Part 37 (2/2)

It was far into the night before he rose to go home. As he pa.s.sed through a thick rain of pin-point drops, he felt that although those cold granite houses, with glimmering dead face, stood like rows of sepulchres, he was in reality walking through an avenue of homes. Wet to the skin long before he reached Mrs. Fyvie's in the auld toon, he was notwithstanding as warm as the under side of a bird's wing. For he had to sit down and write to his grandmother informing her that Dr. Anderson had employed him to copy for the printers a book of his upon the Medical Boards of India, and that as he was going to pay him for that and other work at a rate which would secure him ten s.h.i.+llings a week, it would be a pity to lose a year for the chance of getting a bursary next winter.

The doctor did want the ma.n.u.script copied; and he knew that the only chance of getting Mrs. Falconer's consent to Robert's receiving any a.s.sistance from him, was to make some business arrangement of the sort.

He wrote to her the same night, and after mentioning the unexpected pleasure of Robert's visit, not only explained the advantage to himself of the arrangement he had proposed, but set forth the greater advantage to Robert, inasmuch as he would thus be able in some measure to keep a hold of him. He judged that although Mrs. Falconer had no great opinion of his religion, she would yet consider his influence rather on the side of good than otherwise in the case of a boy else abandoned to his own resources.

The end of it all was that his grandmother yielded, and Robert was straightway a Bejan, or Yellow-beak.

Three days had he been clothed in the red gown of the Aberdeen student, and had attended the Humanity and Greek cla.s.s-rooms. On the evening of the third day he was seated at his table preparing his Virgil for the next, when he found himself growing very weary, and no wonder, for, except the walk of a few hundred yards to and from the college, he had had no open air for those three days. It was raining in a persistent November fas.h.i.+on, and he thought of the sea, away through the dark and the rain, tossing uneasily. Should he pay it a visit? He sat for a moment,

This way and that dividing the swift mind, [4]

when his eye fell on his violin. He had been so full of his new position and its requirements, that he had not touched it since the session opened. Now it was just what he wanted. He caught it up eagerly, and began to play. The power of the music seized upon him, and he went on playing, forgetful of everything else, till a string broke. It was all too short for further use. Regardless of the rain or the depth of darkness to be traversed before he could find a music-shop, he caught up his cap, and went to rush from the house.

His door opened immediately on the top step of the stair, without any landing. There was a door opposite, to which likewise a few steps led immediately up. The stairs from the two doors united a little below. So near were the doors that one might stride across the fork. The opposite door was open, and in it stood Eric Ericson.

CHAPTER VII. ERIC ERICSON.

Robert sprang across the dividing chasm, clasped Ericson's hand in both of his, looked up into his face, and stood speechless. Ericson returned the salute with a still kindness--tender and still. His face was like a gray morning sky of summer from whose level cloud-fields rain will fall before noon.

'So it was you,' he said, 'playing the violin so well?'

'I was doin' my best,' answered Robert. 'But eh! Mr. Ericson, I wad hae dune better gin I had kent ye was hearkenin'.'

'You couldn't do better than your best,' returned Eric, smiling.

'Ay, but yer best micht aye grow better, ye ken,' persisted Robert.

'Come into my room,' said Ericson. 'This is Friday night, and there is nothing but chapel to-morrow. So we'll have talk instead of work.'

In another moment they were seated by a tiny coal fire in a room one side of which was the slope of the roof, with a large, low skylight in it looking seawards. The sound of the distant waves, unheard in Robert's room, beat upon the drum of the skylight, through all the world of mist that lay between it and them--dimly, vaguely--but ever and again with a swell of gathered force, that made the distant tumult doubtful no more.

'I am sorry I have nothing to offer you,' said Ericson.

'You remind me of Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate of the temple,'

returned Robert, attempting to speak English like the Northerner, but breaking down as his heart got the better of him. 'Eh! Mr. Ericson, gin ye kent what it is to me to see the face o' ye, ye wadna speyk like that. Jist lat me sit an' leuk at ye. I want nae mair.'

A smile broke up the cold, sad, gray light of the young eagle-face.

Stern at once and gentle when in repose, its smile was as the summer of some lovely land where neither the heat nor the sun shall smite them.

The youth laid his hand upon the boy's head, then withdrew it hastily, and the smile vanished like the sun behind a cloud. Robert saw it, and as if he had been David before Saul, rose instinctively and said,

'I'll gang for my fiddle.--Hoots! I hae broken ane o' the strings. We maun bide till the morn. But I want nae fiddle mysel' whan I hear the great water oot there.'

'You're young yet, my boy, or you might hear voices in that water--!

I've lived in the sound of it all my days. When I can't rest at night, I hear a moaning and crying in the dark, and I lie and listen till I can't tell whether I'm a man or some G.o.d-forsaken sea in the sunless north.'

'Sometimes I believe in naething but my fiddle,' answered Robert.

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