Books: Robert Falconer

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'What ails ye, grannie? What for dinna ye gang on wi' the story?'

After a somewhat lengthened pause, Mrs. Falconer resumed as if she
had not stopped at all.

'Ane in ilka han', jist for the fun o' 't, he kneipit their heids
thegither, as gin they hed been twa carldoddies (stalks of
ribgrass). But maybe it was the lauchin' o' the twa lads, for they
thocht it unco fun. They were maist killed wi' lauchin'. But the
last time he did it, the puir auld man hostit (coughed) sair
efterhin, and had to gang and lie doon. He didna live lang efter
that. But it wasna that 'at killed him, ye ken.'

'But hoo cam he to play the pipes?'

'He likit the pipes. And yer grandfather, he tuik to the fiddle.'

'But what for did they ca' him the blin' piper o' Portcloddie?'

'Because he turned blin' lang afore his en' cam, and there was
naething ither he cud do. And he wad aye mak an honest baubee whan
he cud; for siller was fell scarce at that time o' day amo' the
Falconers. Sae he gaed throu the toon at five o'clock ilka mornin'
playin' his pipes, to lat them 'at war up ken they war up in time,
and them 'at warna, that it was time to rise. And syne he played
them again aboot aucht o'clock at nicht, to lat them ken 'at it was
time for dacent fowk to gang to their beds. Ye see, there wasna sae
mony clocks and watches by half than as there is noo.'

'Was he a guid piper, grannie?'

'What for speir ye that?'

'Because I tauld that sunk, Lumley--'

'Ca' naebody names, Robert. But what richt had ye to be speikin' to
a man like that?'

'He spak to me first.'

'Whaur saw ye him?'

'At The Boar's Heid.'

'And what richt had ye to gang stan'in' aboot? Ye oucht to ha' gane
in at ance.'

'There was a half-dizzen o' fowk stan'in' aboot, and I bude
(behoved) to speik whan I was spoken till.'

'But ye budena stop an' mak' ae fule mair.'

'Isna that ca'in' names, grannie?'

''Deed, laddie, I doobt ye hae me there. But what said the fallow
Lumley to ye?'

'He cast up to me that my grandfather was naething but a blin'
piper.'

'And what said ye?'

'I daured him to say 'at he didna pipe weel.'

'Weel dune, laddie! And ye micht say 't wi' a gude conscience, for
he wadna hae been piper till 's regiment at the battle o' Culloden
gin he hadna pipit weel. Yon's his kilt hingin' up i' the press i'
the garret. Ye'll hae to grow, Robert, my man, afore ye fill that.'

'And whase was that blue coat wi' the bonny gowd buttons upo' 't?'
asked Robert, who thought he had discovered a new approach to an
impregnable hold, which he would gladly storm if he could.

'Lat the coat sit. What has that to do wi' the kilt? A blue coat
and a tartan kilt gang na weel thegither.'

'Excep' in an auld press whaur naebody sees them. Ye wadna care,
grannie, wad ye, gin I was to cut aff the bonnie buttons?'

'Dinna lay a finger upo' them. Ye wad be gaein' playin' at pitch
and toss or ither sic ploys wi' them. Na, na, lat them sit.'

'I wad only niffer them for bools (exchange them for marbles).'

'I daur ye to touch the coat or onything 'ither that's i' that
press.'

'Weel, weel, grannie. I s' gang and get my lessons for the morn.'

'It's time, laddie. Ye hae been jabberin' ower muckle. Tell Betty
to come and tak' awa' the tay-things.'

Robert went to the kitchen, got a couple of hot potatoes and a
candle, and carried them up-stairs to Shargar, who was fast asleep.
But the moment the light shone upon his face, he started up, with
his eyes, if not his senses, wide awake.

'It wasna me, mither! I tell ye it wasna me!'

And he covered his head with both arms, as if to defend it from a
shower of blows.

'Haud yer tongue, Shargar. It's me.'

But before Shargar could come to his senses, the light of the candle
falling upon the blue coat made the buttons flash confused
suspicions into his mind.

'Mither, mither,' he said, 'ye hae gane ower far this time. There's
ower mony o' them, and they're no the safe colour. We'll be baith
hangt, as sure's there's a deevil in hell.'

As he said thus, he went on trying to pick the buttons from the
coat, taking them for sovereigns, though how he could have seen a
sovereign at that time in Scotland I can only conjecture. But
Robert caught him by the shoulders, and shook him awake with no
gentle hands, upon which he began to rub his eyes, and mutter
sleepily:

'Is that you, Bob? I hae been dreamin', I doobt.'

'Gin ye dinna learn to dream quaieter, ye'll get you and me tu into
mair trouble nor I care to hae aboot ye, ye rascal. Haud the tongue
o' ye, and eat this tawtie, gin ye want onything mair. And here's a
bit o' reamy cakes tu ye. Ye winna get that in ilka hoose i' the
toon. It's my grannie's especial.'

Robert felt relieved after this, for he had eaten all the cakes Miss
Napier had given him, and had had a pain in his conscience ever
since.

'Hoo got ye a haud o' 't?' asked Shargar, evidently supposing he had
stolen it.

'She gies me a bit noo and than.'

'And ye didna eat it yersel'? Eh, Bob!'

Shargar was somewhat overpowered at this fresh proof of Robert's
friendship. But Robert was still more ashamed of what he had not
done.

He took the blue coat carefully from the bed, and hung it in its
place again, satisfied now, from the way his grannie had spoken, or,
rather, declined to speak, about it, that it had belonged to his
father.

'Am I to rise?' asked Shargar, not understanding the action.

'Na, na, lie still. Ye'll be warm eneuch wantin' thae sovereigns.
I'll lat ye oot i' the mornin' afore grannie's up. And ye maun
mak' the best o't efter that till it's dark again. We'll sattle a'
aboot it at the schuil the morn. Only we maun be circumspec', ye
ken.'

'Ye cudna lay yer han's upo' a drap o' whusky, cud ye, Bob?'

Robert stared in horror. A boy like that asking for whisky! and in
his grandmother's house, too!

'Shargar,' he said solemnly, 'there's no a drap o' whusky i' this
hoose. It's awfu' to hear ye mention sic a thing. My grannie wad
smell the verra name o' 't a mile awa'. I doobt that's her fit upo'
the stair a'ready.'

Robert crept to the door, and Shargar sat staring with horror, his
eyes looking from the gloom of the bed like those of a
half-strangled dog. But it was a false alarm, as Robert presently
returned to announce.

'Gin ever ye sae muckle as mention whusky again, no to say drink ae
drap o' 't, you and me pairt company, and that I tell you, Shargar,'
said he, emphatically.

'I'll never luik at it; I'll never mint at dreamin' o' 't,' answered
Shargar, coweringly. 'Gin she pits 't intil my moo', I'll spit it
oot. But gin ye strive wi' me, Bob, I'll cut my throat--I will; an'
that'll be seen and heard tell o'.'

All this time, save during the alarm of Mrs. Falconer's approach,
when he sat with a mouthful of hot potato, unable to move his jaws
for terror, and the remnant arrested half-way in its progress from
his mouth after the bite--all this time Shargar had been devouring
the provisions Robert had brought him, as if he had not seen food
that day. As soon as they were finished, he begged for a drink of
water, which Robert managed to procure for him. He then left him
for the night, for his longer absence might have brought his
grandmother after him, who had perhaps only too good reasons for
being doubtful, if not suspicious, about boys in general, though
certainly not about Robert in particular. He carried with him his
books from the other garret-room where he kept them, and sat down at
the table by his grandmother, preparing his Latin and geography by
her lamp, while she sat knitting a white stocking with fingers as
rapid as thought, never looking at her work, but staring into the
fire, and seeing visions there which Robert would have given
everything he could call his own to see, and then would have given
his life to blot out of the world if he had seen them. Quietly the
evening passed, by the peaceful lamp and the cheerful fire, with the
Latin on the one side of the table, and the stocking on the other,
as if ripe and purified old age and hopeful unstained youth had been
the only extremes of humanity known to the world. But the bitter
wind was howling by fits in the chimney, and the offspring of a
nobleman and a gipsy lay asleep in the garret, covered with the
cloak of an old Highland rebel.

At nine o'clock, Mrs. Falconer rang the bell for Betty, and they had
worship. Robert read a chapter, and his grandmother prayed an
extempore prayer, in which they that looked at the wine when it was
red in the cup, and they that worshipped the woman clothed in
scarlet and seated upon the seven hills, came in for a strange
mixture, in which the vengeance yielded only to the pity.

'Lord, lead them to see the error of their ways,' she cried. 'Let
the rod of thy wrath awake the worm of their conscience that they
may know verily that there is a God that ruleth in the earth. Dinna
lat them gang to hell, O Lord, we beseech thee.'

As soon as prayers were over, Robert had a tumbler of milk and some
more oat-cake, and was sent to bed; after which it was impossible
for him to hold any further communication with Shargar. For his
grandmother, little as one might suspect it who entered the parlour
in the daytime, always slept in that same room, in a bed closed in
with doors like those of a large press in the wall, while Robert
slept in a little closet, looking into a garden at the back of the
house, the door of which opened from the parlour close to the head
of his grandmother's bed. It was just large enough to hold a
good-sized bed with curtains, a chest of drawers, a bureau, a large
eight-day clock, and one chair, leaving in the centre about five
feet square for him to move about in. There was more room as well
as more comfort in the bed. He was never allowed a candle, for
light enough came through from the parlour, his grandmother thought;
so he was soon extended between the whitest of cold sheets, with his
knees up to his chin, and his thoughts following his lost father
over all spaces of the earth with which his geography-book had made
him acquainted.

He was in the habit of leaving his closet and creeping through his
grandmother's room before she was awake--or at least before she had
given any signs to the small household that she was restored to
consciousness, and that the life of the house must proceed. He
therefore found no difficulty in liberating Shargar from his prison,
except what arose from the boy's own unwillingness to forsake his
comfortable quarters for the fierce encounter of the January blast
which awaited him. But Robert did not turn him out before the last
moment of safety had arrived; for, by the aid of signs known to
himself, he watched the progress of his grandmother's dressing--an
operation which did not consume much of the morning, scrupulous as
she was with regard to neatness and cleanliness--until Betty was
called in to give her careful assistance to the final disposition of
the mutch, when Shargar's exit could be delayed no longer. Then he
mounted to the foot of the second stair, and called in a keen
whisper,

'Noo, Shargar, cut for the life o' ye.'

And down came the poor fellow, with long gliding steps, ragged and
reluctant, and, without a word or a look, launched himself out into
the cold, and sped away he knew not whither. As he left the door,
the only suspicion of light was the dull and doubtful shimmer of the
snow that covered the street, keen particles of which were blown in
his face by the wind, which, having been up all night, had grown
very cold, and seemed delighted to find one unprotected human being
whom it might badger at its own bitter will. Outcast Shargar!
Where he spent the interval between Mrs. Falconer's door and that
of the school, I do not know. There was a report amongst his
school-fellows that he had been found by Scroggie, the fish-cadger,
lying at full length upon the back of his old horse, which, either
from compassion or indifference, had not cared to rise up under the
burden. They said likewise that, when accused by Scroggie of
housebreaking, though nothing had to be broken to get in, only a
string with a peculiar knot, on the invention of which the cadger
prided himself, to be undone, all that Shargar had to say in his
self-defence was, that he had a terrible sair wame, and that the
horse was warmer nor the stanes i' the yard; and he had dune him nae
ill, nae even drawn a hair frae his tail--which would have been a
difficult feat, seeing the horse's tail was as bare as his hoof.

CHAPTER VII.

ROBERT TO THE RESCUE!

That Shargar was a parish scholar--which means that the parish paid
his fees, although, indeed, they were hardly worth paying--made very
little difference to his position amongst his school-fellows. Nor
did the fact of his being ragged and dirty affect his social
reception to his discomfort. But the accumulated facts of the
oddity of his personal appearance, his supposed imbecility, and the
bad character borne by his mother, placed him in a very unenviable
relation to the tyrannical and vulgar-minded amongst them.
Concerning his person, he was long, and, as his name implied, lean,
with pale-red hair, reddish eyes, no visible eyebrows or eyelashes,
and very pale face--in fact, he was half-way to an Albino. His arms
and legs seemed of equal length, both exceedingly long. The
handsomeness of his mother appeared only in his nose and mouth,
which were regular and good, though expressionless; and the birth of
his father only in his small delicate hands and feet, of which any
girl who cared only for smallness, and heeded neither character nor
strength, might have been proud. His feet, however, were supposed
to be enormous, from the difficulty with which he dragged after him
the huge shoes in which in winter they were generally encased.

The imbecility, like the large feet, was only imputed. He certainly
was not brilliant, but neither did he make a fool of himself in any
of the few branches of learning of which the parish-scholar came in
for a share. That which gained him the imputation was the fact that
his nature was without a particle of the aggressive, and all its
defensive of as purely negative a character as was possible. Had he
been a dog, he would never have thought of doing anything for his
own protection beyond turning up his four legs in silent appeal to
the mercy of the heavens. He was an absolute sepulchre in the
swallowing of oppression and ill-usage. It vanished in him. There
was no echo of complaint, no murmur of resentment from the hollows
of that soul. The blows that fell upon him resounded not, and no
one but God remembered them.

His mother made her living as she herself best knew, with occasional
well-begrudged assistance from the parish. Her chief resource was
no doubt begging from house to house for the handful of oatmeal
which was the recognized, and, in the court of custom-taught
conscience, the legalized dole upon which every beggar had a claim;
and if she picked up at the same time a chicken, or a boy's rabbit,
or any other stray luxury, she was only following the general rule
of society, that your first duty is to take care of yourself. She
was generally regarded as a gipsy, but I doubt if she had any gipsy
blood in her veins. She was simply a tramper, with occasional fits
of localization. Her worst fault was the way she treated her son,
whom she starved apparently that she might continue able to beat
him.

The particular occasion which led to the recognition of the growing
relation between Robert and Shargar was the following. Upon a
certain Saturday--some sidereal power inimical to boys must have
been in the ascendant--a Saturday of brilliant but intermittent
sunshine, the white clouds seen from the school windows indicating
by their rapid transit across those fields of vision that fresh
breezes friendly to kites, or draigons, as they were called at
Rothieden, were frolicking in the upper regions--nearly a dozen boys
were kept in for not being able to pay down from memory the usual
instalment of Shorter Catechism always due at the close of the week.
Amongst these boys were Robert and Shargar. Sky-revealing windows
and locked door were too painful; and in proportion as the feeling
of having nothing to do increased, the more uneasy did the active
element in the boys become, and the more ready to break out into
some abnormal manifestation. Everything--sun, wind, clouds--was
busy out of doors, and calling to them to come and join the fun; and
activity at the same moment excited and restrained naturally turns
to mischief. Most of them had already learned the obnoxious
task--one quarter of an hour was enough for that--and now what
should they do next? The eyes of three or four of the eldest of
them fell simultaneously upon Shargar.

Robert was sitting plunged in one of his day-dreams, for he, too,
had learned his catechism, when he was roused from his reverie by a
question from a pale-faced little boy, who looked up to him as a
great authority.

'What for 's 't ca'd the Shorter Carritchis, Bob?'

''Cause it's no fully sae lang's the Bible,' answered Robert,
without giving the question the consideration due to it, and was
proceeding to turn the matter over in his mind, when the mental
process was arrested by a shout of laughter. The other boys had
tied Shargar's feet to the desk at which he sat--likewise his hands,
at full stretch; then, having attached about a dozen strings to as
many elf-locks of his pale-red hair, which was never cut or trimmed,
had tied them to various pegs in the wall behind him, so that the
poor fellow could not stir. They were now crushing up pieces of
waste-paper, not a few leaves of stray school-books being regarded
in that light, into bullets, dipping them in ink and aiming then at
Shargar's face.

For some time Shargar did not utter a word; and Robert, although
somewhat indignant at the treatment he was receiving, felt as yet no
impulse to interfere, for success was doubtful. But, indeed, he was
not very easily roused to action of any kind; for he was as yet
mostly in the larva-condition of character, when everything is
transacted inside. But the fun grew more furious, and spot after
spot of ink gloomed upon Shargar's white face. Still Robert took no
notice, for they did not seem to be hurting him much. But when he
saw the tears stealing down his patient cheeks, making channels
through the ink which now nearly covered them, he could bear it no
longer. He took out his knife, and under pretence of joining in the
sport, drew near to Shargar, and with rapid hand cut the cords--all
but those that bound his feet, which were less easy to reach without
exposing himself defenceless.

The boys of course turned upon Robert. But ere they came to more
than abusive words a diversion took place.

Mrs. Innes, the school-master's wife--a stout, kind-hearted woman,
the fine condition of whose temperament was clearly the result of
her physical prosperity--appeared at the door which led to the
dwelling-house above, bearing in her hands a huge tureen of
potato-soup, for her motherly heart could not longer endure the
thought of dinnerless boys. Her husband being engaged at a parish
meeting, she had a chance of interfering with success.

But ere Nancy, the servant, could follow with the spoons and plates,
Wattie Morrison had taken the tureen, and out of spite at Robert,
had emptied its contents on the head of Shargar, who was still tied
by the feet, with the words: 'Shargar, I anoint thee king over us,
and here is thy crown,' giving the tureen, as he said so, a push on
to his head, where it remained.

Shargar did not move, and for one moment could not speak, but the
next he gave a shriek that made Robert think he was far worse
scalded than turned out to be the case. He darted to him in rage,
took the tureen from his head, and, his blood being fairly up now,
flung it with all his force at Morrison, and felled him to the
earth. At the same moment the master entered by the street door and
his wife by the house door, which was directly opposite. In the
middle of the room the prisoners surrounded the fallen
tyrant--Robert, with the red face of wrath, and Shargar, with a
complexion the mingled result of tears, ink, and soup, which latter
clothed him from head to foot besides, standing on the outskirts of
the group. I need not follow the story farther. Both Robert and
Morrison got a lickin'; and if Mr. Innes had been like some
school-masters of those times, Shargar would not have escaped his
share of the evil things going.

>From that day Robert assumed the acknowledged position of Shargar's
defender. And if there was pride and a sense of propriety mingled
with his advocacy of Shargar's rights, nay, even if the relation was
not altogether free from some amount of show-off on Robert's part, I
cannot yet help thinking that it had its share in that development
of the character of Falconer which has chiefly attracted me to the
office of his biographer. There may have been in it the exercise of
some patronage; probably it was not pure from the pride of
beneficence; but at least it was a loving patronage and a vigorous
beneficence; and, under the reaction of these, the good which in
Robert's nature was as yet only in a state of solution, began to
crystallize into character.

But the effect of the new relation was far more remarkable on
Shargar. As incapable of self-defence as ever, he was yet in a
moment roused to fury by any attack upon the person or the dignity
of Robert: so that, indeed, it became a new and favourite mode of
teasing Shargar to heap abuse, real or pretended, upon his friend.
>From the day when Robert thus espoused his part, Shargar was
Robert's dog. That very evening, when she went to take a parting
peep at the external before locking the door for the night, Betty
found him sitting upon the door-step, only, however, to send him
off, as she described it, 'wi' a flech1 in 's lug (a flea in his
ear).' For the character of the mother was always associated with
the boy, and avenged upon him. I must, however, allow that those
delicate, dirty fingers of his could not with safety be warranted
from occasional picking and stealing.

At this period of my story, Robert himself was rather a
grotesque-looking animal, very tall and lanky, with especially long
arms, which excess of length they retained after he was full-grown.
In this respect Shargar and he were alike; but the long legs of
Shargar were unmatched in Robert, for at this time his body was
peculiarly long. He had large black eyes, deep sunk even then, and
a Roman nose, the size of which in a boy of his years looked
portentous. For the rest, he was dark-complexioned, with dark hair,
destined to grow darker still, with hands and feet well modelled,
but which would have made four feet and four hands such as
Shargar's.

When his mind was not oppressed with the consideration of any
important metaphysical question, he learned his lessons well; when
such was present, the Latin grammar, with all its attendant
servilities, was driven from the presence of the lordly need. That
once satisfied in spite of pandies and imprisonments, he returned
with fresh zest, and, indeed, with some ephemeral ardour, to the
rules of syntax or prosody, though the latter, in the mode in which
it was then and there taught, was almost as useless as the task set
himself by a worthy lay-preacher in the neighbourhood--of learning
the first nine chapters of the first Book of the Chronicles, in
atonement for having, in an evil hour of freedom of spirit, ventured
to suggest that such lists of names, even although forming a portion
of Holy Writ, could scarcely be reckoned of equally divine authority
with St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ANGEL UNAWARES.

Although Betty seemed to hold little communication with the outer
world, she yet contrived somehow or other to bring home what gossip
was going to the ears of her mistress, who had very few visitors;
for, while her neighbours held Mrs. Falconer in great and evident
respect, she was not the sort of person to sit down and have a news
with. There was a certain sedate self-contained dignity about her
which the common mind felt to be chilling and repellant; and from
any gossip of a personal nature--what Betty brought her always
excepted--she would turn away, generally with the words, 'Hoots! I
canna bide clashes.'

On the evening following that of Shargar's introduction to Mrs.
Falconer's house, Betty came home from the butcher's--for it was
Saturday night, and she had gone to fetch the beef for their
Sunday's broth--with the news that the people next door, that is,
round the corner in the next street, had a visitor.

The house in question had been built by Robert's father, and was,
compared with Mrs. Falconer's one-storey house, large and handsome.
Robert had been born, and had spent a few years of his life in it,
but could recall nothing of the facts of those early days. Some
time before the period at which my history commences it had passed
into other hands, and it was now quite strange to him. It had been
bought by a retired naval officer, who lived in it with his
wife--the only Englishwoman in the place, until the arrival, at The
Boar's Head, of the lady so much admired by Dooble Sanny.