 Book 2, Chapter 12 of Robert Falconer by George MacDonald. The next day was Sunday, Robert sat after breakfast by his friend's bed. You haven't been to church for a long time, Robert. Wouldn't you like to go today? said Erickson. I didn't want to leave you, Mr. Erickson. I can bide with you a day, the day, and that's better no going to be at the curks in Aberdeen. I should like you to go today, though, and see if, after all, there may not be a message for us. If the church be the house of God, as they call it, there should be now and then, at least, some sign of a pillar of fire about it. Some indication of the presence of God, whose house it is. I wish you would go and see. I haven't been to church for a long time except to the college chapel, and I never saw anything more than a fog there. Might not the fog be the torn edge like of the cloudy pillar, suggested Robert. Very likely, assented Erickson. For whatever truth there may be in Christianity, I'm pretty sure the mass of our clergy have never got beyond Judaism. They hang on about the skirts of that cloud forever. You see, they think, as long as they see the fog, they have a group of something, but they cannot get a group of the glory that exceleth, for it's not to look at, but to let you see a thing. Erickson regarded him with some surprise, Robert Haston, to be honest. It's not that I know anything about it, Mr. Erickson. I was only talking nonsense, reasoning from the two symbols of the cloud and the fire, knowing nothing to book the thing itself, all the way to Kirk and see what it's like. Will I give you a book before I go? No, thank you, I'll just lie quiet till you come back, if I can. Robert instructed Chargard to watch for the slightest sound from the sick room and went to church. As he approached the granite cathedral, the only one in the world, I presume, its stern solidity, so like the country and its men, lay hold of his imagination for the first time. No doubt the necessity imposed by the unyielding material had its share, and that a large one in the character of the building. Once else the simplest of West windows, six lofty narrow slits of light, parted by granite shafts of equal width, fill in the space between the corner buttresses of the nave and reaching from door to roof. Once else the absence of tracery in the windows, except the severely gracious curves into which the mullions divide, but this cause could not have determined those towers so strong that they might have worn their granite weight soaring aloft, yet content with the depth of their foundation and aspiring not. The whole aspect of the building is an outcome, an absolute blossom of the northern nature. There is but the nave of the church remaining. About 1680, more than a century after the Reformation, the great tower fell, destroying the choir, chancel, and transept, which have never been rebuilt. May the reviving faith of the nation in its own history and God at the heart of it lead to the restoration of this grand old monument of the belief of their fathers. Deformed as the interior then was with galleries and with Gavin Dunbar's flat ceiling, an awe fell upon Robert as he entered it. When and after years he looked down from between the pillars of the gallery that creeps round the church through the thickness of the wall, like an artery, and recall the service of this Sunday morning, he felt more strongly than ever that such a faith had not reared that cathedral. The service was like the church only as a dead body is like a man. There was no fervor in it, no aspiration. The great central tower was gone. That morning prayers and sermon were philosophically dull and respectable as any after-dinner speech, nor could it well be otherwise. One of the favorite sayings of its minister was that a clergyman is nothing but a moral policeman. As such, however, he more resembled one of Dogberry's watch. He could not even preach hell with any vigor, for as a gentleman he recoiled from the vulgarity of the doctrine, yielding only a few feeble words on the subject as a sock to the Cerberus that watches over the dues of the Bible, quite unaware that his notion of the doctrine had been drawn from the Aeneid and not from the Bible. Well, have you got anything, Robert? asked Erickson as he entered his room. Nothing, answered Robert. What was the sermon about? It was all to prove that God is a benevolent being. Not a devil, that is, answered Erickson. Small consolation, that. Small enough, responded Robert. I could not help thinking I knew money a dog that God had made with more of what I would call the divine nature in him, nor all that Dr. Solace made to be in God himself. He had no ill intentions with us, it amounted to that. He was not ill willy, as the barons say, but the doctor had some sore work I thought to make that looked seen we were all the children of wrath according to him, born in sin and inherited the guilt of Adam's first trespass. I do not think Dr. Solace could say that God had done the best he could for us, but he never tried to say anything like that. He just made it look that he was a very respectable kind of a God, though maybe no all thing we might wish. We ought to be thankful that he goes a weak blink of all chance of no being burnt to all eternity with no chance of all. I did not say that he said that, but that's what it all seemed to me to come till. He said a handful of boot the care of providence, but all the good that he did seemed to me to be but a holden off of something ill till he had made his will. He would have thought the devil had made the world and son God had pitting us until it, and just give us a big wag of his hand was to hold the devil off of us when he was like to destroy the breed altogether. For the grace that he spakeled with, that was less nor the nature and the providence. I could see uncle little of grace unto it. Once Erickson broke in, fearful apparently, lest his boy friend should be actually about to deny the God in whom he did not himself believe. Robert, he said solemnly, one thing is certain, if there be a God at all he is not like that. If there be a God at all we shall know him by his perfection, his grand perfect truth, fairness, love, a love to make life an absolute good, not a mere accommodation of difficulties, not a mere preponderance of the balance on the side of well-being. Love only could have been able to create, but they don't seem jealous for the glory of God those men. They don't mind a speck or even a blot here and there upon him. The world doesn't make them miserable. They can get over the misery of their fellow men without being troubled about them, or about the God that could let such things be. Among Erickson's papers I find the following sonnets which belong to the mood here embodied. Off this I rest in quiet peace, am I, thrust out at sudden doors and madly driven, through desert solitudes and thunder-riven, black passages which have not any sky. The scourge is on me now with all the cry of ancient life that hath with murders driven. How many an anguish hath gone up to heaven, how many a hand in prayer, then lifted high? When the black fate came onward with the rush or whirlwind avalanche or fiery spume. Even at my feet is cleft a shivering tomb, beneath the waves, or else with solemn hush, the graveyard opens, and I feel a crush, as if we were all huddled in one doom. Comes there, O earth, no breathing time for thee, no pause upon thy many checkered lands. Now resting on my bed with thisless hands I mourn thee resting not. Continually here I the plashing borders of the sea. Answer each other from the rocks and sands. Troop all the river's seawards, nothing stands. But with strange noises hasted terribly, loam-eared hyenas go amoning by, howls to each other all the bloody crew of afric's tigers. But, O men, from you comes the perpetual sound more loud and high than aught that vexes air. I hear the cry of infant generations rising too. They represent a God who does wonderfully well on the whole after a middling fashion. I want a God who loves perfectly. He may kill. He may torture even. But if it be for love's sake, Lord, hear am I, do with me as thou wilt. Had Erickson forgotten that he had no proof of such a God, the next moment the intellectual demon was awake. But what's the good of it all, he said. I don't even know that there is anything outside of me. You know that I'm here, Mr. Erickson, suggested Robert. I know nothing of the sort. You may be another phantom, only clearer. He speak to me as if you thought me somebody. So does the man to his phantoms, and you call him mad. It is but a yielding to the pressure of constant suggestion. I do not know. I cannot know if there is anything outside of me. But if there were not, there would be nobody for you to love, Mr. Erickson. Of course not, nor anybody to love you, Mr. Erickson. Of course not. One you would be your own God, Mr. Erickson. Yes, that would follow. I cannot imagine a war hell, closed in among Nethon, with Nethon al-Abu'i, looking something all the time, knowing that it's al-Ali, and nay able to win clear of it. It is hell, my boy, or anything worse you can call it. What force did you believe that, then, Mr. Erickson? I would not believe such an ill thing as that. I don't think I could believe it if you were to prove it to me. I don't believe it. Nobody could prove that either, even if it were so. I am only miserable that I can't prove the contrary. Suppose there were a God, Mr. Erickson. Do you think he behoved to be able to prove that? Do you think God could stand to be proved as if he wore something small enough to be turned grown and ruined, and look at it upon Elk aside? If there were a God, would it not just be so, that we could not prove him to be? I mean, perhaps that is something. I have often thought of that, but then you can't prove anything about it. I cannot help thinking of what Mr. Ennis said to me, once. I was but al-Ali, but I never forgot it. A plague at him soar with wanton to understand the Elka thing before I would gang on with my sons. Says he all day, Robert, my man, if you will, I understand before you do as you're told. You'll never understand anything, but if you do the thing I tell you, you'll be in the midst of it before you know that you're going into it. I just thought I would try him. It was at Long Division that I boggled it most. Well I go'd on, and I could do the thing wheel enough, on made a mistake. And I thought the master was wrong, for I never knew the reason of all that beginning at the wrong end, and take him doing and subtracting and all that. You would hardly believe me, Mr. Erickson, it was only this very day as I was sitting in the Kirk. It was a long psalm they were singing, and one with the foxes in the tail of it. Long Division came into my head again, and first a bit glimmering of light came in and sign another, and before the psalm was done I saw through the whole process of it. But you see, if I had not done as I was told and learned all about who it was done beforehand, I would have had nothing to go on risen in the bud, and would have formed out nothing. That's good, Robert, but when a man is dying for food he can't wait. He might try to get up and look though, he need not bide in his bed till somebody comes and swears to him at the saw-haddock in the press. I have been looking, Robert, for years. Maybe like me only for the reason of it, Mr. Erickson, if you'll forgive my impudence. But what's to be done in this case, Robert, where's the work that you can do in order to understand? Where's your Long Division, man? Here beyond the new, I cannot tell that, Mr. Erickson, it cannot be gone to the Curric surely, maybe it might be saying a prayer as in reading your Bible. Erickson did not reply, and the conversation dropped. Is it strange that neither of these disciples should have thought of turning to the story of Jesus, finding some word that he had spoken and beginning to do that as a first step towards the knowledge of the doctrine that Jesus was the incarnate God? Time to visit his people. A very unlikely thing demands wisdom, yet an idea that has, notwithstanding, ascended above man's horizon, and shown itself the grandest idea in his firmament. In the evening, Erickson asked again for his papers, from which he handed Robert the following poem, Words in the Night. I woke at midnight in my heart. My beating heart said this to me, Thus seeest the moon, how calm and bright, The world is fair by day and night. But what is that to thee? One touch to me, down dips the light, Over the land and sea, All is mine, all is my own, Toss the purple fountain high, The breast of man is a vat of stone, I am alive, I, and only I. One little touch in all is dark, The winter with its sparkling moons, The spring with all her violets, The crimson dawns in rich sunsets, The autumn's yellowing noons. I only toss my purple jets, And thou art one that swoons upon a night Of gust and roar, Shipwrecked among the waves and seams, Across the purple hills to roam, Sweet odors touch him from the foam, And downward sinking still he dreams. He walks the clover field at home, And hears the rattling teens, All is mine, all is my own, Toss the purple fountain high, The breast of man is a vat of stone, I am alive, I, Thou hast beheld a throated fountain spout, Full in the air and in the downward spray, A hovering iris span the marble tank, Which, as the wind came, ever rose and sank, Violet in red, so my continual play Makes beauty for the gods with many a prank Of human excellence while they, weary of all the noon in shadow's sweet, Supine and heavy-eyed rest in the boundless heat, Let the world's fountain play. Beauty is pleasant in the eyes of Jove, The twix, the wavering shadows, where he lies. He marks the dancing column with his eyes, Celestial, and amid his inmost grove. Up gathers all his limbs serenely blessed, Lulled by the melanoise of the great world's unrest. One heart beats in all nature, Differing, but in the work it works. Its doubts and clamors are but the waste and brunt of instruments, Wherewith the work is done, Or as the hammers on Ford's cyclopean, Ply beneath the rents of Lowe's etna, conquering into shape the hardened scattered oar, Choose thy narcotics, and the dizzy grape outworking Passion lest with toward crash thy life go From thee in a night of pain. So tutoring thy vision shall the flash Of dunked white breasted be to thee no more Than a white stone heavy upon the plain. Heart the cock crows loud, And without all ghastly and ill, Like a man uplift in his shroud, The white, white morn is propped on the hill. And a down from the eaves, Pointed and chilled, the icicles gin to glitter, And the birds with the wobble short and shrill Pass by the chamber window still, With a quick uneasy twitter, Let me pump warm blood, for the cold is bitter, And wearily, wearily, one by one, Men awake with the weary sun. Life is a phantom shut in thee, I am the master and keep the key. So let me toss thee the days of old, Crimson in orange and green and gold, So let me fill thee yet again, With the rush of dreams from my spout, a mane. For all is mine, and all is my own, Toss the purple fountain hot. The breast of man is a vat of stone, And I am alive, I only I. Robert having read sat and wept in silence, Erickson saw him and said tenderly, Robert my boy I'm not always so bad as that, Read this one, though I never feel like it now, Perhaps it may come again some day, though, I may once more deceive myself and be happy. Do not say that, Mr. Erickson, that's war and despair, That's flat unbelief. You no more know that you're deceiving yourself, Than you know that you're no doing it. Erickson did not reply, and Robert read the following signet aloud, Feeling his way delicately through its mazes, Lie down upon the ground thou hopeless one, Dust I face in the grass and do not speak, Dust feel the green globe whirl, seven times a week Climbest she out of darkness to the sun, Which is her God, seven times she doth not shun, Awful eclipse, lane her patient cheek upon a pillow, Ghost beset with shriek of voices utterless, Which rave and run. Through all the star penumbra, Craving light and tidings of the dawn From east and west, calmly she sleepeth, And her sleep is blessed, with heavenly visions And the door of night, treading aloft with moons, Nor has she fright, though cloudy tempest Beat upon her breast. Erickson turned his face to the wall, And Robert withdrew to his own chamber. CHAPTER XII BOOK II CHAPTER XIII OF ROBERT FALCONER BY GEORGIE MCDONALD Not many weeks passed before Chargard knew Aberdeen better than most Aberdonians. From the Peerhead to the Rubis Slough Road, he knew if not every court, yet every thoroughfare and shortcut, and Aberdeen began to know him. He was very soon recognized as trustworthy, and had pretty nearly as much to do as he could manage. Chargard, therefore, was all over the city like a cracker, and could have told at almost any hour where Dr. Anderson was to be found, generally in the lower parts of it. For the good man visited much among the poor, giving them almost exclusively the benefit of his large experience. Chargard delighted in keeping an eye upon the doctor, carefully avoiding to show himself. One day, as he was hurrying through the green, a non-Virendo, on a mission from the Rothedin Carrier, he came upon the doctor's chariot, standing in one of the narrowest streets, and as usual paused to contemplate the equipage, and get a peep of the owner. The morning was very sharp. There was no snow, but a cold fog, like vaporized wharf frost, filled the air. It was weather in which the East Indian could not venture out on foot, else he could have reached the place by a stair from Union Street, far sooner than he could drive lither. His horses apparently liked the cold, as little as himself. They had been moving about restlessly for some time before the doctor made his appearance. The moment he got in and shut the door, one of them reared, while the other began to haul on his traces, eager for a gout. Something about the chain gave way, the pole swirmed round under the rearing horse, and great confusion and danger would have ensued, had not Chargard rushed from his coin a vantage, sprung at the bit of the rearing horse, and dragged him off the pole, over which he was just casting his near leg. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he too pulled, and away went the chariot, and down went Chargard. But in a moment, more several men had laid hold of the horse's heads and stopped them. All Lord cried Chargard as he rose, with his arm dangling by his side. What will Donald Joss say? Unlike to faint, all the way from that basket he gallows birds, he cried darting towards the hamper he had left in the entry of a port, round which a few ragged urchins had gathered. But just as he reached it, he staggered and fell, nor did he know anything more till he found the carriage stopping with himself and the hamper inside it. As soon as the coachman had got his harness put to rights, the doctor had driven back to see how the lad had fared, for he had felt the carriage go over something. They had found him lying beside his hamper, had secured both, and as a preliminary measure were proceeding to deliver the ladder. War, am I? War the devil, am I? cried Chargard, jumping up and falling back again. Don't you know me more, eh? said the doctor, for he felt shy of calling the poor boy by his nickname. He had no right to do so. Nay, I did not know ye. Let me away. I beg your pardon, doctor. I thought ye was one of the gallows' birds running away with Donald Joss's basket, and me, such a stone in my arm. But nobody calls me moray. They all call me Chargard. What right have I to be called moray? added the poor boy, feeling I almost believed for the first time the stain upon his bird. Yet he had as good a right before God to be called moray as any other son of the worthy sire, the baron of wrath included. Possibly the trumpet-blowing angels did call him moray, or some better name. The coachman will deliver your parcel moray, said the doctor, this time repeating the name with emphasis. He'll a bit of it, cried Chargard. He dare not leave his box with die devils of horses. What makes ye keep sitch horses, doctor? They'll play some mischief someday. Indeed, they've played enough already, my poor boy. They've broken your arm. Never mind that, that's no muckl. You're welcome, doctor, to my two arms for what you have done for Robert and that long-legged friend of his. The Lord forgive me, Mr. Erickson. But ye might just pay him what I cannot make for a day or two till it joins again, to hold him again, ye can. It will not be muckl to you, doctor, added Chargard, deceitingly. Trust me for that, moray, returned doctor Anderson. I owe you a good deal more than that. My brains might have been out by this time. The Lord be praised, said Chargard, making about his first profession of Christianity. Robert will think something of me new. During this conversation, the coachman sat, expecting someone to appear from the shop and longing to pitch into the camp-sterey horse, but not daring to lift his whip beyond its natural angle. No one came. All at once, Chargard knew where he was. Could be here. We're at Donald's door. Good day, at ye, doctor, and I'm muckl of bleach to ye. Maybe, again, ye were coming or away in the morn or the knee-snay to see Master Erickson. Ye would tie up my arm for a gone swallop in a boot and that cannot be good for the sticking of it together again. My poor boy, ye don't think I'm going to leave ye here, do ye, said the doctor, proceeding to open the carriage door. But what's the hamper, said Chargard, looking about him in dismay? The coachman has got it on the box, answered the doctor. If that'll never do. If thy ramp-pogging brutes were to take a start again, what would come of the bit basket? I won't get it doing directly. Sit still. I will get it down and deliver it myself. As ye spoke, the doctor got out. Take care of it, sir, take care of it. William Walker said there was a jar of dried honey in the basket and the barons would mist its sore if it were spolt. I will take good care of it, responded the doctor. He delivered the basket, returned to the carriage, and told the coachman to drive home. Why are ye takin' me to, explained Chargard? Willie has not paid me for the parcel. Nevermind, Willie, I'll pay you, said the doctor. The robber would not like me to take Siller, where I did not work for it, objected Chargard. He's some precise robber. But I'll just say ye guard me, doctor. Maybe that'll satisfy him. And faith, I'm queer about my left arm here. We'll soon set it all right, said the doctor. When they reached his house, he led the way to his surgery and there put the broken limb in splints. He then told Johnston to help the patient to bed. I'm on go on home, objected Chargard. What would Robert think? I will tell him all about it, said the doctor. Yourself, sir, stipulated Chargard. Yes, myself. For night, directly answered the doctor, and Chargard yielded. But what will Robert say were his last words as he fell asleep, appreciating, no doubt, the superiority of the bed to his usual lair upon the hearth rug. Robert was delighted to hear how well Chargard had acquitted himself. There followed a small consultation about him, for the accident had ripened the doctor's intentions concerning the outcast. As soon as his arm is sound again, he shall go to the grammar school, he said. And the college, asked Robert. I hope so, answered the doctor. Do you think you will do well? He has plenty of courage at all events and that is a fine thing. Oh, I answered Robert. He's no ill-off for spirit, that is. If it be for any other body, he would never lift a hand for himself, and that's what made me take till him Samuckel. He's a fine crater. He cannot go on him laying, but he'll go on with anybody and hold up with him. What do you think him fit for then? Now Robert had been building castles for Chargard out of the hopes which the doctor's friendliness had given him. Therefore, he was ready with his answer. If he could ensure him no being made a general of, he would make a grand soldier, sets face for it and say quick march, and he'll call his bag and app through all horny, but lay nay consequences upon him for he could not stand under them. Dr. Anderson laughed, but thought nonetheless and went home to see how his patient was getting on. And chapter 13, book two, chapter 14 of Robert Falconer by George MacDonald. This lever box recording is in the public domain. Robert Falconer by George MacDonald, chapter 14, Mysy's face. Meantime, Erickson grew better, a space of hard, clear weather in which everything sparkle with frost and sunshine and made him good. But not yet could he use his brain. He turned with dislike even from his friend Plato. He would sit in bed or on his chair by the fire side for hours with his hands folded before him and his eyelids drooping and let his thoughts flow for he could not think. And that these thoughts flowed not always with other than sweet sounds over the stones of question, the curves of his lip would testify to the friendly furtive glance of the watchful Robert. None but the troubled mind knows its own consolations. And I believe the saddest life has its own presence. However it may be unrecognized as such of the upholding beauty that God care for the hairs that perish from our heads. To a mind like Erickson's, the remembered scent, the recurring vision of a flower loved in childhood is enough to sustain anxiety with beauty for the lovely is itself healing and hope giving because it is the form and presence of the true. To have such a presence is to be. And while a mind exists in any high consciousness, the intellectual trouble that springs from the desire to know its own life, to be assured of its rounded law and security ceases for the desire itself falls into abeyance. But although Erickson was so weak, he was always able and ready to help Robert in any difficulty, not infrequently springing from his imperfect preparation in Greek. For while Mr. Ennis was an excellent Latin scholar, his knowledge of Greek was too limited either to compel learning or inspire enthusiasm. And with the keen instinct he possessed and everything immediate between man and man, Robert would sometimes search for a difficulty in order to request its solution. For then Erickson would rouse himself to explain as few men could have explained. Where a clear view was to be had of anything, Erickson either had it or knew that he had it not. Hence Robert's progress was good. For one word from a wise helper will clear off a whole atmosphere of obstructions. At length one day when Robert came home, he found him seated at the table with his slate working away at the differential calculus. After this he recovered more rapidly and air another week was over, began to attend one class a day. He had been so far in advance before that though he could not expect prizes there was no fear of his passing. One morning Robert coming out from a lecture saw Erickson in the quadrangle talking to an elderly gentleman. When they met in the afternoon, Erickson told him that that was Mr. Lindsay and that he had asked them both to spend the evening at his house. Robert would go anywhere to be with his friend. He got out his Sunday clothes and dressed himself with anxiety. He had visited scarcely at all and was shy and doubtful. He then sat down to his books, tell Erickson, came to his door, dressed and hence in Robert's eyes ceremonial, a stately graceful gentleman. Renewed awe came upon him at the site and renewed gratitude. There was a flush on Erickson's cheek and a fire in his eye. Robert had never seen him look so grand but there was something about him that rendered him uneasy. A look that made Erickson seem strange as if his life lay in some far off region. I want you to take your violin with you, Robert, he said. Puts, returned Robert, who can I do that? To take her with me the first time I go on those strange ways as if I thought anybody would think as muckled of my old wife as I do myself. There would not be manners, wouldn't know, Mr. Erickson. But I told Mr. Lindsey that you could play well. The old gentleman is fond of Scotch tunes and you will please him if you take it. That makes all the differ, answered Robert. Thank you, said Erickson, as Robert went towards his instrument and turning would have walked from the house without any additional protection. Where are you going that game, Mr. Erickson? Take your plaid or you'll be laid up again as sure as you live. I'm warm enough, returned Erickson. That's methane. The coal's just laying in the streets like a very devil to get a grip of you. If you did not put on your plaid, I will not take my fiddle. Erickson yielded and they set out together. I will account for Erickson's request about the violin. He went to the Episcopal Church on Sundays and sat where he could see Mizey, sat longing and thirsting ever till the music returned. Yet the music he never heard. He watched only its transmutation in the form, never taking his eyes off Mizey's face. Reflected thence in a metamorphosed echo, he followed all its changes. Never was one powerless to produce it more strangely responsive to its influence. She had no voice. She had never been taught the use of any instrument. A world of musical feeling was pent up in her and music raised the suddener storm in her mobile nature that she was unable to give that feeling utterance. The waves of her soul dashed the more wildly against their shores in as much as those shores were precipitous and yielded no outlet to the swelling waters. It was that his soul might hover like a bird of paradise over the lovely changes of her countenance, changes more lovely and frequent than those of an English May, that Eric's then persuaded Robert to take his violin. The last of the sunlight was departing and a large full moon was growing through the fog on the horizon. The sky was almost clear of clouds and the air was cold and penetrating. Robert drew Eric's plaid closer over his chest. Eric thanked him lightly, but his voice sounded eager and it was with a long hasty stride that he went up the hill through the gathering of the light frogs demist. He stopped at the stair upon which Robert had found him that memorable night. They went up. The door had been left on the latch for their entrance. They went up more steps between rocky walls. When in after years he read the purgatorio as often as he came to one of its ascents, Robert saw this stair with his inward eye. At the top of the stair was the garden still ascending at the top of the garden shown the glow of Mr. Lindsey's parlor through the red curtain window. To Robert it shown a refuge for Erickson from the night air. To Erickson it shown the casket of the richest jewel of the universe. While might the ruddy glow stream forth to meet him, only in glowing red could such beauty be rightly closed with crumbling hand he knocked at the door. They were shown at once into the parlor. Maisie was putting away her book as they entered and her back was towards them. When she turned it seemed even to Robert as if all the light in the room came only from her eyes. But that light had been all gathered out of the novel she had just laid down. She held out her hand to Erick and her sweet voice was yet more gentle than want for he had been ill. His face flushed at the tone. But although she spoke kindly he could hardly have fancy that she showed him special favor. Robert stood with his violin under his arm feeling as awkward as if he had never handled anything more delicate than a pitchfork. But Maisie sat down to the table and begun to pour out the tea and he came to himself again. Presently her father entered. His greeting was warm and mild and sleepy. He had come from pouring over spottings wood in search of some will of the wisp or other and had grown stupid from want of success. But he revived after a cup of tea and began to talk about northern genealogies and Erickson did his best to listen. Robert wondered at the knowledge he displayed. He'd been tutored the foregoing summer in one of the oldest and poorest and therefore proudest families in cake-ness. But all the time his host talked Erickson's eyes hovered about Maisie who sat gazing before her with look distraught with wide eyes and scarce moving eyelids beholding something neither on sea or shore and Mr. Lindsey would now and then correct Erickson in some egregious blunder while Maisie would now and then start awake and ask Robert or Erickson to take another cup of tea. Before the sentence was finished however, she would let it die away speaking the last words mechanically as her consciousness relapsed into dreamland. Had not Robert been with Erickson he would have found it weirsome enough and except things took to turn Erickson could hardly be satisfied with the pleasure of the evening. Things did take a turn. Robert has brought his fiddle, said Erickson as the tea was removed. I hope he will be kind enough to play something, said Mr. Lindsey. I'll do that, answered Robert, with alacrity. But you might not expect our muckle for on but apprentice hand, he added, as he got the instrument ready. Before he had drawn the bow once across it, attention awoke in Maisie's eyes and before he had finished playing, Erickson must have had quite as much of the beauty-born of murmuring sound as was good for him. Little did Maisie think of the sky of love alive with silent thoughts that arched over her. The earth teams with love that is unloved. The universe itself is one sea of infinite love from whose consort of harmony if a stray note steal across the scents it starts bewildered. Robert played better than usual, his touch grew intense and put on all its delicacy till it was like that of the spider which, as Pope so admirably says, feels at each thread and lives along the line. And while Erickson watched its shadows, the music must have taken hold of him too. For when Robert ceased, he sang a wild ballad of the Northern Sea to attune strange as itself. It was the only time Robert ever heard him sing. Maisie's eyes grew wider and wider as she listened. When it was over, you write that song yourself, Mr. Erickson, asked Robert. No, answered Erickson. An old shepherd up in our parts used to say it to me when I was a boy. Did not he sing it, Robert questioned further? No, he didn't, but I heard an old woman crooning it to a child in a solitary cottage on the shore of Stroma near the Swalchie Whirlpool. And that was the tune she sang it to if singing it could be called. I don't quite understand it, Mr. Erickson, said Maisie. What does it mean? There was once a beautiful woman lived there away, began Erickson. But I have not room to give the story as he told it, embellishing it, no doubt, as was such a mere tale, was lawful enough from his own imagination. The substance was that a young man fell in love with the beautiful witch who let him go on loving her till he cared for nothing but her and then began to kill him by laughing at him. For no witch can fall in love herself however much she may like to be loved. She mocked him till he drowned himself in a pool on the seashore. Now the witch did not know that, but as she walked along the shore looking for things, she saw his hand lying over the edge of a rocky basin. Nothing is more useful to a witch than the hand of a man, so she went to pick it up. When she found it fast to an arm, she would have chopped it off, but seeing who's it was she would for some reason or other best known to a witch draw off his ring first. For it was an enchanted ring which she had given him to bewitch his love and now she wanted both it and the hand to draw to herself the lover of a young maiden whom she hated, but the dead hand closed its finger upon hers and her power was powerless against the dead and the tide came rushing up and the dead hand held her till she was drowned. She lies with her lover to this day at the bottom of the swaltzy whirlpool and when a storm is at hand strange monies arise from the pool for the youth is praying the witch lady for her love and she is praying him to let go her hand. While Erickson told the story, the room still glimmered about Robert as if all its light came from Maisie's face upon which the flickering firelight alone played. Mr. Lense sat a little back from the rest with an amused expression. Legends of such sort did not come within the scope of his antiquarian reach. Though he was ready enough to believe whatever tempted his own taste let it be his destitute of likelihood as the story of the dead hand. When Erickson ceased Maisie gave a deep sigh and looked full of thought, though I dare say it was only feeling. Mr. Lense followed with an old tale of the Sinclairs of which he said Erickson's reminded him though the sole association was that the foregoing was a Caithness story and the Sinclairs was a Caithness family. As soon as it was over Maisie who could not hide all her impatience during its lingering progress asked Robert to play again. He took up his violin and with great expression gave the air of Erickson's ballad two or three times over and then laid down the instrument. He saw indeed that it was too much for Maisie affecting her more, thus presented after the story than the singing of the ballad itself. Thereupon Erickson whose spirits had risen greatly at finding that he could himself secure Maisie's attention and produced a play of soul and feature which he's so much delighted to watch offered another story and the distant rush of the sea born occasionally into the grateful gloom upon the cold sweep of a February wind mingled with one tale after another with which he entranced two of his audience while the third listened mildly content. It was now time to go home. Maisie gave each an equally warm good night in thanks. Mr. Lindsay accompanied them to the door and the students stepped into the moonlight crossed the links the sound of the sea came with the swell. As they went down the garden Erickson stopped. Robert thought he was looking back to the house and went on. When Erickson joined him he was pale as death. What is the matter with you Mr. Erickson? He asked in terror. Look there said Erickson pointing not to the house but to the sky. Robert looked up. Close about the moon were a few white clouds. Upon these white clouds right over the moon and near as the eyebrow to an eye hung part of an opalescent halo bent into the rude but unavoidable suggestion of an eyebrow while close around the edge of the moon clung another, a pale storm halo. To this pale iris and faint cute eyebrow the full moon itself formed the white pupil. The whole was a perfect eye of ghastly death staring out of the winter heaven. The vision may never have been before may never have been again but this Erickson and Robert saw that night. 10 chapter 14 book 2 chapter 15 of Robert Falconer by George McDonald. This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Robert Falconer by George McDonald. Chapter 15 the last of the coals. The next Sunday Robert went with Erickson to the Episcopal Chapel and for the first time in his life heard the epic music of the organ. It was a new starting point in his life. The worshiping instrument flooded his soul with sound and he stooped beneath it as a bather on the shore stooped beneath the broad wave rushing up the land. But I will not linger over this portion of his history. It is enough to say that he sought the friendship of the organist was admitted to the instrument, cuts trembled, exalted, crude dissatisfied, fastidious, despairing. Gathered hope and tried again and yet again. Till at last with constantly recurring fits of self despite, he could not leave the grand creature alone. It became a rival even to his violin and once before the end of March when the organist was ill and another was not to be had. He ventured to occupy his place both at morning and evening service. Dr. Anderson kept George Moray in bed for a few days after which he went about for a while with his arm in a sling. But the season of bearing material burdens was over for him now. Dr. Anderson had an interview with the master of the grammar school. A class was assigned to Moray and with the delight resting chiefly on his social approximation to Robert which in one week elevated the whole character of his person and countenance in bearing. George Moray bent himself to the task of mental growth. Having good helpers at home and his late developed energy turning itself entirely into the new channel, he got on admirably. As there was no other room to be had in Mrs. Five's house, he continued for the rest of the session to sleep upon the rug for he would not hear of going to another house. The doctor had advised Robert to drop the nickname as much as possible but the first time he called him Moray Shargar threatened to cut his throat and so between the two the name remained. I presume that by this time Dr. Anderson had made up his mind to leave his money to Robert but thought it better to say nothing about it and let the boy mature his independence. He had him often to his house. Erickson frequently accompanied him and as there was a good deal of original similarity between the doctor and Erickson, the latter soon felt his obligation no longer a burden. Shargar likewise though more occasionally made one of the party and soon began in his new circumstances to develop the manners of a gentleman. I say develop advisedly for Shargar had a deep humanity in him as abundantly testified by his devotion to Robert and humanity is the body of which true manners is the skin and ordinary manifestation. True manners are the polish which lets the internal humanity shine through just as the polish on marble reveals its vain beauty. Many talks did the elderly manhole with the three use and his experience of life taught Erickson and Robert much especially what he told them about his Brahmin friend in India. More on the other hand was chiefly interested in his tales of adventure when on service in the Indian army or engaged in the field sports of that region so prolific and monsters. His gypsy blood and lawless childhood spent in the wandering familiarity with houseless nature rendered him more responsive to these than the others and his kindled eye and pertinent remarks raised in the doctor's mind in early question whether a commission in India might not be his best start in life. Between Erickson and Robert as the former recovered his health communication from the deeper strata of human need became less frequent. Erickson had to work hard to recover something of his leeway. Robert had to work hard that prizes might witness for him to his grandmother and the Saint John. To the latter especially as I think I've said before he was anxious to show well wiping out the blot as he considered it of his all but failure in the matter of a bursary for he looked up to her as to a goddess who just came near enough to earth to be worshipped by him who dwelt upon it. The end of the session came nigh Erickson passed his examinations with honor. Robert gained the first Greek and the third Latin prize. The evening of the last day arrived and on the morrow the students would be gone. Some to their homes of comfort and idleness others to hard labor in the fields some to steady reading perhaps to school again to prepare for the next session and others to be tutors all the summer months and returned to the wintry city as to freedom in life. Shargar was to remain at the grammar school. That last evening Robert sat with Erickson in his room. It was a cold night the night of the last day of March a bitter wind blew about the house and dropped spiky hailstones upon the skylight. The friends were to leave on the morrow but to leave together for they had already sent their boxes one by the carrier to Rothedon the other by a sailing vessel to Wick and had agreed to walk together as far as Robert's home where he was in hopes of inducing his friend to remain for a few days if he found his grandmother agreeable to the plan. Shargar was to sleep on the rug for the last time and Robert had brought his coal scuddle into Erickson's room to combine their scanty remains of well-saved fuel in a common glow over which they now sat. I wonder what my granials say to me, said Robert. She'll be very glad to see you whatever she may say remark Erickson. She'll say, no be quiet the minute I have shaken hands with her, said Robert. Robert returned to Erickson solemnly. If I had a grandmother to go home to she might box my ears if she liked. I wouldn't care. You do not know what it is not to have a soul belonging to you on the face of the earth. It is so cold and so lonely. But you have a cousin haven't you? Suggested Robert. Erickson laughed but goodnaturally. Yes, he answered a little man with a fishy smell in a blue tailcoat with brass buttons and a red and black night cap. But Robert ventured to him. He might go in a kilt and top boots like Satan in my granny's copy of the Paradise Lost for anything I would care. Yes, but he's just like his looks. The first thing he'll do the next morning after I go home will be to take me into his office or shop as he calls it and get down his books and show me how many barrels of herring I owe him with the price of each. To do him justice, he only charges me wholesale. What'll he do that for? To urge on me the necessity of diligence and the choice of a profession, answered Erickson with a smile of mingled sadness and irresolution. He will set forth what a loss the interest of the money is even if I should pay the principal and remind me that although he has stood my friend his duty to his own family imposes limits and he has at least a couple of thousand pounds in the country bank. I don't believe he would do anything for me but for the honor it will be to the family to have a professional man in it and yet my father was the making of him. Tell me about your father, what was he? A gentle-minded man who thought much and said little. He farmed the property that had been his father's own and is now leased by my fishy cousin aforementioned. And your mother? She died just after I was born and my father never got over it. And you have no brothers or sisters? No, not one. Thank God for your grandmother and do all you can to please her. A silence followed during which Robert's heart swelled and heaved with devotion to Erickson. For notwithstanding his openness there was a certain sad coldness about him that restrained Robert from letting out all the tide of his love. The silence became painful and he broke it abruptly. What are you going to be, Mr. Erickson? I wish you could tell me, Robert. What would you have me to be? Come now. Robert, thought for a moment. Well, you cannot be a minister, Mr. Erickson, because you did not believe in God, you know, he said simply. Don't say that, Robert. Erickson returned in a tone of pain with which no displeasure was mingled. But you are right. At best I only hope in God. I don't believe in him. I'm thinking there cannot be muckled if we're between hope and faith, said Robert. Many a one that says they believe in God has unclean hope of anything from his hand, I'm thinking. My reader may have observed a little change for the better in Robert's speech. Dr. Anderson had urged upon him the necessity of being able at last to speak English. And he had been trying to modify the antique Saxon dialect they used at Rothen and with the newer and more refined English. But even when I knew him, he would upon occasion, especially when the subject was religion or music fall back into the broadest scotch. It was as if his heart could not issue freely by any other gate than that of his grandmother tongue. Fearful of having his last remark contradicted, for he had as instinctive desire that it should lie undisturbed where he had cast it in the field of Erickson's mind. He hurried to another question. What force should naive be a doctor? Now you'll think me a fool, Robert, if I tell you why. Far be it from me to darken such a word, Mr. Erickson, said Robert devoutly. Well, I'll tell you whether or not returned Erickson. I could, I believe, amputate a living limb with considerable coolness, but put a knife in a dead body I could not. I think I know what you mean. Then you must be a lawyer. A lawyer, oh Lord, said Erickson. Why not, asked Robert in some wonderment, for he could not imagine Erickson acting from mere popular prejudice or fancy. Just think of spending one's life in an atmosphere of squabbles. It's all very well when one gets to be a judge and dispenses justice, but, well, it's not for me. I could not be the best for my clients, and a lawyer has nothing to do with the kingdom of heaven, only with his clients. He must be a party man. He must secure for one so often at the loss of the rest. My duty and my conscience would always be at strife. Then what will you be, Mr. Erickson? To tell the truth, I would rather be a watchmaker than anything else I know. I might make one watch that would go right, I suppose, if I lived long enough, but no one would take an apprentice of my age, so I suppose I must be a tutor, knocked about from the one house to another, patronized by ex-pupils and smiled upon his harmless, by momos and sisters to the end of the chapter, and then something of a popper's burial, I suppose. Que sera sera. Erickson had sunk into one of his worst moods, but when he saw Robert looking unhappy, he changed his tone and would be, what he could not be, marry. But what's the use of talking about it, he said? Get your fiddle, man, and play the wind that shakes the barley. No, Mr. Erickson answered, Robert, I have no heart for the fiddle. I would rather have some poetry. Oh, poetry, returned Erickson in a tone of contempt, yet not very hearty contempt. We're gone away, Mr. Erickson, said Robert, and the Lord at we know nothing but along knows whether we'll ever meet again in this place, and say, true enough, my boy, interrupted Erickson, I have no need to trouble myself about the future. I believe that is the real secret of it, after all. I shall never want a profession or anything else. What do you mean, Mr. Erickson, asked Robert in half-defined terror? I mean, my boy, that I shall not live long, I know that. Thank God. How do you know it? My father died at 30, and my mother at six and 20, both of the same disease, but that's not how I know it. How do you know it, then? Erickson returned no answer. He only said, death will be better than life. One thing I don't like about it, though, is the coming of the unconsciousness. I cannot bear to lose my consciousness, even in sleep. It is such a terrible thing. I suppose that's one of the reasons that we cannot be content without a God, responded Robert. It's dreadful to think even of falling asleep without someone greater and near than the me, Watson, or it. But I'm just saying, or again, what I have read in one of your papers, Mr. Erickson, just let me look. Venturing more than he had ever yet ventured, Robert rose and went to the cupboard where Erickson's papers lay. His friend did not check him. On the contrary, he took the papers from his hand and searched for the palm indicated. I'm not in the way of doing this sort of thing, Robert. He said, I know that, answer, Robert. And Erickson read, sleep. Oh, is it death that comes to have a foretaste of the whole? Tonight the planets and the stars will glimmer through my window bars, but will not shine upon my soul. For I shall lie as dead, though yet I am above the ground. I'll passionless with scarce of breath, with hands of rest and eyes of death. I shall be carried swiftly round. Or if my life should break the idle night with doubtful gleams, through mossy arches will I go, through arches ruinous and low, and chase the true and false in dreams. Why should I fall asleep when I am still upon my bed? The moon will shine, the winds will rise, and all around and through the skies, the light clouds travel over my head. Oh, busy, busy things, you mark me with your ceaseless life. For all the hidden springs will flow and all the blades of grass will grow. When I have neither peace nor strife, and all the long night through the restless streams will hurry by, and round the lands with endless roar, the white waves fall upon the shore and bit by bit devour the dry. Even thus but silently eternity thy tide shall flow, and side by side with every star, the long-drawn swell shall bear me far, in idle boat with none to row. My senses fail with sleep, my heart beats thick the night is noon, and faintly through its misty folds, I hear a drowsy cloth that holds its converse with the waning moon, a solid mystery that I should be so closely bound with neither care nor constraint, without a murmur of complaint, and lose myself upon such ground. Rubbish, said Erickson as he threw down the sheets, disgusted with his own work which so often disappoints the rider, especially if he is by any chance betrayed into reading it aloud. To not say that, Mr. Erickson returned Robert, you may not say that, you have narrowed to loth at honest work, whether it be your own or any other body's, the poem knew. Don't call it a poem interrupted Erickson, it's not worthy of the name. I will call it a poem, persisted Robert, for it's a poem to me whether it may be to you, and who I know at its a poem is just this, it opens my mind like music to something I never saw before. What is that, asked Erickson, not sorry to be persuaded, that there might after all be some merit in the productions painfully despised of himself. Just this, it's only when you did not want to fall asleep and it looks fearsome to you, and maybe the fear of death comes in the same way, we're feared at it because we're no all together and ready for it, but when the right time comes, it'll be as natural as falling asleep when we're doing right sleepy. If there be a God we'd call our Father in heaven, I'm no thinking that he would, to so many body tunes, put a thought for the hand to end. I'm thinking if there be anything in it here, you know, I'm no saying for I did not know, we now just believe in him, to die decent and happy, and they such strange awful, fast-booted, as some folk would make a religion of expectant. Erickson looked at Robert with admiration, mingled with something akin to merriment. One would think it was your grandfather holding forth Robert, he said. How came you to think of such things at your age? I'm thinking, answered Robert, you were not muckled or nor myself when you took to such things, Mr. Erickson, but deed, maybe my grandfather put them in my head, for I had a heat adieu with his fiddle for a while. She's dead, no. Not understanding him, Erickson began to question and out came the story of the violins. They talked on till the last of their coals was burnt out, and then they went to bed. Shargar had undertaken to rouse them early that they might set out on their long walk with the long day before them, but Robert was awake before Shargar. The all but soulless light of the dreary season awoke him, and he rose and looked out. Aurora, as aged now as her loved, tithonus, peered gray-haired and desolate over the edge of the tossing sea, with hardly enough of light in her dim eyes to show the broken press of the waves that rushed shorewards before the wind of her rising. Such an east wind was the right breath to issue from such a pale mouth of hopeless revelation as that which opened with dead lips across the troubled sea on the far horizon. While he gazed, the east darkened, a cloud of hail rushed against the window, and Robert retreated to his bed. But ere he had fallen asleep, Erickson was beside him, and before he was dressed, Erickson appeared again with his stick in his hand. They left Shargar still asleep and descended the stairs, thinking to leave the house undisturbed. But Mrs. Faby was watching for them and insisted on their taking the breakfast she had prepared. They then set out on their journey of 40 miles with half a loaf in their pockets and money enough to get bread and cheese and a bottle of the poorest ale at the far-parted roadside ends. When Shargar awoke, he wept in desolation, then crept into Robert's bed and fell fast asleep again. End Chapter 15. Book 2, Chapter 16 of Robert Falconer by George Macdonald. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Robert Falconer by George Macdonald. Chapter 16, A Strange Night. The youths had not left the city a mile behind when a thick snowstorm came on. It did not last long, however, and they fought their way through it into a glimpse of sun. To Robert, healthy, powerful, and, except at rare times, hopeful, it added to the pleasure of the journey to contend with the storm, and there was a certain steely indifference about Ericsson that carried him through. They trudged on steadily for three hours along a good-turned-pipe road with great black masses of clouds sweeping across the sky, which now sent them a glimmer of sunlight and now a sharp shower of hail. The country was very dreary, a succession of undulations rising into bleak moorlands and hills whose heather would in autumn flush the land with glorious purple, but which now looked black and cheerless as if no sunshine could ever warm them. Now and then the moorland would sweep down to the edge of the road, diversified with dark halls, from which peats were dug and an occasional quarry of great granite. At one moment endless pools would be shining in the sunlight and the next the hail would be dancing a mad fantastic dance all about them. They pulled their caps over their brows, bent their heads and struggled on. At length they reached their first stage and after a meal of bread and cheese and an off-third glass of whiskey started again on their journey. They did not talk much for their force was spent on their progress. After some consultation, whether to keep the road or take a certain shortcut across the moors which would lead them into it again with a saving of several miles, the sun shining out with a little stronger promise than he had yet given, they resolved upon the latter. But in the middle of the moorland the wind and the hail came on with increased violence and they were glad to tack from one to another of the huge stones that lay about and take a short breathing time under the leaf each so that when they recovered the road they had lost as many miles in time and strength as they had saved in distance. They did not give in however but after another rest and a little more refreshment started again. The evening was now growing dusk around them and the fatigue of the way was telling so severely on Erickson that when in the twilight they heard the blast of a horn behind them and turning saw the two flaming eyes of a well-known four horse coach come fluctuating towards them. Robert insisted on their getting up and riding the rest of the way. But I can't afford it, said Erickson. But I can, said Robert. I don't doubt it, returned Erickson, but I owe you too much already. If ever we win home, I mean to the heart of home, you can pay me there. There will be no need then. Where is the need then to make such a work about a six pence or two between this and that? I thought you cared for nothing that time or space or sense could grip of measure, Mr. Erickson. You now have such a philosopher as you would set up for. Hello. Erickson laughed a weary laugh and as the coach stuck in obedience to Robert's hail, he scrambled up behind. The guard knew Robert was pitiful over the condition of the travelers, would have put them inside but that there was a lady there and their clothes were wet. Got out a great horse rug and wrapped Robert in it, put a spare coat of his own about an inch steak upon Erickson, drew out a flask, took a pole at it, handed it to his new passengers and blew a vigorous blast on his long horn. For they were approaching a desolate shed where they had to change their weary horses for four fresh thoroughbreds. Away they went once more, hurrying through the gathering darkness. It was delightful indeed to have to urge one weary leg past the other no more, but to be born along towards food, fire and bed. But their adventures were not so nearly over as they imagined. Once more the hail fell furiously, huge hailstones each made of many half melted and welded together into solid lumps of ice. The coachman could scarcely hold his face to the shower and the blows they received on their faces and legs drove the thin skinned high spirited horses nearly mad at length they would face it no longer. At a turn in the road where it crossed the broke by bridge with the low stone wall, the wind met them right in the face with redoubled vehemence. The leaders swerved from it and were just rising to jump over the parapet when the coachman whose hands were nearly insensible with cold through his leg over the reins and pulled them up. One of the leaders reared and fell backwards. One of the wheelers kicked vigorously a few moments and in spite of the guard at their heads, always one struggling mass of bodies and legs with the broken pole in the midst. The few passengers got down and Robert fearing that yet worse might happen and remembering the lady opened the door. He found her quite composed as he helped her out. What is the matter? Asked the voice dearest to him in the world, the voice of Miss St. John. He gave a cry of delight, wrapped in the horse cloth Miss St. John did not know him. What is the matter? She repeated. Oh, Nethan, ma'am, Nethan, only adieu to who will not get ye home the night. Is it you, Robert? She said gladly, recognizing his voice. Aye, it's me and Mr. Erickson. We'll take care of you, ma'am. But surely we shall get home. Robert had heard the crack of the breaking pole. Deed, I don't know. What are we to do then? Come into the shelter of the bank here or to the reach of the horses, said Robert, taking off his horse cloth and wrapping her in it. The storm hissed and smote all around them. She took Robert's arm, followed by Erickson. They left the coach and the struggling horses and withdrew to a bank that overhung the road. As soon as they were out of the wind, Robert, who had made up his mind, said, we cannot be money yards from the old goose of Bogbani. We might get through the night there wheel enough. I'll spare at the guard the minute the horses are cleared. We were most over the bridge, I heard the coachman say. I know quite well where the old house is, said Erickson. I went to end the last time I walked this way. Was the door open, asked Robert. I don't know, answered Erickson. I found one of the windows open in the basement. We'll get the length of one of the lanterns and go on directly. It cannot be more nor the breath of a rig or two from the burn. I can take you by the road, said Erickson. It will be very cold, said the Saint John, already shivering partly from disquietude. There's wood enough there to hold a swarm for a 12-month, said Robert. He went back to the coach. By this time, the horses were nearly extricated. Two of them stood steaming in the lamp light with their sides going at 20-bellow speed. The guard would not let him have one of the coach lamps, but gave him a small lantern of his own. When he returned with it, he found Erickson and the Saint John talking together. Erickson led the way and the others followed. Where are you going, gentlemen, asked the guard as they passed the coach. To the old house, answered Robert. You cannot do better. I'm not by with the coach, so let gang back to drumhead with the horses and fasten as a pole. Faith, it'll be wheeling to the morning or we win wood of this. Take care of who you've gone. There's holes in the old full-side boot. We'll take good care, you may be sure, Hector, said Robert as they left the bridge. The house to which Erickson was leading them was in the midst of a field. There was just light enough to show a huge mass standing in the dark without a tree or shelter of any sort. When they reached it, all that Miss Saint John could distinguish was a wide broken stair leading up to the door with glimpses of a large plain ugly square front. The stones of the stair sloped and hung in several directions, but it was plain to a glance that the place was dilapidated through extraordinary neglect rather than by the usual aware of time. In fact, it belonged only to the beginning of the preceding century, somewhere in Queen Anne's time. There was a heavy door to it, but fortunately for Miss Saint John, who would not quite have relished getting in at the window of which Erickson had spoken, it stood a little ajar. The wind roared in the gap and echoed in the empty hall into which they now entered. Certainly Robert was right. There was wood enough to keep them warm for that hall and every room into which they went from top to bottom of the huge house was lined with pine. No paintbrush had ever passed upon it. Neither was there a spot to be seen upon the grain of the wood. It was clean as the day when the house was finished, only it had grown much browner. The closed gallery with window frames which had never been glazed at one story's height leading across from the one side of the first floor to the other, looked down into the great Echoing Hall which rose in the center of the building to the height of two stories. But this was unrecognizable in the poor light of the guard's lantern. All the rooms on every floor opened into the other. But why should I give such a minute description making my reader expect a ghost story or at least an optional adventure? I only want him to feel something of what our party felt as they entered this desolate building which though some 120 years old were not a single mark upon the smooth floors or spotless walls to indicate that article of furniture had ever stood in it or human being ever inhabited it. There was a strange and unusual horror about the place, a feeling quite different from that belonging to an ancient house, however haunted it might be. It was like a body that had never had a human soul in it. There was no sense of the human history about it. Miss St. John's feeling of eeriness rose to the height when in wandering through the many rooms in search of one where the windows were less broken, she came upon one spot in the floor. It was only a hole worn down through floor after floor from top to bottom by the drip of the rains from the broken roof. It looked like the disease of the desolate place and she shuttered. Here they must pass the night with the wind roaring awfully through the echoing emptiness and every now and then the hail flashing against what glass remained in the windows. They found one room with the window well boarded up for until lately some care had been taken of the place to keep it from the weather. There Robert left his companions who presently heard the sounds of tearing and breaking below. Necessity justified him in the appropriation of some of the woodwork for their own behoof. He tore a panel or two from the walls and returning with them, lighted a fire on the empty earth where from the look of the stone and mortar certainly never fire had blazed before. The wood was dry as a bone and burnt up gloriously. 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 missed St. John and Erickson 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. It's two lamps holding doubtful battle with the wind, now flaring out triumphantly, now almost yielding up the ghost. Inside the guard was snoring in the finds of the father or his head. Hector, Hector, cried Robert. I, I, answered Hector. It's no time to walk in yet. Having eaten a basket Hector was something to eat in it. Nothing going to rot the den that a body might say by your leave till. How it's you is it, returned Hector, rousing himself. Now devil on, if I had I'd are not give you yet. I would make free to steal it though and take my chance said Robert. But you say you have none. None I tell you, you will not hunger for the morning man. I'll stand hunger as well as you on it, Hector. It's no for myself, there's Miss St. John. Quotes said Hector previously for he wanted to go to sleep again. Go on and make love to her. They last will think of me as long as you do that. That'll hold your own hunger. The words were like blasphemy in Robert's ear. He make love to Miss St. John. He turned from the coach door and discussed that there was no place he knew of where anything would 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 guards 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 Erickson 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 was just cease speaking. They had not found his absence awkward at least. I have been after something to eat said Robert but I cannot fall in with anything. But Mountus tell stories or sing songs as folk do in books or as Miss St. John think long. 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 saved 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 Greyhound. She was weak enough to receive the animal. Her husband died the same year and before the end of it dog went mad and bit her. According to the awful custom of the time they smothered her between two featherbeds just as the house of Bog Bonnie was ready to receive her furniture and become her future dwelling. No one had ever occupied it. If Miss St. John listened to the story and song without as much show of feeling as Maisie 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 Erickson had heard Mary St. John play. This was their first meeting. Full as his mind was of Maisie 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. Erickson 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 our fatigue Miss St. John could not sleep. The house quivered in the wind which held 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 near 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 far below is shown into this gallery for it was divided from the hall only by a screen across and 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 desk below. She stood riveted for in the center of the hall with his hands clasped over his head like the solitary arch of a ruined Gothic isle. Stood Erikson. His agony had grown within him. The agony of the silence had rooted 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 with sharp sounds and words. Oh 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 tone voice of feminine tenderness somewhere in the air. Looking up Erikson saw the dim form of Mary St. John halfway up the side of the lofty hall. The same moment she vanished trembling at the sound of her own voice. Thus to Erikson 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 Eriks' 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 said at rest. It needs a revelation, a vision, a something for the higher nature that breeds and enfolds 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 spear-born harmonious sisters. The very presence of such a being gives unbelief the lie, deep as the throat of her line. 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 Erickson, 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 easygoing creatures that took for granted the rumors 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. Four, to gain the soul 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 there only an communicable 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, Erickson 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 the rothadin, the events of the night began to wear the doubtful aspect of a dream. No illusion was made to what had occurred while Robert slept, but all the journey Erickson felt towards Miss St. John as Wordsworth felt toward 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. And Chapter 16. Hope 2, Chapter 17 of Robert Falconer by George McDonald. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Robert Falconer by George McDonald. Chapter 17. Home Again When Robert opened the door of his grandmother's parlor, 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 around 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 in age, although in truth only eight months. Who are you, laddie? She said, I'm right glad, for I have been thinking long to see. See you doing. Betty rushed in, drawing her hands on her apron. She had not heard him enter. Eh, Losh! She cried, and put her wet apron to her eyes. Such a man is your grown, Robert. A poor body like me might not be spakin' to you now. There's no odds in me, Betty, returned Robert. Deed that there is. Your sex-feet and a hairy hour's eye's worn. I said there was no odds in me, Betty, persisted Robert, laughing. I cannot what may be any, rude, tormented Betty, but there's an uncle odds apony. Hold to tongue, Betty, said her mistress. You ought to ken better, nor stain John with young men. Fest more of the creamy cakes. Maybe Robert would like a dropy of porridge. On a thing, Betty, said Robert, I'm at death's door with hunger. Run, Betty, for the cakes, and fess a loaf of white bread, we cannot buy for the porridge. 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 Erickson to stay a few days with him. Only friend of yours, Laddie, she replied, qualifying her words only with the addition, if he be a friend, where is he new? He's up at Miss Napier's. Oh, it's what for did not ye fess him in with thee, Betty? Nay, nay, Granny, the Napier's are friends of his. We might not interfere with them. I'll go on up myself once I have had my breakfast. Well, well, Laddie, eh, I'm blithe to see. Have ye gotten any prizes new? I have, aye. I'm sorry they're nay both of them, the first, but I have the first of one and the third of the other. I am pleased at that, Robert. You'll be a man some day, if ye hope, from drink and from lean. I never tell to lie in my life, Granny. Nay, I did not think at every ye did, and what's that creature, Shargar, but? I was just going to be a crown of glory to ye, Granny. He worked like a horse till Dr. Anderson took him by the hand and sent him to the school, and he's going to make something of him or all be done. He's a fine creature, Shargar. He took immune-like flitting from here, rejoined the old lady in the tone of a fence. You might have said good day to me, I think. You see, he was feared at ye, Granny. Feared at me, laddie. Whatever was feared at me, I never feared anybody in my life. So little did the dear old lady know that she was a terror to her neighborhood, simply because, being a law to herself, she would therefore be a law to other people, a conclusion that cannot be concluded. This is Falconer's courtesy to 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 Erickson 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 Erickson 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 Erickson, 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 a 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 the show for fear of expressing an old woman's ridiculous fancy, as she called her predilection. A long-legged, prude, landless lared, she would say, with a moist glimmer in her loving eyes. With the most ridiculous feet he ever saw, hardly room for five toes between the two, lush. When Robert went forth into the streets, he was surprised to find how friendly everyone was. Even old William McGregor 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, et cetera, et cetera. Upon reflection, Robert discovered the cause. Though he had scarcely gained a bursary, he had gained prizes. And in a little place like Rothedon, long may there be such places, everybody with any brains at all took a share in the distinction he had merited. Erickson stayed only a few days. He went back to the twilight of the North, his fishy cousin, and his tutorship at Sir Olaf Peterson's. Robert accompanied him 10 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, we else she's a fine lass, Miss St. John. And if you take to one another, you cannot do better. 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 less 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 bat our 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 jeweled 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 worst in 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 the 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 Arab 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 then 10 years as a 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 Wilhelm 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 reed 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 abortacted 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 whales 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. Often other 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, Ericsson was teaching two stiff-knet ews 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 Ericsson 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 first 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 the 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 favor, had, as she believed, heard the voice of God saying, this is the way. Hence, she was not afraid when the midst of prejudice began to rise from around her path and reveal a country very different from what she infancy did. 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 pure 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 honored 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. Innis for his second session. He had fits of wandering, though, visited all the old places, spent a week or two more than once at Bodifold, rode Mr. Lamy's half-broken filly, reveled in the glories of the summer once more, went out to tea occasionally or sucked with the schoolmaster, and, except going to church on Sunday, which was a weariness to every inch of flesh upon his bones, enjoyed everything. And Chapter 17, Book 2, Chapter 18 of Robert Falconer by George McDonald. This Vibervox recording is in the public domain. Robert Falconer by George McDonald. Chapter 18, A Grave Opened One thing that troubled Robert on this his first 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 pole 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 Ericsson, 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 zeat fair trade. It was one of those rainy days of spring which it needs a hopeful mood to distinguish from autumnal ones. They're all 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 into 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 Ericsson, his intercourse with whom, and his familiarity with whose doubts had done anything but quench his thirst after the higher life, for Ericsson's, like his own, were true and good in 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. He kneeled and sent forth one cry after the Father, arose and turned toward the shelves, removed some of the bundles of letters, and drew out his mother's little box. There lay the miniature, still and open-eyed, as he had left it. There, too, lay the bit of paper, brown and dry, with the hymn and the few words of sorrow written thereon. He looked at the portrait that did not open the fold of paper, and then first he thought whether there might not be something more in the box. What he had taken for the bottom seemed to be a tray. He lifted it by two little ears of ribbon, and there underneath lay a letter addressed to his father, in the same old-fashioned handwriting as the hymn. It was sealed with brown wax, full of spangles, impressed with the bush of something. He could not tell whether rushes or reeds are flags. Of course, he did not open it. His holy mother's words to his airing father must be sacred even from the eye of their son. But what other or fitter messenger than himself could hear it to its destination? It was for this that he had been guided to it. For years he had regarded the finding of his father as the first duty of his manhood. It was as if his mother had now given her a sanction to the quest, with this letter to carry to the husband, who, however he might have aired, was yet dear to her. He replaced it in the box, but the box no more on the forsaken shelf, with its very barricade of soulless records. He carried it with him and laid it in the bottom of his box, which henceforth he kept carefully locked. There lay as it were the pledge of his father's salvation, and his mother's redemption from an eternal grief. He turned to his equation. It had cleared itself up. He worked it out in five minutes. Betty came to tell him that the dinner was ready, and he went down peaceful and hopeful to his grandmother. While at home he never worked in the evenings, it was bad enough to have to do so at college. Hence nature had a chance with him again. Blessings on the wintry blast that broke into the first youth of summer. They made him feel what summer was. Blessings on the cheerless days of rain, and even of sleet and hail that would shove the reluctant ear back into January. The fair face of spring, with their tears dropping upon her quenchless smiles, peeped in suppressed triumph from behind the growing corn and the budding sallows on the riverbank. Nay, even when the snow came once more in defiance of calendars, it was but a background from which the near genesis should stick fiery off. In general he had a lonely walk after his lesson with Miss St. John was over. There was no one at Rothenden to whom his heart and intellect both were sufficiently drawn to make a close friendship possible. He had companions, however. Erickson had left his papers with him. The influence of these led him into yet closer sympathy with nature and all her moods, a sympathy which, even in the stony heart of Aberdeen, he not only did not lose but never ceased to feel. Even there a breath of wind would not only breathe upon him, it would breathe into him, and a sunset seen from the strand was lovely, as if it had hung over rainbow seas. On his way home he would often go into one of the shops where the neighbors congregated in the evenings and hold a little talk, and although with Miss St. John filling his heart, his friend's poems, his imagination, and geometry and algebra as intellect great was the contrast between his own inner mood and the words by which he kept up human relations with his town folks. Yet in after years he counted it one of the greatest blessings of a lonely birth and education, that he knew hearts and feelings which to understand one must have been young amongst them. He would not have had a chance of knowing such as these if he had been the son of Dr. Anderson and born in Aberdeen.