 CHAPTER VIII. THE ANGEL UNAWARES Although Betty seemed to hold little communication with the outer world, she yet contrived somehow or other to bring home what gossip was going to the ears of her mistress, who had very few visitors. For while her neighbors held Mrs. Falconer in great and evident respect, she was not the sort of person to sit down and have a news with. There was a certain sedate, self-contained dignity about her, which the common mind felt to be chilling and repellent. And from any gossip of a personal nature, what Betty brought her always accepted, she would turn away generally with the words, Hoots, I cannot bide clashes. On the evening following that of Shargar's introduction to Mrs. Falconer's home, Betty came home from the butchers, for it was Saturday night and she had gone to fetch the beef for their Sunday's broth, with the news that the people next door, that is, round the corner in the next street, had a visitor. The house in question had been built by Robert's father, and was compared with Mrs. Falconer's one-story house, large and handsome. Robert had been born and had spent a few years of his life in it, but could recall nothing of the facets of those early days. Sometime before the period at which my history commences, it had passed into other hands and it was now quite strange to him. It had been bought by a retired naval officer who lived in it with his wife, the only English woman in the place, until the arrival at the boar's head of the ladies so much admired by Duble Sanny. Robert was upstairs when Betty emptied her news bag and so heard nothing of this bit of gossip. He had just assured Shargar that as soon as his grandmother was asleep, he would look about for what he could find and carry it up to him in the garret. As yet he had confined the expenditure out of Shargar's shilling to two pens. The household always retired early, earlier on Saturday night in preparation for the Sabbath, and by ten o'clock Granny and Betty were in bed. Robert indeed was in bed, too, but he had laid down in his clothes, waiting for such time as might afford reasonable hope of his grandmother being asleep, when he might both ease Shargar's hunger and get to sleep himself. Several times he got up, resolved to make his attempt, but as often his courage failed and he lay down again, sure that Granny could not be asleep yet. When the clock beside him struck eleven, he could bear it no longer and finally rose to do his endeavor. Opening the door of the closet slowly and softly he crept upon his hands and knees into the middle of the parlor, feeling very much like a thief, as indeed in a measure he was, though from a blameless motive. But just as he had accomplished half the distance to the door, he was arrested and fixed with terror, for a deep sigh came from Granny's bed, followed by the voice of words. He thought at first that she had heard him, but he soon found that he was mistaken. Still the fear of discovery held him there on all fours like a chained animal. A dull red gleam, faint and dull from the embers of the fire, was the sole light in the room. Being so calm into his eyes and the daylight seemed now strange and eerie in the dying coals, and at what was, to the boy, the unearthly hour of the night. He felt that he ought not to listen to Granny, but terror made him unable to move. "'Achon, achon,' said Granny from the bed, "'of a sore, sore heart, of a sore heart in my breast, oh Lord, thou knowest, my own Andrew, to think of my barony that I carryest, and look in that my face, to think of him being a reprobate, oh Lord, could not he be like it yet? Is there any turning of thy decrees, nay-nay, that would not do at all? But while there's life, there's hope. But what can's whether he be alive or no? Nobody can tell. Gladly would I look upon his dead face, given I could believe that his soul was not among the lost, but to ask the torments of that place, and the rook that gangs up forever and ever smothering the stars, and my Andrew, doing in the heart of it, crying, and me no able to wintle him, oh Lord, I cannot say that I will be done. But did not lay it to my charge, for giving ye was a mother yourself, ye would not put him there. Oh Lord, I'm very ill-fashioned, I beg your pardon. I'm near out of my mind, forgive me, oh Lord, for I hardly can what I'm saying. He was my own babe, my own Andrew, and ye gave him to me yourself, and knew he's for the finger of scorn to pint at, and who cast, and a warner from his own country, and dare not come within sight of it, for them it would take the law of him. And it's all drink, drink and ill company. He would have done well enough, given they would only have Latin him be. But for mount men be I drink-drinking at something or other. I never want it, eh, given I were as young as when he was born, I would be up and away this very night to look for him. But it's no use me trying it, oh God, once more I pray thee to turn him from the error of his ways, before he goes hence and is now more. And oh, did not let Robert go on after him, as he's lacking of to-do, give me grace to hold him tight, that he may be to the praise of thy glory for ever and ever, amen. Whether it was that the weary woman here fell asleep, or that she was too exhausted for further speech, Robert heard no more, though he remained there frozen with horror for some minutes after his grandmother had ceased. This then was the reason why she would never speak about his father. She kept all her thoughts about him for the silence of the night, and loneliness with the God who never sleeps, but watches the wicked all through the dark. And his father was one of the wicked, and God was against him, and when he died he would go to hell. But he was not dead yet, Robert was sure of that. And when he grew a man he would go and seek him, and beg him on his knees to repent and come back to God, who would forgive him then and take him to heaven when he died. From there he would be good, and good people would love him. Something like this passed through the boy's mind there he moved to creep from the room, for his was one of those natures which are active in the generation of hope. He had almost forgotten what he came there for, and had it not been that he had promised Shargar he would have crept back to his bed and left him to bear his hunger as best he could. But now first his right hand, then his left knee, like any other quadruped, he crawled to the door, rose only to his knees to open it, took almost a minute to the operation, then dropped and crawled again, till he had passed out, turned, and drawn the door to, leaving it slightly ajar. Then it struck him awfully that the same terrible passage must be gone through again. But he rose to his feet, for he had no shoes on, and there was little danger of making any noise, although it was pitch dark. He knew the house so well. With gathering courage he felt his way to the kitchen, and there groped about. But he could find nothing beyond a few quarters of oak-cake, which, with a mug of water he proceeded to carry up to Shargar in the garret. When he reached the kitchen door he was struck with amazement, and for a moment with fresh fear. A light was shining into the trance from the stair which went up at right angles from the end of it. He knew it could not be granny, and he heard Betty snoring in her own den, which opened from the kitchen. He thought it must be Shargar who had grown impatient, but how he got hold of a light he could not think. As soon as he turned the corner, however, the doubt was changed into mystery. At the top of the broad, low stair stood a woman form, with a candle in her hand gazing about her as if wondering which way to go. The light fell full upon her face, the beauty of which was such that with her dress, which was white, being in fact a night gown, and her hair which was hanging loose about her shoulders and down to her waist, it led Robert at once to the conclusion, his reasoning faculties already shaking by the events of the night, that she was an angel come down to comfort his granny, and he kneeled involuntarily at the foot of the stair and gazed up at her, with the cakes in one hand, and the mug of water in the other, like a meat and drink offering. Whether he had closed his eyes or bowed his head, he could not say. But he became suddenly aware that the angel had vanished. He knew not when, how, or wither. This for a time confirmed his assurance that it was an angel, and although he was undeceived before long, the impression made upon him that night was never afaced. But indeed whatever Falconer heard or saw was something more to him than it would have been to anybody else. Alated, though awed by the vision, he felt his way up the stair in the new darkness, as if walking in a holy dream, trod as if upon sacred ground as he crossed the landing where the angel had stood, went up and up and found Chargar wide awake with expectant hunger. He too had caught a glimmer of light, but Robert did not tell him what he had seen. That was too sacred a subject to enter upon with Chargar, and he was intent enough upon his supper not to be inquisitive. Robert left him to finish it at his leisure, and returned to cross his grandmother's room once more, half expecting to find the angel standing by her bedside. But all was dark and still. Creeping back as he had come, he heard her quiet, though a deep breathing, and his mind was at ease about her for the night. What if the angel he had surprised had only come to appear to Granny in her sleep? Why not? There were such stories in the Bible, and Granny was certainly as good as some of the people in the Bible that saw angels, Sarah, for instance. And if the angels came to see Granny, why should they not have some care over his father as well? It might be, who could tell. It is perhaps necessary to explain Robert's vision. The angel was the owner of the boxes he had seen at the boar's head. Looking around her room before going to bed, she had seen a trap in the floor near the wall, and raising it had discovered a few steps of a stair leading down to a door. Curiosity naturally led her to examine it. The key was in the lock. It opened outwards, and there she found herself to her surprise in the heart of another dwelling, of lowlier aspect. She never saw Robert. For while he approached, with shoeless feet, she had been glancing through the open door of the gable room, and when he knelt the light which she held in her hand had, I presume, hidden him from her. He on his part had not observed that the moveless door stood open at last. I have already said that the house adjoining had been built by Robert's father. The lady's room was that which he had occupied with his wife, and in it Robert had been born. The door, with its trap-stairs, was a natural invention for uniting the levels of the two houses, and a desirable one in not a few of the forms which the weather assumed in that region. When the larger house passed into other hands, it had never entered the minds of the simple people who occupied the contiguous dwelling to build up the doorway between. CHAPTER IX The friendship of Robert had gained Chargar the favorable notice of others of the school public. These were chiefly of those who came from the country, ready to follow an example, set them by a town boy. When his desertion was known, moved both by their compassion for him and their respect for Robert, they began to give him some portion of the dinner they brought with them, and never in his life had Chargar fared so well as for the first week after he had been cast upon the world. But in proportion as their interest faded with the novelty, so their appetites reasserted former claims of use and want, and Chargar began once more to feel the pangs of hunger. For all that Robert could manage to procure for him, without attracting the attention he was so anxious to avoid, was little more than sufficient to keep his hunger alive, Chargar being gifted with a great appetite, and Robert having no allowance of pocket money from his grandmother. The three pence he had been able to spend on him were what remained of six pence Mr. Innes had given him for an exercise, which he wrote in blank verse instead of in prose, an achievement of which the schoolmaster was proud, both from his reverence for Milton and from his inability to compose a metrical line himself, and how and when he should ever possess another penny was even unimaginable. Chargar's shilling was likewise spent, so Robert could but go on pocketing instead of eating all that he dared, watching anxiously for opportunity of evading the eyes of his grandmother. On her dimness of sight, however, he depended too confidently after all. For either she was not so blind as he thought she was, or she made up for the defect of her vision by the keenness of her observation. She saw enough to cause her considerable annoyance, though it suggested nothing inconsistent with rectitude on the part of the boy, further than that there was something underhand going on. One supposition after another arose in the old lady's brain, and one after another was dismissed as improbable. First she tried to persuade herself that he wanted to take the provisions to school with him and eat them there, a proceeding of which he certainly did not approve, but for the reproof of which she was unwilling to betray the loopholes of her eyes. Next she concluded for half a day that he must have a pair of rabbits hidden away in some nook or other, possibly in the little strip of garden belonging to the house, and so conjecture followed conjecture for a whole week, during which strange to say not even Betty knew that Shargar slept in the house. For so careful and watchful were the two boys that although she could not help suspecting something from the expression and behavior of Robert, what that something might be she could not imagine, nor had she and her mistress as yet exchanged confidences on the subject. Her observation coincided with that of her mistress as to the disappearance of odds and ends of eatables, potatoes, cold porridge, bits of oat cake, and even on one occasion when Shargar happened to be especially ravenous, a yellow or cured and half dried haddock, which the lad devoured raw, vanished from her domain. He went to school in the morning smelling so strong in consequence that they told him he must have been passing the night in Skroggy's cart, and not on his horse's back this time. The boys kept their secret well. One evening towards the end of the week Robert, after seeing Shargar disposed of for the night, proceeded to carry out a project which had grown in his brain within the last two days, in consequence of an occurrence with which his relation to Shargar had had something to do. It was this. The housing of Shargar and the Garrett had led Robert to make a close acquaintance with the place. He was familiar with all the odds and ends of the little room which he considered his own. For that was a civilized, being a plastered sealed, and comparatively well-lighted little room, but not with the other, which was three times its size, very badly lighted, and showing the naked couples from the roof tree to floor. Besides, it contained no end of dark corners, with which his childless imagination had associated undefined whores, assuming now one shape, now another. Also, there were several closets in it, constructed in the angles of the place, and several chests, two of which he had ventured to peep into. But although he had found them filled, not with bones as he had expected, but one with papers and one with garments, he had yet dared to carry his researches no farther. One evening, however, when Betty was out, and he had got hold of a candle and gone up to keep Shargar company for a few minutes, a sudden impulse seized him to have a peep into all the closets. One of them he knew a little about as containing amongst other things his father's coat with the guilt buttons, and his great grandfather's kilt, as well as other garments useful to Shargar. Now he would see what was in the rest. He did not find anything very interesting, however, till he arrived at the last. Out of it he drew a long, queer-shaped box into the light of Betty's dip. Look here, Shargar, he said under his breath, for they never dared to speak aloud in these precincts. Look here. What can there be in this box? Is it a bernie's coffin that you think? Look at it. In this case, Shargar, having roamed the country a good deal more than Robert, and having been present at some merry-makings with his mother, of which there were comparatively few in that countryside, was better informed than his friend. Hey, Bob, did not you can what that is? I thought you can't all thing. That's a fiddle. That's stuff and nonsense, Shargar. Do you think I did not can a fiddle when I see on? Stuff and nonsense you sell, cried Shargar, an indignation from the bed. Give us a hold of it. Robert handed in the case. Shargar undid the hooks in a moment and revealed the creature lying in its shell like a boiled bivalve. I tell you so, he exclaimed triumphantly, maybe you'll trust me next time. I tell to you, retorted Robert, with an equivocation altogether unworthy of his growing honesty. I was sure that could not be a fiddle. There's the fiddle in the heart of it, Losh, my mind knew. It might be my grandfather's fiddle, as I have heard tell of. Not to know a fiddle case reflected Shargar with as much of contempt as it was possible for him to show. I tell you what, Shargar returned Robert indignantly. You may know the box of a fiddle better nor I do, but devil have me given I do not know the fiddle itself rather better nor ye do in a fortnight from this time. I take it to double sanny, and he can play the fiddle fine, and I'll play it too, or the devil's being it. Hey, man, that'll be great, cried Shargar, incapable of jealousy. We can go on to make all the markets together and gather halfpence. To this anticipation, Robert returned no reply. For hearing Betty come in, he judged it time to restore the violin to its case, and Betty's candle to the kitchen lest she should invade the upper regions in search of it. But that very night he managed to have an interview with doble sanny, the shoemaker, and it was arranged between them that Robert should bring his violin on the evening at which my story has now arrived. Whatever motive he had for seeking to commence the study of music, it holds even in more important matters that, if the thing pursued be good, there is a hope of the pursuit purifying the motive. And Robert no sooner heard the fiddle utter a few mournful sounds in the hands of the shoemaker, who was no contemptible performer, than he longed to establish such a relation between himself and the strange instrument, that, dumb and deaf as it had been to him hitherto, it would respond to his touch also, and tell him the secrets of its queerly twisted skull, full of sweet sounds instead of brains. From that moment he would be a musician for music's own sake, and forget utterly what had appeared to him, though I doubt if it was the sole motive of his desire to learn, namely the necessity of retaining his superiority over Shargar. What added considerably to the excitement of his feelings on the occasion was the expression of reverence, almost of awe, with which the shoemaker took the instrument from its case, and the tenderness with which he handled it. The fact was that he had not had a violin in his hands for nearly a year, having been compelled upon his own in order to alleviate the sickness brought on his wife by his own ill treatment of her once that he had come home drunk from a wedding. It was strange to think that such dirty hands should be able to bring such sounds out of the instrument the moment he got it safely cuddled under his cheek. So dirty were they, that it was said, doble Sandy never required to carry any rosin with him for Fiddler's need, his own fingers having always enough upon them for one bow at least. Yet the points of those fingers never lost the delicacy of their touch. Some people thought this was in virtue of their being washed only once a week, a custom Alexander justified on the ground that, in a trade like his, it was of no use to wash oftener, for he would be just as dirty again before night. The moment he began to play, the face of the shoemaker grew ecstatic. He stopped at the very first note not withstanding, let fall his arms, the one with the bow, the other with the violin at his sides, and said with a deep drawn respiration and lengthened utterance, eh. Then after a pause during which he stood motionless, the crater-mount be a cry-monie, here till her, he added drawing another long note. Then after another pause she's a straddle various, at least, here till her, I never had such a combination of timour and cat-gut between my claws of four. As to its being a straddle various, or even a cry-monie at all, the testimony of Dubo Sanny was not worth much on the point, but the shoemaker's admiration roused in the boy's mind a reverence for the individual instrument which he never lost. From that day the two were friends. Suddenly the shoemaker started off at full speed in a straf-spe, which was soon lost in the wail of a Highland's psalm-tune, giving place to such a wife as Willie had, and on he went without pause till Robert dared not stop any longer. The fiddle had betwitched the fiddler. Come as often as you like, Robert, giving you fest the laddie with you, said the shoemaker. And he stroked the back of the violin tenderly with his open palm. But would ye have any objection to the let it lie aside ye, and let me come when I can? Objection, laddie! I would as soon object to let in my own wife lie aside me. I, said Robert, seized with some anxiety about the violin as he remembered the fate of the wife. But ye can, else spet comes off of the war sometimes. Soften by the proximity of the wonderful violin, and stung afresh by the boy's words, as his conscience had often stung him before. For he loved his wife dearly, save when the demon of drink possessed him. The tears rose in El Shender's eyes. He held out the violin to Robert, saying with unsteady voice, Ha! Take her away! I did not deserve to have such a thing in my hoose. But hear me, Robert, and let herein be believin'. I never was so drunk, but I could tune my fiddle. More by tokenance they found me lying on my back in the quarry, and the water they say was over all but the mound of me. But I was holding my fiddle up, a boon in my head, and the devil a spark of water upon her. It's a pity your wife was not your fiddle, then, Sandy, said Robert, with more presumption than wit. Deed, you're in the right there, Robert. Here, take your fiddle. Deed, no, return, Robert. I mount just trust to you, Sanders. I cannot bide longer than night, but maybe you'll tell me who to hold her the next time that I come, will ye? That I will, Robert, come when ye like, and, given ye come all on and could play this fiddle, as this fiddle deserves to be played, ye'll do me credit. Ye mind what that some flumbly said to me the other night, Sanders, about my grandfather? I will enough, a dissed drunken havers. It was true enough about my great grandfather, though. No, was it Raleigh? I, he was the best piper in the regiment at Culloden. Given they had a fountain as he piped it, there would have been another tale to tell. And he was toon piper for by, just like you, Sanders, after they took from him at all he had. Nah, heard ye ever the like of that? Well, what would have thought it, faith? Me mount have you fiddle as well as your looky daddy pipet. But here's the king of Baashan coming after his boots, and them no half done yet, exclaimed Double Sanny, settling in haste to his all. He'll be roaring more like a bull of the country than the king of it. As Robert departed, Peter Og came in, and as he passed the window he heard the shoemaker of a rain. I have not risen from my stool since on a clock, but there is a sight to be done to them, Mr. Og. Indeed, Alexander ab Alexander, as Mr. Innes facetiously styled him, was in more ways than one worthy of the name Double. There seemed to be two natures in the man, which all his music had not yet been able to blend. Book One, Chapter 10 of Robert Falconer by George McDonald. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Robert Falconer by George McDonald, Chapter 10. Another Discovery in the Garrett. Little did Robert dream of the reception that awaited him at home. Almost as soon as he had left the house, the following events began to take place. The mistress's bell rang, and Betty, God bend the host to see what she could be wanting, were upon a conversation ensued. What was that at the door, Betty? asked Mrs. Falconer. For Robert had not shut the door so carefully as he ought, seeing that the deafness of his grandmother was of much the same faculty as her blindness. Had Robert not had a hold of Betty by the forelock of her years, he would have been unable to steal any liberty at all. Still, Betty had a conscience, and although she would not offend Robert if she could help it, yet she would not lie. Indeed, ma'am, I cannot just distinctly say, and I heard the door, she answered. Where's Robert? was her next question. He's generally up the stairboat this over, ma'am. That is, when he's knowing the parlor at his lessons. What gangs he's so muckled up the stair for, Betty, do you can? It's something bi-ordinaire with him. Did I then, I can, ma'am. I never took it into my head to gone considering about it. He'll have some ploy of his on, nay doubt. Laddies will be laddies, you can, ma'am. I do it, Betty. You'll be aiding and abetting, and it does not become your years, Betty. My years are not to find fault with, ma'am. They're well enough. That's nothing to the paint, Betty. What's the laddie aboot? Do you mean, when he's gone up the stair, ma'am? I, you can wheel enough what I mean. Wheel, ma'am. I tell you, I did not can, and you never heard me tell you at least in ever I was in your service, ma'am. Nay, nay don't wreck it. You go on aboot it and aboot it, and at last he comes, say, nearly, and they're giving you spake another word, you would be at it, and it just frights me from sparing our other question at you. And that's who you went out of it, but know at its aboot my own grandson. I'm no going to lose him to save a woman of your years. What ought to know better, and say, I'll spare at you, though you should be driven to Lee like Sutton himself. What's he aboot when he's gone up the stairs? No. Well, it sure is death. I did not can. You drive me to swearing, ma'am, and no to lean. I care not. Have you no idea about it, then, Betty? Wheel, ma'am. I think sometimes he cannot be well, and mount have a fox in his stomach, or something of that nature, for what he eats is awful, and I think quality just go on up the stair to eat at his own will. That jumps with my own observations, Betty. Do you think he might have a rabbit, or maybe a power of them in some boxy in the garret's new? And what for know, given he had them? What for know, nasty things, but that's no the pint. I have to hold you to the point, Betty. The pint is whether he has rabbits or no. Or guinea pigs, suggested, Betty. Wheel, or maybe a papertois, or I can't allow the aunts that keep it a whole family of kitlins, or maybe he might have a bit lamby. There was an uncle of mine on. Hold your tongue, Betty. You have or muckled a say for all the sense there's into it. Well, ma'am, you spared questions at me. Well, I have had enough of your answers, Betty. Go on and tell Robert to come here directly. Betty went, knowing perfectly that Robert had gone out and returned with the information. For Mistress searched her face with the keen eye. That mount have been himself, after all, one you thought you heard the door going, said Betty. It's a strange thing that I should hear him clear here with the door, stick it, and your door open at the very door check of the other, and you know herein, Betty, and me so deaf as well. Did, ma'am, retorted Betty, losing her temper a little. I can be as deaf as other folk, myself while. When Betty grew angry, Mrs. Falconer invariably grew calm, or at least put her temper out of sight. She was silent now and continued silent till Betty moved to return to her kitchen, when she said, in a tone of one, who had just arrived at an important resolution, Betty will just away up the stair and look. Well, ma'am, I have no objections. No objections? What force should you or any other body have any objections to me gone where I like in my own house? Hmph, exclaimed Mrs. Falconer, turning and facing her maid. In course, ma'am, I only meant I had any objections to go on with you. And what force should you or any other woman that I paid to upon five in the half year till dare to have objections to go on where I wanted you to go on in my own house? Who to, ma'am, it was but a slip of the tongue, nothing more. Slip me nace such slips, or you'll come by a fall at last. I'll do it to Betty, concluded Mrs. Falconer in a mollified tone as she turned and led the way from the room. They got a candle in the kitchen and proceeded upstairs. Mrs. Falconer still leading and Betty following. They did not even look into the gale room, not doubting that the dignity of the best bedroom was in no danger of being violated, even by Robert, but took their way upwards to the room in which he kept his schoolbooks, almost the only articles of property which the boy possessed. Here they found nothing suspicious, always even in the best possible order. Not a very wonderful fact, seen a few books and a slate were the only things there besides the papers on the shelves. What the feelings of Shargar must have been when he heard the steps and voices and saw the light approaching his place of refuge, we will not change our point of view to inquire. He certainly was as little to be envied at that moment as at any moment during the whole of his existence. The first sense Mrs. Falconer made use of in the search after possible animals lay in her nose. She kept snuffing constantly, but beyond the usual musty smell of neglected apartments had as yet discovered nothing. The moment she entered the upper gear at however, there's an elf-hard smell here Betty, she said, believing that they had at last found the trail of the mystery, but it's no like the smell of rabbits, just look in the nook there behind the door. There's an atom here, responded Betty. Rune the end of that kiss there, I was looking to the press. As Betty rose from her search behind the chest and turned towards her mistress, her eyes crossed the cavernous opening of the bed. There to her horror she beheld a face like that of a galvanized corpse staring at her from the darkness. Sargarh was in a sitting posture, paralyzed with terror, waiting like a fascinated bird till Mrs. Falconer and Betty should make the final spring upon him and do whatever was equivalent to devouring him upon the spot. He had sat up to listen to the noise of their ascending footsteps and fear had so over-mastered him that he either could not or forgot that he could lie down and cover his head with some of the mini-garments scattered around him. I did not say waski did I, he kept repeating to himself in utter imbecility of fear. Lord Preservas exclaimed Betty the moment she could speak for during the first few seconds, having caught the infection of Sargarh's expression, she stood equally paralyzed. The Lord Preservas she repeated. Onces and off said Mrs. Falconer sharply turning round to see what the cause of Betty's ejaculation might be. I have said that she was dim-sighted. The candle they had was little better than a penny dip. The bed was darker than the rest of the room. Sargarh's face had many of the more distinctive characteristics of manhood upon it. Good Preservas exclaimed Mrs. Falconer in return. It's a woman! Poor deluded Sargar, thinking himself safer under any form than that which he actually bore, attempted no protest against the mistake. But indeed he was incapable of speech. The two women flew upon him to drag him out of the bed, then first recovering his powers of motion, he sprang up in an agony of terror and darted out between them, overturning Betty in his course. He wrought slimmer, cried Betty, from the floor. Ye long legged jowd, she added as she rose, and at the same moment Sargarh banged the street door behind him in his terror. What, you did not carry your coats too long! For Sargarh, having discovered that the way to get the most warmth from Robert's great grandfather's kilt was to wear it in the manner for which it had been fabricated, was in the habit of fastening it round his waist before he got into bed. And the eye of Betty, as she fell, had caught the swing of this portion of his attire. But poor Mrs. Falconer, with sunken head, walked out of the garret in the silence of despair. She went slowly down the steep stairs, supporting herself against the wall. Her round-toed shoes, creaking solemnly as she went, took refuge in the gale room, and burst into a violent fit of weeping. For such depravity she was not prepared. What a terrible curse hung over her family. Surely they were all reprobate from the birth, not one elected for salvation from the guilt of Adam's fall, and therefore banded to Satan as his natural prey to be led captive of him at his will. She threw herself on her knees at the side of the bed and prayed heartbrokenly. Betty heard her as she limped past the door on her way back to her kitchen. Meantime, Shargar had rushed across the next street on his bare feet into the crooked wind, terrifying, poor old cursed and peary, the divisions betwixt the compartments of whose memory had broken down into the exclamation to her next neighbor, Tam Rim, with whom she was trying to gossip. At Thomas, that'll be on of the slaughtered at Culloden, he never stopped till he reached his mother's deserted abode. Strange instinct, there he ran to earth like a hunted fox. Rushing at the door, forgetful of everything but refuge, he found it unlocked, and closing it behind him stood painting like the heart that has found the waterbrooks. The owner had looked in one day to see whether the place was worth repairing, for it was a mere outhouse and had forgotten to turn the key when he left it. Poor Shargar, was it more or less of a refuge that the mother that bore him was not there either to curse or welcome his return. Less if we may judge from a remark he once made in my hearing many long years after. For you see, he said, a mother's a mother, be she the very devil. Searching about in the dark, he found the one article unsold by the landlord, a stool with but two of its natural three legs. On this, he balanced himself and waited, simply for what Robert would do. For his faith in Robert was unbounded, and he had no other hope on earth. But Shargar was not miserable. In that wretched hovel, his bare feet clasping the clay floor in constant search of a waving equilibrium, with pitched darkness around him and incapable of the simplest philosophical or religious reflection, he yet found life good. For it had interest, day more it had hope. I doubt however whether there is any interest at all without hope. While he sat there, Robert, thinking him snug in the garret, was walking quietly home from the shoemakers, and his first impulse on entering was to run up and recount the particulars of his interview with Alexander. Arrived in the dark garret, he called Shargar as usual in a whisper, received no reply, thought he was asleep, called louder, for he had a penny from his grandmother that day for bringing home two pails of water for Betty, and had just spent it upon a loaf for him. But no Shargar replied. Thereupon he went to the bed to lay hold of him and shake him. But his searching hands found no Shargar. Becoming alarmed, he ran downstairs to beg a light from Betty. When he reached the kitchen, he found Betty's nose as much in the air as its construction would permit. For a hooknose body, she certainly was the most harmless and ovine creature in the world. But this was a case in which feminine modesty was both concerned and aggrieved. She showed her resentment no further, however, than by simply returning no answer in syllable or sound or motion to Robert's request. She was washing up the tea things and went on with her work as if she had been in absolute solitude, saving that her countenance could hardly have kept up that expression of injured dignity had such been the case. Robert plainly saw to his great concern that his secret had been discovered in his absence, and that Shargar had been expelled with contumely. But with an instinct of facing the worst at once, which accompanied him through life, he went straight to his grandmother's parlor. Well, Grandmama, he said, trying to speak as cheerfully as he could. Granny's prayers had softened her a little else she would have been as silent as Betty, for it was from her mistress that Betty had learned this mode of torturing a criminal. So she was just able to return his greeting in the words, Whale Robert, pronounced with the finality of tone that indicated she had done her utmost and had nothing to add. Here's a bruise, thought Robert to himself, and still, on the principle of flying at the first of mischief he saw, the best mode of meeting it, no doubt, addressed his grandmother at once. The effort necessary gave a tone of defiance to his words. What for will not you speak to me, Granny? he said. I'm no hay then, nor yet a papist. You're war nor both in one, Robert. Hoots, you will not say both, Granny, returned Robert, who even at the age of fourteen, when once compelled to assert himself, assumed a modest superiority. None of such impudence retorted Mrs. Falconer. I wonder where you learned that, but it's no wonder evil communications corrupt good manners. You're a lost prodigal, Robert, like your father of four-year. I've just been sitting here thinking with myself whether it would not be better for both of us to let you go on and reap the fruit of your doings at once. For the hard ways is the best road for transgressors. I'm no bone to keep you. Well, well, I was away to Shargar. Him and me will hold on together better, nor you and me, Granny. He's a poor crater, but he can stick to the body. What do you have in a boat, Shargar, for? You keep a creed to loon. You'll now go on to Shargar, as I warrant. You'll be after that vile limber that's turned my honest hoose into a sty this last fortnict. Granny, I did not ken what you mean. She ken's, then. I sent her off like one of Samson's foxes with the firebrand at her tail. It's a pity it was not tied between the twelve of you. Preserve us, Granny. Is it possible you have taken Shargar for one of womankind? I can nest in a boat, Shargar, I tell you. I ken that Betty and me took an ill-fired dame in the bed in the garret. Could it be his mother? thought Robert in bewilderment. But he recovered himself in a moment, in answered. Shargar may be a queen after all, for anything, at I can do the contrary. But I took him for a loon, face such a queen as he'd make. And careless to resist the ludicrousness of the idea, he burst into a loud fit of laughter, which did more to reassure his Granny than any amount of protestation could have done. However, she pretended to take offense at his ill-timed merriment. Seen his grandmother's stagger, Robert gathered courage to assume the offensive. But Karani, whoever Betty, nor to say you, could have driven Ut a poor half- starved creature like Shargar, even supposing he ought to have been in coatties and known trousers, and the mother of him run away and left him. It's more nor I can understand. I'm a stoop me sore, but he's gone and driven himself. Robert knew well enough that Shargar would not drown himself, without at least bidding him goodbye. But he knew too that his grandmother could be wrought upon. Her conscience was more tender than her feelings. And this peculiarly occasioned part of the mutual non-understanding rather than misunderstanding between her grandson and herself. The first relation she bore to most that came near her was one of severity and rebuke. But underneath her cold outside lay a warm heart to which conscience acted the part of a somewhat capricious stoker, now quenching its heat with the cold water of duty, now stirring it up with the poker of approach, and ever treating it as an inferior and a slave. But her conscience was, on the whole, a better friend to her race than her heart. And indeed, the conscience is always a better friend than a heart whose motions are undirected by it. From Falconer's account of her, however, I cannot help thinking that she not infrequently took refuge in severity of tone and manner, from the threatened ebullition of a feeling which she could not otherwise control, and which she was ashamed to manifest. Possibly conscience had spoken more and more gently, as its behest were more and more readily obeyed, till the heart began to gather courage, and at last, as in many old people, took the upper hand, which was outwardly inconvenient to one of Mrs. Falconer's temperament. Hence, in doing the kindest thing in the world, she would speak in a tone of command, even of rebuke, as if she were compelling the performance of the most unpleasant duty in the person who received the kindness. But the human heart is hard to analyze, and indeed will not submit quietly to the operation, however gently performed, nor is the result at all easy to put into words. It is best shown in actions. Again, it may appear rather strange that Robert should be able to talk in such an easy manner to his grandmother, seen he had been guilty of concealment, if not of deception. But she had never been so actively severe towards Robert, as she had been towards her own children. To him, she was wonderfully gentle for her nature, and sought to exercise the saving harshness, which she still believed necessary, solely in keeping from him every enjoyment of life, which the narrowest theories as to the rule and will of God could set down as worldly. Fervolity, of which there was little in this sober boy, was in her eyes a vice, loud laughter almost a crime. Cards and novells, as she called them, were such in her estimation as to be beyond my powers of characterization. Her commonest injunction was no bedous, that is sober, uttered to the soberest boys she could ever have known. But Robert was a large-hearted boy, else this life would never have had to be written. And so, through all this, his deepest nature came into unconscious contact with that of his noble old grandmother. There was nothing small about either of them. Hence, Robert was not afraid of her. He had got more of her nature in him than of her sons. She and his own mother had more share in him than his father, though from him he inherited good qualities likewise. He had concealed his doings with Shargar simply because he believed that they could not be done if his grandmother knew of his plans. Herein, he did her less than justice. But so unpleasant was concealment to his nature, and so much did the dread of discovery press upon him, that the moment he saw the thing had come out into the daylight of her knowledge. Such a reaction of relief took place as operating along with his deep natural humor and the comical circumstance of the case gave him an ease and freedom of communication which he had never before enjoyed with her. Likewise, there was a certain courage in the boy which, if his own natural disposition had not been so quiet that he felt the negations of her rule the last might have resulted in underhand doings of a very different possibly from those of benevolence. He must have been a strange being to look at, I always think, at this point of his development, with his huge nose, his black eyes, his lanky figure, and his sober countenance, on which a smile was rarely visible but from which burst occasional guffaws of laughter. At the words droned himself, Mrs. Falconer started, Run laddie, run, she said, and fess him back directly. Betty, Betty, go on with Robert and help him to look for Shargar, your blind, deuded body that says you can see and cannot tell a lad from alas. Nay, nay Granny, I'm no going out with a damn like her trailing out my foot. She would be a sore hindrance to me, given Shargar be to be gotten, that is given he be in life, as get him wanton Betty, and given he did not ken him for the creature you found in the garret, he might be sore chained since I left him there. Well, well Robert, go on your ways, but giving you be deceiving me made the Lord forgive you, Robert, for sore you'll need it. Nay, fair that Granny, returned Robert from the street door and vanished. Mrs. Falconer stalked. No, I will not use that word of the gate of a woman like my friend's grandmother. Stately stepped she put the horse to Betty. She felt strangely soft at the heart. Robert not being yet proved a reprobate, but she was not therefore prepared to drop one atom of the dignity of her relation to her servant. Betty, she said, you have made a mistake. What's that, ma'am? Returned Betty. It was not alas of all. It was that creature, Shargar. You said it was alas yourself first, ma'am. You ken well enough that I'm short-sighted and have been from the day of my birth. I'm no old enough to mind upon that, ma'am, returned Betty revengefully, but in an undertone as if she did not intend your mistress to hear. And although she heard well enough, her mistress adopted the subterfuge. But I'll swear the creature I saw was in petticoats. Swear not at all, Betty. You have made a mistake on the gate. What says that, ma'am? Robert, I will, given he be telling the trouth. Are you insinuate to me that a son of mine would tell anything but the trouth? Nay, nay, ma'am. But given that was not a queen, you cannot deny. But she looked at uncle one and no abasphal one either. Given he was a loon, he would not look like a basphal lass, anyway, Betty. And there, you're wrong. Well, well, ma'am, have it your own way, murdered Betty. I will have it my own way, retorted your mistress, because it's the right way, Betty, and no you mount just go on up the stair and get the place cleaned wood and put in order. I will do that, ma'am. I will ye, and look well aboot, Betty, you that can see so well in case there should be any cattle aboot, for he's none of the cleanest young dame. I will do that, ma'am, and go on directly before he comes back. What comes back? Robert, of course. But for that, because he's coming with him. What he's coming with him? Call it she, given you like. It's Shargar. What says that? exclaimed Betty, sniffing and starting at once. I say that, and you go on and do what I tell you this minute. Betty obeyed instantly for the tone in which the last words were spoken was one she was not accustomed to dispute. She only muttered as she went. It'll all come upon me as usual. Betty's job was long-ended before Robert returned, never dreaming that Shargar could have gone back to the old haunt. He had looked for him everywhere before that occurred to him as a last chance. Nor would he have found him even then, for he would not have thought of his being inside the deserted house, had not Shargar heard his footsteps in the street. He started up from his stool, saying that's Bob, but was not sure enough to go to the door. He might be mistaken. It might be the landlord. He heard the feet stop and did not move, but when he heard them begin to go away again, he rushed to the door and bawled on the chance at the top of his voice. Bob, Bob! Hey, you crater, said Robert. Are you there after all? Abahab exclaimed Shargar and burst into tears. I thought you would come after me. Of course, answered Robert Cooley. Come away home. Where till? asked Shargar and dismay. Home to your own bed at my granny's. Nae Nae, said Shargar hurriedly, retreating within the door of the Hubble. Nae Nae, Bob, lad, I know do that. She's an awful woman, that granny of yours. I cannot think who you can buy with her. I'm well out in for grups, I can tell ye. He required a good deal of persuasion, but at last Robert prevailed upon Shargar to return. For was not Robert his tower of strength, and if Robert was not frightened at his granny, or at Betty, why should he be? At length they entered Mrs. Falconer's parlor, Robert dragging in Shargar after him, having failed altogether and encouraging him to enter after a more dignified fashion. It must be remembered that although Shargar was still kilted, he was not the last trouser, such as the trousers were. It makes my heart ache to think of these trousers, not believing trousers essential to blessedness either, but knowing the superiority of the old Roman costume of the kilt. No sooner had Mrs. Falconer cast her eyes upon him than she could not but be convinced of the truth of Robert's averment. Here he is, granny, and given you be not satisfied yet. Hold your tongue, laddie. Ye have given me ne cause to do it your word. Indeed, during Robert's absence, his grandmother had had leisure to perceive of what an absurd folly she had been guilty. She had also had time to make up her mind as to her duty with regard to Shargar, and the more she thought about it, the more she admired the conduct of her grandson, and the better she saw that it would be right to follow his example. No doubt she was the more inclined to this benevolence that she had, as it were, received her grandson back from the jaws of death. When the two lads entered from her armchair, Mrs. Falconer examined Shargar from head to foot with the eye of a queen on her throne, and a countenance immovable and stern gentleness till Shargar would gladly have sunk into the shelter of the voluminous kilt from the gaze of those quiet his eyes. At length she spoke. Robert, take him away. Well, I take him, tell granny. Take him up to the garret, bet he'll have taken a tub of hot water up there given this time, and you mount see that he washes himself from head to foot, or he's no bide and oar in my house. Go on away and see till it this minute. But she detained them yet a while with various directions in regard of cleaning, for the carrying out of which Robert was only too glad to give his word. She dismissed them at last, and Shargar by and by found himself in bed clean, and for the first time in his life, between a pair of linen sheets, not altogether to his satisfaction, for mere order and comfort were substituted for adventure and success. But greater trials awaited him. In the morning he was visited by Brody, the tailor, and El Shender, the shoemaker, both of whom he held in awe as his superiors in the social scale, and by them handled and measured from head to feet, the latter included after which he had to lie in bed for three days till his clothes came home. For Betty had carefully committed every article of his former dress to the kitchen fire, not without a sense of pollution to the bottom of her kettle. Nor would he have got them for double the time, had not Robert haunted the tailor as well as the shoemaker, like an evil conscience till they had finished them. Thus Grievous was Shargar's introduction to the comforts of respectability, nor did he like it much better when he was dressed and able to go about, for not only was he uncomfortable in his new clothes, which after the very easy fit of the old ones felt like a suit of plate armor, but he was liable to be sent for at any moment by that awful sovereignty in whose dominions he found himself, and which of course proceeded to instruct him not merely in his own religious duties, but in the religious theories of his ancestors, if indeed Shargar's ancestors ever had any. And now the shorter catechism seemed likely to be changed into the longer catechism, for he had its Sundays as well as Saturdays, besides a lanes alarmed to the unconverted, Baxter's Saints' Rest, Urskine's Gospel Sonnets, and other books of a like kind. Nor was it any relief to Shargar that the gloom was broken by the incomparable pilgrim's progress and the Holy War, for he cared for none of these things. Indeed, so dreary did he find it all that his love to Robert was never put to such a severe test. But for that he would have run for it, twenty times a day was he so tempted. At school though it was better, yet it was bad, for he was ten times as much laughed at for his new clothes, though they were of the plainest, as he had been for his old rags. Still he bore all the pangs of unwelcome advancement, without a grumble for the sake of his friend alone, whose dog he remained as much as ever. But his past life of cold and neglect, and hunger and blows, and homelessness and rags, began to glimmer as in the distance of a vaporous sunset, and the loveless freedom he had then enjoyed gave it a bloom as of summer roses. I wonder whether there may not have been in some unknown corner of the old lady's mind this lingering remnant of paganism, that in reclaiming the outcast from the air of his ways, she was making an offering acceptable to that God, whom her mere prayers could not move to look with favor upon her prodigal son, Andrew. Nor from her own acknowledged religious belief as a background would it have stuck so fiery off, either. Indeed, it might have been a partial corrective of some yet more dreadful articles of her creed, which she held, be it remembered, because she could not help it. CHAPTER XI PRIVATE INTERVIEWS The winter passed slowly away. Robert and Shargar went to school together and learned their lessons together at Mrs. Falconer's table. Shargar soon learned to behave with tolerable propriety, was obedient as far as eye service went, looked as queer as ever, did what he pleased, which was, no wise, very wicked, the moment he was out of the old lady's sight, was well fed and well cared for, and when he was asked how he was, gave the invariable answer midland. He was not very happy. There was little communication in words between the two boys, for the one had not much to say, and the pondering fits of the other grew rather than relaxed in frequency and intensity. Yet amongst chanced acquaintances in the town, Robert had the character of a wag, of which he was totally unaware himself. Indeed, although he had more than the ordinary share of humor, I suspect it was not so much his fun as his earnest that got him the character, for he would say such altogether unheard of and strange things, that the only way they were capable of accounting for him was as a humorist. Eh, he said, once to El Shender, during a pause common to a thunderstorm, and a lesson on the violin. Eh, would not ye like to be up in the clued with the spod turning o'er the divots, and catching the flashes lying beneath them, like long red fiery worms? I, man, be givin' ye look up to the cludes, that gate ye'll never be muckled of a fiddler. This was merely an outbreak of that insolence of advice, so often shown to the young from no vantage ground, but that of age and faithlessness, reminding one of the jiggling fool who interfered between Brutus and Cassius, on the sole ground that he had seen more years than they. As if ever a fiddler that did not look up to the clouds would be anything but a cat-gut scraper, even El Shender's fiddle was the one angel that held back the heavy curtain of his gross nature and let the sky shine through. He ought to have been set fiddling every Sunday morning, and from his fiddling dragged straight to church. It was the only thing man could have done for his conversion, for then his heart was open, but I fear the prayers would have closed it before the sermon came. He should rather have been compelled to take his fiddle to church with them, and have a gentle scrape at it in the pauses of the service. Only there are no such pauses in the service, alas, and double sanny, though not too religious to get drunk occasionally, was a great deal too religious to play his fiddle on the Sabbath. He would not willingly anger the powers above, but it was sometimes a sore temptation, especially after he got possession of old Mrs. Falconer's wonderful instrument. Hootsman, he would say to Robert, did not handle her as given she were an egg box, take hold of her as given she were a leaving crater. You mind just stroke her candy, and while the music would of her, for she's like other women, given you be rough with her, you will not get a word would of her, and do not handle her that gate. She cannot bide to be contoured and pull this gate and that gate. Come to me, my bonny lady, you'll tell me your story will not eat my pet. And with every gesture, as if he were humoring a shy and invalid girl, he would, as he said, while the music out of her, and sobs and wailing till the instrument, gathering courage in his embrace, grew gentle, lee, merry in its confidence, and broke at last into airy laughter. He always spoke and apparently thought of his violin as a woman, just as the sailor does of his craft. But there was nothing about him, except his love for music and its instruments, to suggest other than a most uncivilized nature. That which was fine in him was constantly checked and held down by the gross, the merely animal overpowered the spiritual, and it was only upon occasion that his heavenly companion, the violin, could raise him a few feet above the mire and the clay. She never succeeded in setting his feet on a rock, while on the contrary, he often dragged her with him into the mire of questionable company and circumstances. Worthy Mr. Falconer would have been horrified to see his unquill-eyed, modest companion in such a society as that into which she was now introduced at times. But nevertheless, the shoemaker was a good and patient teacher, and although it took Robert rather more than a fortnight to redeem his pledge to Shargar, he did make progress. It could not, however, be rapid, seeing that an hour at a time, two evenings in the week, was all that he could give to the violin. Even with this moderation, the risk of his absence exciting his grandmother's suspicion and inquiry was far from small. And now were those really faded old memories of his grandfather and his merry kindness also different from the solemn benevolence of his grandmother, which seemed to revive in his bosom with the revivification of the violin. The instrument had surely laid up a story in its hollow breast, had been dreaming over it all the time it lay hidden away in the closet, and was now telling out its dreams about the old times in the ear of the listening boy. To him also it began to assume something of that majesty in life, which had such a softening, and for the moment at least elevating influence on his master. At length the love of the violin had grown upon him so that he could not but cast about how he might enjoy more of its company. It would not do, for many reasons, to go oftener to the shoemakers, especially now that the days were getting longer. Nor was that what he wanted. He wanted opportunity for practice. He wanted to be alone with the creature, to see if she would not say something more to him than she had ever said yet. Waffs and odors of melodies began to steal upon him ere he was aware in the half-lights between sleeping and waking. If he could only entice them to creep out of the violin and once bless his humble ears with the bodily hearing of them, perhaps he might who could tell. But how? But where? There was a building in Rothedin, not old, yet so deserted that its very history seemed to have come to a standstill, and the dust that filled it to have fallen from the plumes of passing centuries. It was the property of Mrs. Falconer left her by her husband. Trade had gradually ebbed away from the town till the thread factory stood unoccupied, with all its machinery, rusting and moldering, just as the work people had risen and left at one hot mid-summer day when they were told that their services were no longer required. Some of the thread even remained upon the spools, and in the hollows of some of the sockets the oil had as yet dried only into a paste. Although to Robert the desertion of the place appeared immemorial, it stood at a furlongs distance from the house on the outskirt of the town. There was a large neglected garden behind it with some good fruit trees and plenty of the bushes which boys loved for the sake of their berries. After Granny's jam pots were properly filled, the remnant of these, a gleaming far greater than the gathering, was at the disposal of Robert, and, philosopher although in some measure he was already, he appreciated the privilege. Haunting this garden in the previous summer he had for the first time, made acquaintance with the interior of the deserted factory. The door to the road was always kept locked, and the key of it lay in one of Granny's drawers, but he had then discovered a back entrance less securely fastened, and with the strange mingling of fear and curiosity had from time to time extended his rambles over what seemed to him the huge desolation of the place. Half of it was well built of stone and lime, but of the other half the upper part was built of wood which now showed signs of considerable decay. One room opened into another through the length of the place revealing a vista of machines, standing with an air of the last folding of the wings of silence over them, and the sense of a deeper and deeper sinking into the soundless abyss. But their activity was not so vanished, but that by degrees Robert came to fancy that he had some time or other seen a woman seated at each of those silent powers whose single hand set the whole frame in motion, with its numberless spindles and spools rapidly revolving. A vague mystery of endless threads and orderly complication out of which came some desire to him unknown result, so that the whole place was full of a bewildering tumult of work, every little reel contributing its share as the water drops clashing together make the roar of a tempest. Now all was still as the church on a weekday, still as the school on a Saturday afternoon. Nay, the silence seemed to have settled down like the dust and grown old and thick, so dead and old that the ghost of the ancient noise had arisen to haunt the place. Dither would Robert carry his violin, and there would he woo her. I'm thinking I might take her with me the night, sanders, he said, holding the fiddle lovingly to his bosom, after he had finished his next lesson. The shoemaker looked blank. You're no going to desert me, are ye? Nay, well I want, returned Robert, but I want to try her at home. I might get used till her a hitty ye can, before I can do anything with her. I wish ye had nay brought her here, then. What am I to do, wanton her? Well, for didn't I ye get your own back? I have not the silver, man, and four biaduta would not be that sore content with her no given I had her. I used to think her grand, but I'm clean oot of conceit of her, that Bonnie Lattie's taken clean oot of me. But ye cannot have her I, ye can, sanders. She's no mine, she's my granny, she can. What's the use of her to her? She pits nay value upon her, and, man, given she would give her to me, I would hold her in the best of shun all the life of her days. I would not be mucklesanders, for she has not had a new pyre since ever I mined. But I would hold betty in shun as well. Betty pays her for her own shun, I reckon. Well, I would hold you in shun, and your barons, and your barons' barons cried the shoemaker with enthusiasm. Hoot toot, man, long o' that ye'll be fiddlin' in the new Jerusalem. Hem, and said Alexander, looking up, he had just cracked the roset ends off his hands, for he had the upper leather of a boot in the grasp of the clamps, and his right hand hung arrested on its blind way to the awl. Do ye think there'll be fiddles there? I thought there were all harps out things, and I never saw, but it could not be up till a fiddle. I did not can, answered Robert, but ye should make a point of scene for yourself. Given I thought there would be fiddles there, faith I would have a try. Would not be muckle of a Jerusalem to me, wanting my fiddle. But given there be fiddles, I d'are say there'll be grand d'un. I d'are say they would give me a new one. I mean, on all this noise, eddy played in the ark when the devil came in by to harken. I would faint have a try. You can all about it with that granny of yours, who's a body to begin? I given up the drink, man. Aye, aye, aye, I reckon you're right. Well, I'll think about it. When once I'm through with this job, it'll be next week, or thereabouts, or ablen's twa days after. I'll have some laser then. Before he had finished speaking, he had caught up his awl and began to work vigorously, boring his holes as if the nerves of feeling were continued to the point of the tool, inserting the bristles that served him for needles with the delicacy worthy of soft-skinned fingers, drawing through the rose and threads with the whisk, and untwining them with a crack from the leather that guarded his hands. Good-neck tea, said Robert, with the fiddle case under his arm. The shoemaker looked up, with his hands bound in his threads. You're not going to take her from me this night. Aye, am I, but I'll fester back again. I'm no going to Jericho with her. Going to Heckelburni with her, and that's three miles a yantel. Nay, we mountain wind farther nor that. There cannot be muck of fiddle in there. Well, take her to the new Jerusalem. I was going to do unto Lucky Learys, and fill myself raw and foul, and it'll be all your blame. I'll do it. You'll get the blows, though, or maybe you think Belle will take them for you. Double Sandy caught up a huge boot, the sole of which was filled with broad-headed nails, as thick as they could be driven, and in a rage threw it at Robert as he darted out. Through its clang against the door check, the shoemaker heard a cry from the instrument. He cast everything from him and sprang after Robert. But Robert was down the wine, like a long-legged greyhound, and El Shender could only follow like a fierce mastiff. It was love and grief, though, and apprehension and remorse, not vengeance, that winged his heels. He soon saw that pursuit was in vain. Robert! Robert! he cried. I cannot win up with thee. Stop, for God's sakes! Is she hurt it? Robert stopped at once. You have made a bonny leady of her a cripple, I do it, like your wife, he answered, with indignation. To not be eye-flinging a man's faults in his face, it just makes him ad he cannot bide himself for you, either. Let's see the bonny crater. Robert complied, for he, too, was anxious. They were now standing in the space in front of Chargard's old abode, and there was no one to be seen. El Shender took the box, opened it carefully, and peeped in, with the face of great apprehension. I thought that was all, he said, with some satisfaction. I can't the string when I heard it, but we'll soon get a new tharn tiller, he added, in a tone of sorrowful commiseration and condolence, as he took the violin from the case, tenderly, as if it had been a hurt child. One touch of the bow, drawing out a gaol of grief, satisfied him that she was uninjured. Next, the hurried inspection showed him that there was enough of the cat-gut twisted around the peg to make up for the part that was broken off. In a moment he had fastened it to the tailpiece, tightened, and tuned it. Fourth width he took the bow from the case-slid, and in jubilant guise, he expatiated upon the wrong he had done his bonny laddie, till the doors and windows around were crowded with heads peering through the dark to see whence the sounds came, and the little child toddled across from one of the lowliest houses with a half-penny for the fiddler. Gladly would Robert have restored it with interest, but alas, there was no interest in his bank, for not a half-penny had he in the world. The incident recalled Sandy Dorotheden and its cares. He restored the violin to its case, and while Robert was fearing he would take it under his arm and walk away with it, handed it back with a humble sigh, and a praise be thank it. Then, without another word, turned and went to his lonely stool and home, untreasured of its mistress. Robert went home too, and stole like a thief to his room. The next day was a Saturday, which indeed was the real old Sabbath, or at least the half of it, to the schoolboys of Rothedon. Even Robert's granny was due enough, or rather Christian enough, to respect this remnant of the Fourth Commandment, divine antidote to the rest of the godless money-making and soul-saving wheat, and he had the half-day to himself. So, as soon as he had his dinner, he managed to give Shargar the slip, left him to the inroads of a desolate despondency, and stole away to the old factory garden. The key of that he had managed to perloin from the kitchen where it hung. Nor was there much danger of its absence being discovered, seeing that in winter no one thought of the garden. The smuggling of the violin out of the house was the dearest danger, the more so that he would not run the risk of carrying her out unprotected, and it was altogether a bulky venture with the case. But by spying and speeding he managed it, and soon found himself safe within the high walls of the garden. It was early spring, there had been a heavy fall of sleet in the morning, and now the wind blew gustfully about the place. The neglected trees shook showers upon him as he passed under them, trampling down the rank growth of the grass walks. The long twigs of the wall trees, which had never been nailed up, or had been torn down by the snow, and the blasts of winter went trailing away in the moan of the fitful wind, and swung back as it sunk to a sigh. The current and gooseberry bushes, bare and leafless and shivering all for cold, neither reminded him of the feasts of the past summer, nor gave him any hope for the next. He strode careless through it all to gain the door at the bottom. It yielded to a push, and the long grass streamed in over the threshold as he entered. He mounted by a broad stair in the main part of the house, passing the silent clock in one of its corners, now expiating in motionlessness the false accusations it had brought against the work people, and turned into the chaos of machinery. I fear that my readers will expect from the minuteness with which I recount these particulars, that after all, I am going to describe a rendezvous with a lady, or a ghost at least. I will not plead an excuse that I too have been infected with Sandy's mode of regarding her, but I plead that in the mind of Robert the proceeding was involved in something of that awe and mystery with which a youth approaches the woman he loves. He had not yet arrived at the period when the feminine assumes its paramount influence, combining in itself all that music, color, form, odor can suggest, with something infinitely higher and more divine, but he had begun to be haunted with some vague aspirations toward the infinite, of which his attempts on the violin were the outcome. And now that he was to be alone for the first time, with this wonderful realizer of dreams and awaken her of visions, to do with her as he would, to hint by gentle touches at the thoughts that were fluttering in his soul, and listen for her voice that by the echoes in which she strove to respond, he might know that she understood him. It was no wonder if he felt an ethereal foretaste of the expectation that haunts the approach of souls. But I am not even going to describe his first tete-tete with his violin. Perhaps he returned from it somewhat disappointed. Probably he found her coy, unready to acknowledge his demands on her attention, but not the less willingly did he return with her to the solitude of the ruinous factory. On every safe occasion, becoming more and more frequent as the days grew longer, he repaired thither, and every time returned more capable of drawing the coherence of melody from that matrix of sweet sounds. At length the people about began to say that the factory was haunted, that the ghost of old Mr. Falconer unable to repose while neglect was ruining the precious results of his industry, visited the place night after night and solaced his disappointment by renewing on his favorite violin strains not yet forgotten by him in his grave, and remembered well by those who had been in his service, not a few of whom lived in the neighborhood of the Forsaken Building. One gusty afternoon, like the first, but late in the spring, Robert repaired as usual to his secret haunt. He had played for some time, and now, from a sudden pause of impulse, had ceased and begun to look around him. The only light came from two long pale cracks in the rain clouds of the west. The wind was blowing through the broken windows which stretched away on either hand. A dreary windy gloom therefore pervaded the desolate place, and in the dusk, and their settled order, the machines looked multitude-ness. An eerie sense of discomfort came over him as he gazed, and he lifted his violin to dispel the strange, unpleasant feeling that grew upon him. But at the first long stroke across the strings, an awful sound arose in a further room, a sound that made him all but drop the bow and cling to his violin. It went on. It was the old, all but forgotten whore of bobbins mingled with the gentle groans of the revolving horizontal wheel, but magnified in the silence of the place, and the echoing imagination of the boy into something preternaturally awful. Yielding for a moment to the growth of goose skin, and the insurrection of hair, he recovered himself by a violent effort, and walked to the door that connected the two compartments. Was it more or less fearful than the genny was not going of itself? That the figure of an old woman set solemnly turning and turning the hand wheel. Not without calling in the jury of his senses, however, would he yield to the special plea of his imagination. But went nearer, half expecting to find that the much, with its big flapping borders glimmering wide in the gloom across many machines, surrounded the face of a skull. But he was soon satisfied that it was only a blind woman everybody knew, so old that she had become childish. She had heard the reports of the factory being haunted, and, groping about with her half withered brain, full of them, had found the garden in the back door open, and had climbed to the first floor by a farther stare, well known to her when she used to work that very machine. She had seated herself instinctively, according to ancient want, and had set it in motion once more. Yielding to an impulse of experiment, Robert began to play again. Thereupon, her disordered ideas broke out in words, and Robert soon began to feel that it could hardly be more ghastly to look upon a ghost than to be taken for one. Aye, aye, sir, said the old woman in a tone of commiseration, and mount me sore to bide. I did not wonder that you cannot lie still. But what guards you go on douring about this place? It's no yours any longer. You can when folks dead, they lose the grip. You should go on home to your wife. She might say a word to quiet your old band bones. For she's a douse and a wise woman, the mistress. Then followed a pause. There was a horror about the old woman's voice, already half dissolved by death in the desolate place, that almost took from Robert the power of motion. But his violins sent forth an accidental twang, and that set her going again. You was aye a douse on this gentleman yourself, and I did not wonder you cannot bide it. But I would have thought Glory might have holding you in, to your own son ha-hi, and a bra lad and a bonny. It's a sad thing, ye bud, to go on the wrong gate. And it's no wonder, as I say, that ye lead the worms to come and look after him. I do it. I do to would not be to you, he'll go on at the long last. There would not be room for him as I do in Abraham's bosom, and sign to behave so ill to that whence some wife of his. I did not wonder at ye mount be up, and now. But sir, since ye are up, I wish ye would spake to John Thomason, note to take off the day, at I was away last wake, for deed I was very unwell, and would to keep my bed. Robert was beginning to feel uneasy as to how he should get rid of her, whence she rose and sang, I, I, I can, at sacks o'clock, went out as she had come in. Robert followed and saw her safe out of the garden, but did not return to the factory. So his father had behaved ill to his mother too. But what for harkened to the havers of a dawdled old wife, he said to himself, pondering as he walked home. Old Janet told a strange story of how she had seen the ghost, and had had a long talk with him, and of what he said, and of how he groaned and played the fiddle between. And finding that the report had reached his grandmother's ears, Robert thought it prudent much to his discontent to intermit his visits to the factory. Mrs. Falconer, of course, received the rumor with indignant scorn, and prampterly refused to allow any examination of the premises. But how have the violin by him, and not hear her speak? One evening the longing after her voice grew upon him, till he could resist it no longer. He shut the door of his garret room, and with Shargar by him, took her out and began to play softly, gently. Oh, so softly, so gently. Shargar was enraptured. Robert went on playing. Suddenly the door opened, and his granny stood awfully revealed before them. Betty had heard the violin, and had flown to the parlor in the belief that unable to get anyone to heed him at the factory, the ghost had taken Janet's advice, and come home. But his wife smiled a smile of contempt, went with Betty to the kitchen, over which Robert's room lay, heard the sounds, put off her creaking shoes, stole upstairs on her soft white lamb's wool stockings, and caught the pair. The violin was seized, put in the case, and carried off, and Mrs. Falconer rejoiced to think she had broken a trap set by Satan for the unwary feet of her poor Robert. Little she knew the wonder of that violin, how it had kept the soul of her husband alive. Little she knew how dangerous it is to shut an open door, with ever so narrow peep into the eternal, in the face of a son of Adam. And little she knew how determinately, and restlessly, a nature like Robert's would search for another, to open one possibly, which she might consider ten times more dangerous than that which she had closed. When Alexander heard of the affair, he was at first overwhelmed with the misfortune. But, gathering a little heart, at last, he set to work in, as he said himself, like a vera-devil. And as he was the best shoemaker in the town, and for the time abstained utterly from whisky, and all sorts of drink but well water, he soon managed to save the money necessary and redeem the old fiddle. But whether it was from fancy, or habit, or what, even Robert's inexperienced ear could not accommodate itself, save under protest to the instrument which once his teacher had considered all but perfect, and it needed the master's finest touch to make its tone other than painful to the sense of the neophyte. No one can estimate too highly the value of such a resource to a man like the shoemaker, or a boy like Robert. Whatever it be that keeps the finer faculties of the mind awake, wonder alive, and the interest above mere eating and drinking, money making and money saving, whatever it be that gives gladness or sorrow or hope, this be it violin, pencil, pen, or highest of all the love of a woman, is simply a divine gift of holy influence for the salvation of that being to whom it comes, for the lifting of him out of the mire and up on the rock. For it keeps away open for the entrance of deeper, holier, grander influences emanating from the same riches of the Godhead, and though many have genius that have no grace, they will only be so much the worse, so much the nearer to the brute, if you take from them that which corresponds to Duble Sanny's fiddle. End. Chapter 11