Robert Falconer Part 34

'Considerin' 'at I'm at sae muckle expense wi' ye baith, it wadna hae been ill-contrived to hae brocht the siller to me, an' latten me du wi'

't as I thocht fit.--Gang na awa', laddie,' she added, as she saw Robert about to leave the room.

'I'll be back in a minute, grannie,' returned Robert.

'He's a fine lad, that!' said Mr. Innes; 'an' guid 'll come o' 'm, and that 'll be heard tell o'.'

'Gin he had but the grace o' G.o.d, there wadna be muckle to compleen o','

acquiesced his grandmother.

'There's time eneuch for that, Mrs. Faukner. Ye canna get auld heids upo' young shoothers, ye ken.'

''Deed for that maitter, ye may get mony an auld heid upo' auld shoothers, and nae a spark o' grace in 't to lat it see hoo to lay itsel' doon i' the grave.'

Robert returned before Mr. Innes had made up his mind as to whether the old lady intended a personal rebuke.

'Hae, grannie,' he said, going up to her, and putting the two sovereigns in her white palm.

He had found some difficulty in making Shargar give up his, else he would have returned sooner.

'What's this o' 't, laddie?' said Mrs. Falconer. 'Hoots! I'm nae gaein'

to tak yer siller. Lat the puir soutar-craturs hae 't. But dinna gie them mair nor a s.h.i.+llin' or twa at ance--jist to haud them in life. They deserve nae mair. But they maunna sterve. And jist ye tell them, laddie, at gin they spen' ae saxpence o' 't upo' whusky, they s' get nae mair.'

'Ay, ay, grannie,' responded Robert, with a glimmer of gladness in his heart. 'And what aboot the fiddlin', grannie?' he added, half playfully, hoping for some kind concession therein as well.

But he had gone too far. She vouchsafed no reply, and her face grew stern with offence. It was one thing to give bread to eat, another to give music and gladness. No music but that which sprung from effectual calling and the perseverance of the saints could be lawful in a world that was under the wrath and curse of G.o.d. Robert waited in vain for a reply.

'Gang yer wa's,' she said at length. 'Mr. Innes and me has some business to mak an en' o', an' we want nae a.s.sistance.'

Robert rejoined Shargar, who was still bemoaning the loss of his sovereign. His face brightened when he saw its well-known yellow s.h.i.+ne once more, but darkened again as soon as Robert told him to what service it was now devoted.

'It's my ain,' he said, with a suppressed expostulatory growl.

Robert threw the coin on the floor.

'Tak yer filthy lucre!' he exclaimed with contempt, and turned to leave Shargar alone in the garret with his sovereign.

'Bob!' Shargar almost screamed, 'tak it, or I'll cut my throat.'

This was his constant threat when he was thoroughly in earnest.

'Cut it, an' hae dune wi' 't,' said Robert cruelly.

Shargar burst out crying.

'Len' me yer knife, than, Bob,' he sobbed, holding out his hand.

Robert burst into a roar of laughter, caught up the sovereign from the floor, sped with it to the baker's, who refused to change it because he had no knowledge of anything representing the sum of twenty s.h.i.+llings except a pound-note, succeeded in getting silver for it at the bank, and then ran to the soutar's.

After he left the parlour, the discussion of his fate was resumed and finally settled between his grandmother and the school-master. The former, in regard of the boy's determination to befriend the shoemaker in the matter of music as well as of money, would now have sent him at once to the grammar-school in Old Aberdeen, to prepare for the compet.i.tion in the month of November; but the latter persuaded her that if the boy gave his whole attention to Latin till the next summer, and then went to the grammar-school for three months or so, he would have an excellent chance of success. As to the violin, the school-master said, wisely enough:

'He that will to Cupar maun to Cupar; and gin ye kep (intercept) him upo' the sh.o.r.e-road, he'll tak to the hill-road; an' I s' warran' a braw lad like Robert 'll get mony a ane in Ebberdeen 'll be ready eneuch to gie him a lift wi' the fiddle, and maybe tak him into waur company nor the puir bed-ridden soutar; an' wi' you an' me to hing on to the tail o'

'im like, he canna gang ower the scar (cliff) afore he learns wit.'

'Hm!' was the old lady's comprehensive response.

It was further arranged that Robert should be informed of their conclusion, and so roused to effort in antic.i.p.ation of the trial upon which his course in life must depend.

Nothing could have been better for Robert than the prospect of a college education. But his first thought at the news was not of the delights of learning nor of the honourable course that would ensue, but of Eric Ericson, the poverty-stricken, friendless descendant of yarls and sea-rovers. He would see him--the only man that understood him! Not until the pa.s.sion of this thought had abated, did he begin to perceive the other advantages before him. But so practical and thorough was he in all his proposals and means, that ere half-an-hour was gone, he had begun to go over his Rudiments again. He now wrote a version, or translation from English into Latin, five times a week, and read Caeser, Virgil, or Tacitus, every day. He gained permission from his grandmother to remove his bed to his own garret, and there, from the bedstead at which he no longer kneeled, he would often rise at four in the morning, even when the snow lay a foot thick on the skylight, kindle his lamp by means of a tinder-box and a splinter of wood dipped in sulphur, and sitting down in the keen cold, turn half a page of Addison into something as near Ciceronian Latin as he could effect. This would take him from an hour and a half to two hours, when he would tumble again into bed, blue and stiff, and sleep till it was time to get up and go to the morning school before breakfast. His health was excellent, else it could never have stood such treatment.

CHAPTER III. 'THE END CROWNS ALL'.

His sole relaxation almost lay in the visit he paid every evening to the soutar and his wife. Their home was a wretched place; but notwithstanding the poverty in which they were now sunk, Robert soon began to see a change, like the dawning of light, an alba, as the Italians call the dawn, in the appearance of something white here and there about the room. Robert's visits had set the poor woman trying to make the place look decent. It soon became at least clean, and there is a very real sense in which cleanliness is next to G.o.dliness. If the people who want to do good among the poor would give up patronizing them, would cease from trying to convert them before they have gained the smallest personal influence with them, would visit them as those who have just as good a right to be here as they have, it would be all the better for both, perhaps chiefly for themselves.

For the first week or so, Alexander, unable either to work or play, and deprived of his usual consolation of drink, was very testy and unmanageable. If Robert, who strove to do his best, in the hope of alleviating the poor fellow's sufferings--chiefly those of the mind--happened to mistake the time or to draw a false note from the violin, Sandy would swear as if he had been the Grand Turk and Robert one of his slaves. But Robert was too vexed with himself, when he gave occasion to such an outburst, to mind the outburst itself.

And invariably when such had taken place, the shoemaker would ask forgiveness before he went. Holding out his left hand, from which nothing could efface the stains of rosin and lamp-black and heel-ball, save the sweet cleansing of mother-earth, he would say,

'Robert, ye'll jist pit the sweirin' doon wi' the lave (rest), an' score 't oot a'thegither. I'm an ill-tongued vratch, an' I'm beginnin' to see 't. But, man, ye're jist behavin' to me like G.o.d himsel', an' gin it warna for you, I wad jist lie here roarin' an' greitin' an' d.a.m.nin' frae mornin' to nicht.--Ye will be in the morn's night--willna ye?' he would always end by asking with some anxiety.

'Of coorse I will,' Robert would answer.

'Gude nicht, than, gude nicht.--I'll try and get a sicht o' my sins ance mair,' he added, one evening. 'Gin I could only be a wee bit sorry for them, I reckon he wad forgie me. Dinna ye think he wad, Robert?'

'Nae doobt, nae doobt,' answered Robert hurriedly. 'They a' say 'at gin a man repents the richt gait, he'll forgie him.'

He could not say more than 'They say,' for his own horizon was all dark, and even in saying this much he felt like a hypocrite. A terrible waste, heaped thick with the potsherds of hope, lay outside that door of prayer which he had, as he thought, nailed up for ever.

'An' what is the richt gait?' asked the soutar.

''Deed, that's mair nor I ken, Sandy,' answered Robert mournfully.

'Weel, gin ye dinna ken, what's to come o' me?' said Alexander anxiously.

'Ye maun speir at himsel',' returned Robert, 'an' jist tell him 'at ye dinna ken, but ye'll do onything 'at he likes.'

With these words he took his leave hurriedly, somewhat amazed to find that he had given the soutar the strange advice to try just what he had tried so unavailingly himself. And stranger still, he found himself, before he reached home, praying once more in his heart--both for Dooble Sanny and for himself. From that hour a faint hope was within him that some day he might try again, though he dared not yet encounter such effort and agony.

All this time he had never doubted that there was G.o.d; nor had he ventured to say within himself that perhaps G.o.d was not good; he had simply come to the conclusion that for him there was no approach to the fountain of his being.

In the course of a fortnight or so, when his system had covered over its craving after whisky, the irritability of the shoemaker almost vanished.

It might have been feared that his conscience would then likewise relax its activity; but it was not so: it grew yet more tender. He now began to give Robert some praise, and make allowances for his faults, and Robert dared more in consequence, and played with more spirit. I do not say that his style could have grown fine under such a master, but at least he learned the difference between slovenliness and accuracy, and between accuracy and expression, which last is all of original that the best mere performer can claim.

One evening he was sc.r.a.ping away at Tullochgorum when Mr. Maccleary walked in. Robert ceased. The minister gave him one searching glance, and sat down by the bedside. Robert would have left the room.

'Dinna gang, Robert,' said Sandy, and Robert remained.

The clergyman talked very faithfully as far as the shoemaker was concerned; though whether he was equally faithful towards G.o.d might be questioned. He was one of those prudent men, who are afraid of dealing out the truth freely lest it should fall on thorns or stony places.