In a flutter of delight he sat down on his trunk again and played the most mournful of tunes. Two white pigeons, which had been talking to each other in the heat on the roof, came one on each side of the window and peeped into the room; and out between them, as he played, Robert saw the sea, and the blue sky above it. Is it any wonder that, instead of turning to the lying pages and contorted sentences of the Livy which he had already unpacked from his box, he forgot all about school, and college, and bursary, and went on playing till his landlady brought up his dinner, which he swallowed hastily that he might return to the spells of his enchantress!



CHAPTER V. THE COMPETITION.

I could linger with gladness even over this part of my hero's history. If the school work, was dry it was thorough. If that academy had no sweetly shadowing trees; if it did stand within a parallelogram of low stone walls, containing a roughly-gravelled court; if all the region about suggested hot stones and sand—beyond still was the sea and the sky; and that court, morning and afternoon, was filled with the shouts of eager boys, kicking the football with mad rushings to and fro, and sometimes with wounds and faintings—fit symbol of the equally resultless ambition with which many of them would follow the game of life in the years to come. Shock-headed Highland colts, and rough Lowland steers as many of them were, out of that group, out of the roughest of them, would emerge in time a few gentlemen—not of the type of your trim, self-contained, clerical exquisite—but large-hearted, courteous gentlemen, for whom a man may thank God. And if the master was stern and hard, he was true; if the pupils feared him, they yet cared to please him; if there might be found not a few more widely-read scholars than he, it would be hard to find a better teacher.

Robert leaned to the collar and laboured, not greatly moved by ambition, but much by the hope of the bursary and the college life in the near distance. Not unfrequently he would rush into the thick of the football game, fight like a maniac for one short burst, and then retire and look on. He oftener regarded than mingled. He seldom joined his fellows after school hours, for his work lay both upon his conscience and his hopes; but if he formed no very deep friendships amongst them, at least he made no enemies, for he was not selfish, and in virtue of the Celtic blood in him was invariably courteous. His habits were in some things altogether irregular. He never went out for a walk; but sometimes, looking up from his Virgil or his Latin version, and seeing the blue expanse in the distance breaking into white under the viewless wing of the summer wind, he would fling down his dictionary or his pen, rush from his garret, and fly in a straight line, like a sea-gull weary of lake and river, down to the waste shore of the great deep. This was all that stood for the Arabian Nights of moon-blossomed marvel; all the rest was Aberdeen days of Latin and labour.

Slowly the hours went, and yet the dreaded, hoped-for day came quickly. The quadrangle of the stone-crowned college grew more awful in its silence and emptiness every time Robert passed it; and the professors' houses looked like the sentry-boxes of the angels of learning, soon to come forth and judge the feeble mortals who dared present a claim to their recognition. October faded softly by, with its keen fresh mornings, and cold memorial green-horizoned evenings, whose stars fell like the stray blossoms of a more heavenly world, from some ghostly wind of space that had caught them up on its awful shoreless sweep. November came, 'chill and drear,' with its heartless, hopeless nothingness; but as if to mock the poor competitors, rose, after three days of Scotch mist, in a lovely 'halcyon day' of 'St. Martin's summer,' through whose long shadows anxious young faces gathered in the quadrangle, or under the arcade, each with his Ainsworth's Dictionary, the sole book allowed, under his arm. But when the sacrist appeared and unlocked the public school, and the black-gowned professors walked into the room, and the door was left open for the candidates to follow, then indeed a great awe fell upon the assembly, and the lads crept into their seats as if to a trial for life before a bench of the incorruptible. They took their places; a portion of Robertson's History of Scotland was given them to turn into Latin; and soon there was nothing to be heard in the assembly but the turning of the leaves of dictionaries, and the scratching of pens constructing the first rough copy of the Latinized theme.

It was done. Four weary hours, nearly five, one or two of which passed like minutes, the others as if each minute had been an hour, went by, and Robert, in a kind of desperation, after a final reading of the Latin, gave in his paper, and left the room. When he got home, he asked his landlady to get him some tea. Till it was ready he would take his violin. But even the violin had grown dull, and would not speak freely. He returned to the torture—took out his first copy, and went over it once more. Horror of horrors! a maxie!—that is a maximus error. Mary Queen of Scots had been left so far behind in the beginning of the paper, that she forgot the rights of her sex in the middle of it, and in the accusative of a future participle passive—I do not know if more modern grammarians have a different name for the growth—had submitted to be dum, and her rightful dam was henceforth and for ever debarred.

He rose, rushed out of the house, down through the garden, across two fields and a wide road, across the links, and so to the moaning lip of the sea—for it was moaning that night. From the last bulwark of the sandhills he dropped upon the wet sands, and there he paced up and down—how long, God only, who was watching him, knew—with the low limitless form of the murmuring lip lying out and out into the sinking sky like the life that lay low and hopeless before him, for the want at most of twenty pounds a year (that was the highest bursary then) to lift him into a region of possible well-being. Suddenly a strange phenomenon appeared within him. The subject hitherto became the object to a new birth of consciousness. He began to look at himself. 'There's a sair bit in there,' he said, as if his own bosom had been that of another mortal. 'What's to be dune wi' 't? I doobt it maun bide it. Weel, the crater had better bide it quaietly, and no cry oot. Lie doon, an' hand yer tongue. Soror tua haud meretrix est, ye brute!' He burst out laughing, after a doubtful and ululant fashion, I dare say; but he went home, took up his auld wife, and played 'Tullochgorum' some fifty times over, with extemporized variations.

The next day he had to translate a passage from Tacitus; after executing which somewhat heartlessly, he did not open a Latin book for a whole week. The very sight of one was disgusting to him. He wandered about the New Town, along Union Street, and up and down the stairs that led to the lower parts, haunted the quay, watched the vessels, learned their forms, their parts and capacities, made friends with a certain Dutch captain whom he heard playing the violin in his cabin, and on the whole, notwithstanding the wretched prospect before him, contrived to spend the week with considerable enjoyment. Nor does an occasional episode of lounging hurt a life with any true claims to the epic form.

The day of decision at length arrived. Again the black-robed powers assembled, and again the hoping, fearing lads—some of them not lads, men, and mere boys—gathered to hear their fate. Name after name was called out;—a twenty pound bursary to the first, one of seventeen to the next, three or four of fifteen and fourteen, and so on, for about twenty, and still no Robert Falconer. At last, lagging wearily in the rear, he heard his name, went up listlessly, and was awarded five pounds. He crept home, wrote to his grandmother, and awaited her reply. It was not long in coming; for although the carrier was generally the medium of communication, Miss Letty had contrived to send the answer by coach. It was to the effect that his grandmother was sorry that he had not been more successful, but that Mr. Innes thought it would be quite worth while to try again, and he must therefore come home for another year.

This was mortifying enough, though not so bad as it might have been. Robert began to pack his box. But before he had finished it he shut the lid and sat upon it. To meet Miss St. John thus disgraced, was more than he could bear. If he remained, he had a chance of winning prizes at the end of the session, and that would more than repair his honour. The five pound bursars were privileged in paying half fees; and if he could only get some teaching, he could manage. But who would employ a bejan when a magistrand might be had for next to nothing? Besides, who would recommend him? The thought of Dr. Anderson flashed into his mind, and he rushed from the house without even knowing where he lived.



CHAPTER VI. DR. ANDERSON AGAIN.

At the Post-office he procured the desired information at once. Dr. Anderson lived in Union Street, towards the western end of it.

Away went Robert to find the house. That was easy. What a grand house of smooth granite and wide approach it was! The great door was opened by a man-servant, who looked at the country boy from head to foot.

'Is the doctor in?' asked Robert.

'Yes.'

'I wad like to see him.'

'Wha will I say wants him?'

'Say the laddie he saw at Bodyfauld.'

The man left Robert in the hall, which was spread with tiger and leopard skins, and had a bright fire burning in a large stove. Returning presently, he led him through noiseless swing-doors covered with cloth into a large library. Never had Robert conceived such luxury. What with Turkey carpet, crimson curtains, easy-chairs, grandly-bound books and morocco-covered writing-table, it seemed the very ideal of comfort. But Robert liked the grandeur too much to be abashed by it.

'Sit ye doon there,' said the servant, 'and the doctor 'ill be wi' ye in ae minute.'

He was hardly out of the room before a door opened in the middle of the books, and the doctor appeared in a long dressing-gown. He looked inquiringly at Robert for one moment, then made two long strides like a pair of eager compasses, holding out his hand.

'I'm Robert Faukner,' said the boy. 'Ye'll min', maybe, doctor, 'at ye war verra kin' to me ance, and tellt me lots o' stories—at Bodyfauld, ye ken.'

'I'm very glad to see you, Robert,' said Dr. Anderson. 'Of course I remember you perfectly; but my servant did not bring your name, and I did not know but it might be the other boy—I forget his name.'

'Ye mean Shargar, sir. It's no him.'

'I can see that,' said the doctor, laughing, 'although you are altered. You have grown quite a man! I am very glad to see you,' he repeated, shaking hands with him again. 'When did you come to town?'

'I hae been at the grammer school i' the auld toon for the last three months,' said Robert.

'Three months!' exclaimed Dr. Anderson. 'And never came to see me till now! That was too bad of you, Robert.'

'Weel, ye see, sir, I didna ken better. An' I had a heap to do, an' a' for naething, efter a'. But gin I had kent 'at ye wad like to see me, I wad hae likit weel to come to ye.'

'I have been away most of the summer,' said the doctor; 'but I have been at home for the last month. You haven't had your dinner, have you?'

'Weel, I dinna exackly ken what to say, sir. Ye see, I wasna that sharp-set the day, sae I had jist a mou'fu' o' breid and cheese. I'm turnin' hungry, noo, I maun confess.'

The doctor rang the bell.

'You must stop and dine with me.—Johnston,' he continued, as his servant entered, 'tell the cook that I have a gentleman to dinner with me to-day, and she must be liberal.'

'Guidsake, sir!' said Robert, 'dinna set the woman agen me.'

He had no intention of saying anything humorous, but Dr. Anderson laughed heartily.

'Come into my room till dinner-time,' he said, opening the door by which he had entered.

To Robert's astonishment, he found himself in a room bare as that of the poorest cottage. A small square window, small as the window in John Hewson's, looked out upon a garden neatly kept, but now 'having no adorning but cleanliness.' The place was just the benn end of a cottage. The walls were whitewashed, the ceiling was of bare boards, and the floor was sprinkled with a little white sand. The table and chairs were of common deal, white and clean, save that the former was spotted with ink. A greater contrast to the soft, large, richly-coloured room they had left could hardly be imagined. A few bookshelves on the wall were filled with old books. A fire blazed cheerily in the little grate. A bed with snow-white coverlet stood in a recess.

'This is the nicest room in the house, Robert,' said the doctor. 'When I was a student like you—'

Robert shook his head,

'I'm nae student yet,' he said; but the doctor went on:

'I had the benn end of my father's cottage to study in, for he treated me like a stranger-gentleman when I came home from college. The father respected the son for whose advantage he was working like a slave from morning till night. My heart is sometimes sore with the gratitude I feel to him. Though he's been dead for thirty years—would you believe it, Robert?—well, I can't talk more about him now. I made this room as like my father's benn end as I could, and I am happier here than anywhere in the world.'

By this time Robert was perfectly at home. Before the dinner was ready he had not only told Dr. Anderson his present difficulty, but his whole story as far back as he could remember. The good man listened eagerly, gazed at the boy with more and more of interest, which deepened till his eyes glistened as he gazed, and when a ludicrous passage intervened, welcomed the laughter as an excuse for wiping them. When dinner was announced, he rose without a word and led the way to the dining-room. Robert followed, and they sat down to a meal simple enough for such a house, but which to Robert seemed a feast followed by a banquet. For after they had done eating—on the doctor's part a very meagre performance—they retired to his room again, and then Robert found the table covered with a snowy cloth, and wine and fruits arranged upon it.

It was far into the night before he rose to go home. As he passed through a thick rain of pin-point drops, he felt that although those cold granite houses, with glimmering dead face, stood like rows of sepulchres, he was in reality walking through an avenue of homes. Wet to the skin long before he reached Mrs. Fyvie's in the auld toon, he was notwithstanding as warm as the under side of a bird's wing. For he had to sit down and write to his grandmother informing her that Dr. Anderson had employed him to copy for the printers a book of his upon the Medical Boards of India, and that as he was going to pay him for that and other work at a rate which would secure him ten shillings a week, it would be a pity to lose a year for the chance of getting a bursary next winter.

The doctor did want the manuscript copied; and he knew that the only chance of getting Mrs. Falconer's consent to Robert's receiving any assistance from him, was to make some business arrangement of the sort. He wrote to her the same night, and after mentioning the unexpected pleasure of Robert's visit, not only explained the advantage to himself of the arrangement he had proposed, but set forth the greater advantage to Robert, inasmuch as he would thus be able in some measure to keep a hold of him. He judged that although Mrs. Falconer had no great opinion of his religion, she would yet consider his influence rather on the side of good than otherwise in the case of a boy else abandoned to his own resources.

The end of it all was that his grandmother yielded, and Robert was straightway a Bejan, or Yellow-beak.

Three days had he been clothed in the red gown of the Aberdeen student, and had attended the Humanity and Greek class-rooms. On the evening of the third day he was seated at his table preparing his Virgil for the next, when he found himself growing very weary, and no wonder, for, except the walk of a few hundred yards to and from the college, he had had no open air for those three days. It was raining in a persistent November fashion, and he thought of the sea, away through the dark and the rain, tossing uneasily. Should he pay it a visit? He sat for a moment,

This way and that dividing the swift mind, [4]

when his eye fell on his violin. He had been so full of his new position and its requirements, that he had not touched it since the session opened. Now it was just what he wanted. He caught it up eagerly, and began to play. The power of the music seized upon him, and he went on playing, forgetful of everything else, till a string broke. It was all too short for further use. Regardless of the rain or the depth of darkness to be traversed before he could find a music-shop, he caught up his cap, and went to rush from the house.

His door opened immediately on the top step of the stair, without any landing. There was a door opposite, to which likewise a few steps led immediately up. The stairs from the two doors united a little below. So near were the doors that one might stride across the fork. The opposite door was open, and in it stood Eric Ericson.



CHAPTER VII. ERIC ERICSON.

Robert sprang across the dividing chasm, clasped Ericson's hand in both of his, looked up into his face, and stood speechless. Ericson returned the salute with a still kindness—tender and still. His face was like a gray morning sky of summer from whose level cloud-fields rain will fall before noon.

'So it was you,' he said, 'playing the violin so well?'

'I was doin' my best,' answered Robert. 'But eh! Mr. Ericson, I wad hae dune better gin I had kent ye was hearkenin'.'

'You couldn't do better than your best,' returned Eric, smiling.

'Ay, but yer best micht aye grow better, ye ken,' persisted Robert.

'Come into my room,' said Ericson. 'This is Friday night, and there is nothing but chapel to-morrow. So we'll have talk instead of work.'

In another moment they were seated by a tiny coal fire in a room one side of which was the slope of the roof, with a large, low skylight in it looking seawards. The sound of the distant waves, unheard in Robert's room, beat upon the drum of the skylight, through all the world of mist that lay between it and them—dimly, vaguely—but ever and again with a swell of gathered force, that made the distant tumult doubtful no more.

'I am sorry I have nothing to offer you,' said Ericson.

'You remind me of Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate of the temple,' returned Robert, attempting to speak English like the Northerner, but breaking down as his heart got the better of him. 'Eh! Mr. Ericson, gin ye kent what it is to me to see the face o' ye, ye wadna speyk like that. Jist lat me sit an' leuk at ye. I want nae mair.'

A smile broke up the cold, sad, gray light of the young eagle-face. Stern at once and gentle when in repose, its smile was as the summer of some lovely land where neither the heat nor the sun shall smite them. The youth laid his hand upon the boy's head, then withdrew it hastily, and the smile vanished like the sun behind a cloud. Robert saw it, and as if he had been David before Saul, rose instinctively and said,

'I'll gang for my fiddle.—Hoots! I hae broken ane o' the strings. We maun bide till the morn. But I want nae fiddle mysel' whan I hear the great water oot there.'

'You're young yet, my boy, or you might hear voices in that water—! I've lived in the sound of it all my days. When I can't rest at night, I hear a moaning and crying in the dark, and I lie and listen till I can't tell whether I'm a man or some God-forsaken sea in the sunless north.'

'Sometimes I believe in naething but my fiddle,' answered Robert.

'Yes, yes. But when it comes into you, my boy! You won't hear much music in the cry of the sea after that. As long as you've got it at arm's length, it's all very well. It's interesting then, and you can talk to your fiddle about it, and make poetry about it,' said Ericson, with a smile of self-contempt. 'But as soon as the real earnest comes that is all over. The sea-moan is the cry of a tortured world then. Its hollow bed is the cup of the world's pain, ever rolling from side to side and dashing over its lip. Of all that might be, ought to be, nothing to be had!—I could get music out of it once. Look here. I could trifle like that once.'

He half rose, then dropped on his chair. But Robert's believing eyes justified confidence, and Ericson had never had any one to talk to. He rose again, opened a cupboard at his side, took out some papers, threw them on the table, and, taking his hat, walked towards the door.

'Which of your strings is broken?' he asked.

'The third,' answered Robert.

'I will get you one,' said Ericson; and before Robert could reply he was down the stair. Robert heard him cough, then the door shut, and he was gone in the rain and fog.

Bewildered, unhappy, ready to fly after him, yet irresolute, Robert almost mechanically turned over the papers upon the little deal table. He was soon arrested by the following verses, headed:

A NOONDAY MELODY.

Everything goes to its rest; The hills are asleep in the noon; And life is as still in its nest As the moon when she looks on a moon In the depths of a calm river's breast As it steals through a midnight in June.

The streams have forgotten the sea In the dream of their musical sound; The sunlight is thick on the tree, And the shadows lie warm on the ground— So still, you may watch them and see Every breath that awakens around.

The churchyard lies still in the heat, With its handful of mouldering bone; As still as the long stalk of wheat In the shadow that sits by the stone, As still as the grass at my feet When I walk in the meadows alone.

The waves are asleep on the main, And the ships are asleep on the wave; And the thoughts are as still in my brain As the echo that sleeps in the cave; All rest from their labour and pain— Then why should not I in my grave?

His heart ready to burst with a sorrow, admiration, and devotion, which no criticism interfered to qualify, Robert rushed out into the darkness, and sped, fleet-footed, along the only path which Ericson could have taken. He could not bear to be left in the house while his friend was out in the rain.

He was sure of joining him before he reached the new town, for he was fleet-footed, and there was a path only on one side of the way, so that there was no danger of passing him in the dark. As he ran he heard the moaning of the sea. There must be a storm somewhere, away in the deep spaces of its dark bosom, and its lips muttered of its far unrest. When the sun rose it would be seen misty and gray, tossing about under the one rain cloud that like a thinner ocean overspread the heavens—tossing like an animal that would fain lie down and be at peace but could not compose its unwieldy strength.

Suddenly Robert slackened his speed, ceased running, stood, gazed through the darkness at a figure a few yards before him.

An old wall, bowed out with age and the weight behind it, flanked the road in this part. Doors in this wall, with a few steps in front of them and more behind, led up into gardens upon a slope, at the top of which stood the houses to which they belonged. Against one of these doors the figure stood with its head bowed upon its hands. When Robert was within a few feet, it descended and went on.

'Mr. Ericson!' exclaimed Robert. 'Ye'll get yer deith gin ye stan' that gait i' the weet.'

'Amen,' said Ericson, turning with a smile that glimmered wan through the misty night. Then changing his tone, he went on: 'What are you after, Robert?'

'You,' answered Robert. 'I cudna bide to be left my lane whan I micht be wi' ye a' the time—gin ye wad lat me. Ye war oot o' the hoose afore I weel kent what ye was aboot. It's no a fit nicht for ye to be oot at a', mair by token 'at ye're no the ablest to stan' cauld an' weet.'

'I've stood a great deal of both in my time,' returned Ericson; 'but come along. We'll go and get that fiddle-string.'

'Dinna ye think it wad be fully better to gang hame?' Robert ventured to suggest.

'What would be the use? I'm in no mood for Plato to-night,' he answered, trying hard to keep from shivering.

'Ye hae an ill cauld upo' ye,' persisted Robert; 'an' ye maun be as weet 's a dishcloot.'

Ericson laughed—a strange, hollow laugh.

'Come along,' he said. 'A walk will do me good. We'll get the string, and then you shall play to me. That will do me more good yet.'

Robert ceased opposing him, and they walked together to the new town. Robert bought the string, and they set out, as he thought, to return.

But not yet did Ericson seem inclined to go home. He took the lead, and they emerged upon the quay.

There were not many vessels. One of them was the Antwerp tub, already known to Robert. He recognized her even in the dull light of the quay lamps. Her captain being a prudent and well-to-do Dutchman, never slept on shore; he preferred saving his money; and therefore, as the friends passed, Robert caught sight of him walking his own deck and smoking a long clay pipe before turning in.

'A fine nicht, capt'n,' said Robert.

'It does rain,' returned the captain. 'Will you come on board and have one schnapps before you turn in?'

'I hae a frien' wi' me here,' said Robert, feeling his way.

'Let him come and be welcomed.'

Ericson making no objection, they went on board, and down into the neat little cabin, which was all the roomier for the straightness of the vessel's quarter. The captain got out a square, coffin-shouldered bottle, and having respect to the condition of their garments, neither of the young men refused his hospitality, though Robert did feel a little compunction at the thought of the horror it would have caused his grandmother. Then the Dutchman got out his violin and asked Robert to play a Scotch air. But in the middle of it his eyes fell on Ericson, and he stopped at once. Ericson was sitting on a locker, leaning back against the side of the vessel: his eyes were open and fixed, and he seemed quite unconscious of what was passing. Robert fancied at first that the hollands he had taken had gone to his head, but he saw at the same moment, from his glass, that he had scarcely tasted the spirit. In great alarm they tried to rouse him, and at length succeeded. He closed his eyes, opened them again, rose up, and was going away.

'What's the maitter wi' ye, Mr. Ericson?' said Robert, in distress.

'Nothing, nothing,' answered Ericson, in a strange voice. 'I fell asleep, I believe. It was very bad manners, captain. I beg your pardon. I believe I am overtired.'

The Dutchman was as kind as possible, and begged Ericson to stay the night and occupy his berth. But he insisted on going home, although he was clearly unfit for such a walk. They bade the skipper good-night, went on shore, and set out, Ericson leaning rather heavily upon Robert's arm. Robert led him up Marischal Street.

The steep ascent was too much for Ericson. He stood still upon the bridge and leaned over the wall of it. Robert stood beside, almost in despair about getting him home.

'Have patience with me, Robert,' said Ericson, in his natural voice. 'I shall be better presently. I don't know what's come to me. If I had been a Celt now, I should have said I had a touch of the second sight. But I am, as far as I know, pure Northman.'

'What did you see?' asked Robert, with a strange feeling that miles of the spirit world, if one may be allowed such a contradiction in words, lay between him and his friend.

Ericson returned no answer. Robert feared he was going to have a relapse; but in a moment more he lifted himself up and bent again to the brae.

They got on pretty well till they were about the middle of the Gallowgate.

'I can't,' said Ericson feebly, and half leaned, half fell against the wall of a house.

'Come into this shop,' said Robert. 'I ken the man. He'll lat ye sit doon.'

He managed to get him in. He was as pale as death. The bookseller got a chair, and he sank into it. Robert was almost at his wit's end. There was no such thing as a cab in Aberdeen for years and years after the date of my story. He was holding a glass of water to Ericson's lips,—when he heard his name, in a low earnest whisper, from the door. There, round the door-cheek, peered the white face and red head of Shargar.

'Robert! Robert!' said Shargar.

'I hear ye,' returned Robert coolly: he was too anxious to be surprised at anything. 'Haud yer tongue. I'll come to ye in a minute.'

Ericson recovered a little, refused the whisky offered by the bookseller, rose, and staggered out.

'If I were only home!' he said. 'But where is home?'

'We'll try to mak ane,' returned Robert. 'Tak a haud o' me. Lay yer weicht upo' me.—Gin it warna for yer len'th, I cud cairry ye weel eneuch. Whaur's that Shargar?' he muttered to himself, looking up and down the gloomy street.

But no Shargar was to be seen. Robert peered in vain into every dark court they crept past, till at length he all but came to the conclusion that Shargar was only 'fantastical.'

When they had reached the hollow, and were crossing then canal-bridge by Mount Hooly, Ericson's strength again failed him, and again he leaned upon the bridge. Nor had he leaned long before Robert found that he had fainted. In desperation he began to hoist the tall form upon his back, when he heard the quick step of a runner behind him and the words—

'Gie 'im to me, Robert; gie 'im to me. I can carry 'im fine.'

'Haud awa' wi' ye,' returned Robert; and again Shargar fell behind.

For a few hundred yards he trudged along manfully; but his strength, more from the nature of his burden than its weight, soon gave way. He stood still to recover. The same moment Shargar was by his side again.

'Noo, Robert,' he said, pleadingly.

Robert yielded, and the burden was shifted to Shargar's back.

How they managed it they hardly knew themselves; but after many changes they at last got Ericson home, and up to his own room. He had revived several times, but gone off again. In one of his faints, Robert undressed him and got him into bed. He had so little to cover him, that Robert could not help crying with misery. He himself was well provided, and would gladly have shared with Ericson, but that was hopeless. He could, however, make him warm in bed. Then leaving Shargar in charge, he sped back to the new town to Dr. Anderson. The doctor had his carriage out at once, wrapped Robert in a plaid and brought him home with him.

Ericson came to himself, and seeing Shargar by his bedside, tried to sit up, asking feebly,

'Where am I?'

'In yer ain bed, Mr. Ericson,' answered Shargar.

'And who are you?' asked Ericson again, bewildered.

Shargar's pale face no doubt looked strange under his crown of red hair.

'Ow! I'm naebody.'

'You must be somebody, or else my brain's in a bad state,' returned Ericson.

'Na, na, I'm naebody. Naething ava (at all). Robert 'll be hame in ae meenit.—I'm Robert's tyke (dog),' concluded Shargar, with a sudden inspiration.

This answer seemed to satisfy Ericson, for he closed his eyes and lay still; nor did he speak again till Robert arrived with the doctor.

Poor food, scanty clothing, undue exertion in travelling to and from the university, hard mental effort against weakness, disquietude of mind, all borne with an endurance unconscious of itself, had reduced Eric Ericson to his present condition. Strength had given way at last, and he was now lying in the low border wash of a dead sea of fever.

The last of an ancient race of poor men, he had no relative but a second cousin, and no means except the little he advanced him, chiefly in kind, to be paid for when Eric had a profession. This cousin was in the herring trade, and the chief assistance he gave him was to send him by sea, from Wick to Aberdeen, a small barrel of his fish every session. One herring, with two or three potatoes, formed his dinner as long as the barrel lasted. But at Aberdeen or elsewhere no one carried his head more erect than Eric Ericson—not from pride, but from simplicity and inborn dignity; and there was not a man during his curriculum more respected than he. An excellent classical scholar—as scholarship went in those days—he was almost the only man in the university who made his knowledge of Latin serve towards an acquaintance with the Romance languages. He had gained a small bursary, and gave lessons when he could.

But having no level channel for the outgoing of the waters of one of the tenderest hearts that ever lived, those waters had sought to break a passage upwards. Herein his experience corresponded in a considerable degree to that of Robert; only Eric's more fastidious and more instructed nature bred a thousand difficulties which he would meet one by one, whereas Robert, less delicate and more robust, would break through all the oppositions of theological science falsely so called, and take the kingdom of heaven by force. But indeed the ruins of the ever falling temple of theology had accumulated far more heavily over Robert's well of life, than over that of Ericson: the obstructions to his faith were those that rolled from the disintegrating mountains of humanity, rather than the rubbish heaped upon it by the careless masons who take the quarry whence they hew the stones for the temple—built without hands eternal in the heavens.

When Dr. Anderson entered, Ericson opened his eyes wide. The doctor approached, and taking his hand began to feel his pulse. Then first Ericson comprehended his visit.

'I can't,' he said, withdrawing his hand. 'I am not so ill as to need a doctor.'

'My dear sir,' said Dr. Anderson, courteously, 'there will be no occasion to put you to any pain.'

'Sir,' said Eric, 'I have no money.'

The doctor laughed.

'And I have more than I know how to make a good use of.'

'I would rather be left alone,' persisted Ericson, turning his face away.

'Now, my dear sir,' said the doctor, with gentle decision, 'that is very wrong. With what face can you offer a kindness when your turn comes, if you won't accept one yourself?'

Ericson held out his wrist. Dr. Anderson questioned, prescribed, and, having given directions, went home, to call again in the morning.

And now Robert was somewhat in the position of the old woman who 'had so many children she didn't know what to do.' Dr. Anderson ordered nourishment for Ericson, and here was Shargar upon his hands as well! Shargar and he could share, to be sure, and exist: but for Ericson—?

Not a word did Robert exchange with Shargar till he had gone to the druggist's and got the medicine for Ericson, who, after taking it, fell into a troubled sleep. Then, leaving the two doors open, Robert joined Shargar in his own room. There he made up a good fire, and they sat and dried themselves.

'Noo, Shargar,' said Robert at length, 'hoo cam ye here?'

His question was too like one of his grandmother's to be pleasant to Shargar.

'Dinna speyk to me that gait, Robert, or I'll cut my throat' he returned.

'Hoots! I maun ken a' aboot it,' insisted Robert, but with much modified and partly convicted tone.

'Weel, I never said I wadna tell ye a' aboot it. The fac' 's this—an' I'm no' up to the leein' as I used to be, Robert: I hae tried it ower an' ower, but a lee comes rouch throw my thrapple (windpipe) noo. Faith! I cud hae leed ance wi' onybody, barrin' the de'il. I winna lee. I'm nae leein'. The fac's jist this: I cudna bide ahin' ye ony langer.'

'But what, the muckle lang-tailed deevil! am I to do wi' ye?' returned Robert, in real perplexity, though only pretended displeasure.

'Gie me something to ate, an' I'll tell ye what to do wi' me,' answered Shargar. 'I dinna care a scart (scratch) what it is.'

Robert rang the bell and ordered some porridge, and while it was preparing, Shargar told his story—how having heard a rumour of apprenticeship to a tailor, he had the same night dropped from the gable window to the ground, and with three halfpence in his pocket had wandered and begged his way to Aberdeen, arriving with one halfpenny left.

'But what am I to do wi' ye?' said Robert once more, in as much perplexity as ever.

'Bide till I hae tellt ye, as I said I wad,' answered Shargar. 'Dinna ye think I'm the haveless (careless and therefore helpless) crater I used to be. I hae been in Aberdeen three days! Ay, an' I hae seen you ilka day in yer reid goon, an' richt braw it is. Luik ye here!'

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out what amounted to two or three shillings, chiefly in coppers, which he exposed with triumph on the table.

'Whaur got ye a' that siller, man?' asked Robert.

'Here and there, I kenna whaur; but I hae gien the weicht o' 't for 't a' the same—rinnin' here an' rinnin' there, cairryin' boxes till an' frae the smacks, an' doin' a'thing whether they bade me or no. Yesterday mornin' I got thrippence by hingin' aboot the Royal afore the coches startit. I luikit a' up and doon the street till I saw somebody hine awa wi' a porkmanty. Till 'im I ran, an' he was an auld man, an' maist at the last gasp wi' the weicht o' 't, an' gae me 't to carry. An' wha duv ye think gae me a shillin' the verra first nicht?—Wha but my brither Sandy?'

'Lord Rothie?'

'Ay, faith. I kent him weel eneuch, but little he kent me. There he was upo' Black Geordie. He's turnin' auld noo.'

'Yer brither?'

'Na. He's young eneuch for ony mischeef; but Black Geordie. What on earth gars him gang stravaguin' aboot upo' that deevil? I doobt he's a kelpie, or a hell-horse, or something no canny o' that kin'; for faith! brither Sandy's no ower canny himsel', I'm thinkin'. But Geordie—the aulder the waur set (inclined). An' sae I'm thinkin' wi' his maister.'

'Did ye iver see yer father, Shargar?'

'Na. Nor I dinna want to see 'im. I'm upo' my mither's side. But that's naething to the pint. A' that I want o' you 's to lat me come hame at nicht, an' lie upo' the flure here. I sweir I'll lie i' the street gin ye dinna lat me. I'll sleep as soun' 's Peter MacInnes whan Maccleary's preachin'. An' I winna ate muckle—I hae a dreidfu' pooer o' aitin'—an' a' 'at I gether I'll fess hame to you, to du wi' 't as ye like.—Man, I cairriet a heap o' things the day till the skipper o' that boat 'at ye gaed intil wi' Maister Ericson the nicht. He's a fine chiel' that skipper!'

Robert was astonished at the change that had passed upon Shargar. His departure had cast him upon his own resources, and allowed the individuality repressed by every event of his history, even by his worship of Robert, to begin to develop itself. Miserable for a few weeks, he had revived in the fancy that to work hard at school would give him some chance of rejoining Robert. Thence, too, he had watched to please Mrs. Falconer, and had indeed begun to buy golden opinions from all sorts of people. He had a hope in prospect. But into the midst fell the whisper of the apprenticeship like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. He fled at once.

'Weel, ye can hae my bed the nicht,' said Robert, 'for I maun sit up wi' Mr. Ericson.'

''Deed I'll hae naething o' the kin'. I'll sleep upo' the flure, or else upo' the door-stane. Man, I'm no clean eneuch efter what I've come throu sin' I drappit frae the window-sill i' the ga'le-room. But jist len' me yer plaid, an' I'll sleep upo' the rug here as gin I war i' Paradees. An' faith, sae I am, Robert. Ye maun gang to yer bed some time the nicht forby (besides), or ye winna be fit for yer wark the morn. Ye can jist gie me a kick, an' I'll be up afore ye can gie me anither.'

Their supper arrived from below, and, each on one side of the fire, they ate the porridge, conversing all the while about old times—for the youngest life has its old times, its golden age—and old adventures,—Dooble Sanny, Betty, &c., &c. There were but two subjects which Robert avoided—Miss St. John and the Bonnie Leddy. Shargar was at length deposited upon the little bit of hearthrug which adorned rather than enriched the room, with Robert's plaid of shepherd tartan around him, and an Ainsworth's dictionary under his head for a pillow.

'Man, I fin' mysel' jist like a muckle colley (sheep-dog),' he said. 'Whan I close my een, I'm no sure 'at I'm no i' the inside o' yer auld luckie-daiddie's kilt. The Lord preserve me frae ever sic a fricht again as yer grannie an' Betty gae me the nicht they fand me in 't! I dinna believe it's in natur' to hae sic a fricht twise in ae lifetime. Sae I'll fa' asleep at ance, an' say nae mair—but as muckle o' my prayers as I can min' upo' noo 'at grannie's no at my lug.'

'Haud yer impidence, an' yer tongue thegither,' said Robert. 'Min' 'at my grannie's been the best frien' ye ever had.'

''Cep' my ain mither,' returned Shargar, with a sleepy doggedness in his tone.

During their conference, Ericson had been slumbering. Robert had visited him from time to time, but he had not awaked. As soon as Shargar was disposed of, he took his candle and sat down by him. He grew more uneasy. Robert guessed that the candle was the cause, and put it out. Ericson was quieter. So Robert sat in the dark.

But the rain had now ceased. Some upper wind had swept the clouds from the sky, and the whole world of stars was radiant over the earth and its griefs.

'O God, where art thou?' he said in his heart, and went to his own room to look out.

There was no curtain, and the blind had not been drawn down, therefore the earth looked in at the storm-window. The sea neither glimmered nor shone. It lay across the horizon like a low level cloud, out of which came a moaning. Was this moaning all of the earth, or was there trouble in the starry places too? thought Robert, as if already he had begun to suspect the truth from afar—that save in the secret place of the Most High, and in the heart that is hid with the Son of Man in the bosom of the Father, there is trouble—a sacred unrest—everywhere—the moaning of a tide setting homewards, even towards the bosom of that Father.



CHAPTER VIII. A HUMAN PROVIDENCE.

Robert kept himself thoroughly awake the whole night, and it was well that he had not to attend classes in the morning. As the gray of the world's reviving consciousness melted in at the window, the things around and within him looked and felt ghastly. Nothing is liker the gray dawn than the soul of one who has been watching by a sick bed all the long hours of the dark, except, indeed, it be the first glimmerings of truth on the mind lost in the dark of a godless life.

Ericson had waked often, and Robert had administered his medicine carefully. But he had been mostly between sleeping and waking, and had murmured strange words, whose passing shadows rather than glimmers roused the imagination of the youth as with messages from regions unknown.

As the light came he found his senses going, and went to his own room again to get a book that he might keep himself awake by reading at the window. To his surprise Shargar was gone, and for a moment he doubted whether he had not been dreaming all that had passed between them the night before. His plaid was folded up and laid upon a chair, as if it had been there all night, and his Ainsworth was on the table. But beside it was the money Shargar had drawn from his pockets.

About nine o'clock Dr. Anderson arrived, found Ericson not so much worse as he had expected, comforted Robert, and told him he must go to bed.

'But I cannot leave Mr. Ericson,' said Robert.

'Let your friend—what's his odd name?—watch him during the day.'

'Shargar, you mean, sir. But that's his nickname. His rale name they say his mither says, is George Moray—wi' an o an' no a u-r.—Do you see, sir?' concluded Robert significantly.

'No, I don't,' answered the doctor.

'They say he's a son o' the auld Markis's, that's it. His mither's a randy wife 'at gangs aboot the country—a gipsy they say. There's nae doobt aboot her. An' by a' accoonts the father's likly eneuch.'

'And how on earth did you come to have such a questionable companion?'

'Shargar's as fine a crater as ever God made,' said Robert warmly. 'Ye'll alloo 'at God made him, doctor; though his father an' mither thochtna muckle aboot him or God either whan they got him atween them? An' Shargar couldna help it. It micht ha' been you or me for that maitter, doctor.'

'I beg your pardon, Robert,' said Dr. Anderson quietly, although delighted with the fervour of his young kinsman: 'I only wanted to know how he came to be your companion.'

'I beg your pardon, doctor—but I thoucht ye was some scunnert at it; an' I canna bide Shargar to be luikit doon upo'. Luik here,' he continued, going to his box, and bringing out Shargar's little heap of coppers, in which two sixpences obscurely shone, 'he brocht a' that hame last nicht, an' syne sleepit upo' the rug i' my room there. We'll want a' 'at he can mak an' me too afore we get Mr. Ericson up again.'

'But ye haena tellt me yet,' said the doctor, so pleased with the lad that he relapsed into the dialect of his youth, 'hoo ye cam to forgather wi' 'im.'

'I tellt ye a' aboot it, doctor. It was a' my grannie's doin', God bless her—for weel he may, an' muckle she needs 't.'

'Oh! yes; I remember now all your grandmother's part in the story,' returned the doctor. 'But I still want to know how he came here.'

'She was gaein' to mak a taylor o' 'm: an' he jist ran awa', an' cam to me.'

'It was too bad of him that—after all she had done for him.'

'Ow, 'deed no, doctor. Even whan ye boucht a man an' paid for him, accordin' to the Jewish law, ye cudna mak a slave o' 'im for a'thegither, ohn him seekin' 't himsel'.—Eh! gin she could only get my father hame!' sighed Robert, after a pause.

'What should she want him home for?' asked Dr. Anderson, still making conversation.

'I didna mean hame to Rothieden. I believe she cud bide never seein' 'im again, gin only he wasna i' the ill place. She has awfu' notions aboot burnin' ill sowls for ever an' ever. But it's no hersel'. It's the wyte o' the ministers. Doctor, I do believe she wad gang an' be brunt hersel' wi' a great thanksgivin', gin it wad lat ony puir crater oot o' 't—no to say my father. An' I sair misdoobt gin mony o' them 'at pat it in her heid wad do as muckle. I'm some feared they're like Paul afore he was convertit: he wadna lift a stane himsel', but he likit weel to stan' oot by an' luik on.'

A deep sigh, almost a groan, from the bed, reminded them that they were talking too much and too loud for a sick-room. It was followed by the words, muttered, but articulate,

'What's the good when you don't know whether there's a God at all?'

''Deed, that's verra true, Mr. Ericson,' returned Robert. 'I wish ye wad fin' oot an' tell me. I wad be blithe to hear what ye had to say anent it—gin it was ay, ye ken.'

Ericson went on murmuring, but inarticulately now.

'This won't do at all, Robert, my boy,' said Dr. Anderson. 'You must not talk about such things with him, or indeed about anything. You must keep him as quiet as ever you can.'

'I thocht he was comin' till himsel',' returned Robert. 'But I will tak care, I assure ye, doctor. Only I'm feared I may fa' asleep the nicht, for I was dooms sleepy this mornin'.'

'I will send Johnston as soon as I get home, and you must go to bed when he comes.'

''Deed, doctor, that winna do at a'. It wad be ower mony strange faces a'thegither. We'll get Mistress Fyvie to luik till 'im the day, an' Shargar canna work the morn, bein' Sunday. An' I'll gang to my bed for fear o' doin' waur, though I doobt I winna sleep i' the daylicht.'

Dr. Anderson was satisfied, and went home—cogitating much. This boy, this cousin of his, made a vortex of good about him into which whoever came near it was drawn. He seemed at the same time quite unaware of anything worthy in his conduct. The good he did sprung from some inward necessity, with just enough in it of the salt of choice to keep it from losing its savour. To these cogitations of Dr. Anderson, I add that there was no conscious exercise of religion in it—for there his mind was all at sea. Of course I believe notwithstanding that religion had much, I ought to say everything, to do with it. Robert had not yet found in God a reason for being true to his fellows; but, if God was leading him to be the man he became, how could any good results of this leading be other than religion? All good is of God. Robert began where he could. The first table was too high for him; he began with the second. If a man love his brother whom he hath seen, the love of God whom he hath not seen, is not very far off. These results in Robert were the first outcome of divine facts and influences—they were the buds of the fruit hereafter to be gathered in perfect devotion. God be praised by those who know religion to be the truth of humanity—its own truth that sets it free—not binds, and lops, and mutilates it! who see God to be the father of every human soul—the ideal Father, not an inventor of schemes, or the upholder of a court etiquette for whose use he has chosen to desecrate the name of justice!

To return to Dr. Anderson. I have had little opportunity of knowing his history in India. He returned from it half-way down the hill of life, sad, gentle, kind, and rich. Whence his sadness came, we need not inquire. Some woman out in that fervid land may have darkened his story—darkened it wronglessly, it may be, with coldness, or only with death. But to return home without wife to accompany him or child to meet him,—to sit by his riches like a man over a fire of straws in a Siberian frost; to know that old faces were gone and old hearts changed, that the pattern of things in the heavens had melted away from the face of the earth, that the chill evenings of autumn were settling down into longer and longer nights, and that no hope lay any more beyond the mountains—surely this was enough to make a gentle-minded man sad, even if the individual sorrows of his history had gathered into gold and purple in the west. I say west advisedly. For we are journeying, like our globe, ever towards the east. Death and the west are behind us—ever behind us, and settling into the unchangeable.

It was natural that he should be interested in the fine promise of Robert, in whom he saw revived the hopes of his own youth, but in a nature at once more robust and more ideal. Where the doctor was refined, Robert was strong; where the doctor was firm with a firmness he had cultivated, Robert was imperious with an imperiousness time would mellow; where the doctor was generous and careful at once, Robert gave his mite and forgot it. He was rugged in the simplicity of his truthfulness, and his speech bewrayed him as altogether of the people; but the doctor knew the hole of the pit whence he had been himself digged. All that would fall away as the spiky shell from the polished chestnut, and be reabsorbed in the growth of the grand cone-flowering tree, to stand up in the sun and wind of the years a very altar of incense. It is no wonder, I repeat, that he loved the boy, and longed to further his plans. But he was too wise to overwhelm him with a cataract of fortune instead of blessing him with the merciful dew of progress.

'The fellow will bring me in for no end of expense,' he said, smiling to himself, as he drove home in his chariot. 'The less he means it the more unconscionable he will be. There's that Ericson—but that isn't worth thinking of. I must do something for that queer protege of his, though—that Shargar. The fellow is as good as a dog, and that's saying not a little for him. I wonder if he can learn—or if he takes after his father the marquis, who never could spell. Well, it is a comfort to have something to do worth doing. I did think of endowing a hospital; but I'm not sure that it isn't better to endow a good man than a hospital. I'll think about it. I won't say anything about Shargar either, till I see how he goes on. I might give him a job, though, now and then. But where to fall in with him—prowling about after jobs?'

He threw himself back in his seat, and laughed with a delight he had rarely felt. He was a providence watching over the boys, who expected nothing of him beyond advice for Ericson! Might there not be a Providence that equally transcended the vision of men, shaping to nobler ends the blocked-out designs of their rough-hewn marbles?

His thoughts wandered back to his friend the Brahmin, who died longing for that absorption into deity which had been the dream of his life: might not the Brahmin find the grand idea shaped to yet finer issues than his aspiration had dared contemplate?—might he not inherit in the purification of his will such an absorption as should intensify his personality?



CHAPTER IX. A HUMAN SOUL.

Ericson lay for several weeks, during which time Robert and Shargar were his only nurses. They contrived, by abridging both rest and labour, to give him constant attendance. Shargar went to bed early and got up early, so as to let Robert have a few hours' sleep before his classes began. Robert again slept in the evening, after Shargar came home, and made up for the time by reading while he sat by his friend. Mrs. Fyvie's attendance was in requisition only for the hours when he had to be at lectures. By the greatest economy of means, consisting of what Shargar brought in by jobbing about the quay and the coach-offices, and what Robert had from Dr. Anderson for copying his manuscript, they contrived to procure for Ericson all that he wanted. The shopping of the two boys, in their utter ignorance of such delicacies as the doctor told them to get for him, the blunders they made as to the shops at which they were to be bought, and the consultations they held, especially about the preparing of the prescribed nutriment, afforded them many an amusing retrospect in after years. For the house was so full of lodgers, that Robert begged Mrs. Fyvie to give herself no trouble in the matter. Her conscience, however, was uneasy, and she spoke to Dr. Anderson; but he assured her that she might trust the boys. What cooking they could not manage, she undertook cheerfully, and refused to add anything to the rent on Shargar's account.

Dr. Anderson watched everything, the two boys as much as his patient. He allowed them to work on, sending only the wine that was necessary from his own cellar. The moment the supplies should begin to fail, or the boys to look troubled, he was ready to do more. About Robert's perseverance he had no doubt: Shargar's faithfulness he wanted to prove.

Robert wrote to his grandmother to tell her that Shargar was with him, working hard. Her reply was somewhat cold and offended, but was inclosed in a parcel containing all Shargar's garments, and ended with the assurance that as long as he did well she was ready to do what she could.

Few English readers will like Mrs. Falconer; but her grandchild considered her one of the noblest women ever God made; and I, from his account, am of the same mind. Her care was fixed

To fill her odorous lamp with deeds of light, And hope that reaps not shame.

And if one must choose between the how and the what, let me have the what, come of the how what may. I know of a man so sensitive, that he shuts his ears to his sister's griefs, because it spoils his digestion to think of them.

One evening Robert was sitting by the table in Ericson's room. Dr. Anderson had not called that day, and he did not expect to see him now, for he had never come so late. He was quite at his ease, therefore, and busy with two things at once, when the doctor opened the door and walked in. I think it is possible that he came up quietly with some design of surprising him. He found him with a stocking on one hand, a darning needle in the other, and a Greek book open before him. Taking no apparent notice of him, he walked up to the bedside, and Robert put away his work. After his interview with his patient was over, the doctor signed to him to follow him to the next room. There Shargar lay on the rug already snoring. It was a cold night in December, but he lay in his under-clothing, with a single blanket round him.

'Good training for a soldier,' said the doctor; 'and so was your work a minute ago, Robert.'

'Ay,' answered Robert, colouring a little; 'I was readin' a bit o' the Anabasis.'

The doctor smiled a far-off sly smile.

'I think it was rather the Katabasis, if one might venture to judge from the direction of your labours.'

'Weel,' answered Robert, 'what wad ye hae me do? Wad ye hae me lat Mr. Ericson gang wi' holes i' the heels o' 's hose, whan I can mak them a' snod, an' learn my Greek at the same time? Hoots, doctor! dinna lauch at me. I was doin' nae ill. A body may please themsel's—whiles surely, ohn sinned.'

'But it's such waste of time! Why don't you buy him new ones?'

''Deed that's easier said than dune. I hae eneuch ado wi' my siller as 'tis; an' gin it warna for you, doctor, I do not ken what wad come o' 's; for ye see I hae no richt to come upo' my grannie for ither fowk. There wad be nae en' to that.'

'But I could lend you the money to buy him some stockings.'

'An' whan wad I be able to pay ye, do ye think, doctor? In anither warl' maybe, whaur the currency micht be sae different there wad be no possibility o' reckonin' the rate o' exchange. Na, na.'

'But I will give you the money if you like.'

'Na, na. You hae dune eneuch already, an' mony thanks. Siller's no sae easy come by to be wastit, as lang's a darn 'll do. Forbye, gin ye began wi' his claes, ye wadna ken whaur to haud; for it wad jist be the new claith upo' the auld garment: ye micht as weel new cleed him at ance.'

'And why not if I choose, Mr. Falconer?'

'Speir ye that at him, an' see what ye'll get—a luik 'at wad fess a corbie (carrion crow) frae the lift (sky). I wadna hae ye try that. Some fowk's poverty maun be han'let jist like a sair place, doctor. He canna weel compleen o' a bit darnin'.—He canna tak that ill,' repeated Robert, in a tone that showed he yet felt some anxiety on the subject; 'but new anes! I wadna like to be by whan he fand that oot. Maybe he micht tak them frae a wuman; but frae a man body!—na, na; I maun jist darn awa'. But I'll mak them dacent eneuch afore I hae dune wi' them. A fiddler has fingers.'

The doctor smiled a pleased smile; but when he got into his carriage, again he laughed heartily.

The evening deepened into night. Robert thought Ericson was asleep. But he spoke.

'Who is that at the street door?' he said.

They were at the top of the house, and there was no window to the street. But Ericson's senses were preternaturally acute, as is often the case in such illnesses.

'I dinna hear onybody,' answered Robert.

'There was somebody,' returned Ericson.

From that moment he began to be restless, and was more feverish than usual throughout the night.

Up to this time he had spoken little, was depressed with a suffering to which he could give no name—not pain, he said—but such that he could rouse no mental effort to meet it: his endurance was passive altogether. This night his brain was more affected. He did not rave, but often wandered; never spoke nonsense, but many words that would have seemed nonsense to ordinary people: to Robert they seemed inspired. His imagination, which was greater than any other of his fine faculties, was so roused that he talked in verse—probably verse composed before and now recalled. He would even pray sometimes in measured lines, and go on murmuring petitions, till the words of the murmur became undistinguishable, and he fell asleep. But even in his sleep he would speak; and Robert would listen in awe; for such words, falling from such a man, were to him as dim breaks of coloured light from the rainbow walls of the heavenly city.

'If God were thinking me,' said Ericson, 'ah! But if he be only dreaming me, I shall go mad.'

Ericson's outside was like his own northern clime—dark, gentle, and clear, with gray-blue seas, and a sun that seems to shine out of the past, and know nothing of the future. But within glowed a volcanic angel of aspiration, fluttering his half-grown wings, and ever reaching towards the heights whence all things are visible, and where all passions are safe because true, that is divine. Iceland herself has her Hecla.

Robert listened with keenest ear. A mist of great meaning hung about the words his friend had spoken. He might speak more. For some minutes he listened in vain, and was turning at last towards his book in hopelessness, when he did speak yet again: Robert's ear soon detected the rhythmic motion of his speech.

'Come in the glory of thine excellence; Rive the dense gloom with wedges of clear light; And let the shimmer of thy chariot wheels Burn through the cracks of night.—So slowly, Lord, To lift myself to thee with hands of toil, Climbing the slippery cliff of unheard prayer! Lift up a hand among my idle days— One beckoning finger. I will cast aside The clogs of earthly circumstance, and run Up the broad highways where the countless worlds Sit ripening in the summer of thy love.'

Breathless for fear of losing a word, Robert yet remembered that he had seen something like these words in the papers Ericson had given him to read on the night when his illness began. When he had fallen asleep and silent, he searched and found the poem from which I give the following extracts. He had not looked at the papers since that night.

A PRAYER.

O Lord, my God, how long Shall my poor heart pant for a boundless joy? How long, O mighty Spirit, shall I hear The murmur of Truth's crystal waters slide From the deep caverns of their endless being, But my lips taste not, and the grosser air Choke each pure inspiration of thy will?

I would be a wind, Whose smallest atom is a viewless wing, All busy with the pulsing life that throbs To do thy bidding; yea, or the meanest thing That has relation to a changeless truth Could I but be instinct with thee—each thought The lightning of a pure intelligence, And every act as the loud thunder-clap Of currents warring for a vacuum.

Lord, clothe me with thy truth as with a robe. Purge me with sorrow. I will bend my head, And let the nations of thy waves pass over, Bathing me in thy consecrated strength. And let the many-voiced and silver winds Pass through my frame with their clear influence. O save me—I am blind; lo! thwarting shapes Wall up the void before, and thrusting out Lean arms of unshaped expectation, beckon Down to the night of all unholy thoughts.

I have seen Unholy shapes lop off my shining thoughts, Which I had thought nursed in thine emerald light; And they have lent me leathern wings of fear, Of baffled pride and harrowing distrust; And Godhead with its crown of many stars, Its pinnacles of flaming holiness, And voice of leaves in the green summer-time, Has seemed the shadowed image of a self. Then my soul blackened; and I rose to find And grasp my doom, and cleave the arching deeps Of desolation.

O Lord, my soul is a forgotten well; Clad round with its own rank luxuriance; A fountain a kind sunbeam searches for, Sinking the lustre of its arrowy finger Through the long grass its own strange virtue [5] Hath blinded up its crystal eye withal: Make me a broad strong river coming down With shouts from its high hills, whose rocky hearts Throb forth the joy of their stability In watery pulses from their inmost deeps, And I shall be a vein upon thy world, Circling perpetual from the parent deep. O First and Last, O glorious all in all, In vain my faltering human tongue would seek To shape the vesture of the boundless thought, Summing all causes in one burning word; Give me the spirit's living tongue of fire, Whose only voice is in an attitude Of keenest tension, bent back on itself With a strong upward force; even as thy bow Of bended colour stands against the north, And, in an attitude to spring to heaven, Lays hold of the kindled hills.

Most mighty One, Confirm and multiply my thoughts of good; Help me to wall each sacred treasure round With the firm battlements of special action. Alas my holy, happy thoughts of thee Make not perpetual nest within my soul, But like strange birds of dazzling colours stoop The trailing glories of their sunward speed, For one glad moment filling my blasted boughs With the sunshine of their wings.

Make me a forest Of gladdest life, wherein perpetual spring Lifts up her leafy tresses in the wind.

Lo! now I see Thy trembling starlight sit among my pines, And thy young moon slide down my arching boughs With a soft sound of restless eloquence. And I can feel a joy as when thy hosts Of trampling winds, gathering in maddened bands, Roar upward through the blue and flashing day Round my still depths of uncleft solitude.

Hear me, O Lord, When the black night draws down upon my soul, And voices of temptation darken down The misty wind, slamming thy starry doors, With bitter jests. 'Thou fool!' they seem to say 'Thou hast no seed of goodness in thee; all Thy nature hath been stung right through and through. Thy sin hath blasted thee, and made thee old. Thou hadst a will, but thou hast killed it—dead— And with the fulsome garniture of life Built out the loathsome corpse. Thou art a child Of night and death, even lower than a worm. Gather the skirts up of thy shadowy self, And with what resolution thou hast left, Fall on the damned spikes of doom.'

O take me like a child, If thou hast made me for thyself, my God, And lead me up thy hills. I shall not fear So thou wilt make me pure, and beat back sin With the terrors of thine eye.

Lord hast thou sent Thy moons to mock us with perpetual hope? Lighted within our breasts the love of love, To make us ripen for despair, my God?

Oh, dost thou hold each individual soul Strung clear upon thy flaming rods of purpose? Or does thine inextinguishable will Stand on the steeps of night with lifted hand, Filling the yawning wells of monstrous space With mixing thought—drinking up single life As in a cup? and from the rending folds Of glimmering purpose, the gloom do all thy navied stars Slide through the gloom with mystic melody, Like wishes on a brow? Oh, is my soul, Hung like a dew-drop in thy grassy ways, Drawn up again into the rack of change, Even through the lustre which created it? O mighty one, thou wilt not smite me through With scorching wrath, because my spirit stands Bewildered in thy circling mysteries.

Here came the passage Robert had heard him repeat, and then the following paragraph:

Lord, thy strange mysteries come thickening down Upon my head like snow-flakes, shutting out The happy upper fields with chilly vapour. Shall I content my soul with a weak sense Of safety? or feed my ravenous hunger with Sore-purged hopes, that are not hopes, but fears Clad in white raiment? I know not but some thin and vaporous fog, Fed with the rank excesses of the soul, Mocks the devouring hunger of my life With satisfaction: lo! the noxious gas Feeds the lank ribs of gaunt and ghastly death With double emptiness, like a balloon, Borne by its lightness o'er the shining lands, A wonder and a laughter. The creeds lie in the hollow of men's hearts Like festering pools glassing their own corruption: The slimy eyes stare up with dull approval, And answer not when thy bright starry feet Move on the watery floors.

O wilt thou hear me when I cry to thee? I am a child lost in a mighty forest; The air is thick with voices, and strange hands Reach through the dusk and pluck me by the skirts. There is a voice which sounds like words from home, But, as I stumble on to reach it, seems To leap from rock to rock. Oh! if it is Willing obliquity of sense, descend, Heal all my wanderings, take me by the hand, And lead me homeward through the shadows. Let me not by my wilful acts of pride Block up the windows of thy truth, and grow A wasted, withered thing, that stumbles on Down to the grave with folded hands of sloth And leaden confidence.

There was more of it, as my type indicates. Full of faults, I have given so much to my reader, just as it stood upon Ericson's blotted papers, the utterance of a true soul 'crying for the light.' But I give also another of his poems, which Robert read at the same time, revealing another of his moods when some one of the clouds of holy doubt and questioning love which so often darkened his sky, did at length

Turn forth her silver lining on the night:

SONG.

They are blind and they are dead: We will wake them as we go; There are words have not been said; There are sounds they do not know. We will pipe and we will sing— With the music and the spring, Set their hearts a wondering.

They are tired of what is old: We will give it voices new; For the half hath not been told Of the Beautiful and True. Drowsy eyelids shut and sleeping! Heavy eyes oppressed with weeping! Flashes through the lashes leaping!

Ye that have a pleasant voice, Hither come without delay; Ye will never have a choice Like to that ye have to-day: Round the wide world we will go, Singing through the frost and snow, Till the daisies are in blow.

Ye that cannot pipe or sing, Ye must also come with speed; Ye must come and with you bring Weighty words and weightier deed: Helping hands and loving eyes, These will make them truly wise— Then will be our Paradise.

As Robert read, the sweetness of the rhythm seized upon him, and, almost unconsciously, he read the last stanza aloud. Looking up from the paper with a sigh of wonder and delight—there was the pale face of Ericson gazing at him from the bed! He had risen on one arm, looking like a dead man called to life against his will, who found the world he had left already stranger to him than the one into which he had but peeped.

'Yes,' he murmured; 'I could say that once. It's all gone now. Our world is but our moods.'

He fell back on his pillow. After a little, he murmured again:

'I might fool myself with faith again. So it is better not. I would not be fooled. To believe the false and be happy is the very belly of misery. To believe the true and be miserable, is to be true—and miserable. If there is no God, let me know it. I will not be fooled. I will not believe in a God that does not exist. Better be miserable because I am, and cannot help it.—O God!'

Yet in his misery, he cried upon God.

These words came upon Robert with such a shock of sympathy, that they destroyed his consciousness for the moment, and when he thought about them, he almost doubted if he had heard them. He rose and approached the bed. Ericson lay with his eyes closed, and his face contorted as by inward pain. Robert put a spoonful of wine to his lips. He swallowed it, opened his eyes, gazed at the boy as if he did not know him, closed them again, and lay still.

Some people take comfort from the true eyes of a dog—and a precious thing to the loving heart is the love of even a dumb animal. [6] What comfort then must not such a boy as Robert have been to such a man as Ericson! Often and often when he was lying asleep as Robert thought, he was watching the face of his watcher. When the human soul is not yet able to receive the vision of the God-man, God sometimes—might I not say always?—reveals himself, or at least gives himself, in some human being whose face, whose hands are the ministering angels of his unacknowledged presence, to keep alive the fire of love on the altar of the heart, until God hath provided the sacrifice—that is, until the soul is strong enough to draw it from the concealing thicket. Here were two, each thinking that God had forsaken him, or was not to be found by him, and each the very love of God, commissioned to tend the other's heart. In each was he present to the other. The one thought himself the happiest of mortals in waiting upon his big brother, whose least smile was joy enough for one day; the other wondered at the unconscious goodness of the boy, and while he gazed at his ruddy-brown face, believed in God.

For some time after Ericson was taken ill, he was too depressed and miserable to ask how he was cared for. But by slow degrees it dawned upon him that a heart deep and gracious, like that of a woman, watched over him. True, Robert was uncouth, but his uncouthness was that of a half-fledged angel. The heart of the man and the heart of the boy were drawn close together. Long before Ericson was well he loved Robert enough to be willing to be indebted to him, and would lie pondering—not how to repay him, but how to return his kindness.

How much Robert's ambition to stand well in the eyes of Miss St. John contributed to his progress I can only imagine; but certainly his ministrations to Ericson did not interfere with his Latin and Greek. I venture to think that they advanced them, for difficulty adds to result, as the ramming of the powder sends the bullet the further. I have heard, indeed, that when a carrier wants to help his horse up hill, he sets a boy on his back.

Ericson made little direct acknowledgment to Robert: his tones, his gestures, his looks, all thanked him; but he shrunk from words, with the maidenly shamefacedness that belongs to true feeling. He would even assume the authoritative, and send him away to his studies, but Robert knew how to hold his own. The relation of elder brother and younger was already established between them. Shargar likewise took his share in the love and the fellowship, worshipping in that he believed.



CHAPTER X. A FATHER AND A DAUGHTER.

The presence at the street door of which Ericson's over-acute sense had been aware on a past evening, was that of Mr. Lindsay, walking home with bowed back and bowed head from the college library, where he was privileged to sit after hours as long as he pleased over books too big to be comfortably carried home to his cottage. He had called to inquire after Ericson, whose acquaintance he had made in the library, and cultivated until almost any Friday evening Ericson was to be found seated by Mr. Lindsay's parlour fire.

As he entered the room that same evening, a young girl raised herself from a low seat by the fire to meet him. There was a faint rosy flush on her cheek, and she held a volume in her hand as she approached her father. They did not kiss: kisses were not a legal tender in Scotland then: possibly there has been a depreciation in the value of them since they were.

'I've been to ask after Mr. Ericson,' said Mr. Lindsay.

'And how is he?' asked the girl.

'Very poorly indeed,' answered her father.

'I am sorry. You'll miss him, papa.'

'Yes, my dear. Tell Jenny to bring my lamp.'

'Won't you have your tea first, papa?'

'Oh yes, if it's ready.'

'The kettle has been boiling for a long time, but I wouldn't make the tea till you came in.'

Mr. Lindsay was an hour later than usual, but Mysie was quite unaware of that: she had been absorbed in her book, too much absorbed even to ring for better light than the fire afforded. When her father went to put off his long, bifurcated greatcoat, she returned to her seat by the fire, and forgot to make the tea. It was a warm, snug room, full of dark, old-fashioned, spider-legged furniture; low-pitched, with a bay-window, open like an ear to the cries of the German Ocean at night, and like an eye during the day to look out upon its wide expanse. This ear or eye was now curtained with dark crimson, and the room, in the firelight, with the young girl for a soul to it, affected one like an ancient book in which he reads his own latest thought.

Mysie was nothing over the middle height—delicately-fashioned, at once slender and round, with extremities neat as buds. Her complexion was fair, and her face pale, except when a flush, like that of a white rose, overspread it. Her cheek was lovelily curved, and her face rather short. But at first one could see nothing for her eyes. They were the largest eyes; and their motion reminded one of those of Sordello in the Purgatorio:

E nel muover degli occhi onesta e tarda:

they seemed too large to move otherwise than with a slow turning like that of the heavens. At first they looked black, but if one ventured inquiry, which was as dangerous as to gaze from the battlements of Elsinore, he found them a not very dark brown. In her face, however, especially when flushed, they had all the effect of what Milton describes as

Quel sereno fulgor d'amabil nero.

A wise observer would have been a little troubled in regarding her mouth. The sadness of a morbid sensibility hovered about it—the sign of an imagination wrought upon from the centre of self. Her lips were neither thin nor compressed—they closed lightly, and were richly curved; but there was a mobility almost tremulous about the upper lip that gave sign of the possibility of such an oscillation of feeling as might cause the whole fabric of her nature to rock dangerously.

The moment her father re-entered, she started from her stool on the rug, and proceeded to make the tea. Her father took no notice of her neglect, but drew a chair to the table, helped himself to a piece of oat-cake, hastily loaded it with as much butter as it could well carry, and while eating it forgot it and everything else in the absorption of a volume he had brought in with him from his study, in which he was tracing out some genealogical thread of which he fancied he had got a hold. Mysie was very active now, and lost the expression of far-off-ness which had hitherto characterized her countenance; till, having poured out the tea, she too plunged at once into her novel, and, like her father, forgot everything and everybody near her.

Mr. Lindsay was a mild, gentle man, whose face and hair seemed to have grown gray together. He was very tall, and stooped much. He had a mouth of much sensibility, and clear blue eyes, whose light was rarely shed upon any one within reach except his daughter—they were so constantly bent downwards, either on the road as he walked, or on his book as he sat. He had been educated for the church, but had never risen above the position of a parish school-master. He had little or no impulse to utterance, was shy, genial, and, save in reading, indolent. Ten years before this point of my history he had been taken up by an active lawyer in Edinburgh, from information accidentally supplied by Mr. Lindsay himself, as the next heir to a property to which claim was laid by the head of a county family of wealth. Probabilities were altogether in his favour, when he gave up the contest upon the offer of a comfortable annuity from the disputant. To leave his schooling and his possible estate together, and sit down comfortably by his own fireside, with the means of buying books, and within reach of a good old library—that of King's College by preference—was to him the sum of all that was desirable. The income offered him was such that he had no doubt of laying aside enough for his only child, Mysie; but both were so ill-fitted for saving, he from looking into the past, she from looking into—what shall I call it? I can only think of negatives—what was neither past, present, nor future, neither material nor eternal, neither imaginative in any true sense, nor actual in any sense, that up to the present hour there was nothing in the bank, and only the money for impending needs in the house. He could not be called a man of learning; he was only a great bookworm; for his reading lay all in the nebulous regions of history. Old family records, wherever he could lay hold upon them, were his favourite dishes; old, musty books, that looked as if they knew something everybody else had forgotten, made his eyes gleam, and his white taper-fingered hand tremble with eagerness. With such a book in his grasp he saw something ever beckoning him on, a dimly precious discovery, a wonderful fact just the shape of some missing fragment in the mosaic of one of his pictures of the past. To tell the truth, however, his discoveries seldom rounded themselves into pictures, though many fragments of the minutely dissected map would find their places, whereupon he rejoiced like a mild giant refreshed with soda-water. But I have already said more about him than his place justifies; therefore, although I could gladly linger over the portrait, I will leave it. He had taught his daughter next to nothing. Being his child, he had the vague feeling that she inherited his wisdom, and that what he knew she knew. So she sat reading novels, generally trashy ones, while he knew no more of what was passing in her mind than of what the Admirable Crichton might, at the moment, be disputing with the angels.

I would not have my reader suppose that Mysie's mind was corrupted. It was so simple and childlike, leaning to what was pure, and looking up to what was noble, that anything directly bad in the books she happened—for it was all haphazard—to read, glided over her as a black cloud may glide over a landscape, leaving it sunny as before.

I cannot therefore say, however, that she was nothing the worse. If the darkening of the sun keep the fruits of the earth from growing, the earth is surely the worse, though it be blackened by no deposit of smoke. And where good things do not grow, the wild and possibly noxious will grow more freely. There may be no harm in the yellow tanzie—there is much beauty in the red poppy; but they are not good for food. The result in Mysie's case would be this—not that she would call evil good and good evil, but that she would take the beautiful for the true and the outer shows of goodness for goodness itself—not the worst result, but bad enough, and involving an awful amount of suffering and possibly of defilement. He who thinks to climb the hill of happiness thus, will find himself floundering in the blackest bog that lies at the foot of its precipices. I say he, not she, advisedly. All will acknowledge it of the woman: it is as true of the man, though he may get out easier. Will he? I say, checking myself. I doubt it much. In the world's eye, yes; but in God's? Let the question remain unanswered.

When he had eaten his toast, and drunk his tea, apparently without any enjoyment, Mr. Lindsay rose with his book in his hand, and withdrew to his study.

He had not long left the room when Mysie was startled by a loud knock at the back door, which opened on a lane, leading along the top of the hill. But she had almost forgotten it again, when the door of the room opened, and a gentleman entered without any announcement—for Jenny had never heard of the custom. When she saw him, Mysie started from her seat, and stood in visible embarrassment. The colour went and came on her lovely face, and her eyelids grew very heavy. She had never seen the visitor before: whether he had ever seen her before, I cannot certainly say. She felt herself trembling in his presence, while he advanced with perfect composure. He was a man no longer young, but in the full strength and show of manhood—the Baron of Rothie. Since the time of my first description of him, he had grown a moustache, which improved his countenance greatly, by concealing his upper lip with its tusky curves. On a girl like Mysie, with an imagination so cultivated, and with no opportunity of comparing its fancies with reality, such a man would make an instant impression.

'I beg your pardon, Miss—Lindsay, I presume?—for intruding upon you so abruptly. I expected to see your father—not one of the graces.'

She blushed all the colour of her blood now. The baron was quite enough like the hero of whom she had just been reading to admit of her imagination jumbling the two. Her book fell. He lifted it and laid it on the table. She could not speak even to thank him. Poor Mysie was scarcely more than sixteen.