Robert Falconer

‘What ails ye, grannie? What for dinna ye gang on wi’ the story?’

After a somewhat lengthened pause, Mrs. Falconer resumed as if she had not stopped at all.

‘Ane in ilka han’, jist for the fun o’ ‘t, he kneipit their heids thegither, as gin they hed been twa carldoddies (stalks of ribgrass). But maybe it was the lauchin’ o’ the twa lads, for they thocht it unco fun. They were maist killed wi’ lauchin’. But the last time he did it, the puir auld man hostit (coughed) sair efterhin, and had to gang and lie doon. He didna live lang efter that. But it wasna that ‘at killed him, ye ken.’

‘But hoo cam he to play the pipes?’

‘He likit the pipes. And yer grandfather, he tuik to the fiddle.’

‘But what for did they ca’ him the blin’ piper o’ Portcloddie?’

‘Because he turned blin’ lang afore his en’ cam, and there was naething ither he cud do. And he wad aye mak an honest baubee whan he cud; for siller was fell scarce at that time o’ day amo’ the Falconers. Sae he gaed throu the toon at five o’clock ilka mornin’ playin’ his pipes, to lat them ‘at war up ken they war up in time, and them ‘at warna, that it was time to rise. And syne he played them again aboot aucht o’clock at nicht, to lat them ken ‘at it was time for dacent fowk to gang to their beds. Ye see, there wasna sae mony clocks and watches by half than as there is noo.’

‘Was he a guid piper, grannie?’

‘What for speir ye that?’

‘Because I tauld that sunk, Lumley—’

‘Ca’ naebody names, Robert. But what richt had ye to be speikin’ to a man like that?’

‘He spak to me first.’

‘Whaur saw ye him?’

‘At The Boar’s Heid.’

‘And what richt had ye to gang stan’in’ aboot? Ye oucht to ha’ gane in at ance.’

‘There was a half-dizzen o’ fowk stan’in’ aboot, and I bude (behoved) to speik whan I was spoken till.’

‘But ye budena stop an’ mak’ ae fule mair.’

‘Isna that ca’in’ names, grannie?’

‘’Deed, laddie, I doobt ye hae me there. But what said the fallow Lumley to ye?’

‘He cast up to me that my grandfather was naething but a blin’ piper.’

‘And what said ye?’

‘I daured him to say ‘at he didna pipe weel.’

‘Weel dune, laddie! And ye micht say ‘t wi’ a gude conscience, for he wadna hae been piper till ‘s regiment at the battle o’ Culloden gin he hadna pipit weel. Yon’s his kilt hingin’ up i’ the press i’ the garret. Ye’ll hae to grow, Robert, my man, afore ye fill that.’

‘And whase was that blue coat wi’ the bonny gowd buttons upo’ ‘t?’ asked Robert, who thought he had discovered a new approach to an impregnable hold, which he would gladly storm if he could.

‘Lat the coat sit. What has that to do wi’ the kilt? A blue coat and a tartan kilt gang na weel thegither.’

‘Excep’ in an auld press whaur naebody sees them. Ye wadna care, grannie, wad ye, gin I was to cut aff the bonnie buttons?’

‘Dinna lay a finger upo’ them. Ye wad be gaein’ playin’ at pitch and toss or ither sic ploys wi’ them. Na, na, lat them sit.’

‘I wad only niffer them for bools (exchange them for marbles).’

‘I daur ye to touch the coat or onything ‘ither that’s i’ that press.’

‘Weel, weel, grannie. I s’ gang and get my lessons for the morn.’

‘It’s time, laddie. Ye hae been jabberin’ ower muckle. Tell Betty to come and tak’ awa’ the tay-things.’

Robert went to the kitchen, got a couple of hot potatoes and a candle, and carried them up-stairs to Shargar, who was fast asleep. But the moment the light shone upon his face, he started up, with his eyes, if not his senses, wide awake.

‘It wasna me, mither! I tell ye it wasna me!’

And he covered his head with both arms, as if to defend it from a shower of blows.

‘Haud yer tongue, Shargar. It’s me.’

But before Shargar could come to his senses, the light of the candle falling upon the blue coat made the buttons flash confused suspicions into his mind.

‘Mither, mither,’ he said, ‘ye hae gane ower far this time. There’s ower mony o’ them, and they’re no the safe colour. We’ll be baith hangt, as sure’s there’s a deevil in hell.’

As he said thus, he went on trying to pick the buttons from the coat, taking them for sovereigns, though how he could have seen a sovereign at that time in Scotland I can only conjecture. But Robert caught him by the shoulders, and shook him awake with no gentle hands, upon which he began to rub his eyes, and mutter sleepily:

‘Is that you, Bob? I hae been dreamin’, I doobt.’

‘Gin ye dinna learn to dream quaieter, ye’ll get you and me tu into mair trouble nor I care to hae aboot ye, ye rascal. Haud the tongue o’ ye, and eat this tawtie, gin ye want onything mair. And here’s a bit o’ reamy cakes tu ye. Ye winna get that in ilka hoose i’ the toon. It’s my grannie’s especial.’

Robert felt relieved after this, for he had eaten all the cakes Miss Napier had given him, and had had a pain in his conscience ever since.

‘Hoo got ye a haud o’ ‘t?’ asked Shargar, evidently supposing he had stolen it.

‘She gies me a bit noo and than.’

‘And ye didna eat it yersel’? Eh, Bob!’

Shargar was somewhat overpowered at this fresh proof of Robert’s friendship. But Robert was still more ashamed of what he had not done.

He took the blue coat carefully from the bed, and hung it in its place again, satisfied now, from the way his grannie had spoken, or, rather, declined to speak, about it, that it had belonged to his father.

‘Am I to rise?’ asked Shargar, not understanding the action.

‘Na, na, lie still. Ye’ll be warm eneuch wantin’ thae sovereigns. I’ll lat ye oot i’ the mornin’ afore grannie’s up. And ye maun mak’ the best o’t efter that till it’s dark again. We’ll sattle a’ aboot it at the schuil the morn. Only we maun be circumspec’, ye ken.’

‘Ye cudna lay yer han’s upo’ a drap o’ whusky, cud ye, Bob?’

Robert stared in horror. A boy like that asking for whisky! and in his grandmother’s house, too!

‘Shargar,’ he said solemnly, ‘there’s no a drap o’ whusky i’ this hoose. It’s awfu’ to hear ye mention sic a thing. My grannie wad smell the verra name o’ ‘t a mile awa’. I doobt that’s her fit upo’ the stair a’ready.’

Robert crept to the door, and Shargar sat staring with horror, his eyes looking from the gloom of the bed like those of a half-strangled dog. But it was a false alarm, as Robert presently returned to announce.

‘Gin ever ye sae muckle as mention whusky again, no to say drink ae drap o’ ‘t, you and me pairt company, and that I tell you, Shargar,’ said he, emphatically.

‘I’ll never luik at it; I’ll never mint at dreamin’ o’ ‘t,’ answered Shargar, coweringly. ‘Gin she pits ‘t intil my moo’, I’ll spit it oot. But gin ye strive wi’ me, Bob, I’ll cut my throat—I will; an’ that’ll be seen and heard tell o’.’

All this time, save during the alarm of Mrs. Falconer’s approach, when he sat with a mouthful of hot potato, unable to move his jaws for terror, and the remnant arrested half-way in its progress from his mouth after the bite—all this time Shargar had been devouring the provisions Robert had brought him, as if he had not seen food that day. As soon as they were finished, he begged for a drink of water, which Robert managed to procure for him. He then left him for the night, for his longer absence might have brought his grandmother after him, who had perhaps only too good reasons for being doubtful, if not suspicious, about boys in general, though certainly not about Robert in particular. He carried with him his books from the other garret-room where he kept them, and sat down at the table by his grandmother, preparing his Latin and geography by her lamp, while she sat knitting a white stocking with fingers as rapid as thought, never looking at her work, but staring into the fire, and seeing visions there which Robert would have given everything he could call his own to see, and then would have given his life to blot out of the world if he had seen them. Quietly the evening passed, by the peaceful lamp and the cheerful fire, with the Latin on the one side of the table, and the stocking on the other, as if ripe and purified old age and hopeful unstained youth had been the only extremes of humanity known to the world. But the bitter wind was howling by fits in the chimney, and the offspring of a nobleman and a gipsy lay asleep in the garret, covered with the cloak of an old Highland rebel.

At nine o’clock, Mrs. Falconer rang the bell for Betty, and they had worship. Robert read a chapter, and his grandmother prayed an extempore prayer, in which they that looked at the wine when it was red in the cup, and they that worshipped the woman clothed in scarlet and seated upon the seven hills, came in for a strange mixture, in which the vengeance yielded only to the pity.

‘Lord, lead them to see the error of their ways,’ she cried. ‘Let the rod of thy wrath awake the worm of their conscience that they may know verily that there is a God that ruleth in the earth. Dinna lat them gang to hell, O Lord, we beseech thee.’

As soon as prayers were over, Robert had a tumbler of milk and some more oat-cake, and was sent to bed; after which it was impossible for him to hold any further communication with Shargar. For his grandmother, little as one might suspect it who entered the parlour in the daytime, always slept in that same room, in a bed closed in with doors like those of a large press in the wall, while Robert slept in a little closet, looking into a garden at the back of the house, the door of which opened from the parlour close to the head of his grandmother’s bed. It was just large enough to hold a good-sized bed with curtains, a chest of drawers, a bureau, a large eight-day clock, and one chair, leaving in the centre about five feet square for him to move about in. There was more room as well as more comfort in the bed. He was never allowed a candle, for light enough came through from the parlour, his grandmother thought; so he was soon extended between the whitest of cold sheets, with his knees up to his chin, and his thoughts following his lost father over all spaces of the earth with which his geography-book had made him acquainted.

He was in the habit of leaving his closet and creeping through his grandmother’s room before she was awake—or at least before she had given any signs to the small household that she was restored to consciousness, and that the life of the house must proceed. He therefore found no difficulty in liberating Shargar from his prison, except what arose from the boy’s own unwillingness to forsake his comfortable quarters for the fierce encounter of the January blast which awaited him. But Robert did not turn him out before the last moment of safety had arrived; for, by the aid of signs known to himself, he watched the progress of his grandmother’s dressing—an operation which did not consume much of the morning, scrupulous as she was with regard to neatness and cleanliness—until Betty was called in to give her careful assistance to the final disposition of the mutch, when Shargar’s exit could be delayed no longer. Then he mounted to the foot of the second stair, and called in a keen whisper,

‘Noo, Shargar, cut for the life o’ ye.’

And down came the poor fellow, with long gliding steps, ragged and reluctant, and, without a word or a look, launched himself out into the cold, and sped away he knew not whither. As he left the door, the only suspicion of light was the dull and doubtful shimmer of the snow that covered the street, keen particles of which were blown in his face by the wind, which, having been up all night, had grown very cold, and seemed delighted to find one unprotected human being whom it might badger at its own bitter will. Outcast Shargar! Where he spent the interval between Mrs. Falconer’s door and that of the school, I do not know. There was a report amongst his school-fellows that he had been found by Scroggie, the fish-cadger, lying at full length upon the back of his old horse, which, either from compassion or indifference, had not cared to rise up under the burden. They said likewise that, when accused by Scroggie of housebreaking, though nothing had to be broken to get in, only a string with a peculiar knot, on the invention of which the cadger prided himself, to be undone, all that Shargar had to say in his self-defence was, that he had a terrible sair wame, and that the horse was warmer nor the stanes i’ the yard; and he had dune him nae ill, nae even drawn a hair frae his tail—which would have been a difficult feat, seeing the horse’s tail was as bare as his hoof.

CHAPTER VII. ROBERT TO THE RESCUE!

That Shargar was a parish scholar—which means that the parish paid his fees, although, indeed, they were hardly worth paying—made very little difference to his position amongst his school-fellows. Nor did the fact of his being ragged and dirty affect his social reception to his discomfort. But the accumulated facts of the oddity of his personal appearance, his supposed imbecility, and the bad character borne by his mother, placed him in a very unenviable relation to the tyrannical and vulgar-minded amongst them. Concerning his person, he was long, and, as his name implied, lean, with pale-red hair, reddish eyes, no visible eyebrows or eyelashes, and very pale face—in fact, he was half-way to an Albino. His arms and legs seemed of equal length, both exceedingly long. The handsomeness of his mother appeared only in his nose and mouth, which were regular and good, though expressionless; and the birth of his father only in his small delicate hands and feet, of which any girl who cared only for smallness, and heeded neither character nor strength, might have been proud. His feet, however, were supposed to be enormous, from the difficulty with which he dragged after him the huge shoes in which in winter they were generally encased.

The imbecility, like the large feet, was only imputed. He certainly was not brilliant, but neither did he make a fool of himself in any of the few branches of learning of which the parish-scholar came in for a share. That which gained him the imputation was the fact that his nature was without a particle of the aggressive, and all its defensive of as purely negative a character as was possible. Had he been a dog, he would never have thought of doing anything for his own protection beyond turning up his four legs in silent appeal to the mercy of the heavens. He was an absolute sepulchre in the swallowing of oppression and ill-usage. It vanished in him. There was no echo of complaint, no murmur of resentment from the hollows of that soul. The blows that fell upon him resounded not, and no one but God remembered them.

His mother made her living as she herself best knew, with occasional well-begrudged assistance from the parish. Her chief resource was no doubt begging from house to house for the handful of oatmeal which was the recognized, and, in the court of custom-taught conscience, the legalized dole upon which every beggar had a claim; and if she picked up at the same time a chicken, or a boy’s rabbit, or any other stray luxury, she was only following the general rule of society, that your first duty is to take care of yourself. She was generally regarded as a gipsy, but I doubt if she had any gipsy blood in her veins. She was simply a tramper, with occasional fits of localization. Her worst fault was the way she treated her son, whom she starved apparently that she might continue able to beat him.

The particular occasion which led to the recognition of the growing relation between Robert and Shargar was the following. Upon a certain Saturday—some sidereal power inimical to boys must have been in the ascendant—a Saturday of brilliant but intermittent sunshine, the white clouds seen from the school windows indicating by their rapid transit across those fields of vision that fresh breezes friendly to kites, or draigons, as they were called at Rothieden, were frolicking in the upper regions—nearly a dozen boys were kept in for not being able to pay down from memory the usual instalment of Shorter Catechism always due at the close of the week. Amongst these boys were Robert and Shargar. Sky-revealing windows and locked door were too painful; and in proportion as the feeling of having nothing to do increased, the more uneasy did the active element in the boys become, and the more ready to break out into some abnormal manifestation. Everything—sun, wind, clouds—was busy out of doors, and calling to them to come and join the fun; and activity at the same moment excited and restrained naturally turns to mischief. Most of them had already learned the obnoxious task—one quarter of an hour was enough for that—and now what should they do next? The eyes of three or four of the eldest of them fell simultaneously upon Shargar.

Robert was sitting plunged in one of his day-dreams, for he, too, had learned his catechism, when he was roused from his reverie by a question from a pale-faced little boy, who looked up to him as a great authority.

‘What for ‘s ‘t ca’d the Shorter Carritchis, Bob?’

‘’Cause it’s no fully sae lang’s the Bible,’ answered Robert, without giving the question the consideration due to it, and was proceeding to turn the matter over in his mind, when the mental process was arrested by a shout of laughter. The other boys had tied Shargar’s feet to the desk at which he sat—likewise his hands, at full stretch; then, having attached about a dozen strings to as many elf-locks of his pale-red hair, which was never cut or trimmed, had tied them to various pegs in the wall behind him, so that the poor fellow could not stir. They were now crushing up pieces of waste-paper, not a few leaves of stray school-books being regarded in that light, into bullets, dipping them in ink and aiming them at Shargar’s face.

For some time Shargar did not utter a word; and Robert, although somewhat indignant at the treatment he was receiving, felt as yet no impulse to interfere, for success was doubtful. But, indeed, he was not very easily roused to action of any kind; for he was as yet mostly in the larva-condition of character, when everything is transacted inside. But the fun grew more furious, and spot after spot of ink gloomed upon Shargar’s white face. Still Robert took no notice, for they did not seem to be hurting him much. But when he saw the tears stealing down his patient cheeks, making channels through the ink which now nearly covered them, he could bear it no longer. He took out his knife, and under pretence of joining in the sport, drew near to Shargar, and with rapid hand cut the cords—all but those that bound his feet, which were less easy to reach without exposing himself defenceless.

The boys of course turned upon Robert. But ere they came to more than abusive words a diversion took place.

Mrs. Innes, the school-master’s wife—a stout, kind-hearted woman, the fine condition of whose temperament was clearly the result of her physical prosperity—appeared at the door which led to the dwelling-house above, bearing in her hands a huge tureen of potato-soup, for her motherly heart could not longer endure the thought of dinnerless boys. Her husband being engaged at a parish meeting, she had a chance of interfering with success.

But ere Nancy, the servant, could follow with the spoons and plates, Wattie Morrison had taken the tureen, and out of spite at Robert, had emptied its contents on the head of Shargar, who was still tied by the feet, with the words: ‘Shargar, I anoint thee king over us, and here is thy crown,’ giving the tureen, as he said so, a push on to his head, where it remained.

Shargar did not move, and for one moment could not speak, but the next he gave a shriek that made Robert think he was far worse scalded than turned out to be the case. He darted to him in rage, took the tureen from his head, and, his blood being fairly up now, flung it with all his force at Morrison, and felled him to the earth. At the same moment the master entered by the street door and his wife by the house door, which was directly opposite. In the middle of the room the prisoners surrounded the fallen tyrant—Robert, with the red face of wrath, and Shargar, with a complexion the mingled result of tears, ink, and soup, which latter clothed him from head to foot besides, standing on the outskirts of the group. I need not follow the story farther. Both Robert and Morrison got a lickin’; and if Mr. Innes had been like some school-masters of those times, Shargar would not have escaped his share of the evil things going.

From that day Robert assumed the acknowledged position of Shargar’s defender. And if there was pride and a sense of propriety mingled with his advocacy of Shargar’s rights, nay, even if the relation was not altogether free from some amount of show-off on Robert’s part, I cannot yet help thinking that it had its share in that development of the character of Falconer which has chiefly attracted me to the office of his biographer. There may have been in it the exercise of some patronage; probably it was not pure from the pride of beneficence; but at least it was a loving patronage and a vigorous beneficence; and, under the reaction of these, the good which in Robert’s nature was as yet only in a state of solution, began to crystallize into character.

But the effect of the new relation was far more remarkable on Shargar. As incapable of self-defence as ever, he was yet in a moment roused to fury by any attack upon the person or the dignity of Robert: so that, indeed, it became a new and favourite mode of teasing Shargar to heap abuse, real or pretended, upon his friend. From the day when Robert thus espoused his part, Shargar was Robert’s dog. That very evening, when she went to take a parting peep at the external before locking the door for the night, Betty found him sitting upon the door-step, only, however, to send him off, as she described it, ‘wi’ a flech1 in ‘s lug (a flea in his ear).’ For the character of the mother was always associated with the boy, and avenged upon him. I must, however, allow that those delicate, dirty fingers of his could not with safety be warranted from occasional picking and stealing.

At this period of my story, Robert himself was rather a grotesque-looking animal, very tall and lanky, with especially long arms, which excess of length they retained after he was full-grown. In this respect Shargar and he were alike; but the long legs of Shargar were unmatched in Robert, for at this time his body was peculiarly long. He had large black eyes, deep sunk even then, and a Roman nose, the size of which in a boy of his years looked portentous. For the rest, he was dark-complexioned, with dark hair, destined to grow darker still, with hands and feet well modelled, but which would have made four feet and four hands such as Shargar’s.

When his mind was not oppressed with the consideration of any important metaphysical question, he learned his lessons well; when such was present, the Latin grammar, with all its attendant servilities, was driven from the presence of the lordly need. That once satisfied in spite of pandies and imprisonments, he returned with fresh zest, and, indeed, with some ephemeral ardour, to the rules of syntax or prosody, though the latter, in the mode in which it was then and there taught, was almost as useless as the task set himself by a worthy lay-preacher in the neighbourhood—of learning the first nine chapters of the first Book of the Chronicles, in atonement for having, in an evil hour of freedom of spirit, ventured to suggest that such lists of names, even although forming a portion of Holy Writ, could scarcely be reckoned of equally divine authority with St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

CHAPTER VIII. THE ANGEL UNAWARES

Although Betty seemed to hold little communication with the outer world, she yet contrived somehow or other to bring home what gossip was going to the ears of her mistress, who had very few visitors; for, while her neighbours held Mrs. Falconer in great and evident respect, she was not the sort of person to sit down and have a news with. There was a certain sedate self-contained dignity about her which the common mind felt to be chilling and repellant; and from any gossip of a personal nature—what Betty brought her always excepted—she would turn away, generally with the words, ‘Hoots! I canna bide clashes.’

On the evening following that of Shargar’s introduction to Mrs. Falconer’s house, Betty came home from the butcher’s—for it was Saturday night, and she had gone to fetch the beef for their Sunday’s broth—with the news that the people next door, that is, round the corner in the next street, had a visitor.