Tumultuous rushing o'er the outstretched plains;

A wildered maze of comets and of suns;

The blood of changeless God that ever runs

With quick diastole up the immortal veins;

A phantom host that moves and works in chains;

A monstrous fiction which, collapsing, stuns

The mind to stupor and amaze at once;

A tragedy which that man best explains

Who rushes blindly on his wild career

With trampling hoofs and sound of mailed war,

Who will not nurse a life to win a tear,

But is extinguished like a falling star:--

Such will at times this life appear to me,

Until I learn to read more perfectly.

HOM. IL. v. 403.

If thou art tempted by a thought of ill,

Crave not too soon for victory, nor deem

Thou art a coward if thy safety seem

To spring too little from a righteous will:

For there is nightmare on thee, nor until

Thy soul hath caught the morning's early gleam

Seek thou to analyze the monstrous dream

By painful introversion; rather fill

Thine eye with forms thou knowest to be truth:

But see thou cherish higher hope than this;

A hope hereafter that thou shalt be fit

Calm-eyed to face distortion, and to sit

Transparent among other forms of youth

Who own no impulse save to God and bliss.

And must I ever wake, gray dawn, to know

Thee standing sadly by me like a ghost?

I am perplexed with thee, that thou shouldst cost

This Earth another turning: all aglow

Thou shouldst have reached me, with a purple show

Along far-mountain tops: and I would post

Over the breadth of seas though I were lost

In the hot phantom-chase for life, if so

Thou camest ever with this numbing sense

Of chilly distance and unlovely light;

Waking this gnawing soul anew to fight

With its perpetual load: I drive thee hence--

I have another mountain-range from whence

Bursteh a sun unutterably bright.

GALILEO.

'And yet it moves!' Ah, Truth, where wert thou then,

When all for thee they racked each piteous limb?

Wert though in Heaven, and busy with thy hymn,

When those poor hands convulsed that held thy pen?

Art thou a phantom that deceivest men

To their undoing? or dost thou watch him

Pale, cold, and silent in his dungeon dim?

And wilt thou ever speak to him again?

'It moves, it moves! Alas, my flesh was weak;

That was a hideous dream! I'll cry aloud

How the green bulk wheels sunward day by day!

Ah me! ah me! perchance my heart was proud

That I alone should know that word to speak;

And now, sweet Truth, shine upon these, I pray.'

If thou wouldst live the Truth in very deed,

Thou hast thy joy, but thou hast more of pain.

Others will live in peace, and thou be fain

To bargain with despair, and in thy need

To make thy meal upon the scantiest weed.

These palaces, for thee they stand in vain;

Thine is a ruinous hut; and oft the rain

Shall drench thee in the midnight; yea the speed

Of earth outstrip thee pilgrim, while thy feet

Move slowly up the heights. Yet will there come

Through the time-rents about thy moving cell,

An arrow for despair, and oft the hum

Of far-off populous realms where spirits dwell.

TO * * * *

Speak, Prophet of the Lord! We may not start

To find thee with us in thine ancient dress,

Haggard and pale from some bleak wilderness,

Empty of all save God and thy loud heart:

Nor with like rugged message quick to dart

Into the hideous fiction mean and base:

But yet, O prophet man, we need not less,

But more of earnest; though it is thy part

To deal in other words, if thou wouldst smite

The living Mammon, seated, not as then

In bestial quiescence grimly dight,

But thrice as much an idol-god as when

He stared at his own feet from morn to night. [8]

THE WATCHER.

From out a windy cleft there comes a gaze

Of eyes unearthly which go to and fro

Upon the people's tumult, for below

The nations smite each other: no amaze

Troubles their liquid rolling, or affrays

Their deep-set contemplation: steadily glow

Those ever holier eye-balls, for they grow

Liker unto the eyes of one that prays.

And if those clasped hands tremble, comes a power

As of the might of worlds, and they are holden

Blessing above us in the sunrise golden;

And they will be uplifted till that hour

Of terrible rolling which shall rise and shake

This conscious nightmare from us and we wake.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE.

I

One do I see and twelve; but second there

Methinks I know thee, thou beloved one;

Not from thy nobler port, for there are none

More quiet-featured; some there are who bear

Their message on their brows, while others wear

A look of large commission, nor will shun

The fiery trial, so their work is done:

But thou hast parted with thine eyes in prayer--

Unearthly are they both; and so thy lips

Seem like the porches of the spirit land;

For thou hast laid a mighty treasure by,

Unlocked by Him in Nature, and thine eye

Burns with a vision and apocalypse

Thy own sweet soul can hardly understand.

II

A Boanerges too! Upon my heart

It lay a heavy hour: features like thine

Should glow with other message than the shine

Of the earth-burrowing levin, and the start

That cleaveth horrid gulfs. Awful and swart

A moment stoodest thou, but less divine--

Brawny and clad in ruin!--till with mine

Thy heart made answering signals, and apart

Beamed forth thy two rapt eye-balls doubly clear,

And twice as strong because thou didst thy duty,

And though affianced to immortal Beauty,

Hiddest not weakly underneath her veil

The pest of Sin and Death which maketh pale:

Henceforward be thy spirit doubly dear. [9]

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.

There is not any weed but hath its shower,

There is not any pool but hath its star;

And black and muddy though the waters are,

We may not miss the glory of a flower,

And winter moons will give them magic power

To spin in cylinders of diamond spar;

And everything hath beauty near and far,

And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour.

And I when I encounter on my road

A human soul that looketh black and grim,

Shall I more ceremonious be than God?

Shall I refuse to watch one hour with him

Who once beside our deepest woe did bud

A patient watching flower about the brim.

'Tis not the violent hands alone that bring

The curse, the ravage, and the downward doom

Although to these full oft the yawning tomb

Owes deadly surfeit; but a keener sting,

A more immortal agony, will cling

To the half-fashioned sin which would assume

Fair Virtue's garb. The eye that sows the gloom

With quiet seeds of Death henceforth to spring

What time the sun of passion burning fierce

Breaks through the kindly cloud of circumstance;

The bitter word, and the unkindly glance,

The crust and canker coming with the years,

Are liker Death than arrows, and the lance

Which through the living heart at once doth pierce.

SPOKEN OF SEVERAL PHILOSOPHERS.

I pray you, all ye men, who put your trust

In moulds and systems and well-tackled gear,

Holding that Nature lives from year to year

In one continual round because she must--

Set me not down, I pray you, in the dust

Of all these centuries, like a pot of beer,

A pewter-pot disconsolately clear,

Which holds a potful, as is right and just.

I will grow clamorous--by the rood, I will,

If thus ye use me like a pewter pot.

Good friend, thou art a toper and a sot--

I will not be the lead to hold thy swill,

Nor any lead: I will arise and spill

Thy silly beverage, spill it piping hot.

Nature, to him no message dost thou bear,

Who in thy beauty findeth not the power

To gird himself more strongly for the hour

Of night and darkness. Oh, what colours rare

The woods, the valleys, and the mountains wear

To him who knows thy secret, and in shower

And fog, and ice-cloud, hath a secret bower

Where he may rest until the heavens are fair!

Not with the rest of slumber, but the trance

Of onward movement steady and serene,

Where oft in struggle and in contest keen

His eyes will opened be, and all the dance

Of life break on him, and a wide expanse

Roll upward through the void, sunny and green.

TO JUNE.

Ah, truant, thou art here again, I see!

For in a season of such wretched weather

I thought that thou hadst left us altogether,

Although I could not choose but fancy thee

Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee

Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather

Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether

Thou shouldst be seen in such a company

Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps

Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint

Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps.

But yet I may not, chide: fall to thy books,

Fall to immediately without complaint--

There they are lying, hills and vales and brooks.

WRITTEN ABOUT THE LONGEST DAY.

Summer, sweet Summer, many-fingered Summer!

We hold thee very dear, as well we may:

It is the kernel of the year to-day--

All hail to thee! Thou art a welcome corner!

If every insect were a fairy drummer,

And I a fifer that could deftly play,

We'd give the old Earth such a roundelay

That she would cast all thought of labour from her

Ah! what is this upon my window-pane?

Some sulky drooping cloud comes pouting up,

Stamping its glittering feet along the plain!

Well, I will let that idle fancy drop.

Oh, how the spouts are bubbling with the rain!

And all the earth shines like a silver cup!

ON A MIDGE.

Whence do ye come, ye creature? Each of you

Is perfect as an angel; wings and eyes

Stupendous in their beauty--gorgeous dyes

In feathery fields of purple and of blue!

Would God I saw a moment as ye do!

I would become a molecule in size,

Rest with you, hum with you, or slanting rise

Along your one dear sunbeam, could I view

The pearly secret which each tiny fly,

Each tiny fly that hums and bobs and stirs,

Hides in its little breast eternally

From you, ye prickly grim philosophers,

With all your theories that sound so high:

Hark to the buzz a moment, my good sirs!

ON A WATERFALL.

Here stands a giant stone from whose far top

Comes down the sounding water. Let me gaze

Till every sense of man and human ways

Is wrecked and quenched for ever, and I drop

Into the whirl of time, and without stop

Pass downward thus! Again my eyes I raise

To thee, dark rock; and through the mist and haze

My strength returns when I behold thy prop

Gleam stern and steady through the wavering wrack

Surely thy strength is human, and like me

Thou bearest loads of thunder on thy back!

And, lo, a smile upon thy visage black--

A breezy tuft of grass which I can see

Waving serenely from a sunlit crack!

Above my head the great pine-branches tower

Backwards and forwards each to the other bends,

Beckoning the tempest-cloud which hither wends

Like a slow-laboured thought, heavy with power;

Hark to the patter of the coming shower!

Let me be silent while the Almighty sends

His thunder-word along; but when it ends

I will arise and fashion from the hour

Words of stupendous import, fit to guard

High thoughts and purposes, which I may wave,

When the temptation cometh close and hard,

Like fiery brands betwixt me and the grave

Of meaner things--to which I am a slave

If evermore I keep not watch and ward.

I do remember how when very young,

I saw the great sea first, and heard its swell

As I drew nearer, caught within the spell

Of its vast size and its mysterious tongue.

How the floor trembled, and the dark boat swung

With a man in it, and a great wave fell

Within a stone's cast! Words may never tell

The passion of the moment, when I flung

All childish records by, and felt arise

A thing that died no more! An awful power

I claimed with trembling hands and eager eyes,

Mine, mine for ever, an immortal dower.--

The noise of waters soundeth to this hour,

When I look seaward through the quiet skies.

ON THE SOURCE OF THE ARVE.

Hear'st thou the dash of water loud and hoarse

With its perpetual tidings upward climb,

Struggling against the wind? Oh, how sublime!

For not in vain from its portentous source,

Thy heart, wild stream, hath yearned for its full force,

But from thine ice-toothed caverns dark as time

At last thou issuest, dancing to the rhyme

Of thy outvolleying freedom! Lo, thy course

Lies straight before thee as the arrow flies,

Right to the ocean-plains. Away, away!

Thy parent waits thee, and her sunset dyes

Are ruffled for thy coming, and the gray

Of all her glittering borders flashes high

Against the glittering rocks: oh, haste, and fly!

PART III.--HIS MANHOOD.

CHAPTER I. IN THE DESERT.

A life lay behind Robert Falconer, and a life lay before him. He stood

on a shoal between.

The life behind him was in its grave. He had covered it over and turned

away. But he knew it would rise at night.

The life before him was not yet born; and what should issue from that

dull ghastly unrevealing fog on the horizon, he did not care. Thither

the tide setting eastward would carry him, and his future must be born.

All he cared about was to leave the empty garments of his dead behind

him--the sky and the fields, the houses and the gardens which those dead

had made alive with their presence. Travel, motion, ever on, ever away,

was the sole impulse in his heart. Nor had the thought of finding his

father any share in his restlessness.

He told his grandmother that he was going back to Aberdeen. She looked

in his face with surprise, but seeing trouble there, asked no questions.

As if walking in a dream, he found himself at Dr. Anderson's door.

'Why, Robert,' said the good man, 'what has brought you back? Ah! I see.

Poor Ericson! I am very sorry, my boy. What can I do for you?'

'I can't go on with my studies now, sir,' answered Robert. 'I have taken

a great longing for travel. Will you give me a little money and let me

go?'

'To be sure I will. Where do you want to go?'

'I don't know. Perhaps as I go I shall find myself wanting to go

somewhere. You're not afraid to trust me, are you, sir?'

'Not in the least, Robert. I trust you perfectly. You shall do just as

you please.--Have you any idea, how much money you will want?'

'No. Give me what you are willing I should spend: I will go by that.'

'Come along to the bank then. I will give you enough to start with.

Write at once when you want more. Don't be too saving. Enjoy yourself as

well as you can. I shall not grudge it.'

Robert smiled a wan smile at the idea of enjoying himself. His friend

saw it, but let it pass. There was no good in persuading a man whose

grief was all he had left, that he must ere long part with that too.

That would have been in lowest deeps of sorrow to open a yet lower deep

of horror. But Robert would have refused, and would have been right in

refusing to believe with regard to himself what might be true in regard

to most men. He might rise above his grief; he might learn to contain

his grief; but lose it, forget it?--never.

He went to bid Shargar farewell. As soon as he had a glimpse of what his

friend meant, he burst out in an agony of supplication.

'Tak me wi' ye, Robert,' he cried. 'Ye're a gentleman noo. I'll be

yer man. I'll put on a livery coat, an' gang wi' ye. I'll awa' to Dr.

Anderson. He's sure to lat me gang.'

'No, Shargar,' said Robert, 'I can't have you with me. I've come into

trouble, Shargar, and I must fight it out alone.'

'Ay, ay; I ken. Puir Mr. Ericson!'

'There's nothing the matter with Mr. Ericson. Don't ask me any

questions. I've said more to you now than I've said to anybody besides.'

'That is guid o' you, Robert. But am I never to see ye again?'

'I don't know. Perhaps we may meet some day.'

'Perhaps is nae muckle to say, Robert,' protested Shargar.

'It's more than can be said about everything, Shargar,' returned Robert,

sadly.

'Weel, I maun jist tak it as 't comes,' said Shargar, with a despairing

philosophy derived from the days when his mother thrashed him. 'But, eh!

Robert, gin it had only pleased the Almichty to sen' me into the warl'

in a some respectable kin' o' a fashion!'

'Wi' a chance a' gaein' aboot the country like that curst villain yer

brither, I suppose?' retorted Robert, rousing himself for a moment.

'Na, na,' responded Shargar. 'I'll stick to my ain mither. She never

learned me sic tricks.'

'Do ye that. Ye canna compleen o' God. It's a' richt as far 's ye're

concerned. Gin he dinna something o' ye yet, it'll be your wyte, no his,

I'm thinkin'.'

They walked to Dr. Anderson's together, and spent the night there. In

the morning Robert got on the coach for Edinburgh.

I cannot, if I would, follow him on his travels. Only at times, when

the conversation rose in the dead of night, by some Jacob's ladder of

blessed ascent, into regions where the heart of such a man could open

as in its own natural clime, would a few words cause the clouds that

enveloped this period of his history to dispart, and grant me a peep

into the phantasm of his past. I suspect, however, that much of it

left upon his mind no recallable impressions. I suspect that much of

it looked to himself in the retrospect like a painful dream, with only

certain objects and occurrences standing prominent enough to clear the

moonlight mist enwrapping the rest.

What the precise nature of his misery was I shall not even attempt to

conjecture. That would be to intrude within the holy place of a human

heart. One thing alone I will venture to affirm--that bitterness against

either of his friends, whose spirits rushed together and left his

outside, had no place in that noble nature. His fate lay behind him,

like the birth of Shargar, like the death of Ericson, a decree.

I do not even know in what direction he first went. That he had seen

many cities and many countries was apparent from glimpses of ancient

streets, of mountain-marvels, of strange constellations, of things in

heaven and earth which no one could have seen but himself, called up by

the magic of his words. A silent man in company, he talked much when

his hour of speech arrived. Seldom, however, did he narrate any incident

save in connection with some truth of human nature, or fact of the

universe.

I do know that the first thing he always did on reaching any new place

was to visit the church with the loftiest spire; but he never looked

into the church itself until he had left the earth behind him as far as

that church would afford him the possibility of ascent. Breathing the

air of its highest region, he found himself vaguely strengthened, yes

comforted. One peculiar feeling he had, into which I could enter only

upon happy occasion, of the presence of God in the wind. He said the

wind up there on the heights of human aspiration always made him long

and pray. Asking him one day something about his going to church so

seldom, he answered thus:

'My dear boy, it does me ten times more good to get outside the spire

than to go inside the church. The spire is the most essential, and

consequently the most neglected part of the building. It symbolizes the

aspiration without which no man's faith can hold its own. But the effort

of too many of her priests goes to conceal from the worshippers the

fact that there is such a stair, with a door to it out of the church. It

looks as if they feared their people would desert them for heaven. But

I presume it arises generally from the fact that they know of such an

ascent themselves, only by hearsay. The knowledge of God is good, but

the church is better!'

'Could it be,' I ventured to suggest, 'that, in order to ascend, they

must put off the priests' garments?'

'Good, my boy!' he answered. 'All are priests up there, and must be

clothed in fine linen, clean and white--the righteousness of saints--not

the imputed righteousness of another,--that is a lying doctrine--but

their own righteousness which God has wrought in them by Christ.' I

never knew a man in whom the inward was so constantly clothed upon by

the outward, whose ordinary habits were so symbolic of his spiritual

tastes, or whose enjoyment of the sight of his eyes and the hearing of

his ears was so much informed by his highest feelings. He regarded all

human affairs from the heights of religion, as from their church-spires

he looked down on the red roofs of Antwerp, on the black roofs of

Cologne, on the gray roofs of Strasburg, or on the brown roofs of

Basel--uplifted for the time above them, not in dissociation from them.

On the base of the missing twin-spire at Strasburg, high over the roof

of the church, stands a little cottage--how strange its white muslin

window-curtains look up there! To the day of his death he cherished the

fancy of writing a book in that cottage, with the grand city to which

London looks a modern mushroom, its thousand roofs with row upon row of

windows in them--often five garret stories, one above the other, and its

thickets of multiform chimneys, the thrones and procreant cradles of the

storks, marvellous in history, habit, and dignity--all below him.

He was taken ill at Valence and lay there for a fortnight, oppressed

with some kind of low fever. One night he awoke from a refreshing sleep,

but could not sleep again. It seemed to him afterwards as if he had lain

waiting for something. Anyhow something came. As it were a faint musical

rain had invaded his hearing; but the night was clear, for the moon was

shining on his window-blind. The sound came nearer, and revealed itself

a delicate tinkling of bells. It drew nearer still and nearer, growing

in sweet fulness as it came, till at length a slow torrent of tinklings

went past his window in the street below. It was the flow of a thousand

little currents of sound, a gliding of silvery threads, like the talking

of water-ripples against the side of a barge in a slow canal--all as

soft as the moonlight, as exquisite as an odour, each sound tenderly

truncated and dull. A great multitude of sheep was shifting its quarters

in the night, whence and whither and why he never knew. To his heart

they were the messengers of the Most High. For into that heart, soothed

and attuned by their thin harmony, not on the wind that floated without

breaking their lovely message, but on the ripples of the wind that

bloweth where it listeth, came the words, unlooked for, their coming

unheralded by any mental premonition, 'My peace I give unto you.' The

sounds died slowly away in the distance, fainting out of the air, even

as they had grown upon it, but the words remained.

In a few moments he was fast asleep, comforted by pleasure into repose;

his dreams were of gentle self-consoling griefs; and when he awoke in

the morning--'My peace I give unto you,' was the first thought of which

he was conscious. It may be that the sound of the sheep-bells made him

think of the shepherds that watched their flocks by night, and they

of the multitude of the heavenly host, and they of the song--'On earth

peace': I do not know. The important point is not how the words came,

but that the words remained--remained until he understood them, and they

became to him spirit and life.

He soon recovered strength sufficiently to set out again upon his

travels, great part of which he performed on foot. In this way he

reached Avignon. Passing from one of its narrow streets into an open

place in the midst, all at once he beheld, towering above him, on a

height that overlooked the whole city and surrounding country, a great

crucifix. The form of the Lord of Life still hung in the face of heaven

and earth. He bowed his head involuntarily. No matter that when he drew

nearer the power of it vanished. The memory of it remained with its

first impression, and it had a share in what followed.

He made his way eastward towards the Alps. As he walked one day about

noon over a desolate heath-covered height, reminding him not a little of

the country of his childhood, the silence seized upon him. In the midst

of the silence arose the crucifix, and once more the words which had

often returned upon him sounded in the ears of the inner hearing, 'My

peace I give unto you.' They were words he had known from the earliest

memorial time. He had heard them in infancy, in childhood, in boyhood,

in youth: now first in manhood it flashed upon him that the Lord did

really mean that the peace of his soul should be the peace of their

souls; that the peace wherewith his own soul was quiet, the peace at the

very heart of the universe, was henceforth theirs--open to them, to all

the world, to enter and be still. He fell upon his knees, bowed down in

the birth of a great hope, held up his hands towards heaven, and cried,

'Lord Christ, give me thy peace.'

He said no more, but rose, caught up his stick, and strode forward,

thinking.

He had learned what the sentence meant; what that was of which it spoke

he had not yet learned. The peace he had once sought, the peace that lay

in the smiles and tenderness of a woman, had 'overcome him like a summer

cloud,' and had passed away. There was surely a deeper, a wider,

a grander peace for him than that, if indeed it was the same peace

wherewith the king of men regarded his approaching end, that he had left

as a heritage to his brothers. Suddenly he was aware that the earth had

begun to live again. The hum of insects arose from the heath around him;

the odour of its flowers entered his dulled sense; the wind kissed him

on the forehead; the sky domed up over his head; and the clouds veiled

the distant mountain tops like the smoke of incense ascending from the

altars of the worshipping earth. All Nature began to minister to one who

had begun to lift his head from the baptism of fire. He had thought that

Nature could never more be anything to him; and she was waiting on

him like a mother. The next moment he was offended with himself for

receiving ministrations the reaction of whose loveliness might no longer

gather around the form of Mary St. John. Every wavelet of scent,

every toss of a flower's head in the breeze, came with a sting in its

pleasure--for there was no woman to whom they belonged. Yet he could not

shut them out, for God and not woman is the heart of the universe.

Would the day ever come when the loveliness of Mary St. John, felt

and acknowledged as never before, would be even to him a joy and a

thanksgiving? If ever, then because God is the heart of all.

I do not think this mood, wherein all forms of beauty sped to his soul

as to their own needful centre, could have lasted over many miles of his

journey. But such delicate inward revelations are none the less

precious that they are evanescent. Many feelings are simply too good

to last--using the phrase not in the unbelieving sense in which it is

generally used, expressing the conviction that God is a hard father,

fond of disappointing his children, but to express the fact that

intensity and endurance cannot yet coexist in the human economy. But the

virtue of a mood depends by no means on its immediate presence. Like

any other experience, it may be believed in, and, in the absence which

leaves the mind free to contemplate it, work even more good than in its

presence.

At length he came in sight of the Alpine regions. Far off, the heads of

the great mountains rose into the upper countries of cloud, where

the snows settled on their stony heads, and the torrents ran out from

beneath the frozen mass to gladden the earth below with the faith of

the lonely hills. The mighty creatures lay like grotesque animals of

a far-off titanic time, whose dead bodies had been first withered into

stone, then worn away by the storms, and covered with shrouds and palls

of snow, till the outlines of their forms were gone, and only rough

shapes remained like those just blocked out in the sculptor's marble,

vaguely suggesting what the creatures had been, as the corpse under the

sheet of death is like a man. He came amongst the valleys at their feet,

with their blue-green waters hurrying seawards--from stony heights of

air into the mass of 'the restless wavy plain'; with their sides of rock

rising in gigantic terrace after terrace up to the heavens; with their

scaling pines, erect and slight, cone-head aspiring above cone-head,

ambitious to clothe the bare mass with green, till failing at length

in their upward efforts, the savage rock shot away and beyond and above

them, the white and blue glaciers clinging cold and cruel to their

ragged sides, and the dead blank of whiteness covering their final

despair. He drew near to the lower glaciers, to find their awful abysses

tremulous with liquid blue, a blue tender and profound as if fed from

the reservoir of some hidden sky intenser than ours; he rejoiced over

the velvety fields dotted with the toy-like houses of the mountaineers;

he sat for hours listening by the side of their streams; he grew weary,

felt oppressed, longed for a wider outlook, and began to climb towards

a mountain village of which he had heard from a traveller, to find

solitude and freedom in an air as lofty as if he climbed twelve of his

beloved cathedral spires piled up in continuous ascent.

After ascending for hours in zigzags through pine woods, where the only

sound was of the little streams trotting down to the valley below, or

the distant hush of some thin waterfall, he reached a level, and

came out of the woods. The path now led along the edge of a precipice

descending sheer to the uppermost terrace of the valley he had left. The

valley was but a cleft in the mass of the mountain: a little way over

sank its other wall, steep as a plumb-line could have made it, of solid

rock. On his right lay green fields of clover and strange grasses. Ever

and anon from the cleft steamed up great blinding clouds of mist, which

now wandered about over the nations of rocks on the mountain side beyond

the gulf, now wrapt himself in their bewildering folds. In one moment

the whole creation had vanished, and there seemed scarce existence

enough left for more than the following footstep; the next, a mighty

mountain stood in front, crowned with blinding snow, an awful fact; the

lovely heavens were over his head, and the green sod under his feet; the

grasshoppers chirped about him, and the gorgeous butterflies flew. From

regions far beyond came the bells of the kine and the goats. He reached

a little inn, and there took up his quarters.

I am able to be a little minute in my description, because I have since

visited the place myself. Great heights rise around it on all sides. It

stands as between heaven and hell, suspended between peaks and gulfs.

The wind must roar awfully there in the winter; but the mountains stand

away with their avalanches, and all the summer long keep the cold off

the grassy fields.

The same evening, he was already weary. The next morning it rained. It

rained fiercely all day. He would leave the place on the morrow. In the

evening it began to clear up. He walked out. The sun was setting. The

snow-peaks were faintly tinged with rose, and the ragged masses of

vapour that hung lazy and leaden-coloured about the sides of the abyss,

were partially dyed a sulky orange red. Then all faded into gray. But

as the sunlight vanished, a veil sank from the face of the moon, already

half-way to the zenith, and she gathered courage and shone, till the

mountain looked lovely as a ghost in the gleam of its snow and the

glimmer of its glaciers. 'Ah!' thought Falconer, 'such a peace at last

is all a man can look for--the repose of a spectral Elysium, a world

where passion has died away, and only the dim ghost of its memory to

disturb with a shadowy sorrow the helpless content of its undreaming

years. The religion that can do but this much is not a very great or

very divine thing. The human heart cannot invent a better it may be, but

it can imagine grander results.'

He did not yet know what the religion was of which he spoke. As well

might a man born stone-deaf estimate the power of sweet sounds, or

he who knows not a square from a circle pronounce upon the study of

mathematics.

The next morning rose brilliant--an ideal summer day. He would not go

yet; he would spend one day more in the place. He opened his valise to

get some lighter garments. His eye fell on a New Testament. Dr. Anderson

had put it there. He had never opened it yet, and now he let it lie. Its

time had not yet come. He went out.

Walking up the edge of the valley, he came upon a little stream whose

talk he had heard for some hundred yards. It flowed through a grassy

hollow, with steeply sloping sides. Water is the same all the world

over; but there was more than water here to bring his childhood back

to Falconer. For at the spot where the path led him down to the burn, a

little crag stood out from the bank,--a gray stone like many he knew on

the stream that watered the valley of Rothieden: on the top of the stone

grew a little heather; and beside it, bending towards the water, was a

silver birch. He sat down on the foot of the rock, shut in by the high

grassy banks from the gaze of the awful mountains. The sole unrest was

the run of the water beside him, and it sounded so homely, that he

began to jabber Scotch to it. He forgot that this stream was born in the

clouds, far up where that peak rose into the air behind him; he did

not know that a couple of hundred yards from where he sat, it tumbled

headlong into the valley below: with his country's birch-tree beside

him, and the rock crowned with its tuft of heather over his head, the

quiet as of a Sabbath afternoon fell upon him--that quiet which is the

one altogether lovely thing in the Scotch Sabbath--and once more the

words arose in his mind, 'My peace I give unto you.'

Now he fell a-thinking what this peace could be. And it came into his

mind as he thought, that Jesus had spoken in another place about giving

rest to those that came to him, while here he spoke about 'my peace.'

Could this my mean a certain kind of peace that the Lord himself

possessed? Perhaps it was in virtue of that peace, whatever it was, that

he was the Prince of Peace. Whatever peace he had must be the highest

and best peace--therefore the one peace for a man to seek, if indeed, as

the words of the Lord seemed to imply, a man was capable of possessing

it. He remembered the New Testament in his box, and, resolving to try

whether he could not make something more out of it, went back to the inn

quieter in heart than since he left his home. In the evening he returned

to the brook, and fell to searching the story, seeking after the peace

of Jesus.

He found that the whole passage stood thus:--

'Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world

giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it

be afraid.'

He did not leave the place for six weeks. Every day he went to the burn,

as he called it, with his New Testament; every day tried yet again to

make out something more of what the Saviour meant. By the end of the

month it had dawned upon him, he hardly knew how, that the peace of

Jesus (although, of course, he could not know what it was like till he

had it) must have been a peace that came from the doing of the will of

his Father. From the account he gave of the discoveries he then made, I

venture to represent them in the driest and most exact form that I can

find they will admit of. When I use the word discoveries, I need hardly

say that I use it with reference to Falconer and his previous knowledge.

They were these:--that Jesus taught--

First,--That a man's business is to do the will of God:

Second,--That God takes upon himself the care of the man:

Third,--Therefore, that a man must never be afraid of anything; and so,

Fourth,--be left free to love God with all his heart, and his neighbour

as himself.

But one day, his thoughts having cleared themselves a little upon these

points, a new set of questions arose with sudden inundation--comprised

in these two:--

'How can I tell for certain that there ever was such a man? How am I to

be sure that such as he says is the mind of the maker of these glaciers

and butterflies?'

All this time he was in the wilderness as much as Moses at the back of

Horeb, or St. Paul when he vanishes in Arabia: and he did nothing

but read the four gospels and ponder over them. Therefore it is not

surprising that he should have already become so familiar with the

gospel story, that the moment these questions appeared, the following

words should dart to the forefront of his consciousness to meet them:--

'If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it

be of God, or whether I speak of myself.'

Here was a word of Jesus himself, announcing the one means of arriving

at a conviction of the truth or falsehood of all that he said, namely,

the doing of the will of God by the man who would arrive at such

conviction.

The next question naturally was: What is this will of God of which

Jesus speaks? Here he found himself in difficulty. The theology of

his grandmother rushed in upon him, threatening to overwhelm him with

demands as to feeling and inward action from which his soul turned

with sickness and fainting. That they were repulsive to him, that they

appeared unreal, and contradictory to the nature around him, was no

proof that they were not of God. But on the other hand, that they

demanded what seemed to him unjust,--that these demands were founded on

what seemed to him untruth attributed to God, on ways of thinking and

feeling which are certainly degrading in a man,--these were reasons of

the very highest nature for refusing to act upon them so long as, from

whatever defects it might be in himself, they bore to him this aspect.

He saw that while they appeared to be such, even though it might turn

out that he mistook them, to acknowledge them would be to wrong God. But

this conclusion left him in no better position for practice than before.

When at length he did see what the will of God was, he wondered, so

simple did it appear, that he had failed to discover it at once. Yet

not less than a fortnight had he been brooding and pondering over the

question, as he wandered up and down that burnside, or sat at the foot

of the heather-crowned stone and the silver-barked birch, when the light

began to dawn upon him. It was thus.

In trying to understand the words of Jesus by searching back, as it

were, for such thoughts and feelings in him as would account for the

words he spoke, the perception awoke that at least he could not have

meant by the will of God any such theological utterances as those which

troubled him. Next it grew plain that what he came to do, was just to

lead his life. That he should do the work, such as recorded, and much

besides, that the Father gave him to do--this was the will of God

concerning him. With this perception arose the conviction that unto

every man whom God had sent into the world, he had given a work to do in

that world. He had to lead the life God meant him to lead. The will of

God was to be found and done in the world. In seeking a true relation to

the world, would he find his relation to God?

The time for action was come.

He rose up from the stone of his meditation, took his staff in his hand,

and went down the mountain, not knowing whither he went. And these were

some of his thoughts as he went:

'If it was the will of God who made me and her, my will shall not be set

against his. I cannot be happy, but I will bow my head and let his waves

and his billows go over me. If there is such a God, he knows what a pain

I bear. His will be done. Jesus thought it well that his will should

be done to the death. Even if there be no God, it will be grand to be a

disciple of such a man, to do as he says, think as he thought--perhaps

come to feel as he felt.'

My reader may wonder that one so young should have been able to think so

practically--to the one point of action. But he was in earnest, and what

lay at the root of his character, at the root of all that he did, felt,

and became, was childlike simplicity and purity of nature. If the sins

of his father were mercifully visited upon him, so likewise were the

grace and loveliness of his mother. And between the two, Falconer had

fared well.

As he descended the mountain, the one question was--his calling. With

the faintest track to follow, with the clue of a spider's thread to

guide him, he would have known that his business was to set out at once

to find, and save his father. But never since the day when the hand

of that father smote him, and Mary St. John found him bleeding on the

floor, had he heard word or conjecture concerning him. If he were to set

out to find him now, it would be to search the earth for one who might

have vanished from it years ago. He might as well search the streets of

a great city for a lost jewel. When the time came for him to find his

father, if such an hour was written in the decrees of--I dare not say

Fate, for Falconer hated the word--if such was the will of God, some

sign would be given him--that is, some hint which he could follow with

action. As he thought and thought it became gradually plainer that he

must begin his obedience by getting ready for anything that God might

require of him. Therefore he must go on learning till the call came.

But he shivered at the thought of returning to Aberdeen. Might he not

continue his studies in Germany? Would that not be as good--possibly,

from the variety of the experience, better? But how was it to be

decided? By submitting the matter to the friend who made either

possible. Dr. Anderson had been to him as a father: he would be guided

by his pleasure.

He wrote, therefore, to Dr. Anderson, saying that he would return at

once if he wished it, but that he would greatly prefer going to a German

university for two years. The doctor replied that of course he would

rather have him at home, but that he was confident Robert knew best what

was best for himself; therefore he had only to settle where he thought

proper, and the next summer he would come and see him, for he was not

tied to Aberdeen any more than Robert.

CHAPTER II. HOME AGAIN.

Four years passed before Falconer returned to his native country, during

which period Dr. Anderson had visited him twice, and shown himself

well satisfied with his condition and pursuits. The doctor had likewise

visited Rothieden, and had comforted the heart of the grandmother with

regard to her Robert. From what he learned upon this visit, he had

arrived at a true conjecture, I believe, as to the cause of the great

change which had suddenly taken place in the youth. But he never asked

Robert a question leading in the direction of the grief which he saw the

healthy and earnest nature of the youth gradually assimilating into his

life. He had too much respect for sorrow to approach it with curiosity.

He had learned to put off his shoes when he drew nigh the burning bush

of human pain.

Robert had not settled at any of the universities, but had moved from

one to the other as he saw fit, report guiding him to the men who spoke

with authority. The time of doubt and anxious questioning was far

from over, but the time was long gone by--if in his case it had ever

been--when he could be like a wave of the sea, driven of the wind

and tossed. He had ever one anchor of the soul, and he found that it

held--the faith of Jesus (I say the faith of Jesus, not his own faith

in Jesus), the truth of Jesus, the life of Jesus. However his intellect

might be tossed on the waves of speculation and criticism, he found

that the word the Lord had spoken remained steadfast; for in doing

righteously, in loving mercy, in walking humbly, the conviction

increased that Jesus knew the very secret of human life. Now and then

some great vision gleamed across his soul of the working of all things

towards a far-off goal of simple obedience to a law of life, which God

knew, and which his son had justified through sorrow and pain. Again and

again the words of the Master gave him a peep into a region where all

was explicable, where all that was crooked might be made straight, where

every mountain of wrong might be made low, and every valley of suffering

exalted. Ever and again some one of the dark perplexities of humanity

began to glimmer with light in its inmost depth. Nor was he without

those moments of communion when the creature is lifted into the secret

place of the Creator.

Looking back to the time when it seemed that he cried and was not heard,

he saw that God had been hearing, had been answering, all the time; had

been making him capable of receiving the gift for which he prayed. He

saw that intellectual difficulty encompassing the highest operations of

harmonizing truth, can no more affect their reality than the dulness

of chaos disprove the motions of the wind of God over the face of its

waters. He saw that any true revelation must come out of the unknown in

God through the unknown in man. He saw that its truths must rise in the

man as powers of life, and that only as that life grows and unfolds can

the ever-lagging intellect gain glimpses of partial outlines fading away

into the infinite--that, indeed, only in material things and the laws

that belong to them, are outlines possible--even there, only in the

picture of them which the mind that analyzes them makes for itself, not

in the things themselves.

At the close of these four years, with his spirit calm and hopeful,

truth his passion, and music, which again he had resumed and diligently

cultivated, his pleasure, Falconer returned to Aberdeen. He was received

by Dr. Anderson as if he had in truth been his own son. In the

room stood a tall figure, with its back towards them, pocketing its

handkerchief. The next moment the figure turned, and--could it be?--yes,

it was Shargar. Doubt lingered only until he opened his mouth, and said

'Eh, Robert!' with which exclamation he threw himself upon him, and

after a very undignified fashion began crying heartily. Tall as he was,

Robert's great black head towered above him, and his shoulders were like

a rock against which Shargar's slight figure leaned. He looked down like

a compassionate mastiff upon a distressed Italian grayhound. His eyes

shimmered with feeling, but Robert's tears, if he ever shed any, were

kept for very solemn occasions. He was more likely to weep for awful

joy than for any sufferings either in himself or others. 'Shargar!'

pronounced in a tone full of a thousand memories, was all the greeting

he returned; but his great manly hand pressed Shargar's delicate

long-fingered one with a grasp which must have satisfied his friend that

everything was as it had been between them, and that their friendship

from henceforth would take a new start. For with all that Robert had

seen, thought, and learned, now that the bitterness of loss had gone by,

the old times and the old friends were dearer. If there was any truth in

the religion of God's will, in which he was a disciple, every moment

of life's history which had brought soul in contact with soul, must be

sacred as a voice from behind the veil. Therefore he could not now rest

until he had gone to see his grandmother.

'Will you come to Rothieden with me, Shargar? I beg your pardon--I

oughtn't to keep up an old nickname,' said Robert, as they sat that

evening with the doctor, over a tumbler of toddy.

'If you call me anything else, I'll cut my throat, Robert, as I told

you before. If any one else does,' he added, laughing, 'I'll cut his

throat.'

'Can he go with me, doctor?' asked Robert, turning to their host.

'Certainly. He has not been to Rothieden since he took his degree. He's

an A.M. now, and has distinguished himself besides. You'll see him in

his uniform soon, I hope. Let's drink his health, Robert. Fill your

glass.'

The doctor filled his glass slowly and solemnly. He seldom drank

even wine, but this was a rare occasion. He then rose, and with equal

slowness, and a tremor in his voice which rendered it impossible to

imagine the presence of anything but seriousness, said,

'Robert, my son, let's drink the health of George Moray, Gentleman.

Stand up.'

Robert rose, and in his confusion Shargar rose too, and sat down again,

blushing till his red hair looked yellow beside his cheeks. The men

repeated the words, 'George Moray, Gentleman,' emptied their glasses,

and resumed their seats. Shargar rose trembling, and tried in vain

to speak. The reason in part was, that he sought to utter himself in

English.

'Hoots! Damn English!' he broke out at last. 'Gin I be a gentleman, Dr.

Anderson and Robert Falconer, it's you twa 'at's made me ane, an' God

bless ye, an' I'm yer hoomble servant to a' etairnity.'

So saying, Shargar resumed his seat, filled his glass with trembling

hand, emptied it to hide his feelings, but without success, rose once

more, and retreated to the hall for a space.

The next morning Robert and Shargar got on the coach and went to

Rothieden. Robert turned his head aside as they came near the bridge

and the old house of Bogbonnie. But, ashamed of his weakness, he turned

again and looked at the house. There it stood, all the same,--a thing

for the night winds to howl in, and follow each other in mad gambols

through its long passages and rooms, so empty from the first that not

even a ghost had any reason for going there--a place almost without a

history--dreary emblem of so many empty souls that have hidden their

talent in a napkin, and have nothing to return for it when the Master

calls them. Having looked this one in the face, he felt stronger to meet

those other places before which his heart quailed yet more. He knew that

Miss St. John had left soon after Ericson's death: whether he was

sorry or glad that he should not see her he could not tell. He thought

Rothieden would look like Pompeii, a city buried and disinterred; but

when the coach drove into the long straggling street, he found the

old love revive, and although the blood rushed back to his heart when

Captain Forsyth's house came in view, he did not turn away, but made his

eyes, and through them his heart, familiar with its desolation. He got

down at the corner, and leaving Shargar to go on to The Boar's Head and

look after the luggage, walked into his grandmother's house and straight

into her little parlour. She rose with her old stateliness when she saw

a stranger enter the room, and stood waiting his address.

'Weel, grannie,' said Robert, and took her in his arms.

'The Lord's name be praised!' faltered she. 'He's ower guid to the likes

o' me.'

And she lifted up her voice and wept.

She had been informed of his coming, but she had not expected him till

the evening; he was much altered, and old age is slow.

He had hardly placed her in her chair, when Betty came in. If she had

shown him respect before, it was reverence now.

'Eh, sir!' she said, 'I didna ken it was you, or I wadna hae come into

the room ohn chappit at the door. I'll awa' back to my kitchie.'

So saying, she turned to leave the room.

'Hoots! Betty,' cried Robert, 'dinna be a gowk. Gie 's a grip o yer

han'.'

Betty stood staring and irresolute, overcome at sight of the manly bulk

before her.

'Gin ye dinna behave yersel', Betty, I'll jist awa' ower to Muckledrum,

an' hae a caw (drive) throu the sessions-buik.'

Betty laughed for the first time at the awful threat, and the ice once

broken, things returned to somewhat of their old footing.

I must not linger on these days. The next morning Robert paid a visit

to Bodyfauld, and found that time had there flowed so gently that it had

left but few wrinkles and fewer gray hairs. The fields, too, had little

change to show; and the hill was all the same, save that its pines had

grown. His chief mission was to John Hewson and his wife. When he left

for the continent, he was not so utterly absorbed in his own griefs as

to forget Jessie. He told her story to Dr. Anderson, and the good man

had gone to see her the same day.

In the evening, when he knew he should find them both at home, he

walked into the cottage. They were seated by the fire, with the same pot

hanging on the same crook for their supper. They rose, and asked him

to sit down, but did not know him. When he told them who he was, they

greeted him warmly, and John Hewson smiled something of the old smile,

but only like it, for it had no 'rays proportionately delivered' from

his mouth over his face.

After a little indifferent chat, Robert said,

'I came through Aberdeen yesterday, John.'

At the very mention of Aberdeen, John's head sunk. He gave no answer,

but sat looking in the fire. His wife rose and went to the other end of

the room, busying herself quietly about the supper. Robert thought it

best to plunge into the matter at once.

'I saw Jessie last nicht,' he said.

Still there was no reply. John's face had grown hard as a stone face,

but Robert thought rather from the determination to govern his feelings

than from resentment.

'She's been doin' weel ever sin' syne,' he added.

Still no word from either; and Robert fearing some outburst of

indignation ere he had said his say, now made haste.

'She's been a servant wi' Dr. Anderson for four year noo, an' he's sair

pleased wi' her. She's a fine woman. But her bairnie's deid, an' that

was a sair blow till her.'

He heard a sob from the mother, but still John made no sign.

'It was a bonnie bairnie as ever ye saw. It luikit in her face, she

says, as gin it kent a' aboot it, and had only come to help her throu

the warst o' 't; for it gaed hame 'maist as sune's ever she was

richt able to thank God for sen'in' her sic an angel to lead her to

repentance.'

'John,' said his wife, coming behind his chair, and laying her hand on

his shoulder, 'what for dinna ye speyk? Ye hear what Maister Faukner

says.--Ye dinna think a thing's clean useless 'cause there may be a spot

upo' 't?' she added, wiping her eyes with her apron.

'A spot upo' 't?' cried John, starting to his feet. 'What ca' ye a

spot?--Wuman, dinna drive me mad to hear ye lichtlie the glory o'

virginity.'

'That's a' verra weel, John,' interposed Robert quietly; 'but there was

ane thocht as muckle o' 't as ye do, an' wad hae been ashamed to hear ye

speak that gait aboot yer ain dauchter.'

'I dinna unnerstan' ye,' returned Hewson, looking raised-like at him.

'Dinna ye ken, man, that amo' them 'at kent the Lord best whan he cam

frae haiven to luik efter his ain--to seek and to save, ye ken--amo'

them 'at cam roon aboot him to hearken till 'im, was lasses 'at had gane

the wrang gait a'thegither,--no like your bonnie Jessie 'at fell but

ance. Man, ye're jist like Simon the Pharisee, 'at was sae scunnert at

oor Lord 'cause he loot the wuman 'at was a sinner tak her wull o' 's

feet--the feet 'at they war gaein' to tak their wull o' efter anither

fashion afore lang. He wad hae shawn her the door--Simon wad--like you,

John; but the Lord tuik her pairt. An' lat me tell you, John--an' I

winna beg yer pardon for sayin' 't, for it's God's trowth--lat me tell

you, 'at gin ye gang on that gait ye'll be sidin' wi' the Pharisee, an'

no wi' oor Lord. Ye may lippen to yer wife, ay, an' to Jessie hersel',

that kens better nor eyther o' ye, no to mak little o' virginity. Faith!

they think mair o' 't than ye do, I'm thinkin', efter a'; only it's no a

thing to say muckle aboot. An' it's no to stan' for a'thing, efter a'.'

Silence followed. John sat down again, and buried his face in his hands.

At length he murmured from between them,

'The lassie's weel?'

'Ay,' answered Robert; and silence followed again.

'What wad ye hae me do?' asked John, lifting his head a little.

'I wad hae ye sen' a kin' word till her. The lassie's hert's jist

longin' efter ye. That's a'. And that's no ower muckle.'

''Deed no,' assented the mother.

John said nothing. But when his visitor rose he bade him a warm

good-night.

When Robert returned to Aberdeen he was the bearer of such a message

as made poor Jessie glad at heart. This was his first experience of the

sort.

When he left the cottage, he did not return to the house, but threaded

the little forest of pines, climbing the hill till he came out on its

bare crown, where nothing grew but heather and blaeberries. There he

threw himself down, and gazed into the heavens. The sun was below the

horizon; all the dazzle was gone out of the gold, and the roses were

fast fading; the downy blue of the sky was trembling into stars over

his head; the brown dusk was gathering in the air; and a wind full of

gentleness and peace came to him from the west. He let his thoughts go

where they would, and they went up into the abyss over his head.

'Lord, come to me,' he cried in his heart, 'for I cannot go to thee.

If I were to go up and up through that awful space for ages and ages,

I should never find thee. Yet there thou art. The tenderness of thy

infinitude looks upon me from those heavens. Thou art in them and in me.

Because thou thinkest, I think. I am thine--all thine. I abandon

myself to thee. Fill me with thyself. When I am full of thee, my griefs

themselves will grow golden in thy sunlight. Thou holdest them and

their cause, and wilt find some nobler atonement between them than vile

forgetfulness and the death of love. Lord, let me help those that are

wretched because they do not know thee. Let me tell them that thou, the

Life, must needs suffer for and with them, that they may be partakers

of thy ineffable peace. My life is hid in thine: take me in thy hand as

Gideon bore the pitcher to the battle. Let me be broken if need be, that

thy light may shine upon the lies which men tell them in thy name, and

which eat away their hearts.'

Having persuaded Shargar to remain with Mrs. Falconer for a few days,

and thus remove the feeling of offence she still cherished because of

his 'munelicht flittin',' he returned to Dr. Anderson, who now unfolded

his plans for him. These were, that he should attend the medical classes

common to the two universities, and at the same time accompany him in

his visits to the poor. He did not at all mean, he said, to determine

Robert's life as that of a medical man, but from what he had learned

of his feelings, he was confident that a knowledge of medicine would be

invaluable to him. I think the good doctor must have foreseen the kind

of life which Falconer would at length choose to lead, and with true

and admirable wisdom, sought to prepare him for it. However this may be,

Robert entertained the proposal gladly, went into the scheme with his

whole heart, and began to widen that knowledge of and sympathy with the

poor which were the foundation of all his influence over them.

For a time, therefore, he gave a diligent and careful attendance upon

lectures, read sufficiently, took his rounds with Dr. Anderson, and

performed such duties as he delegated to his greater strength. Had the

healing art been far less of an enjoyment to him than it was, he could

yet hardly have failed of great progress therein; but seeing that it

accorded with his best feelings, profoundest theories, and loftiest

hopes, and that he received it as a work given him to do, it is not

surprising that a certain faculty of cure, almost partaking of the

instinctive, should have been rapidly developed in him, to the wonder

and delight of his friend and master.

In this labour he again spent about four years, during which time he

gathered much knowledge of human nature, learning especially to judge it

from no stand-point of his own, but in every individual case to take a

new position whence the nature and history of the man should appear

in true relation to the yet uncompleted result. He who cannot feel

the humanity of his neighbour because he is different from himself in

education, habits, opinions, morals, circumstances, objects, is unfit,

if not unworthy, to aid him.

Within this period Shargar had gone out to India, where he had

distinguished himself particularly on a certain harassing march. Towards

the close of the four years he had leave of absence, and was on his way

home. About the same time Robert, in consequence of a fever brought

on by over-fatigue, was in much need of a holiday; and Dr. Anderson

proposed that he should meet Moray at Southampton.

Shargar had no expectation of seeing him, and his delight, not greater

on that account, broke out more wildly. No thinnest film had grown over

his heart, though in all else he was considerably changed. The army

had done everything that was wanted for his outward show of man. The

drawling walk had vanished, and a firm step and soldierly stride had

taken its place; his bearing was free, yet dignified; his high descent

came out in the ease of his carriage and manners: there could be no

doubt that at last Shargar was a gentleman. His hair had changed to a

kind of red chestnut. His complexion was much darkened with the Indian

sun. His eyes, too, were darker, and no longer rolled slowly from one

object to another, but indicated by their quick glances a mind ready

to observe and as ready to resolve. His whole appearance was more than

prepossessing--it was even striking.

Robert was greatly delighted with the improvement in him, and far more

when he found that his mind's growth had at least kept pace with his

body's change. It would be more correct to say that it had preceded and

occasioned it; for however much the army may be able to do in that

way, it had certainly, in Moray's case, only seconded the law of inward

growth working outward show.

The young men went up to London together, and great was the pleasure

they had in each other's society, after so long a separation in which

their hearts had remained unchanged while their natures had grown both

worthy and capable of more honour and affection. They had both much to

tell; for Robert was naturally open save in regard to his grief; and

Shargar was proud of being able to communicate with Robert from a nearer

level, in virtue of now knowing many things that Robert could not know.

They went together to a hotel in St. Paul's Churchyard.

CHAPTER III. A MERE GLIMPSE.

At the close of a fortnight, Falconer thought it time to return to

his duties in Aberdeen. The day before the steamer sailed, they found

themselves, about six o'clock, in Gracechurch Street. It was a fine

summer evening. The street was less crowded than earlier in the

afternoon, although there was a continuous stream of waggons, omnibuses,

and cabs both ways. As they stood on the curbstone, a little way north

of Lombard Street, waiting to cross--

'You see, Shargar,' said Robert, 'Nature will have her way. Not all the

hurry and confusion and roar can keep the shadows out. Look: wherever

a space is for a moment vacant, there falls a shadow, as grotesque, as

strange, as full of unutterable things as any shadow on a field of grass

and daisies.'

'I remember feeling the same kind of thing in India,' returned Shargar,

'where nothing looked as if it belonged to the world I was born in, but

my own shadow. In such a street as this, however, all the shadows look

as if they belonged to another world, and had no business here.'

'I quite feel that,' returned Falconer. 'They come like angels from the

lovely west and the pure air, to show that London cannot hurt them, for

it too is within the Kingdom of God--to teach the lovers of nature, like

the old orthodox Jew, St. Peter, that they must not call anything common

or unclean.'

Shargar made no reply, and Robert glanced round at him. He was staring

with wide eyes into, not at the crowd of vehicles that filled the

street. His face was pale, and strangely like the Shargar of old days.

'What's the matter with you?' Robert asked in some bewilderment.

Receiving no answer, he followed Shargar's gaze, and saw a strange sight

for London city.

In the middle of the crowd of vehicles, with an omnibus before them, and

a brewer's dray behind them, came a line of three donkey-carts, heaped

high with bundles and articles of gipsy-gear. The foremost was conducted

by a middle-aged woman of tall, commanding aspect, and expression both

cunning and fierce. She walked by the donkey's head carrying a short

stick, with which she struck him now and then, but which she oftener

waved over his head like the truncheon of an excited marshal on the

battle-field, accompanying its movements now with loud cries to the

animal, now with loud response to the chaff of the omnibus conductor,

the dray driver, and the tradesmen in carts about her. She was followed

by a very handsome, olive-complexioned, wild-looking young woman, with

her black hair done up in a red handkerchief, who conducted her donkey

more quietly. Both seemed as much at home in the roar of Gracechurch

Street as if they had been crossing a wild common. A loutish-looking

young man brought up the rear with the third donkey. From the bundles on

the foremost cart peeped a lovely, fair-haired, English-looking child.

Robert took all this in in a moment. The same moment Shargar's spell was

broken.

'Lord, it is my mither!' he cried, and darted under a horse's neck into

the middle of the ruck.

He needled his way through till he reached the woman. She was swearing

at a cabman whose wheel had caught the point of her donkey's shaft, and

was hauling him round. Heedless of everything, Shargar threw his arms

about her, crying,

'Mither! mither!'

'Nane o' yer blastit humbug!' she exclaimed, as, with a vigorous throw

and a wriggle, she freed herself from his embrace and pushed him away.

The moment she had him at arm's length, however, her hand closed upon

his arm, and her other hand went up to her brow. From underneath it her

eyes shot up and down him from head to foot, and he could feel her hand

closing and relaxing and closing again, as if she were trying to force

her long nails into his flesh. He stood motionless, waiting the result

of her scrutiny, utterly unconscious that he caused a congestion in the

veins of London, for every vehicle within sight of the pair had stopped.

Falconer said a strange silence fell upon the street, as if all the

things in it had been turned into shadows.

A rough voice, which sounded as if all London must have heard it, broke

the silence. It was the voice of the cabman who had been in altercation

with the woman. Bursting into an insulting laugh, he used words with

regard to her which it is better to leave unrecorded. The same instant

Shargar freed himself from her grasp, and stood by the fore wheel of the

cab.

'Get down!' he said, in a voice that was not the less impressive that it

was low and hoarse.

The fellow saw what he meant, and whipped his horse. Shargar sprung on

the box, and dragged him down all but headlong.

'Now,' he said, 'beg my mother's pardon.'

'Be damned if I do, &c., &c.,' said the cabman.

'Then defend yourself,' said Shargar. 'Robert.'

Falconer was watching it all, and was by his side in a moment.

'Come on, you, &c., &c.,' cried the cabman, plucking up heart and

putting himself in fighting shape. He looked one of those insolent

fellows whom none see discomfited more gladly than the honest men of his

own class. The same moment he lay between his horse's feet.

Shargar turned to Robert, and saying only, 'There, Robert!' turned again

towards the woman. The cabman rose bleeding, and, desiring no more of

the same, climbed on his box, and went off, belabouring his horse, and

pursued by a roar from the street, for the spectators were delighted at

his punishment.

'Now, mother,' said Shargar, panting with excitement.

'What ca' they ye?' she asked, still doubtful, but as proud of being

defended as if the coarse words of her assailant had had no truth in

them. 'Ye canna be my lang-leggit Geordie.'

'What for no?'

'Ye're a gentleman, faith!'

'An' what for no, again?' returned Shargar, beginning to smile.

'Weel, it's weel speired. Yer father was ane ony gait--gin sae be 'at ye

are as ye say.'

Moray put his head close to hers, and whispered some words that nobody

heard but herself.

'It's ower lang syne to min' upo' that,' she said in reply, with a look

of cunning consciousness ill settled upon her fine features. 'But ye can

be naebody but my Geordie. Haith, man!' she went on, regarding him once

more from head to foot, 'but ye're a credit to me, I maun alloo. Weel,

gie me a sovereign, an' I s' never come near ye.'

Poor Shargar in his despair turned half mechanically towards Robert. He

felt that it was time to interfere.

'You forget, mother,' said Shargar, turning again to her, and speaking

English now, 'it was I that claimed you, and not you that claimed me.'

She seemed to have no idea of what he meant.

'Come up the road here, to oor public, an' tak a glaiss, wuman,' said

Falconer. 'Dinna haud the fowk luikin' at ye.'

The temptation of a glass of something strong, and the hope of getting

money out of them, caused an instant acquiescence. She said a few words

to the young woman, who proceeded at once to tie her donkey's head to

the tail of the other cart.

'Shaw the gait than,' said the elder, turning again to Falconer.

Shargar and he led the way to St. Paul's Churchyard, and the woman

followed faithfully. The waiter stared when they entered.

'Bring a glass of whisky,' said Falconer, as he passed on to their

private room. When the whisky arrived, she tossed it off, and looked as

if she would like another glass.

'Yer father 'ill hae ta'en ye up, I'm thinkin', laddie?' she said,

turning to her son.

'No,' answered Shargar, gloomily. 'There's the man that took me up.'

'An' wha may ye be?' she asked, turning to Falconer.

'Mr. Falconer,' said Shargar.

'No a son o' Anerew Faukner?' she asked again, with evident interest.

'The same,' answered Robert.

'Well, Geordie,' she said, turning once more to her son, 'it's like

mither, like father to the twa o' ye.'

'Did you know my father?' asked Robert, eagerly.

Instead of answering him she made another remark to her son.

'He needna be ashamed o' your company, ony gait--queer kin' o' a mither

'at I am.'

'He never was ashamed of my company,' said Shargar, still gloomily.

'Ay, I kent yer father weel eneuch,' she said, now answering

Robert--'mair by token 'at I saw him last nicht. He was luikin' nae that

ill.'

Robert sprung from his seat, and caught her by the arm.

'Ow! ye needna gang into sic a flurry. He'll no come near ye, I s'

warran'.'

'Tell me where he is,' said Robert. 'Where did you see him? I'll gie ye

a' 'at I hae gin ye'll tak me till him.'

'Hooly! hooly! Wha's to gang luikin' for a thrum in a hay-sow?' returned

she, coolly. 'I only said 'at I saw him.'

'But are ye sure it was him?' asked Falconer.

'Ay, sure eneuch,' she answered.

'What maks ye sae sure?'

''Cause I never was vrang yet. Set a man ance atween my twa een, an'

that 'll be twa 'at kens him whan 's ain mither 's forgotten 'im.'

'Did you speak to him?'

'Maybe ay, an' maybe no. I didna come here to be hecklet afore a jury.'

'Tell me what he's like,' said Robert, agitated with eager hope.

'Gin ye dinna ken what he's like, what for suld ye tak the trouble to

speir? But 'deed ye'll ken what he's like whan ye fa' in wi' him,' she

added, with a vindictive laugh--vindictive because he had given her only

one glass of strong drink.

With the laugh she rose, and made for the door. They rose at the same

moment to detain her. Like one who knew at once to fight and flee, she

turned and stunned them as with a blow.

'She's a fine yoong thing, yon sister o' yours, Geordie. She'll be worth

siller by the time she's had a while at the schuil.'

The men looked at each other aghast. When they turned their eyes she

had vanished. They rushed to the door, and, parting, searched in both

directions. But they were soon satisfied that it was of no use. Probably

she had found a back way into Paternoster Row, whence the outlets are

numerous.

CHAPTER IV. THE DOCTOR'S DEATH.

But now that Falconer had a ground, even thus shadowy, for hoping--I

cannot say believing--that his father might be in London, he could not

return to Aberdeen. Moray, who had no heart to hunt for his mother,

left the next day by the steamer. Falconer took to wandering about

the labyrinthine city, and in a couple of months knew more about the

metropolis--the west end excepted--than most people who had lived their

lives in it. The west end is no doubt a considerable exception to make,

but Falconer sought only his father, and the west end was the place

where he was least likely to find him. Day and night he wandered into

all sorts of places: the worse they looked the more attractive he found

them. It became almost a craze with him. He could not pass a dirty court

or low-browed archway. He might be there. Or he might have been there.

Or it was such a place as he would choose for shelter. He knew to what

such a life as his must have tended.

At first he was attracted only by tall elderly men. Such a man he would

sometimes follow till his following made him turn and demand his

object. If there was no suspicion of Scotch in his tone, Falconer easily

apologized. If there was, he made such replies as might lead to some

betrayal. He could not defend the course he was adopting: it had not the

shadow of probability upon its side. Still the greatest successes the

world has ever beheld had been at one time the greatest improbabilities!

He could not choose but go on, for as yet he could think of no other

way.

Neither could a man like Falconer long confine his interest to this

immediate object, especially after he had, in following it, found

opportunity of being useful. While he still made it his main object

to find his father, that object became a centre from which radiated a

thousand influences upon those who were as sheep that had no shepherd.

He fell back into his old ways at Aberdeen, only with a boundless sphere

to work in, and with the hope of finding his father to hearten him. He

haunted the streets at night, went into all places of entertainment,

often to the disgust of senses and soul, and made his way into the

lowest forms of life without introduction or protection.

There was a certain stately air of the hills about him which was often

mistaken for country inexperience, and men thought in consequence to

make gain or game of him. But such found their mistake, and if not soon,

then the more completely. Far from provoking or even meeting hostility,

he soon satisfied those that persisted, that it was dangerous. In two

years he became well known to the poor of a large district, especially

on both sides of Shoreditch, for whose sake he made the exercise of his

profession though not an object yet a ready accident.

He lived in lodgings in John Street--the same in which I found him when

I came to know him. He made few acquaintances, and they were chiefly the

house-surgeons of hospitals--to which he paid frequent visits.

He always carried a book in his pocket, but did not read much. On

Sundays he generally went to some one of the many lonely heaths or

commons of Surrey with his New Testament. When weary in London, he would

go to the reading-room of the British Museum for an hour or two. He kept

up a regular correspondence with Dr. Anderson.

At length he received a letter from him, which occasioned his immediate

departure for Aberdeen. Until now, his friend, who was entirely

satisfied with his mode of life, and supplied him freely with money, had

not even expressed a wish to recall him, though he had often spoken of

visiting him in London. It now appeared that, unwilling to cause him

any needless anxiety, he had abstained from mentioning the fact that

his health had been declining. He had got suddenly worse, and Falconer

hastened to obey the summons he had sent him in consequence.

With a heavy heart he walked up to the hospitable door, recalling as he

ascended the steps how he had stood there a helpless youth, in want of a

few pounds to save his hopes, when this friend received him and bid

him God-speed on the path he desired to follow. In a moment more he

was shown into the study, and was passing through it to go to the

cottage-room, when Johnston laid his hand on his arm.

'The maister's no up yet, sir,' he said, with a very solemn look. 'He's

been desperate efter seein' ye, and I maun gang an' lat him ken 'at

ye're here at last, for fear it suld be ower muckle for him, seein' ye

a' at ance. But eh, sir!' he added, the tears gathering in his eyes,

'ye'll hardly ken 'im. He's that changed!'

Johnston left the study by the door to the cottage--Falconer had never

known the doctor sleep there--and returning a moment after, invited him

to enter. In the bed in the recess--the room unchanged, with its deal

table, and its sanded floor--lay the form of his friend. Falconer

hastened to the bedside, kneeled down, and took his hand speechless.

The doctor was silent too, but a smile overspread his countenance, and

revealed his inward satisfaction. Robert's heart was full, and he could

only gaze on the worn face. At length he was able to speak.

'What for didna ye sen' for me?' he said. 'Ye never tellt me ye was

ailin'.'

'Because you were doing good, Robert, my boy; and I who had done so

little had no right to interrupt what you were doing. I wonder if God

will give me another chance. I would fain do better. I don't think I

could sit singing psalms to all eternity,' he added with a smile.

'Whatever good I may do afore my turn comes, I hae you to thank for 't.

Eh, doctor, gin it hadna been for you!'

Robert's feelings overcame him. He resumed, brokenly,

'Ye gae me a man to believe in, whan my ain father had forsaken me, and

my frien' was awa to God. Ye hae made me, doctor. Wi' meat an' drink an'

learnin' an' siller, an' a'thing at ance, ye hae made me.'

'Eh, Robert!' said the dying man, half rising on his elbow, 'to think

what God maks us a' to ane anither! My father did ten times for me what

I hae dune for you. As I lie here thinkin' I may see him afore a week's

ower, I'm jist a bairn again.'

As he spoke, the polish of his speech was gone, and the social

refinement of his countenance with it. The face of his ancestors, the

noble, sensitive, heart-full, but rugged, bucolic, and weather-beaten

through centuries of windy ploughing, hail-stormed sheep-keeping,

long-paced seed-sowing, and multiform labour, surely not less honourable

in the sight of the working God than the fighting of the noble, came

back in the face of the dying physician. From that hour to his death he

spoke the rugged dialect of his fathers.

A day or two after this, Robert again sitting by his bedside,

'I dinna ken,' he said, 'whether it's richt--but I hae nae fear o'

deith, an' yet I canna say I'm sure aboot onything. I hae seen mony a

ane dee that cud hae no faith i' the Saviour; but I never saw that fear

that some gude fowk wud hae ye believe maun come at the last. I wadna

like to tak to ony papistry; but I never cud mak oot frae the Bible--and

I read mair at it i' the jungle than maybe ye wad think--that it's a'

ower wi' a body at their deith. I never heard them bring foret ony text

but ane--the maist ridiculous hash 'at ever ye heard--to justifee 't.'

'I ken the text ye mean--“As the tree falleth so it shall lie,” or

something like that--'at they say King Solomon wrote, though better

scholars say his tree had fa'en mony a lang year afore that text saw the

licht. I dinna believe sic a thocht was i' the man's heid when he wrote

it. It is as ye say--ower contemptible to ca' an argument. I'll read it

to ye ance mair.'

Robert got his Bible, and read the following portion from that wonderful

book, so little understood, because it is so full of wisdom--the Book of

Ecclesiastes:--

'Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.

'Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what

evil shall be upon the earth.

'If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth:

and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place

where the tree falleth, there it shall be.

'He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the

clouds shall not reap.

'As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do

grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the

works of God who maketh all.

'In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine

hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that,

or whether they both shall be alike good.'

'Ay, ay; that's it,' said Dr. Anderson. 'Weel, I maun say again that

they're ill aff for an argument that taks that for ane upo' sic a

momentous subjec'. I prefer to say, wi' the same auld man, that I know

not the works of God who maketh all. But I wish I could say I believed

onything for certain sure. But whan I think aboot it--wad ye believe 't?

the faith o' my father's mair to me nor ony faith o' my ain. That soonds

strange. But it's this: I'm positeeve that that godly great auld man

kent mair aboot a' thae things--I cud see 't i' the face o' 'm--nor ony

ither man 'at ever I kent. An' it's no by comparison only. I'm sure he

did ken. There was something atween God and him. An' I think he wasna

likely to be wrang; an' sae I tak courage to believe as muckle as I can,

though maybe no sae muckle as I fain wad.'

Robert, who from experience of himself, and the observations he had made

by the bedsides of not a few dying men and women, knew well that nothing

but the truth itself can carry its own conviction; that the words of our

Lord are a body as it were in which the spirit of our Lord dwells, or

rather the key to open the heart for the entrance of that spirit, turned

now from all argumentation to the words of Jesus. He himself had said

of them, 'They are spirit and they are life;' and what folly to buttress

life and spirit with other powers than their own! From that day to the

last, as often and as long as the dying man was able to listen to him,

he read from the glad news just the words of the Lord. As he read thus,

one fading afternoon, the doctor broke out with,

'Eh, Robert, the patience o' him! He didna quench the smokin' flax.

There's little fire aboot me, but surely I ken in my ain hert some o'

the risin' smoke o' the sacrifice. Eh! sic words as they are! An' he was

gaein' doon to the grave himsel', no half my age, as peacefu', though

the road was sae rouch, as gin he had been gaein' hame till 's father.'

'Sae he was,' returned Robert.

'Ay; but here am I lyin' upo' my bed, slippin' easy awa. An' there was

he--'

The old man ceased. The sacred story was too sacred for speech. Robert

sat with the New Testament open before him on the bed.

'The mair the words o' Jesus come into me,' the doctor began again, 'the

surer I am o' seein' my auld Brahmin frien', Robert. It's true I thought

his religion not only began but ended inside him. It was a' a booin'

doon afore and an aspirin' up into the bosom o' the infinite God. I

dinna mean to say 'at he wasna honourable to them aboot him. And I never

saw in him muckle o' that pride to the lave (rest) that belangs to the

Brahmin. It was raither a stately kin'ness than that condescension which

is the vice o' Christians. But he had naething to do wi' them. The first

comman'ment was a' he kent. He loved God--nae a God like Jesus

Christ, but the God he kent--and that was a' he could. The second

comman'ment--that glorious recognition o' the divine in humanity makin'

't fit and needfu' to be loved, that claim o' God upon and for his ain

bairns, that love o' the neebour as yer'sel--he didna ken. Still there

was religion in him; and he who died for the sins o' the whole world

has surely been revealed to him lang er' noo, and throu the knowledge o'

him, he noo dwalls in that God efter whom he aspired.'

Here was the outcome of many talks which Robert and the doctor had had

together, as they laboured amongst the poor.

'Did ye never try,' Robert asked, 'to lat him ken aboot the comin' o'

God to his world in Jesus Christ?'

'I couldna do muckle that way honestly, my ain faith was sae poor and

sma'. But I tellt him what Christians believed. I tellt him aboot the

character and history o' Christ. But it didna seem to tak muckle hauld

o' him. It wasna interesstin' till him. Just ance whan I tellt him some

things he had said aboot his relation to God--sic as, “I and my Father

are one,”--and aboot the relation o' a' his disciples to God and

himsel'--“I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in

one,” he said, wi' a smile, “The man was a good Brahmin.”

'It's little,' said Robert, 'the one great commandment can do withoot

the other. It's little we can ken what God to love, or hoo to love him,

withoot “thy neighbour as thyself.” Ony ane o' them withoot the ither

stan's like the ae factor o' a multiplication, or ae wing upo' a

laverock (lark).'

Towards the close of the week, he grew much feebler. Falconer scarcely

left his room. He woke one midnight, and murmured as follows, with many

pauses for breath and strength:

'Robert, my time's near, I'm thinkin'; for, wakin' an' sleepin', I'm a

bairn again. I can hardly believe whiles 'at my father hasna a grup o'

my han'. A meenute ago I was traivellin' throu a terrible driftin' o'

snaw--eh, hoo it whustled and sang! and the cauld o' 't was stingin';

but my father had a grup o' me, an' I jist despised it, an' was

stampin' 't doon wi' my wee bit feet, for I was like saven year auld or

thereaboots. An' syne I thocht I heard my mither singin', and kent by

that that the ither was a dream. I'm thinkin' a hantle 'ill luik dreamy

afore lang. Eh! I wonner what the final waukin' 'ill be like.'

After a pause he resumed,

'Robert, my dear boy, ye're i' the richt gait. Haud on an' lat naething

turn ye aside. Man, it's a great comfort to me to think that ye're

my ain flesh and blude, an' nae that far aff. My father an' your

great-gran'father upo' the gran'mither's side war ain brithers. I wonner

hoo far doon it wad gang. Ye're the only ane upo' my father's side, you

and yer father, gin he be alive, that I hae sib to me. My will's i' the

bottom drawer upo' the left han' i' my writin' table i' the leebrary:--I

hae left ye ilka plack 'at I possess. Only there's ae thing that I want

ye to do. First o' a', ye maun gang on as yer doin' in London for

ten year mair. Gin deein' men hae ony o' that foresicht that's been

attreebuted to them in a' ages, it's borne in upo' me that ye wull see

yer father again. At a' events, ye'll be helpin' some ill-faured sowls

to a clean face and a bonny. But gin ye dinna fa' in wi' yer father

within ten year, ye maun behaud a wee, an' jist pack up yer box, an'

gang awa' ower the sea to Calcutta, an' du what I hae tellt ye to do

i' that wull. I bind ye by nae promise, Robert, an' I winna hae nane.

Things micht happen to put ye in a terrible difficulty wi' a promise.

I'm only tellin' ye what I wad like. Especially gin ye hae fund yer

father, ye maun gang by yer ain jeedgment aboot it, for there 'll be a

hantle to do wi' him efter ye hae gotten a grup o' 'im. An' noo, I maun

lie still, an' maybe sleep again, for I hae spoken ower muckle.'

Hoping that he would sleep and wake yet again, Robert sat still. After

an hour, he looked, and saw that, although hitherto much oppressed,

he was now breathing like a child. There was no sign save of past

suffering: his countenance was peaceful as if he had already entered

into his rest. Robert withdrew, and again seated himself. And the great

universe became to him as a bird brooding over the breaking shell of the

dying man.

On either hand we behold a birth, of which, as of the moon, we see but

half. We are outside the one, waiting for a life from the unknown; we

are inside the other, watching the departure of a spirit from the womb

of the world into the unknown. To the region whither he goes, the man

enters newly born. We forget that it is a birth, and call it a death.

The body he leaves behind is but the placenta by which he drew his

nourishment from his mother Earth. And as the child-bed is watched on

earth with anxious expectancy, so the couch of the dying, as we call

them, may be surrounded by the birth-watchers of the other world,

waiting like anxious servants to open the door to which this world is

but the wind-blown porch.

Extremes meet. As a man draws nigh to his second birth, his heart looks

back to his childhood. When Dr. Anderson knew that he was dying, he

retired into the simulacrum of his father's benn end.

As Falconer sat thinking, the doctor spoke. They were low, faint,

murmurous sounds, for the lips were nearly at rest. Wanted no more for

utterance, they were going back to the holy dust, which is God's yet.

'Father, father!' he cried quickly, in the tone and speech of a Scotch

laddie, 'I'm gaein' doon. Haud a grup o' my han'.'

When Robert hurried to the bedside, he found that the last breath had

gone in the words. The thin right hand lay partly closed, as if it had

been grasping a larger hand. On the face lay confidence just ruffled

with apprehension: the latter melted away, and nothing remained but

that awful and beautiful peace which is the farewell of the soul to its

servant.

Robert knelt and thanked God for the noble man.

CHAPTER V. A TALK WITH GRANNIE.

Dr. Anderson's body was, according to the fine custom of many of the

people of Aberdeen, borne to the grave by twelve stalwart men in black,

with broad round bonnets on their heads, the one-half relieving the

other--a privilege of the company of shore-porters. Their exequies are

thus freed from the artificial, grotesque, and pagan horror given by

obscene mutes, frightful hearse, horses, and feathers. As soon as,

in the beautiful phrase of the Old Testament, John Anderson was thus

gathered to his fathers, Robert went to pay a visit to his grandmother.

Dressed to a point in the same costume in which he had known her from

childhood, he found her little altered in appearance. She was one of

those who instead of stooping with age, settle downwards: she was still

as erect as ever, though shorter. Her step was feebler, and when she

prayed, her voice quavered more. On her face sat the same settled,

almost hard repose, as ever; but her behaviour was still more gentle

than when he had seen her last. Notwithstanding, however, that time had

wrought so little change in her appearance, Robert felt that somehow the

mist of a separation between her world and his was gathering; that

she was, as it were, fading from his sight and presence, like the moon

towards 'her interlunar cave.' Her face was gradually turning from him

towards the land of light.

'I hae buried my best frien' but yersel', grannie,' he said, as he took

a chair close by her side, where he used to sit when he read the Bible

and Boston to her.

'I trust he's happy. He was a douce and a weel-behaved man; and ye hae

rizzon to respec' his memory. Did he dee the deith o' the richteous,

think ye, laddie?'

'I do think that, grannie. He loved God and his Saviour.'

'The Lord be praised!' said Mrs. Falconer. 'I had guid houps o' 'im in

's latter days. And fowk says he's made a rich man o' ye, Robert?'

'He's left me ilka thing, excep' something till 's servan's--wha hae

weel deserved it.'

'Eh, Robert! but it's a terrible snare. Siller 's an awfu' thing. My

puir Anerew never begud to gang the ill gait, till he began to hae ower

muckle siller. But it badena lang wi' 'im.'

'But it's no an ill thing itsel', grannie; for God made siller as weel

's ither things.'

'He thinksna muckle o' 't, though, or he wad gie mair o' 't to some

fowk. But as ye say, it's his, and gin ye hae grace to use 't aricht, it

may be made a great blessin' to yersel' and ither fowk. But eh, laddie!

tak guid tent 'at ye ride upo' the tap o' 't, an' no lat it rise like a

muckle jaw (billow) ower yer heid; for it's an awfu' thing to be droont

in riches.'

'Them 'at prays no to be led into temptation hae a chance--haena they,

grannie?'

'That hae they, Robert. And to be plain wi' ye, I haena that muckle fear

o' ye; for I hae heard the kin' o' life 'at ye hae been leadin'. God's

hearkent to my prayers for you; and gin ye gang on as ye hae begun, my

prayers, like them o' David the son o' Jesse, are endit. Gang on, my

dear lad, gang on to pluck brands frae the burnin'. Haud oot a helpin'

han' to ilka son and dauchter o' Adam 'at will tak a grip o' 't. Be a

burnin' an' a shinin' licht, that men may praise, no you, for ye're

but clay i' the han's o' the potter, but yer Father in heaven. Tak the

drunkard frae his whusky, the deboshed frae his debosh, the sweirer frae

his aiths, the leear frae his lees; and giena ony o' them ower muckle o'

yer siller at ance, for fear 'at they grow fat an' kick an' defy God and

you. That's my advice to ye, Robert.'

'And I houp I'll be able to haud gey and near till 't, grannie, for it's

o' the best. But wha tellt ye what I was aboot in Lonnon?'

'Himsel'.'

'Dr. Anderson?'

'Ay, jist himsel'. I hae had letter upo' letter frae 'im aboot you and

a' 'at ye was aboot. He keepit me acquant wi' 't a'.'

This fresh proof of his friend's affection touched Robert deeply. He had

himself written often to his grandmother, but he had never entered into

any detail of his doings, although the thought of her was ever at hand

beside the thought of his father.

'Do ye ken, grannie, what's at the hert o' my houps i' the meesery an'

degradation that I see frae mornin' to nicht, and aftener yet frae nicht

to mornin' i' the back closes and wynds o' the great city?'

'I trust it's the glory o' God, laddie.'

'I houp that's no a'thegither wantin', grannie. For I love God wi' a' my

hert. But I doobt it's aftener the savin' o' my earthly father nor the

glory o' my heavenly ane that I'm thinkin' o'.'

Mrs. Falconer heaved a deep sigh.

'God grant ye success, Robert,' she said. 'But that canna be richt.'

'What canna be richt?'

'No to put the glory o' God first and foremost.'

'Weel, grannie; but a body canna rise to the heicht o' grace a' at ance,

nor yet in ten, or twenty year. Maybe gin I do richt, I may be able to

come to that or a' be dune. An' efter a', I'm sure I love God mair nor

my father. But I canna help thinkin' this, that gin God heardna ae sang

o' glory frae this ill-doin' earth o' his, he wadna be nane the waur;

but--'

'Hoo ken ye that?' interrupted his grandmother.

'Because he wad be as gude and great and grand as ever.'

'Ow ay.'

'But what wad come o' my father wantin' his salvation? He can waur want

that, remainin' the slave o' iniquity, than God can want his glory.

Forby, ye ken there's nae glory to God like the repentin' o' a sinner,

justifeein' God, an' sayin' till him--“Father, ye're a' richt, an' I'm

a' wrang.” What greater glory can God hae nor that?'

'It's a' true 'at ye say. But still gin God cares for that same glory,

ye oucht to think o' that first, afore even the salvation o' yer

father.'

'Maybe ye're richt, grannie. An' gin it be as ye say--he's promised

to lead us into a' trowth, an' he'll lead me into that trowth. But I'm

thinkin' it's mair for oor sakes than his ain 'at he cares aboot his

glory. I dinna believe 'at he thinks aboot his glory excep' for the sake

o' the trowth an' men's herts deein' for want o' 't.'

Mrs. Falconer thought for a moment.

'It may be 'at ye're richt, laddie; but ye hae a way o' sayin' things

'at 's some fearsome.'

'God's nae like a prood man to tak offence, grannie. There's naething

pleases him like the trowth, an' there's naething displeases him like

leein', particularly whan it's by way o' uphaudin' him. He wants nae

sic uphaudin'. Noo, ye say things aboot him whiles 'at soun's to me

fearsome.'

'What kin' o' things are they, laddie?' asked the old lady, with offence

glooming in the background.

'Sic like as whan ye speyk aboot him as gin he was a puir prood

bailey-like body, fu' o' his ain importance, an' ready to be doon upo'

onybody 'at didna ca' him by the name o' 's office--ay think-thinkin'

aboot 's ain glory; in place o' the quaiet, michty, gran',

self-forgettin', a'-creatin', a'-uphaudin', eternal bein', wha took the

form o' man in Christ Jesus, jist that he micht hae 't in 's pooer to

beir and be humblet for oor sakes. Eh, grannie! think o' the face o'

that man o' sorrows, that never said a hard word till a sinfu' wuman, or

a despised publican: was he thinkin' aboot 's ain glory, think ye? An'

we hae no richt to say we ken God save in the face o' Christ Jesus.

Whatever 's no like Christ is no like God.'

'But, laddie, he cam to saitisfee God's justice by sufferin' the

punishment due to oor sins; to turn aside his wrath an' curse; to

reconcile him to us. Sae he cudna be a'thegither like God.'

'He did naething o' the kin', grannie. It's a' a lee that. He cam to

saitisfee God's justice by giein' him back his bairns; by garrin' them

see that God was just; by sendin' them greetin' hame to fa' at his feet,

an' grip his knees an' say, “Father, ye're i' the richt.” He cam to lift

the weicht o' the sins that God had curst aff o' the shoothers o' them

'at did them, by makin' them turn agen them, an' be for God an' no

for sin. And there isna a word o' reconceelin' God till 's in a' the

Testament, for there was no need o' that: it was us that he needed to be

reconcilet to him. An' sae he bore oor sins and carried oor sorrows; for

those sins comin' oot in the multitudes--ay and in his ain disciples

as weel, caused him no en' o' grief o' mind an' pain o' body, as a'body

kens. It wasna his ain sins, for he had nane, but oors, that caused him

sufferin'; and he took them awa'--they're vainishin' even noo frae the

earth, though it doesna luik like it in Rag-fair or Petticoat-lane.

An' for oor sorrows--they jist garred him greit. His richteousness

jist annihilates oor guilt, for it's a great gulf that swallows up and

destroys 't. And sae he gae his life a ransom for us: and he is the life

o' the world. He took oor sins upo' him, for he cam into the middle o'

them an' took them up--by no sleicht o' han', by no quibblin' o' the

lawyers, aboot imputin' his richteousness to us, and sic like, which is

no to be found i' the Bible at a', though I dinna say that there's no

possible meanin' i' the phrase, but he took them and took them awa'; and

here am I, grannie, growin' oot o' my sins in consequennce, and there

are ye, grannie, growin' oot o' yours in consequennce, an' haein'

nearhan' dune wi' them a'thegither er this time.'

'I wis that may be true, laddie. But I carena hoo ye put it,' returned

his grandmother, bewildered no doubt with this outburst, 'sae be that ye

put him first an' last an' i' the mids' o' a' thing, an' say wi' a' yer

hert, “His will be dune!”'

'Wi' a' my hert, “His will be dune,” grannie,' responded Robert.

'Amen, amen. And noo, laddie, duv ye think there's ony likliheid that

yer father 's still i' the body? I dream aboot him whiles sae lifelike

that I canna believe him deid. But that's a' freits (superstitions).'

'Weel, grannie, I haena the least assurance. But I hae the mair houp.

Wad ye ken him gin ye saw him?'

'Ken him!' she cried; 'I wad ken him gin he had been no to say four,

but forty days i' the sepulchre! My ain Anerew! Hoo cud ye speir sic a

queston, laddie?'

'He maun be sair changed, grannie. He maun be turnin' auld by this

time.'

'Auld! Sic like 's yersel, laddie.--Hoots, hoots! ye're richt. I am

forgettin'. But nanetheless wad I ken him.'

'I wis I kent what he was like. I saw him ance--hardly twise, but a'

that I min' upo' wad stan' me in ill stead amo' the streets o' Lonnon.'

'I doobt that,' returned Mrs. Falconer--a form of expression rather

oddly indicating sympathetic and somewhat regretful agreement with what

has been said. 'But,' she went on, 'I can lat ye see a pictur' o' 'im,

though I doobt it winna shaw sae muckle to you as to me. He had it

paintit to gie to yer mother upo' their weddin' day. Och hone! She did

the like for him; but what cam o' that ane, I dinna ken.'

Mrs. Falconer went into the little closet to the old bureau, and

bringing out the miniature, gave it to Robert. It was the portrait of a

young man in antiquated blue coat and white waistcoat, looking innocent,

and, it must be confessed, dull and uninteresting. It had been painted

by a travelling artist, and probably his skill did not reach to

expression. It brought to Robert's mind no faintest shadow of

recollection. It did not correspond in the smallest degree to what

seemed his vague memory, perhaps half imagination, of the tall worn man

whom he had seen that Sunday. He could not have a hope that this would

give him the slightest aid in finding him of whom it had once been a

shadowy resemblance at least.

'Is 't like him, grannie?' he asked.

As if to satisfy herself once more ere she replied, she took the

miniature, and gazed at it for some time. Then with a deep hopeless

sigh, she answered,

'Ay, it's like him; but it's no himsel'. Eh, the bonny broo, an' the

smilin' een o' him!--smilin' upon a'body, an' upo' her maist o' a', till

he took to the drink, and waur gin waur can be. It was a' siller an'

company--company 'at cudna be merry ohn drunken. Verity their lauchter

was like the cracklin' o' thorns aneath a pot. Het watter and whusky

was aye the cry efter their denner an' efter their supper, till my puir

Anerew tuik till the bare whusky i' the mornin' to fill the ebb o' the

toddy. He wad never hae dune as he did but for the whusky. It jist drave

oot a' gude and loot in a' ill.'

'Wull ye lat me tak this wi' me, grannie?' said Robert; for though

the portrait was useless for identification, it might serve a further

purpose.

'Ow, ay, tak it. I dinna want it. I can see him weel wantin' that. But I

hae nae houp left 'at ye'll ever fa' in wi' him.'

'God's aye doin' unlikly things, grannie,' said Robert, solemnly.

'He's dune a' 'at he can for him, I doobt, already.'

'Duv ye think 'at God cudna save a man gin he liket, than, grannie?'

'God can do a'thing. There's nae doobt but by the gift o' his speerit he

cud save a'body.'

'An' ye think he's no mercifu' eneuch to do 't?'

'It winna do to meddle wi' fowk's free wull. To gar fowk be gude wad be

nae gudeness.'

'But gin God could actually create the free wull, dinna ye think he cud

help it to gang richt, withoot ony garrin'? We ken sae little aboot it,

grannie! Hoo does his speerit help onybody? Does he gar them 'at accep's

the offer o' salvation?'

'Na, I canna think that. But he shaws them the trowth in sic a way that

they jist canna bide themsel's, but maun turn to him for verra peace an'

rist.'

'Weel, that's something as I think. An' until I'm sure that a man has

had the trowth shawn till him in sic a way 's that, I canna alloo mysel'

to think that hooever he may hae sinned, he has finally rejeckit the

trowth. Gin I kent that a man had seen the trowth as I hae seen 't

whiles, and had deleeberately turned his back upo' 't and said, “I'll

nane o' 't,” than I doobt I wad be maist compelled to alloo that there

was nae mair salvation for him, but a certain and fearfu' luikin' for

o' judgment and fiery indignation. But I dinna believe that ever man did

sae. But even than, I dinna ken.'

'I did a' for him that I kent hoo to do,' said Mrs. Falconer,

reflectingly. 'Nicht an' mornin' an' aften midday prayin' for an' wi'

him.'

'Maybe ye scunnert him at it, grannie.'

She gave a stifled cry of despair.

'Dinna say that, laddie, or ye'll drive me oot o' my min'. God forgie

me, gin that be true. I deserve hell mair nor my Anerew.'

'But, ye see, grannie, supposin' it war sae, that wadna be laid to your

accoont, seein' ye did the best ye kent. Nor wad it be forgotten to him.

It wad mak a hantle difference to his sin; it wad be a great excuse

for him. An' jist think, gin it be fair for ae human being to influence

anither a' 'at they can, and that's nae interferin' wi' their free

wull--it's impossible to measure what God cud do wi' his speerit winnin'

at them frae a' sides, and able to put sic thouchts an' sic pictures

into them as we canna think. It wad a' be true that he tellt them, and

the trowth can never be a meddlin' wi' the free wull.'

Mrs. Falconer made no reply, but evidently went on thinking.

She was, though not a great reader, yet a good reader. Any book that was

devout and thoughtful she read gladly. Through some one or other of this

sort she must have been instructed concerning free will, for I do

not think such notions could have formed any portion of the religious

teaching she had heard. Men in that part of Scotland then believed that

the free will of man was only exercised in rejecting--never in accepting

the truth; and that men were saved by the gift of the Spirit, given

to some and not to others, according to the free will of God, in the

exercise of which no reason appreciable by men, or having anything to do

with their notions of love or justice, had any share. In the recognition

of will and choice in the acceptance of the mercy of God, Mrs. Falconer

was then in advance of her time. And it is no wonder if her notions did

not all hang logically together.

'At ony rate, grannie,' resumed her grandson, 'I haena dune a' for him

'at I can yet; and I'm no gaein' to believe onything that wad mak me

remiss in my endeavour. Houp for mysel', for my father, for a'body, is

what's savin' me, an' garrin' me work. An' gin ye tell me that I'm no

workin' wi' God, that God's no the best an' the greatest worker aboon

a', ye tak the verra hert oot o' my breist, and I dinna believe in God

nae mair, an' my han's drap doon by my sides, an' my legs winna gang.

No,' said Robert, rising, 'God 'ill gie me my father sometime, grannie;

for what man can do wantin' a father? Human bein' canna win at the hert

o' things, canna ken a' the oots an' ins, a' the sides o' love, excep'

he has a father amo' the lave to love; an' I hae had nane, grannie. An'

that God kens.'

She made him no answer. She dared not say that he expected too much from

God. Is it likely that Jesus will say so of any man or woman when he

looks for faith in the earth?

Robert went out to see some of his old friends, and when he returned it

was time for supper and worship. These were the same as of old: a plate

of porridge, and a wooden bowl of milk for the former; a chapter and a

hymn, both read, and a prayer from grannie, and then from Robert for the

latter. And so they went to bed.

But Robert could not sleep. He rose and dressed himself, went up to the

empty garret, looked at the stars through the skylight, knelt and

prayed for his father and for all men to the Father of all, then softly

descended the stairs, and went out into the street.

CHAPTER VI. SHARGAR'S MOTHER.

It was a warm still night in July--moonless but not dark. There is no

night there in the summer--only a long ethereal twilight. He walked

through the sleeping town so full of memories, all quiet in his mind

now--quiet as the air that ever broods over the house where a friend has

dwelt. He left the town behind, and walked--through the odours of grass

and of clover and of the yellow flowers on the old earthwalls that

divided the fields--sweet scents to which the darkness is friendly, and

which, mingling with the smell of the earth itself, reach the founts of

memory sooner than even words or tones--down to the brink of the river

that flowed scarcely murmuring through the night, itself dark and brown

as the night from its far-off birthplace in the peaty hills. He

crossed the footbridge and turned into the bleachfield. Its houses were

desolate, for that trade too had died away. The machinery stood rotting

and rusting. The wheel gave no answering motion to the flow of the water

that glided away beneath it. The thundering beatles were still. The huge

legs of the wauk-mill took no more seven-leagued strides nowhither. The

rubbing-boards with their thickly-fluted surfaces no longer frothed the

soap from every side, tormenting the web of linen into a brightness to

gladden the heart of the housewife whose hands had spun the yarn.

The terrible boiler that used to send up from its depths bubbling and

boiling spouts and peaks and ridges, lay empty and cold. The little

house behind, where its awful furnace used to glow, and which the

pungent chlorine used to fill with its fumes, stood open to the wind

and the rain: he could see the slow river through its unglazed window

beyond. The water still went slipping and sliding through the deserted

places, a power whose use had departed. The canal, the delight of his

childhood, was nearly choked with weeds; it went flowing over long

grasses that drooped into it from its edges, giving a faint gurgle once

and again in its flow, as if it feared to speak in the presence of the

stars, and escaped silently into the river far below. The grass was no

longer mown like a lawn, but was long and deep and thick. He climbed to

the place where he had once lain and listened to the sounds of the belt

of fir-trees behind him, hearing the voice of Nature that whispered

God in his ears, and there he threw himself down once more. All the old

things, the old ways, the old glories of childhood--were they gone? No.

Over them all, in them all, was God still. There is no past with him.

An eternal present, He filled his soul and all that his soul had ever

filled. His history was taken up into God: it had not vanished: his life

was hid with Christ in God. To the God of the human heart nothing that

has ever been a joy, a grief, a passing interest, can ever cease to be

what it has been; there is no fading at the breath of time, no passing

away of fashion, no dimming of old memories in the heart of him whose

being creates time. Falconer's heart rose up to him as to his own deeper

life, his indwelling deepest spirit--above and beyond him as the heavens

are above and beyond the earth, and yet nearer and homelier than his own

most familiar thought. 'As the light fills the earth,' thought he, 'so

God fills what we call life. My sorrows, O God, my hopes, my joys, the

upliftings of my life are with thee, my root, my life. Thy comfortings,

my perfect God, are strength indeed!'

He rose and looked around him. While he lay, the waning, fading moon had

risen, weak and bleared and dull. She brightened and brightened until at

last she lighted up the night with a wan, forgetful gleam. 'So should I

feel,' he thought, 'about the past on which I am now gazing, were it not

that I believe in the God who forgets nothing. That which has been, is.'

His eye fell on something bright in the field beyond. He would see what

it was, and crossed the earthen dyke. It shone like a little moon in the

grass. By humouring the reflection he reached it. It was only a cutting

of white iron, left by some tinker. He walked on over the field,

thinking of Shargar's mother. If he could but find her! He walked on and

on. He had no inclination to go home. The solitariness of the night, the

uncanniness of the moon, prevents most people from wandering far: Robert

had learned long ago to love the night, and to feel at home with every

aspect of God's world. How this peace contrasted with the nights in

London streets! this grass with the dark flow of the Thames! these hills

and those clouds half melted into moonlight with the lanes blazing with

gas! He thought of the child who, taken from London for the first time,

sent home the message: 'Tell mother that it's dark in the country at

night.' Then his thoughts turned again to Shargar's mother! Was it

not possible, being a wanderer far and wide, that she might be now in

Rothieden? Such people have a love for their old haunts, stronger than

that of orderly members of society for their old homes. He turned back,

and did not know where he was. But the lines of the hill-tops directed

him. He hastened to the town, and went straight through the sleeping

streets to the back wynd where he had found Shargar sitting on the

doorstep. Could he believe his eyes? A feeble light was burning in the

shed. Some other poverty-stricken bird of the night, however, might

be there, and not she who could perhaps guide him to the goal of his

earthly life. He drew near, and peeped in at the broken window. A heap

of something lay in a corner, watched only by a long-snuffed candle.

The heap moved, and a voice called out querulously,

'Is that you, Shargar, ye shochlin deevil?'

Falconer's heart leaped. He hesitated no longer, but lifted the latch

and entered. He took up the candle, snuffed it as he best could, and

approached the woman. When the light fell on her face she sat up,

staring wildly with eyes that shunned and sought it.

'Wha are ye that winna lat me dee in peace and quaietness?'

'I'm Robert Falconer.'

'Come to speir efter yer ne'er-do-weel o' a father, I reckon,' she said.

'Yes,' he answered.

'Wha's that ahin' ye?'

'Naebody's ahin' me,' answered Robert.

'Dinna lee. Wha's that ahin' the door?'

'Naebody. I never tell lees.'

'Whaur's Shargar? What for doesna he come till 's mither?'

'He's hynd awa' ower the seas--a captain o' sodgers.'

'It's a lee. He's an ill-faured scoonrel no to come till 's mither an'

bid her gude-bye, an' her gaein' to hell.'

'Gin ye speir at Christ, he'll tak ye oot o' the verra mou' o' hell,

wuman.'

'Christ! wha's that? Ow, ay! It's him 'at they preach aboot i' the

kirks. Na, na. There's nae gude o' that. There's nae time to repent noo.

I doobt sic repentance as mine wadna gang for muckle wi' the likes o'

him.'

'The likes o' him 's no to be gotten. He cam to save the likes o' you

an' me.'

'The likes o' you an' me! said ye, laddie? There's no like atween you

and me. He'll hae naething to say to me, but gang to hell wi' ye for a

bitch.'

'He never said sic a word in 's life. He wad say, “Poor thing! she was

ill-used. Ye maunna sin ony mair. Come, and I'll help ye.” He wad say

something like that. He'll save a body whan she wadna think it.'

'An' I hae gien my bonnie bairn to the deevil wi' my ain han's! She'll

come to hell efter me to girn at me, an' set them on me wi' their reid

het taings, and curse me. Och hone! och hone!'

'Hearken to me,' said Falconer, with as much authority as he could

assume. But she rolled herself over again in the corner, and lay

groaning.

'Tell me whaur she is,' said Falconer, 'and I'll tak her oot o' their

grup, whaever they be.'

She sat up again, and stared at him for a few moments without speaking.

'I left her wi' a wuman waur nor mysel',' she said at length. 'God

forgie me.'

'He will forgie ye, gin ye tell me whaur she is.'

'Do ye think he will? Eh, Maister Faukner! The wuman bides in a coort

off o' Clare Market. I dinna min' upo' the name o' 't, though I cud

gang till 't wi' my een steekit. Her name's Widow Walker--an auld

rowdie--damn her sowl!'

'Na, na, ye maunna say that gin ye want to be forgien yersel'. I'll fin'

her oot. An' I'm thinkin' it winna be lang or I hae a grup o' her. I'm

gaein' back to Lonnon in twa days or three.'

'Dinna gang till I'm deid. Bide an' haud the deevil aff o' me. He has a

grup o' my hert noo, rivin' at it wi' his lang nails--as lang 's birds'

nebs.'

'I'll bide wi' ye till we see what can be dune for ye. What's the

maitter wi' ye? I'm a doctor noo.'

There was not a chair or box or stool on which to sit down. He therefore

kneeled beside her. He felt her pulse, questioned her, and learned that

she had long been suffering from an internal complaint, which had within

the last week grown rapidly worse. He saw that there was no hope of her

recovery, but while she lived he gave himself to her service as to that

of a living soul capable of justice and love. The night was more than

warm, but she had fits of shivering. He wrapped his coat round her,

and wiped from the poor degraded face the damps of suffering. The

woman-heart was alive still, for she took the hand that ministered to

her and kissed it with a moan. When the morning came she fell asleep.

He crept out and went to his grandmother's, where he roused Betty, and

asked her to get him some peat and coals. Finding his grandmother awake,

he told her all, and taking the coals and the peat, carried them to

the hut, where he managed, with some difficulty, to light a fire on the

hearth; after which he sat on the doorstep till Betty appeared with two

men carrying a mattress and some bedding. The noise they made awoke her.

'Dinna tak me,' she cried. 'I winna do 't again, an' I'm deein', I tell

ye I'm deein', and that'll clear a' scores--o' this side ony gait,' she

added.

They lifted her upon the mattress, and made her more comfortable than

perhaps she had ever been in her life. But it was only her illness that

made her capable of prizing such comfort. In health, the heather on a

hill-side was far more to her taste than bed and blankets. She had

a wild, roving, savage nature, and the wind was dearer to her than

house-walls. She had come of ancestors--and it was a poor little atom of

truth that a soul bred like this woman could have been born capable of

entertaining. But she too was eternal--and surely not to be fixed for

ever in a bewilderment of sin and ignorance--a wild-eyed soul staring

about in hell-fire for want of something it could not understand and had

never beheld--by the changeless mandate of the God of love! She was in

less pain than during the night, and lay quietly gazing at the fire.

Things awful to another would no doubt cross her memory without any

accompanying sense of dismay; tender things would return without moving

her heart; but Falconer had a hold of her now. Nothing could be done for

her body except to render its death as easy as might be; but something

might be done for herself. He made no attempt to produce this or that

condition of mind in the poor creature. He never made such attempts.

'How can I tell the next lesson a soul is capable of learning?' he would

say. 'The Spirit of God is the teacher. My part is to tell the good

news. Let that work as it ought, as it can, as it will.' He knew that

pain is with some the only harbinger that can prepare the way for the

entrance of kindness: it is not understood till then. In the lulls of

her pain he told her about the man Christ Jesus--what he did for the

poor creatures who came to him--how kindly he spoke to them--how he

cured them. He told her how gentle he was with the sinning women, how he

forgave them and told them to do so no more. He left the story without

comment to work that faith which alone can redeem from selfishness and

bring into contact with all that is living and productive of life,

for to believe in him is to lay hold of eternal life: he is the

Life--therefore the life of men. She gave him but little encouragement:

he did not need it, for he believed in the Life. But her outcries were

no longer accompanied with that fierce and dreadful language in which

she sought relief at first. He said to himself, 'What matter if I see no

sign? I am doing my part. Who can tell, when the soul is free from the

distress of the body, when sights and sounds have vanished from her,

and she is silent in the eternal, with the terrible past behind her, and

clear to her consciousness, how the words I have spoken to her may yet

live and grow in her; how the kindness God has given me to show her may

help her to believe in the root of all kindness, in the everlasting love

of her Father in heaven? That she can feel at all is as sure a sign of

life as the adoration of an ecstatic saint.'

He had no difficulty now in getting from her what information she could

give him about his father. It seemed to him of the greatest import,

though it amounted only to this, that when he was in London, he used to

lodge at the house of an old Scotchwoman of the name of Macallister,

who lived in Paradise Gardens, somewhere between Bethnal Green and

Spitalfields. Whether he had been in London lately, she did not

know; but if anybody could tell him where he was, it would be Mrs.

Macallister.

His heart filled with gratitude and hope and the surging desire for the

renewal of his London labours. But he could not leave the dying woman

till she was beyond the reach of his comfort: he was her keeper now. And

'he that believeth shall not make haste.' Labour without perturbation,

readiness without hurry, no haste, and no hesitation, was the divine law

of his activity.

Shargar's mother breathed her last holding his hand. They were alone. He

kneeled by the bed, and prayed to God, saying,

'Father, this woman is in thy hands. Take thou care of her, as thou hast

taken care of her hitherto. Let the light go up in her soul, that she

may love and trust thee, O light, O gladness. I thank thee that thou

hast blessed me with this ministration. Now lead me to my father. Thine

is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.'

He rose and went to his grandmother and told her all. She put her arms

round his neck, and kissed him, and said,

'God bless ye, my bonny lad. And he will bless ye. He will; he will. Noo

gang yer wa's, and do the wark he gies ye to do. Only min', it's no you;

it's him.'

The next morning, the sweet winds of his childhood wooing him to remain

yet a day among their fields, he sat on the top of the Aberdeen coach,

on his way back to the horrors of court and alley in the terrible

London.

CHAPTER VII. THE SILK-WEAVER.