第91章

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.Iwant 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 Ihear 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 God-forsaken sea in the sunless north.'

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

'Yes, yes.But when it comes into you, my boy! You won't hear much music in the cry of the sea after that.As long as you've got it at arm's length, it's all very well.It's interesting then, and you can talk to your fiddle about it, and make poetry about it,' said Ericson, with a smile of self-contempt.'But as soon as the real earnest comes that is all over.The sea-moan is the cry of a tortured world then.Its hollow bed is the cup of the world's pain, ever rolling from side to side and dashing over its lip.Of all that might be, ought to be, nothing to be had!--I could get music out of it once.Look here.I could trifle like that once.'

He half rose, then dropped on his chair.But Robert's believing eyes justified confidence, and Ericson had never had any one to talk to.He rose again, opened a cupboard at his side, took out some papers, threw them on the table, and, taking his hat, walked towards the door.

'Which of your strings is broken?' he asked.

'The third,' answered Robert.

'I will get you one,' said Ericson; and before Robert could reply he was down the stair.Robert heard him cough, then the door shut, and he was gone in the rain and fog.

Bewildered, unhappy, ready to fly after him, yet irresolute, Robert almost mechanically turned over the papers upon the little deal table.He was soon arrested by the following verses, headedA NOONDAY MELODY.

Everything goes to its rest;

The hills are asleep in the noon;

And life is as still in its nest As the moon when she looks on a moon In the depths of a calm river's breast As it steals through a midnight in June.

The streams have forgotten the sea In the dream of their musical sound;The sunlight is thick on the tree, And the shadows lie warm on the ground--So still, you may watch them and see Every breath that awakens around.

The churchyard lies still in the heat, With its handful of mouldering bone;As still as the long stalk of wheat In the shadow that sits by the stone, As still as the grass at my feet When I walk in the meadows alone.

The waves are asleep on the main, And the ships are asleep on the wave;And the thoughts are as still in my brain As the echo that sleeps in the cave;All rest from their labour and pain--

Then why should not I in my grave?

His heart ready to burst with a sorrow, admiration, and devotion, which no criticism interfered to qualify, Robert rushed out into the darkness, and sped, fleet-footed, along the only path which Ericson could have taken.He could not bear to be left in the house while his friend was out in the rain.

He was sure of joining him before he reached the new town, for he was fleet-footed, and there was a path only on one side of the way, so that there was no danger of passing him in the dark.As he ran he heard the moaning of the sea.There must be a storm somewhere, away in the deep spaces of its dark bosom, and its lips muttered of its far unrest.When the sun rose it would be seen misty and gray, tossing about under the one rain cloud that like a thinner ocean overspread the heavens--tossing like an animal that would fain lie down and be at peace but could not compose its unwieldy strength.

Suddenly Robert slackened his speed, ceased running, stood, gazed through the darkness at a figure a few yards before him.