Kitabı oku: «Robert Falconer», sayfa 13

CHAPTER XXI. THE DRAGON

Next day, his foot was so much better that he sent Shargar to Rothieden to buy the string, taking with him Robert’s school-bag, in which to carry off his Sunday shoes; for as to those left at Dooble Sanny’s, they judged it unsafe to go in quest of them: the soutar could hardly be in a humour fit to be intruded upon.

Having procured the string, Shargar went to Mrs. Falconer’s. Anxious not to encounter her, but, if possible, to bag the boots quietly, he opened the door, peeped in, and seeing no one, made his way towards the kitchen. He was arrested, however, as he crossed the passage by the voice of Mrs. Falconer calling, ‘Wha’s that?’ There she was at the parlour door. It paralyzed him. His first impulse was to make a rush and escape. But the boots—he could not go without at least an attempt upon them. So he turned and faced her with inward trembling.

‘Wha’s that?’ repeated the old lady, regarding him fixedly. ‘Ow, it’s you! What duv ye want? Ye camna to see me, I’m thinkin’! What hae ye i’ that bag?’

‘I cam to coff (buy) twine for the draigon,’ answered Shargar.

‘Ye had twine eneuch afore!’

‘It bruik. It wasna strang eneuch.’

‘Whaur got ye the siller to buy mair? Lat’s see ‘t?’

Shargar took the string from the bag.

‘Sic a sicht o’ twine! What paid ye for ‘t?’

‘A shillin’.’

‘Whaur got ye the shillin’?’

‘Mr. Lammie gae ‘t to Robert.’

‘I winna hae ye tak siller frae naebody. It’s ill mainners. Hae!’ said the old lady, putting her hand in her pocket, and taking out a shilling. ‘Hae,’ she said. ‘Gie Mr. Lammie back his shillin’, an’ tell ‘im ‘at I wadna hae ye learn sic ill customs as tak siller. It’s eneuch to gang sornin’ upon ‘im (exacting free quarters) as ye du, ohn beggit for siller. Are they a’ weel?’

‘Ay, brawly,’ answered Shargar, putting the shilling in his pocket.

In another moment Shargar had, without a word of adieu, embezzled the shoes, and escaped from the house without seeing Betty. He went straight to the shop he had just left, and bought another shilling’s worth of string.

When he got home, he concealed nothing from Robert, whom he found seated in the barn, with his fiddle, waiting his return.

Robert started to his feet. He could appropriate his grandfather’s violin, to which, possibly, he might have shown as good a right as his grandmother—certainly his grandfather would have accorded it him—but her money was sacred.

‘Shargar, ye vratch!’ he cried, ‘fess that shillin’ here direckly. Tak the twine wi’ ye, and gar them gie ye back the shillin’.’

‘They winna brak the bargain,’ cried Shargar, beginning almost to whimper, for a savoury smell of dinner was coming across the yard.

‘Tell them it’s stown siller, and they’ll be in het watter aboot it gin they dinna gie ye ‘t back.’

‘I maun hae my denner first,’ remonstrated Shargar.

But the spirit of his grandmother was strong in Robert, and in a matter of rectitude there must be no temporizing. Therein he could be as tyrannical as the old lady herself.

‘De’il a bite or a sup s’ gang ower your thrapple till I see that shillin’.’

There was no help for it. Six hungry miles must be trudged by Shargar ere he got a morsel to eat. Two hours and a half passed before he reappeared. But he brought the shilling. As to how he recovered it, Robert questioned him in vain. Shargar, in his turn, was obstinate.

‘She’s a some camstairy (unmanageable) wife, that grannie o’ yours,’ said Mr. Lammie, when Robert returned the shilling with Mrs. Falconer’s message, ‘but I reckon I maun pit it i’ my pooch, for she will hae her ain gait, an’ I dinna want to strive wi’ her. But gin ony o’ ye be in want o’ a shillin’ ony day, lads, as lang ‘s I’m abune the yird—this ane ‘ll be grown twa, or maybe mair, ‘gen that time.’

So saying, the farmer put the shilling into his pocket, and buttoned it up.

The dragon flew splendidly now, and its strength was mighty. It was Robert’s custom to drive a stake in the ground, slanting against the wind, and thereby tether the animal, as if it were up there grazing in its own natural region. Then he would lie down by the stake and read The Arabian Nights, every now and then casting a glance upward at the creature alone in the waste air, yet all in his power by the string at his side. Somehow the high-flown dragon was a bond between him and the blue; he seemed nearer to the sky while it flew, or at least the heaven seemed less far away and inaccessible. While he lay there gazing, all at once he would find that his soul was up with the dragon, feeling as it felt, tossing about with it in the torrents of the air. Out at his eyes it would go, traverse the dim stairless space, and sport with the wind-blown monster. Sometimes, to aid his aspiration, he would take a bit of paper, make a hole in it, pass the end of the string through the hole, and send the messenger scudding along the line athwart the depth of the wind. If it stuck by the way, he would get a telescope of Mr. Lammie’s, and therewith watch its struggles till it broke loose, then follow it careering up to the kite. Away with each successive paper his imagination would fly, and a sense of air, and height, and freedom settled from his play into his very soul, a germ to sprout hereafter, and enrich the forms of his aspirations. And all his after-memories of kite-flying were mingled with pictures of eastern magnificence, for from the airy height of the dragon his eyes always came down upon the enchanted pages of John Hewson’s book.

Sometimes, again, he would throw down his book, and sitting up with his back against the stake, lift his bonny leddy from his side, and play as he had never played in Rothieden, playing to the dragon aloft, to keep him strong in his soaring, and fierce in his battling with the winds of heaven. Then he fancied that the monster swooped and swept in arcs, and swayed curving to and fro, in rhythmic response to the music floating up through the wind.

What a full globated symbolism lay then around the heart of the boy in his book, his violin, his kite!

CHAPTER XXII. DR. ANDERSON

One afternoon, as they were sitting at their tea, a footstep in the garden approached the house, and then a figure passed the window. Mr. Lammie started to his feet.

‘Bless my sowl, Aggy! that’s Anderson!’ he cried, and hurried to the door.

His daughter followed. The boys kept their seats. A loud and hearty salutation reached their ears; but the voice of the farmer was all they heard. Presently he returned, bringing with him the tallest and slenderest man Robert had ever seen. He was considerably over six feet, with a small head, and delicate, if not fine features, a gentle look in his blue eyes, and a slow clear voice, which sounded as if it were thinking about every word it uttered. The hot sun of India seemed to have burned out everything self-assertive, leaving him quietly and rather sadly contemplative.

‘Come in, come in,’ repeated Mr. Lammie, overflowing with glad welcome. ‘What’ll ye hae? There’s a frien’ o’ yer ain,’ he continued, pointing to Robert, ‘an’ a fine lad.’ Then lowering his voice, he added: ‘A son o’ poor Anerew’s, ye ken, doctor.’

The boys rose, and Dr. Anderson, stretching his long arms across the table, shook hands kindly with Robert and Shargar. Then he sat down and began to help himself to the cakes (oat-cake), at which Robert wondered, seeing there was ‘white breid’ on the table. Miss Lammie presently came in with the teapot and some additional dainties, and the boys took the opportunity of beginning at the beginning again.

Dr. Anderson remained for a few days at Bodyfauld, sending Shargar to Rothieden for some necessaries from The Boar’s Head, where he had left his servant and luggage. During this time Mr. Lammie was much occupied with his farm affairs, anxious to get his harvest in as quickly as possible, because a change of weather was to be dreaded; so the doctor was left a good deal to himself. He was fond of wandering about, but, thoughtful as he was, did not object to the companionship which Robert implicitly offered him: before many hours were over, the two were friends.

Various things attracted Robert to the doctor. First, he was a relation of his own, older than himself, the first he had known except his father, and Robert’s heart was one of the most dutiful. Second, or perhaps I ought to have put this first, he was the only gentleman, except Eric Ericson, whose acquaintance he had yet made. Third, he was kind to him, and gentle to him, and, above all, respectful to him; and to be respected was a new sensation to Robert altogether. And lastly, he could tell stories of elephants and tiger hunts, and all The Arabian Nights of India. He did not volunteer much talk, but Robert soon found that he could draw him out.

But what attracted the man to the boy?

‘Ah! Robert,’ said the doctor one day, sadly, ‘it’s a sore thing to come home after being thirty years away.’

He looked up at the sky, then all around at the hills: the face of Nature alone remained the same. Then his glance fell on Robert, and he saw a pair of black eyes looking up at him, brimful of tears. And thus the man was drawn to the boy.

Robert worshipped Dr. Anderson. As long as he remained their visitor, kite and violin and all were forgotten, and he followed him like a dog. To have such a gentleman for a relation, was grand indeed. What could he do for him? He ministered to him in all manner of trifles—a little to the amusement of Dr. Anderson, but more to his pleasure, for he saw that the boy was both large-hearted and lowly-minded: Dr. Anderson had learned to read character, else he would never have been the honour to his profession that he was.

But all the time Robert could not get him to speak about his father. He steadily avoided the subject.

When he went away, the two boys walked with him to The Boar’s Head, caught a glimpse of his Hindoo attendant, much to their wonderment, received from the doctor a sovereign apiece and a kind good-bye, and returned to Bodyfauld.

Dr. Anderson remained a few days longer at Rothieden, and amongst others visited Mrs. Falconer, who was his first cousin. What passed between them Robert never heard, nor did his grandmother even allude to the visit. He went by the mail-coach from Rothieden to Aberdeen, and whether he should ever see him again Robert did not know.

He flew his kite no more for a while, but betook himself to the work of the harvest-field, in which he was now able for a share. But his violin was no longer neglected.

Day after day passed in the delights of labour, broken for Robert by The Arabian Nights and the violin, and for Shargar by attendance upon Miss Lammie, till the fields lay bare of their harvest, and the night-wind of autumn moaned everywhere over the vanished glory of the country, and it was time to go back to school.

CHAPTER XXIII. AN AUTO DA FÉ

The morning at length arrived when Robert and Shargar must return to Rothieden. A keen autumnal wind was blowing far-off feathery clouds across a sky of pale blue; the cold freshened the spirits of the boys, and tightened their nerves and muscles, till they were like bow-strings. No doubt the winter was coming, but the sun, although his day’s work was short and slack, was still as clear as ever. So gladsome was the world, that the boys received the day as a fresh holiday, and strenuously forgot to-morrow. The wind blew straight from Rothieden, and between sun and wind a bright thought awoke in Robert. The dragon should not be carried—he should fly home.

After they had said farewell, in which Shargar seemed to suffer more than Robert, and had turned the corner of the stable, they heard the good farmer shouting after them,

‘There’ll be anither hairst neist year, boys,’ which wonderfully restored their spirits. When they reached the open road, Robert laid his violin carefully into a broom-bush. Then the tail was unrolled, and the dragon ascended steady as an angel whose work is done. Shargar took the stick at the end of the string, and Robert resumed his violin. But the creature was hard to lead in such a wind; so they made a loop on the string, and passed it round Shargar’s chest, and he tugged the dragon home. Robert longed to take his share in the struggle, but he could not trust his violin to Shargar, and so had to walk beside ingloriously. On the way they laid their plans for the accommodation of the dragon. But the violin was the greater difficulty. Robert would not hear of the factory, for reasons best known to himself, and there were serious objections to taking it to Dooble Sanny. It was resolved that the only way was to seize the right moment, and creep upstairs with it before presenting themselves to Mrs. Falconer. Their intended manoeuvres with the kite would favour the concealment of this stroke.

Before they entered the town they drew in the kite a little way, and cut off a dozen yards of the string, which Robert put in his pocket, with a stone tied to the end. When they reached the house, Shargar went into the little garden and tied the string of the kite to the paling between that and Captain Forsyth’s. Robert opened the street door, and having turned his head on all sides like a thief, darted with his violin up the stairs. Having laid his treasure in one of the presses in Shargar’s garret, he went to his own, and from the skylight threw the stone down into the captain’s garden, fastening the other end of the string to the bedstead. Escaping as cautiously as he had entered, he passed hurriedly into their neighbour’s garden, found the stone, and joined Shargar. The ends were soon united, and the kite let go. It sunk for a moment, then, arrested by the bedstead, towered again to its former ‘pride of place,’ sailing over Rothieden, grand and unconcerned, in the wastes of air.

But the end of its tether was in Robert’s garret. And that was to him a sense of power, a thought of glad mystery. There was henceforth, while the dragon flew, a relation between the desolate little chamber, in that lowly house buried among so many more aspiring abodes, and the unmeasured depths and spaces, the stars, and the unknown heavens. And in the next chamber lay the fiddle free once more,—yet another magical power whereby his spirit could forsake the earth and mount heavenwards.

All that night, all the next day, all the next night, the dragon flew.

Not one smile broke over the face of the old lady as she received them. Was it because she did not know what acts of disobedience, what breaches of the moral law, the two children of possible perdition might have committed while they were beyond her care, and she must not run the risk of smiling upon iniquity? I think it was rather that there was no smile in her religion, which, while it developed the power of a darkened conscience, overlaid and half-smothered all the lovelier impulses of her grand nature. How could she smile? Did not the world lie under the wrath and curse of God? Was not her own son in hell for ever? Had not the blood of the Son of God been shed for him in vain? Had not God meant that it should be in vain? For by the gift of his Spirit could he not have enabled him to accept the offered pardon? And for anything she knew, was not Robert going after him to the place of misery? How could she smile?

‘Noo be dooce,’ she said, the moment she had shaken hands with them, with her cold hands, so clean and soft and smooth. With a volcanic heart of love, her outside was always so still and cold!—snow on the mountain sides, hot vein-coursing lava within. For her highest duty was submission to the will of God. Ah! if she had only known the God who claimed her submission! But there is time enough for every heart to know him.

‘Noo be dooce,’ she repeated, ‘an’ sit doon, and tell me aboot the fowk at Bodyfauld. I houpe ye thankit them, or ye left, for their muckle kindness to ye.’

The boys were silent.

‘Didna ye thank them?’

‘No, grannie; I dinna think ‘at we did.’

‘Weel, that was ill-faured o’ ye. Eh! but the hert is deceitfu’ aboon a’ thing, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Come awa’. Come awa’. Robert, festen the door.’

And she led them to the corner for prayer, and poured forth a confession of sin for them and for herself, such as left little that could have been added by her own profligate son, had he joined in the prayer. Either there are no degrees in guilt, or the Scotch language was equal only to the confession of children and holy women, and could provide no more awful words for the contrition of the prodigal or the hypocrite. But the words did little harm, for Robert’s mind was full of the kite and the violin, and was probably nearer God thereby than if he had been trying to feel as wicked as his grandmother told God that he was. Shargar was even more divinely employed at the time than either; for though he had not had the manners to thank his benefactor, his heart had all the way home been full of tender thoughts of Miss Lammie’s kindness; and now, instead of confessing sins that were not his, he was loving her over and over, and wishing to be back with her instead of with this awfully good woman, in whose presence there was no peace, for all the atmosphere of silence and calm in which she sat.

Confession over, and the boys at liberty again, a new anxiety seized them. Grannie must find out that Robert’s shoes were missing, and what account was to be given of the misfortune, for Robert would not, or could not lie? In the midst of their discussion a bright idea flashed upon Shargar, which, however, he kept to himself: he would steal them, and bring them home in triumph, emulating thus Robert’s exploit in delivering his bonny leddy.

The shoemaker sat behind his door to be out of the draught: Shargar might see a great part of the workshop without being seen, and he could pick Robert’s shoes from among a hundred. Probably they lay just where Robert had laid them, for Dooble Sanny paid attention to any job only in proportion to the persecution accompanying it.

So the next day Shargar contrived to slip out of school just as the writing lesson began, for he had great skill in conveying himself unseen, and, with his book-bag, slunk barefooted into the soutar’s entry.

The shop door was a little way open, and the red eyes of Shargar had only the corner next it to go peering about in. But there he saw the shoes. He got down on his hands and knees, and crept nearer. Yes, they were beyond a doubt Robert’s shoes. He made a long arm, like a beast of prey, seized them, and, losing his presence of mind upon possession, drew them too hastily towards him. The shoemaker saw them as they vanished through the door, and darted after them. Shargar was off at full speed, and Sandy followed with hue and cry. Every idle person in the street joined in the pursuit, and all who were too busy or too respectable to run crowded to door and windows. Shargar made instinctively for his mother’s old lair; but bethinking himself when he reached the door, he turned, and, knowing nowhere else to go, fled in terror to Mrs. Falconer’s, still, however, holding fast by the shoes, for they were Robert’s.

As Robert came home from school, wondering what could have become of his companion, he saw a crowd about his grandmother’s door, and pushing his way through it in some dismay, found Dooble Sanny and Shargar confronting each other before the stern justice of Mrs. Falconer.

‘Ye’re a leear,’ the soutar was panting out. ‘I haena had a pair o’ shune o’ Robert’s i’ my han’s this three month. Thae shune—lat me see them—they’re—Here’s Robert himsel’. Are thae shune yours, noo, Robert?’

‘Ay are they. Ye made them yersel’.’

‘Hoo cam they in my chop, than?’

‘Speir nae mair quest’ons nor’s worth answerin’,’ said Robert, with a look meant to be significant. ‘They’re my shune, and I’ll keep them. Aiblins ye dinna aye ken wha’s shune ye hae, or whan they cam in to ye.’

‘What for didna Shargar come an’ speir efter them, than, in place o’ makin’ a thief o’ himsel’ that gait?’

‘Ye may haud yer tongue,’ returned Robert, with yet more significance.

‘I was aye a gowk (idiot),’ said Shargar, in apologetic reflection, looking awfully white, and afraid to lift an eye to Mrs. Falconer, yet reassured a little by Robert’s presence.

Some glimmering seemed now to have dawned upon the soutar, for he began to prepare a retreat. Meantime Mrs. Falconer sat silent, allowing no word that passed to escape her. She wanted to be at the bottom of the mysterious affair, and therefore held her peace.

‘Weel, I’m sure, Robert, ye never tellt me aboot the shune,’ said Alexander. ‘I s’ jist tak them back wi’ me, and du what’s wantit to them. And I’m sorry that I hae gien ye this tribble, Mistress Faukner; but it was a’ that fule’s wite there. I didna even ken it was him, till we war near-han’ the hoose.’

‘Lat me see the shune,’ said Mrs. Falconer, speaking almost for the first time. ‘What’s the maitter wi’ them?’

Examining the shoes, she saw they were in a perfectly sound state, and this confirmed her suspicion that there was more in the affair than had yet come out. Had she taken the straightforward measure of examining Robert, she would soon have arrived at the truth. But she had such a dread of causing a lie to be told, that she would adopt any roundabout way rather than ask a plain question of a suspected culprit. So she laid the shoes down beside her, saying to the soutar,

‘There’s naething amiss wi’ the shune. Ye can lea’ them.’

Thereupon Alexander went away, and Robert and Shargar would have given more than their dinner to follow him. Grannie neither asked any questions, however, nor made a single remark on what had passed. Dinner was served and eaten, and the boys returned to their afternoon school.

No sooner was she certain that they were safe under the school-master’s eye than the old lady put on her black silk bonnet and her black woollen shawl, took her green cotton umbrella, which served her for a staff, and, refusing Betty’s proffered assistance, set out for Dooble Sanny’s shop.

As she drew near she heard the sounds of his violin. When she entered, he laid his auld wife carefully aside, and stood in an expectant attitude.

‘Mr. Elshender, I want to be at the boddom o’ this,’ said Mrs. Falconer.

‘Weel, mem, gang to the boddom o’ ‘t,’ returned Dooble Sanny, dropping on his stool, and taking his stone upon his lap and stroking it, as if it had been some quadrupedal pet. Full of rough but real politeness to women when in good humour, he lost all his manners along with his temper upon the slightest provocation, and her tone irritated him.

‘Hoo cam Robert’s shune to be i’ your shop?’

‘Somebody bude till hae brocht them, mem. In a’ my expairience, and that’s no sma’, I never kent pair o’ shune gang ohn a pair o’ feet i’ the wame o’ them.’

‘Hoots! what kin’ o’ gait ‘s that to speyk till a body? Whase feet was inside the shune?’

‘De’il a bit o’ me kens, mem.’

‘Dinna sweir, whatever ye du.’

‘De’il but I will sweir, mem; an’ gin ye anger me, I’ll jist sweir awfu’.’

‘I’m sure I hae nae wuss to anger ye, man! Canna ye help a body to win at the boddom o’ a thing ohn angert an’ sworn?’

‘Weel, I kenna wha brocht the shune, as I tellt ye a’ready.’

‘But they wantit nae men’in’.’

‘I micht hae men’t them an’ forgotten ‘t, mem.’

‘Noo ye’re leein’.’

‘Gin ye gang on that gait, mem, I winna speyk a word o’ trowth frae this moment foret.’

‘Jist tell me what ye ken aboot thae shune, an’ I’ll no say anither word.’

‘Weel, mem, I’ll tell ye the trowth. The de’il brocht them in ae day in a lang taings; and says he, “Elshender, men’ thae shune for puir Robby Faukner; an’ dooble-sole them for the life o’ ye; for that auld luckie-minnie o’ his ‘ill sune hae him doon oor gait, and the grun’ ‘s het i’ the noo; an’ I dinna want to be ower sair upon him, for he’s a fine chield, an’ ‘ll mak a fine fiddler gin he live lang eneuch.”’

Mrs. Falconer left the shop without another word, but with an awful suspicion which the last heedless words of the shoemaker had aroused in her bosom. She left him bursting with laughter over his lapstone. He caught up his fiddle and played The De’il’s i’ the Women lustily and with expression. But he little thought what he had done.

As soon as she reached her own room, she went straight to her bed and disinterred the bonny leddy’s coffin. She was gone; and in her stead, horror of horrors! lay in the unhallowed chest that body of divinity known as Boston’s Fourfold State. Vexation, anger, disappointment, and grief possessed themselves of the old woman’s mind. She ranged the house like the ‘questing beast’ of the Round Table, but failed in finding the violin before the return of the boys. Not a word did she say all that evening, and their oppressed hearts foreboded ill. They felt that there was thunder in the clouds, a sleeping storm in the air; but how or when it would break they had no idea.

Robert came home to dinner the next day a few minutes before Shargar. As he entered his grandmother’s parlour, a strange odour greeted his sense. A moment more, and he stood rooted with horror, and his hair began to rise on his head. His violin lay on its back on the fire, and a yellow tongue of flame was licking the red lips of a hole in its belly. All its strings were shrivelled up save one, which burst as he gazed. And beside, stern as a Druidess, sat his grandmother in her chair, feeding her eyes with grim satisfaction on the detestable sacrifice. At length the rigidity of Robert’s whole being relaxed in an involuntary howl like that of a wild beast, and he turned and rushed from the house in a helpless agony of horror. Where he was going he knew not, only a blind instinct of modesty drove him to hide his passion from the eyes of men.

From her window Miss St. John saw him tearing like one demented along the top walk of the captain’s garden, and watched for his return. He came far sooner than she expected.

Before he arrived at the factory, Robert began to hear strange sounds in the desolate place. When he reached the upper floor, he found men with axe and hammer destroying the old woodwork, breaking the old jennies, pitching the balls of lead into baskets, and throwing the spools into crates. Was there nothing but destruction in the world? There, most horrible! his ‘bonny leddy’ dying of flames, and here, the temple of his refuge torn to pieces by unhallowed hands! What could it mean? Was his grandmother’s vengeance here too? But he did not care. He only felt like the dove sent from the ark, that there was no rest for the sole of his foot, that there was no place to hide his head in his agony—that he was naked to the universe; and like a heartless wild thing hunted till its brain is of no more use, he turned and rushed back again upon his track. At one end was the burning idol, at the other the desecrated temple.

No sooner had he entered the captain’s garden than Miss St. John met him.

‘What is the matter with you, Robert?’ she asked, kindly.

‘Oh, mem!’ gasped Robert, and burst into a very storm of weeping.

It was long before he could speak. He cowered before Miss St. John as if conscious of an unfriendly presence, and seeking to shelter himself by her tall figure from his grandmother’s eyes. For who could tell but at the moment she might be gazing upon him from some window, or even from the blue vault above? There was no escaping her. She was the all-seeing eye personified—the eye of the God of the theologians of his country, always searching out the evil, and refusing to acknowledge the good. Yet so gentle and faithful was the heart of Robert, that he never thought of her as cruel. He took it for granted that somehow or other she must be right. Only what a terrible thing such righteousness was! He stood and wept before the lady.

Her heart was sore for the despairing boy. She drew him to a little summer-seat. He entered with her, and sat down, weeping still. She did her best to soothe him. At last, sorely interrupted by sobs, he managed to let her know the fate of his ‘bonnie leddy.’ But when he came to the words, ‘She’s burnin’ in there upo’ granny’s fire,’ he broke out once more with that wild howl of despair, and then, ashamed of himself, ceased weeping altogether, though he could not help the intrusion of certain chokes and sobs upon his otherwise even, though low and sad speech.

Knowing nothing of Mrs. Falconer’s character, Miss St. John set her down as a cruel and heartless as well as tyrannical and bigoted old woman, and took the mental position of enmity towards her. In a gush of motherly indignation she kissed Robert on the forehead.

From that chrism he arose a king.

He dried his eyes; not another sob even broke from him; he gave one look, but no word of gratitude, to Miss St. John; bade her good-bye; and walked composedly into his grandmother’s parlour, where the neck of the violin yet lay upon the fire only half consumed. The rest had vanished utterly.

‘What are they duin’ doon at the fact’ry, grannie?’ he asked.

‘What’s wha duin’, laddie?’ returned his grandmother, curtly.

‘They’re takin’ ‘t doon.’

‘Takin’ what doon?’ she returned, with raised voice.

‘Takin’ doon the hoose.’

The old woman rose.

‘Robert, ye may hae spite in yer hert for what I hae dune this mornin’, but I cud do no ither. An’ it’s an ill thing to tak sic amen’s o’ me, as gin I had dune wrang, by garrin’ me troo ‘at yer grandfather’s property was to gang the gait o’ ‘s auld, useless, ill-mainnert scraich o’ a fiddle.’

‘She was the bonniest fiddle i’ the country-side, grannie. And she never gae a scraich in her life ‘cep’ whan she was han’let in a mainner unbecomin’. But we s’ say nae mair aboot her, for she’s gane, an’ no by a fair strae-deith (death on one’s own straw) either. She had nae blude to cry for vengeance; but the snappin’ o’ her strings an’ the crackin’ o’ her banes may hae made a cry to gang far eneuch notwithstandin’.’

The old woman seemed for one moment rebuked under her grandson’s eloquence. He had made a great stride towards manhood since the morning.