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At length he found himself following, till that moment
unconsciously, the chain of tunes he well remembered having played
on his violin the night he went first with Ericson to see Mysie,
ending with his strange chant about the witch lady and the dead
man's hand.

Ere he had finished the last, his passion had begun to fold its
wings, and he grew dimly aware of a beating at the door of the
solitary chamber in which he sat. He knew nothing of the enormity
of which he was guilty--presenting unsought the city of Antwerp with
a glorious phantasia. He did not know that only upon grand, solemn,
world-wide occasions, such as a king's birthday or a ball at the
Hôtel de Ville, was such music on the card. When he flung the door
to, it had closed with a spring lock, and for the last quarter of an
hour three gens-d'arme, commanded by the sacristan of the tower, had
been thundering thereat. He waited only to finish the last notes of
the wild Orcadian chant, and opened the door. He was seized by the
collar, dragged down the stair into the street, and through a crowd
of wondering faces--poor unconscious dreamer! it will not do to
think on the house-top even, and you had been dreaming very loud
indeed in the church spire--away to the bureau of the police.

CHAPTER XXIV.

DEATH.

I need not recount the proceedings of the Belgian police; how they
interrogated Robert concerning a letter from Mary St. John which
they found in an inner pocket; how they looked doubtful over a copy
of Horace that lay in his coat, and put evidently a momentous
question about some algebraical calculations on the fly-leaf of it.
Fortunately or unfortunately--I do not know which--Robert did not
understand a word they said to him. He was locked up, and left to
fret for nearly a week; though what he could have done had he been
at liberty, he knew as little as I know. At last, long after it was
useless to make any inquiry about Miss Lindsay, he was set at
liberty. He could just pay for a steerage passage to London, whence
he wrote to Dr. Anderson for a supply, and was in Aberdeen a few
days after.

This was Robert's first cosmopolitan experience. He confided the
whole affair to the doctor, who approved of all, saying it could
have been of no use, but he had done right. He advised him to go
home at once, for he had had letters inquiring after him. Ericson
was growing steadily worse--in fact, he feared Robert might not see
him alive.

If this news struck Robert to the heart, his pain was yet not
without some poor alleviation:--he need not tell Ericson about
Mysie, but might leave him to find out the truth when, free of a
dying body, he would be better able to bear it. That very night he
set off on foot for Rothieden. There was no coach from Aberdeen
till eight the following morning, and before that he would be there.

It was a dreary journey without Ericson. Every turn of the road
reminded him of him. And Ericson too was going a lonely unknown
way.

Did ever two go together upon that way? Might not two die together
and not lose hold of each other all the time, even when the sense of
the clasping hands was gone, and the soul had withdrawn itself from
the touch? Happy they who prefer the will of God to their own even
in this, and would, as the best friend, have him near who can be
near--him who made the fourth in the fiery furnace! Fable or fact,
reader, I do not care. The One I mean is, and in him I hope.

Very weary was Robert when he walked into his grandmother's house.

Betty came out of the kitchen at the sound of his entrance.

'Is Mr. Ericson--?'

'Na; he's nae deid,' she answered. 'He'll maybe live a day or twa,
they say.'

'Thank God!' said Robert, and went to his grandmother.

'Eh, laddie!' said Mrs. Falconer, the first greetings over, 'ane 's
ta'en an' anither 's left! but what for 's mair nor I can faddom.
There's that fine young man, Maister Ericson, at deith's door; an'
here am I, an auld runklet wife, left to cry upo' deith, an' he
winna hear me.'

'Cry upo' God, grannie, an' no upo' deith,' said Robert, catching at
the word as his grandmother herself might have done. He had no such
unfair habit when I knew him, and always spoke to one's meaning, not
one's words. But then he had a wonderful gift of knowing what one's
meaning was.

He did not sit down, but, tired as he was, went straight to The
Boar's Head. He met no one in the archway, and walked up to
Ericson's room. When he opened the door, he found the large screen
on the other side, and hearing a painful cough, lingered behind it,
for he could not control his feelings sufficiently. Then he heard a
voice--Ericson's voice; but oh, how changed!--He had no idea that he
ought not to listen.

'Mary,' the voice said, 'do not look like that. I am not suffering.
It is only my body. Your arm round me makes me so strong! Let me
lay my head on your shoulder.'

A brief pause followed.

'But, Eric,' said Mary's voice, 'there is one that loves you better
than I do.'

'If there is,' returned Ericson, feebly, 'he has sent his angel to
deliver me.'

'But you do believe in him, Eric?'

The voice expressed anxiety no less than love.

'I am going to see. There is no other way. When I find him, I
shall believe in him. I shall love him with all my heart, I know.
I love the thought of him now.'

'But that's not himself, my--darling!' she said.

'No. But I cannot love himself till I find him. Perhaps there is no
Jesus.'

'Oh, don't say that. I can't bear to hear you talk so,'

'But, dear heart, if you're so sure of him, do you think he would
turn me away because I don't do what I can't do? I would if I could
with all my heart. If I were to say I believed in him, and then
didn't trust him, I could understand it. But when it's only that
I'm not sure about what I never saw, or had enough of proof to
satisfy me of, how can he be vexed at that? You seem to me to do
him great wrong, Mary. Would you now banish me for ever, if I
should, when my brain is wrapped in the clouds of death, forget you
along with everything else for a moment?'

'No, no, no. Don't talk like that, Eric, dear. There may be
reasons, you know.'

'I know what they say well enough. But I expect Him, if there is a
Him, to be better even than you, my beautiful--and I don't know a
fault in you, but that you believe in a God you can't trust. If I
believed in a God, wouldn't I trust him just? And I do hope in him.
We'll see, my darling. When we meet again I think you'll say I was
right.'

Robert stood like one turned into marble. Deep called unto deep in
his soul. The waves and the billows went over him.

Mary St. John answered not a word. I think she must have been
conscience-stricken. Surely the Son of Man saw nearly as much faith
in Ericson as in her. Only she clung to the word as a bond that the
Lord had given her: she would rather have his bond.

Ericson had another fit of coughing. Robert heard the rustling of
ministration. But in a moment the dying man again took up the word.
He seemed almost as anxious about Mary's faith as she was about
his.

'There's Robert,' he said: 'I do believe that boy would die for me,
and I never did anything to deserve it. Now Jesus Christ must be as
good as Robert at least. I think he must be a great deal better, if
he's Jesus Christ at all. Now Robert might be hurt if I didn't
believe in him. But I've never seen Jesus Christ. It's all in an
old book, over which the people that say they believe in it the
most, fight like dogs and cats. I beg your pardon, my Mary; but
they do, though the words are ugly.'

'Ah! but if you had tried it as I've tried it, you would know
better, Eric.'

'I think I should, dear. But it's too late now. I must just go and
see. There's no other way left.'

The terrible cough came again. As soon as the fit was over, with a
grand despair in his heart, Robert went from behind the screen.

Ericson was on a couch. His head lay on Mary St. John's bosom.
Neither saw him.

'Perhaps,' said Ericson, panting with death, 'a kiss in heaven may
be as good as being married on earth, Mary.'

She saw Robert and did not answer. Then Eric saw him. He smiled;
but Mary grew very pale.

Robert came forward, stooped and kissed Ericson's forehead, kneeled
and kissed Mary's hand, rose and went out.

>From that moment they were both dead to him. Dead, I say--not lost,
not estranged, but dead--that is, awful and holy. He wept for Eric.
He did not weep for Mary yet. But he found a time.

Ericson died two days after.

Here endeth Robert's youth.

CHAPTER XXV.

IN MEMORIAM.

In memory of Eric Ericson, I add a chapter of sonnets gathered from
his papers, almost desiring that those only should read them who
turn to the book a second time. How his papers came into my
possession, will be explained afterwards.

Tumultuous rushing o'er the outstretched plains;
A wildered maze of comets and of suns;
The blood of changeless God that ever runs
With quick diastole up the immortal veins;
A phantom host that moves and works in chains;
A monstrous fiction which, collapsing, stuns
The mind to stupor and amaze at once;
A tragedy which that man best explains
Who rushes blindly on his wild career
With trampling hoofs and sound of mailed war,
Who will not nurse a life to win a tear,
But is extinguished like a falling star:--
Such will at times this life appear to me,
Until I learn to read more perfectly.

HOM. IL. v. 403.

If thou art tempted by a thought of ill,
Crave not too soon for victory, nor deem
Thou art a coward if thy safety seem
To spring too little from a righteous will:
For there is nightmare on thee, nor until
Thy soul hath caught the morning's early gleam
Seek thou to analyze the monstrous dream
By painful introversion; rather fill
Thine eye with forms thou knowest to be truth:
But see thou cherish higher hope than this;
A hope hereafter that thou shalt be fit
Calm-eyed to face distortion, and to sit
Transparent among other forms of youth
Who own no impulse save to God and bliss.

And must I ever wake, gray dawn, to know
Thee standing sadly by me like a ghost?
I am perplexed with thee, that thou shouldst cost
This Earth another turning: all aglow
Thou shouldst have reached me, with a purple show
Along far-mountain tops: and I would post
Over the breadth of seas though I were lost
In the hot phantom-chase for life, if so
Thou camest ever with this numbing sense
Of chilly distance and unlovely light;
Waking this gnawing soul anew to fight
With its perpetual load: I drive thee hence--
I have another mountain-range from whence
Bursteh a sun unutterably bright.

GALILEO.

'And yet it moves!' Ah, Truth, where wert thou then,
When all for thee they racked each piteous limb?
Wert though in Heaven, and busy with thy hymn,
When those poor hands convulsed that held thy pen?
Art thou a phantom that deceivest men
To their undoing? or dost thou watch him
Pale, cold, and silent in his dungeon dim?
And wilt thou ever speak to him again?
'It moves, it moves! Alas, my flesh was weak;
That was a hideous dream! I'll cry aloud
How the green bulk wheels sunward day by day!
Ah me! ah me! perchance my heart was proud
That I alone should know that word to speak;
And now, sweet Truth, shine upon these, I pray.'

If thou wouldst live the Truth in very deed,
Thou hast thy joy, but thou hast more of pain.
Others will live in peace, and thou be fain
To bargain with despair, and in thy need
To make thy meal upon the scantiest weed.
These palaces, for thee they stand in vain;
Thine is a ruinous hut; and oft the rain
Shall drench thee in the midnight; yea the speed
Of earth outstrip thee pilgrim, while thy feet
Move slowly up the heights. Yet will there come
Through the time-rents about thy moving cell,
An arrow for despair, and oft the hum
Of far-off populous realms where spirits dwell.

TO * * * *

Speak, Prophet of the Lord! We may not start
To find thee with us in thine ancient dress,
Haggard and pale from some bleak wilderness,
Empty of all save God and thy loud heart:
Nor with like rugged message quick to dart
Into the hideous fiction mean and base:
But yet, O prophet man, we need not less,
But more of earnest; though it is thy part
To deal in other words, if thou wouldst smite
The living Mammon, seated, not as then
In bestial quiescence grimly dight,
But thrice as much an idol-god as when
He stared at his own feet from morn to night.8

THE WATCHER.

>From out a windy cleft there comes a gaze
Of eyes unearthly which go to and fro
Upon the people's tumult, for below
The nations smite each other: no amaze
Troubles their liquid rolling, or affrays
Their deep-set contemplation: steadily glow
Those ever holier eye-balls, for they grow
Liker unto the eyes of one that prays.
And if those clasped hands tremble, comes a power
As of the might of worlds, and they are holden
Blessing above us in the sunrise golden;
And they will be uplifted till that hour
Of terrible rolling which shall rise and shake
This conscious nightmare from us and we wake.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE.

I

One do I see and twelve; but second there
Methinks I know thee, thou beloved one;
Not from thy nobler port, for there are none
More quiet-featured; some there are who bear
Their message on their brows, while others wear
A look of large commission, nor will shun
The fiery trial, so their work is done:
But thou hast parted with thine eyes in prayer--
Unearthly are they both; and so thy lips
Seem like the porches of the spirit land;
For thou hast laid a mighty treasure by,
Unlocked by Him in Nature, and thine eye
Burns with a vision and apocalypse
Thy own sweet soul can hardly understand.

II

A Boanerges too! Upon my heart
It lay a heavy hour: features like thine
Should glow with other message than the shine
Of the earth-burrowing levin, and the start
That cleaveth horrid gulfs. Awful and swart
A moment stoodest thou, but less divine--
Brawny and clad in ruin!--till with mine
Thy heart made answering signals, and apart
Beamed forth thy two rapt eye-balls doubly clear,
And twice as strong because thou didst thy duty,
And though affianced to immortal Beauty,
Hiddest not weakly underneath her veil
The pest of Sin and Death which maketh pale:
Henceforward be thy spirit doubly dear.9

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.

There is not any weed but hath its shower,
There is not any pool but hath its star;
And black and muddy though the waters are,
We may not miss the glory of a flower,
And winter moons will give them magic power
To spin in cylinders of diamond spar;
And everything hath beauty near and far,
And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour.
And I when I encounter on my road
A human soul that looketh black and grim,
Shall I more ceremonious be than God?
Shall I refuse to watch one hour with him
Who once beside our deepest woe did bud
A patient watching flower about the brim.

'Tis not the violent hands alone that bring
The curse, the ravage, and the downward doom
Although to these full oft the yawning tomb
Owes deadly surfeit; but a keener sting,
A more immortal agony, will cling
To the half-fashioned sin which would assume
Fair Virtue's garb. The eye that sows the gloom
With quiet seeds of Death henceforth to spring
What time the sun of passion burning fierce
Breaks through the kindly cloud of circumstance;
The bitter word, and the unkindly glance,
The crust and canker coming with the years,
Are liker Death than arrows, and the lance
Which through the living heart at once doth pierce.

SPOKEN OF SEVERAL PHILOSOPHERS.

I pray you, all ye men, who put your trust
In moulds and systems and well-tackled gear,
Holding that Nature lives from year to year
In one continual round because she must--
Set me not down, I pray you, in the dust
Of all these centuries, like a pot of beer,
A pewter-pot disconsolately clear,
Which holds a potful, as is right and just.
I will grow clamorous--by the rood, I will,
If thus ye use me like a pewter pot.
Good friend, thou art a toper and a sot--
I will not be the lead to hold thy swill,
Nor any lead: I will arise and spill
Thy silly beverage, spill it piping hot.

Nature, to him no message dost thou bear,
Who in thy beauty findeth not the power
To gird himself more strongly for the hour
Of night and darkness. Oh, what colours rare
The woods, the valleys, and the mountains wear
To him who knows thy secret, and in shower
And fog, and ice-cloud, hath a secret bower
Where he may rest until the heavens are fair!
Not with the rest of slumber, but the trance
Of onward movement steady and serene,
Where oft in struggle and in contest keen
His eyes will opened be, and all the dance
Of life break on him, and a wide expanse
Roll upward through the void, sunny and green.

TO JUNE.

Ah, truant, thou art here again, I see!
For in a season of such wretched weather
I thought that thou hadst left us altogether,
Although I could not choose but fancy thee
Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee
Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather
Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether
Thou shouldst be seen in such a company
Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps
Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint
Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps.
But yet I may not, chide: fall to thy books,
Fall to immediately without complaint--
There they are lying, hills and vales and brooks.

WRITTEN ABOUT THE LONGEST DAY.

Summer, sweet Summer, many-fingered Summer!
We hold thee very dear, as well we may:
It is the kernel of the year to-day--
All hail to thee! Thou art a welcome corner!
If every insect were a fairy drummer,
And I a fifer that could deftly play,
We'd give the old Earth such a roundelay
That she would cast all thought of labour from her
Ah! what is this upon my window-pane?
Some sulky drooping cloud comes pouting up,
Stamping its glittering feet along the plain!
Well, I will let that idle fancy drop.
Oh, how the spouts are bubbling with the rain!
And all the earth shines like a silver cup!

ON A MIDGE.

Whence do ye come, ye creature? Each of you
Is perfect as an angel; wings and eyes
Stupendous in their beauty--gorgeous dyes
In feathery fields of purple and of blue!
Would God I saw a moment as ye do!
I would become a molecule in size,
Rest with you, hum with you, or slanting rise
Along your one dear sunbeam, could I view
The pearly secret which each tiny fly,
Each tiny fly that hums and bobs and stirs,
Hides in its little breast eternally
>From you, ye prickly grim philosophers,
With all your theories that sound so high:
Hark to the buzz a moment, my good sirs!

ON A WATERFALL.

Here stands a giant stone from whose far top
Comes down the sounding water. Let me gaze
Till every sense of man and human ways
Is wrecked and quenched for ever, and I drop
Into the whirl of time, and without stop
Pass downward thus! Again my eyes I raise
To thee, dark rock; and through the mist and haze
My strength returns when I behold thy prop
Gleam stern and steady through the wavering wrack
Surely thy strength is human, and like me
Thou bearest loads of thunder on thy back!
And, lo, a smile upon thy visage black--
A breezy tuft of grass which I can see
Waving serenely from a sunlit crack!

Above my head the great pine-branches tower
Backwards and forwards each to the other bends,
Beckoning the tempest-cloud which hither wends
Like a slow-laboured thought, heavy with power;
Hark to the patter of the coming shower!
Let me be silent while the Almighty sends
His thunder-word along; but when it ends
I will arise and fashion from the hour
Words of stupendous import, fit to guard
High thoughts and purposes, which I may wave,
When the temptation cometh close and hard,
Like fiery brands betwixt me and the grave
Of meaner things--to which I am a slave
If evermore I keep not watch and ward.

I do remember how when very young,
I saw the great sea first, and heard its swell
As I drew nearer, caught within the spell
Of its vast size and its mysterious tongue.
How the floor trembled, and the dark boat swung
With a man in it, and a great wave fell
Within a stone's cast! Words may never tell
The passion of the moment, when I flung
All childish records by, and felt arise
A thing that died no more! An awful power
I claimed with trembling hands and eager eyes,
Mine, mine for ever, an immortal dower.--
The noise of waters soundeth to this hour,
When I look seaward through the quiet skies.

ON THE SOURCE OF THE ARVE.

Hear'st thou the dash of water loud and hoarse
With its perpetual tidings upward climb,
Struggling against the wind? Oh, how sublime!
For not in vain from its portentous source,
Thy heart, wild stream, hath yearned for its full force,
But from thine ice-toothed caverns dark as time
At last thou issuest, dancing to the rhyme
Of thy outvolleying freedom! Lo, thy course
Lies straight before thee as the arrow flies,
Right to the ocean-plains. Away, away!
Thy parent waits thee, and her sunset dyes
Are ruffled for thy coming, and the gray
Of all her glittering borders flashes high
Against the glittering rocks: oh, haste, and fly!

PART III.--HIS MANHOOD.

CHAPTER I.

IN THE DESERT.

A life lay behind Robert Falconer, and a life lay before him. He
stood on a shoal between.

The life behind him was in its grave. He had covered it over and
turned away. But he knew it would rise at night.

The life before him was not yet born; and what should issue from
that dull ghastly unrevealing fog on the horizon, he did not care.
Thither the tide setting eastward would carry him, and his future
must be born. All he cared about was to leave the empty garments of
his dead behind him--the sky and the fields, the houses and the
gardens which those dead had made alive with their presence.
Travel, motion, ever on, ever away, was the sole impulse in his
heart. Nor had the thought of finding his father any share in his
restlessness.

He told his grandmother that he was going back to Aberdeen. She
looked in his face with surprise, but seeing trouble there, asked no
questions. As if walking in a dream, he found himself at Dr.
Anderson's door.

'Why, Robert,' said the good man, 'what has brought you back? Ah!
I see. Poor Ericson! I am very sorry, my boy. What can I do for
you?'

'I can't go on with my studies now, sir,' answered Robert. 'I have
taken a great longing for travel. Will you give me a little money
and let me go?'

'To be sure I will. Where do you want to go?'

'I don't know. Perhaps as I go I shall find myself wanting to go
somewhere. You're not afraid to trust me, are you, sir?'

'Not in the least, Robert. I trust you perfectly. You shall do
just as you please.--Have you any idea, how much money you will
want?'

'No. Give me what you are willing I should spend: I will go by
that.'

'Come along to the bank then. I will give you enough to start with.
Write at once when you want more. Don't be too saving. Enjoy
yourself as well as you can. I shall not grudge it.'

Robert smiled a wan smile at the idea of enjoying himself. His
friend saw it, but let it pass. There was no good in persuading a
man whose grief was all he had left, that he must ere long part with
that too. That would have been in lowest deeps of sorrow to open a
yet lower deep of horror. But Robert would have refused, and would
have been right in refusing to believe with regard to himself what
might be true in regard to most men. He might rise above his grief;
he might learn to contain his grief; but lose it, forget it?--never.

He went to bid Shargar farewell. As soon as he had a glimpse of
what his friend meant, he burst out in an agony of supplication.

'Tak me wi' ye, Robert,' he cried. 'Ye're a gentleman noo. I'll be
yer man. I'll put on a livery coat, an' gang wi' ye. I'll awa' to
Dr. Anderson. He's sure to lat me gang.'

'No, Shargar,' said Robert, 'I can't have you with me. I've come
into trouble, Shargar, and I must fight it out alone.'

'Ay, ay; I ken. Puir Mr. Ericson!'

'There's nothing the matter with Mr. Ericson. Don't ask me any
questions. I've said more to you now than I've said to anybody
besides.'

'That is guid o' you, Robert. But am I never to see ye again?'

'I don't know. Perhaps we may meet some day.'

'Perhaps is nae muckle to say, Robert,' protested Shargar.

'It's more than can be said about everything, Shargar,' returned
Robert, sadly.

'Weel, I maun jist tak it as 't comes,' said Shargar, with a
despairing philosophy derived from the days when his mother thrashed
him. 'But, eh! Robert, gin it had only pleased the Almichty to sen'
me into the warl' in a some respectable kin' o' a fashion!'

'Wi' a chance a' gaein' aboot the country like that curst villain
yer brither, I suppose?' retorted Robert, rousing himself for a
moment.

'Na, na,' responded Shargar. 'I'll stick to my ain mither. She
never learned me sic tricks.'

'Do ye that. Ye canna compleen o' God. It's a' richt as far 's
ye're concerned. Gin he dinna something o' ye yet, it'll be your
wyte, no his, I'm thinkin'.'

They walked to Dr. Anderson's together, and spent the night there.
In the morning Robert got on the coach for Edinburgh.