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robert falconer-第98章

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went out to tea occasionally; or supped with the school…master; and;

except going to church on Sunday; which was a weariness to every

inch of flesh upon his bones; enjoyed everything。









CHAPTER XVIII。



A GRAVE OPENED。



One thing that troubled Robert on this his return home; was the

discovery that the surroundings of his childhood had deserted him。

There they were; as of yore; but they seemed to have nothing to say

to himno remembrance of him。  It was not that everything looked

small and narrow; it was not that the streets he saw from his new

quarters; the gable…room; were awfully still after the roar of

Aberdeen; and a passing cart seemed to shudder at the loneliness of

the noise itself made; it was that everything seemed to be conscious

only of the past and care nothing for him now。  The very chairs with

their inlaid backs had an embalmed look; and stood as in a dream。

He could pass even the walled…up door without emotion; for all the

feeling that had been gathered about the knob that admitted him to

Mary St。 John; had transferred itself to the brass bell…pull at her

street…door。



But one day; after standing for a while at the window; looking down

on the street where he had first seen the beloved form of Ericson; a

certain old mood began to revive in him。  He had been working at

quadratic equations all the morning; he had been foiled in the

attempt to find the true algebraic statement of a very tough

question involving various ratios; and; vexed with himself; he had

risen to look out; as the only available zeitvertreib。  It was one

of those rainy days of spring which it needs a hopeful mood to

distinguish from autumnal onesdull; depressing; persistent: there

might be sunshine in Mercury or Venusbut on the earth could be

none; from his right hand round by India and America to his left;

and certainly there was none betweena mood to which all sensitive

people are liable who have not yet learned by faith in the

everlasting to rule their own spirits。  Naturally enough his

thoughts turned to the place where he had suffered mosthis old

room in the garret。  Hitherto he had shrunk from visiting it; but

now he turned away from the window; went up the steep stairs; with

their one sharp corkscrew curve; pushed the door; which clung

unwillingly to the floor; and entered。  It was a nothing of a

placewith a window that looked only to heaven。  There was the

empty bedstead against the wall; where he had so often kneeled;

sending forth vain prayers to a deaf heaven!  Had they indeed been

vain prayers; and to a deaf heaven? or had they been prayers which a

hearing God must answer not according to the haste of the praying

child; but according to the calm course of his own infinite law of

love?



Here; somehow or other; the things about him did not seem so much

absorbed in the past; notwithstanding those untroubled rows of

papers bundled in red tape。  True; they looked almost awful in their

lack of interest and their non…humanity; for there is scarcely

anything that absolutely loses interest save the records of money;

but his mother's workbox lay behind them。  And; strange to say; the

side of that bed drew him to kneel down: he did not yet believe that

prayer was in vain。  If God had not answered him before; that gave

no certainty that he would not answer him now。  It was; he found;

still as rational as it had ever been to hope that God would answer

the man that cried to him。  This came; I think; from the fact that

God had been answering him all the time; although he had not

recognized his gifts as answers。  Had he not given him Ericson; his

intercourse with whom and his familiarity with whose doubts had done

anything but quench his thirst after the higher life?  For

Ericson's; like his own; were true and good and reverent doubts; not

merely consistent with but in a great measure springing from

devoutness and aspiration。  Surely such doubts are far more precious

in the sight of God than many beliefs?



He kneeled and sent forth one cry after the Father; arose; and

turned towards the shelves; removed some of the bundles of letters;

and drew out his mother's little box。



There lay the miniature; still and open…eyed as he had left it。

There too lay the bit of paper; brown and dry; with the hymn and

the few words of sorrow written thereon。  He looked at the portrait;

but did not open the folded paper。  Then first he thought whether

there might not be something more in the box: what he had taken for

the bottom seemed to be a tray。  He lifted it by two little ears of

ribbon; and there; underneath; lay a letter addressed to his father;

in the same old…fashioned handwriting as the hymn。  It was sealed

with brown wax; full of spangles; impressed with a bush of

somethinghe could not tell whether rushes or reeds or flags。  Of

course he dared not open it。  His holy mother's words to his erring

father must be sacred even from the eyes of their son。  But what

other or fitter messenger than himself could bear it to its

destination?  It was for this that he had been guided to it。



For years he had regarded the finding of his father as the first

duty of his manhood: it was as if his mother had now given her

sanction to the quest; with this letter to carry to the husband who;

however he might have erred; was yet dear to her。  He replaced it in

the box; but the box no more on the forsaken shelf with its dreary

barricade of soulless records。  He carried it with him; and laid it

in the bottom of his box; which henceforth he kept carefully locked:

there lay as it were the pledge of his father's salvation; and his

mother's redemption from an eternal grief。



He turned to his equation: it had cleared itself up; he worked it

out in five minutes。  Betty came to tell him that the dinner was

ready; and he went down; peaceful and hopeful; to his grandmother。



While at home he never worked in the evenings: it was bad enough to

have to do so at college。  Hence nature had a chance with him again。

Blessings on the wintry blasts that broke into the first youth of

Summer!  They made him feel what summer was!  Blessings on the

cheerless days of rain; and even of sleet and hail; that would shove

the reluctant year back into January。  The fair face of Spring; with

her tears dropping upon her quenchless smiles; peeped in suppressed

triumph from behind the growing corn and the budding sallows on the

river…bank。  Nay; even when the snow came once more in defiance of

calendars; it was but a background from which the near genesis

should 'stick fiery off。'



In general he had a lonely walk after his lesson with Miss St。 John

was over: there was no one at Rothieden to whom his heart and

intellect both were sufficiently drawn to make a close friendship

possible。  He had companions; however: Ericson had left his papers

with him。  The influence of these led him into yet closer sympathy

with Nature and all her moods; a sympathy which; e
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