Robert Falconer by George MacDonald (reading fiction TXT) 📕

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.

'May I wait here till your father is informed of my visit?' he asked.

Her only answer was to drop again upon her low stool.

Now Jenny had left it to Mysie to acquaint her father with the fact of the baron's presence; but before she had time to think of the necessity of doing something, he had managed to draw her into conversation. He was as great a hypocrite as ever walked the earth, although he flattered himself that he was none, because he never pretended to cultivate that which he despised-namely, religion. But he was a hypocrite nevertheless; for the falser he knew himself, the more honour he judged it to persuade women of his truth.

It is unnecessary to record the slight, graceful, marrowless talk into which he drew Mysie, and by which he both bewildered and bewitched her. But at length she rose, admonished by her inborn divinity, to seek her father. As she passed him, the baron took her hand and kissed it. She might well tremble. Even such contact was terrible. Why? Because there was no love in it. When the sense of beauty which God had given him that he might worship, awoke in Lord Rothie, he did not worship, but devoured, that he might, as he thought, possess! The poison of asps was under those lips. His kiss was as a kiss from the grave's mouth, for his throat was an open sepulchre. This was all in the past, reader. Baron Rothie was a foam-flake of the court of the Prince Regent. There are no such men now-a-days! It is a shame to speak of such, and therefore they are not! Decency has gone so far to abolish virtue. Would to God that a writer could be decent and honest! St. Paul counted it a shame to speak of some things, and yet he did speak of them-because those to whom he spoke did them.

Lord Rothie had, in five minutes, so deeply interested Mr. Lindsay in a question of genealogy, that he begged his lordship to call again in a few days, when he hoped to have some result of research to communicate.

One of the antiquarian's weaknesses, cause and result both of his favourite pursuits, was an excessive reverence for rank. Had its claims been founded on mediated revelation, he could not have honoured it more. Hence when he communicated to his daughter the name of their visitor, it was 'with bated breath and whispering humbleness,' which deepened greatly the impression made upon her by the presence and conversation of the baron. Mysie was in danger.

Shargar was late that evening, for he had a job that detained him. As he handed over his money to Robert, he said,

'I saw Black Geordie the nicht again, stan'in' at a back door, an' Jock Mitchell, upo' Reid Rorie, haudin' him.'

'Wha's Jock Mitchell?' asked Robert.

'My brither Sandy's ill-faured groom,' answered Shargar. 'Whatever mischeef Sandy's up till, Jock comes in i' the heid or tail o' 't.'

'I wonner what he's up till noo.'

'Faith! nae guid. But I aye like waur to meet Sandy by himsel' upo' that reekit deevil o' his. Man, it's awfu' whan Black Geordie turns the white o' 's ee, an' the white o' 's teeth upo' ye. It's a' the white 'at there is about 'im.'

'Wasna yer brither i' the airmy, Shargar?'

'Ow, 'deed ay. They tell me he was at Watterloo. He's a cornel, or something like that.'

'Wha tellt ye a' that?'

'My mither whiles,' answered Shargar.


CHAPTER XI.

ROBERT'S VOW.

Ericson was recovering slowly. He could sit up in bed the greater part of the day, and talk about getting out of it. He was able to give Robert an occasional help with his Greek, and to listen with pleasure to his violin. The night-watching grew less needful, and Ericson would have dispensed with it willingly, but Robert would not yet consent.

But Ericson had seasons of great depression, during which he could not away with music, or listen to the words of the New Testament. During one of these Robert had begun to read a chapter to him, in the faint hope that he might draw some comfort from it.

'Shut the book,' he said. 'If it were the word of God to men, it would have brought its own proof with it.'

'Are ye sure it hasna?' asked Robert.

'No,' answered Ericson. 'But why should a fellow that would give his life-that's not much, but it's all I've got-to believe in God, not be able? Only I confess that God in the New Testament wouldn't satisfy me. There's no help. I must just die, and go and see.-She'll be left without anybody. 'What does it matter? She would not mind a word I said. And the God they talk about will just let her take her own way. He always does.'

He had closed his eyes and forgotten that Robert heard him. He opened them now, and fixed them on him with an expression that seemed to ask, 'Have I been saying anything I ought not?'

Robert knelt by the bedside, and said, slowly, with strongly repressed emotion,

'Mr. Ericson, I sweir by God, gin there be ane, that gin ye dee, I'll tak up what ye lea' ahin' ye. Gin there be onybody ye want luikit efter, I'll luik efter her. I'll do what I can for her to the best o' my abeelity, sae help me God-aye savin' what I maun do for my ain father, gin he be in life, to fess (bring) him back to the richt gait, gin there be a richt gait. Sae ye can think aboot whether there's onything ye wad like to lippen till me.'

A something grew in Ericson's eyes as Robert spoke. Before he had finished, they beamed on the boy.

'I think there must be a God somewhere after all,' he said, half soliloquizing. 'I should be sorry you hadn't a God, Robert. Why should I wish it for your sake? How could I want one for myself if there never was one? If a God had nothing to do with my making, why should I feel that nobody but God can set things right? Ah! but he must be such a God as I could imagine-altogether, absolutely true and good. If we came out of nothing, we could not invent the idea of a God-could we, Robert? Nothing would be our God. If we come from God, nothing is more natural, nothing so natural, as to want him, and when we haven't got him, to try to find him.-What if he should be in us after all, and working in us this way? just this very way of crying out after him?'

'Mr. Ericson,' cried Robert, 'dinna say ony mair 'at ye dinna believe in God. Ye duv believe in 'im-mair, I'm thinkin', nor onybody 'at I ken, 'cep', maybe, my grannie-only hers is a some queer kin' o' a God to believe in. I dinna think I cud ever manage to believe in him mysel'.'

Ericson sighed and was silent. Robert remained kneeling by his bedside, happier, clearer-headed, and more hopeful than he had ever been. What if all was right at the heart of things-right, even as a man, if he could understand, would say was right; right, so that a man who understood in part could believe it to be ten times more right than he did understand! Vaguely, dimly, yet joyfully, Robert saw something like this in the possibility of things. His heart was full, and the tears filled his eyes. Ericson spoke again.

'I have felt like that often for a few moments,' he said; 'but always something would come and blow it away. I remember one spring morning-but if you will bring me that bundle of papers, I will show you what, if I can find it, will let you understand-'

Robert rose, went to the cupboard, and brought the pile of loose leaves. Ericson turned them over, and, Robert was glad to see, now and then sorted them a little. At length he drew out a sheet, carelessly written, carelessly corrected, and hard to read.

'It is not finished, or likely to be,' he said, as he put the paper in Robert's hand.

'Won't you read it to me yourself, Mr. Ericson?' suggested Robert.

'I would sooner put it in the fire,' he answered-'it's fate, anyhow. I don't know why I haven't burnt them all long ago. Rubbish, and diseased rubbish! Read it yourself, or leave it.'

Eagerly Robert took it, and read. The following was the best he could make of it:

Oh that a wind would call >From the depths of the leafless wood! Oh that a voice would fall On the ear of my solitude! Far away is the sea, With its sound and its spirit-tone: Over it white clouds flee, But I am alone, alone.

Straight and steady and tall The trees stand on their feet; Fast by the old stone wall The moss grows green and sweet; But my heart is full of fears, For the sun shines far away; And they look in my face through tears, And the light of a dying day.

My heart was glad last night, As I pressed it with my palm; Its throb was airy and light As it sang some spirit-psalm; But it died away in my breast As I wandered forth to-day- As a bird sat dead on its nest, While others sang on the spray.

O weary heart of mine, Is there ever a truth for thee? Will ever a sun outshine But the sun that shines on me? Away, away through the air The clouds and the leaves are blown; And my heart hath need of prayer, For it sitteth alone, alone.

And Robert looked with sad reverence at Ericson,-nor ever thought that there was one who, in the face of the fact, and in recognition of it, had dared say, 'Not a sparrow shall fall on