George MacDonald - Robert Falconer

I have said that she was dim-sighted. The candle they had was little better than a penny dip. The bed was darker than the rest of the room. Shargar’s face had none of the more distinctive characteristics of manhood upon it.

‘Gude preserve ‘s!’ exclaimed Mrs. Falconer in her turn: ‘it’s a wumman.’

Poor deluded Shargar, thinking himself safer under any form than that which he actually bore, attempted no protest against the mistake. But, indeed, he was incapable of speech. The two women flew upon him to drag him out of bed. Then first recovering his powers of motion, he sprung up in an agony of terror, and darted out between them, overturning Betty in his course.

‘Ye rouch limmer!’ cried Betty, from the floor. ‘Ye lang-leggit jaud!’ she added, as she rose—and at the same moment Shargar banged the street-door behind him in his terror—‘I wat ye dinna carry yer coats ower syde (too long)!’

For Shargar, having discovered that the way to get the most warmth from Robert’s great-grandfather’s kilt was to wear it in the manner for which it had been fabricated, was in the habit of fastening it round his waist before he got into bed; and the eye of Betty, as she fell, had caught the swing of this portion of his attire.

But poor Mrs. Falconer, with sunken head, walked out of the garret in the silence of despair. She went slowly down the steep stair, supporting herself against the wall, her round-toed shoes creaking solemnly as she went, took refuge in the ga’le-room, and burst into a violent fit of weeping. For such depravity she was not prepared. What a terrible curse hung over her family! Surely they were all reprobate from the womb, not one elected for salvation from the guilt of Adam’s fall, and therefore abandoned to Satan as his natural prey, to be led captive of him at his will. She threw herself on her knees at the side of the bed, and prayed heart-brokenly. Betty heard her as she limped past the door on her way back to her kitchen.

Meantime Shargar had rushed across the next street on his bare feet into the Crookit Wynd, terrifying poor old Kirstan Peerie, the divisions betwixt the compartments of whose memory had broken down, into the exclamation to her next neighbour, Tam Rhin, with whom she was trying to gossip:

‘Eh, Tammas! that’ll be ane o’ the slauchtert at Culloden.’

He never stopped till he reached his mother’s deserted abode—strange instinct! There he ran to earth like a hunted fox. Rushing at the door, forgetful of everything but refuge, he found it unlocked, and closing it behind him, stood panting like the hart that has found the water-brooks. The owner had looked in one day to see whether the place was worth repairing, for it was a mere outhouse, and had forgotten to turn the key when he left it. Poor Shargar! Was it more or less of a refuge that the mother that bore him was not there either to curse or welcome his return? Less—if we may judge from a remark he once made in my hearing many long years after:

‘For, ye see,’ he said, ‘a mither’s a mither, be she the verra de’il.’

Searching about in the dark, he found the one article unsold by the landlord, a stool, with but two of its natural three legs. On this he balanced himself and waited—simply for what Robert would do; for his faith in Robert was unbounded, and he had no other hope on earth. But Shargar was not miserable. In that wretched hovel, his bare feet clasping the clay floor in constant search of a wavering equilibrium, with pitch darkness around him, and incapable of the simplest philosophical or religious reflection, he yet found life good. For it had interest. Nay, more, it had hope. I doubt, however, whether there is any interest at all without hope.

While he sat there, Robert, thinking him snug in the garret, was walking quietly home from the shoemaker’s; and his first impulse on entering was to run up and recount the particulars of his interview with Alexander. Arrived in the dark garret, he called Shargar, as usual, in a whisper—received no reply—thought he was asleep—called louder (for he had had a penny from his grandmother that day for bringing home two pails of water for Betty, and had just spent it upon a loaf for him)—but no Shargar replied. Thereupon he went to the bed to lay hold of him and shake him. But his searching hands found no Shargar. Becoming alarmed, he ran down-stairs to beg a light from Betty.

When he reached the kitchen, he found Betty’s nose as much in the air as its construction would permit. For a hook-nosed animal, she certainly was the most harmless and ovine creature in the world, but this was a case in which feminine modesty was both concerned and aggrieved. She showed her resentment no further, however, than by simply returning no answer in syllable, or sound, or motion, to Robert’s request. She was washing up the tea-things, and went on with her work as if she had been in absolute solitude, saving that her countenance could hardly have kept up that expression of injured dignity had such been the case. Robert plainly saw, to his great concern, that his secret had been discovered in his absence, and that Shargar had been expelled with contumely. But, with an instinct of facing the worst at once which accompanied him through life, he went straight to his grandmother’s parlour.

‘Well, grandmamma,’ he said, trying to speak as cheerfully as he could.

Grannie’s prayers had softened her a little, else she would have been as silent as Betty; for it was from her mistress that Betty had learned this mode of torturing a criminal. So she was just able to return his greeting in the words, ‘Weel, Robert,’ pronounced in a finality of tone that indicated she had done her utmost, and had nothing to add.

‘Here’s a browst (brewage)!’ thought Robert to himself; and, still on the principle of flying at the first of mischief he saw—the best mode of meeting it, no doubt—addressed his grandmother at once. The effort necessary gave a tone of defiance to his words.

‘What for willna ye speik to me, grannie?’ he said. ‘I’m no a haithen, nor yet a papist.’

‘Ye’re waur nor baith in ane, Robert.’

‘Hoots! ye winna say baith, grannie,’ returned Robert, who, even at the age of fourteen, when once compelled to assert himself, assumed a modest superiority.

‘Nane o’ sic impidence!’ retorted Mrs. Falconer. ‘I wonner whaur ye learn that. But it’s nae wonner. Evil communications corrupt gude mainners. Ye’re a lost prodigal, Robert, like yer father afore ye. I hae jist been sittin’ here thinkin’ wi’ mysel’ whether it wadna be better for baith o’ ‘s to lat ye gang an’ reap the fruit o’ yer doin’s at ance; for the hard ways is the best road for transgressors. I’m no bund to keep ye.’

‘Weel, weel, I s’ awa’ to Shargar. Him and me ‘ill haud on thegither better nor you an’ me, grannie. He’s a puir cratur, but he can stick till a body.’

‘What are ye haverin’ aboot Shargar for, ye heepocreet loon? Ye’ll no gang to Shargar, I s’ warran’! Ye’ll be efter that vile limmer that’s turnt my honest hoose intil a sty this last fortnicht.’

‘Grannie, I dinna ken what ye mean.’

‘She kens, than. I sent her aff like ane o’ Samson’s foxes, wi’ a firebrand at her tail. It’s a pity it wasna tied atween the twa o’ ye.’

‘Preserve ‘s, grannie! Is’t possible ye hae ta’en Shargar for ane o’ wumman-kin’?’

‘I ken naething aboot Shargar, I tell ye. I ken that Betty an’ me tuik an ill-faured dame i’ the bed i’ the garret.’

‘Cud it be his mither?’ thought Robert in bewilderment; but he recovered himself in a moment, and answered,

‘Shargar may be a quean efter a’, for onything ‘at I ken to the contrairy; but I aye tuik him for a loon. Faith, sic a quean as he’d mak!’