Books: Robert Falconer

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'Haud yer tongue!' he would say in a hoarse whisper, when Robert
sought to attract his attention; 'haud yer tongue, man, and hearken.
Gin yon bonny leddy 'at yer grannie keeps lockit up i' the aumry
war to tak to the piano, that's jist hoo she wad play. Lord, man!
pit yer sowl i' yer lugs, an' hearken.'

The soutar was all wrong in this; for if old Mr. Falconer's violin
had taken woman-shape, it would have been that of a slight, worn,
swarthy creature, with wild black eyes, great and restless, a voice
like a bird's, and thin fingers that clawed the music out of the
wires like the quills of the old harpsichord; not that of Mary St.
John, who was tall, and could not help being stately, was large and
well-fashioned, as full of repose as Handel's music, with a
contralto voice to make you weep, and eyes that would have seemed
but for their maidenliness to be always ready to fold you in their
lucid gray depths.

Robert stared at the soutar, doubting at first whether he had not
been drinking. But the intoxication of music produces such a
different expression from that of drink, that Robert saw at once
that if he had indeed been drinking, at least the music had got
above the drink. As long as the playing went on, Elshender was not
to be moved from the window.

But to many of the people of Rothieden the music did not recommend
the musician; for every sort of music, except the most unmusical of
psalm-singing, was in their minds of a piece with 'dancin' an'
play-actin', an' ither warldly vainities an' abominations.' And
Robert, being as yet more capable of melody than harmony, grudged to
lose a lesson on Sandy's 'auld wife o' a fiddle' for any amount of
Miss St. John's playing.

CHAPTER XV.

ERIC ERICSON.

One gusty evening--it was of the last day in March--Robert well
remembered both the date and the day--a bleak wind was driving up
the long street of the town, and Robert was standing looking out of
one of the windows in the gable-room. The evening was closing into
night. He hardly knew how he came to he there, but when he thought
about it he found it was play-Wednesday, and that he had been all
the half-holiday trying one thing after another to interest himself
withhal, but in vain. He knew nothing about east winds; but not the
less did this dreary wind of the dreary March world prove itself
upon his soul. For such a wind has a shadow wind along with it,
that blows in the minds of men. There was nothing genial, no growth
in it. It killed, and killed most dogmatically. But it is an ill
wind that blows nobody good. Even an east wind must bear some
blessing on its ugly wings. And as Robert looked down from the
gable, the wind was blowing up the street before it half-a-dozen
footfaring students from Aberdeen, on their way home at the close of
the session, probably to the farm-labours of the spring.

This was a glad sight, as that of the returning storks in Denmark.
Robert knew where they would put up, sought his cap, and went out.
His grandmother never objected to his going to see Miss Napier; it
was in her house that the weary men would this night rest.

It was not without reason that Lord Rothie had teased his hostess
about receiving foot-passengers, for to such it was her invariable
custom to make some civil excuse, sending Meg or Peggy to show them
over the way to the hostelry next in rank, a proceeding recognized
by the inferior hostess as both just and friendly, for the good
woman never thought of measuring The Star against The Boar's Head.
More than one comical story had been the result of this law of The
Boar's Head, unalterable almost as that of the Medes and Persians.
I say almost, for to one class of the footfaring community the
official ice about the hearts of the three women did thaw, yielding
passage to a full river of hospitality and generosity; and that was
the class to which these wayfarers belonged.

Well may Scotland rejoice in her universities, for whatever may be
said against their system--I have no complaint to make--they are
divine in their freedom: men who follow the plough in the spring and
reap the harvest in the autumn, may, and often do, frequent their
sacred precincts when the winter comes--so fierce, yet so
welcome--so severe, yet so blessed--opening for them the doors to
yet harder toil and yet poorer fare. I fear, however, that of such
there will be fewer and fewer, seeing one class which supplied a
portion of them has almost vanished from the country--that class
which was its truest, simplest, and noblest strength--that class
which at one time rendered it something far other than ridicule to
say that Scotland was pre-eminently a God-fearing nation--I mean the
class of cottars.

Of this class were some of the footfaring company. But there were
others of more means than the men of this lowly origin, who either
could not afford to travel by the expensive coaches, or could find
none to accommodate them. Possibly some preferred to walk. However
this may have been, the various groups which at the beginning and
close of the session passed through Rothieden weary and footsore,
were sure of a hearty welcome at The Boar's Head. And much the men
needed it. Some of them would have walked between one and two
hundred miles before completing their journey.

Robert made a circuit, and, fleet of foot, was in Miss Napier's
parlour before the travellers made their appearance on the square.
When they knocked at the door, Miss Letty herself went and opened
it.

'Can ye tak 's in, mem?' was on the lips of their spokesman, but
Miss Letty had the first word.

'Come in, come in, gentlemen. This is the first o' ye, and ye're
the mair welcome. It's like seein' the first o' the swallows. An'
sic a day as ye hae had for yer lang traivel!' she went on, leading
the way to her sister's parlour, and followed by all the students,
of whom the one that came hindmost was the most remarkable of the
group--at the same time the most weary and downcast.

Miss Napier gave them a similar welcome, shaking hands with every
one of them. She knew them all but the last. To him she
involuntarily showed a more formal respect, partly from his
appearance, and partly that she had never seen him before. The
whisky-bottle was brought out, and all partook, save still the last.
Miss Lizzie went to order their supper.

'Noo, gentlemen,' said Miss Letty, 'wad ony o' ye like to gang an'
change yer hose, and pit on a pair o' slippers?'

Several declined, saying they would wait until they had had their
supper; the roads had been quite dry, &c., &c. One said he would,
and another said his feet were blistered.

'Hoot awa'!'2 exclaimed Miss Letty.--'Here, Peggy!' she cried, going
to the door; 'tak a pail o' het watter up to the chackit room. Jist
ye gang up, Mr. Cameron, and Peggy 'll see to yer feet.--Noo, sir,
will ye gang to yer room an' mak yersel' comfortable?--jist as gin
ye war at hame, for sae ye are.'

She addressed the stranger thus. He replied in a low indifferent
tone,

'No, thank you; I must be off again directly.'

He was from Caithness, and talked no Scotch.

''Deed, sir, ye'll do naething o' the kin'. Here ye s' bide, tho' I
suld lock the door.'

'Come, come, Ericson, none o' your nonsense!' said one of his
fellows. 'Ye ken yer feet are sae blistered ye can hardly put ane by
the ither.--It was a' we cud du, mem, to get him alang the last
mile.'

'That s' be my business, than,' concluded Miss Letty.

She left the room, and returning in a few minutes, said, as a matter
of course, but with authority,

'Mr. Ericson, ye maun come wi' me.'

Then she hesitated a little. Was it maidenliness in the waning
woman of five-and-forty? It was, I believe; for how can a woman
always remember how old she is? If ever there was a young soul in
God's world, it was Letty Napier. And the young man was tall and
stately as a Scandinavian chief, with a look of command, tempered
with patient endurance, in his eagle face, for he was more like an
eagle than any other creature, and in his countenance signs of
suffering. Miss Letty seeing this, was moved, and her heart
swelled, and she grew conscious and shy, and turning to Robert,
said,

'Come up the stair wi' 's, Robert; I may want ye.'

Robert jumped to his feet. His heart too had been yearning towards
the stranger.

As if yielding to the inevitable, Ericson rose and followed Miss
Letty. But when they had reached the room, and the door was shut
behind them, and Miss Letty pointed to a chair beside which stood a
little wooden tub full of hot water, saying, 'Sit ye doon there, Mr.
Ericson,' he drew himself up, all but his graciously-bowed head, and
said,

'Ma'am, I must tell you that I followed the rest in here from the
very stupidity of weariness. I have not a shilling in my pocket.'

'God bless me!' said Miss Letty--and God did bless her, I am
sure--'we maun see to the feet first. What wad ye du wi' a shillin'
gin ye had it? Wad ye clap ane upo' ilka blister?'

Ericson burst out laughing, and sat down. But still he hesitated.

'Aff wi' yer shune, sir. Duv ye think I can wash yer feet throu
ben' leather?' said Miss Letty, not disdaining to advance her
fingers to a shoe-tie.

'But I'm ashamed. My stockings are all in holes.'

'Weel, ye s' get a clean pair to put on the morn, an' I'll darn them
'at ye hae on, gin they be worth darnin', afore ye gang--an' what
are ye sae camstairie (unmanageable) for? A body wad think ye had a
clo'en fit in ilk ane o' thae bits o' shune o' yours. I winna
promise to please yer mither wi' my darnin' though.'

'I have no mother to find fault with it,' said Ericson.

'Weel, a sister's waur.'

'I have no sister, either.'

This was too much for Miss Letty. She could keep up the bravado of
humour no longer. She fairly burst out crying. In a moment more
the shoes and stockings were off, and the blisters in the hot water.
Miss Letty's tears dropped into the tub, and the salt in them did
not hurt the feet with which she busied herself, more than was
necessary, to hide them.

But no sooner had she recovered herself than she resumed her former
tone.

'A shillin'! said ye? An' a' thae greedy gleds (kites) o'
professors to pay, that live upo' the verra blude and banes o'
sair-vroucht students! Hoo cud ye hae a shillin' ower? Troth, it's
nae wonner ye haena ane left. An' a' the merchan's there jist
leevin' upo' ye! Lord hae a care o' 's! sic bonnie feet!--Wi'
blisters I mean. I never saw sic a sicht o' raw puddin's in my
life. Ye're no fit to come doon the stair again.'

All the time she was tenderly washing and bathing the weary feet.
When she had dressed them and tied them up, she took the tub of
water and carried it away, but turned at the door.

'Ye'll jist mak up yer min' to bide a twa three days,' she said;
'for thae feet cudna bide to be carried, no to say to carry a weicht
like you. There's naebody to luik for ye, ye ken. An' ye're no to
come doon the nicht. I'll sen' up yer supper. And Robert there 'll
bide and keep ye company.'

She vanished; and a moment after, Peggy appeared with a
salamander--that is a huge poker, ending not in a point, but a
red-hot ace of spades--which she thrust between the bars of the
grate, into the heart of a nest of brushwood. Presently a cheerful
fire illuminated the room.

Ericson was seated on one chair, with his feet on another, his head
sunk on his bosom, and his eyes thinking. There was something about
him almost as powerfully attractive to Robert as it had been to Miss
Letty. So he sat gazing at him, and longing for a chance of doing
something for him. He had reverence already, and some love, but he
had never felt at all as he felt towards this man. Nor was it as
the Chinese puzzlers called Scotch metaphysicians, might have
represented it--a combination of love and reverence. It was the
recognition of the eternal brotherhood between him and one nobler
than himself--hence a lovely eager worship.

Seeing Ericson look about him as if he wanted something, Robert
started to his feet.

'Is there onything ye want, Mr. Ericson?' he said, with service
standing in his eyes.

'A small bundle I think I brought up with me,' replied the youth.

It was not there. Robert rushed down-stairs, and returned with
it--a nightshirt and a hairbrush or so, tied up in a blue cotton
handkerchief. This was all that Robert was able to do for Ericson
that evening.

He went home and dreamed about him. He called at The Boar's Head
the next morning before going to school, but Ericson was not yet up.
When he called again as soon as morning school was over, he found
that they had persuaded him to keep his bed, but Miss Letty took him
up to his room. He looked better, was pleased to see Robert, and
spoke to him kindly. Twice yet Robert called to inquire after him
that day, and once more he saw him, for he took his tea up to him.

The next day Ericson was much better, received Robert with a smile,
and went out with him for a stroll, for all his companions were
gone, and of some students who had arrived since he did not know
any. Robert took him to his grandmother, who received him with
stately kindness. Then they went out again, and passed the windows
of Captain Forsyth's house. Mary St. John was playing. They stood
for a moment, almost involuntarily, to listen. She ceased.

'That's the music of the spheres,' said Ericson, in a low voice, as
they moved on.

'Will you tell me what that means?' asked Robert. 'I've come upon 't
ower an' ower in Milton.'

Thereupon Ericson explained to him what Pythagoras had taught about
the stars moving in their great orbits with sounds of awful harmony,
too grandly loud for the human organ to vibrate in response to their
music--hence unheard of men. And Ericson spoke as if he believed
it. But after he had spoken, his face grew sadder than ever; and,
as if to change the subject, he said, abruptly,

'What a fine old lady your grandmother is, Robert!'

'Is she?' returned Robert.

'I don't mean to say she's like Miss Letty,' said Ericson. 'She's an
angel!'

A long pause followed. Robert's thoughts went roaming in their
usual haunts.

'Do you think, Mr. Ericson,' he said, at length, taking up the old
question still floating unanswered in his mind, 'do you think if a
devil was to repent God would forgive him?'

Ericson turned and looked at him. Their eyes met. The youth
wondered at the boy. He had recognized in him a younger brother,
one who had begun to ask questions, calling them out into the deaf
and dumb abyss of the universe.

'If God was as good as I would like him to be, the devils themselves
would repent,' he said, turning away.

Then he turned again, and looking down upon Robert like a sorrowful
eagle from a crag over its harried nest, said,

'If I only knew that God was as good as--that woman, I should die
content.'

Robert heard words of blasphemy from the mouth of an angel, but his
respect for Ericson compelled a reply.

'What woman, Mr. Ericson?' he asked.

'I mean Miss Letty, of course.'

'But surely ye dinna think God's nae as guid as she is? Surely he's
as good as he can be. He is good, ye ken.'

'Oh, yes. They say so. And then they tell you something about him
that isn't good, and go on calling him good all the same. But
calling anybody good doesn't make him good, you know.'

'Then ye dinna believe 'at God is good, Mr. Ericson?' said Robert,
choking with a strange mingling of horror and hope.

'I didn't say that, my boy. But to know that God was good, and
fair, and kind--heartily, I mean, not half-ways, and with ifs and
buts--my boy, there would be nothing left to be miserable about.'

In a momentary flash of thought, Robert wondered whether this might
not be his old friend, the repentant angel, sent to earth as a man,
that he might have a share in the redemption, and work out his own
salvation. And from this very moment the thoughts about God that
had hitherto been moving in formless solution in his mind began
slowly to crystallize.

The next day, Eric Ericson, not without a piece in ae pouch and
money in another, took his way home, if home it could be called
where neither father, mother, brother, nor sister awaited his
return. For a season Robert saw him no more.

As often as his name was mentioned, Miss Letty's eyes would grow
hazy, and as often she would make some comical remark.

'Puir fallow!' she would say, 'he was ower lang-leggit for this
warld.'

Or again:

'Ay, he was a braw chield. But he canna live. His feet's ower
sma'.'

Or yet again:

'Saw ye ever sic a gowk, to mak sic a wark aboot sittin' doon an'
haein' his feet washed, as gin that cost a body onything!'

CHAPTER XVI.

MR. LAMMIE'S FARM.

One of the first warm mornings in the beginning of summer, the boy
woke early, and lay awake, as was his custom, thinking. The sun, in
all the indescribable purity of its morning light, had kindled a
spot of brilliance just about where his grannie's head must be lying
asleep in its sad thoughts, on the opposite side of the partition.

He lay looking at the light. There came a gentle tapping at his
window. A long streamer of honeysuckle, not yet in blossom, but
alive with the life of the summer, was blown by the air of the
morning against his window-pane, as if calling him to get up and
look out. He did get up and look out.

But he started back in such haste that he fell against the side of
his bed. Within a few yards of his window, bending over a bush, was
the loveliest face he had ever seen--the only face, in fact, he had
ever yet felt to be beautiful. For the window looked directly into
the garden of the next house: its honeysuckle tapped at his window,
its sweet-peas grew against his window-sill. It was the face of the
angel of that night; but how different when illuminated by the
morning sun from then, when lighted up by a chamber-candle! The
first thought that came to him was the half-ludicrous, all-fantastic
idea of the shoemaker about his grandfather's violin being a woman.
A vaguest dream-vision of her having escaped from his grandmother's
aumrie (store-closet), and wandering free amidst the wind and among
the flowers, crossed his mind before he had recovered sufficiently
from his surprise to prevent Fancy from cutting any more of those
too ridiculous capers in which she indulged at will in sleep, and as
often besides as she can get away from the spectacles of old Grannie
Judgment.

But the music of her revelation was not that of the violin; and
Robert vaguely felt this, though he searched no further for a
fitting instrument to represent her. If he had heard the organ
indeed!--but he knew no instrument save the violin: the piano he had
only heard through the window. For a few moments her face brooded
over the bush, and her long, finely-modelled fingers travelled about
it as if they were creating a flower upon it--probably they were
assisting the birth or blowing of some beauty--and then she raised
herself with a lingering look, and vanished from the field of the
window.

But ever after this, when the evening grew dark, Robert would steal
out of the house, leaving his book open by his grannie's lamp, that
its patient expansion might seem to say, 'He will come back
presently,' and dart round the corner with quick quiet step, to hear
if Miss St. John was playing. If she was not, he would return to
the Sabbath stillness of the parlour, where his grandmother sat
meditating or reading, and Shargar sat brooding over the freedom of
the old days ere Mrs. Falconer had begun to reclaim him. There he
would seat himself once more at his book--to rise again ere another
hour had gone by, and hearken yet again at her window whether the
stream might not be flowing now. If he found her at her instrument
he would stand listening in earnest delight, until the fear of being
missed drove him in: this secret too might be discovered, and this
enchantress too sent, by the decree of his grandmother, into the
limbo of vanities. Thus strangely did his evening life oscillate
between the two peaceful negations of grannie's parlour and the
vital gladness of the unknown lady's window. And skilfully did he
manage his retreats and returns, curtailing his absences with such
moderation that, for a long time, they awoke no suspicion in the
mind of his grandmother.

I suspect myself that the old lady thought he had gone to his
prayers in the garret. And I believe she thought that he was
praying for his dead father; with which most papistical, and,
therefore, most unchristian observance, she yet dared not interfere,
because she expected Robert to defend himself triumphantly with the
simple assertion that he did not believe his father was dead.
Possibly the mother was not sorry that her poor son should be
prayed for, in case he might be alive after all, though she could no
longer do so herself--not merely dared not, but persuaded herself
that she would not. Robert, however, was convinced enough, and
hopeless enough, by this time, and had even less temptation to break
the twentieth commandment by praying for the dead, than his
grandmother had; for with all his imaginative outgoings after his
father, his love to him was as yet, compared to that father's
mother's, 'as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine.'

Shargar would glance up at him with a queer look as he came in from
these excursions, drop his head over his task again, look busy and
miserable, and all would glide on as before.

When the first really summer weather came, Mr. Lammie one day paid
Mrs. Falconer a second visit. He had not been able to get over the
remembrance of the desolation in which he had left her. But he
could do nothing for her, he thought, till it was warm weather. He
was accompanied by his daughter, a woman approaching the further
verge of youth, bulky and florid, and as full of tenderness as her
large frame could hold. After much, and, for a long time,
apparently useless persuasion, they at last believed they had
prevailed upon her to pay them a visit for a fortnight. But she had
only retreated within another of her defences.

'I canna leave thae twa laddies alane. They wad be up to a'
mischeef.'

'There's Betty to luik efter them,' suggested Miss Lammie.

'Betty!' returned Mrs. Falconer, with scorn. 'Betty's naething but a
bairn hersel'--muckler and waur faured (worse favoured).'

'But what for shouldna ye fess the lads wi' ye?' suggested Mr.
Lammie.

'I hae no richt to burden you wi' them.'

'Weel, I hae aften wonnert what gart ye burden yersel' wi' that
Shargar, as I understan' they ca' him,' said Mr. Lammie.

'Jist naething but a bit o' greed,' returned the old lady, with the
nearest approach to a smile that had shown itself upon her face
since Mr. Lammie's last visit.

'I dinna understan' that, Mistress Faukner,' said Miss Lammie.

'I'm sae sure o' haein' 't back again, ye ken,--wi' interest,'
returned Mrs. Falconer.

'Hoo's that? His father winna con ye ony thanks for haudin' him in
life.'

'He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord, ye ken, Miss
Lammie.'

'Atweel, gin ye like to lippen to that bank, nae doobt ae way or
anither it'll gang to yer accoont,' said Miss Lammie.

'It wad ill become us, ony gait,' said her father, 'nae to gie him
shelter for your sake, Mrs. Faukner, no to mention ither names, sin'
it's yer wull to mak the puir lad ane o' the family.--They say his
ain mither's run awa' an' left him.'

''Deed she's dune that.'

'Can ye mak onything o' 'im?'

'He's douce eneuch. An' Robert says he does nae that ill at the
schuil.'

'Weel, jist fess him wi' ye. We'll hae some place or ither to put
him intil, gin it suld be only a shak'-doon upo' the flure.'

'Na, na. There's the schuilin'--what's to be dune wi' that?'

'They can gang i' the mornin', and get their denner wi' Betty here;
and syne come hame to their fower-hoors (four o'clock tea) whan the
schule's ower i' the efternune. 'Deed, mem, ye maun jist come for
the sake o' the auld frien'ship atween the faimilies.'

'Weel, gin it maun be sae, it maun be sae,' yielded Mrs. Falconer,
with a sigh.

She had not left her own house for a single night for ten years.
Nor is it likely she would have now given in, for immovableness was
one of the most marked of her characteristics, had she not been so
broken by mental suffering, that she did not care much about
anything, least of all about herself.

Innumerable were the instructions in propriety of behaviour which
she gave the boys in prospect of this visit. The probability being
that they would behave just as well as at home, these instructions
were considerably unnecessary, for Mrs. Falconer was a strict
enforcer of all social rules. Scarcely less unnecessary were the
directions she gave as to the conduct of Betty, who received them
all in erect submission, with her hands under her apron. She ought
to have been a young girl instead of an elderly woman, if there was
any propriety in the way her mistress spoke to her. It proved at
least her own belief in the description she had given of her to Miss
Lammie.