Books: Robert Falconer

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Then first Robert bethought himself that they had nothing to eat.
He himself was full of merriment, and cared nothing about eating;
for had he not Miss St. John and Ericson there? but for them
something must be provided. He took his lantern and went back
through the storm. The hail had ceased, but the wind blew
tremendously. The coach stood upon the bridge like a stranded
vessel, its two lamps holding doubtful battle with the wind, now
flaring out triumphantly, now almost yielding up the ghost. Inside,
the guard was snoring in defiance of the pother o'er his head.

'Hector! Hector!' cried Robert.

'Ay, ay,' answered Hector. 'It's no time to wauken yet.'

'Hae ye nae basket, Hector, wi' something to eat in 't--naething
gaein' to Rothieden 'at a body micht say by yer leave till?'

'Ow! it's you, is 't?' returned Hector, rousing himself. 'Na. Deil
ane. An' gin I had, I daurna gie ye 't.'

'I wad mak free to steal 't, though, an' tak my chance,' said
Robert. 'But ye say ye hae nane?'

'Nane, I tell ye. Ye winna hunger afore the mornin', man.'

'I'll stan' hunger as weel 's you ony day, Hector. It's no for
mysel'. There's Miss St. John.'

'Hoots!' said Hector, peevishly, for he wanted to go to sleep again,
'gang and mak luve till her. Nae lass 'll think o' meat as lang 's
ye do that. That 'll haud her ohn hungert.'

The words were like blasphemy in Robert's ear. He make love to Miss
St. John! He turned from the coach-door in disgust. But there was
no place he knew of where anything could be had, and he must return
empty-handed.

The light of the fire shone through a little hole in the boards that
closed the window. His lamp had gone out, but, guided by that, he
found the road again, and felt his way up the stairs. When he
entered the room he saw Miss St. John sitting on the floor, for
there was nowhere else to sit, with the guard's coat under her. She
had taken off her bonnet. Her back leaned against the side of the
chimney, and her eyes were bent thoughtfully on the ground. In
their shine Robert read instinctively that Ericson had said
something that had set her thinking. He lay on the floor at some
distance, leaning on his elbow, and his eye had the flash in it that
indicates one who has just ceased speaking. They had not found his
absence awkward at least.

'I hae been efter something to eat,' said Robert; 'but I canna fa'
in wi' onything. We maun jist tell stories or sing sangs, as fowk
do in buiks, or else Miss St. John 'ill think lang.'

They did sing songs, and they did tell stories. I will not trouble
my reader with more than the sketch of one which Robert told--the
story of the old house wherein they sat--a house without a history,
save the story of its no history. It had been built for the
jointure-house of a young countess, whose husband was an old man. A
lover to whom she had turned a deaf ear had left the country,
begging ere he went her acceptance of a lovely Italian grayhound.
She was weak enough to receive the animal. Her husband died the
same year, and before the end of it the dog went mad, and bit her.
According to the awful custom of the time they smothered her
between two feather-beds, just as the house of Bogbonnie was ready
to receive her furniture, and become her future dwelling. No one
had ever occupied it.

If Miss St. John listened to story and song without as much show of
feeling as Mysie Lindsay would have manifested, it was not that she
entered into them less deeply. It was that she was more, not felt
less.

Listening at her window once with Robert, Eric Ericson had heard
Mary St. John play: this was their first meeting. Full as his mind
was of Mysie, he could not fail to feel the charm of a noble,
stately womanhood that could give support, instead of rousing
sympathy for helplessness. There was in the dignified simplicity of
Mary St. John that which made every good man remember his mother;
and a good man will think this grand praise, though a fast girl will
take it for a doubtful compliment.

Seeing her begin to look weary, the young men spread a couch for her
as best they could, made up the fire, and telling her they would be
in the hall below, retired, kindled another fire, and sat down to
wait for the morning. They held a long talk. At length Robert fell
asleep on the floor.

Ericson rose. One of his fits of impatient doubt was upon him. In
the dying embers of the fire he strode up and down the waste hall,
with the storm raving around it. He was destined to an early death;
he would leave no one of his kin to mourn for him; the girl whose
fair face had possessed his imagination, would not give one sigh to
his memory, wandering on through the regions of fancy all the same;
and the death-struggle over, he might awake in a godless void,
where, having no creative power in himself, he must be tossed about,
a conscious yet helpless atom, to eternity. It was not annihilation
he feared, although he did shrink from the thought of
unconsciousness; it was life without law that he dreaded, existence
without the bonds of a holy necessity, thought without faith, being
without God.

For all her fatigue Miss St. John could not sleep. The house
quivered in the wind which howled more and more madly through its
long passages and empty rooms; and she thought she heard cries in
the midst of the howling. In vain she reasoned with herself: she
could not rest. She rose and opened the door of her room, with a
vague notion of being nearer to the young men.

It opened upon the narrow gallery, already mentioned as leading from
one side of the first floor to the other at mid-height along the end
of the hall. The fire below shone into this gallery, for it was
divided from the hall only by a screen of crossing bars of wood,
like unglazed window-frames, possibly intended to hold glass. Of
the relation of the passage to the hall Mary St. John knew nothing,
till, approaching the light, she found herself looking down into the
red dusk below. She stood riveted; for in the centre of the hall,
with his hands clasped over his head like the solitary arch of a
ruined Gothic aisle, stood Ericson.

His agony had grown within him--the agony of the silence that
brooded immovable throughout the infinite, whose sea would ripple to
no breath of the feeble tempest of his prayers. At length it broke
from him in low but sharp sounds of words.

'O God,' he said, 'if thou art, why dost thou not speak? If I am
thy handiwork--dost thou forget that which thou hast made?'

He paused, motionless, then cried again:

'There can be no God, or he would hear.'

'God has heard me!' said a full-toned voice of feminine tenderness
somewhere in the air. Looking up, Ericson saw the dim form of Mary
St. John half-way up the side of the lofty hall. The same moment
she vanished--trembling at the sound of her own voice.

Thus to Ericson as to Robert had she appeared as an angel.

And was she less of a divine messenger because she had a human body,
whose path lay not through the air? The storm of misery folded its
wings in Eric's bosom, and, at the sound of her voice, there was a
great calm. Nor if we inquire into the matter shall we find that
such an effect indicated anything derogatory to the depth of his
feelings or the strength of his judgment. It is not through the
judgment that a troubled heart can be set at rest. It needs a
revelation, a vision; a something for the higher nature that breeds
and infolds the intellect, to recognize as of its own, and lay hold
of by faithful hope. And what fitter messenger of such hope than
the harmonious presence of a woman, whose form itself tells of
highest law, and concord, and uplifting obedience; such a one whose
beauty walks the upper air of noble loveliness; whose voice, even in
speech, is one of the 'sphere-born harmonious sisters? The very
presence of such a being gives Unbelief the lie, deep as the throat
of her lying. Harmony, which is beauty and law, works necessary
faith in the region capable of truth. It needs the intervention of
no reasoning. It is beheld. This visible Peace, with that voice of
woman's truth, said, 'God has heard me!' What better testimony
could an angel have brought him? Or why should an angel's testimony
weigh more than such a woman's? The mere understanding of a man
like Ericson would only have demanded of an angel proof that he was
an angel, proof that angels knew better than he did in the matter in
question, proof that they were not easy-going creatures that took
for granted the rumours of heaven. The best that a miracle can do
is to give hope; of the objects of faith it can give no proof; one
spiritual testimony is worth a thousand of them. For to gain the
sole proof of which these truths admit, a man must grow into harmony
with them. If there are no such things he cannot become conscious
of a harmony that has no existence; he cannot thus deceive himself;
if there are, they must yet remain doubtful until the harmony
between them and his own willing nature is established. The
perception of this harmony is their only and incommunicable proof.
For this process time is needful; and therefore we are saved by
hope. Hence it is no wonder that before another half-hour was over,
Ericson was asleep by Robert's side.

They were aroused in the cold gray light of the morning by the blast
of Hector's horn. Miss St. John was ready in a moment. The coach
was waiting for them at the end of the grassy road that led from the
house. Hector put them all inside. Before they reached Rothieden
the events of the night began to wear the doubtful aspect of a
dream. No allusion was made to what had occurred while Robert
slept; but all the journey Ericson felt towards Miss St. John as
Wordsworth felt towards the leech-gatherer, who, he says, was

like a man from some far region sent,
To give me human strength, by apt admonishment.

And Robert saw a certain light in her eyes which reminded him of how
she looked when, having repented of her momentary hardness towards
him, she was ministering to his wounded head.

CHAPTER XVII.

HOME AGAIN.

When Robert opened the door of his grandmother's parlour, he found
the old lady seated at breakfast. She rose, pushed back her chair,
and met him in the middle of the room; put her old arms round him,
offered her smooth white cheek to him, and wept. Robert wondered
that she did not look older; for the time he had been away seemed an
age, although in truth only eight months.

'Hoo are ye, laddie?' she said. 'I'm richt glaid, for I hae been
thinkin' lang to see ye. Sit ye doon.'

Betty rushed in, drying her hands on her apron. She had not heard
him enter.

'Eh losh!' she cried, and put her wet apron to her eyes. 'Sic a man
as ye're grown, Robert! A puir body like me maunna be speykin to ye
noo.'

'There's nae odds in me, Betty,' returned Robert.

''Deed but there is. Ye're sax feet an' a hairy ower, I s'
warran'.'

'I said there was nae odds i' me, Betty,' persisted Robert,
laughing.

'I kenna what may be in ye,' retorted Betty; 'but there's an unco'
odds upo' ye.'

'Haud yer tongue, Betty,' said her mistress. 'Ye oucht to ken better
nor stan' jawin' wi' young men. Fess mair o' the creamy cakes.'

'Maybe Robert wad like a drappy o' parritch.'

'Onything, Betty,' said Robert. 'I'm at deith's door wi' hunger.'

'Rin, Betty, for the cakes. An' fess a loaf o' white breid; we
canna bide for the parritch.'

Robert fell to his breakfast, and while he ate--somewhat
ravenously--he told his grandmother the adventures of the night, and
introduced the question whether he might not ask Ericson to stay a
few days with him.

'Ony frien' o' yours, laddie,' she replied, qualifying her words
only with the addition--'gin he be a frien'.--Whaur is he noo?'

'He's up at Miss Naper's.'

'Hoots! What for didna ye fess him in wi' ye?--Betty!'

'Na, na, grannie. The Napers are frien's o' his. We maunna
interfere wi' them. I'll gang up mysel' ance I hae had my
brakfast.'

'Weel, weel, laddie. Eh! I'm blythe to see ye! Hae ye gotten ony
prizes noo?'

'Ay have I. I'm sorry they're nae baith o' them the first. But I
hae the first o' ane an' the third o' the ither.'

'I am pleased at that, Robert. Ye'll be a man some day gin ye haud
frae drink an' frae--frae leein'.'

'I never tellt a lee i' my life, grannie.'

'Na. I dinna think 'at ever ye did.--An' what's that crater Shargar
aboot?'

'Ow, jist gaein' to be a croon o' glory to ye, grannie. He vroucht
like a horse till Dr. Anderson took him by the han', an' sent him to
the schuil. An' he's gaein' to mak something o' 'im, or a' be dune.
He's a fine crater, Shargar.'

'He tuik a munelicht flittin' frae here,' rejoined the old lady, in
a tone of offence. 'He micht hae said gude day to me, I think.'

'Ye see he was feart at ye, grannie.'

'Feart at me, laddie! Wha ever was feart at me? I never feart
onybody i' my life.'

So little did the dear old lady know that she was a terror to her
neighbourhood!--simply because, being a law to herself, she would
therefore be a law to other people,--a conclusion that cannot be
concluded.

Mrs. Falconer's courtesy did not fail. Her grandson had ceased to
be a child; her responsibility had in so far ceased; her conscience
was relieved at being rid of it; and the humanity of her great heart
came out to greet the youth. She received Ericson with perfect
hospitality, made him at home as far as the stately respect she
showed him would admit of his being so, and confirmed in him the
impression of her which Robert had given him. They held many talks
together; and such was the circumspection of Ericson that, not
saying a word he did not believe, he so said what he did believe, or
so avoided the points upon which they would have differed seriously,
that although his theology was of course far from satisfying her,
she yet affirmed her conviction that the root of the matter was in
him. This distressed Ericson, however, for he feared he must have
been deceitful, if not hypocritical.

It was with some grumbling that the Napiers, especially Miss Letty,
parted with him to Mrs. Falconer. The hearts of all three had so
taken to the youth, that he found himself more at home in that
hostelry than anywhere else in the world. Miss Letty was the only
one that spoke lightly of him--she even went so far as to make
good-natured game of him sometimes--all because she loved him more
than the others--more indeed than she cared to show, for fear of
exposing 'an old woman's ridiculous fancy,' as she called her
predilection.--'A lang-leggit, prood, landless laird,' she would
say, with a moist glimmer in her loving eyes, 'wi' the maist
ridiculous feet ye ever saw--hardly room for the five taes atween
the twa! Losh!'

When Robert went forth into the streets, he was surprised to find
how friendly every one was. Even old William MacGregor shook him
kindly by the hand, inquired after his health, told him not to study
too hard, informed him that he had a copy of a queer old book that
he would like to see, &c., &c. Upon reflection Robert discovered
the cause: though he had scarcely gained a bursary, he had gained
prizes; and in a little place like Rothieden--long may there be such
places!--everybody with any brains at all took a share in the
distinction he had merited.

Ericson stayed only a few days. He went back to the twilight of the
north, his fishy cousin, and his tutorship at Sir Olaf Petersen's.
Robert accompanied him ten miles on his journey, and would have
gone further, but that he was to play on his violin before Miss St.
John the next day for the first time.

When he told his grandmother of the appointment he had made, she
only remarked, in a tone of some satisfaction,

'Weel, she's a fine lass, Miss St. John; and gin ye tak to ane
anither, ye canna do better.'

But Robert's thoughts were so different from Mrs. Falconer's that he
did not even suspect what she meant. He no more dreamed of marrying
Miss St. John than of marrying his forbidden grandmother. Yet she
was no loss at this period the ruling influence of his life; and if
it had not been for the benediction of her presence and power, this
part of his history too would have been torn by inward troubles. It
is not good that a man should batter day and night at the gate of
heaven. Sometimes he can do nothing else, and then nothing else is
worth doing; but the very noise of the siege will sometimes drown
the still small voice that calls from the open postern. There is a
door wide to the jewelled wall not far from any one of us, even when
he least can find it.

Robert, however, notwithstanding the pedestal upon which Miss St.
John stood in his worshipping regard, began to be aware that his
feeling towards her was losing something of its placid flow, and I
doubt whether Miss St. John did not now and then see that in his
face which made her tremble a little, and doubt whether she stood on
safe ground with a youth just waking into manhood--tremble a little,
not for herself, but for him. Her fear would have found itself more
than justified, if she had surprised him kissing her glove, and then
replacing it where he had found it, with the air of one consciously
guilty of presumption.

Possibly also Miss St. John may have had to confess to herself that
had she not had her history already, and been ten years his senior,
she might have found no little attraction in the noble bearing and
handsome face of young Falconer. The rest of his features had now
grown into complete harmony of relation with his whilom premature
and therefore portentous nose; his eyes glowed and gleamed with
humanity, and his whole countenance bore self-evident witness of
being a true face and no mask, a revelation of his individual being,
and not a mere inheritance from a fine breed of fathers and mothers.
As it was, she could admire and love him without danger of falling
in love with him; but not without fear lest he should not assume the
correlative position. She saw no way of prevention, however,
without running a risk of worse. She shrunk altogether from putting
on anything; she abhorred tact, and pretence was impracticable with
Mary St. John. She resolved that if she saw any definite ground for
uneasiness she would return to England, and leave any impression she
might have made to wear out in her absence and silence. Things did
not seem to render this necessary yet.

Meantime the violin of the dead shoemaker blended its wails with the
rich harmonies of Mary St. John's piano, and the soul of Robert went
forth upon the level of the sound and hovered about the beauty of
his friend. Oftener than she approved was she drawn by Robert's
eagerness into these consorts.

But the heart of the king is in the hands of the Lord.

While Robert thus once more for a season stood behind the cherub
with the flaming sword, Ericson was teaching two stiff-necked youths
in a dreary house in the midst of one of the moors of Caithness.
One day he had a slight attack of blood-spitting, and welcomed it
as a sign from what heaven there might be beyond the grave.

He had not received the consolation of Miss St. John without,
although unconsciously, leaving something in her mind in return. No
human being has ever been allowed to occupy the position of a pure
benefactor. The receiver has his turn, and becomes the giver. From
her talk with Ericson, and even more from the influence of his sad
holy doubt, a fresh touch of the actinism of the solar truth fell
upon the living seed in her heart, and her life burst forth afresh,
began to bud in new questions that needed answers, and new prayers
that sought them.

But she never dreamed that Robert was capable of sympathy with such
thoughts and feelings: he was but a boy. Nor in power of dealing
with truth was he at all on the same level with her, for however
poor he might have considered her theories, she had led a life
hitherto, had passed through sorrow without bitterness, had done her
duty without pride, had hoped without conceit of favour, had, as she
believed, heard the voice of God saying, 'This is the way.' Hence
she was not afraid when the mists of prejudice began to rise from
around her path, and reveal a country very different from what she
had fancied it. She was soon able to perceive that it was far more
lovely and full of righteousness and peace than she had supposed.
But this anticipates; only I shall have less occasion to speak of
Miss St. John by the time she has come into this purer air of the
uphill road.

Robert was happier than he ever could have expected to be in his
grandmother's house. She treated him like an honoured guest, let
him do as he would, and go where he pleased. Betty kept the
gable-room in the best of order for him, and, pattern of housemaids,
dusted his table without disturbing his papers. For he began to
have papers; nor were they occupied only with the mathematics to
which he was now giving his chief attention, preparing, with the
occasional help of Mr. Innes, for his second session.

He had fits of wandering, though; visited all the old places; spent
a week or two more than once at Bodyfauld; rode Mr. Lammie's
half-broke filly; revelled in the glories of the summer once more;
went out to tea occasionally, or supped with the school-master; and,
except going to church on Sunday, which was a weariness to every
inch of flesh upon his bones, enjoyed everything.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A GRAVE OPENED.

One thing that troubled Robert on this his return home, was the
discovery that the surroundings of his childhood had deserted him.
There they were, as of yore, but they seemed to have nothing to say
to him--no remembrance of him. It was not that everything looked
small and narrow; it was not that the streets he saw from his new
quarters, the gable-room, were awfully still after the roar of
Aberdeen, and a passing cart seemed to shudder at the loneliness of
the noise itself made; it was that everything seemed to be conscious
only of the past and care nothing for him now. The very chairs with
their inlaid backs had an embalmed look, and stood as in a dream.
He could pass even the walled-up door without emotion, for all the
feeling that had been gathered about the knob that admitted him to
Mary St. John, had transferred itself to the brass bell-pull at her
street-door.

But one day, after standing for a while at the window, looking down
on the street where he had first seen the beloved form of Ericson, a
certain old mood began to revive in him. He had been working at
quadratic equations all the morning; he had been foiled in the
attempt to find the true algebraic statement of a very tough
question involving various ratios; and, vexed with himself, he had
risen to look out, as the only available zeitvertreib. It was one
of those rainy days of spring which it needs a hopeful mood to
distinguish from autumnal ones--dull, depressing, persistent: there
might be sunshine in Mercury or Venus--but on the earth could be
none, from his right hand round by India and America to his left;
and certainly there was none between--a mood to which all sensitive
people are liable who have not yet learned by faith in the
everlasting to rule their own spirits. Naturally enough his
thoughts turned to the place where he had suffered most--his old
room in the garret. Hitherto he had shrunk from visiting it; but
now he turned away from the window, went up the steep stairs, with
their one sharp corkscrew curve, pushed the door, which clung
unwillingly to the floor, and entered. It was a nothing of a
place--with a window that looked only to heaven. There was the
empty bedstead against the wall, where he had so often kneeled,
sending forth vain prayers to a deaf heaven! Had they indeed been
vain prayers, and to a deaf heaven? or had they been prayers which a
hearing God must answer not according to the haste of the praying
child, but according to the calm course of his own infinite law of
love?

Here, somehow or other, the things about him did not seem so much
absorbed in the past, notwithstanding those untroubled rows of
papers bundled in red tape. True, they looked almost awful in their
lack of interest and their non-humanity, for there is scarcely
anything that absolutely loses interest save the records of money;
but his mother's workbox lay behind them. And, strange to say, the
side of that bed drew him to kneel down: he did not yet believe that
prayer was in vain. If God had not answered him before, that gave
no certainty that he would not answer him now. It was, he found,
still as rational as it had ever been to hope that God would answer
the man that cried to him. This came, I think, from the fact that
God had been answering him all the time, although he had not
recognized his gifts as answers. Had he not given him Ericson, his
intercourse with whom and his familiarity with whose doubts had done
anything but quench his thirst after the higher life? For
Ericson's, like his own, were true and good and reverent doubts, not
merely consistent with but in a great measure springing from
devoutness and aspiration. Surely such doubts are far more precious
in the sight of God than many beliefs?