Books: Robert Falconer

G >> George MacDonald >> Robert Falconer

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46

'Noo, Betty, ye maun be dooce. An' dinna stan' at the door i' the
gloamin'. An' dinna stan' claikin' an' jawin' wi' the ither lasses
whan ye gang to the wall for watter. An' whan ye gang intil a chop,
dinna hae them sayin' ahint yer back, as sune's yer oot again,
"She's her ain mistress by way o'," or sic like. An' min' ye hae
worship wi' yersel', whan I'm nae here to hae 't wi' ye. Ye can
come benn to the parlour gin ye like. An' there's my muckle
Testament. And dinna gie the lads a' thing they want. Gie them
plenty to ait, but no ower muckle. Fowk suld aye lea' aff wi' an
eppiteet.'

Mr. Lammie brought his gig at last, and took grannie away to
Bodyfauld. When the boys returned from school at the dinner-hour,
it was to exult in a freedom which Robert had never imagined before.
But even he could not know what a relief it was to Shargar to eat
without the awfully calm eyes of Mrs. Falconer watching, as it
seemed to him, the progress of every mouthful down that capacious
throat of his. The old lady would have been shocked to learn how
the imagination of the ill-mothered lad interpreted her care over
him, but she would not have been surprised to know that the two were
merry in her absence. She knew that, in some of her own moods, it
would be a relief to think that that awful eye of God was not upon
her. But she little thought that even in the lawless proceedings
about to follow, her Robert, who now felt such a relief in her
absence, would be walking straight on, though blindly, towards a
sunrise of faith, in which he would know that for the eye of his God
to turn away from him for one moment would be the horror of the
outer darkness.

Merriment, however, was not in Robert's thoughts, and still less was
mischief. For the latter, whatever his grandmother might think, he
had no capacity. The world was already too serious, and was soon to
be too beautiful for mischief. After that, it would be too sad, and
then, finally, until death, too solemn glad. The moment he heard of
his grandmother's intended visit, one wild hope and desire and
intent had arisen within him.

When Betty came to the parlour door to lay the cloth for their
dinner, she found it locked.

'Open the door!' she cried, but cried in vain. From impatience she
passed to passion; but it was of no avail: there came no more
response than from the shrine of the deaf Baal. For to the boys it
was an opportunity not at any risk to be lost. Dull Betty never
suspected what they were about. They were ranging the place like
two tiger-cats whose whelps had been carried off in their
absence--questing, with nose to earth and tail in air, for the scent
of their enemy. My simile has carried me too far: it was only a
dead old gentleman's violin that a couple of boys was after--but
with what eagerness, and, on the part of Robert, what alternations
of hope and fear! And Shargar was always the reflex of Robert, so
far as Shargar could reflect Robert. Sometimes Robert would stop,
stand still in the middle of the room, cast a mathematical glance of
survey over its cubic contents, and then dart off in another
inwardly suggested direction of search. Shargar, on the other hand,
appeared to rummage blindly without a notion of casting the
illumination of thought upon the field of search. Yet to him fell
the success. When hope was growing dim, after an hour and a half of
vain endeavour, a scream of utter discordance heralded the
resurrection of the lady of harmony. Taught by his experience of
his wild mother's habits to guess at those of douce Mrs. Falconer,
Shargar had found the instrument in her bed at the foot, between the
feathers and the mattress. For one happy moment Shargar was the
benefactor, and Robert the grateful recipient of favour. Nor, I do
believe, was this thread of the still thickening cable that bound
them ever forgotten: broken it could not be.

Robert drew the recovered treasure from its concealment, opened the
case with trembling eagerness, and was stooping, with one hand on
the neck of the violin, and the other on the bow, to lift them from
it, when Shargar stopped him.

His success had given him such dignity, that for once he dared to
act from himself.

'Betty 'll hear ye,' he said.

'What care I for Betty? She daurna tell. I ken hoo to manage her.'

'But wadna 't be better 'at she didna ken?'

'She's sure to fin' oot whan she mak's the bed. She turns 't ower
and ower jist like a muckle tyke (dog) worryin' a rottan (rat).'

'De'il a bit o' her s' be a hair wiser! Ye dinna play tunes upo'
the boxie, man.'

Robert caught at the idea. He lifted the 'bonny leddy' from her
coffin; and while he was absorbed in the contemplation of her risen
beauty, Shargar laid his hands on Boston's Four-fold State, the
torment of his life on the Sunday evenings which it was his turn to
spend with Mrs. Falconer, and threw it as an offering to the powers
of Hades into the case, which he then buried carefully, with the
feather-bed for mould, the blankets for sod, and the counterpane
studiously arranged for stone, over it. He took heed, however, not
to let Robert know of the substitution of Boston for the fiddle,
because he knew Robert could not tell a lie. Therefore, when he
murmured over the volume some of its own words which he had read the
preceding Sunday, it was in a quite inaudible whisper: 'Now is it
good for nothing but to cumber the ground, and furnish fuel for
Tophet.'

Robert must now hide the violin better than his grannie had done,
while at the same time it was a more delicate necessity, seeing it
had lost its shell, and he shrunk from putting her in the power of
the shoemaker again. It cost him much trouble to fix on the place
that was least unsuitable. First he put it into the well of the
clock-case, but instantly bethought him what the awful consequence
would be if one of the weights should fall from the gradual decay of
its cord. He had heard of such a thing happening. Then he would
put it into his own place of dreams and meditations. But what if
Betty should take a fancy to change her bed? or some friend of his
grannie's should come to spend the night? How would the bonny leddy
like it? What a risk she would run! If he put her under the bed,
the mice would get at her strings--nay, perhaps, knaw a hole right
through her beautiful body. On the top of the clock, the brass
eagle with outspread wings might scratch her, and there was not
space to conceal her. At length he concluded--wrapped her in a
piece of paper, and placed her on the top of the chintz tester of
his bed, where there was just room between it and the ceiling: that
would serve till he bore her to some better sanctuary. In the
meantime she was safe, and the boy was the blessedest boy in
creation.

These things done, they were just in the humour to have a lark with
Betty. So they unbolted the door, rang the bell, and when Betty
appeared, red-faced and wrathful, asked her very gravely and
politely whether they were not going to have some dinner before they
went back to school: they had now but twenty minutes left. Betty
was so dumfoundered with their impudence that she could not say a
word. She did make haste with the dinner, though, and revealed her
indignation only in her manner of putting the things on the table.
As the boys left her, Robert contented himself with the single
hint:

'Betty, Bodyfauld 's i' the perris o' Kettledrum. Min' ye that.'

Betty glowered and said nothing.

But the delight of the walk of three miles over hill and dale and
moor and farm to Mr. Lammie's! The boys, if not as wild as
colts--that is, as wild as most boys would have been--were only the
more deeply excited. That first summer walk, with a goal before
them, in all the freshness of the perfecting year, was something
which to remember in after days was to Falconer nothing short of
ecstasy. The westering sun threw long shadows before them as they
trudged away eastward, lightly laden with the books needful for the
morrow's lessons. Once beyond the immediate purlieus of the town
and the various plots of land occupied by its inhabitants, they
crossed a small river, and entered upon a region of little hills,
some covered to the top with trees, chiefly larch, others
cultivated, and some bearing only heather, now nursing in secret its
purple flame for the outburst of the autumn. The road wound
between, now swampy and worn into deep ruts, now sandy and broken
with large stones. Down to its edge would come the dwarfed oak, or
the mountain ash, or the silver birch, single and small, but lovely
and fresh; and now green fields, fenced with walls of earth as green
as themselves, or of stones overgrown with moss, would stretch away
on both sides, sprinkled with busily-feeding cattle. Now they would
pass through a farm-steading, perfumed with the breath of cows, and
the odour of burning peat--so fragrant! though not yet so grateful
to the inner sense as it would be when encountered in after years
and in foreign lands. For the smell of burning and the smell of
earth are the deepest underlying sensuous bonds of the earth's
unity, and the common brotherhood of them that dwell thereon. Now
the scent of the larches would steal from the hill, or the wind
would waft the odour of the white clover, beloved of his
grandmother, to Robert's nostrils, and he would turn aside to pull
her a handful. Then they clomb a high ridge, on the top of which
spread a moorland, dreary and desolate, brightened by nothing save
'the canna's hoary beard' waving in the wind, and making it look
even more desolate from the sympathy they felt with the forsaken
grass. This crossed, they descended between young plantations of
firs and rowan-trees and birches, till they reached a warm house on
the side of the slope, with farm-offices and ricks of corn and hay
all about it, the front overgrown with roses and honeysuckle, and a
white-flowering plant unseen of their eyes hitherto, and therefore
full of mystery. From the open kitchen door came the smell of
something good. But beyond all to Robert was the welcome of Miss
Lammie, whose small fat hand closed upon his like a very
love-pudding, after partaking of which even his grandmother's
stately reception, followed immediately by the words 'Noo be dooce,'
could not chill the warmth in his bosom.

I know but one writer whose pen would have been able worthily to set
forth the delights of the first few days at Bodyfauld--Jean Paul.
Nor would he have disdained to make the gladness of a country
school-boy the theme of that pen. Indeed, often has he done so. If
the writer has any higher purpose than the amusement of other boys,
he will find the life of a country boy richer for his ends than that
of a town boy. For example, he has a deeper sense of the marvel of
Nature, a tenderer feeling of her feminality. I do not mean that
the other cannot develop this sense, but it is generally feeble, and
there is consequently less chance of its surviving. As far as my
experience goes, town girls and country boys love Nature most. I
have known town girls love her as passionately as country boys.
Town boys have too many books and pictures. They see Nature in
mirrors--invaluable privilege after they know herself, not before.
They have greater opportunity of observing human nature; but here
also the books are too many and various. They are cleverer than
country boys, but they are less profound; their observation may be
quicker; their perception is shallower. They know better what to do
on an emergency; they know worse how to order their ways. Of
course, in this, as in a thousand other matters, Nature will burst
out laughing in the face of the would-be philosopher, and bringing
forward her town boy, will say, 'Look here!' For the town boys are
Nature's boys after all, at least so long as doctrines of
self-preservation and ambition have not turned them from children of
the kingdom into dirt-worms. But I must stop, for I am getting up
to the neck in a bog of discrimination. As if I did not know the
nobility of some townspeople, compared with the worldliness of some
country folk. I give it up. We are all good and all bad. God mend
all. Nothing will do for Jew or Gentile, Frenchman or Englishman,
Negro or Circassian, town boy or country boy, but the kingdom of
heaven which is within him, and must come thence to the outside of
him.

To a boy like Robert the changes of every day, from country to town
with the gay morning, from town to country with the sober
evening--for country as Rothieden might be to Edinburgh, much more
was Bodyfauld country to Rothieden--were a source of boundless
delight. Instead of houses, he saw the horizon; instead of streets
or walled gardens, he roamed over fields bathed in sunlight and
wind. Here it was good to get up before the sun, for then he could
see the sun get up. And of all things those evening shadows
lengthening out over the grassy wildernesses--for fields of a very
moderate size appeared such to an imagination ever ready at the
smallest hint to ascend its solemn throne--were a deepening marvel.
Town to country is what a ceiling is to a cælum.

CHAPTER XVII.

ADVENTURES.

Grannie's first action every evening, the moment the boys entered
the room, was to glance up at the clock, that she might see whether
they had arrived in reasonable time. This was not pleasant, because
it admonished Robert how impossible it was for him to have a lesson
on his own violin so long as the visit to Bodyfauld lasted. If they
had only been allowed to sleep at Rothieden, what a universe of
freedom would have been theirs! As it was, he had but two hours to
himself, pared at both ends, in the middle of the day. Dooble Sanny
might have given him a lesson at that time, but he did not dare to
carry his instrument through the streets of Rothieden, for the
proceeding would be certain to come to his grandmother's ears.
Several days passed indeed before he made up his mind as to how he
was to reap any immediate benefit from the recovery of the violin.
For after he had made up his mind to run the risk of successive
mid-day solos in the old factory--he was not prepared to carry the
instrument through the streets, or be seen entering the place with
it.

But the factory lay at the opposite corner of a quadrangle of
gardens, the largest of which belonged to itself; and the corner of
this garden touched the corner of Captain Forsyth's, which had
formerly belonged to Andrew Falconer: he had had a door made in the
walls at the point of junction, so that he could go from his house
to his business across his own property: if this door were not
locked, and Robert could pass without offence, what a north-west
passage it would be for him! The little garden belonging to his
grandmother's house had only a slight wooden fence to divide it from
the other, and even in this fence there was a little gate: he would
only have to run along Captain Forsyth's top walk to reach the door.
The blessed thought came to him as he lay in bed at Bodyfauld: he
would attempt the passage the very next day.

With his violin in its paper under his arm, he sped like a hare from
gate to door, found it not even latched, only pushed to and rusted
into such rest as it was dangerous to the hinges to disturb. He
opened it, however, without any accident, and passed through; then
closing it behind him, took his way more leisurely through the
tangled grass of his grandmother's property. When he reached the
factory, he judged it prudent to search out a more secret nook, one
more full of silence, that is, whence the sounds would be less
certain to reach the ears of the passers by, and came upon a small
room, near the top, which had been the manager's bedroom, and which,
as he judged from what seemed the signs of ancient occupation, a
cloak hanging on the wall, and the ashes of a fire lying in the
grate, nobody had entered for years: it was the safest place in the
world. He undid his instrument carefully, tuned its strings
tenderly, and soon found that his former facility, such as it was,
had not ebbed away beyond recovery. Hastening back as he came, he
was just in time for his dinner, and narrowly escaped encountering
Betty in the transe. He had been tempted to leave the instrument,
but no one could tell what might happen, and to doubt would be to be
miserable with anxiety.

He did the same for several days without interruption--not, however,
without observation. When, returning from his fourth visit, he
opened the door between the gardens, he started back in dismay, for
there stood the beautiful lady.

Robert hesitated for a moment whether to fly or speak. He was a
Lowland country boy, and therefore rude of speech, but he was three
parts a Celt, and those who know the address of the Irish or of the
Highlanders, know how much that involves as to manners and bearing.
He advanced the next instant and spoke.

'I beg yer pardon, mem. I thoucht naebody wad see me. I haena dune
nae ill.'

'I had not the least suspicion of it, I assure you,' returned Miss
St. John. 'But, tell me, what makes you go through here always at
the same hour with the same parcel under your arm?'

'Ye winna tell naebody--will ye, mem, gin I tell you?'

Miss St. John, amused, and interested besides in the contrast
between the boy's oddly noble face and good bearing on the one hand,
and on the other the drawl of his bluntly articulated speech and the
coarseness of his tone, both seeming to her in the extreme of
provincialism, promised; and Robert, entranced by all the qualities
of her voice and speech, and nothing disenchanted by the nearer view
of her lovely face, confided in her at once.

'Ye see, mem,' he said, 'I cam' upo' my grandfather's fiddle. But
my grandmither thinks the fiddle's no gude. And sae she tuik and
she hed it. But I faun't it again. An' I daurna play i' the hoose,
though my grannie's i' the country, for Betty hearin' me and tellin'
her. And sae I gang to the auld fact'ry there. It belangs to my
grannie, and sae does the yaird (garden). An' this hoose and yaird
was ance my father's, and sae he had that door throu, they tell me.
An' I thocht gin it suld be open, it wad be a fine thing for me, to
haud fowk ohn seen me. But it was verra ill-bred to you, mem, I
ken, to come throu your yaird ohn speirt leave. I beg yer pardon,
mem, an' I'll jist gang back, and roon' by the ro'd. This is my
fiddle I hae aneath my airm. We bude to pit back the case o' 't
whaur it was afore, i' my grannie's bed, to haud her ohn kent 'at
she had tint the grup o' 't.'

Certainly Miss St. John could not have understood the half of the
words Robert used, but she understood his story notwithstanding.
Herself an enthusiast in music, her sympathies were at once engaged
for the awkward boy who was thus trying to steal an entrance into
the fairy halls of sound. But she forbore any further allusion to
the violin for the present, and contented herself with assuring
Robert that he was heartily welcome to go through the garden as
often as he pleased. She accompanied her words with a smile that
made Robert feel not only that she was the most beautiful of all
princesses in fairy-tales, but that she had presented him with
something beyond price in the most self-denying manner. He took off
his cap, thanked her with much heartiness, if not with much polish,
and hastened to the gate of his grandmother's little garden. A few
years later such an encounter might have spoiled his dinner: I have
to record no such evil result of the adventure.

With Miss St. John, music was the highest form of human expression,
as must often be the case with those whose feeling is much in
advance of their thought, and to whom, therefore, may be called
mental sensation is the highest known condition. Music to such is
poetry in solution, and generates that infinite atmosphere, common
to both musician and poet, which the latter fills with shining
worlds.--But if my reader wishes to follow out for himself the idea
herein suggested, he must be careful to make no confusion between
those who feel musically or think poetically, and the musician or
the poet. One who can only play the music of others, however
exquisitely, is not a musician, any more than one who can read verse
to the satisfaction, or even expound it to the enlightenment of the
poet himself, is therefore a poet.--When Miss St. John would worship
God, it was in music that she found the chariot of fire in which to
ascend heavenward. Hence music was the divine thing in the world
for her; and to find any one loving music humbly and faithfully was
to find a brother or sister believer. But she had been so often
disappointed in her expectations from those she took to be such,
that of late she had become less sanguine. Still there was
something about this boy that roused once more her musical hopes;
and, however she may have restrained herself from the full
indulgence of them, certain it is that the next day, when she saw
Robert pass, this time leisurely, along the top of the garden, she
put on her bonnet and shawl, and, allowing him time to reach his
den, followed him, in the hope of finding out whether or not he
could play. I do not know what proficiency the boy had attained,
very likely not much, for a man can feel the music of his own bow,
or of his own lines, long before any one else can discover it. He
had already made a path, not exactly worn one, but trampled one,
through the neglected grass, and Miss St. John had no difficulty in
finding his entrance to the factory.

She felt a little eerie, as Robert would have called it, when she
passed into the waste silent place; for besides the wasteness and
the silence, motionless machines have a look of death about them, at
least when they bear such signs of disuse as those that filled these
rooms. Hearing no violin, she waited for a while in the
ground-floor of the building; but still hearing nothing, she
ascended to the first floor. Here, likewise, all was silence. She
hesitated, but at length ventured up the next stair, beginning,
however, to feel a little troubled as well as eerie, the silence was
so obstinately persistent. Was it possible that there was no violin
in that brown paper? But that boy could not be a liar. Passing
shelves piled-up with stores of old thread, she still went on, led
by a curiosity stronger than her gathering fear. At last she came
to a little room, the door of which was open, and there she saw
Robert lying on the floor with his head in a pool of blood.

Now Mary St. John was both brave and kind; and, therefore, though
not insensible to the fact that she too must be in danger where
violence had been used to a boy, she set about assisting him at
once. His face was deathlike, but she did not think he was dead.
She drew him out into the passage, for the room was close, and did
all she could to recover him; but for some time he did not even
breathe. At last his lips moved, and he murmured,

'Sandy, Sandy, ye've broken my bonnie leddy.'

Then he opened his eyes, and seeing a face to dream about bending in
kind consternation over him, closed them again with a smile and a
sigh, as if to prolong his dream.

The blood now came fast into his forsaken cheeks, and began to flow
again from the wound in his head. The lady bound it up with her
handkerchief. After a little he rose, though with difficulty, and
stared wildly about him, saying, with imperfect articulation,
'Father! father!' Then he looked at Miss St. John with a kind of
dazed inquiry in his eyes, tried several times to speak, and could
not.

'Can you walk at all?' asked Miss St. John, supporting him, for she
was anxious to leave the place.

'Yes, mem, weel eneuch,' he answered.

'Come along, then. I will help you home.'

'Na, na,' he said, as if he had just recalled something. 'Dinna min'
me. Rin hame, mem, or he'll see ye!'

'Who will see me?'

Robert stared more wildly, put his hand to his head, and made no
reply. She half led, half supported him down the stair, as far as
the first landing, when he cried out in a tone of anguish,

'My bonny leddy!'

'What is it?' asked Miss St. John, thinking he meant her.

'My fiddle! my fiddle! She 'll be a' in bits,' he answered, and
turned to go up again.

'Sit down here,' said Miss St. John, 'and I'll fetch it.'

Though not without some tremor, she darted back to the room. Then
she turned faint for the first time, but determinedly supporting
herself, she looked about, saw a brown-paper parcel on a shelf, took
it, and hurried out with a shudder.

Robert stood leaning against the wall. He stretched out his hands
eagerly.

'Gie me her. Gie me her.'

'You had better let me carry it. You are not able.'

'Na, na, mem. Ye dinna ken hoo easy she is to hurt.'

'Oh, yes, I do!' returned Miss St. John, smiling, and Robert could
not withstand the smile.

'Weel, tak care o' her, as ye wad o' yer ain sel', mem,' he said,
yielding.

He was now much better, and before he had been two minutes in the
open air, insisted that he was quite well. When they reached
Captain Forsyth's garden he again held out his hands for his violin.