One afternoon, as they were sitting at their tea, a footstep in the garden approached the house, and then a figure passed the window. Mr. Lammie started to his feet.
'Bless my sowl, Aggy! that's Anderson!' he cried, and hurried to the door.
His daughter followed. The boys kept their seats. A loud and hearty salutation reached their ears; but the voice of the farmer was all they heard. Presently he returned, bringing with him the tallest and slenderest man Robert had ever seen. He was considerably over six feet, with a small head, and delicate, if not fine features, a gentle look in his blue eyes, and a slow clear voice, which sounded as if it were thinking about every word it uttered. The hot sun of India seemed to have burned out everything self-assertive, leaving him quietly and rather sadly contemplative.
'Come in, come in,' repeated Mr. Lammie, overflowing with glad welcome. 'What'll ye hae? There's a frien' o' yer ain,' he continued, pointing to Robert, 'an' a fine lad.' Then lowering his voice, he added: 'A son o' poor Anerew's, ye ken, doctor.'
The boys rose, and Dr. Anderson, stretching his long arms across the table, shook hands kindly with Robert and Shargar. Then he sat down and began to help himself to the cakes (oat-cake), at which Robert wondered, seeing there was 'white breid' on the table. Miss Lammie presently came in with the teapot and some additional dainties, and the boys took the opportunity of beginning at the beginning again.
Dr. Anderson remained for a few days at Bodyfauld, sending Shargar to Rothieden for some necessaries from The Boar's Head, where he had left his servant and luggage. During this time Mr. Lammie was much occupied with his farm affairs, anxious to get his harvest in as quickly as possible, because a change of weather was to be dreaded; so the doctor was left a good deal to himself. He was fond of wandering about, but, thoughtful as he was, did not object to the companionship which Robert implicitly offered him: before many hours were over, the two were friends.
Various things attracted Robert to the doctor. First, he was a relation of his own, older than himself, the first he had known except his father, and Robert's heart was one of the most dutiful. Second, or perhaps I ought to have put this first, he was the only gentleman, except Eric Ericson, whose acquaintance he had yet made. Third, he was kind to him, and gentle to him, and, above all, respectful to him; and to be respected was a new sensation to Robert altogether. And lastly, he could tell stories of elephants and tiger hunts, and all The Arabian Nights of India. He did not volunteer much talk, but Robert soon found that he could draw him out.
But what attracted the man to the boy?
'Ah! Robert,' said the doctor one day, sadly, 'it's a sore thing to come home after being thirty years away.'
He looked up at the sky, then all around at the hills: the face of Nature alone remained the same. Then his glance fell on Robert, and he saw a pair of black eyes looking up at him, brimful of tears. And thus the man was drawn to the boy.
Robert worshipped Dr. Anderson. As long as he remained their visitor, kite and violin and all were forgotten, and he followed him like a dog. To have such a gentleman for a relation, was grand indeed. What could he do for him? He ministered to him in all manner of trifles—a little to the amusement of Dr. Anderson, but more to his pleasure, for he saw that the boy was both large-hearted and lowly-minded: Dr. Anderson had learned to read character, else he would never have been the honour to his profession that he was.
But all the time Robert could not get him to speak about his father. He steadily avoided the subject.
When he went away, the two boys walked with him to The Boar's Head, caught a glimpse of his Hindoo attendant, much to their wonderment, received from the doctor a sovereign apiece and a kind good-bye, and returned to Bodyfauld.
Dr. Anderson remained a few days longer at Rothieden, and amongst others visited Mrs. Falconer, who was his first cousin. What passed between them Robert never heard, nor did his grandmother even allude to the visit. He went by the mail-coach from Rothieden to Aberdeen, and whether he should ever see him again Robert did not know.
He flew his kite no more for a while, but betook himself to the work of the harvest-field, in which he was now able for a share. But his violin was no longer neglected.
Day after day passed in the delights of labour, broken for Robert by The Arabian Nights and the violin, and for Shargar by attendance upon Miss Lammie, till the fields lay bare of their harvest, and the night-wind of autumn moaned everywhere over the vanished glory of the country, and it was time to go back to school.
Chapter XXIII. An Auto Da Fã‰
The morning at length arrived when Robert and Shargar must return to Rothieden. A keen autumnal wind was blowing far-off feathery clouds across a sky of pale blue; the cold freshened the spirits of the boys, and tightened their nerves and muscles, till they were like bow-strings. No doubt the winter was coming, but the sun, although his day's work was short and slack, was still as clear as ever. So gladsome was the world, that the boys received the day as a fresh holiday, and strenuously forgot to-morrow. The wind blew straight from Rothieden, and between sun and wind a bright thought awoke in Robert. The dragon should not be carried—he should fly home.
After they had said farewell, in which Shargar seemed to suffer more than Robert, and had turned the corner of the stable, they heard the good farmer shouting after them,
'There'll be anither hairst neist year, boys,' which wonderfully restored their spirits. When they reached the open road, Robert laid his violin carefully into a broom-bush. Then the tail was unrolled, and the dragon ascended steady as an angel whose work is done. Shargar took the stick at the end of the string, and Robert resumed his violin. But the creature was hard to lead in such a wind; so they made a loop on the string, and passed it round Shargar's chest, and he tugged the dragon home. Robert longed to take his share in the struggle, but he could not trust his violin to Shargar, and so had to walk beside ingloriously. On the way they laid their plans for the accommodation of the dragon. But the violin was the greater difficulty. Robert would not hear of the factory, for reasons best known to himself, and there were serious objections to taking it to Dooble Sanny. It was resolved that the only way was to seize the right moment, and creep upstairs with it before presenting themselves to Mrs. Falconer. Their intended manoeuvres with the kite would favour the concealment of this stroke.
Before they entered the town they drew in the kite a little way, and cut off a dozen yards of the string, which Robert put in his pocket, with a stone tied to the end. When they reached the house, Shargar went into the little garden and tied the string of the kite to the paling between that and Captain Forsyth's. Robert opened the street door, and having turned his head on all sides like a thief, darted with his violin up the stairs. Having laid his treasure in one of the presses in Shargar's garret, he went to his own, and from the skylight threw the stone down into the captain's garden, fastening the other end of the string to the bedstead. Escaping as cautiously as he had entered, he passed hurriedly into their neighbour's garden, found the stone, and joined Shargar. The ends were soon united, and the kite let go. It sunk for a moment, then, arrested by the bedstead, towered again to its former 'pride of place,' sailing over Rothieden, grand and unconcerned, in the wastes of air.
But the end of its tether was in Robert's garret. And that was to him a sense of power, a thought of glad mystery. There was henceforth, while the dragon flew, a relation between the desolate little chamber, in that lowly house buried among so many more aspiring abodes, and the unmeasured depths and spaces, the stars, and the unknown heavens. And in the next chamber lay the fiddle free once more,—yet another magical power whereby his spirit could forsake the earth and mount heavenwards.
All that night, all the next day, all the next night, the dragon flew.
Not one smile broke over the face of the old lady as she received them. Was it because she did not know what acts of disobedience, what breaches of the moral law, the two children of possible perdition might have committed while they were beyond her care, and she must not run the risk of smiling upon iniquity? I think it was rather that there was no smile in her religion, which, while it developed the power of a darkened conscience, overlaid and half-smothered all the lovelier impulses of her grand nature. How could she smile? Did not the world lie under the wrath and curse of God? Was not her own son in hell for ever? Had not the blood of the Son of God been shed for him in vain? Had not God meant that it should be in vain? For by the gift of his Spirit could he not have enabled him to accept the offered pardon? And for anything she knew, was not Robert going after him to the place of misery? How could she smile?
'Noo be dooce,' she said, the moment she had shaken hands with them, with her cold hands, so clean and soft and smooth. With a volcanic heart of love, her outside was always so still and cold!—snow on the mountain sides, hot vein-coursing lava within. For her highest duty was submission to the will of God. Ah! if she had only known the God who claimed her submission! But there is time enough for every heart to know him.
'Noo be dooce,' she repeated, 'an' sit doon, and tell me aboot the fowk at Bodyfauld. I houpe ye thankit them, or ye left, for their muckle kindness to ye.'
The boys were silent.
'Didna ye thank them?'
'No, grannie; I dinna think 'at we did.'
'Weel, that was ill-faured o' ye. Eh! but the hert is deceitfu' aboon a' thing, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Come awa'. Come awa'. Robert, festen the door.'
And she led them to the corner for prayer, and poured forth a confession of sin for them and for herself, such as left little that could have been added by her own profligate son, had he joined in the prayer. Either there are no degrees in guilt, or the Scotch language was equal only to the confession of children and holy women, and could provide no more awful words for the contrition of the prodigal or the hypocrite. But the words did little harm, for Robert's mind was full of the kite and the violin, and was probably nearer God thereby than if he had been trying to feel as wicked as his grandmother told God that he was. Shargar was even more divinely employed at the time than either; for though he had not had the manners to thank his benefactor, his heart had all the way home been full of tender thoughts of Miss Lammie's kindness; and now, instead of confessing sins that were not his, he was loving her over and over, and wishing to be back with her instead of with this awfully good woman, in whose presence there was no peace, for all the atmosphere of silence and calm in which she sat.
Confession over, and the boys at liberty again, a new anxiety seized them. Grannie must find out that Robert's shoes were missing, and what account was to be given of the misfortune, for Robert would not, or could not lie? In the midst of their discussion a bright idea flashed upon Shargar, which, however, he kept to himself: he would steal them, and bring them home in triumph, emulating thus Robert's exploit in delivering his bonny leddy.
The shoemaker sat behind his door to be out of the draught: Shargar might see a great part of the workshop without being seen, and he could pick Robert's shoes from among a hundred. Probably they lay just where Robert had laid them, for Dooble Sanny paid attention to any job only in proportion to the persecution accompanying it.
So the next day Shargar contrived to slip out of school just as the writing lesson began, for he had great skill in conveying himself unseen, and, with his book-bag, slunk barefooted into the soutar's entry.
The shop door was a little way open, and the red eyes of Shargar had only the corner next it to go peering about in. But there he saw the shoes. He got down on his hands and knees, and crept nearer. Yes, they were beyond a doubt Robert's shoes. He made a long arm, like a beast of prey, seized them, and, losing his presence of mind upon possession, drew them too hastily towards him. The shoemaker saw them as they vanished through the door, and darted after them. Shargar was off at full speed, and Sandy followed with hue and cry. Every idle person in the street joined in the pursuit, and all who were too busy or too respectable to run crowded to door and windows. Shargar made instinctively for his mother's old lair; but bethinking himself when he reached the door, he turned, and, knowing nowhere else to go, fled in terror to Mrs. Falconer's, still, however, holding fast by the shoes, for they were Robert's.
As Robert came home from school, wondering what could have become of his companion, he saw a crowd about his grandmother's door, and pushing his way through it in some dismay, found Dooble Sanny and Shargar confronting each other before the stern justice of Mrs. Falconer.
'Ye're a leear,' the soutar was panting out. 'I haena had a pair o' shune o' Robert's i' my han's this three month. Thae shune—lat me see them—they're—Here's Robert himsel'. Are thae shune yours, noo, Robert?'
'Ay are they. Ye made them yersel'.'
'Hoo cam they in my chop, than?'
'Speir nae mair quest'ons nor's worth answerin',' said Robert, with a look meant to be significant. 'They're my shune, and I'll keep them. Aiblins ye dinna aye ken wha's shune ye hae, or whan they cam in to ye.'
'What for didna Shargar come an' speir efter them, than, in place o' makin' a thief o' himsel' that gait?'
'Ye may haud yer tongue,' returned Robert, with yet more significance.
'I was aye a gowk (idiot),' said Shargar, in apologetic reflection, looking awfully white, and afraid to lift an eye to Mrs. Falconer, yet reassured a little by Robert's presence.
Some glimmering seemed now to have dawned upon the soutar, for he began to prepare a retreat. Meantime Mrs. Falconer sat silent, allowing no word that passed to escape her. She wanted to be at the bottom of the mysterious affair, and therefore held her peace.
'Weel, I'm sure, Robert, ye never tellt me aboot the shune,' said Alexander. 'I s' jist tak them back wi' me, and du what's wantit to them. And I'm sorry that I hae gien ye this tribble, Mistress Faukner; but it was a' that fule's wite there. I didna even ken it was him, till we war near-han' the hoose.'
'Lat me see the shune,' said Mrs. Falconer, speaking almost for the first time. 'What's the maitter wi' them?'
Examining the shoes, she saw they were in a perfectly sound state, and this confirmed her suspicion that there was more in the affair than had yet come out. Had she taken the straightforward measure of examining Robert, she would soon have arrived at the truth. But she had such a dread of causing a lie to be told, that she would adopt any roundabout way rather than ask a plain question of a suspected culprit. So she laid the shoes down beside her, saying to the soutar,
'There's naething amiss wi' the shune. Ye can lea' them.'
Thereupon Alexander went away, and Robert and Shargar would have given more than their dinner to follow him. Grannie neither asked any questions, however, nor made a single remark on what had passed. Dinner was served and eaten, and the boys returned to their afternoon school.
No sooner was she certain that they were safe under the school-master's eye than the old lady put on her black silk bonnet and her black woollen shawl, took her green cotton umbrella, which served her for a staff, and, refusing Betty's proffered assistance, set out for Dooble Sanny's shop.
As she drew near she heard the sounds of his violin. When she entered, he laid his auld wife carefully aside, and stood in an expectant attitude.
'Mr. Elshender, I want to be at the boddom o' this,' said Mrs. Falconer.
'Weel, mem, gang to the boddom o' 't,' returned Dooble Sanny, dropping on his stool, and taking his stone upon his lap and stroking it, as if it had been some quadrupedal pet. Full of rough but real politeness to women when in good humour, he lost all his manners along with his temper upon the slightest provocation, and her tone irritated him.
'Hoo cam Robert's shune to be i' your shop?'
'Somebody bude till hae brocht them, mem. In a' my expairience, and that's no sma', I never kent pair o' shune gang ohn a pair o' feet i' the wame o' them.'
'Hoots! what kin' o' gait 's that to speyk till a body? Whase feet was inside the shune?'
'De'il a bit o' me kens, mem.'
'Dinna sweir, whatever ye du.'
'De'il but I will sweir, mem; an' gin ye anger me, I'll jist sweir awfu'.'
'I'm sure I hae nae wuss to anger ye, man! Canna ye help a body to win at the boddom o' a thing ohn angert an' sworn?'
'Weel, I kenna wha brocht the shune, as I tellt ye a'ready.'
'But they wantit nae men'in'.'
'I micht hae men't them an' forgotten 't, mem.'
'Noo ye're leein'.'
'Gin ye gang on that gait, mem, I winna speyk a word o' trowth frae this moment foret.'
'Jist tell me what ye ken aboot thae shune, an' I'll no say anither word.'
'Weel, mem, I'll tell ye the trowth. The de'il brocht them in ae day in a lang taings; and says he, “Elshender, men' thae shune for puir Robby Faukner; an' dooble-sole them for the life o' ye; for that auld luckie-minnie o' his 'ill sune hae him doon oor gait, and the grun' 's het i' the noo; an' I dinna want to be ower sair upon him, for he's a fine chield, an' 'll mak a fine fiddler gin he live lang eneuch.”'
Mrs. Falconer left the shop without another word, but with an awful suspicion which the last heedless words of the shoemaker had aroused in her bosom. She left him bursting with laughter over his lapstone. He caught up his fiddle and played The De'il's i' the Women lustily and with expression. But he little thought what he had done.
As soon as she reached her own room, she went straight to her bed and disinterred the bonny leddy's coffin. She was gone; and in her stead, horror of horrors! lay in the unhallowed chest that body of divinity known as Boston's Fourfold State. Vexation, anger, disappointment, and grief possessed themselves of the old woman's mind. She ranged the house like the 'questing beast' of the Round Table, but failed in finding the violin before the return of the boys. Not a word did she say all that evening, and their oppressed hearts foreboded ill. They felt that there was thunder in the clouds, a sleeping storm in the air; but how or when it would break they had no idea.
Robert came home to dinner the next day a few minutes before Shargar. As he entered his grandmother's parlour, a strange odour greeted his sense. A moment more, and he stood rooted with horror, and his hair began to rise on his head. His violin lay on its back on the fire, and a yellow tongue of flame was licking the red lips of a hole in its belly. All its strings were shrivelled up save one, which burst as he gazed. And beside, stern as a Druidess, sat his grandmother in her chair, feeding her eyes with grim satisfaction on the detestable sacrifice. At length the rigidity of Robert's whole being relaxed in an involuntary howl like that of a wild beast, and he turned and rushed from the house in a helpless agony of horror. Where he was going he knew not, only a blind instinct of modesty drove him to hide his passion from the eyes of men.
From her window Miss St. John saw him tearing like one demented along the top walk of the captain's garden, and watched for his return. He came far sooner than she expected.
Before he arrived at the factory, Robert began to hear strange sounds in the desolate place. When he reached the upper floor, he found men with axe and hammer destroying the old woodwork, breaking the old jennies, pitching the balls of lead into baskets, and throwing the spools into crates. Was there nothing but destruction in the world? There, most horrible! his 'bonny leddy' dying of flames, and here, the temple of his refuge torn to pieces by unhallowed hands! What could it mean? Was his grandmother's vengeance here too? But he did not care. He only felt like the dove sent from the ark, that there was no rest for the sole of his foot, that there was no place to hide his head in his agony—that he was naked to the universe; and like a heartless wild thing hunted till its brain is of no more use, he turned and rushed back again upon his track. At one end was the burning idol, at the other the desecrated temple.
No sooner had he entered the captain's garden than Miss St. John met him.
'What is the matter with you, Robert?' she asked, kindly.
'Oh, mem!' gasped Robert, and burst into a very storm of weeping.
It was long before he could speak. He cowered before Miss St. John as if conscious of an unfriendly presence, and seeking to shelter himself by her tall figure from his grandmother's eyes. For who could tell but at the moment she might be gazing upon him from some window, or even from the blue vault above? There was no escaping her. She was the all-seeing eye personified—the eye of the God of the theologians of his country, always searching out the evil, and refusing to acknowledge the good. Yet so gentle and faithful was the heart of Robert, that he never thought of her as cruel. He took it for granted that somehow or other she must be right. Only what a terrible thing such righteousness was! He stood and wept before the lady.
Her heart was sore for the despairing boy. She drew him to a little summer-seat. He entered with her, and sat down, weeping still. She did her best to soothe him. At last, sorely interrupted by sobs, he managed to let her know the fate of his 'bonnie leddy.' But when he came to the words, 'She's burnin' in there upo' granny's fire,' he broke out once more with that wild howl of despair, and then, ashamed of himself, ceased weeping altogether, though he could not help the intrusion of certain chokes and sobs upon his otherwise even, though low and sad speech.
Knowing nothing of Mrs. Falconer's character, Miss St. John set her down as a cruel and heartless as well as tyrannical and bigoted old woman, and took the mental position of enmity towards her. In a gush of motherly indignation she kissed Robert on the forehead.
From that chrism he arose a king.
He dried his eyes; not another sob even broke from him; he gave one look, but no word of gratitude, to Miss St. John; bade her good-bye; and walked composedly into his grandmother's parlour, where the neck of the violin yet lay upon the fire only half consumed. The rest had vanished utterly.
'What are they duin' doon at the fact'ry, grannie?' he asked.
'What's wha duin', laddie?' returned his grandmother, curtly.
'They're takin' 't doon.'
'Takin' what doon?' she returned, with raised voice.
'Takin' doon the hoose.'
The old woman rose.
'Robert, ye may hae spite in yer hert for what I hae dune this mornin', but I cud do no ither. An' it's an ill thing to tak sic amen's o' me, as gin I had dune wrang, by garrin' me troo 'at yer grandfather's property was to gang the gait o' 's auld, useless, ill-mainnert scraich o' a fiddle.'
'She was the bonniest fiddle i' the country-side, grannie. And she never gae a scraich in her life 'cep' whan she was han'let in a mainner unbecomin'. But we s' say nae mair aboot her, for she's gane, an' no by a fair strae-deith (death on one's own straw) either. She had nae blude to cry for vengeance; but the snappin' o' her strings an' the crackin' o' her banes may hae made a cry to gang far eneuch notwithstandin'.'
The old woman seemed for one moment rebuked under her grandson's eloquence. He had made a great stride towards manhood since the morning.
'The fiddle's my ain,' she said, in a defensive tone. 'And sae is the fact'ry,' she added, as if she had not quite reassured herself concerning it.
'The fiddle's yours nae mair, grannie. And for the fact'ry—ye winna believe me: gang and see yersel'.'
Therewith Robert retreated to his garret.
When he opened the door of it, the first thing he saw was the string of his kite, which, strange to tell, so steady had been the wind, was still up in the air—still tugging at the bedpost. Whether it was from the stinging thought that the true sky-soarer, the violin, having been devoured by the jaws of the fire-devil, there was no longer any significance in the outward and visible sign of the dragon, or from a dim feeling that the time of kites was gone by and manhood on the threshold, I cannot tell; but he drew his knife from his pocket, and with one down-stroke cut the string in twain. Away went the dragon, free, like a prodigal, to his ruin. And with the dragon, afar into the past, flew the childhood of Robert Falconer. He made one remorseful dart after the string as it swept out of the skylight, but it was gone beyond remeid. And never more, save in twilight dreams, did he lay hold on his childhood again. But he knew better and better, as the years rolled on, that he approached a deeper and holier childhood, of which that had been but the feeble and necessarily vanishing type.
As the kite sank in the distance, Mrs. Falconer issued from the house, and went down the street towards the factory.
Before she came back the cloth was laid for dinner, and Robert and Shargar were both in the parlour awaiting her return. She entered heated and dismayed, went into Robert's bedroom, and shut the door hastily. They heard her open the old bureau. In a moment after she came out with a more luminous expression upon her face than Robert had ever seen it bear. It was as still as ever, but there was a strange light in her eyes, which was not confined to her eyes, but shone in a measure from her colourless forehead and cheeks as well. It was long before Robert was able to interpret that change in her look, and that increase of kindness towards himself and Shargar, apparently such a contrast with the holocaust of the morning. Had they both been Benjamins they could not have had more abundant platefuls than she gave them that day. And when they left her to return to school, instead of the usual 'Noo be douce,' she said, in gentle, almost loving tones, 'Noo, be good lads, baith o' ye.'
The conclusion at which Falconer did arrive was that his grandmother had hurried home to see whether the title-deeds of the factory were still in her possession, and had found that they were gone—taken, doubtless, by her son Andrew. At whatever period he had appropriated them, he must have parted with them but recently. And the hope rose luminous that her son had not yet passed into the region 'where all life dies, death lives.' Terrible consolation! Terrible creed, which made the hope that he was still on this side of the grave working wickedness, light up the face of the mother, and open her hand in kindness. Is it suffering, or is it wickedness, that is the awful thing? 'Ah! but they are both combined in the other world.' And in this world too, I answer; only, according to Mrs. Falconer's creed, in the other world God, for the sake of the suffering, renders the wickedness eternal!
The old factory was in part pulled down, and out of its remains a granary constructed. Nor did the old lady interpose a word to arrest the alienation of her property.
Chapter XXIV. Boot for Bale
Mary St. John was the orphan daughter of an English clergyman, who had left her money enough to make her at least independent. Mrs. Forsyth, hearing that her niece was left alone in the world, had concluded that her society would be a pleasure to herself and a relief to the housekeeping. Even before her father's death, Miss St. John, having met with a disappointment, and concluded herself dead to the world, had been looking about for some way of doing good. The prospect of retirement, therefore, and of being useful to her sick aunt, had drawn her northwards.
She was now about six-and-twenty, filled with two passions—one for justice, the other for music. Her griefs had not made her selfish, nor had her music degenerated into sentiment. The gentle style of the instruction she had received had never begotten a diseased self-consciousness; and if her religion lacked something of the intensity without which a character like hers could not be evenly balanced, its force was not spent on the combating of unholy doubts and selfish fears, but rose on the wings of her music in gentle thanksgiving. Tears had changed her bright-hued hopes into a dove-coloured submission, through which her mind was passing towards a rainbow dawn such as she had never dreamed of. To her as yet the Book of Common Prayer contained all the prayers that human heart had need to offer; what things lay beyond its scope must lie beyond the scope of religion. All such things must be parted with one day, and if they had been taken from her very soon, she was the sooner free from the painful necessity of watching lest earthly love should remove any of the old landmarks dividing what was God's from what was only man's. She had now retired within the pale of religion, and left the rest of her being, as she thought, 'to dull forgetfulness a prey.'
She had little comfort in the society of her aunt. Indeed, she felt strongly tempted to return again to England the same month, and seek a divine service elsewhere. But it was not at all so easy then as it is now for a woman to find the opportunity of being helpful in the world of suffering.
Mrs. Forsyth was one of those women who get their own way by the very vis inertiae of their silliness. No argument could tell upon her. She was so incapable of seeing anything noble that her perfect satisfaction with everything she herself thought, said, or did, remained unchallenged. She had just illness enough to swell her feeling of importance. She looked down upon Mrs. Falconer from such an immeasurable height that she could not be indignant with her for anything; she only vouchsafed a laugh now and then at her oddities, holding no further communication with her than a condescending bend of the neck when they happened to meet, which was not once a year. But, indeed, she would have patronized the angel Gabriel, if she had had a chance, and no doubt given him a hint or two upon the proper way of praising God. For the rest, she was good-tempered, looked comfortable, and quarrelled with nobody but her rough honest old bear of a husband, whom, in his seventieth year, she was always trying to teach good manners, with the frequent result of a storm of swearing.
But now Mary St. John was thoroughly interested in the strange boy whose growing musical pinions were ever being clipped by the shears of unsympathetic age and crabbed religion, and the idea of doing something for him to make up for the injustice of his grandmother awoke in her a slight glow of that interest in life which she sought only in doing good. But although ere long she came to love the boy very truly, and although Shargar's life was bound up in the favour of Robert, yet neither stooping angel nor foot-following dog ever loved the lad with the love of that old grandmother, who would for him have given herself to the fire to which she had doomed his greatest delight.
For some days Robert worked hard at his lessons, for he had nothing else to do. Life was very gloomy now. If he could only go to sea, or away to keep sheep on the stormy mountains! If there were only some war going on, that he might list! Any fighting with the elements, or with the oppressors of the nations, would make life worth having, a man worth being. But God did not heed. He leaned over the world, a dark care, an immovable fate, bearing down with the weight of his presence all aspiration, all budding delights of children and young persons: all must crouch before him, and uphold his glory with the sacrificial death of every impulse, every admiration, every lightness of heart, every bubble of laughter. Or—which to a mind like Robert's was as bad—if he did not punish for these things, it was because they came not within the sphere of his condescension, were not worth his notice: of sympathy could be no question.
But this gloom did not last long. When souls like Robert's have been ill-taught about God, the true God will not let them gaze too long upon the Moloch which men have set up to represent him. He will turn away their minds from that which men call him, and fill them with some of his own lovely thoughts or works, such as may by degrees prepare the way for a vision of the Father.
One afternoon Robert was passing the soutar's shop. He had never gone near him since his return. But now, almost mechanically, he went in at the open door.
'Weel, Robert, ye are a stranger. But what's the maitter wi' ye? Faith! yon was an ill plisky ye played me to brak into my chop an' steal the bonnie leddy.'
'Sandy,' said Robert, solemnly, 'ye dinna ken what ye hae dune by that trick ye played me. Dinna ever mention her again i' my hearin'.'
'The auld witch hasna gotten a grup o' her again?' cried the shoemaker, starting half up in alarm. 'She cam here to me aboot the shune, but I reckon I sortit her!'
'I winna speir what ye said,' returned Robert. 'It's no maitter noo.'
And the tears rose to his eyes. His bonny lady!
'The Lord guide 's!' exclaimed the soutar. 'What is the maitter wi' the bonnie leddy?'
'There's nae bonnie leddy ony mair. I saw her brunt to death afore my verra ain een.'
The shoemaker sprang to his feet and caught up his paring knife.
'For God's sake, say 'at yer leein'!' he cried.
'I wish I war leein',' returned Robert.
The soutar uttered a terrible oath, and swore—
'I'll murder the auld—.' The epithet he ended with is too ugly to write.
'Daur to say sic a word in ae breath wi' my grannie,' cried Robert, snatching up the lapstone, 'an' I'll brain ye upo' yer ain shop-flure.'
Sandy threw the knife on his stool, and sat down beside it. Robert dropped the lapstone. Sandy took it up and burst into tears, which before they were half down his face, turned into tar with the blackness of the same.
'I'm an awfu' sinner,' he said, 'and vengeance has owerta'en me. Gang oot o' my chop! I wasna worthy o' her. Gang oot, I say, or I'll kill ye.'
Robert went. Close by the door he met Miss St. John. He pulled off his cap, and would have passed her. But she stopped him.
'I am going for a walk a little way,' she said. 'Will you go with me?'
She had come out in the hope of finding him, for she had seen him go up the street.
'That I wull,' returned Robert, and they walked on together.
When they were beyond the last house, Miss St. John said,
'Would you like to play on the piano, Robert?'
'Eh, mem!' said Robert, with a deep suspiration. Then, after a pause: 'But duv ye think I cud?'
'There's no fear of that. Let me see your hands.'
'They're some black, I doobt, mem,' he remarked, rubbing them hard upon his trowsers before he showed them; 'for I was amaist cawin' oot the brains o' Dooble Sanny wi' his ain lapstane. He's an ill-tongued chield. But eh! mem, ye suld hear him play upo' the fiddle! He's greitin' his een oot e'en noo for the bonnie leddy.'
Not discouraged by her inspection of his hands, black as they were, Miss St. John continued,
'But what would your grandmother say?' she asked.
'She maun ken naething aboot it, mem. I can-not tell her a'thing. She wad greit an' pray awfu', an' lock me up, I daursay. Ye see, she thinks a' kin' o' music 'cep' psalm-singin' comes o' the deevil himsel'. An' I canna believe that. For aye whan I see onything by ordinar bonnie, sic like as the mune was last nicht, it aye gars me greit for my brunt fiddle.'
'Well, you must come to me every day for half-an-hour at least, and I will give you a lesson on my piano. But you can't learn by that. And my aunt could never bear to hear you practising. So I'll tell you what you must do. I have a small piano in my own room. Do you know there is a door from your house into my room?'
'Ay,' said Robert. 'That hoose was my father's afore your uncle bought it. My father biggit it.'
'Is it long since your father died?'
'I dinna ken.'
'Where did he die?'
'I dinna ken.'
'Do you remember it?'
'No, mem.'
'Well, if you will come to my room, you shall practise there. I shall be down-stairs with my aunt. But perhaps I may look up now and then, to see how you are getting on. I will leave the door unlocked, so that you can come in when you like. If I don't want you, I will lock the door. You understand? You mustn't be handling things, you know.'
''Deed, mem, ye may lippen (trust) to me. But I'm jist feared to lat ye hear me lay a finger upo' the piana, for it's little I cud do wi' my fiddle, an', for the piana! I'm feart I'll jist scunner (disgust) ye.'
'If you really want to learn, there will be no fear of that,' returned Miss St. John, guessing at the meaning of the word scunner. 'I don't think I am doing anything wrong,' she added, half to herself, in a somewhat doubtful tone.
''Deed no, mem. Ye're jist an angel unawares. For I maist think sometimes that my grannie 'll drive me wud (mad); for there's naething to read but guid buiks, an' naething to sing but psalms; an' there's nae fun aboot the hoose but Betty; an' puir Shargar's nearhan' dementit wi' 't. An' we maun pray till her whether we will or no. An' there's no comfort i' the place but plenty to ate; an' that canna be guid for onybody. She likes flooers, though, an' wad like me to gar them grow; but I dinna care aboot it: they tak sic a time afore they come to onything.'
Then Miss St. John inquired about Shargar, and began to feel rather differently towards the old lady when she had heard the story. But how she laughed at the tale, and how light-hearted Robert went home, are neither to be told.
The next Sunday, the first time for many years, Dooble Sanny was at church with his wife, though how much good he got by going would be a serious question to discuss.
Chapter XXV. The Gates of Paradise
Robert had his first lesson the next Saturday afternoon. Eager and undismayed by the presence of Mrs. Forsyth, good-natured and contemptuous—for had he not a protecting angel by him?—he hearkened for every word of Miss St. John, combated every fault, and undermined every awkwardness with earnest patience. Nothing delighted Robert so much as to give himself up to one greater. His mistress was thoroughly pleased, and even Mrs. Forsyth gave him two of her soft finger tips to do something or other with—Robert did not know what, and let them go.
About eight o'clock that same evening, his heart beating like a captured bird's, he crept from grannie's parlour, past the kitchen, and up the low stair to the mysterious door. He had been trying for an hour to summon up courage to rise, feeling as if his grandmother must suspect where he was going. Arrived at the barrier, twice his courage failed him; twice he turned and sped back to the parlour. A third time he made the essay, a third time stood at the wondrous door—so long as blank as a wall to his careless eyes, now like the door of the magic Sesame that led to the treasure-cave of Ali Baba. He laid his hand on the knob, withdrew it, thought he heard some one in the transe, rushed up the garret stair, and stood listening, hastened down, and with a sudden influx of determination opened the door, saw that the trap was raised, closed the door behind him, and standing with his head on the level of the floor, gazed into the paradise of Miss St. John's room. To have one peep into such a room was a kind of salvation to the half-starved nature of the boy. All before him was elegance, richness, mystery. Womanhood radiated from everything. A fire blazed in the chimney. A rug of long white wool lay before it. A little way off stood the piano. Ornaments sparkled and shone upon the dressing-table. The door of a wardrobe had swung a little open, and discovered the sombre shimmer of a black silk dress. Something gorgeously red, a China crape shawl, hung glowing beyond it. He dared not gaze any longer. He had already been guilty of an immodesty. He hastened to ascend, and seated himself at the piano.
Let my reader aid me for a moment with his imagination—reflecting what it was to a boy like Robert, and in Robert's misery, to open a door in his own meagre dwelling and gaze into such a room—free to him. If he will aid me so, then let him aid himself by thinking that the house of his own soul has such a door into the infinite beauty, whether he has yet found it or not.
'Just think,' Robert said to himself, 'o' me in sic a place! It's a pailace. It's a fairy pailace. And that angel o' a leddy bides here, and sleeps there! I wonner gin she ever dreams aboot onything as bonny 's hersel'!'
Then his thoughts took another turn.
'I wonner gin the room was onything like this whan my mamma sleepit in 't? I cudna hae been born in sic a gran' place. But my mamma micht hae weel lien here.'
The face of the miniature, and the sad words written below the hymn, came back upon him, and he bowed his head upon his hands. He was sitting thus when Miss St. John came behind him, and heard him murmur the one word Mamma! She laid her hand on his shoulder. He started and rose.
'I beg yer pardon, mem. I hae no business to be here, excep' to play. But I cudna help thinkin' aboot my mother; for I was born in this room, mem. Will I gang awa' again?'
He turned towards the door.
'No, no,' said Miss St. John. 'I only came to see if you were here. I cannot stop now; but to-morrow you must tell me about your mother. Sit down, and don't lose any more time. Your grandmother will miss you. And then what would come of it?'
Thus was this rough diamond of a Scotch boy, rude in speech, but full of delicate thought, gathered under the modelling influences of the finished, refined, tender, sweet-tongued, and sweet-thoughted Englishwoman, who, if she had been less of a woman, would have been repelled by his uncouthness; if she had been less of a lady, would have mistaken his commonness for vulgarity. But she was just, like the type of womankind, a virgin-mother. She saw the nobility of his nature through its homely garments, and had been, indeed, sent to carry on the work from which his mother had been too early taken away.
'There's jist ae thing mem, that vexes me a wee, an' I dinna ken what to think aboot it,' said Robert, as Miss St. John was leaving the room. 'Maybe ye cud bide ae minute till I tell ye.'
'Yes, I can. What is it?'
'I'm nearhan' sure that whan I lea' the parlour, grannie 'ill think I'm awa' to my prayers; and sae she'll think better o' me nor I deserve. An' I canna bide that.'
'What should make you suppose that she will think so?'
'Fowk kens what ane anither's aboot, ye ken, mem.'
'Then she'll know you are not at your prayers.'
'Na. For sometimes I div gang to my prayers for a whilie like, but nae for lang, for I'm nae like ane o' them 'at he wad care to hear sayin' a lang screed o' a prayer till 'im. I hae but ae thing to pray aboot.'
'And what's that, Robert?'
One of his silences had seized him. He looked confused, and turned away.
'Never mind,' said Miss St. John, anxious to relieve him, and establish a comfortable relation between them; 'you will tell me another time.'
'I doobt no, mem,' answered Robert, with what most people would think an excess of honesty.
But Miss St. John made a better conjecture as to his apparent closeness.
'At all events,' she said, 'don't mind what your grannie may think, so long as you have no wish to make her think it. Good-night.'
Had she been indeed an angel from heaven, Robert could not have worshipped her more. And why should he? Was she less God's messenger that she had beautiful arms instead of less beautiful wings?
He practised his scales till his unaccustomed fingers were stiff, then shut the piano with reverence, and departed, carefully peeping into the disenchanted region without the gates to see that no enemy lay in wait for him as he passed beyond them. He closed the door gently; and in one moment the rich lovely room and the beautiful lady were behind him, and before him the bare stair between two white-washed walls, and the long flagged transe that led to his silent grandmother seated in her arm-chair, gazing into the red coals—for somehow grannie's fire always glowed, and never blazed—with her round-toed shoes pointed at them from the top of her little wooden stool. He traversed the stair and the transe, entered the parlour, and sat down to his open book as though nothing had happened. But his grandmother saw the light in his face, and did think he had just come from his prayers. And she blessed God that he had put it into her heart to burn the fiddle.
The next night Robert took with him the miniature of his mother, and showed it to Miss St. John, who saw at once that, whatever might be his present surroundings, his mother must have been a lady. A certain fancied resemblance in it to her own mother likewise drew her heart to the boy. Then Robert took from his pocket the gold thimble, and said,
'This thimmel was my mamma's. Will ye tak it, mem, for ye ken it's o' nae use to me.'
Miss St. John hesitated for a moment.
'I will keep it for you, if you like,' she said, for she could not bear to refuse it.
'Na, mem; I want ye to keep it to yersel'; for I'm sure my mamma wad hae likit you to hae 't better nor ony ither body.'
'Well, I will use it sometimes for your sake. But mind, I will not take it from you; I will only keep it for you.'
'Weel, weel, mem; gin ye'll keep it till I speir for 't, that'll du weel eneuch,' answered Robert, with a smile.
He laboured diligently; and his progress corresponded to his labour. It was more than intellect that guided him: Falconer had genius for whatever he cared for.
Meantime the love he bore his teacher, and the influence of her beauty, began to mould him, in his kind and degree, after her likeness, so that he grew nice in his person and dress, and smoothed the roughness and moderated the broadness of his speech with the amenities of the English which she made so sweet upon her tongue. He became still more obedient to his grandmother, and more diligent at school; gathered to himself golden opinions without knowing it, and was gradually developing into a rustic gentleman.
Nor did the piano absorb all his faculties. Every divine influence tends to the rounded perfection of the whole. His love of Nature grew more rapidly. Hitherto it was only in summer that he had felt the presence of a power in her and yet above her: in winter, now, the sky was true and deep, though the world was waste and sad; and the tones of the wind that roared at night about the goddess-haunted house, and moaned in the chimneys of the lowly dwelling that nestled against it, woke harmonies within him which already he tried to spell out falteringly. Miss St. John began to find that he put expressions of his own into the simple things she gave him to play, and even dreamed a little at his own will when alone with the passive instrument. Little did Mrs. Falconer think into what a seventh heaven of accursed music she had driven her boy.
But not yet did he tell his friend, much as he loved and much as he trusted her, the little he knew of his mother's sorrows and his father's sins, or whose the hand that had struck him when she found him lying in the waste factory.
For a time almost all his trouble about God went from him. Nor do I think that this was only because he rarely thought of him at all: God gave him of himself in Miss St. John. But words dropped now and then from off the shelves where his old difficulties lay, and they fell like seeds upon the heart of Miss St. John, took root, and rose in thoughts: in the heart of a true woman the talk of a child even will take life.
One evening Robert rose from the table, not unwatched of his grandmother, and sped swiftly and silently through the dark, as was his custom, to enter the chamber of enchantment. Never before had his hand failed to alight, sure as a lark on its nest, upon the brass handle of the door that admitted him to his paradise. It missed it now, and fell on something damp, and rough, and repellent instead. Horrible, but true suspicion! While he was at school that day, his grandmother, moved by what doubt or by what certainty she never revealed, had had the doorway walled up. He felt the place all over. It was to his hands the living tomb of his mother's vicar on earth.
He returned to his book, pale as death, but said never a word. The next day the stones were plastered over.
Thus the door of bliss vanished from the earth. And neither the boy nor his grandmother ever said that it had been.