Robert Falconer by George MacDonald (reading fiction TXT) 📕

doctor was silent too, but a smile overspread his countenance, and revealed his inward satisfaction. Robert's heart was full, and he could only gaze on the worn face. At length he was able to speak.

'What for didna ye sen' for me?' he said. 'Ye never tellt me ye was ailin'.'

'Because you were doing good, Robert, my boy; and I who had done so little had no right to interrupt what you were doing. I wonder if God will give me another chance. I would fain do better. I don't think I could sit singing psalms to all eternity,' he added with a smile.

'Whatever good I may do afore my turn comes, I hae you to thank for 't. Eh, doctor, gin it hadna been for you!'

Robert's feelings overcame him. He resumed, brokenly,

'Ye gae me a man to believe in, whan my ain father had forsaken me, and my frien' was awa to God. Ye hae made me, doctor. Wi' meat an' drink an' learnin' an' siller, an' a'thing at ance, ye hae made me.'

'Eh, Robert!' said the dying man, half rising on his elbow, 'to think what God maks us a' to ane anither! My father did ten times for me what I hae dune for you. As I lie here thinkin' I may see him afore a week's ower, I'm jist a bairn again.'

As he spoke, the polish of his speech was gone, and the social refinement of his countenance with it. The face of his ancestors, the noble, sensitive, heart-full, but rugged, bucolic, and weather-beaten through centuries of windy ploughing, hail-stormed sheep-keeping, long-paced seed-sowing, and multiform labour, surely not less honourable in the sight of the working God than the fighting of the noble, came back in the face of the dying physician. >From that hour to his death he spoke the rugged dialect of his fathers.

A day or two after this, Robert again sitting by his bedside,

'I dinna ken,' he said, 'whether it's richt-but I hae nae fear o' deith, an' yet I canna say I'm sure aboot onything. I hae seen mony a ane dee that cud hae no faith i' the Saviour; but I never saw that fear that some gude fowk wud hae ye believe maun come at the last. I wadna like to tak to ony papistry; but I never cud mak oot frae the Bible-and I read mair at it i' the jungle than maybe ye wad think-that it's a' ower wi' a body at their deith. I never heard them bring foret ony text but ane-the maist ridiculous hash 'at ever ye heard-to justifee 't.'

'I ken the text ye mean-"As the tree falleth so it shall lie," or something like that-'at they say King Solomon wrote, though better scholars say his tree had fa'en mony a lang year afore that text saw the licht. I dinna believe sic a thocht was i' the man's heid when he wrote it. It is as ye say-ower contemptible to ca' an argument. I'll read it to ye ance mair.'

Robert got his Bible, and read the following portion from that wonderful book, so little understood, because it is so full of wisdom-the Book of Ecclesiastes:-

'Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.

'Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.

'If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.

'He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.

'As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

'In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.'

'Ay, ay; that's it,' said Dr. Anderson. 'Weel, I maun say again that they're ill aff for an argument that taks that for ane upo' sic a momentous subjec'. I prefer to say, wi' the same auld man, that I know not the works of God who maketh all. But I wish I could say I believed onything for certain sure. But whan I think aboot it-wad ye believe 't? the faith o' my father's mair to me nor ony faith o' my ain. That soonds strange. But it's this: I'm positeeve that that godly great auld man kent mair aboot a' thae things-I cud see 't i' the face o' 'm-nor ony ither man 'at ever I kent. An' it's no by comparison only. I'm sure he did ken. There was something atween God and him. An' I think he wasna likely to be wrang; an' sae I tak courage to believe as muckle as I can, though maybe no sae muckle as I fain wad.'

Robert, who from experience of himself, and the observations he had made by the bedsides of not a few dying men and women, knew well that nothing but the truth itself can carry its own conviction; that the words of our Lord are a body as it were in which the spirit of our Lord dwells, or rather the key to open the heart for the entrance of that spirit, turned now from all argumentation to the words of Jesus. He himself had said of them, 'They are spirit and they are life;' and what folly to buttress life and spirit with other powers than their own! From that day to the last, as often and as long as the dying man was able to listen to him, he read from the glad news just the words of the Lord. As he read thus, one fading afternoon, the doctor broke out with,

'Eh, Robert, the patience o' him! He didna quench the smokin' flax. There's little fire aboot me, but surely I ken in my ain hert some o' the risin' smoke o' the sacrifice. Eh! sic words as they are! An' he was gaein' doon to the grave himsel', no half my age, as peacefu', though the road was sae rouch, as gin he had been gaein' hame till 's father.'

'Sae he was,' returned Robert.

'Ay; but here am I lyin' upo' my bed, slippin' easy awa. An' there was he-'

The old man ceased. The sacred story was too sacred for speech. Robert sat with the New Testament open before him on the bed.

'The mair the words o' Jesus come into me,' the doctor began again, 'the surer I am o' seein' my auld Brahmin frien', Robert. It's true I thought his religion not only began but ended inside him. It was a' a booin' doon afore and an aspirin' up into the bosom o' the infinite God. I dinna mean to say 'at he wasna honourable to them aboot him. And I never saw in him muckle o' that pride to the lave (rest) that belangs to the Brahmin. It was raither a stately kin'ness than that condescension which is the vice o' Christians. But he had naething to do wi' them. The first comman'ment was a' he kent. He loved God-nae a God like Jesus Christ, but the God he kent-and that was a' he could. The second comman'ment-that glorious recognition o' the divine in humanity makin' 't fit and needfu' to be loved, that claim o' God upon and for his ain bairns, that love o' the neebour as yer'sel-he didna ken. Still there was religion in him; and he who died for the sins o' the whole world has surely been revealed to him lang er' noo, and throu the knowledge o' him, he noo dwalls in that God efter whom he aspired.'

Here was the outcome of many talks which Robert and the doctor had had together, as they laboured amongst the poor.

'Did ye never try,' Robert asked, 'to lat him ken aboot the comin' o' God to his world in Jesus Christ?'

'I couldna do muckle that way honestly, my ain faith was sae poor and sma'. But I tellt him what Christians believed. I tellt him aboot the character and history o' Christ. But it didna seem to tak muckle hauld o' him. It wasna interesstin' till him. Just ance whan I tellt him some things he had said aboot his relation to God-sic as, "I and my Father are one,"-and aboot the relation o' a' his disciples to God and himsel'-"I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one," he said, wi' a smile, "The man was a good Brahmin."

'It's little,' said Robert, 'the one great commandment can do withoot the other. It's little we can ken what God to love, or hoo to love him, withoot "thy neighbour as thyself." Ony ane o' them withoot the ither stan's like the ae factor o' a multiplication, or ae wing upo' a laverock (lark).'

Towards the close of the week, he grew much feebler. Falconer scarcely left his room. He woke one midnight, and murmured as follows, with many pauses for breath and strength:

'Robert, my time's near, I'm thinkin'; for, wakin' an' sleepin', I'm a bairn again. I can hardly believe whiles 'at my father hasna a grup o' my han'. A meenute ago I was traivellin' throu a terrible driftin' o' snaw-eh, hoo it whustled and sang! and the cauld o' 't was stingin'; but my father had a grup o' me, an' I jist despised it, an' was stampin' 't doon wi' my wee bit feet, for I was like saven year auld or thereaboots. An' syne I thocht I heard my mither singin', and kent by that that the ither was a dream. I'm thinkin' a hantle 'ill luik dreamy afore lang. Eh! I wonner what the final waukin' 'ill be like.'

After a pause he resumed,

'Robert, my dear boy, ye're i' the richt gait. Haud on an' lat naething turn ye aside. Man, it's a great comfort to me to think that ye're my ain flesh and blude, an' nae that far aff. My father an' your great-gran'father upo' the gran'mither's side war ain brithers. I wonner hoo far doon it wad gang. Ye're the only ane upo' my father's side, you and yer father, gin he be alive, that I hae sib to me. My will's i' the bottom drawer upo' the left han' i' my writin' table i' the leebrary:-I hae left ye ilka plack 'at I possess. Only there's ae thing that I want ye to do. First o' a', ye maun gang on as yer doin' in London for ten year mair. Gin deein' men hae ony o' that foresicht that's been attreebuted to them in a' ages, it's borne in upo' me that ye wull see yer father again. At a' events, ye'll be helpin' some ill-faured sowls to a clean face and a bonny. But gin ye dinna fa' in wi' yer father within ten year, ye maun behaud a wee, an' jist pack up yer box, an' gang awa'