobbed, holding out his hand.

Robert burst into a roar of laughter, caught up the sovereign from the

floor, sped with it to the baker's, who refused to change it because he

had no knowledge of anything representing the sum of twenty shillings

except a pound-note, succeeded in getting silver for it at the bank, and

then ran to the soutar's.

After he left the parlour, the discussion of his fate was resumed and

finally settled between his grandmother and the school-master. The

former, in regard of the boy's determination to befriend the shoemaker

in the matter of music as well as of money, would now have sent him

at once to the grammar-school in Old Aberdeen, to prepare for the

competition in the month of November; but the latter persuaded her that

if the boy gave his whole attention to Latin till the next summer, and

then went to the grammar-school for three months or so, he would have an

excellent chance of success. As to the violin, the school-master said,

wisely enough:

'He that will to Cupar maun to Cupar; and gin ye kep (intercept) him

upo' the shore-road, he'll tak to the hill-road; an' I s' warran' a braw

lad like Robert 'll get mony a ane in Ebberdeen 'll be ready eneuch to

gie him a lift wi' the fiddle, and maybe tak him into waur company nor

the puir bed-ridden soutar; an' wi' you an' me to hing on to the tail o'

'im like, he canna gang ower the scar (cliff) afore he learns wit.'

'Hm!' was the old lady's comprehensive response.

It was further arranged that Robert should be informed of their

conclusion, and so roused to effort in anticipation of the trial upon

which his course in life must depend.

Nothing could have been better for Robert than the prospect of a college

education. But his first thought at the news was not of the delights

of learning nor of the honourable course that would ensue, but of

Eric Ericson, the poverty-stricken, friendless descendant of yarls and

sea-rovers. He would see him--the only man that understood him! Not

until the passion of this thought had abated, did he begin to perceive

the other advantages before him. But so practical and thorough was he

in all his proposals and means, that ere half-an-hour was gone, he

had begun to go over his Rudiments again. He now wrote a version, or

translation from English into Latin, five times a week, and read Caeser,

Virgil, or Tacitus, every day. He gained permission from his grandmother

to remove his bed to his own garret, and there, from the bedstead at

which he no longer kneeled, he would often rise at four in the morning,

even when the snow lay a foot thick on the skylight, kindle his lamp

by means of a tinder-box and a splinter of wood dipped in sulphur,

and sitting down in the keen cold, turn half a page of Addison into

something as near Ciceronian Latin as he could effect. This would take

him from an hour and a half to two hours, when he would tumble again

into bed, blue and stiff, and sleep till it was time to get up and go to

the morning school before breakfast. His health was excellent, else it

could never have stood such treatment.

CHAPTER III. 'THE END CROWNS ALL'.

His sole relaxation almost lay in the visit he paid every evening to

the soutar and his wife. Their home was a wretched place; but

notwithstanding the poverty in which they were now sunk, Robert soon

began to see a change, like the dawning of light, an alba, as the

Italians call the dawn, in the appearance of something white here and

there about the room. Robert's visits had set the poor woman trying to

make the place look decent. It soon became at least clean, and there

is a very real sense in which cleanliness is next to godliness. If the

people who want to do good among the poor would give up patronizing

them, would cease from trying to convert them before they have gained

the smallest personal influence with them, would visit them as those who

have just as good a right to be here as they have, it would be all the

better for both, perhaps chiefly for themselves.

For the first week or so, Alexander, unable either to work or play,

and deprived of his usual consolation of drink, was very testy and

unmanageable. If Robert, who strove to do his best, in the hope

of alleviating the poor fellow's sufferings--chiefly those of the

mind--happened to mistake the time or to draw a false note from the

violin, Sandy would swear as if he had been the Grand Turk and Robert

one of his slaves. But Robert was too vexed with himself, when he

gave occasion to such an outburst, to mind the outburst itself.

And invariably when such had taken place, the shoemaker would ask

forgiveness before he went. Holding out his left hand, from which

nothing could efface the stains of rosin and lamp-black and heel-ball,

save the sweet cleansing of mother-earth, he would say,

'Robert, ye'll jist pit the sweirin' doon wi' the lave (rest), an' score

't oot a'thegither. I'm an ill-tongued vratch, an' I'm beginnin' to see

't. But, man, ye're jist behavin' to me like God himsel', an' gin it

warna for you, I wad jist lie here roarin' an' greitin' an' damnin' frae

mornin' to nicht.--Ye will be in the morn's night--willna ye?' he would

always end by asking with some anxiety.

'Of coorse I will,' Robert would answer.

'Gude nicht, than, gude nicht.--I'll try and get a sicht o' my sins ance

mair,' he added, one evening. 'Gin I could only be a wee bit sorry for

them, I reckon he wad forgie me. Dinna ye think he wad, Robert?'

'Nae doobt, nae doobt,' answered Robert hurriedly. 'They a' say 'at gin

a man repents the richt gait, he'll forgie him.'

He could not say more than 'They say,' for his own horizon was all dark,

and even in saying this much he felt like a hypocrite. A terrible waste,

heaped thick with the potsherds of hope, lay outside that door of prayer

which he had, as he thought, nailed up for ever.

'An' what is the richt gait?' asked the soutar.

''Deed, that's mair nor I ken, Sandy,' answered Robert mournfully.

'Weel, gin ye dinna ken, what's to come o' me?' said Alexander

anxiously.

'Ye maun speir at himsel',' returned Robert, 'an' jist tell him 'at ye

dinna ken, but ye'll do onything 'at he likes.'

With these words he took his leave hurriedly, somewhat amazed to find

that he had given the soutar the strange advice to try just what he had

tried so unavailingly himself. And stranger still, he found himself,

before he reached home, praying once more in his heart--both for Dooble

Sanny and for himself. From that hour a faint hope was within him that

some day he might try again, though he dared not yet encounter such

effort and agony.

All this time he had never doubted that there was God; nor had he

ventured to say within himself that perhaps God was not good; he had

simply come to the conclusion that for him there was no approach to the

fountain of his being.

In the course of a fortnight or so, when his system had covered over its

craving after whisky, the irritability of the shoemaker almost vanished.

It might have been feared that his conscience would then likewise relax

its activity; but it was not so: it grew yet more tender. He now began

to give Robert some praise, and make allowances for his faults, and

Robert dared more in consequence, and played with more spirit. I do not

say that his style could have grown fine under such a master, but at

least he learned the difference between slovenliness and accuracy, and

between accuracy and expression, which last is all of original that the

best mere performer can claim.

One evening he was scraping away at Tullochgorum when Mr. Maccleary

walked in. Robert ceased. The minister gave him one searching glance,

and sat down by the bedside. Robert would have left the room.

'Dinna gang, Robert,' said Sandy, and Robert remained.

The clergyman talked very faithfully as far as the shoemaker was

concerned; though whether he was equally faithful towards God might be

questioned. He was one of those prudent men, who are afraid of dealing

out the truth freely lest it should fall on thorns or stony places.

Hence of course the good ground came in for a scanty share too.

Believing that a certain precise condition of mind was necessary for

its proper reception, he would endeavour to bring about that condition

first. He did not know that the truth makes its own nest in the ready

heart, and that the heart may be ready for it before the priest

can perceive the fact, seeing that the imposition of hands confers,

now-a-days at least, neither love nor common-sense. He therefore dwelt

upon the sins of the soutar, magnifying them and making them hideous, in

the idea that thus he magnified the law, and made it honourable, while

of the special tenderness of God to the sinner he said not a word.

Robert was offended, he scarcely knew why, with the minister's mode

of treating his friend; and after Mr. Maccleary had taken a far

kinder leave of them than God could approve, if he resembled his

representation, Robert sat still, oppressed with darkness.

'It's a' true,' said the soutar; 'but, man Robert, dinna ye think the

minister was some sair upo' me?'

'I duv think it,' answered Robert.

'Something beirs 't in upo' me 'at he wadna be sae sair upo' me himsel'.

There's something i' the New Testament, some gait, 'at's pitten 't into

my heid; though, faith, I dinna ken whaur to luik for 't. Canna ye help

me oot wi' 't, man?'

Robert could think of nothing but the parable of the prodigal son. Mrs.

Alexander got him the New Testament, and he read it. She sat at the foot

of the bed listening.

'There!' cried the soutar, triumphantly, 'I telled ye sae! Not ae word

aboot the puir lad's sins! It was a' a hurry an' a scurry to get the

new shune upo' 'im, an' win at the calfie an' the fiddlin' an' the

dancin'.--O Lord,' he broke out, 'I'm comin' hame as fest 's I can; but

my sins are jist like muckle bauchles (shoes down at heel) upo' my feet

and winna lat me. I expec' nae ring and nae robe, but I wad fain hae a

fiddle i' my grup when the neist prodigal comes hame; an' gin I dinna

fiddle weel, it s' no be my wyte.--Eh, man! but that is what I ca' gude,

an' a' the minister said--honest man--'s jist blether till 't.--O Lord,

I sweir gin ever I win up again, I'll put in ilka steek (stitch) as

gin the shune war for the feet o' the prodigal himsel'. It sall be gude

wark, O Lord. An' I'll never lat taste o' whusky intil my mou'--nor

smell o' whusky intil my nose, gin sae be 'at I can help it--I sweir 't,

O Lord. An' gin I binna raised up again--'

Here his voice trembled and ceased, and silence endured for a short

minute. Then he called his wife.

'Come here, Bell. Gie me a kiss, my bonny lass. I hae been an ill man to

you.'

'Na, na, Sandy. Ye hae aye been gude to me--better nor I deserved. Ye

hae been naebody's enemy but yer ain.'

'Haud yer tongue. Ye're speykin' waur blethers nor the minister, honest

man! I tell ye I hae been a damned scoon'rel to ye. I haena even hauden

my han's aff o' ye. And eh! ye war a bonny lass whan I merried ye. I hae

blaudit (spoiled) ye a'thegither. But gin I war up, see gin I wadna gie

ye a new goon, an' that wad be something to make ye like yersel' again.

I'm affrontet wi' mysel' 'at I had been sic a brute o' a man to ye.

But ye maun forgie me noo, for I do believe i' my hert 'at the Lord's

forgien me. Gie me anither kiss, lass. God be praised, and mony thanks

to you! Ye micht hae run awa' frae me lang or noo, an' a'body wad hae

said ye did richt.--Robert, play a spring.'

Absorbed in his own thoughts, Robert began to play The Ewie wi' the

Crookit Horn.

'Hoots! hoots!' cried Sandy angrily. 'What are ye aboot? Nae mair o'

that. I hae dune wi' that. What's i' the heid o' ye, man?'

'What'll I play than, Sandy?' asked Robert meekly.

'Play The Lan' o' the Leal, or My Nannie's Awa', or something o' that

kin'. I'll be leal to ye noo, Bell. An' we winna pree o' the whusky nae

mair, lass.'

'I canna bide the smell o' 't,' cried Bell, sobbing.

Robert struck in with The Lan' o' the Leal. When he had played it over

two or three times, he laid the fiddle in its place, and departed--able

just to see, by the light of the neglected candle, that Bell sat on the

bedside stroking the rosiny hand of her husband, the rhinoceros-hide of

which was yet delicate enough to let the love through to his heart.

After this the soutar never called his fiddle his auld wife.

Robert walked home with his head sunk on his breast. Dooble Sanny, the

drinking, ranting, swearing soutar, was inside the wicket-gate; and he

was left outside for all his prayers, with the arrows from the castle of

Beelzebub sticking in his back. He would have another try some day--but

not yet--he dared not yet.

Henceforth Robert had more to do in reading the New Testament than in

the fiddle to the soutar, though they never parted without an air or

two. Sandy continued hopeful and generally cheerful, with alternations

which the reading generally fixed on the right side for the night.

Robert never attempted any comments, but left him to take from the

word what nourishment he could. There was no return of strength to the

helpless arm, and his constitution was gradually yielding.

The rumour got abroad that he was a 'changed character,'--how is not far

to seek, for Mr. Maccleary fancied himself the honoured instrument of

his conversion, whereas paralysis and the New Testament were the chief

agents, and even the violin had more share in it than the minister. For

the spirit of God lies all about the spirit of man like a mighty sea,

ready to rush in at the smallest chink in the walls that shut him out

from his own--walls which even the tone of a violin afloat on the wind

of that spirit is sometimes enough to rend from battlement to base, as

the blast of the rams' horns rent the walls of Jericho. And now to the

day of his death, the shoemaker had need of nothing. Food, wine, and

delicacies were sent him by many who, while they considered him outside

of the kingdom, would have troubled themselves in no way about him. What

with visits of condolence and flattery, inquiries into his experience,

and long prayers by his bedside, they now did their best to send him

back among the swine. The soutar's humour, however, aided by his violin,

was a strong antidote against these evil influences.

'I doobt I'm gaein' to dee, Robert,' he said at length one evening as

the lad sat by his bedside.

'Weel, that winna do ye nae ill,' answered Robert, adding with just a

touch of bitterness--'ye needna care aboot that.'

'I do not care aboot the deein' o' 't. But I jist want to live lang

eneuch to lat the Lord ken 'at I'm in doonricht earnest aboot it. I hae

nae chance o' drinkin' as lang's I'm lyin' here.'

'Never ye fash yer heid aboot that. Ye can lippen (trust) that to him,

for it's his ain business. He'll see 'at ye're a' richt. Dinna ye think

'at he'll lat ye aff.'

'The Lord forbid,' responded the soutar earnestly. 'It maun be a' pitten

richt. It wad be dreidfu' to be latten aff. I wadna hae him content wi'

cobbler's wark.--I hae 't,' he resumed, after a few minutes' pause; 'the

Lord's easy pleased, but ill to saitisfee. I'm sair pleased wi' your

playin', Robert, but it's naething like the richt thing yet. It does me

gude to hear ye, though, for a' that.'

The very next night he found him evidently sinking fast. Robert took the

violin, and was about to play, but the soutar stretched out his one left

hand, and took it from him, laid it across his chest and his arm over

it, for a few moments, as if he were bidding it farewell, then held it

out to Robert, saying,

'Hae, Robert. She's yours.--Death's a sair divorce.--Maybe they 'll hae

an orra [3] fiddle whaur I'm gaein', though. Think o' a Rothieden soutar

playin' afore his grace!'

Robert saw that his mind was wandering, and mingled the paltry honours

of earth with the grand simplicities of heaven. He began to play

The Land o' the Leal. For a little while Sandy seemed to follow and

comprehend the tones, but by slow degrees the light departed from his

face. At length his jaw fell, and with a sigh, the body parted from

Dooble Sanny, and he went to God.

His wife closed mouth and eyes without a word, laid the two arms,

equally powerless now, straight by his sides, then seating herself on

the edge of the bed, said,

'Dinna bide, Robert. It's a' ower noo. He's gang hame. Gin I war only

wi' 'im wharever he is!'

She burst into tears, but dried her eyes a moment after, and seeing that

Robert still lingered, said,

'Gang, Robert, an' sen' Mistress Downie to me. Dinna greit--there's a

gude lad; but tak yer fiddle an' gang. Ye can be no more use.'

Robert obeyed. With his violin in his hand, he went home; and, with his

violin still in his hand, walked into his grandmother's parlour.

'Hoo daur ye bring sic a thing into my hoose?' she said, roused by the

apparent defiance of her grandson. 'Hoo daur ye, efter what's come an'

gane?'

''Cause Dooble Sanny's come and gane, grannie, and left naething but

this ahint him. And this ane's mine, whase ever the ither micht be. His

wife's left wi'oot a plack, an' I s' warran' the gude fowk o' Rothieden

winna mak sae muckle o' her noo 'at her man's awa'; for she never was

sic a randy as he was, an' the triumph o' grace in her 's but sma',

therefore. Sae I maun mak the best 'at I can o' the fiddle for her. An'

ye maunna touch this ane, grannie; for though ye may think it richt

to burn fiddles, ither fowk disna; and this has to do wi' ither fowk,

grannie; it's no atween you an' me, ye ken,' Robert went on, fearful

lest she might consider herself divinely commissioned to extirpate the

whole race of stringed instruments,--'for I maun sell 't for her.'

'Tak it oot o' my sicht,' said Mrs. Falconer, and said no more.

He carried the instrument up to his room, laid it on his bed, locked his

door, put the key in his pocket, and descended to the parlour.

'He's deid, is he?' said his grandmother, as he re-entered.

'Ay is he, grannie,' answered Robert. 'He deid a repentant man.'

'An' a believin'?' asked Mrs. Falconer.

'Weel, grannie, I canna say 'at he believed a' thing 'at ever was, for a

body michtna ken a' thing.'

'Toots, laddie! Was 't savin' faith?'

'I dinna richtly ken what ye mean by that; but I'm thinkin' it was

muckle the same kin' o' faith 'at the prodigal had; for they baith rase

an' gaed hame.'

''Deed, maybe ye're richt, laddie,' returned Mrs. Falconer, after a

moment's thought. 'We'll houp the best.'

All the remainder of the evening she sat motionless, with her eyes

fixed on the rug before her, thinking, no doubt, of the repentance and

salvation of the fiddler, and what hope there might yet be for her own

lost son.

The next day being Saturday, Robert set out for Bodyfauld, taking the

violin with him. He went alone, for he was in no mood for Shargar's

company. It was a fine spring day, the woods were budding, and the

fragrance of the larches floated across his way. There was a lovely

sadness in the sky, and in the motions of the air, and in the scent of

the earth--as if they all knew that fine things were at hand which never

could be so beautiful as those that had gone away. And Robert wondered

how it was that everything should look so different. Even Bodyfauld

seemed to have lost its enchantment, though his friends were as kind as

ever. Mr. Lammie went into a rage at the story of the lost violin, and

Miss Lammie cried from sympathy with Robert's distress at the fate of

his bonny leddy. Then he came to the occasion of his visit, which was

to beg Mr. Lammie, when next he went to Aberdeen, to take the soutar's

fiddle, and get what he could for it, to help his widow.

'Poor Sanny!' said Robert, 'it never cam' intil 's heid to sell her, nae

mair nor gin she had been the auld wife 'at he ca'd her.'

Mr. Lammie undertook the commission; and the next time he saw Robert,

handed him ten pounds as the result of the negotiation. It was all

Robert could do, however, to get the poor woman to take the money. She

looked at it with repugnance, almost as if it had been the price of

blood. But Robert having succeeded in overcoming her scruples, she did

take it, and therewith provide a store of sweeties, and reels of cotton,

and tobacco, for sale in Sanny's workshop. She certainly did not make

money by her merchandise, for her anxiety to be honest rose to the

absurd; but she contrived to live without being reduced to prey upon her

own gingerbread and rock.

CHAPTER IV. THE ABERDEEN GARRET.

Miss St. John had long since returned from her visit, but having heard

how much Robert was taken up with his dying friend, she judged it better

to leave her intended proposal of renewing her lessons alone for

the present. Meeting him, however, soon after Alexander's death, she

introduced the subject, and Robert was enraptured at the prospect of

the re-opening of the gates of his paradise. If he did not inform his

grandmother of the fact, neither did he attempt to conceal it; but

she took no notice, thinking probably that the whole affair would be

effectually disposed of by his departure. Till that period arrived, he

had a lesson almost every evening, and Miss St. John was surprised

to find how the boy had grown since the door was built up. Robert's

gratitude grew into a kind of worship.

The evening before his departure for Bodyfauld--whence his grandmother

had arranged that he should start for Aberdeen, in order that he might

have the company of Mr. Lammie, whom business drew thither about the

same time--as he was having his last lesson, Mrs. Forsyth left the room.

Thereupon Robert, who had been dejected all day at the thought of the

separation from Miss St. John, found his heart beating so violently that

he could hardly breathe. Probably she saw his emotion, for she put her

hand on the keys, as if to cover it by showing him how some movement was

to be better effected. He seized her hand and lifted it to his lips.

But when he found that instead of snatching it away, she yielded it, nay

gently pressed it to his face, he burst into tears, and dropped on his

knees, as if before a goddess.

'Hush, Robert! Don't be foolish,' she said, quietly and tenderly. 'Here

is my aunt coming.'

The same moment he was at the piano again, playing My Bonny Lady Ann,

so as to astonish Miss St. John, and himself as well. Then he rose, bade

her a hasty good-night, and hurried away.

A strange conflict arose in his mind at the prospect of leaving the

old place, on every house of whose streets, on every swell of whose

surrounding hills he left the clinging shadows of thought and feeling.

A faintly purpled mist arose, and enwrapped all the past, changing even

his grayest troubles into tales of fairyland, and his deepest griefs

into songs of a sad music. Then he thought of Shargar, and what was to

become of him after he was gone. The lad was paler and his eyes were

redder than ever, for he had been weeping in secret. He went to his

grandmother and begged that Shargar might accompany him to Bodyfauld.

'He maun bide at hame an' min' his beuks,' she answered; 'for he winna

hae them that muckle langer. He maun be doin' something for himsel'.'

So the next morning the boys parted--Shargar to school, and Robert to

Bodyfauld--Shargar left behind with his desolation, his sun gone down

in a west that was not even stormy, only gray and hopeless, and Robert

moving towards an east which reflected, like a faint prophecy, the west

behind him tinged with love, death, and music, but mingled the colours

with its own saffron of coming dawn.

When he reached Bodyfauld he marvelled to find that all its glory had

returned. He found Miss Lammie busy among the rich yellow pools in her

dairy, and went out into the garden, now in the height of its summer.

Great cabbage roses hung heavy-headed splendours towards purple-black

heartseases, and thin-filmed silvery pods of honesty; tall white lilies

mingled with the blossoms of currant bushes, and at their feet the

narcissi of old classic legend pressed their warm-hearted paleness into

the plebeian thicket of the many-striped gardener's garters. It was a

lovely type of a commonwealth indeed, of the garden and kingdom of God.

His whole mind was flooded with a sense of sunny wealth. The farmer's

neglected garden blossomed into higher glory in his soul. The bloom and

the richness and the use were all there; but instead of each flower was

a delicate ethereal sense or feeling about that flower. Of these how

gladly would he have gathered a posy to offer Miss St. John! but,

alas! he was no poet; or rather he had but the half of the poet's

inheritance--he could see: he could not say. But even if he had been

full of poetic speech, he would yet have found that the half of his

posy remained ungathered, for although we have speech enough now to be

'cousin to the deed,' as Chaucer says it must always be, we have not

yet enough speech to cousin the tenth part of our feelings. Let him who

doubts recall one of his own vain attempts to convey that which made

the oddest of dreams entrancing in loveliness--to convey that aroma of

thought, the conscious absence of which made him a fool in his own eyes

when he spoke such silly words as alone presented themselves for the

service. I can no more describe the emotion aroused in my mind by a

gray cloud parting over a gray stone, by the smell of a sweetpea, by

the sight of one of those long upright pennons of striped grass with

the homely name, than I can tell what the glory of God is who made these

things. The man whose poetry is like nature in this, that it produces

individual, incommunicable moods and conditions of mind--a sense of

elevated, tender, marvellous, and evanescent existence, must be a poet

indeed. Every dawn of such a feeling is a light-brushed bubble rendering

visible for a moment the dark unknown sea of our being which lies beyond

the lights of our consciousness, and is the stuff and region of our

eternal growth. But think what language must become before it will tell

dreams!--before it will convey the delicate shades of fancy that come

and go in the brain of a child!--before it will let a man know wherein

one face differeth from another face in glory! I suspect, however,

that for such purposes it is rather music than articulation that is

needful--that, with a hope of these finer results, the language must

rather be turned into music than logically extended.

The next morning he awoke at early dawn, hearing the birds at his

window. He rose and went out. The air was clear and fresh as a new-made

soul. Bars of mottled cloud were bent across the eastern quarter of the

sky, which lay like a great ethereal ocean ready for the launch of the

ship of glory that was now gliding towards its edge. Everything was

waiting to conduct him across the far horizon to the south, where lay

the stored-up wonder of his coming life. The lark sang of something

greater than he could tell; the wind got up, whispered at it, and lay

down to sleep again; the sun was at hand to bathe the world in the light

and gladness alone fit to typify the radiance of Robert's thoughts. The

clouds that formed the shore of the upper sea were already burning from

saffron into gold. A moment more and the first insupportable sting of

light would shoot from behind the edge of that low blue hill, and the

first day of his new life would be begun. He watched, and it came. The

well-spring of day, fresh and exuberant as if now first from the holy

will of the Father of Lights, gushed into the basin of the world, and

the world was more glad than tongue or pen can tell. The supernal light

alone, dawning upon the human heart, can exceed the marvel of such a

sunrise.

And shall life itself be less beautiful than one of its days? Do not

believe it, young brother. Men call the shadow, thrown upon the universe

where their own dusky souls come between it and the eternal sun, life,

and then mourn that it should be less bright than the hopes of their

childhood. Keep thou thy soul translucent, that thou mayest never see

its shadow; at least never abuse thyself with the philosophy which calls

that shadow life. Or, rather would I say, become thou pure in heart, and

thou shalt see God, whose vision alone is life.

Just as the sun rushed across the horizon he heard the tramp of a heavy

horse in the yard, passing from the stable to the cart that was to carry

his trunk to the turnpike road, three miles off, where the coach would

pass. Then Miss Lammie came and called him to breakfast, and there sat

the farmer in his Sunday suit of black, already busy. Robert was almost

too happy to eat; yet he had not swallowed two mouthfuls before the sun

rose unheeded, the lark sang unheeded, and the roses sparkled with the

dew that bowed yet lower their heavy heads, all unheeded. By the time

they had finished, Mr. Lammie's gig was at the door, and they mounted

and followed the cart. Not even the recurring doubt and fear that

hollowness was at the heart of it all, for that God could not mean such

reinless gladness, prevented the truth of the present joy from sinking

deep into the lad's heart. In his mind he saw a boat moored to a rock,

with no one on board, heaving on the waters of a rising tide, and

waiting to bear him out on the sea of the unknown. The picture arose of

itself: there was no paradise of the west in his imagination, as in that

of a boy of the sixteenth century, to authorize its appearance. It rose

again and again; the dew glittered as if the light were its own; the

sun shone as he had never seen him shine before; the very mare that sped

them along held up her head and stepped out as if she felt it the finest

of mornings. Had she also a future, poor old mare? Might there not be

a paradise somewhere? and if in the furthest star instead of next-door

America, why, so much the more might the Atlantis of the nineteenth

century surpass Manoa the golden of the seventeenth!

The gig and the cart reached the road together. One of the men who had

accompanied the cart took the gig; and they were left on the road-side

with Robert's trunk and box--the latter a present from Miss Lammie.

Their places had been secured, and the guard knew where he had to take

them up. Long before the coach appeared, the notes of his horn, as like

the colour of his red coat as the blindest of men could imagine, came

echoing from the side of the heathery, stony hill under which they

stood, so that Robert turned wondering, as if the chariot of his desires

had been coming over the top of Drumsnaig, to carry him into a heaven

where all labour was delight. But round the corner in front came the

four-in-hand red mail instead. She pulled up gallantly; the wheelers lay

on their hind quarters, and the leaders parted theirs from the pole; the

boxes were hoisted up; Mr. Lammie climbed, and Robert scrambled to his

seat; the horn blew; the coachman spake oracularly; the horses obeyed;

and away went the gorgeous symbol of sovereignty careering through

the submissive region. Nor did Robert's delight abate during the

journey--certainly not when he saw the blue line of the sea in the

distance, a marvel and yet a fact.

Mrs. Falconer had consulted the Misses Napier, who had many

acquaintances in Aberdeen, as to a place proper for Robert, and suitable

to her means. Upon this point Miss Letty, not without a certain touch

of design, as may appear in the course of my story, had been able to

satisfy her. In a small house of two floors and a garret, in the old

town, Mr. Lammie took leave of Robert.

It was from a garret window still, but a storm-window now that Robert

looked--eastward across fields and sand-hills, to the blue expanse of

waters--not blue like southern seas, but slaty blue, like the eyes of

northmen. It was rather dreary; the sun was shining from overhead now,

casting short shadows and much heat; the dew was gone up, and the lark

had come down; he was alone; the end of his journey was come, and was

not anything very remarkable. His landlady interrupted his gaze to know

what he would have for dinner, but he declined to use any discretion in

the matter. When she left the room he did not return to the window, but

sat down upon his box. His eye fell upon the other, a big wooden cube.

Of its contents he knew nothing. He would amuse himself by making

inquisition. It was nailed up. He borrowed a screwdriver and opened it.

At the top lay a linen bag full of oatmeal; underneath that was a thick

layer of oat-cake; underneath that two cheeses, a pound of butter, and

six pots of jam, which ought to have tasted of roses, for it came from

the old garden where the roses lived in such sweet companionship with

the currant bushes; underneath that, &c.; and underneath, &c., a box

which strangely recalled Shargar's garret, and one of the closets

therein. With beating heart he opened it, and lo, to his marvel, and the

restoration of all the fair day, there was the violin which Dooble Sanny

had left him when he forsook her for--some one or other of the queer

instruments of Fra Angelico's angels?

In a flutter of delight he sat down on his trunk again and played the

most mournful of tunes. Two white pigeons, which had been talking to

each other in the heat on the roof, came one on each side of the window

and peeped into the room; and out between them, as he played, Robert saw

the sea, and the blue sky above it. Is it any wonder that, instead of

turning to the lying pages and contorted sentences of the Livy which

he had already unpacked from his box, he forgot all about school, and

college, and bursary, and went on playing till his landlady brought

up his dinner, which he swallowed hastily that he might return to the

spells of his enchantress!

CHAPTER V. THE COMPETITION.

I could linger with gladness even over this part of my hero's history.

If the school work was dry it was thorough. If that academy had no

sweetly shadowing trees; if it did stand within a parallelogram of low

stone walls, containing a roughly-gravelled court; if all the region

about suggested hot stones and sand--beyond still was the sea and the

sky; and that court, morning and afternoon, was filled with the shouts

of eager boys, kicking the football with mad rushings to and fro,

and sometimes with wounds and faintings--fit symbol of the equally

resultless ambition with which many of them would follow the game

of life in the years to come. Shock-headed Highland colts, and rough

Lowland steers as many of them were, out of that group, out of the

roughest of them, would emerge in time a few gentlemen--not of the type

of your trim, self-contained, clerical exquisite--but large-hearted,

courteous gentlemen, for whom a man may thank God. And if the master was

stern and hard, he was true; if the pupils feared him, they yet cared to

please him; if there might be found not a few more widely-read scholars

than he, it would be hard to find a better teacher.

Robert leaned to the collar and laboured, not greatly moved by ambition,

but much by the hope of the bursary and the college life in the near

distance. Not unfrequently he would rush into the thick of the football

game, fight like a maniac for one short burst, and then retire and look

on. He oftener regarded than mingled. He seldom joined his fellows after

school hours, for his work lay both upon his conscience and his hopes;

but if he formed no very deep friendships amongst them, at least he made

no enemies, for he was not selfish, and in virtue of the Celtic blood in

him was invariably courteous. His habits were in some things altogether

irregular. He never went out for a walk; but sometimes, looking up from

his Virgil or his Latin version, and seeing the blue expanse in the

distance breaking into white under the viewless wing of the summer wind,

he would fling down his dictionary or his pen, rush from his garret, and

fly in a straight line, like a sea-gull weary of lake and river, down

to the waste shore of the great deep. This was all that stood for the

Arabian Nights of moon-blossomed marvel; all the rest was Aberdeen days

of Latin and labour.

Slowly the hours went, and yet the dreaded, hoped-for day came quickly.

The quadrangle of the stone-crowned college grew more awful in its

silence and emptiness every time Robert passed it; and the professors'

houses looked like the sentry-boxes of the angels of learning, soon to

come forth and judge the feeble mortals who dared present a claim

to their recognition. October faded softly by, with its keen fresh

mornings, and cold memorial green-horizoned evenings, whose stars fell

like the stray blossoms of a more heavenly world, from some ghostly wind

of space that had caught them up on its awful shoreless sweep. November

came, 'chill and drear,' with its heartless, hopeless nothingness; but

as if to mock the poor competitors, rose, after three days of Scotch

mist, in a lovely 'halcyon day' of 'St. Martin's summer,' through whose

long shadows anxious young faces gathered in the quadrangle, or under

the arcade, each with his Ainsworth's Dictionary, the sole book allowed,

under his arm. But when the sacrist appeared and unlocked the public

school, and the black-gowned professors walked into the room, and the

door was left open for the candidates to follow, then indeed a great awe

fell upon the assembly, and the lads crept into their seats as if to

a trial for life before a bench of the incorruptible. They took their

places; a portion of Robertson's History of Scotland was given them to

turn into Latin; and soon there was nothing to be heard in the assembly

but the turning of the leaves of dictionaries, and the scratching of

pens constructing the first rough copy of the Latinized theme.

It was done. Four weary hours, nearly five, one or two of which passed

like minutes, the others as if each minute had been an hour, went by,

and Robert, in a kind of desperation, after a final reading of the

Latin, gave in his paper, and left the room. When he got home, he asked

his landlady to get him some tea. Till it was ready he would take his

violin. But even the violin had grown dull, and would not speak freely.

He returned to the torture--took out his first copy, and went over it

once more. Horror of horrors! a maxie!--that is a maximus error. Mary

Queen of Scots had been left so far behind in the beginning of the

paper, that she forgot the rights of her sex in the middle of it, and

in the accusative of a future participle passive--I do not know if more

modern grammarians have a different name for the growth--had submitted

to be dum, and her rightful dam was henceforth and for ever debarred.

He rose, rushed out of the house, down through the garden, across two

fields and a wide road, across the links, and so to the moaning lip of

the sea--for it was moaning that night. From the last bulwark of the

sandhills he dropped upon the wet sands, and there he paced up and

down--how long, God only, who was watching him, knew--with the low

limitless form of the murmuring lip lying out and out into the sinking

sky like the life that lay low and hopeless before him, for the want at

most of twenty pounds a year (that was the highest bursary then) to lift

him into a region of possible well-being. Suddenly a strange phenomenon

appeared within him. The subject hitherto became the object to a new

birth of consciousness. He began to look at himself. 'There's a sair bit

in there,' he said, as if his own bosom had been that of another mortal.

'What's to be dune wi' 't? I doobt it maun bide it. Weel, the crater had

better bide it quaietly, and no cry oot. Lie doon, an' haud yer tongue.

Soror tua haud meretrix est, ye brute!' He burst out laughing, after a

doubtful and ululant fashion, I dare say; but he went home, took up

his auld wife, and played 'Tullochgorum' some fifty times over, with

extemporized variations.

The next day he had to translate a passage from Tacitus; after executing

which somewhat heartlessly, he did not open a Latin book for a whole

week. The very sight of one was disgusting to him. He wandered about the

New Town, along Union Street, and up and down the stairs that led to the

lower parts, haunted the quay, watched the vessels, learned their forms,

their parts and capacities, made friends with a certain Dutch captain

whom he heard playing the violin in his cabin, and on the whole,

notwithstanding the wretched prospect before him, contrived to spend

the week with considerable enjoyment. Nor does an occasional episode of

lounging hurt a life with any true claims to the epic form.

The day of decision at length arrived. Again the black-robed powers

assembled, and again the hoping, fearing lads--some of them not lads,

men, and mere boys--gathered to hear their fate. Name after name was

called out;--a twenty pound bursary to the first, one of seventeen to

the next, three or four of fifteen and fourteen, and so on, for about

twenty, and still no Robert Falconer. At last, lagging wearily in

the rear, he heard his name, went up listlessly, and was awarded five

pounds. He crept home, wrote to his grandmother, and awaited her reply.

It was not long in coming; for although the carrier was generally the

medium of communication, Miss Letty had contrived to send the answer by

coach. It was to the effect that his grandmother was sorry that he had

not been more successful, but that Mr. Innes thought it would be quite

worth while to try again, and he must therefore come home for another

year.

This was mortifying enough, though not so bad as it might have been.

Robert began to pack his box. But before he had finished it he shut the

lid and sat upon it. To meet Miss St. John thus disgraced, was more than

he could bear. If he remained, he had a chance of winning prizes at the

end of the session, and that would more than repair his honour. The five

pound bursars were privileged in paying half fees; and if he could only

get some teaching, he could manage. But who would employ a bejan when

a magistrand might be had for next to nothing? Besides, who would

recommend him? The thought of Dr. Anderson flashed into his mind, and he

rushed from the house without even knowing where he lived.

CHAPTER VI. DR. ANDERSON AGAIN.

At the Post-office he procured the desired information at once. Dr.

Anderson lived in Union Street, towards the western end of it.

Away went Robert to find the house. That was easy. What a grand house of

smooth granite and wide approach it was! The great door was opened by a

man-servant, who looked at the country boy from head to foot.

'Is the doctor in?' asked Robert.

'Yes.'

'I wad like to see him.'

'Wha will I say wants him?'

'Say the laddie he saw at Bodyfauld.'

The man left Robert in the hall, which was spread with tiger and

leopard skins, and had a bright fire burning in a large stove. Returning

presently, he led him through noiseless swing-doors covered with cloth

into a large library. Never had Robert conceived such luxury. What with

Turkey carpet, crimson curtains, easy-chairs, grandly-bound books and

morocco-covered writing-table, it seemed the very ideal of comfort. But

Robert liked the grandeur too much to be abashed by it.

'Sit ye doon there,' said the servant, 'and the doctor 'ill be wi' ye in

ae minute.'

He was hardly out of the room before a door opened in the middle of

the books, and the doctor appeared in a long dressing-gown. He looked

inquiringly at Robert for one moment, then made two long strides like a

pair of eager compasses, holding out his hand.

'I'm Robert Faukner,' said the boy. 'Ye'll min', maybe, doctor, 'at ye

war verra kin' to me ance, and tellt me lots o' stories--at Bodyfauld,

ye ken.'

'I'm very glad to see you, Robert,' said Dr. Anderson. 'Of course I

remember you perfectly; but my servant did not bring your name, and I

did not know but it might be the other boy--I forget his name.'

'Ye mean Shargar, sir. It's no him.'

'I can see that,' said the doctor, laughing, 'although you are altered.

You have grown quite a man! I am very glad to see you,' he repeated,

shaking hands with him again. 'When did you come to town?'

'I hae been at the grammer school i' the auld toon for the last three

months,' said Robert.

'Three months!' exclaimed Dr. Anderson. 'And never came to see me till

now! That was too bad of you, Robert.'

'Weel, ye see, sir, I didna ken better. An' I had a heap to do, an' a'

for naething, efter a'. But gin I had kent 'at ye wad like to see me, I

wad hae likit weel to come to ye.'

'I have been away most of the summer,' said the doctor; 'but I have been

at home for the last month. You haven't had your dinner, have you?'

'Weel, I dinna exackly ken what to say, sir. Ye see, I wasna that

sharp-set the day, sae I had jist a mou'fu' o' breid and cheese. I'm

turnin' hungry, noo, I maun confess.'

The doctor rang the bell.

'You must stop and dine with me.--Johnston,' he continued, as his

servant entered, 'tell the cook that I have a gentleman to dinner with

me to-day, and she must be liberal.'

'Guidsake, sir!' said Robert, 'dinna set the woman agen me.'

He had no intention of saying anything humorous, but Dr. Anderson

laughed heartily.

'Come into my room till dinner-time,' he said, opening the door by which

he had entered.

To Robert's astonishment, he found himself in a room bare as that of

the poorest cottage. A small square window, small as the window in

John Hewson's, looked out upon a garden neatly kept, but now 'having no

adorning but cleanliness.' The place was just the benn end of a cottage.

The walls were whitewashed, the ceiling was of bare boards, and the

floor was sprinkled with a little white sand. The table and chairs were

of common deal, white and clean, save that the former was spotted with

ink. A greater contrast to the soft, large, richly-coloured room they

had left could hardly be imagined. A few bookshelves on the wall were

filled with old books. A fire blazed cheerily in the little grate. A bed

with snow-white coverlet stood in a recess.

'This is the nicest room in the house, Robert,' said the doctor. 'When I

was a student like you--'

Robert shook his head,

'I'm nae student yet,' he said; but the doctor went on:

'I had the benn end of my father's cottage to study in, for he treated

me like a stranger-gentleman when I came home from college. The father

respected the son for whose advantage he was working like a slave from

morning till night. My heart is sometimes sore with the gratitude I feel

to him. Though he's been dead for thirty years--would you believe it,

Robert?--well, I can't talk more about him now. I made this room as like

my father's benn end as I could, and I am happier here than anywhere in

the world.'

By this time Robert was perfectly at home. Before the dinner was ready

he had not only told Dr. Anderson his present difficulty, but his whole

story as far back as he could remember. The good man listened eagerly,

gazed at the boy with more and more of interest, which deepened till

his eyes glistened as he gazed, and when a ludicrous passage intervened,

welcomed the laughter as an excuse for wiping them. When dinner was

announced, he rose without a word and led the way to the dining-room.

Robert followed, and they sat down to a meal simple enough for such a

house, but which to Robert seemed a feast followed by a banquet.

For after they had done eating--on the doctor's part a very meagre

performance--they retired to his room again, and then Robert found the

table covered with a snowy cloth, and wine and fruits arranged upon it.

It was far into the night before he rose to go home. As he passed

through a thick rain of pin-point drops, he felt that although those

cold granite houses, with glimmering dead face, stood like rows of

sepulchres, he was in reality walking through an avenue of homes. Wet

to the skin long before he reached Mrs. Fyvie's in the auld toon, he was

notwithstanding as warm as the under side of a bird's wing. For he had

to sit down and write to his grandmother informing her that Dr. Anderson

had employed him to copy for the printers a book of his upon the Medical

Boards of India, and that as he was going to pay him for that and other

work at a rate which would secure him ten shillings a week, it would be

a pity to lose a year for the chance of getting a bursary next winter.

The doctor did want the manuscript copied; and he knew that the only

chance of getting Mrs. Falconer's consent to Robert's receiving any

assistance from him, was to make some business arrangement of the sort.

He wrote to her the same night, and after mentioning the unexpected

pleasure of Robert's visit, not only explained the advantage to himself

of the arrangement he had proposed, but set forth the greater advantage

to Robert, inasmuch as he would thus be able in some measure to keep a

hold of him. He judged that although Mrs. Falconer had no great opinion

of his religion, she would yet consider his influence rather on the side

of good than otherwise in the case of a boy else abandoned to his own

resources.

The end of it all was that his grandmother yielded, and Robert was

straightway a Bejan, or Yellow-beak.

Three days had he been clothed in the red gown of the Aberdeen student,

and had attended the Humanity and Greek class-rooms. On the evening of

the third day he was seated at his table preparing his Virgil for the

next, when he found himself growing very weary, and no wonder, for,

except the walk of a few hundred yards to and from the college, he had

had no open air for those three days. It was raining in a persistent

November fashion, and he thought of the sea, away through the dark

and the rain, tossing uneasily. Should he pay it a visit? He sat for a

moment,

This way and that dividing the swift mind, [4]

when his eye fell on his violin. He had been so full of his new position

and its requirements, that he had not touched it since the session

opened. Now it was just what he wanted. He caught it up eagerly, and

began to play. The power of the music seized upon him, and he went on

playing, forgetful of everything else, till a string broke. It was

all too short for further use. Regardless of the rain or the depth of

darkness to be traversed before he could find a music-shop, he caught up

his cap, and went to rush from the house.

His door opened immediately on the top step of the stair, without any

landing. There was a door opposite, to which likewise a few steps led

immediately up. The stairs from the two doors united a little below. So

near were the doors that one might stride across the fork. The opposite

door was open, and in it stood Eric Ericson.

CHAPTER VII. ERIC ERICSON.

Robert sprang across the dividing chasm, clasped Ericson's hand in both

of his, looked up into his face, and stood speechless. Ericson returned

the salute with a still kindness--tender and still. His face was like a

gray morning sky of summer from whose level cloud-fields rain will fall

before noon.

'So it was you,' he said, 'playing the violin so well?'

'I was doin' my best,' answered Robert. 'But eh! Mr. Ericson, I wad hae

dune better gin I had kent ye was hearkenin'.'

'You couldn't do better than your best,' returned Eric, smiling.

'Ay, but yer best micht aye grow better, ye ken,' persisted Robert.

'Come into my room,' said Ericson. 'This is Friday night, and there is

nothing but chapel to-morrow. So we'll have talk instead of work.'

In another moment they were seated by a tiny coal fire in a room one

side of which was the slope of the roof, with a large, low skylight in

it looking seawards. The sound of the distant waves, unheard in Robert's

room, beat upon the drum of the skylight, through all the world of mist

that lay between it and them--dimly, vaguely--but ever and again with a

swell of gathered force, that made the distant tumult doubtful no more.

'I am sorry I have nothing to offer you,' said Ericson.

'You remind me of Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate of the temple,'

returned Robert, attempting to speak English like the Northerner, but

breaking down as his heart got the better of him. 'Eh! Mr. Ericson,

gin ye kent what it is to me to see the face o' ye, ye wadna speyk like

that. Jist lat me sit an' leuk at ye. I want nae mair.'

A smile broke up the cold, sad, gray light of the young eagle-face.

Stern at once and gentle when in repose, its smile was as the summer of

some lovely land where neither the heat nor the sun shall smite them.

The youth laid his hand upon the boy's head, then withdrew it hastily,

and the smile vanished like the sun behind a cloud. Robert saw it, and

as if he had been David before Saul, rose instinctively and said,

'I'll gang for my fiddle.--Hoots! I hae broken ane o' the strings. We

maun bide till the morn. But I want nae fiddle mysel' whan I hear the

great water oot there.'

'You're young yet, my boy, or you might hear voices in that water--!

I've lived in the sound of it all my days. When I can't rest at night, I

hear a moaning and crying in the dark, and I lie and listen till I can't

tell whether I'm a man or some God-forsaken sea in the sunless north.'

'Sometimes I believe in naething but my fiddle,' answered Robert.

'Yes, yes. But when it comes into you, my boy! You won't hear much music

in the cry of the sea after that. As long as you've got it at arm's

length, it's all very well. It's interesting then, and you can talk to

your fiddle about it, and make poetry about it,' said Ericson, with a

smile of self-contempt. 'But as soon as the real earnest comes that is

all over. The sea-moan is the cry of a tortured world then. Its hollow

bed is the cup of the world's pain, ever rolling from side to side and

dashing over its lip. Of all that might be, ought to be, nothing to be

had!--I could get music out of it once. Look here. I could trifle like

that once.'

He half rose, then dropped on his chair. But Robert's believing eyes

justified confidence, and Ericson had never had any one to talk to. He

rose again, opened a cupboard at his side, took out some papers, threw

them on the table, and, taking his hat, walked towards the door.

'Which of your strings is broken?' he asked.

'The third,' answered Robert.

'I will get you one,' said Ericson; and before Robert could reply he was

down the stair. Robert heard him cough, then the door shut, and he was

gone in the rain and fog.

Bewildered, unhappy, ready to fly after him, yet irresolute, Robert

almost mechanically turned over the papers upon the little deal table.

He was soon arrested by the following verses, headed:

A NOONDAY MELODY.

Everything goes to its rest;

The hills are asleep in the noon;

And life is as still in its nest

As the moon when she looks on a moon

In the depths of a calm river's breast

As it steals through a midnight in June.

The streams have forgotten the sea

In the dream of their musical sound;

The sunlight is thick on the tree,

And the shadows lie warm on the ground--

So still, you may watch them and see

Every breath that awakens around.

The churchyard lies still in the heat,

With its handful of mouldering bone;

As still as the long stalk of wheat

In the shadow that sits by the stone,

As still as the grass at my feet

When I walk in the meadows alone.

The waves are asleep on the main,

And the ships are asleep on the wave;

And the thoughts are as still in my brain

As the echo that sleeps in the cave;

All rest from their labour and pain--

Then why should not I in my grave?

His heart ready to burst with a sorrow, admiration, and devotion, which

no criticism interfered to qualify, Robert rushed out into the darkness,

and sped, fleet-footed, along the only path which Ericson could have

taken. He could not bear to be left in the house while his friend was

out in the rain.

He was sure of joining him before he reached the new town, for he was

fleet-footed, and there was a path only on one side of the way, so that

there was no danger of passing him in the dark. As he ran he heard the

moaning of the sea. There must be a storm somewhere, away in the deep

spaces of its dark bosom, and its lips muttered of its far unrest. When

the sun rose it would be seen misty and gray, tossing about under the

one rain cloud that like a thinner ocean overspread the heavens--tossing

like an animal that would fain lie down and be at peace but could not

compose its unwieldy strength.

Suddenly Robert slackened his speed, ceased running, stood, gazed

through the darkness at a figure a few yards before him.

An old wall, bowed out with age and the weight behind it, flanked the

road in this part. Doors in this wall, with a few steps in front of them

and more behind, led up into gardens upon a slope, at the top of which

stood the houses to which they belonged. Against one of these doors the

figure stood with its head bowed upon its hands. When Robert was within

a few feet, it descended and went on.

'Mr. Ericson!' exclaimed Robert. 'Ye'll get yer deith gin ye stan' that

gait i' the weet.'

'Amen,' said Ericson, turning with a smile that glimmered wan through

the misty night. Then changing his tone, he went on: 'What are you

after, Robert?'

'You,' answered Robert. 'I cudna bide to be left my lane whan I micht be

wi' ye a' the time--gin ye wad lat me. Ye war oot o' the hoose afore I

weel kent what ye was aboot. It's no a fit nicht for ye to be oot at a',

mair by token 'at ye're no the ablest to stan' cauld an' weet.'

'I've stood a great deal of both in my time,' returned Ericson; 'but

come along. We'll go and get that fiddle-string.'

'Dinna ye think it wad be fully better to gang hame?' Robert ventured to

suggest.

'What would be the use? I'm in no mood for Plato to-night,' he answered,

trying hard to keep from shivering.

'Ye hae an ill cauld upo' ye,' persisted Robert; 'an' ye maun be as weet

's a dishcloot.'

Ericson laughed--a strange, hollow laugh.

'Come along,' he said. 'A walk will do me good. We'll get the string,

and then you shall play to me. That will do me more good yet.'

Robert ceased opposing him, and they walked together to the new town.

Robert bought the string, and they set out, as he thought, to return.

But not yet did Ericson seem inclined to go home. He took the lead, and

they emerged upon the quay.

There were not many vessels. One of them was the Antwerp tub, already

known to Robert. He recognized her even in the dull light of the quay

lamps. Her captain being a prudent and well-to-do Dutchman, never slept

on shore; he preferred saving his money; and therefore, as the friends

passed, Robert caught sight of him walking his own deck and smoking a

long clay pipe before turning in.

'A fine nicht, capt'n,' said Robert.

'It does rain,' returned the captain. 'Will you come on board and have

one schnapps before you turn in?'

'I hae a frien' wi' me here,' said Robert, feeling his way.

'Let him come and be welcomed.'

Ericson making no objection, they went on board, and down into the neat

little cabin, which was all the roomier for the straightness of the

vessel's quarter. The captain got out a square, coffin-shouldered

bottle, and having respect to the condition of their garments, neither

of the young men refused his hospitality, though Robert did feel a

little compunction at the thought of the horror it would have caused his

grandmother. Then the Dutchman got out his violin and asked Robert to

play a Scotch air. But in the middle of it his eyes fell on Ericson,

and he stopped at once. Ericson was sitting on a locker, leaning back

against the side of the vessel: his eyes were open and fixed, and he

seemed quite unconscious of what was passing. Robert fancied at first

that the hollands he had taken had gone to his head, but he saw at the

same moment, from his glass, that he had scarcely tasted the spirit. In

great alarm they tried to rouse him, and at length succeeded. He closed

his eyes, opened them again, rose up, and was going away.

'What's the maitter wi' ye, Mr. Ericson?' said Robert, in distress.

'Nothing, nothing,' answered Ericson, in a strange voice. 'I fell

asleep, I believe. It was very bad manners, captain. I beg your pardon.

I believe I am overtired.'

The Dutchman was as kind as possible, and begged Ericson to stay the

night and occupy his berth. But he insisted on going home, although he

was clearly unfit for such a walk. They bade the skipper good-night,

went on shore, and set out, Ericson leaning rather heavily upon Robert's

arm. Robert led him up Marischal Street.

The steep ascent was too much for Ericson. He stood still upon the

bridge and leaned over the wall of it. Robert stood beside, almost in

despair about getting him home.

'Have patience with me, Robert,' said Ericson, in his natural voice. 'I

shall be better presently. I don't know what's come to me. If I had been

a Celt now, I should have said I had a touch of the second sight. But I

am, as far as I know, pure Northman.'

'What did you see?' asked Robert, with a strange feeling that miles of

the spirit world, if one may be allowed such a contradiction in words,

lay between him and his friend.

Ericson returned no answer. Robert feared he was going to have a

relapse; but in a moment more he lifted himself up and bent again to the

brae.

They got on pretty well till they were about the middle of the

Gallowgate.

'I can't,' said Ericson feebly, and half leaned, half fell against the

wall of a house.

'Come into this shop,' said Robert. 'I ken the man. He'll lat ye sit

doon.'

He managed to get him in. He was as pale as death. The bookseller got

a chair, and he sank into it. Robert was almost at his wit's end. There

was no such thing as a cab in Aberdeen for years and years after

the date of my story. He was holding a glass of water to Ericson's

lips,--when he heard his name, in a low earnest whisper, from the door.

There, round the door-cheek, peered the white face and red head of

Shargar.

'Robert! Robert!' said Shargar.

'I hear ye,' returned Robert coolly: he was too anxious to be surprised

at anything. 'Haud yer tongue. I'll come to ye in a minute.'

Ericson recovered a little, refused the whisky offered by the

bookseller, rose, and staggered out.

'If I were only home!' he said. 'But where is home?'

'We'll try to mak ane,' returned Robert. 'Tak a haud o' me. Lay yer

weicht upo' me.--Gin it warna for yer len'th, I cud cairry ye weel

eneuch. Whaur's that Shargar?' he muttered to himself, looking up and

down the gloomy street.

But no Shargar was to be seen. Robert peered in vain into every dark

court they crept past, till at length he all but came to the conclusion

that Shargar was only 'fantastical.'

When they had reached the hollow, and were crossing the canal-bridge

by Mount Hooly, Ericson's strength again failed him, and again he leaned

upon the bridge. Nor had he leaned long before Robert found that he had

fainted. In desperation he began to hoist the tall form upon his back,

when he heard the quick step of a runner behind him and the words--

'Gie 'im to me, Robert; gie 'im to me. I can carry 'im fine.'

'Haud awa' wi' ye,' returned Robert; and again Shargar fell behind.

For a few hundred yards he trudged along manfully; but his strength,

more from the nature of his burden than its weight, soon gave way. He

stood still to recover. The same moment Shargar was by his side again.

'Noo, Robert,' he said, pleadingly.

Robert yielded, and the burden was shifted to Shargar's back.

How they managed it they hardly knew themselves; but after many changes

they at last got Ericson home, and up to his own room. He had revived

several times, but gone off again. In one of his faints, Robert

undressed him and got him into bed. He had so little to cover him, that

Robert could not help crying with misery. He himself was well provided,

and would gladly have shared with Ericson, but that was hopeless. He

could, however, make him warm in bed. Then leaving Shargar in charge, he

sped back to the new town to Dr. Anderson. The doctor had his carriage

out at once, wrapped Robert in a plaid and brought him home with him.

Ericson came to himself, and seeing Shargar by his bedside, tried to sit

up, asking feebly,

'Where am I?'

'In yer ain bed, Mr. Ericson,' answered Shargar.

'And who are you?' asked Ericson again, bewildered.

Shargar's pale face no doubt looked strange under his crown of red hair.

'Ow! I'm naebody.'

'You must be somebody, or else my brain's in a bad state,' returned

Ericson.

'Na, na, I'm naebody. Naething ava (at all). Robert 'll be hame in ae

meenit.--I'm Robert's tyke (dog),' concluded Shargar, with a sudden

inspiration.

This answer seemed to satisfy Ericson, for he closed his eyes and lay

still; nor did he speak again till Robert arrived with the doctor.

Poor food, scanty clothing, undue exertion in travelling to and from the

university, hard mental effort against weakness, disquietude of mind,

all borne with an endurance unconscious of itself, had reduced Eric

Ericson to his present condition. Strength had given way at last, and he

was now lying in the low border wash of a dead sea of fever.

The last of an ancient race of poor men, he had no relative but a second

cousin, and no means except the little he advanced him, chiefly in

kind, to be paid for when Eric had a profession. This cousin was in the

herring trade, and the chief assistance he gave him was to send him by

sea, from Wick to Aberdeen, a small barrel of his fish every session.

One herring, with two or three potatoes, formed his dinner as long as

the barrel lasted. But at Aberdeen or elsewhere no one carried his head

more erect than Eric Ericson--not from pride, but from simplicity and

inborn dignity; and there was not a man during his curriculum more

respected than he. An excellent classical scholar--as scholarship went

in those days--he was almost the only man in the university who made

his knowledge of Latin serve towards an acquaintance with the Romance

languages. He had gained a small bursary, and gave lessons when he

could.

But having no level channel for the outgoing of the waters of one of

the tenderest hearts that ever lived, those waters had sought to break

a passage upwards. Herein his experience corresponded in a considerable

degree to that of Robert; only Eric's more fastidious and more

instructed nature bred a thousand difficulties which he would meet

one by one, whereas Robert, less delicate and more robust, would break

through all the oppositions of theological science falsely so called,

and take the kingdom of heaven by force. But indeed the ruins of the

ever falling temple of theology had accumulated far more heavily over

Robert's well of life, than over that of Ericson: the obstructions to

his faith were those that rolled from the disintegrating mountains of

humanity, rather than the rubbish heaped upon it by the careless masons

who take the quarry whence they hew the stones for the temple--built

without hands eternal in the heavens.

When Dr. Anderson entered, Ericson opened his eyes wide. The doctor

approached, and taking his hand began to feel his pulse. Then first

Ericson comprehended his visit.

'I can't,' he said, withdrawing his hand. 'I am not so ill as to need a

doctor.'

'My dear sir,' said Dr. Anderson, courteously, 'there will be no

occasion to put you to any pain.'

'Sir,' said Eric, 'I have no money.'

The doctor laughed.

'And I have more than I know how to make a good use of.'

'I would rather be left alone,' persisted Ericson, turning his face

away.

'Now, my dear sir,' said the doctor, with gentle decision, 'that is very

wrong. With what face can you offer a kindness when your turn comes, if

you won't accept one yourself?'

Ericson held out his wrist. Dr. Anderson questioned, prescribed, and,

having given directions, went home, to call again in the morning.

And now Robert was somewhat in the position of the old woman who 'had

so many children she didn't know what to do.' Dr. Anderson ordered

nourishment for Ericson, and here was Shargar upon his hands as well!

Shargar and he could share, to be sure, and exist: but for Ericson--?

Not a word did Robert exchange with Shargar till he had gone to the

druggist's and got the medicine for Ericson, who, after taking it, fell

into a troubled sleep. Then, leaving the two doors open, Robert joined

Shargar in his own room. There he made up a good fire, and they sat and

dried themselves.

'Noo, Shargar,' said Robert at length, 'hoo cam ye here?'

His question was too like one of his grandmother's to be pleasant to

Shargar.

'Dinna speyk to me that gait, Robert, or I'll cut my throat,' he

returned.

'Hoots! I maun ken a' aboot it,' insisted Robert, but with much modified

and partly convicted tone.

'Weel, I never said I wadna tell ye a' aboot it. The fac' 's this--an'

I'm no' up to the leein' as I used to be, Robert: I hae tried it ower

an' ower, but a lee comes rouch throw my thrapple (windpipe) noo. Faith!

I cud hae leed ance wi' onybody, barrin' the de'il. I winna lee. I'm nae

leein'. The fac's jist this: I cudna bide ahin' ye ony langer.'

'But what the muckle lang-tailed deevil! am I to do wi' ye?' returned

Robert, in real perplexity, though only pretended displeasure.

'Gie me something to ate, an' I'll tell ye what to do wi' me,' answered

Shargar. 'I dinna care a scart (scratch) what it is.'

Robert rang the bell and ordered some porridge, and while it was

preparing, Shargar told his story--how having heard a rumour of

apprenticeship to a tailor, he had the same night dropped from the

gable window to the ground, and with three halfpence in his pocket had

wandered and begged his way to Aberdeen, arriving with one halfpenny

left.

'But what am I to do wi' ye?' said Robert once more, in as much

perplexity as ever.

'Bide till I hae tellt ye, as I said I wad,' answered Shargar. 'Dinna ye

think I'm the haveless (careless and therefore helpless) crater I used

to be. I hae been in Aberdeen three days! Ay, an' I hae seen you ilka

day in yer reid goon, an' richt braw it is. Luik ye here!'

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out what amounted to two or

three shillings, chiefly in coppers, which he exposed with triumph on

the table.

'Whaur got ye a' that siller, man?' asked Robert.

'Here and there, I kenna whaur; but I hae gien the weicht o' 't for 't

a' the same--rinnin' here an' rinnin' there, cairryin' boxes till an'

frae the smacks, an' doin' a'thing whether they bade me or no. Yesterday

mornin' I got thrippence by hingin' aboot the Royal afore the coches

startit. I luikit a' up and doon the street till I saw somebody hine awa

wi' a porkmanty. Till 'im I ran, an' he was an auld man, an' maist at

the last gasp wi' the weicht o' 't, an' gae me 't to carry. An' wha duv

ye think gae me a shillin' the verra first nicht?--Wha but my brither

Sandy?'

'Lord Rothie?'

'Ay, faith. I kent him weel eneuch, but little he kent me. There he was

upo' Black Geordie. He's turnin' auld noo.'

'Yer brither?'

'Na. He's young eneuch for ony mischeef; but Black Geordie. What on

earth gars him gang stravaguin' aboot upo' that deevil? I doobt he's a

kelpie, or a hell-horse, or something no canny o' that kin'; for faith!

brither Sandy's no ower canny himsel', I'm thinkin'. But Geordie--the

aulder the waur set (inclined). An' sae I'm thinkin' wi' his maister.'

'Did ye iver see yer father, Shargar?'

'Na. Nor I dinna want to see 'im. I'm upo' my mither's side. But that's

naething to the pint. A' that I want o' you 's to lat me come hame at

nicht, an' lie upo' the flure here. I sweir I'll lie i' the street gin

ye dinna lat me. I'll sleep as soun' 's Peter MacInnes whan Maccleary's

preachin'. An' I winna ate muckle--I hae a dreidfu' pooer o' aitin'--an'

a' 'at I gether I'll fess hame to you, to du wi' 't as ye like.--Man, I

cairriet a heap o' things the day till the skipper o' that boat 'at

ye gaed intil wi' Maister Ericson the nicht. He's a fine chiel' that

skipper!'

Robert was astonished at the change that had passed upon Shargar.

His departure had cast him upon his own resources, and allowed the

individuality repressed by every event of his history, even by his

worship of Robert, to begin to develop itself. Miserable for a few

weeks, he had revived in the fancy that to work hard at school would

give him some chance of rejoining Robert. Thence, too, he had watched to

please Mrs. Falconer, and had indeed begun to buy golden opinions from

all sorts of people. He had a hope in prospect. But into the midst fell

the whisper of the apprenticeship like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky.

He fled at once.

'Weel, ye can hae my bed the nicht,' said Robert, 'for I maun sit up wi'

Mr. Ericson.'

''Deed I'll hae naething o' the kin'. I'll sleep upo' the flure, or else

upo' the door-stane. Man, I'm no clean eneuch efter what I've come throu

sin' I drappit frae the window-sill i' the ga'le-room. But jist len' me

yer plaid, an' I'll sleep upo' the rug here as gin I war i' Paradees.

An' faith, sae I am, Robert. Ye maun gang to yer bed some time the nicht

forby (besides), or ye winna be fit for yer wark the morn. Ye can jist

gie me a kick, an' I'll be up afore ye can gie me anither.'

Their supper arrived from below, and, each on one side of the fire,

they ate the porridge, conversing all the while about old times--for

the youngest life has its old times, its golden age--and old

adventures,--Dooble Sanny, Betty, &c., &c. There were but two subjects

which Robert avoided--Miss St. John and the Bonnie Leddy. Shargar was at

length deposited upon the little bit of hearthrug which adorned rather

than enriched the room, with Robert's plaid of shepherd tartan around

him, and an Ainsworth's dictionary under his head for a pillow.

'Man, I fin' mysel' jist like a muckle colley (sheep-dog),' he said.

'Whan I close my een, I'm no sure 'at I'm no i' the inside o' yer auld

luckie-daiddie's kilt. The Lord preserve me frae ever sic a fricht again

as yer grannie an' Betty gae me the nicht they fand me in 't! I dinna

believe it's in natur' to hae sic a fricht twise in ae lifetime. Sae

I'll fa' asleep at ance, an' say nae mair--but as muckle o' my prayers

as I can min' upo' noo 'at grannie's no at my lug.'

'Haud yer impidence, an' yer tongue thegither,' said Robert. 'Min' 'at

my grannie's been the best frien' ye ever had.'

''Cep' my ain mither,' returned Shargar, with a sleepy doggedness in his

tone.

During their conference, Ericson had been slumbering. Robert had visited

him from time to time, but he had not awaked. As soon as Shargar was

disposed of, he took his candle and sat down by him. He grew more

uneasy. Robert guessed that the candle was the cause, and put it out.

Ericson was quieter. So Robert sat in the dark.

But the rain had now ceased. Some upper wind had swept the clouds from

the sky, and the whole world of stars was radiant over the earth and its

griefs.

'O God, where art thou?' he said in his heart, and went to his own room

to look out.

There was no curtain, and the blind had not been drawn down, therefore

the earth looked in at the storm-window. The sea neither glimmered nor

shone. It lay across the horizon like a low level cloud, out of which

came a moaning. Was this moaning all of the earth, or was there trouble

in the starry places too? thought Robert, as if already he had begun to

suspect the truth from afar--that save in the secret place of the Most

High, and in the heart that is hid with the Son of Man in the bosom of

the Father, there is trouble--a sacred unrest--everywhere--the moaning

of a tide setting homewards, even towards the bosom of that Father.

CHAPTER VIII. A HUMAN PROVIDENCE.

Robert kept himself thoroughly awake the whole night, and it was well

that he had not to attend classes in the morning. As the gray of the

world's reviving consciousness melted in at the window, the things

around and within him looked and felt ghastly. Nothing is liker the gray

dawn than the soul of one who has been watching by a sick bed all the

long hours of the dark, except, indeed, it be the first glimmerings of

truth on the mind lost in the dark of a godless life.

Ericson had waked often, and Robert had administered his medicine

carefully. But he had been mostly between sleeping and waking, and

had murmured strange words, whose passing shadows rather than glimmers

roused the imagination of the youth as with messages from regions

unknown.

As the light came he found his senses going, and went to his own room

again to get a book that he might keep himself awake by reading at the

window. To his surprise Shargar was gone, and for a moment he doubted

whether he had not been dreaming all that had passed between them the

night before. His plaid was folded up and laid upon a chair, as if it

had been there all night, and his Ainsworth was on the table. But beside

it was the money Shargar had drawn from his pockets.

About nine o'clock Dr. Anderson arrived, found Ericson not so much worse

as he had expected, comforted Robert, and told him he must go to bed.

'But I cannot leave Mr. Ericson,' said Robert.

'Let your friend--what's his odd name?--watch him during the day.'

'Shargar, you mean, sir. But that's his nickname. His rale name they say

his mither says, is George Moray--wi' an o an' no a u-r.--Do you see,

sir?' concluded Robert significantly.

'No, I don't,' answered the doctor.

'They say he's a son o' the auld Markis's, that's it. His mither's a

randy wife 'at gangs aboot the country--a gipsy they say. There's nae

doobt aboot her. An' by a' accoonts the father's likly eneuch.'

'And how on earth did you come to have such a questionable companion?'

'Shargar's as fine a crater as ever God made,' said Robert warmly.

'Ye'll alloo 'at God made him, doctor; though his father an' mither

thochtna muckle aboot him or God either whan they got him atween them?

An' Shargar couldna help it. It micht ha' been you or me for that

maitter, doctor.'

'I beg your pardon, Robert,' said Dr. Anderson quietly, although

delighted with the fervour of his young kinsman: 'I only wanted to know

how he came to be your companion.'

'I beg your pardon, doctor--but I thoucht ye was some scunnert at

it; an' I canna bide Shargar to be luikit doon upo'. Luik here,' he

continued, going to his box, and bringing out Shargar's little heap of

coppers, in which two sixpences obscurely shone, 'he brocht a' that hame

last nicht, an' syne sleepit upo' the rug i' my room there. We'll want

a' 'at he can mak an' me too afore we get Mr. Ericson up again.'

'But ye haena tellt me yet,' said the doctor, so pleased with the lad

that he relapsed into the dialect of his youth, 'hoo ye cam to forgather

wi' 'im.'

'I tellt ye a' aboot it, doctor. It was a' my grannie's doin', God bless

her--for weel he may, an' muckle she needs 't.'

'Oh! yes; I remember now all your grandmother's part in the story,'

returned the doctor. 'But I still want to know how he came here.'

'She was gaein' to mak a taylor o' 'm: an' he jist ran awa', an' cam to

me.'

'It was too bad of him that--after all she had done for him.'

'Ow, 'deed no, doctor. Even whan ye boucht a man an' paid for

him, accordin' to the Jewish law, ye cudna mak a slave o' 'im for

a'thegither, ohn him seekin' 't himsel'.--Eh! gin she could only get my

father hame!' sighed Robert, after a pause.

'What should she want him home for?' asked Dr. Anderson, still making

conversation.

'I didna mean hame to Rothieden. I believe she cud bide never seein' 'im

again, gin only he wasna i' the ill place. She has awfu' notions aboot

burnin' ill sowls for ever an' ever. But it's no hersel'. It's the wyte

o' the ministers. Doctor, I do believe she wad gang an' be brunt hersel'

wi' a great thanksgivin', gin it wad lat ony puir crater oot o' 't--no

to say my father. An' I sair misdoobt gin mony o' them 'at pat it in her

heid wad do as muckle. I'm some feared they're like Paul afore he was

convertit: he wadna lift a stane himsel', but he likit weel to stan' oot

by an' luik on.'

A deep sigh, almost a groan, from the bed, reminded them that they were

talking too much and too loud for a sick-room. It was followed by the

words, muttered, but articulate,

'What's the good when you don't know whether there's a God at all?'

''Deed, that's verra true, Mr. Ericson,' returned Robert. 'I wish ye wad

fin' oot an' tell me. I wad be blithe to hear what ye had to say anent

it--gin it was ay, ye ken.'

Ericson went on murmuring, but inarticulately now.

'This won't do at all, Robert, my boy,' said Dr. Anderson. 'You must not

talk about such things with him, or indeed about anything. You must keep

him as quiet as ever you can.'

'I thocht he was comin' till himsel',' returned Robert. 'But I will tak

care, I assure ye, doctor. Only I'm feared I may fa' asleep the nicht,

for I was dooms sleepy this mornin'.'

'I will send Johnston as soon as I get home, and you must go to bed when

he comes.'

''Deed, doctor, that winna do at a'. It wad be ower mony strange faces

a'thegither. We'll get Mistress Fyvie to luik till 'im the day, an'

Shargar canna work the morn, bein' Sunday. An' I'll gang to my bed for

fear o' doin' waur, though I doobt I winna sleep i' the daylicht.'

Dr. Anderson was satisfied, and went home--cogitating much. This boy,

this cousin of his, made a vortex of good about him into which whoever

came near it was drawn. He seemed at the same time quite unaware of

anything worthy in his conduct. The good he did sprung from some inward

necessity, with just enough in it of the salt of choice to keep it from

losing its savour. To these cogitations of Dr. Anderson, I add that

there was no conscious exercise of religion in it--for there his mind

was all at sea. Of course I believe notwithstanding that religion had

much, I ought to say everything, to do with it. Robert had not yet found

in God a reason for being true to his fellows; but, if God was leading

him to be the man he became, how could any good results of this leading

be other than religion? All good is of God. Robert began where he could.

The first table was too high for him; he began with the second. If a

man love his brother whom he hath seen, the love of God whom he hath

not seen, is not very far off. These results in Robert were the first

outcome of divine facts and influences--they were the buds of the fruit

hereafter to be gathered in perfect devotion. God be praised by those

who know religion to be the truth of humanity--its own truth that sets

it free--not binds, and lops, and mutilates it! who see God to be

the father of every human soul--the ideal Father, not an inventor of

schemes, or the upholder of a court etiquette for whose use he has

chosen to desecrate the name of justice!

To return to Dr. Anderson. I have had little opportunity of knowing his

history in India. He returned from it half-way down the hill of life,

sad, gentle, kind, and rich. Whence his sadness came, we need not

inquire. Some woman out in that fervid land may have darkened his

story--darkened it wronglessly, it may be, with coldness, or only with

death. But to return home without wife to accompany him or child to

meet him,--to sit by his riches like a man over a fire of straws in a

Siberian frost; to know that old faces were gone and old hearts changed,

that the pattern of things in the heavens had melted away from the face

of the earth, that the chill evenings of autumn were settling down

into longer and longer nights, and that no hope lay any more beyond the

mountains--surely this was enough to make a gentle-minded man sad, even

if the individual sorrows of his history had gathered into gold and

purple in the west. I say west advisedly. For we are journeying, like

our globe, ever towards the east. Death and the west are behind us--ever

behind us, and settling into the unchangeable.

It was natural that he should be interested in the fine promise of

Robert, in whom he saw revived the hopes of his own youth, but in a

nature at once more robust and more ideal. Where the doctor was refined,

Robert was strong; where the doctor was firm with a firmness he had

cultivated, Robert was imperious with an imperiousness time would

mellow; where the doctor was generous and careful at once, Robert

gave his mite and forgot it. He was rugged in the simplicity of his

truthfulness, and his speech bewrayed him as altogether of the people;

but the doctor knew the hole of the pit whence he had been himself

digged. All that would fall away as the spiky shell from the polished

chestnut, and be reabsorbed in the growth of the grand cone-flowering

tree, to stand up in the sun and wind of the years a very altar of

incense. It is no wonder, I repeat, that he loved the boy, and longed to

further his plans. But he was too wise to overwhelm him with a cataract

of fortune instead of blessing him with the merciful dew of progress.

'The fellow will bring me in for no end of expense,' he said, smiling to

himself, as he drove home in his chariot. 'The less he means it the more

unconscionable he will be. There's that Ericson--but that isn't

worth thinking of. I must do something for that queer protégé of his,

though--that Shargar. The fellow is as good as a dog, and that's saying

not a little for him. I wonder if he can learn--or if he takes after his

father the marquis, who never could spell. Well, it is a comfort to have

something to do worth doing. I did think of endowing a hospital; but I'm

not sure that it isn't better to endow a good man than a hospital. I'll

think about it. I won't say anything about Shargar either, till I see

how he goes on. I might give him a job, though, now and then. But where

to fall in with him--prowling about after jobs?'

He threw himself back in his seat, and laughed with a delight he had

rarely felt. He was a providence watching over the boys, who expected

nothing of him beyond advice for Ericson! Might there not be a

Providence that equally transcended the vision of men, shaping to nobler

ends the blocked-out designs of their rough-hewn marbles?

His thoughts wandered back to his friend the Brahmin, who died longing

for that absorption into deity which had been the dream of his life:

might not the Brahmin find the grand idea shaped to yet finer issues

than his aspiration had dared contemplate?--might he not inherit in

the purification of his will such an absorption as should intensify his

personality?