 Book 1, Chapter 1 of Robert Falconer by George MacDonald. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kenneth R. Moorfield. Robert Falconer by George MacDonald. To the memory of the man who stands highest in the oratory of my memory, Alexander John Scott. I, daring, presume to dedicate this book. Countryman. My heart does joy that yet, in all my life, I found no man but he was true to me. Brutus in Julius Caesar. The author desires to have it understood that not a single poem in this tale is of his own composition. The poems are, however, his property and appear for the first time in print. The careless work of a friend of his boyhood, he has not even trimmed them. Robert Falconer by George MacDonald. Book 1, Chapter 1, A Recollection. Robert Falconer, schoolboy, aged 14, thought he had never seen his father. That is, thought he had no recollection of having never seen him. But the moment when my story begins, he had begun to doubt whether his belief in the matter was correct. And as he went on thinking, he became more and more assured that he had seen his father somewhere about six years before, as near as a thoughtful boy of his age could judge of the lapse of a period that would form half of that portion of his existence, which was bound into one by the reticulations of memory. For there dawned upon his mind the vision of one Sunday afternoon. Betty had gone to church, and he was alone with his grandmother reading the pilgrim's progress to her. When, just as Christian knocked at the wicked gate, a tap came to the street door, and he went to open it. There he saw a tall, somewhat haggard-looking man in a shabby black coat. The vision gradually dawned upon him till it reached the minuteness of all these particulars. His hat pulled down onto his projecting eyebrows, and his shoes very dusty, as with a long journey on foot. It was a hot Sunday, he remembered that, who looked at him very strangely and without a word, pushed him aside and went straight into his grandmother's parlor, shutting the door behind him. He followed, not doubting that the man must have a right to go there, but questioning very much his right to shut him out. When he reached the door, however, he found it bolted, and outside he had to stay all alone in the desolate remainder of the house, till Betty came home from church. He could recall, as he thought about it, how drearily the afternoon had passed. First he had opened the street door and stood in it. There was nothing alive to be seen except a sparrow picking up crumbs, and he would not stop till he was tired of him. The royal oak down the street to the right had not even a horseless gig or a cart standing before it, and King Charles, grinning awfully in its branches on the signboard, was invisible from the distance at which he stood. In at the other end of the empty street looked the distant uplands, whose waving corn and grass were likewise invisible, and beyond them rose one blue truncated peak in the distance. All of them werely at rest this weary Sabbath day. However, there was one thing then, which this was better, and that was being at church, which, to this boy at least, was the very fifth essence of dreariness. He closed the door and went into the kitchen. That was nearly as bad. The kettle was on the fire to be sure, in anticipation of tea, but the coals under it were black on the top, and it made only faint efforts after immeasurable intervals of silence to break into a song, giving a hum like that of a bee a mile off, and then relapsing into hopeless inactivity. Having just had his dinner, he was not hungry enough to find any resource in the drawer where the oak cakes lay, and unfortunately the old wooden clock in the corner was going, else there would have been some amusement in trying to torment it into demonstrations of life, as he had often done in less desperate circumstances than the present. At last he went upstairs to the very room in which he now was, and sat down upon the floor, just as he was sitting now. He had not even brought his pilgrim's progress with him from his grandmother's room. But searching about in all holes and corners, he at length found Kloppstock's Messiah translated into English, and took refuge there till Betty came home. Nor did he go down till she called him to tea, when, expecting to join his grandmother and the stranger, he found on the contrary that he was to have his tea with Betty in the kitchen, after which he again took refuge with Kloppstock in the garret, and remained there till it grew dark, when Betty came in search of him and put him to bed in the gable room, and not in his usual chamber. In the morning every trace of the visitor had vanished, even to the thorn stick which he had set down behind the door as he entered. All of this Robert Falconer saw slowly revive on the palimpsest of his memory, as he washed it with the vivifying waters of recollection. End of Book 1, Chapter 1. Book 1, Chapter 2 of Robert Falconer by George MacDonald. This LibraVox recording is in the public domain. Robert Falconer by George MacDonald. Book 1, Chapter 2. A Visitor. It was a very bare little room in which the boy sat, but it was his favorite retreat. Behind the door in a recess stood an empty bedstead, without even a mattress upon it. This was the only piece of furniture in the room, unless some shelves crowded with papers tied up in bundles, and in a cupboard in the wall likewise filled with papers could be called furniture. There was no carpet on the floor, no windows in the walls. The only light came from the door and from a small skylight in the sloping roof, which showed that it was a garret room. Nor did much light come from the open door, for there was no window on the walled stair to which it opened. Only opposite the door a few steps led up into another garret, larger but with a lower roof, unsealed and perforated with two or three holes, the panes of glass filling which were no larger than the small blue slates which covered the roof. From these panes a little dim brown light tumbled into the room where the boy sat on the floor, with his head almost between his knees, thinking that there was less light than usual in the room now, though it was only half past two o'clock and the sun would not set for more than half an hour yet. For if Robert had lifted his head and looked up, it would have been at, not through the skylight. No sky was to be seen. A thick covering of snow lay over the glass. A partial thaw followed by frost had fixed it there. A mass of imperfect cells and confused crystals. It was a cold place to sit in, but the boy had some faculty for enduring cold when it was the price to be paid for solitude. And besides, when he fell into one of his thinking moods, he forgot for a season cold and everything else but what he was thinking about, a faculty for which he was to be envied. If he had gone down the stair which described half the turn of a screw in its descent and had crossed the landing to which it brought him, he could have entered another bedroom called the Gable, or rather the Gale, room, equally at his service for retirement. But though carpeted and comfortably furnished and having two windows at right angles commanding two streets, for it was a corner house, the boy preferred the Garrett room. He could not tell why. Possibly windows to the streets were not congenial to the meditations in which, even now, as I have said, the boy indulged. These meditations, however, though sometimes as a truce, if not so continuous as those of a metaphysician, for boys are not unfrequently more given the metaphysics than older people are able or perhaps willing to believe. Were not by any means confined to such subjects, Castle building had its full share in the occupation of those lonely hours, and for this exercise of the constructive faculty, what he knew, or rather what he did not know of his own history, gave him scope enough, nor was his brain slow in supplying him with material corresponding in quantity to the space afforded. His mother had been dead for so many years that he had only the vaguest recollections of her tenderness and none of her person. All he was told of his father was that he had gone abroad. His grandmother would never talk about him, although he was her own son. When the boy ventured to ask a question about where he was or when he would return, she always replied, Barents should hold their tongues, nor would she vouchsafe another answer to any question that seemed to her from the farthest distance to bear upon that subject. Barents Mount learned to hold their tongues was the sole variation of which the response admitted, and the boy did learn to hold his tongue. Perhaps he would have thought less about his father if he had had brothers or sisters, or even if the nature of his grandmother had been such as to admit of their relationship being drawn closer into personal confidence or some measure of familiarity. How they stood with regard to each other will soon appear. Whether the visions vanished from his brain because of the thickening of his blood with cold, or he merely acted from one of those undefined and inexplicable impulses which occasioned not a few of our actions, I cannot tell. But all at once Robert started to his feet and hurried from the room. At the foot of the garret's stare between it and the door of the gable room already mentioned, stood another door at right angles to both, of the existence of which the boy was scarcely aware, simply because he had seen it all his life and had never seen it open. Turning his back on this last door, which he took for a blind one, he went down a short broad stare at the foot of which was a window. He then turned to the left into a long-flagged passage, or trans, past the kitchen door on the one hand and the double-leaved street door on the other. But instead of going into the parlor, the door of which closed the trans, he stopped at the passage window on the right and there stood looking out. What might be seen from this window certainly could not be called a very pleasant prospect. A broad street with low houses of cold gray stone is perhaps as uninteresting a form of street as any to be found in the world, and such was the street Robert looked out upon. Not a single member of the animal creation was to be seen in it, not a pair of eyes to be discovered looking out at any of the window's opposite. The sole motion was the occasional drift of a vapor-like film of white powder, which the wind would lift like dust from the snowy carpet that covered the street, and wafting it along for a few yards, drop again to its repose, till another, stronger gust, prelusive of the wind about to rise its sundown, a wind cold and bitter as death, would rush over the street, and raise a denser cloud of the white water dust to sting the face of any improbable person who might meet it in its passage. It was a keen, knife-edged frost, even in the house, and what Robert saw to make him stand at the desolate window I do not know, and I believe he could not himself have told. There he did stand, however, for the space of five minutes or so, with nothing better filling his outer eyes at least than a bald spot on the crown of the street, whence the wind had swept away the snow, leaving it brown and bare, a spot of march in the middle of January. He heard the town drummer in the distance and let the sound invade his passive ears till it crossed the opening of the street and vanished down the town. There's Duval Sanny, he said to himself, with such cold hands as he's playing upon the drum-head as if he was leaping in a cask. Then he stood silent once more with a look as if anything would be welcomed to break the monotony. While he stood, a gentle, timorous tap came to the door, so gentle indeed that Betty in the kitchen did not hear it, or she, tall and Roman-nosed as she was, would have answered it before the long-legged dreamer could have reached the door, though he was not above three yards from it. In lack of anything better to do, Robert stalked to the summons. As he opened the door, these words greeted him. Is Robert at...? Yeah, it's Bob himself. Bob, I'm exceedingly cold. What for didn't you go on home then? What for was not you at the school today? I put one question at you, and you answered me with another. Well, I have no home to go until... Well, and I had a headache, but where's your home gone till then? The hoose is there, all right, but where my mother is, I did not can. The doors lock it, and James' job, they tell me, is turn away the key. I loot my mother's always upon the tramp again. And what's to come of me, the Lord can's? What's this of it? Interposed a severe, but not unmelodious voice, breaking into the conversation between the two boys. For the parlor door had opened without Robert's hearing it, and Mrs. Falconer, his grandmother, had drawn near to the speakers. What's this of it? She asked again. What's that you're conversing with at the door, Robert? Given it be only decent laddie, tell him to come in, and no stand at the door in such a day as this. As Robert hesitated with his reply, she looked around the open half of the door, but no sooner saw with whom he was talking than her tone changed. By this time, Betty, wiping her hands in her apron, had completed the group by taking her stand in the kitchen door. Na-na said Mrs. Falconer, we want none sitch like here. What does he want with you, Robert? Give him a peace, Betty, and let him gone. Ask, sirs, the lad has not a stock and fit upon him, and in such weather. For before she had finished her speech, the visitor, as if in terror of her nearer approach, had turned his back and literally showed her, if not a clean pair of heels, yet a pair of naked heels from between the soles and uppers of his shoes. If he had any stockings at all, they ceased before they reached his ankles. What else him and me, continued Mrs. Falconer, that he ran since if I were a booty. But it's no wonder he cannot buy the sight of a decent body for no use to it. What does he want with you, Robert? But Robert had a reason for not telling his grandmother what the boy had told him. He thought the news about his mother would only make her disapprove of him the more. In this, he judged wrong. He did not know his grandmother yet. He's in my class at the school, said Robert evasively. Him, what class knew? Robert hesitated one moment, but compelled to give some answer, said with confidence. The Bible class? I talked to his muckl. What guys you play at hide and seek with me? Do you think I did not can wheel enough there's no a lad or a lass at the school but as in the Bible class? What wants he here? He hardly gave him time to tell me, Granny. He frightened him. Me fright him? What force did I fright him, laddie? I'm no such wonder that anybody needs to be frightened at me. The old lady turned with visible, though by no means profound, a fence upon her calm forehead. And walking back into her parlor where Robert could see the fire burning right cheerly, shut the door and left him in bed, standing together in the trance. The latter returned to the kitchen to resume the washing of the dinner dishes and the former returned to his post at the window. He had not stood more than half a minute thinking what was to be done with his school fellow, deserted of his mother. When the sound of a coach horn drew his attention to the right, down the street where he could see part of the other street which crossed it at right angles and in which the gable of the house stood. A minute after the mail came in sight, Scarlett spotted with snow and disappeared going up the hill towards the chief hostelry of the town. As fast as four horses tired with the bad footing they had had through the whole of the stage could draw it after them. By this time the twilight was falling for though the sun had not yet set miles of frozen vapor came between him and this part of the world and his light was never very powerful so far north at this season of the year. Robert turned into the kitchen and began to put on his shoes. He had made up his mind what to do. You're never going Uta, Robert, said Betty in a hoarse tone of expostulation. Dede am I betty? You had spent it in all day with the headache. I'll just go on and tell the mistress and sign we'll see what she'll please to say to it. You're the Nathan of the kind, Betty. Are you going to turn tell tale at your age? What can you boot my age? There's never a man body that the tune can's ought to boot my age. It's our muck of for anybody to remember, is it, Betty? To not be ill-tongued, Robert, or I'll just go on to the mistress. Betty, what began with being ill-tongued? Even you tell my grandmother what I go'd out to the night. I'll go on to the schoolmaster of muckledrum and get the sight of the Kirsten and book. And given your name been not there, I'll tell ill-cobody I meet it our Betty was never cursed and that'll be a sore front, Betty. Who it? Was there ever such a latte? Said Betty, attempting to laugh it off. Be sure you be back a fortay time, cause your granny'll ill be spying after you and you would not want me lie, bootie. I would have nobody lie about me. You just need not let on it, you hear, sir. You can be deaf enough when you like, Betty, but I'll just be back a fortay time or come on the war. Betty, who was in far greater fear of her age discovered that of being un-christianized in the search, though the fact was that she knew nothing certain about the matter and had no desire to be enlightened, feeling as if she was thus left at liberty to hint what she pleased. Betty, I say, never had any intention of going to the mistress for the threat was merely the rod of terror which she thought it convenient to hold over the back of the boy, whom she always supposed to be in some mischief unless you were in her own presence visibly reading a book. If he were reading aloud, so much the better. But Robert likewise kept a rod for his defense and that was Betty's age, which he had discovered to be such a precious secret that one would have thought her virtue depended in some cabalistic manner upon the concealment of it. And certainly nature herself seemed to favor Betty's weakness, casting such a mist about the number of her years as the goddesses of old were wont to cast about a wounded favorite. For some said Betty was forty, others said she was sixty-five and in fact almost everybody who knew her had a different belief on the matter. By this time Robert had conquered the difficulty of in doing boots as hard as a thorough wetting and as thorough as a drying could make them and now stood prepared to go. Its object in setting out was to find the boy whom his grandmother had driven from the door with a hastier and more abject flight than she had in the least intended. But if his grandmother should miss him as Betty suggested and inquire where he had been, what was he to say? He did not mind misleading his grandmother but he had a great objection to telling her a lie. His grandmother herself delivered him from this difficulty. Robert, come here, she called from the parlor door and Robert obeyed. Is it dingin' on Robert? She asked. No granny, it's only a starny outdrift. The meaning of this was that there was no fresh snow falling or beating on, only a little surface snow blowing about. We'll just put your shoe on, man and run up to Miss Napier's upon the squire and say to Miss Napier with my compliments that I would be sore-bleached till her given she would lend me that fine receipt of hers for crappet heads and I'll send it back safe the morn's mornin'. Ren knew. This commission fell in admirably with Robert's plans and he started it once. End Book 1, Chapter 2 Book 1, Chapter 3 of Robert Falconer by George McDonald. This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Robert Falconer by George McDonald. Book 1, Chapter 3, The Boar's Head Miss Napier was the eldest of three maiden sisters who kept the principal hostelry of Rothedon called the Boar's Head from which, as Robert reached the square in the dusk, the male coach was moving away with the fresh quaternion of horses. They found a good many boxes upon the pavement close by the archway that led to the innyard and around them had gathered a group of loungers, not too cold to be interested. These were looking towards the windows of the inn where the owner of the boxes had evidently disappeared. Sawyer ever sits aside in a town of four, said double sanny, as people generally called him, his name being Alexander Alexander, pronounced by those who chose to speak of him with extraordinary respect due from one mortal to another, Sandy Ellshender. Double Sandy was a shoemaker, remarkable for his love of sweet sounds and whiskey. He was besides the town crier, who went about with the drama at certain hours of the morning and evening like a perambulating clock and also made public announcements of sales, losses, etc. For the rest, a fierce fighting fellow fought with anger or in rank, which later included the former. What's the sick, Sandy? asked Robert, coming up with his hands in his pockets of his trousers. Such a sick, as he never saw a man, returned Sandy. The banniest lady ever manned set his eye upon. I couldn't have thought there had been such a woman in this world. Who is Sandy? said Robert. Then he had the crying of her. Speak lower, man, she'll maybe hear you. Is she in the inn there? Aye, is she? answered Sandy. See, such a world of kiss as she brought with her. He continued pointing toward the pile of luggage. I thought, yeah, it was such a heap. It just beats me to think that a body can do with so many kiss. For I may not do it, but there is something or other in Elko one of them. Nobody would carry a boot empty kiss with them and cannot make it out. The boxes might well surprise Sandy if we may draw any conclusions from the fact that the sole implement of personal adornment, which he possessed, was two inches of a broken comb, for which he had to search when he happened to want it in the drawer of his stool among all's lumps of rosin for his violin. Masses of the same substance wrought in the shoemaker's wax for his ends and packets of boar's bristles, commonly called burs, for the same. Are they in all's bodies? asked Robert. Trout, are they? Now, her is a wad. You would have thought she had been given to the Bothy, but given she had been there, there would have been a carriage to meet her, said Crooked Kamel, the Osler. The Bothy was the name facetiously given by Alexander Baron Rothy, son of the Marquis of Boar's Head, to a house he had built in the neighborhood, chiefly for the accommodation of his bachelor friends from London during the shooting season. Hogyaton Kamel, said the shoemaker, she's nests such cattle you. Hold up the bits, stable lantern man, and let Robert here see the direction upon them. Maybe he'll make something of it. He's a fine scholar you can, said another of the bystanders. The Osler held the lantern to the card upon one of the boxes, but Robert found only an M, followed by something not very definite and a J, which might have been an I. Rothedon, Trish Shire Scotland. As he was not immediate with his answer, Peter Lumley, one of the group, a lazy ne'er-do-well who had known better days, but never better manners, and was seldom quite drunk, and seldom are still quite sober, struck in with. You do not ken a thing yet, you see, Robbie. From Sandy this would have been nothing but a good-humored attempt at facetiousness. From Lumley it meant spite, because Robert's praise was in his ears. I do not pretend to ken all more than you do yourself, Mr. Lumley, and that's nestsend Muckles Shirley, returned Robert, irritated at his tone more than at his words. The bystanders laughed, and Lumley flew into a rage. Hold your L-tongue, brat, he said. What are you to make such remarks upon your betters? Anybody ken your grandfather was nothing, but the blind Piper of Portolotti. This was news to Robert, probably false considering the quarter whence it came, but his mother, Witt, did not forsake him. Wheel, Mr. Lumley, he answered, did not he pipe wheel? Dar ye tell me, and he did not pipe wheel, and wheels ye could have done it yourself, knew Mr. Lumley. The laugh again rose at Lumley's expense, who was well known to have tried his hand at most things and succeeded in nothing. Double Sanny was especially delighted. Devil have ye for the devil's brat, and I should swear was all Lumley's reply, as he sought to conceal his mortification by attempting to join in the laugh against himself. Robert seized the opportunity of turning away and entering the house. That owns no to-be-drunt or burnt, Valar, said Lumley as he disappeared. He'll no be hanged for closing your mouth, Mr. Lumley, said the shoemaker. Thereupon Lumley turned and followed Robert into the inn. Robert had delivered his message to Miss Napier, who sat in an armchair by the fire in a little comfortable parlor held sacred by all about the house. She was paralytic and unable to attend to her guests further than by giving orders when anything as special was referred to her decision. She was an old lady, nearly as old as Mrs. Falconer, and wore glasses, but they could not conceal the kindness of her kindly eyes. Probably from giving less heed to a systematic theology, she had nothing of that sternness struck a stranger on scene Robert's grandmother. But then she did not know what it was to be contradicted, and if she had been married and had sons, perhaps a sternness not this similar might have shown itself in her nature. Lumley might not go on the way till you get something, she said after taking the receipt in request from a drawer within her reach and laying it upon the table. But ere she could ring the bell which stood by her side Please, ma'am, she said, Miss Letty and Miss Lizzie seen after the bonny laddie, and so I'm out come to you. Is she all that bonny, Meg? asked her mistress. Nay, nay, she's nay so fearsome bonny, but Miss Letty's uncle taken with her, you can. And we all say as Miss Letty says in this wuss, but that's no the point. Mr. Lumley's here, seeking a gill. Have it. As he had enough already, do you think, Meg? Do not cannibut enough, ma'am. That's ill to miser, but I do not think he's had over muckl. Well, let him take it, but do not let him sit dune. Farewell, ma'am, said Meg and departed. What cars Mr. Lumley say at my grandfather was the blind piper of poor cloddy. Can you tell me, Miss Napier? asked Robert. When said he that, Robert, just as I came in, Miss Napier rang the bell, another maid appeared. Send Meg here directly. Meg came, her eyes full of interrogation. Can I give Lumley a drop? Set him up to insult the young gentleman at my door check. He's know how to drop here the night. He's had over muckl. Meg already, and he ought to have seen that. Indeed, ma'am, he's had more than over muckl then, for there's another gill or the trapel of him. I did my best, ma'am, but never tasted myself. I cannot I tell whose muckl and the worm of anybody that comes in. Can no fit for the place, Meg. That's a fact. At this charge, Meg took no offense, for she had been in the place for twenty years, and both had been made laugh the moment they parted company. What's this that comes the next, Miss Napier, as they're so taken with, asked Robert. At will, I did not can yet. She's our bonny by-coons to be gone about alone. To mercy the barons know at home, it would have to lock her up with the forks and spoons. What for that, asked Robert, but Miss Napier vowed safe to no further explanation. She stuffed his pockets with sweet biscuits instead, dismissed him in haze, and rang the bell. Meg, who are have they put in the stranger lady. She's now gone to buy it, or house, ma'am. What, say ye last, she's never gone or to lucky habits, is she? Oh, nay, ma'am. She's a lady, Ilka inch of her, but she's some relation to the old captain, and she's gone booing the street as soon as Kamel's ready to take her bitboxes in the barrel. But I do it, there'll be most three barrelfuls of them. At will, you can gone. End. Book 1, Chapter 3 Book 1, Chapter 4 of Robert Falconer by George McDonald. This Libra box recording is in the public domain. Robert Falconer by George McDonald. Chapter 4, Chargar Robert went out into the thin drift, and again crossing the wide, desolate looking square, turned down an entry leading to a kind of court, which had once been inhabited by a well-to-do class of the townspeople, but had now fallen in estimation. Upon a stone at the door of what seemed an outhouse, he discovered the object of his search. What are you sitting there for, Chargar? Chargar is a word of Gaelic origin, applied with some sense of the ridiculous, to a thin, wasted, dried-up creature. In the present case, it was the nickname by which the boy was known at school, and indeed where he was known at all. What are you sitting there for, Chargar? Didn't anybody offer to take you in? Nay, none of them. I think they mount be all in their beds, almost dreadful cold. The fact was that Chargar's character, whether by imputation from his mother, or derived from his own actions, was none of the best. The consequence was that, although scarcely one of the neighbors would have allowed him to sit there all night, each was willing to wait yet a while in the hope that somebody else's humanity would give in first, and save her from the necessity of offering him a seat by the fireside, and a share of the oatmeal porridge, which probably would be scanty enough for her own household. For it must be that all the houses in the place were occupied by poor people, with whom the one virtue, charity, was in a measure at home, and amidst many sins, cardinal and other, managed to live in even some degree of comfort. Get up then, Chargar, you lazy beggar, or are you frozen to the door stand as a way for a kettle of boiling water to louse you. Nay, nay, Bob, I'm no stookin'. I'm only some stiff with the cold. For while but I am cold, but Chargar, rising with difficulty, give us a hold of your hand, Bob. Robert gave him his hand, and Chargar was straight away upon his feet. Come away, new, as fast and as quiet as you can. What are you going to do with me, Bob? What's that to you, Chargar? Nathan, only I would like to can. Have patience, and you will can. Only mind you do as I tell you, and do not speak a word. Chargar followed in silence. On the way, Robert remembered that Miss Napier had not, after all, given him the receipt for which his grandmother had sent him. So he returned to the boar's head, and while he went in, left Chargar in the archway to shiver and try and vane to warm his hands, by the alternate plans of slapping them on the opposite arms and hiding them under them. When Robert came out, he saw a man talking to him under the lamp. The moment his eyes fell upon the two, he was struck by a resemblance between them. Chargar was right under the lamp, the man to the side of it, so that Chargar was shattered by its frame, and the man was in its full light. The latter turned away, and passing Robert went into the inn. What's that? asked Robert. And then I can answered Chargar. He spake to me wherever I can't he was there, and guard my heart to stitch a lulp at it most fell into my breeze. And what said he to you? He said, was the devil at my log that I had not seen. He said, was the devil at my log that I didn't ask him but cow my hand to bits upon my shoulders. And what said he to that? I said I wished he was, for he would abelins have some spare he to boot him, and I had not quite enough. Well done, Chargar. What said he to that? He laugh and sport give, I would list, and give me a shillin. He did not take it, Chargar, asked Robert in some alarm. I did I, catch me no take a shillin. But they'll hold you till it. Nay, nay, I'm o'er in need for a solider. But that man was nay, solider. And what more said he? He spurt what I would do with the shillin. And what said ye? I'll sign he came out, and he got away. And he did not can what it was. Repeted Robert. It was some like my brother, Lord Sandy, but I did not can, said Chargar. By this time they had arrived at Yule the baker's shop. By thee here, said Robert, who happened to possess a few coppers, to lug on in the yields. Chargar stood again and shivered at the door, till Robert came out with a penny loaf in one hand and a two penny loaf in the other. Give us a bit, Bob, said Chargar. I'm as hungry as I am cold. By thee still, returned Robert, there's a time for all things and your times no come to foregather with their love yet. Does not it smell fine? It's new from the baker's, no ten minutes ago. I came by the feel of it. Let me feel, said Chargar, stretching out one hand and feeling his shillin with the other. Nah, your hands cannot be clean, and folks should I eat clean whether they go on clean or no. I'll away in and buy one out of my own shillin, said Chargar, in a tone of resolute eagerness. You'll do nothing of the kind, returned Robert, darting his hand at his collar. Give me the shillin, you'll want it all or long. Chargar yielded the coin and slunk behind while Robert again led the way till they came through his grandmother's door. Go under the gull of the horse there, Chargar, and just kick-roon the nook at me, and given I whistle upon you come up as quiet as you can. Given I do not, buy till I come to you. Robert opened the door cautiously. It was never locked except at night or when Betty had gone to the well for water or to the butchers or bakers or the prayer meeting upon which occasion she put the key in her pocket and left her mistress a prisoner. He looked first to the right along the passage and saw that his grandmother's door was shut. Then across the passage to the left and saw that the kitchen door was likewise shut because of the cold for its normal position was against the wall. Thereupon closing the door but keeping the handle in his hand and the bolt drawn back, he turned to the street and whistled, soft and low. Chargar had in a moment dragged his heavy feet ready to part company with their shoes at any instant to Robert's side. He bent his ear to Robert's whisper. Go on in there and creep like a moose to the fit of the stair. I mount closed the door highness, said he, opening the door as he spoke. I'm frightened Robert to not be a fool for any will not bite off your head. She had one till her dinner the day and it was ill-singed. What on of? Sheep's heavy fool gone indirectly. Chargar persisted no longer but taking about four steps a minute slunk past the kitchen like a thief. Not so carefully however but that one of his souls yet looser than the other gave one clap upon the flagged passage when Betty straight away stood in the kitchen door, a fierce pitcher in a deal frame. By this time Robert had closed the outer door and was following at Chargar's heels. Once this she cried but not so loud as to reach the ears of Mrs. Falconer for with true scotch foresight she would not willingly call in another power before the situation clearly demanded it. For as Chargar go on that gate with me did not you see me with him I'm neither a thief nor yet Chargar. There may be two opinions upon that Robert as just a way to the mistress as know how such doens in my hoos. It's neither your hoos Betty do not leave. Well I have no such thing going by my kitchen door there Robert what do you make of that there's no offense there I hope give it should not be altogether my own hoos. Take Chargar out of that way as I tell you meantime Chargar was standing on the stones looking like a terrified white rabbit and shaking from head to foot with cold and fright combined. I'll take him out of this but it's up the stair Betty and if you speak about it I swear to you as sure as death I'll go on doing to the muckledrum upon Saturday in the afternoon. Gone away with your havers only given the mistress spare's only thing about it what am I to say. I tell she spares old spunky says ready made answers are I to seek and I say Betty have you a cold potato I look and see would not you like it head up oh I've given you been out long about it. Suddenly a bell rang shrill and peremptory right above Chargar's head causing in him a responsive increase of trembling. Hold out of my gate there's the mistress's bell said Betty despite her wear around the nook and on the stairs said Robert now leading the way. Betty watched them safe around the corner before she made for the parlor little thinking to what she had become an unwilling accomplice for she never imagined that more than an evening's visit was intended by Chargar which in itself seemed to her strange and improper enough even for such an eccentric boy as Robert to encourage. Chargar followed in mortal terror Christian in the pilgrim's progress he had no armor to his back once around the corner two strides of three steps each took them to the top of the first stair Chargar knocking his head in the darkness against the never open door again three strides brought them to the top of the second flight and turning once more still to the right Robert led Chargar up the few steps into the higher of the two garrets here there was just glimmer enough from the sky to the hollow of a close bedstead built in under the sloping roof which served it for a tester while the two ends and most of the frost were boarded up to the roof this bedstead fortunately was not so bare as the one in the other room although it had not been used for many years for an old mattress covered the boards with which it was bottomed gone in there Chargar you'll be warmer there than upon the doorstep any gate put off your shun Chargar obeyed full of delight at finding himself in such good quarters Robert went to a forsaken press in the room and brought out an ancient cloak of tartan of the same form as what is now called an Inverness Cape a blue dress coat with plain guilt buttons which shown even now in the all but darkness and several other garments amongst them a kilt and heat them over Chargar as he lay on the mattress he then handed two penny in the penny lows which were all his stock had reached to the purchase of and left him sane amount away to my taste Chargar a fessia cold potato hot again even Betty has on me lies still and whatever you do do not come over to that the last injunction was entirely unnecessary have Bob I'm just in heaven said the poor creature first skin began to feel the precious possibility of having warped in the distance now that he had gained a new burrow the human animals soon recovered from his fears as well it seemed to him in the novelty of the place that he had made so many dubblings to reach it that there could be no danger of even the mistress of the house finding him out for she could hardly be supposed to look after such a remote corner for dominions and then he was boxed in with the bed and covered with no end while the friendly darkness closed him in his shelter all around except the faintest blue gleam from one of the pains in the roof there was soon no hint of light anywhere and this was only sufficient to make the darkness visible and thus add artistic effect to the operation of it upon Chargar's imagination a faculty certainly uneducated in Chargar but far very far from being therefore nonexistent it was indeed actively operative although like that of many a fine lady and gentlemen only in relation to such primary questions as what shall we eat and what shall we drink and wherewithal shall we be clothed but as he lay in devoured the new white bread his satisfaction the bare delight of his animal existence reached a pitch such as even this imagination stinted with poverty and frostbitten with maternal oppression had never conceived possible the power of enjoying the present without anticipation of the future or regard of the past is the special privilege of the animal nature and of the human nature and proportion as it has not been developed beyond the animal herein lies the happiness of cab horses and of tramps to them the gift of forgetfulness is of worth inestimable Chargar's heaven was for the present gained. Book 1 Chapter 5 of Robert Falconer by George McDonald this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Robert Falconer by George McDonald Chapter 5 This Symposium Robert had scarcely turned out of the square on his way to find Chargar when a horseman entered it his horse and he were both apparently black on one side and gray on the other from the snowdrift settling to the windward. The animal looked tired but the rider sat as easy as if he were riding to cover the reins hung loose and the horse went in a straight line for the boar's head stopping under the archway only when his master drew bridle at the door of the inn at that moment Miss Letty was standing at the back of Miss Napier's chair leaning her arms upon it as she talked to her this was her way of resting as often as occasion arose from a chat with her elder sister Miss Letty's hair was gathered in a great knot at the top of her head and little ringlets hung like tendrils down the sides of her face the benevolence of which was less immediately striking than that of her sisters because of the constant play of humor upon it especially about the mouth. If a spirit of satire could be supposed converted into something Christian by an infusion of the tenderest loving kindness and humanity remaining still recognizable notwithstanding that all its bitterness was gone such was the expression of Miss Letty's mouth. It was always half puckered as if in resistance to a comic smile which showed itself at the window of the keen gray eyes however the mouth might be able to keep it within doors. She was neatly dressed in black silk with a lace collar her hands were small and white the moment the traveler stopped at the door Miss Napier started Letty, she said, was that I could almost swear to black Geordi's fit off four of them I think returned Miss Letty as the horse notwithstanding or perhaps in consequence of his fatigue began to paw and move about on the stones impatiently the rider had not yet spoken he'll be after some of his devil make-care skull-duttery but just ran to the door Letty or Lizzie will be there for you and maybe she would not be your exceval what can he be after now what would the greyhound be after but her return Miss Letty who it's nonsense he can't nest in a booter go on to the door Lassie Miss Letty obeyed what's there she asked somewhat sharply as she opened it that neither knocks nor calls preserve us all is it you my lord who can you be Miss Letty without seeing my face a body at the boar's head kens black Geordi as well as your lordship's in its own but where comes your lordship from in such a nick as this from Russia never dismounted between Moscow and Aberdeen the Isis bearing tonight and the bearing laughed inside the upturned collar of his cloak for he knew that strangely exaggerated stories were current about his feats in the saddle that's a long ride my lord in a slittery and what's your lordship's will Makkoyi Kerabut my lordship to stand John there in a night like this is nobody going to take my horse I beg your lordship's pardon Kamil your lordship never said you wanted your lordship's horse taken to be gone on to the bathy take black Geordi here Kamil come into the parlour my lord how do you do Miss Napier said Lord Rothy as he entered the room here's this jade of a sister of yours asking me why don't go home to the bathy when I choose to stop and water here what'll you take my lord let he fess the brandy how curse your brandy bring me a gill of good glendron knock bring that he is lordship's cold I could not rise to offer you the armchair my lord I can get one for myself thank heaven long may your lordship return such thanks from only new begun you think Miss Napier well I don't often trouble heaven with my affairs by job I ought to be heard when I do need do to you will my lord when you seek anything to be given me true heavens gives her seldom much worthy asking how do you talk my lord and do not bring down a judgment upon my house for it would be missed due to the Rothyden you're right there Miss Napier and here comes the whiskey to stop my mouth the Baron of Rothy sat for a few minutes with his feet on the fender before Miss Lettys blaze in fire without speaking while he sipped the whiskey from a wine glass he was a man about the middle height rather full figured muscular and active with a small head and an eye whose brightness had not yet been dimmed by the sensuality which might be read in the condition rather than frame of his countenance but while he spoke so pleasantly to the Miss Napier's and his forehead spread broad and smooth over the twinkle of his hazel eye there was a sharp curve on each side of his upper lip half way between the corner and the middle which reminded one of the same curves in the lip of his ancestral boar's head where it was lifted up by the protruding tusks these curves disappeared of course when he smiled and his smile being a lords was generally pronounced irresistible he was good natured and no wise inclined to stand upon his rank so long as he had his own way any customers by the mail tonight Miss Napier he asked in a careless tone anybody particular my lord I thought you never let anybody in that wasn't particularly particular no foot passengers foot my lord that's two years ago you and I had gelused him to be a friend of your lordships for by being a lord himself he can as well as I do that I would not have sent him over the gate to look he happens where he would not serve of getting clean sheets but given lords and lords sons will walk a fit like other folk what's to ken them from other folk well Miss Napier he was no lord at all he was nothing but a factor body doing from Glenbucket I was small harm done then my lord I'm glad to hear it but what will your lordship have to your supper I would like a dish of your sweetbreads and kidneys no think of that returned the landlady laughing the great folk would have the very course of nature turned upside down to shoot yourselves whatever herd of calves at this time of the year real anything you like who was it came by the mail did you say I said nobody particular my lord well I'll just go and have a look at black Geordie very well my lord and as sure as he's run the nuke tell Lizzie not to say a word about the laddie and sure as death he's after her where could he have heard tell of her Lord Rothy came a moment after sauntering into the bar parlor where Lizzie the third Miss Napier a red haired round-eyed white tooth woman of 40 was making entries in a book she's a bonnie lassie that that came in the coach tonight Miss Lizzie it's ugly as sin my lord answered Lizzie I've seen some sin at was no so ugly Miss Lizzie she would have clean disgusted you my lord it's a mercy you did not see her if she be as ugly as all that I would just like to see her Miss Lizzie saw she had gone too far I'll deed you and your lordship wants to see her he may see her at her will I was gone and tell her and she rose as if to go no no nothing of the sort Miss Lizzie only I heard that she was Bonnie and I wanted to see her you know I like to look at a pretty girl that's our will can't my lord well there's no harm in that Miss Lizzie there's no harm in that my lord though your lordship says it the facts were that his lordship had been to the country town some 40 miles off and Black Geordie had been sent to hill no to meet him for in any weather that would let him sit he preferred horseback to every other mode of traveling though he seldom would be followed by a groom he had posted the hill no and had dined with a friend at the inn the coach stopping to change horses he had caught a glimpse of a pretty face as he thought from its window and had hoped to overtake the coach before it reached the rothedon but stopping to drink another bottle he had failed and it was on the mirror's chance of seeing that pretty face that he stopped and said in all probability had the Marquis seen the lady he would not have thought her at all such a beauty as she appeared in the eyes of double sanny nor I ventured to think had he thought as the shoemaker did would he yet have dared to address her and other than the words of such respect as he could still feel in the presence of that which was more noble than himself whether or not his visit to the stable he found anything amiss with Black Geordie I cannot tell but he now begged Miss Lizzie to have a bedroom prepared for him it happened to be the evening of Friday one devoted by some of the town people to a club to this, knowing that the talk will throw a glimmer on several matters I will now introduce my reader as a spectator through the reversed telescope of my history a few of the more influential of the inhabitants had grown rather than form themselves into a kind of club which met weakly at the boar's head although they had no exclusive right to the room in which they sat they generally managed to retain exclusive possession of it for any supposed objectionable person entered they always got rid of him sometimes without his being aware of how they had contrived to make him so uncomfortable they began to gather about seven o'clock when it was expected that boiling water would be in readiness for the compound generally called Tati sometimes punch as soon as six were assembled one was always voted into the chair on the present occasion, Mr. Innis the schoolmaster was unanimously elected to that honor he was a hard featured, sententious snuffy individual of some learning and great respectability I omit the political talk with which their intercommunications began for however interesting at the time is the scaffolding by which existing institutions arise and beams when gathered again in the builder's yard are scarcely subject for the artist the first to lead the way towards matters of near personality was William McGregor the linen manufacturer a man who possessed a score of hand blooms or so half of which from the advance of cotton and the decline of linenware now stood idle but who had already a sufficient deposit in the hands of Mr. Thompson the banker agent that is for the county bank to secure him against any necessity for taking the cotton shirts himself which were an abomination and a fence unpardonable in his eyes can you tell me Mr. Cocker he said what makes Sandy Lord Rothy or Rothy or what should he be called take to the Baughty at a time like this when there is neither hunting nor fishing nor shooting nor anything the kind of boot hand to be plaques tell him the Bonnie Baron accepted otters and such like William was a shrunken old man with white whiskers and a black wig a keen black eye always in search of the ludicrous and other people and a mouth ever on the move as if masticating something comical you know just as well as I do answered Mr. Cocker the marquee of boar's heads factor for the surrounding estate he never was in the way of giving a reason for anything at least of all for his own movements somebody was saying to me resumed McGregor who in all probability invented the story at the moment that the Prince took him kissing one of his servant lasses and kicked him out of Carlton House into the street and he cannot whine over the disgrace of it deed for the kissin said Mr. Thompson a portly comfortable man that's neither here nor there though it might have been a duchess or tois but for the kickin my word but Lord Sandy was more likely to kick with the Prince do you mind who he did when the marquee's taxed him with Mr. Crookshank the solicitor there's a drop in the house this was a phrase well understood by the company indicating the presence of someone unknown or unfit to be trusted as he spoke he looked toward the further end of the room which lay in obscurity for it was a large room lighted only by the four candles on the table at which the company sat war Mr. Crookshank asked the Dominique in a whisper there answered Samson Petty the bookseller who sees the opportunity of saying something and pointed furtively where the solicitor had only looked a dim figure was decried at a table in the farthest corner of the room and they proceeded to carry out the plan they generally adopted to get rid of a stranger he made use of a curious old scott's phrase this moment Mr. Crookshank can you explain who it comes to bear the meaning that it will can't to bear said the manufacturer not I Mr. McGregor answered the solicitor on no philologist or antiquarian asked the chairman gentlemen responded Mr. Innes taking a huge pinch of snuff after the word and then passing the box to Mr. Crookshank a sip from his glass before he went on the phrase gentlemen a drop in the house no doubt refers to an undesirable presence for you're well aware that it's most unpleasant discovery in winter especially to find a drop of water hanging from your ceiling something in short where it has no business to be and is not accordingly looked for or prepared against it seems to me Mr. Innes said McGregor that you have hit the nail but no upon the head but make he of the phrase no confine to the scott's tongue I believe of an eavesdropper the Wilk no do to represents a body that hangs about your winnick like a drop hanging or a bonnet from the eaves therefore called an eavesdropper but the sort of Wilk we know speak are a war sort altogether they come to the inside of your hoose or you're very calmer or hang out their long ears to hear where there cannot be hard saved by a loose friend or two or a hit tumbler at the same moment the door opened and a man entered he was received with unusual welcome bless my soul said the president rising it's Mr. Lambie come away Mr. Lambie sit down sit down where have you been this money a day like a pelican in the wilderness Mr. Lambie was a large mild man with floor cheeks no whiskers and a prominent black eye he was characterized by a certain simple alacrity a gentle but out speaking reddiness which made him a favorite I did not rockly make out where you are he answered you have uncle little luck here who are you all gentlemen I said discover you by degrees and pay my respects according and he drew a chair to the table did I wish you would return McGregor in a voice pretentiously hushed but nonetheless audible there's a drop in yawning of the hoose Mr. Lambie oh it's never mind the man said lambie looking around in the directions indicated as warrant he cares as little about his as we care about him there's no treason nowadays I care not who hears what I say for my part said Mr. petty I cannot help wondering given it could be or old friend Mr. Faulkner spake of the devil said Mr. Lambie huts now return petty interrupt in he was not all together the devil hold your tongue of ye retorted lambie did not you can a proverb when you hear it devil have you you're as sharp as says a missionary was only going on to say that I'm Andrew's dead I commenced the course of questioning I what guys you think that and so he's dead he was a great favorite Andrew or died he I some upset him though I he was I to be somebody with his tail good hearted creature but you could not lip until him speak no ill of the dead maybe they'll hear you and turn ruined in their coffins and that'll wummel ye in your beds said McGregor with a twinkle in his eye ring the bell for another tumbler Samson said the chairman what'll be done with the factory place new it'll be in the market it's been in the market for money a year but it's no his of all it belongs to the old lady his mother said the weaver why don't you buy it Mr. McGregor and set up a cotton mill there's not much doing with the linen now said Mr. Cocker me return McGregor with resignation the Lord forgive you for hinting at such a thing Mr. Cocker me take the cotton I would as soon spin the hair from Satan's hurdies short fashionless dirt and I cannot go straight to the Hassel yard like the Bonnie lint bells but mine stick itself upon a bus set it up course longer stuff and nobody would wear but look counter lads that would feign look like gentlemen by means of the collars and ruffles and a coming from the old loom it may well afford 1700 linen to set it off with as having nothing but cotton inside the brooks of them but Dr. Wagstaff says it's healthier in her posed petty a waggest staff till him devil a bit of it's healthier and that he can it's no so healthy and such makes him more marked with his polars and his droughts and other stuff healthier what's nice somebody tell it to me said the book seller inwardly conscious of offense at who Lord Sandy himself wears cotton maybe and he sets many a worthy example for by how many can tell me Mr. Petty has he pulled down from honest if no from high estate and sent who to seek their living as he taught them how many who told Mr. McGregor his lordship hasn't a cotton shirt in his possession I'll be bound said Mr. Cocker and besides you have not to wash his dirty linen or cotton either that's as muckle as to say according to Cocker that I'm no to speak a word against him but I'll say what I like he's no my master said McGregor who could drink very little without suffering in his temper and manners and who besides had a certain shrewd suspicion as to the person who still sat in the dark end of the room possibly because the entrance of Mr. Lammy had interrupted the exorcism the chairman interposed with soothing words and the whole company Cocker included did its best to pacify the manufacture for they all knew what would be the penalty if they failed a good deal of talk followed and a great deal of whiskey was drunk they were waited upon by Mag who without their being aware of it cast a keen parting glance at them every time she left the room at length the conversation had turned again to Andrew Faulkner's death where said ye he died Mr. Lammy I never said he was dead I said I was feared that he was dead and what guards he say that it might of consequence to have a crack said the solicitor I had a letter from my old friend and his doctor Anderson he mined upon him Mr. in his denayee he's head of the medical board at Calcutta knew he says nothing but that he doots he's calm he goad up to the country and he has not heard of him so long we have keep it up correspondence for many a year new Dr. Anderson and me he was a relation of Andrews he can a second cousin or something he'll be home or long I'm thinking with the fine pension wouldn't I wear a cotton sark I'll be boom Sid McGregor what's the old lady going to do with that long legged grandson of hers Andrews son as Samson how he'll be going to the college I'm thinking he's a final add in a clever they tell me Sid Mr. Thompson indeed he's all that and more to said the school master there's nothing all do but the college new said McGregor who nobody heeded for fear of again arousing his anger who will she manage that honest woman she mount have but little to spare from the cleaning of him she's a good manager mrs. Faulkner and you see she has the bleach green yet she does not wear cotton sark scrawled McGregor money the wobble of mine she bleached and bought to nobody's heeding him yet he began to feel insulted and broke in upon the conversation with intent you have not tell us yet he said what the master of yours is doing here at the time of year I would can that you please how should I know Mr. McGregor return the factor taking no notice of the offensive manner in which the question was put he's no hair better nor on of the Algerian pirates at Lord Exmoos head of the hips of and that's my opinion he's name among your feet mr. McGregor said the balker you might just let him lie given I had him doing faith given I would not let him lie I'll just tell you a thing gentlemen that came to my knowledge no 100 year ago and it's as true as gospel though I have I held my tongue about it all this very night I'll harken new but it's no lockin though there was skull that are enough they do it before it came that length and many had hit drop did the poor lassie greet I can tell you faith there was no lock into her she was a servant of ours height Bonnie lassie was they called her the waivers Bonnie Mary that's the name she go by what you see McGregor was interrupted by sound from the further end of the room the stranger who most of them had by this time forgotten had risen and was approaching the table where they sat good goddess interrupted several under their breasts as all rose it starts sandy himself I thank you gentlemen he said it was a mixture of irony and contempt for the interest you take in my private history I should have thought it had been as little to the taste as it is to the honor of some of you to listen to such a far ago of lies lies my lord said McGregor starting to his feet Mr. Cocker looked dismayed and Mr. Lambie sheepish all of them dazed and dumbfounded except the old weaver who as his lordship turned to leave the room added long years of leather my lord for fear they grow with with what they hear Lord Roth he turned in a rage he too had been drinking kicked that toad into the street or by heaven it's the last drop any of you drink in this house he cried the toad may tell the frog what the rat did if the toads hole my lord said McGregor whom independence honestly bile and drink combined to render fearless Lord Sandy left the room without another word his factor took his hat and followed him the rest dropped into their seats in silence Mr. Lambie was the first to speak there's a plisky he said I could just say the word after all Simeon said McGregor never thought to be so forward haha but I have longed and know I have spoken with which words he sat down contented when Mr. Cocker overtook his master as McGregor had not unfitly styled him he only got a damning for his pains and went home considerably crestfallen Lord Roth he returned to the landlady in her parlor what's the matter with him my lord what's vexed he asked Miss Napier with a twinkle in her eye for she thought from the baron's mortification he must have received some rebuff and now that the bonny laddie was safe a captain four size enjoyed the idea of it he keep an ill tonged hoofs Miss Napier answered his lordship Miss Napier guessed at the truth at once that he had overheard some free remarks on his well-known license of behavior well my lord I do my best I'm body cannot keep an inn and spare the catechism at the door of it but I believe you're in the right my lord for I heard an awful off gone of swearing in the yard just before your lordship came in and knew I think of it it was not that unlike your lordship's own word Lord Sandy broke into a loud laugh he could enjoy a joke against himself when it came from a woman and was founded on such a trifle as a personal vice I think I'll go to bed he said when his laugh was over I believe it's the only safe place from your tongue Miss Napier Let he cried Miss Napier fester candle and show his lordship to the red room till Miss Let he appeared the Baron sat and stretched himself he then rose and followed her into the artsway and up an outside stair to a door which opened immediately upon a handsome old-fashioned room where a blazing fire lighted up the red hangings Miss Let he sat down the candle and bidding his lordship good night turned and left the room shutting the door knocking it behind her a proceeding of which his lordship took no notice for however especially suitable it might be in his case it was only from whatever ancient source derived the custom of the house in regard to this particular room and corresponding chamber on the opposite side of the archway meantime the consternation amongst the members of the club was not so great as not to be talked over or to prevent the call for whiskey and hot water all but McGregor however regretted what had occurred he was so elevated with his victory in a sense of courage and prowess that he became more and more facetious and overbearing it's all very well for you Mr. McGregor said the Domini with dignity you have nothing to lose troth he cannot break the bank Mr. Tamsen he may give me a hint to make you withdraw your money though Mr. a terrible care given I do return the weaver I can make better of it on a day but there's your hoose in Kale Yard suggested petty there my own all's my own he cannot lay a finger on anything of mine but my servant last tried the weaver slapping his thigh bone for there was little else to slap Meg at the moment was taking her exit glance she went straight to Miss Napier Willie McGregor's had enough mem and a drapeur Sen Kamaldun to Mrs. McGregor to say with my compliments that she would do well to send for him was the response meantime he grew more than troublesome ever on the outlook when sober after the foibles of others he laid himself open to endless ridicule when a drink which to tell the truth was a rare occurrence he was in the midst of a prophetic denunciation of devices of the nobility especially Lord Rothy when Meg entering the room went quietly beyond his chair and whispered Master McGregor there's a lass he come for you I'm now in he answered magnificently but it's the mistress that sent for you somebody's wanting you somebody might want me then I was saying Mr. Chairman and gentlemen Mr. McGregor will be after you herself giving you need not go on let her come do you think I'm flighted her that will stop I'm gone till I please tell her that Meg Meg left the room with the broad grin on her good-humored face what's that fool laughing at exclaimed McGregor starting to his feet the whole company rose likewise using their endeavor to persuade him to go home do you think I'm drunk sirs I'll let you can I'm no drunk I have a will of my own yet my go on home with the lassie to hold me with the gutters giving you dart to a loo that I'm drunk you can who you'll fare for devil of fit I'll go on out of this till I have another tumbler I'm thinking there's more of just want one more said petty a confirmatory murmur rose as each looked into the bottom of his tumbler and the bell was instantly wrong but it only brought Meg back with the message that it was time for them all to go every I turned upon McGregor reproachfully you need not look at me that gate sirs I'm no fall said he no nobody takes you to be answered the chairman there's nobody had or muckle yet and two or three of us has not had freely enough just go on and fess a much can mare and there'll be a shilling of it to your lass Meg retired but straight away returned Miss Napier says there's no a drop more drink to be had in this who's the night here Maggie said the chairman there's your shilling and you'll just go on to Miss Letty and give her my compliments and say that Mr. Lambie's here and we have not seen him for a long time and the rest was spoken in a whisper I'll swear to you Maggie the waiver body so not have any drop of it Meg withdrew once more and returned Miss Letty's compliments sir Miss Napier has the keys and she's gone to her bed and we now not disturb her and it's time at all honest folk was in their beds too and given Mr. Lambie wants a bed in the house he mount go on to it and here's his candle good night to you all gentlemen so saying Meg set the lighted candle on the sideboard and finally vanished the good tempered who formed the greater part of the company smiled to each other and the glass drops of their toddy first into their glasses and thence into their mouths the ill tempered numbering but one more than McGregor growled and swore a little the latter declaring that he would not go home but the rest walked out and left him and at last appalled by the silence he rose with his wig or eye and trotted he always trotted when he was tipsy home to his wife and book one chapter five chapter six of Robert Falconer by George McDonald this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Robert Falconer by George McDonald Chapter six Mrs. Falconer meantime Robert was seated in the parlor at the little dark mahogany table in which the lamp shaded towards his grandmother's side shown brilliantly reflected her face being thus hidden both by the light and the shadow he could not observe the keen look of stern benevolence with which knowing that he could not see her she regarded him as he ate a stick-out cake of Betty's skilled manufacture well loaded with the sweetest butter and drank the tea which she had poured out and sugared for him with liberal hand it was a comfortable little room though it's inlaid mahogany chairs and ancient sofa covered with horse hair had a certain look of hardness no doubt a shepherdess and lamb worked in silks whose brilliance had now faded halfway to neutrality hung in a black frame with brass rosettes at the corners over the chimney-piece the sole approach to the luxury of art in the homely little place besides the muslin stretched across the lower part of the window it was undefended by curtains there was no cat in the room nor was there one in the kitchen even for Mrs. Falconer had such a respect for humanity that she grudged every morsel consumed by the lower creation she sat in one of the armchairs belonging to the hairy set leaning back in contemplation of her grandson as she took her tea she was a handsome old lady little but had once been taller for she was more than seventy now she wore a plain cap of muslin lying close to her face and bordered a little way from the edge with a broad black ribbon which went round her face and then turning at right angles went round the back of her neck her gray hair peeped a little way from under this cap a clear but short-sighted eye of a light hazel shown under a smooth thoughtful forehead straight and well elevated but rather short nose which left the firm upper lip long incapable of expressing a world of dignified offence rose over a well-formed mouth revealing more moral than temperamental sweetness while the chin was rather deficient than otherwise and took little share in indicating the remarkable character possessed by the old lady after gazing at Robert for some time she took a piece of oat cake from a plate by her side the only luxury in which she indulged for it was made with cream instead of water it was very little she ate of anything and held it out to Robert in a hand white soft and smooth but with square fingertips and squat though pearly nails have Robert she said and Robert received it with a thank you granny but when he thought she did not see him slipped it under the table and into his pocket she saw him well enough however and although she would not condescend to ask him why he put it away instead of eating it the endeavour to discover what could have been his reason for so doing cost her two hours of sleep that night she would always be at the bottom of a thing if reflection could reach it but she generally declined taking the most ordinary measures to expedite the process when Robert had finished his tea instead of rising to get his books and but take himself to his lessons in regard to which his grandmother had seldom any cause to complain although she would have considered herself guilty of high treason against the boy's future if she had allowed herself once to acknowledge as much he drew his chair toward the fire and said grandmama he's going to tell me something said mrs. falconer to herself will it be a boot the poor barefoot creature they call chargar or will it be a boot the piece he put into his pooch we are laddie she said aloud willing to encourage him is it true that my grandfather was the blind piper of pork cloddy aye laddie true enough hoots now nay your grandfather but your grandfather's laddie my husband's father who came that to boot well you see he was boot in the 45 and after the baddie of culloden he had to run for it he was not with his own clan at the battle for his father had brought him to the law lands when he was a lad but he played the pipes till a regiment raised by the lad of pork cloddy and for weeks he had to hide among the rocks and they took all his property from him was not muckl a weenhorses and a caleyard or tois with a bit farmy on the tap of a cold hill near the seashore but it was enough and despair and when they took it from him he had nothing left in the world but his sons your grandfather was born the very day of the battle and the very day at the news came the mother died but your great grandfather was not long where he married another wife he was such a man as only woman might have been proved to marry she was the daughter of an apiscopalian minister and she keep it a school in pork cloddy I saw him first myself when I was about twenty that was just the year of four I was married he was a considerably old man then but a strut and his L wand and just poor full beyond belief his wrist was as thick as both mine and years and years after that when he took his son my husband and his grandson my Andrew what else he granny what for did not you go on with the story after a somewhat lengthen missus falconer resumed as if she had not stopped at all and in Il Cahan just for the fun of it he kneaped at their heads together as given they had been two stocks of ribgrass but maybe it was the lofin of the two lads for they thought it uncle fun they were most killed with laughing but the last time he did it the poor old man coughed sore afterhine and had to gone and leave doing he did not live long after that but it was not that it killed him you can but who came he to play the pipes he like it the pipes and your grandfather he took to the fiddle but what for did they call him the blind piper of poor claudy because he turned blind long before his end came and there was nothing other he could do and he would I make an honest bow be when he could for silver was fell scarce at that time of day among the falconers so he go'd through the tune at five o'clock il come on and playing his pipes to let them at were up can they were up in time and them at were not that it was time to rise and signey played them again a but ought o'clock and neat to let them can at it was time for dais and folk to go on to their beds you see there was not say money clocks and watches by half then as there is no was he a good piper granny before spare you that because I told that sunk Lumley called anybody names Robert but what right had you to be speaking to a man like that he spake to me first where saw you him at the boar's head and what right had you to go on stand in a boot you ought to have gone in at once there was a half dozen of folks stand in a boot and I behooved to spake when I was spoken to but you boot and not stop and make a fool more it's not that calling names granny teed laddie I do it you have me there but what said that fellow Lumley to you he cast up to me that my grandfather was nothing but the blind piper and what said ye I dart him to say it he did not pipe well well done laddie and you might say it with a good conscience for he would not have been piper till his regiment at the battle of Culloden given he had not pipe it well yawns his kilt hanging up in the press in the garret you'll have to grow Robert my man before you fill that and was was that blue coat with the Bonnie gout boltons upon it asked robert who thought he had discovered a new approach to an impregnable hold which he would gladly storm if he could let the coat sit what has that to do with the kilt a blue coat and a tartan kilt go on no well together except in an old press where nobody sees them you would not care granny would you given I was to cut off the Bonnie buttons to not lay a finger upon them you would be gone playing at pitch and toss or others such ploys with them nay nay let them sit I would only exchange them for marbles a dary to touch the coat or anything other that's in that press well well granny I was go on and get my lessons for the morn it's time laddie you have been jabbering or muckle tell Betty to come and take away the Tay things Robert went to the kitchen got a couple of hot potatoes and a candle and carried them upstairs to Shargar who was fast asleep but the moment the light shone upon his face he started up with his eyes if not his senses wide awake it was not me mother I tell you it was not me and he covered his head with both arms as if to defend it from a shower of blows hold your tongue Shargar it's me but before Shargar could come to his senses the light of the candle falling upon the blue coat made the buttons flash confused suspicions into his mind mother mother he said you have gone or far this time there's our money of them and there no the safe collar will be both hang it as sure as there's a devil in hell as he said thus he went on trying to pick the buttons from the coat taking them for sovereigns though how he could have seen a sovereign at this time in Scotland I can only conjecture but Robert caught him by the shoulders and shook him awake with no gentle hands upon which he began to rub his eyes and mother sleepily is that you Bob? I have been dreaming I do it given you did not learn to dream quieter you'll get you and me to in more trouble nor I care to have a boat ye you rascal hold your tongue of ye and eat this potato given you want anything more and here's a bit of Remy cakes to ye you will not get that in the Elka house in the Toon it's my granny's a special Robert felt relieved after this for he had eaten all the cakes Miss Napier had given him and had had a pain in his conscience ever since who got ye a hold of it as Shargar evidently supposing he had stolen it she gives me a bit of noon then and ye did not eat it yourself and Bob Shargar was somewhat overpowered at this fresh proof of Robert's friendship but Robert was still more ashamed of what he had not done he took the blue coat carefully from the bed and hung it in its place again satisfied now from the way his granny had spoken or rather declined to speak about it that it had belonged to his father it might arise as Shargar not understanding the action Nan Nan lie still ye'll be warming off wanting the sovereigns I'll let ye in the morning before granny's up and ye mount make the best of it after that till it's dark again we'll set the lebutate at the school the morn only we mount be circumspect ye can ye could not lay your hands upon a drop of whiskey could ye Bob Robert stared in horror a boy like that asking for whiskey and in his grandmother's house too Shargar he said solemnly there's no a drop of whiskey in this hoose it's awful to hear ye mention such a thing my granny would smell the very name of it a mile away I'd do it that's her fit upon the stair already Robert crept to the door and Shargar sat staring with horror his eyes looking from the gloom of the bed like those of a half strangled dog but it was a false alarm as Robert presently returned to the house given to every ye so muckl as mentioned whiskey again no to say drink a drop of it you and me part company and that I tell you Shargar said he emphatically I'll never look at it I'll never mint at dreaming of it answered Shargar currently given she puts it into my mouth I'll spit it out but given ye strive with me Bob I'll cut my throat I will all this time saved during the alarm of Mrs. Falconer's approach when he sat with a mouth full of hot potato unable to move his jaws for terror and the remnant arrested halfway in its progress from his mouth after the bite all this time Shargar had been devouring the provisions Robert had brought him as if he had not seen food that day as soon as they were finished he begged for a drink of water which Robert managed to procure for him he then left him for the night for his longer absence might have brought his grandmother after him who had perhaps only two good reasons for being doubtful if not suspicious about boys in general though certainly not about Robert in particular he carried with him his books from the other Garrett room where he kept them and sat down at the table by his grandmother preparing his Latin in geography by her lamp while she sat knitting at white stocking with fingers as rapid as thought never looking at her work but staring into the fire and seen visions there which Robert would have given everything he could call his own to see and then would have given his life to blot out of the world if he had seen them quietly the evening passed by the peaceful lamp and the cheerful fire with the Latin on the one side of the table and the stockings on the other as if ripe and purified old age and hopeful unstained youth had been the only extremes of humanity known to the world but the bitter wind was howling by fits in the chimney and the offspring of a nobleman in Egypt lay asleep in the Garrett covered with the cloak of an old Highland Rebel at nine o'clock Mrs. Faulkner rang the bell for Betty and they had worship Robert read a chapter and his grandmother prayed an extempore prayer in which they that looked at the wine when it is read in the cup and they that worshiped the woman clothed in scarlet and seated upon the seven hills came in for a strange mixture in which the vengeance yielded only to the pity Lord lead them to see the air of their ways she cried that the rod of thy wrath awake the worm of their conscience that they may know verily that there is a God that ruleth in the earth did not let them go on to hello Lord we beseech thee as soon as prayers were over Robert the tumbler of milk and some more oak cake and was sent to bed after which it was impossible for him to hold any further communication with Shargar for his grandmother little as one might suspect it who entered the parlor in the daytime always slept in that same room in a bed closed in with doors like those of a large press in the wall while Robert slept in a little closet looking into the garden at the back of the house the door of which opened from the parlor ahead of his grandmother's bed it was just large enough to hold a good sized bed with curtains a chest of drawers a bureau a large eight day clock and one chair leaving in the center about five feet square for him to move about in there was more room as well as more comfort in the bed he was never allowed a candle for light enough came through from the parlor his grandmother thought so he was soon extended between the walls of cold sheets with his knees up to his chin and his thoughts following his lost father over all spaces of the earth with which his geography book had made him acquainted he was in the habit of leaving his closet and creeping through his grandmother's room before she was awake or at least before she had given any signs to the small household that she was restored to consciousness and that the life of the house must proceed from the operating chargar from his prison except what arose from the boy's own unwillingness to forsake his comfortable quarters for the fierce encounter of the January blast which awaited him but Robert did not turn him out before the last moment of safety had arrived for by the aid of signs known to himself he watched the progress of his grandmother's dressing an operation which did not consume much of the morning scrupulous as she was with regard to neatness and cleanliness until Betty was called in to give her careful assistance to the final disposition of the bed when Chargar's exit could be delayed no longer then he mounted to the foot of the second stair and called in a keen whisper knew Chargar cut for the life of he and down came the poor fellow with long gliding steps ragged and reluctant and without a word or a look launched himself out into the cold and sped away he knew not with her as he left the door the only suspicion of light was the dull and doubtful shimmer of the snow that covered the street keen particles of which were blown in his face by the wind which having been up all night had grown very cold and seemed delighted to find one unprotected human being whom it might badger at its own bitter will outcast Chargar where he spent the interval between Mrs. Falconer's door and that of the school I do not know there was a report amongst his school fellows that he had been found by Scroggie the fish-cager lying at full length upon the back of his old horse which either from compassion or indifference had not cared to rise up under the burden they said likewise that when accused by Scroggie of house-breaking though nothing had to be broken to get in only a string with the peculiar knot on the invention of which the catcher prided himself to be and all that Chargar had to say in his self-defense was that he had a terrible sore wound and that the horse was warmer nor the stance in the yard and he had done him no ill and even drawn a hair from his tail which would have been a difficult feat seeing the horse's tail was as bare as his hoof and Chapter 6 Book 1 Chapter 7 Robert Falconer by George McDonald This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Robert Falconer by George McDonald Chapter 7 Robert to the Rescue that Chargar was a parish scholar which means that the parish paid his fees although indeed they were hardly worth paying made very little difference to his portion amongst his school fellows nor did the fact of his being ragged and dirty affect his social reception to his discomfort but the accumulated facts of the oddity of his personal appearance his supposed imbecility and the bad character born by his mother placed him in a very unenviable relation to the tyrannical and vulgar minded amongst them concerning his person he was long and as his name implied lean with pale red hair reddish eyes no visible eyebrows or eyelashes and very pale face in fact he was halfway to an albino his arms and legs seemed of equal length both exceedingly long the handsomeness of his mother appeared only in his nose and mouth which were regular and good though expressionless and the birth of his father only in his small delicate hands and feet of which any girl who cared only did neither character nor strength might have been proud his feet however were supposed to be enormous from the difficulty with which he dragged after him the huge shoes in which in winter they were generally encased the imbecility like the large feet was only imputed he certainly was not brilliant but neither did he make a fool of himself in any of the few branches of learning of which the periscolor came in for a share which gained him the imputation was the fact that his nature was without a particle of the aggressive and all its defensive of a purely negative a character as was possible had he been a dog he would never have thought of doing anything for his own protection beyond turning up his forelegs in silent appeal to the mercy of the heavens he was an absolute self-occur in the swallowing of oppression and ill usage there was no mist in him there was no echo of complaint no murmur of resentment from the hollows of that soul the blows that fell upon him resounded not and no one but God remembered them his mother made her living as she herself best knew with occasional well-begrud's assistance from the parish her chief resource was no doubt begging from house to house for the handful of oatmeal which was the recognized and the legalized all upon which every beggar had a claim and if she picked up at the same time a chicken or a boy's rabbit or any other stray luxury she was only following the general rule of society that your first duty is to take care of yourself she was generally regarded as a gypsy but I doubt if she had any gypsy blood in her veins she was simply a tramper with occasional fits of localization her worst fault was the way she treated her son whom she starved apparently that she might continue able to beat him the particular occasion which led to the recognition of the growing relation between Robert and Shargar was the following upon a certain Saturday some sidereal power inimical to the boys must have been in the ascendant a Saturday of brilliant but intermittent sunshine the white clouds seen from the school windows indicating by the rapid transit across those fields of vision that fresh breezes friendly to kites or drag-ons as they were called at the rostadin were frolicking in the upper regions nearly a dozen boys were kept in for not being able to pay down from memory the usual installment of shorter catechism always do with the close of the week amongst these boys were Robert and Shargar sky revealing windows and locked door were too painful and in proportion as the feeling of having nothing to do increased the more uneasy did the active element in the boys become and the more ready to break out into some abnormal manifestation everything sun, wind, clouds was busy out of doors and calling to them to come and join the fun and activity at the same moment excited and restrained naturally turns to mischief most of them had already learned the obnoxious task one quarter of an hour was enough for that and now what should they do next the eyes of three or four of the eldest of them fell simultaneously upon Shargar Robert was sitting plunged in one of his daydreams for he too had learned his catechism when he was roused from his reverie by question from a pale-faced little boy who looked up to him as a great authority what force is it called the shorter chasikidum, bob because it's no fully so long as the bible answered Robert without giving the question the consideration due to it and was proceeding to turn the matter over in his mind when the mental process was arrested by a shot of laughter the other boys had tied Shargar's feet to the desk at which he sat likewise his hands at full stretch then having attached about a dozen strings to as many alphlocks of his pale red hair which was never cut or trimmed had tied them to various pegs in the wall behind him so that the poor fellow could not stir they were now crushing up pieces of waste paper not a few leaves of stray school books being regarded in that light into bullets dipping them in ink and aiming them at Shargar's face for sometimes Shargar did not utter a word and Robert although somewhat indignant at the treatment he was receiving felt as yet no impulse to interfere for success was doubtful but indeed he was not very easily roused to action of any kind for he was as yet mostly in the larva condition of character when everything is transacted inside but the fun grew more furious and spot after spot of ink bloomed upon Shargar's white face still Robert took no notice for they did not seem to be hurting him much but when he saw the tears stealing down the patient cheeks making channels through the ink which now nearly covered them he could bear it no longer he took out his knife and under pretence of joining in the sport drew near to Shargar and with rapid hand cut the cords all but those that bound his feet which were less easy to reach without exposing himself defenseless boys of course turned upon Robert but ere they came to more than abusive words and took place Mrs. Innis the school master's wife a stout kind-hearted woman the fine condition of whose temperament was clearly the result of her physical prosperity appeared at the door which led to the dwelling house above bearing in her hands a huge Turian of potato soup for her motherly heart could not longer endure the thought of dinnerless boys her husband being engaged at a Paris meeting she had a chance of interfering with success but ere Nancy the servant could follow with the spoons and plates Wadi Morrison had taken the Turian and out of spite at Robert had emptied its contents on the head of Shargar who was still tied by the feet with the words Shargar I anoint thee king over us and here is thy crown giving the Turian as he said so a push onto his head where it remained Shargar did not move and for one moment could not speak but the next he gave a shriek that made Robert think he was far worse scalded than turned out to be the case he darted to him and rage took the Turian from his head and his blood being fairly up now flung it with all his force at Morrison and felled him to the earth at the same moment the master entered by the street door and his wife by the house door which was directly opposite in the middle of the room the prisoners surrounded the fallen tyrant Robert with the red face of Wrath and Shargar with the complexion that mingled result of tears ink and soup which latter clothed him from head to foot beside standing on the outskirts of the group I did not follow the story further both Robert and Morrison got a lichen and if Mr. Ennis had been like some school masters of those times Shargar would not have escaped his share of the evil things going from that day Robert assumed the acknowledged position of Shargar's defender and if there was pride in a sense of propriety mingled with his advocacy of Shargar's rights nay even if the relation was not altogether free from some amount of show off on Robert's part I cannot yet help thinking that it had its share in that development of the character of Falconer which has chiefly attracted me to the office of his biographer there may have been in it the exercise of some patronage probably it was not pure from the pride of beneficence but at least it was a loving patronage and a vigorous beneficence and under the reaction of these the good which in Robert's nature was as yet only in a state of solution began to crystallize into character but the effect of the new relation was far more remarkable on Shargar as incapable of self defense as ever he was yet in a moment roused to fury by any attack upon the person or the dignity of Robert so that indeed it became a new and favorite mode of teasing Shargar to heap abuse real or pretended upon his friend from the day when Robert thus espoused his part Shargar was Robert's dog that very evening when she went to take a parting peep at the external before locking the door for the night looking upon the doorstep only however to send him off as she described it with a flea in his ear for the character of the mother was always associated with the boy and avenged upon him I must however allow that those delicate dirty fingers of his could not with safety be warranted from occasional picking and stealing at this period of my story Robert himself was rather a grotesque looking animal very tall and lanky long arms which excess of length they retained after he was full grown in this respect Shargar and he were alike but the long legs of Shargar were unmatched in Robert for at this time his body was peculiarly long he had large black eyes deep sunk even then and a Roman nose the size of which in a boy of his years looked portentious for the rest he was dark complexioned with dark hair destined to grow darker still with hands and feet well modeled but which would have made four feet and four hands such as Shargar's when his mind was not oppressed with the consideration of any important metaphysical question he learned his lessons well when such was present the Latin grammar with all its attendance servilities was driven from the presence of the lordly need that once satisfied in spite of pandies and imprisonments he returned with fresh zest and indeed with some ephemeral order to the rules of syntax or prosody though the latter in the mode in which it was then in their taught was almost as useless as the task set himself by worthy lay preacher in the neighborhood of learning the first nine chapters of the book of chronicles in atonement for having in an evil hour of freedom of spirit ventured to suggest that such lists of names even although forming a portion of the holy writ could scarcely be reckoned of equally divine authority with saint paul's epistle to the romans and chapter seven