George MacDonald - Robert Falconer

Whether the visions vanished from his brain because of the thickening of his blood with cold, or he merely acted from one of those undefined and inexplicable impulses which occasion not a few of our actions, I cannot tell, but all at once Robert started to his feet and hurried from the room. At the foot of the garret stair, between it and the door of the gable-room already mentioned, stood another door at right angles to both, of the existence of which the boy was scarcely aware, simply because he had seen it all his life and had never seen it open. Turning his back on this last door, which he took for a blind one, he went down a short broad stair, at the foot of which was a window. He then turned to the left into a long flagged passage or transe, passed the kitchen door on the one hand, and the double-leaved street door on the other; but, instead of going into the parlour, the door of which closed the transe, he stopped at the passage-window on the right, and there stood looking out.

What might be seen from this window certainly could not be called a very pleasant prospect. A broad street with low houses of cold gray stone is perhaps as uninteresting a form of street as any to be found in the world, and such was the street Robert looked out upon. Not a single member of the animal creation was to be seen in it, not a pair of eyes to be discovered looking out at any of the windows opposite. The sole motion was the occasional drift of a vapour-like film of white powder, which the wind would lift like dust from the snowy carpet that covered the street, and wafting it along for a few yards, drop again to its repose, till another stronger gust, prelusive of the wind about to rise at sun-down,—a wind cold and bitter as death—would rush over the street, and raise a denser cloud of the white water-dust to sting the face of any improbable person who might meet it in its passage. It was a keen, knife-edged frost, even in the house, and what Robert saw to make him stand at the desolate window, I do not know, and I believe he could not himself have told. There he did stand, however, for the space of five minutes or so, with nothing better filling his outer eyes at least than a bald spot on the crown of the street, whence the wind had swept away the snow, leaving it brown and bare, a spot of March in the middle of January.

He heard the town drummer in the distance, and let the sound invade his passive ears, till it crossed the opening of the street, and vanished ‘down the town.’

‘There’s Dooble Sanny,’ he said to himself—‘wi’ siccan cauld han’s, ‘at he’s playin’ upo’ the drum-heid as gin he was loupin’ in a bowie (leaping in a cask).’

Then he stood silent once more, with a look as if anything would be welcome to break the monotony.

While he stood a gentle timorous tap came to the door, so gentle indeed that Betty in the kitchen did not hear it, or she, tall and Roman-nosed as she was, would have answered it before the long-legged dreamer could have reached the door, though he was not above three yards from it. In lack of anything better to do, Robert stalked to the summons. As he opened the door, these words greeted him:

‘Is Robert at—eh! it’s Bob himsel’! Bob, I’m byous (exceedingly) cauld.’

‘What for dinna ye gang hame, than?’

‘What for wasna ye at the schuil the day?’

‘I spier ae queston at you, and ye answer me wi’ anither.’

‘Weel, I hae nae hame to gang till.’

‘Weel, and I had a sair heid (a headache). But whaur’s yer hame gane till than?’

‘The hoose is there a’ richt, but whaur my mither is I dinna ken. The door’s lockit, an’ Jeames Jaup, they tell me ‘s tane awa’ the key. I doobt my mither’s awa’ upo’ the tramp again, and what’s to come o’ me, the Lord kens.’

‘What’s this o’ ‘t?’ interposed a severe but not unmelodious voice, breaking into the conversation between the two boys; for the parlour door had opened without Robert’s hearing it, and Mrs. Falconer, his grandmother, had drawn near to the speakers.

‘What’s this o’ ‘t?’ she asked again. ‘Wha’s that ye’re conversin’ wi’ at the door, Robert? Gin it be ony decent laddie, tell him to come in, and no stan’ at the door in sic a day ‘s this.’

As Robert hesitated with his reply, she looked round the open half of the door, but no sooner saw with whom he was talking than her tone changed. By this time Betty, wiping her hands in her apron, had completed the group by taking her stand in the kitchen door.

‘Na, na,’ said Mrs. Falconer. ‘We want nane sic-like here. What does he want wi’ you, Robert? Gie him a piece, Betty, and lat him gang.—Eh, sirs! the callant hasna a stockin’-fit upo’ ‘im—and in sic weather!’

For, before she had finished her speech, the visitor, as if in terror of her nearer approach, had turned his back, and literally showed her, if not a clean pair of heels, yet a pair of naked heels from between the soles and uppers of his shoes: if he had any stockings at all, they ceased before they reached his ankles.

‘What ails him at me?’ continued Mrs. Falconer, ‘that he rins as gin I war a boodie? But it’s nae wonner he canna bide the sicht o’ a decent body, for he’s no used till ‘t. What does he want wi’ you, Robert?’

But Robert had a reason for not telling his grandmother what the boy had told him: he thought the news about his mother would only make her disapprove of him the more. In this he judged wrong. He did not know his grandmother yet.

‘He’s in my class at the schuil,’ said Robert, evasively.

‘Him? What class, noo?’

Robert hesitated one moment, but, compelled to give some answer, said, with confidence,

‘The Bible-class.’

‘I thocht as muckle! What gars ye play at hide and seek wi’ me? Do ye think I dinna ken weel eneuch there’s no a lad or a lass at the schuil but ‘s i’ the Bible-class? What wants he here?’

‘Ye hardly gae him time to tell me, grannie. Ye frichtit him.’

‘Me fricht him! What for suld I fricht him, laddie? I’m no sic ferlie (wonder) that onybody needs be frichtit at me.’

The old lady turned with visible, though by no means profound offence upon her calm forehead, and walking back into her parlour, where Robert could see the fire burning right cheerily, shut the door, and left him and Betty standing together in the transe. The latter returned to the kitchen, to resume the washing of the dinner-dishes; and the former returned to his post at the window. He had not stood more than half a minute, thinking what was to be done with his school-fellow deserted of his mother, when the sound of a coach-horn drew his attention to the right, down the street, where he could see part of the other street which crossed it at right angles, and in which the gable of the house stood. A minute after, the mail came in sight—scarlet, spotted with snow—and disappeared, going up the hill towards the chief hostelry of the town, as fast as four horses, tired with the bad footing they had had through the whole of the stage, could draw it after them. By this time the twilight was falling; for though the sun had not yet set, miles of frozen vapour came between him and this part of the world, and his light was never very powerful so far north at this season of the year.

Robert turned into the kitchen, and began to put on his shoes. He had made up his mind what to do.

‘Ye’re never gaein’ oot, Robert?’ said Betty, in a hoarse tone of expostulation.

‘’Deed am I, Betty. What for no?’

‘You ‘at’s been in a’ day wi’ a sair heid! I’ll jist gang benn the hoose and tell the mistress, and syne we’ll see what she’ll please to say till ‘t.’

‘Ye’ll do naething o’ the kin’, Betty. Are ye gaein’ to turn clash-pyet (tell-tale) at your age?’