Robert Falconer Part 49

'Yes,' he answered, 'a little man with a fishy smell, in a blue tail-coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and a red and black nightcap.'

'But,' Robert ventured to hint, 'he might go in a kilt and top-boots, like Satan in my grannie's copy o' the Paradise Lost, for onything I would care.'

'Yes, but he's just like his looks. The first thing he'll do the next morning after I go home, will be to take me into his office, or shop, as he calls it, and get down his books, and show me how many barrels of herring I owe him, with the price of each. To do him justice, he only charges me wholesale.'

'What'll he do that for?'

'To urge on me the necessity of diligence, and the choice of a profession,' answered Ericson, with a smile of mingled sadness and irresolution. 'He will set forth what a loss the interest of the money is, even if I should pay the princ.i.p.al; and remind me that although he has stood my friend, his duty to his own family imposes limits. And he has at least a couple of thousand pounds in the county bank. I don't believe he would do anything for me but for the honour it will be to the family to have a professional man in it. And yet my father was the making of him.'

'Tell me about your father. What was he?'

'A gentle-minded man, who thought much and said little. He farmed the property that had been his father's own, and is now leased by my fishy cousin afore mentioned.'

'And your mother?'

'She died just after I was born, and my father never got over it.'

'And you have no brothers or sisters?'

'No, not one. Thank G.o.d for your grandmother, and do all you can to please her.'

A silence followed, during which Robert's heart swelled and heaved with devotion to Ericson; for notwithstanding his openness, there was a certain sad coldness about him that restrained Robert from letting out all the tide of his love. The silence became painful, and he broke it abruptly.

'What are you going to be, Mr. Ericson?'

'I wish you could tell me, Robert. What would you have me to be? Come now.'

Robert thought for a moment.

'Weel, ye canna be a minister, Mr. Ericson, 'cause ye dinna believe in G.o.d, ye ken,' he said simply.

'Don't say that, Robert,' Ericson returned, in a tone of pain with which no displeasure was mingled. 'But you are right. At best I only hope in G.o.d; I don't believe in him.'

'I'm thinkin' there canna be muckle differ atween houp an' faith,' said Robert. 'Mony a ane 'at says they believe in G.o.d has unco little houp o'

onything frae 's han', I'm thinkin'.'

My reader may have observed a little change for the better in Robert's speech. Dr. Anderson had urged upon him the necessity of being able at least to speak English; and he had been trying to modify the antique Saxon dialect they used at Rothieden with the newer and more refined English. But even when I knew him, he would upon occasion, especially when the subject was religion or music, fall back into the broadest Scotch. It was as if his heart could not issue freely by any other gate than that of his grandmother tongue.

Fearful of having his last remark contradicted--for he had an instinctive desire that it should lie undisturbed where he had cast it in the field of Ericson's mind, he hurried to another question.

'What for shouldna ye be a doctor?'

'Now you'll think me a fool, Robert, if I tell you why.'

'Far be it frae me to daur think sic a word, Mr. Ericson!' said Robert devoutly.

'Well, I'll tell you, whether or not,' returned Ericson. 'I could, I believe, amputate a living limb with considerable coolness; but put a knife in a dead body I could not.'

'I think I know what you mean. Then you must be a lawyer.'

'A lawyer! O Lord!' said Ericson.

'Why not?' asked Robert, in some wonderment; for he could not imagine Ericson acting from mere popular prejudice or fancy.

'Just think of spending one's life in an atmosphere of squabbles.

It's all very well when one gets to be a judge and dispense justice; but--well, it's not for me. I could not do the best for my clients. And a lawyer has nothing to do with the kingdom of heaven--only with his clients. He must be a party-man. He must secure for one so often at the loss of the rest. My duty and my conscience would always be at strife.'

'Then what will you be, Mr. Ericson?'

'To tell the truth, I would rather be a watchmaker than anything else I know. I might make one watch that would go right, I suppose, if I lived long enough. But no one would take an apprentice of my age. So I suppose I must be a tutor, knocked about from one house to another, patronized by ex-pupils, and smiled upon as harmless by mammas and sisters to the end of the chapter. And then something of a pauper's burial, I suppose.

Che sara sara.'

Ericson had sunk into one of his worst moods. But when he saw Robert looking unhappy, he changed his tone, and would be--what he could not be--merry.

'But what's the use of talking about it?' he said. 'Get your fiddle, man, and play The Wind that Shakes the Barley.'

'No, Mr. Ericson,' answered Robert; 'I have no heart for the fiddle. I would rather have some poetry.'

'Oh!--Poetry!' returned Ericson, in a tone of contempt--yet not very hearty contempt.

'We're gaein' awa', Mr. Ericson,' said Robert; 'an' the Lord 'at we ken naething aboot alane kens whether we'll ever meet again i' this place.

And sae--'

'True enough, my boy,' interrupted Ericson. 'I have no need to trouble myself about the future. I believe that is the real secret of it after all. I shall never want a profession or anything else.'

'What do you mean, Mr. Ericson?' asked Robert, in half-defined terror.

'I mean, my boy, that I shall not live long. I know that--thank G.o.d!'

'How do you know it?'

'My father died at thirty, and my mother at six-and-twenty, both of the same disease. But that's not how I know it.'

'How do you know it then?'

Ericson returned no answer. He only said--

'Death will be better than life. One thing I don't like about it though,' he added, 'is the coming on of unconsciousness. I cannot bear to lose my consciousness even in sleep. It is such a terrible thing!'

'I suppose that's ane o' the reasons that we canna be content withoot a G.o.d,' responded Robert. 'It's dreidfu' to think even o' fa'in' asleep withoot some ane greater an' nearer than the me watchin' ower 't. But I'm jist sayin' ower again what I hae read in ane o' your papers, Mr.

Ericson. Jist lat me luik.'

Venturing more than he had ever yet ventured, Robert rose and went to the cupboard where Ericson's papers lay. His friend did not check him.

On the contrary, he took the papers from his hand, and searched for the poem indicated.

'I'm not in the way of doing this sort of thing, Robert,' he said.

'I know that,' answered Robert.