Chapter I. Robert Knocks—and the Door is Not Opened
The remainder of that winter was dreary indeed. Every time Robert went up the stair to his garret, he passed the door of a tomb. With that gray mortar Mary St. John was walled up, like the nun he had read of in the Marmion she had lent him. He might have rung the bell at the street door, and been admitted into the temple of his goddess, but a certain vague terror of his grannie, combined with equally vague qualms of conscience for having deceived her, and the approach in the far distance of a ghastly suspicion that violins, pianos, moonlight, and lovely women were distasteful to the over-ruling Fate, and obnoxious to the vengeance stored in the gray cloud of his providence, drove him from the awful entrance of the temple of his Isis.
Nor did Miss St. John dare to make any advances to the dreadful old lady. She would wait. For Mrs. Forsyth, she cared nothing about the whole affair. It only gave her fresh opportunity for smiling condescensions about 'poor Mrs. Falconer.' So Paradise was over and gone.
But though the loss of Miss St. John and the piano was the last blow, his sorrow did not rest there, but returned to brood over his bonny lady. She was scattered to the winds. Would any of her ashes ever rise in the corn, and moan in the ripening wind of autumn? Might not some atoms of the bonny leddy creep into the pines on the hill, whose 'soft and soul-like sounds' had taught him to play the Flowers of the Forest on those strings which, like the nerves of an amputated limb, yet thrilled through his being? Or might not some particle find its way by winds and waters to sycamore forest of Italy, there creep up through the channels of its life to some finely-rounded curve of noble tree, on the side that ever looks sunwards, and be chosen once again by the violin-hunter, to be wrought into a new and fame-gathering instrument?
Could it be that his bonny lady had learned her wondrous music in those forests, from the shine of the sun, and the sighing of the winds through the sycamores and pines? For Robert knew that the broad-leaved sycamore, and the sharp, needle-leaved pine, had each its share in the violin. Only as the wild innocence of human nature, uncorrupted by wrong, untaught by suffering, is to that nature struggling out of darkness into light, such and so different is the living wood, with its sweetest tones of obedient impulse, answering only to the wind which bloweth where it listeth, to that wood, chosen, separated, individualized, tortured into strange, almost vital shape, after a law to us nearly unknown, strung with strings from animal organizations, and put into the hands of man to utter the feelings of a soul that has passed through a like history. This Robert could not yet think, and had to grow able to think it by being himself made an instrument of God's music.
What he could think was that the glorious mystery of his bonny leddy was gone for ever—and alas! she had no soul. Here was an eternal sorrow. He could never meet her again. His affections, which must live for ever, were set upon that which had passed away. But the child that weeps because his mutilated doll will not rise from the dead, shall yet find relief from his sorrow, a true relief, both human and divine. He shall know that that which in the doll made him love the doll, has not passed away. And Robert must yet be comforted for the loss of his bonny leddy. If she had had a soul, nothing but her own self could ever satisfy him. As she had no soul, another body might take her place, nor occasion reproach of inconstancy.
But, in the meantime, the shears of Fate having cut the string of the sky-soaring kite of his imagination, had left him with the stick in his hand. And thus the rest of that winter was dreary enough. The glow was out of his heart; the glow was out of the world. The bleak, kindless wind was hissing through those pines that clothed the hill above Bodyfauld, and over the dead garden, where in the summer time the rose had looked down so lovingly on the heartsease. If he had stood once more at gloaming in that barley-stubble, not even the wail of Flodden-field would have found him there, but a keen sense of personal misery and hopeless cold. Was the summer a lie?
Not so. The winter restrains, that the summer may have the needful time to do its work well; for the winter is but the sleep of summer.
Now in the winter of his discontent, and in Nature finding no help, Robert was driven inwards—into his garret, into his soul. There, the door of his paradise being walled up, he began, vaguely, blindly, to knock against other doors—sometimes against stone-walls and rocks, taking them for doors—as travel-worn, and hence brain-sick men have done in a desert of mountains. A door, out or in, he must find, or perish.
It fell, too, that Miss St. John went to visit some friends who lived in a coast town twenty miles off; and a season of heavy snow followed by frost setting in, she was absent for six weeks, during which time, without a single care to trouble him from without, Robert was in the very desert of desolation. His spirits sank fearfully. He would pass his old music-master in the street with scarce a recognition, as if the bond of their relation had been utterly broken, had vanished in the smoke of the martyred violin, and all their affection had gone into the dust-heap of the past.
Dooble Sanny's character did not improve. He took more and more whisky, his bouts of drinking alternating as before with fits of hopeless repentance. His work was more neglected than ever, and his wife having no money to spend even upon necessaries, applied in desperation to her husband's bottle for comfort. This comfort, to do him justice, he never grudged her; and sometimes before midday they would both be drunk—a condition expedited by the lack of food. When they began to recover, they would quarrel fiercely; and at last they became a nuisance to the whole street. Little did the whisky-hating old lady know to what god she had really offered up that violin—if the consequences of the holocaust can be admitted as indicating the power which had accepted it.
But now began to appear in Robert the first signs of a practical outcome of such truth as his grandmother had taught him, operating upon the necessities of a simple and earnest nature. Reality, however lapt in vanity, or even in falsehood, cannot lose its power. It is—the other is not. She had taught him to look up—that there was a God. He would put it to the test. Not that he doubted it yet: he only doubted whether there was a hearing God. But was not that worse? It was, I think. For it is of far more consequence what kind of a God, than whether a God or no. Let not my reader suppose I think it possible there could be other than a perfect God—perfect—even to the vision of his creatures, the faith that supplies the lack of vision being yet faithful to that vision. I speak from Robert's point of outlook. But, indeed, whether better or worse is no great matter, so long as he would see it or what there was. He had no comfort, and, without reasoning about it, he felt that life ought to have comfort—from which point he began to conclude that the only thing left was to try whether the God in whom his grandmother believed might not help him. If the God would but hear him, it was all he had yet learned to require of his Godhood. And that must ever be the first thing to require. More demands would come, and greater answers he would find. But now—if God would but hear him! If he spoke to him but one kind word, it would be the very soul of comfort; he could no more be lonely. A fountain of glad imaginations gushed up in his heart at the thought. What if, from the cold winter of his life, he had but to open the door of his garret-room, and, kneeling by the bare bedstead, enter into the summer of God's presence! What if God spoke to him face to face! He had so spoken to Moses. He sought him from no fear of the future, but from present desolation; and if God came near to him, it would not be with storm and tempest, but with the voice of a friend. And surely, if there was a God at all, that is, not a power greater than man, but a power by whose power man was, he must hear the voice of the creature whom he had made, a voice that came crying out of the very need which he had created. Younger people than Robert are capable of such divine metaphysics. Hence he continued to disappear from his grandmother's parlour at much the same hour as before. In the cold, desolate garret, he knelt and cried out into that which lay beyond the thought that cried, the unknowable infinite, after the God that may be known as surely as a little child knows his mysterious mother. And from behind him, the pale-blue, star-crowded sky shone upon his head, through the window that looked upwards only.
Mrs. Falconer saw that he still went away as he had been wont, and instituted observations, the result of which was the knowledge that he went to his own room. Her heart smote her, and she saw that the boy looked sad and troubled. There was scarce room in her heart for increase of love, but much for increase of kindness, and she did increase it. In truth, he needed the smallest crumb of comfort that might drop from the table of God's 'feastful friends.'
Night after night he returned to the parlour cold to the very heart. God was not to be found, he said then. He said afterwards that even then 'God was with him though he knew it not.'
For the very first night, the moment that he knelt and cried, 'O Father in heaven, hear me, and let thy face shine upon me'—like a flash of burning fire the words shot from the door of his heart: 'I dinna care for him to love me, gin he doesna love ilka body;' and no more prayer went from the desolate boy that night, although he knelt an hour of agony in the freezing dark. Loyal to what he had been taught, he struggled hard to reduce his rebellious will to what he supposed to be the will of God. It was all in vain. Ever a voice within him—surely the voice of that God who he thought was not hearing—told him that what he wanted was the love belonging to his human nature, his human needs—not the preference of a court-favourite. He had a dim consciousness that he would be a traitor to his race if he accepted a love, even from God, given him as an exception from his kind. But he did not care to have such a love. It was not what his heart yearned for. It was not love. He could not love such a love. Yet he strove against it all—fought for religion against right as he could; struggled to reduce his rebellious feelings, to love that which was unlovely, to choose that which was abhorrent, until nature almost gave way under the effort. Often would he sink moaning on the floor, or stretch himself like a corpse, save that it was face downwards, on the boards of the bedstead. Night after night he returned to the battle, but with no permanent success. What a success that would have been! Night after night he came pale and worn from the conflict, found his grandmother and Shargar composed, and in the quietness of despair sat down beside them to his Latin version.
He little thought, that every night, at the moment when he stirred to leave the upper room, a pale-faced, red-eyed figure rose from its seat on the top of the stair by the door, and sped with long-legged noiselessness to resume its seat by the grandmother before he should enter. Shargar saw that Robert was unhappy, and the nearest he could come to the sharing of his unhappiness was to take his place outside the door within which he had retreated. Little, too, did Shargar, on his part, think that Robert, without knowing it, was pleading for him inside—pleading for him and for all his race in the weeping that would not be comforted.
Robert had not the vaguest fancy that God was with him—the spirit of the Father groaning with the spirit of the boy in intercession that could not be uttered. If God had come to him then and comforted him with the assurance of individual favour—but the very supposition is a taking of his name in vain—had Robert found comfort in the fancied assurance that God was his friend in especial, that some private favour was granted to his prayers, that, indeed, would have been to be left to his own inventions, to bring forth not fruits meet for repentance, but fruits for which repentance alone is meet. But God was with him, and was indeed victorious in the boy when he rose from his knees, for the last time, as he thought, saying, 'I cannot yield—I will pray no more.'—With a burst of bitter tears he sat down on the bedside till the loudest of the storm was over, then dried his dull eyes, in which the old outlook had withered away, and trod unknowingly in the silent footsteps of Shargar, who was ever one corner in advance of him, down to the dreary lessons and unheeded prayers; but, thank God, not to the sleepless night, for some griefs bring sleep the sooner.
My reader must not mistake my use of the words especial and private, or suppose that I do not believe in an individual relation between every man and God, yes, a peculiar relation, differing from the relation between every other man and God! But this very individuality and peculiarity can only be founded on the broadest truths of the Godhood and the manhood.
Mrs. Falconer, ere she went to sleep, gave thanks that the boys had been at their prayers together. And so, in a very deep sense, they had.
And well they might have been; for Shargar was nearly as desolate as Robert, and would certainly, had his mother claimed him now, have gone on the tramp with her again. Wherein could this civilized life show itself to him better than that to which he had been born? For clothing he cared little, and he had always managed to kill his hunger or thirst, if at longer intervals, then with greater satisfaction. Wherein is the life of that man who merely does his eating and drinking and clothing after a civilized fashion better than that of the gipsy or tramp? If the civilized man is honest to boot, and gives good work in return for the bread or turtle on which he dines, and the gipsy, on the other hand, steals his dinner, I recognize the importance of the difference; but if the rich man plunders the community by exorbitant profits, or speculation with other people's money, while the gipsy adds a fowl or two to the produce of his tinkering; or, once again, if the gipsy is as honest as the honest citizen, which is not so rare a case by any means as people imagine, I return to my question: Wherein, I say, is the warm house, the windows hung with purple, and the table covered with fine linen, more divine than the tent or the blue sky, and the dipping in the dish? Why should not Shargar prefer a life with the mother God had given him to a life with Mrs. Falconer? Why should he prefer geography to rambling, or Latin to Romany? His purposelessness and his love for Robert alone kept him where he was.
The next evening, having given up his praying, Robert sat with his Sallust before him. But the fount of tears began to swell, and the more he tried to keep it down, the more it went on swelling till his throat was filled with a lump of pain. He rose and left the room. But he could not go near the garret. That door too was closed. He opened the house door instead, and went out into the street. There, nothing was to be seen but faint blue air full of moonlight, solid houses, and shining snow. Bareheaded he wandered round the corner of the house to the window whence first he had heard the sweet sounds of the pianoforte. The fire within lighted up the crimson curtains, but no voice of music came forth. The window was as dumb as the pale, faintly befogged moon overhead, itself seeming but a skylight through which shone the sickly light of the passionless world of the dead. Not a form was in the street. The eyes of the houses gleamed here and there upon the snow. He leaned his elbow on the window-sill behind which stood that sealed fountain of lovely sound, looked up at the moon, careless of her or of aught else in heaven or on earth, and sunk into a reverie, in which nothing was consciously present but a stream of fog-smoke that flowed slowly, listlessly across the face of the moon, like the ghost of a dead cataract. All at once a wailful sound arose in his head. He did not think for some time whether it was born in his brain, or entered it from without. At length he recognized the Flowers of the Forest, played as only the soutar could play it. But alas! the cry responsive to his bow came only from the auld wife—no more from the bonny leddy! Then he remembered that there had been a humble wedding that morning on the opposite side of the way; in the street department of the jollity of which Shargar had taken a small share by firing a brass cannon, subsequently confiscated by Mrs. Falconer. But this was a strange tune to play at a wedding! The soutar half-way to his goal of drunkenness, had begun to repent for the fiftieth time that year, had with his repentance mingled the memory of the bonny leddy ruthlessly tortured to death for his wrong, and had glided from a strathspey into that sorrowful moaning. The lament interpreted itself to his disconsolate pupil as he had never understood it before, not even in the stubble-field; for it now spoke his own feelings of waste misery, forsaken loneliness. Indeed Robert learned more of music in those few minutes of the foggy winter night and open street, shut out of all doors, with the tones of an ancient grief and lamentation floating through the blotted moonlight over his ever-present sorrow, than he could have learned from many lessons even of Miss St. John. He was cold to the heart, yet went in a little comforted.
Things had gone ill with him. Outside of Paradise, deserted of his angel, in the frost and the snow, the voice of the despised violin once more the source of a sad comfort! But there is no better discipline than an occasional descent from what we count well-being, to a former despised or less happy condition. One of the results of this taste of damnation in Robert was, that when he was in bed that night, his heart began to turn gently towards his old master. How much did he not owe him, after all! Had he not acted ill and ungratefully in deserting him? His own vessel filled to the brim with grief, had he not let the waters of its bitterness overflow into the heart of the soutar? The wail of that violin echoed now in Robert's heart, not for Flodden, not for himself, but for the debased nature that drew forth the plaint. Comrades in misery, why should they part? What right had he to forsake an old friend and benefactor because he himself was unhappy? He would go and see him the very next night. And he would make friends once more with the much 'suffering instrument' he had so wrongfully despised.
Chapter II. The Stroke
The following night, he left his books on the table, and the house itself behind him, and sped like a grayhound to Dooble Sanny's shop, lifted the latch, and entered.
By the light of a single dip set on a chair, he saw the shoemaker seated on his stool, one hand lying on the lap of his leathern apron, his other hand hanging down by his side, and the fiddle on the ground at his feet. His wife stood behind him, wiping her eyes with her blue apron. Through all its accumulated dirt, the face of the soutar looked ghastly, and they were eyes of despair that he lifted to the face of the youth as he stood holding the latch in his hand. Mrs. Alexander moved towards Robert, drew him in, and gently closed the door behind him, resuming her station like a sculptured mourner behind her motionless husband.
'What on airth's the maitter wi' ye, Sandy?' said Robert.
'Eh, Robert!' returned the shoemaker, and a tone of affection tinged the mournfulness with which he uttered the strange words—'eh, Robert! the Almichty will gang his ain gait, and I'm in his grup noo.'
'He's had a stroke,' said his wife, without removing her apron from her eyes.
'I hae gotten my pecks (blows),' resumed the soutar, in a despairing voice, which gave yet more effect to the fantastic eccentricity of conscience which from the midst of so many grave faults chose such a one as especially bringing the divine displeasure upon him: 'I hae gotten my pecks for cryin' doon my ain auld wife to set up your bonny leddy. The tane's gane a' to aise an' stew (ashes and dust), an' frae the tither,' he went on, looking down on the violin at his feet as if it had been something dead in its youth—'an' frae the tither I canna draw a cheep, for my richt han' has forgotten her cunnin'. Man, Robert, I canna lift it frae my side.'
'Ye maun gang to yer bed,' said Robert, greatly concerned.
'Ow, ay, I maun gang to my bed, and syne to the kirkyaird, and syne to hell, I ken that weel eneuch. Robert, I lea my fiddle to you. Be guid to the auld wife, man—better nor I hae been. An auld wife's better nor nae fiddle.'
He stooped, lifted the violin with his left hand, gave it to Robert, rose, and made for the door. They helped him up the creaking stair, got him half-undressed, and laid him in his bed. Robert put the violin on the top of a press within sight of the sufferer, left him groaning, and ran for the doctor. Having seen him set out for the patient's dwelling, he ran home to his grandmother.
Now while Robert was absent, occasion had arisen to look for him: unusual occurrence, a visitor had appeared, no less a person than Mr. Innes, the school-master. Shargar had been banished in consequence from the parlour, and had seated himself outside Robert's room, never doubting that Robert was inside. Presently he heard the bell ring, and then Betty came up the stair, and said Robert was wanted. Thereupon Shargar knocked at the door, and as there was neither voice nor hearing, opened it, and found, with a well-known horror, that he had been watching an empty room. He made no haste to communicate the fact. Robert might return in a moment, and his absence from the house not be discovered. He sat down on the bedstead and waited. But Betty came up again, and before Shargar could prevent her, walked into the room with her candle in her hand. In vain did Shargar intreat her to go and say that Robert was coming. Betty would not risk the danger of discovery in connivance, and descended to open afresh the fountain of the old lady's anxiety. She did not, however, betray her disquietude to Mr. Innes.
She had asked the school-master to visit her, in order that she might consult him about Robert's future. Mr. Innes expressed a high opinion of the boy's faculties and attainments, and strongly urged that he should be sent to college. Mrs. Falconer inwardly shuddered at the temptations to which this course would expose him; but he must leave home or be apprentice to some trade. She would have chosen the latter, I believe, but for religion towards the boy's parents, who would never have thought of other than a profession for him. While the school-master was dwelling on the argument that he was pretty sure to gain a good bursary, and she would thus be relieved for four years, probably for ever, from further expense on his account, Robert entered.
'Whaur hae ye been, Robert?' asked Mrs. Falconer.
'At Dooble Sanny's,' answered the boy.
'What hae ye been at there?'
'Helpin' him till 's bed.'
'What's come ower him?'
'A stroke.'
'That's what comes o' playin' the fiddle.'
'I never heard o' a stroke comin' frae a fiddle, grannie. It comes oot o' a clood whiles. Gin he had hauden till 's fiddle, he wad hae been playin' her the nicht, in place o' 's airm lyin' at 's side like a lang lingel (ligneul—shoemaker's thread).'
'Hm!' said his grandmother, concealing her indignation at this freedom of speech, 'ye dinna believe in God's judgments!'
'Nae upo' fiddles,' returned Robert.
Mr. Innes sat and said nothing, with difficulty concealing his amusement at this passage of arms.
It was but within the last few days that Robert had become capable of speaking thus. His nature had at length arrived at the point of so far casting off the incubus of his grandmother's authority as to assert some measure of freedom and act openly. His very hopelessness of a hearing in heaven had made him indifferent to things on earth, and therefore bolder. Thus, strange as it may seem, the blessing of God descended on him in the despair which enabled him to speak out and free his soul from the weight of concealment. But it was not despair alone that gave him strength. On his way home from the shoemaker's he had been thinking what he could do for him; and had resolved, come of it what might, that he would visit him every evening, and try whether he could not comfort him a little by playing upon his violin. So that it was loving-kindness towards man, as well as despair towards God, that gave him strength to resolve that between him and his grandmother all should be above-board from henceforth.
'Nae upo' fiddles,' Robert had said.
'But upo' them 'at plays them,' returned his grandmother.
'Na; nor upo' them 'at burns them,' retorted Robert—impudently it must be confessed; for every man is open to commit the fault of which he is least capable.
But Mrs. Falconer had too much regard to her own dignity to indulge her feelings. Possibly too her sense of justice, which Falconer always said was stronger than that of any other woman he had ever known, as well as some movement of her conscience interfered. She was silent, and Robert rushed into the breach which his last discharge had effected.
'An' I want to tell ye, grannie, that I mean to gang an' play the fiddle to puir Sanny ilka nicht for the best pairt o' an hoor; an' excep' ye lock the door an' hide the key, I will gang. The puir sinner sanna be desertit by God an' man baith.'
He scarcely knew what he was saying before it was out of his mouth; and as if to cover it up, he hurried on.
'An' there's mair in 't.—Dr. Anderson gae Shargar an' me a sovereign the piece. An' Dooble Sanny s' hae them, to haud him ohn deid o' hunger an' cauld.'
'What for didna ye tell me 'at Dr. Anderson had gien ye sic a sicht o' siller? It was ill-faured o' ye—an' him as weel.'
''Cause ye wad hae sent it back till 'im; an' Shargar and me we thocht we wad raither keep it.'
'Considerin' 'at I'm at sae muckle expense wi' ye baith, it wadna hae been ill-contrived to hae brocht the siller to me, an' latten me du wi' 't as I thocht fit.—Gang na awa', laddie,' she added, as she saw Robert about to leave the room.
'I'll be back in a minute, grannie,' returned Robert.
'He's a fine lad, that!' said Mr. Innes; 'an' guid 'll come o' 'm, and that 'll be heard tell o'.'
'Gin he had but the grace o' God, there wadna be muckle to compleen o',' acquiesced his grandmother.
'There's time eneuch for that, Mrs. Faukner. Ye canna get auld heids upo' young shoothers, ye ken.'
''Deed for that maitter, ye may get mony an auld heid upo' auld shoothers, and nae a spark o' grace in 't to lat it see hoo to lay itsel' doon i' the grave.'
Robert returned before Mr. Innes had made up his mind as to whether the old lady intended a personal rebuke.
'Hae, grannie,' he said, going up to her, and putting the two sovereigns in her white palm.
He had found some difficulty in making Shargar give up his, else he would have returned sooner.
'What's this o' 't, laddie?' said Mrs. Falconer. 'Hoots! I'm nae gaein' to tak yer siller. Lat the puir soutar-craturs hae 't. But dinna gie them mair nor a shillin' or twa at ance—jist to haud them in life. They deserve nae mair. But they maunna sterve. And jist ye tell them, laddie, at gin they spen' ae saxpence o' 't upo' whusky, they s' get nae mair.'
'Ay, ay, grannie,' responded Robert, with a glimmer of gladness in his heart. 'And what aboot the fiddlin', grannie?' he added, half playfully, hoping for some kind concession therein as well.
But he had gone too far. She vouchsafed no reply, and her face grew stern with offence. It was one thing to give bread to eat, another to give music and gladness. No music but that which sprung from effectual calling and the perseverance of the saints could be lawful in a world that was under the wrath and curse of God. Robert waited in vain for a reply.
'Gang yer wa's,' she said at length. 'Mr. Innes and me has some business to mak an en' o', an' we want nae assistance.'
Robert rejoined Shargar, who was still bemoaning the loss of his sovereign. His face brightened when he saw its well-known yellow shine once more, but darkened again as soon as Robert told him to what service it was now devoted.
'It's my ain,' he said, with a suppressed expostulatory growl.
Robert threw the coin on the floor.
'Tak yer filthy lucre!' he exclaimed with contempt, and turned to leave Shargar alone in the garret with his sovereign.
'Bob!' Shargar almost screamed, 'tak it, or I'll cut my throat.'
This was his constant threat when he was thoroughly in earnest.
'Cut it, an' hae dune wi' 't,' said Robert cruelly.
Shargar burst out crying.
'Len' me yer knife, than, Bob,' he sobbed, holding out his hand.
Robert burst into a roar of laughter, caught up the sovereign from the floor, sped with it to the baker's, who refused to change it because he had no knowledge of anything representing the sum of twenty shillings except a pound-note, succeeded in getting silver for it at the bank, and then ran to the soutar's.
After he left the parlour, the discussion of his fate was resumed and finally settled between his grandmother and the school-master. The former, in regard of the boy's determination to befriend the shoemaker in the matter of music as well as of money, would now have sent him at once to the grammar-school in Old Aberdeen, to prepare for the competition in the month of November; but the latter persuaded her that if the boy gave his whole attention to Latin till the next summer, and then went to the grammar-school for three months or so, he would have an excellent chance of success. As to the violin, the school-master said, wisely enough:
'He that will to Cupar maun to Cupar; and gin ye kep (intercept) him upo' the shore-road, he'll tak to the hill-road; an' I s' warran' a braw lad like Robert 'll get mony a ane in Ebberdeen 'll be ready eneuch to gie him a lift wi' the fiddle, and maybe tak him into waur company nor the puir bed-ridden soutar; an' wi' you an' me to hing on to the tail o' 'im like, he canna gang ower the scar (cliff) afore he learns wit.'
'Hm!' was the old lady's comprehensive response.
It was further arranged that Robert should be informed of their conclusion, and so roused to effort in anticipation of the trial upon which his course in life must depend.
Nothing could have been better for Robert than the prospect of a college education. But his first thought at the news was not of the delights of learning nor of the honourable course that would ensue, but of Eric Ericson, the poverty-stricken, friendless descendant of yarls and sea-rovers. He would see him—the only man that understood him! Not until the passion of this thought had abated, did he begin to perceive the other advantages before him. But so practical and thorough was he in all his proposals and means, that ere half-an-hour was gone, he had begun to go over his Rudiments again. He now wrote a version, or translation from English into Latin, five times a week, and read Caeser, Virgil, or Tacitus, every day. He gained permission from his grandmother to remove his bed to his own garret, and there, from the bedstead at which he no longer kneeled, he would often rise at four in the morning, even when the snow lay a foot thick on the skylight, kindle his lamp by means of a tinder-box and a splinter of wood dipped in sulphur, and sitting down in the keen cold, turn half a page of Addison into something as near Ciceronian Latin as he could effect. This would take him from an hour and a half to two hours, when he would tumble again into bed, blue and stiff, and sleep till it was time to get up and go to the morning school before breakfast. His health was excellent, else it could never have stood such treatment.
Chapter III. 'The End Crowns All'
His sole relaxation almost lay in the visit he paid every evening to the soutar and his wife. Their home was a wretched place; but notwithstanding the poverty in which they were now sunk, Robert soon began to see a change, like the dawning of light, an alba, as the Italians call the dawn, in the appearance of something white here and there about the room. Robert's visits had set the poor woman trying to make the place look decent. It soon became at least clean, and there is a very real sense in which cleanliness is next to godliness. If the people who want to do good among the poor would give up patronizing them, would cease from trying to convert them before they have gained the smallest personal influence with them, would visit them as those who have just as good a right to be here as they have, it would be all the better for both, perhaps chiefly for themselves.
For the first week or so, Alexander, unable either to work or play, and deprived of his usual consolation of drink, was very testy and unmanageable. If Robert, who strove to do his best, in the hope of alleviating the poor fellow's sufferings—chiefly those of the mind—happened to mistake the time or to draw a false note from the violin, Sandy would swear as if he had been the Grand Turk and Robert one of his slaves. But Robert was too vexed with himself, when he gave occasion to such an outburst, to mind the outburst itself. And invariably when such had taken place, the shoemaker would ask forgiveness before he went. Holding out his left hand, from which nothing could efface the stains of rosin and lamp-black and heel-ball, save the sweet cleansing of mother-earth, he would say,
'Robert, ye'll jist pit the sweirin' doon wi' the lave (rest), an' score 't oot a'thegither. I'm an ill-tongued vratch, an' I'm beginnin' to see 't. But, man, ye're jist behavin' to me like God himsel', an' gin it warna for you, I wad jist lie here roarin' an' greitin' an' damnin' frae mornin' to nicht.—Ye will be in the morn's night—willna ye?' he would always end by asking with some anxiety.
'Of coorse I will,' Robert would answer.
'Gude nicht, than, gude nicht.—I'll try and get a sicht o' my sins ance mair,' he added, one evening. 'Gin I could only be a wee bit sorry for them, I reckon he wad forgie me. Dinna ye think he wad, Robert?'
'Nae doobt, nae doobt,' answered Robert hurriedly. 'They a' say 'at gin a man repents the richt gait, he'll forgie him.'
He could not say more than 'They say,' for his own horizon was all dark, and even in saying this much he felt like a hypocrite. A terrible waste, heaped thick with the potsherds of hope, lay outside that door of prayer which he had, as he thought, nailed up for ever.
'An' what is the richt gait?' asked the soutar.
''Deed, that's mair nor I ken, Sandy,' answered Robert mournfully.
'Weel, gin ye dinna ken, what's to come o' me?' said Alexander anxiously.
'Ye maun speir at himsel',' returned Robert, 'an' jist tell him 'at ye dinna ken, but ye'll do onything 'at he likes.'
With these words he took his leave hurriedly, somewhat amazed to find that he had given the soutar the strange advice to try just what he had tried so unavailingly himself. And stranger still, he found himself, before he reached home, praying once more in his heart—both for Dooble Sanny and for himself. From that hour a faint hope was within him that some day he might try again, though he dared not yet encounter such effort and agony.
All this time he had never doubted that there was God; nor had he ventured to say within himself that perhaps God was not good; he had simply come to the conclusion that for him there was no approach to the fountain of his being.
In the course of a fortnight or so, when his system had covered over its craving after whisky, the irritability of the shoemaker almost vanished. It might have been feared that his conscience would then likewise relax its activity; but it was not so: it grew yet more tender. He now began to give Robert some praise, and make allowances for his faults, and Robert dared more in consequence, and played with more spirit. I do not say that his style could have grown fine under such a master, but at least he learned the difference between slovenliness and accuracy, and between accuracy and expression, which last is all of original that the best mere performer can claim.
One evening he was scraping away at Tullochgorum when Mr. Maccleary walked in. Robert ceased. The minister gave him one searching glance, and sat down by the bedside. Robert would have left the room.
'Dinna gang, Robert,' said Sandy, and Robert remained.
The clergyman talked very faithfully as far as the shoemaker was concerned; though whether he was equally faithful towards God might be questioned. He was one of those prudent men, who are afraid of dealing out the truth freely lest it should fall on thorns or stony places. Hence of course the good ground came in for a scanty share too. Believing that a certain precise condition of mind was necessary for its proper reception, he would endeavour to bring about that condition first. He did not know that the truth makes its own nest in the ready heart, and that the heart may be ready for it before the priest can perceive the fact, seeing that the imposition of hands confers, now-a-days at least, neither love nor common-sense. He therefore dwelt upon the sins of the soutar, magnifying them and making them hideous, in the idea that thus he magnified the law, and made it honourable, while of the special tenderness of God to the sinner he said not a word. Robert was offended, he scarcely knew why, with the minister's mode of treating his friend; and after Mr. Maccleary had taken a far kinder leave of them than God could approve, if he resembled his representation, Robert sat still, oppressed with darkness.
'It's a' true,' said the soutar; 'but, man Robert, dinna ye think the minister was some sair upo' me?'
'I duv think it,' answered Robert.
'Something beirs 't in upo' me 'at he wadna be sae sair upo' me himsel'. There's something i' the New Testament, some gait, 'at's pitten 't into my heid; though, faith, I dinna ken whaur to luik for 't. Canna ye help me oot wi' 't, man?'
Robert could think of nothing but the parable of the prodigal son. Mrs. Alexander got him the New Testament, and he read it. She sat at the foot of the bed listening.
'There!' cried the soutar, triumphantly, 'I telled ye sae! Not ae word aboot the puir lad's sins! It was a' a hurry an' a scurry to get the new shune upo' 'im, an' win at the calfie an' the fiddlin' an' the dancin'.—O Lord,' he broke out, 'I'm comin' hame as fest 's I can; but my sins are jist like muckle bauchles (shoes down at heel) upo' my feet and winna lat me. I expec' nae ring and nae robe, but I wad fain hae a fiddle i' my grup when the neist prodigal comes hame; an' gin I dinna fiddle weel, it s' no be my wyte.—Eh, man! but that is what I ca' gude, an' a' the minister said—honest man—'s jist blether till 't.—O Lord, I sweir gin ever I win up again, I'll put in ilka steek (stitch) as gin the shune war for the feet o' the prodigal himsel'. It sall be gude wark, O Lord. An' I'll never lat taste o' whusky intil my mou'—nor smell o' whusky intil my nose, gin sae be 'at I can help it—I sweir 't, O Lord. An' gin I binna raised up again—'
Here his voice trembled and ceased, and silence endured for a short minute. Then he called his wife.
'Come here, Bell. Gie me a kiss, my bonny lass. I hae been an ill man to you.'
'Na, na, Sandy. Ye hae aye been gude to me—better nor I deserved. Ye hae been naebody's enemy but yer ain.'
'Haud yer tongue. Ye're speykin' waur blethers nor the minister, honest man! I tell ye I hae been a damned scoon'rel to ye. I haena even hauden my han's aff o' ye. And eh! ye war a bonny lass whan I merried ye. I hae blaudit (spoiled) ye a'thegither. But gin I war up, see gin I wadna gie ye a new goon, an' that wad be something to make ye like yersel' again. I'm affrontet wi' mysel' 'at I had been sic a brute o' a man to ye. But ye maun forgie me noo, for I do believe i' my hert 'at the Lord's forgien me. Gie me anither kiss, lass. God be praised, and mony thanks to you! Ye micht hae run awa' frae me lang or noo, an' a'body wad hae said ye did richt.—Robert, play a spring.'
Absorbed in his own thoughts, Robert began to play The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn.
'Hoots! hoots!' cried Sandy angrily. 'What are ye aboot? Nae mair o' that. I hae dune wi' that. What's i' the heid o' ye, man?'
'What'll I play than, Sandy?' asked Robert meekly.
'Play The Lan' o' the Leal, or My Nannie's Awa', or something o' that kin'. I'll be leal to ye noo, Bell. An' we winna pree o' the whusky nae mair, lass.'
'I canna bide the smell o' 't,' cried Bell, sobbing.
Robert struck in with The Lan' o' the Leal. When he had played it over two or three times, he laid the fiddle in its place, and departed—able just to see, by the light of the neglected candle, that Bell sat on the bedside stroking the rosiny hand of her husband, the rhinoceros-hide of which was yet delicate enough to let the love through to his heart.
After this the soutar never called his fiddle his auld wife.
Robert walked home with his head sunk on his breast. Dooble Sanny, the drinking, ranting, swearing soutar, was inside the wicket-gate; and he was left outside for all his prayers, with the arrows from the castle of Beelzebub sticking in his back. He would have another try some day—but not yet—he dared not yet.
Henceforth Robert had more to do in reading the New Testament than in the fiddle to the soutar, though they never parted without an air or two. Sandy continued hopeful and generally cheerful, with alternations which the reading generally fixed on the right side for the night. Robert never attempted any comments, but left him to take from the word what nourishment he could. There was no return of strength to the helpless arm, and his constitution was gradually yielding.
The rumour got abroad that he was a 'changed character,'—how is not far to seek, for Mr. Maccleary fancied himself the honoured instrument of his conversion, whereas paralysis and the New Testament were the chief agents, and even the violin had more share in it than the minister. For the spirit of God lies all about the spirit of man like a mighty sea, ready to rush in at the smallest chink in the walls that shut him out from his own—walls which even the tone of a violin afloat on the wind of that spirit is sometimes enough to rend from battlement to base, as the blast of the rams' horns rent the walls of Jericho. And now to the day of his death, the shoemaker had need of nothing. Food, wine, and delicacies were sent him by many who, while they considered him outside of the kingdom, would have troubled themselves in no way about him. What with visits of condolence and flattery, inquiries into his experience, and long prayers by his bedside, they now did their best to send him back among the swine. The soutar's humour, however, aided by his violin, was a strong antidote against these evil influences.
'I doobt I'm gaein' to dee, Robert,' he said at length one evening as the lad sat by his bedside.
'Weel, that winna do ye nae ill,' answered Robert, adding with just a touch of bitterness—'ye needna care aboot that.'
'I do not care aboot the deein' o' 't. But I jist want to live lang eneuch to lat the Lord ken 'at I'm in doonricht earnest aboot it. I hae nae chance o' drinkin' as lang's I'm lyin' here.'
'Never ye fash yer heid aboot that. Ye can lippen (trust) that to him, for it's his ain business. He'll see 'at ye're a' richt. Dinna ye think 'at he'll lat ye aff.'
'The Lord forbid,' responded the soutar earnestly. 'It maun be a' pitten richt. It wad be dreidfu' to be latten aff. I wadna hae him content wi' cobbler's wark.—I hae 't,' he resumed, after a few minutes' pause; 'the Lord's easy pleased, but ill to saitisfee. I'm sair pleased wi' your playin', Robert, but it's naething like the richt thing yet. It does me gude to hear ye, though, for a' that.'
The very next night he found him evidently sinking fast. Robert took the violin, and was about to play, but the soutar stretched out his one left hand, and took it from him, laid it across his chest and his arm over it, for a few moments, as if he were bidding it farewell, then held it out to Robert, saying,
'Hae, Robert. She's yours.—Death's a sair divorce.—Maybe they 'll hae an orra 3 fiddle whaur I'm gaein', though. Think o' a Rothieden soutar playin' afore his grace!'
Robert saw that his mind was wandering, and mingled the paltry honours of earth with the grand simplicities of heaven. He began to play The Land o' the Leal. For a little while Sandy seemed to follow and comprehend the tones, but by slow degrees the light departed from his face. At length his jaw fell, and with a sigh, the body parted from Dooble Sanny, and he went to God.
His wife closed mouth and eyes without a word, laid the two arms, equally powerless now, straight by his sides, then seating herself on the edge of the bed, said,
'Dinna bide, Robert. It's a' ower noo. He's gang hame. Gin I war only wi' 'im wharever he is!'
She burst into tears, but dried her eyes a moment after, and seeing that Robert still lingered, said,
'Gang, Robert, an' sen' Mistress Downie to me. Dinna greit—there's a gude lad; but tak yer fiddle an' gang. Ye can be no more use.'
Robert obeyed. With his violin in his hand, he went home; and, with his violin still in his hand, walked into his grandmother's parlour.
'Hoo daur ye bring sic a thing into my hoose?' she said, roused by the apparent defiance of her grandson. 'Hoo daur ye, efter what's come an' gane?'
''Cause Dooble Sanny's come and gane, grannie, and left naething but this ahint him. And this ane's mine, whase ever the ither micht be. His wife's left wi'oot a plack, an' I s' warran' the gude fowk o' Rothieden winna mak sae muckle o' her noo 'at her man's awa'; for she never was sic a randy as he was, an' the triumph o' grace in her 's but sma', therefore. Sae I maun mak the best 'at I can o' the fiddle for her. An' ye maunna touch this ane, grannie; for though ye may think it richt to burn fiddles, ither fowk disna; and this has to do wi' ither fowk, grannie; it's no atween you an' me, ye ken,' Robert went on, fearful lest she might consider herself divinely commissioned to extirpate the whole race of stringed instruments,—'for I maun sell 't for her.'
'Tak it oot o' my sicht,' said Mrs. Falconer, and said no more.
He carried the instrument up to his room, laid it on his bed, locked his door, put the key in his pocket, and descended to the parlour.
'He's deid, is he?' said his grandmother, as he re-entered.
'Ay is he, grannie,' answered Robert. 'He deid a repentant man.'
'An' a believin'?' asked Mrs. Falconer.
'Weel, grannie, I canna say 'at he believed a' thing 'at ever was, for a body michtna ken a' thing.'
'Toots, laddie! Was 't savin' faith?'
'I dinna richtly ken what ye mean by that; but I'm thinkin' it was muckle the same kin' o' faith 'at the prodigal had; for they baith rase an' gaed hame.'
''Deed, maybe ye're richt, laddie,' returned Mrs. Falconer, after a moment's thought. 'We'll houp the best.'
All the remainder of the evening she sat motionless, with her eyes fixed on the rug before her, thinking, no doubt, of the repentance and salvation of the fiddler, and what hope there might yet be for her own lost son.
The next day being Saturday, Robert set out for Bodyfauld, taking the violin with him. He went alone, for he was in no mood for Shargar's company. It was a fine spring day, the woods were budding, and the fragrance of the larches floated across his way. There was a lovely sadness in the sky, and in the motions of the air, and in the scent of the earth—as if they all knew that fine things were at hand which never could be so beautiful as those that had gone away. And Robert wondered how it was that everything should look so different. Even Bodyfauld seemed to have lost its enchantment, though his friends were as kind as ever. Mr. Lammie went into a rage at the story of the lost violin, and Miss Lammie cried from sympathy with Robert's distress at the fate of his bonny leddy. Then he came to the occasion of his visit, which was to beg Mr. Lammie, when next he went to Aberdeen, to take the soutar's fiddle, and get what he could for it, to help his widow.
'Poor Sanny!' said Robert, 'it never cam' intil 's heid to sell her, nae mair nor gin she had been the auld wife 'at he ca'd her.'
Mr. Lammie undertook the commission; and the next time he saw Robert, handed him ten pounds as the result of the negotiation. It was all Robert could do, however, to get the poor woman to take the money. She looked at it with repugnance, almost as if it had been the price of blood. But Robert having succeeded in overcoming her scruples, she did take it, and therewith provide a store of sweeties, and reels of cotton, and tobacco, for sale in Sanny's workshop. She certainly did not make money by her merchandise, for her anxiety to be honest rose to the absurd; but she contrived to live without being reduced to prey upon her own gingerbread and rock.